September 2011 - OC short, To Be Frank, to screen at 2011 CPIFF
To Be Frank, an Open Cinema short film directed by Ali Boag, Sybil Adelaja and Mark Cawson at SHP (Single Homeless Project), Camden with Lesley Pinder and Holly Goss is selected to screen at the 2011 Crystal Palace International Film Festival.
To Be Frank will be screened as part of the CPIFF Short Film Night 2, on the 28th September 2011. Entrance is free! Further details can be found here.
August 2011 - OC London Connect launches
Funded by Film London through the Educations 'Hubs' Fund, OC has launched Open Cinema London Connect, a programme of screenings of recent releases and modern classics accompanied by talks by industry experts and personalities from the world of film. An organised visit to a film studio and a post-production house is also part of the programme.
Read more at Film London.
June 2011 - Filmmaker Harry Chapman cycles from Land's End to John O'Groats
OC Filmmaker Harry Chapman rolled out his bicycle to raise funds for Open Cinema’s roll-out of film clubs for homeless people across England and Scotland. Harry's journey brought joy not only to his legs but to participants at five UK homelessness centres who will become leaders of their own community cinemas. Read more here.
June 2011 - OC and Streetwise Opera at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
OC contributed two events to the world's longest continually running festival. In their first joint event, Streetwise Opera's Matt Peacock presented a selection of films from their recently toured Fables, which brought together professional composers and filmmakers with 150 participants who have experienced homelessness; Open Cinema's Christoph Warrack presented three short films made by members of the St Mungo's, Upper Room, and Connection film clubs, with the assistance of accomplished filmmakers, including our Open Road cyclist Harry Chapman - who appeared en route to John O'Groats, clutching his bike seat.
At the second event, OC co-hosted a screening of the new Ewan MacGregor film 'Perfect Sense' for 60 clients and staff of Scottish homelessness charities. They were joined by the film's director David MacKenzie for a Q & A after the film.
May 2011 - New venue opens film season for the elderly
On 5 May, 27 elderly film fans packed the hall at St Stephen's in Shepherd's Bush, West London, for a matinee of Strangers on a Train. With a Charlie Chaplin short, this opened the Silver Screenings Season. Pensioner Frank Wright, author of memoir Bermondsey Boy, was there. He is keen to contribute to a filmmaking project later in the year.
March/April 2011 - BAFTA Winning Filmmaker Martina Amati Works with Open Cinema and The Upper Room
We're very pleased to announce that Martina Amati, who won the BAFTA for Best Short Film for her short "I Do Air", has been working on a filmmaking project with clients at The Upper Room. Kindly funded by the Open City Film Festival, along with a slate of other brand new films from OC at The Connection and St Mungos, the finished film will be shown as part of the MyStreet Filmmaking competition in June.
March 2011 - Open Cinema visits Birmingham's Flatpack Festival
Back in March, Open Cinema founder Christoph Warrack visited the Flatpack Festival to talk about our work in the homeless sector. See here.
January 2011 - Hitchcock Specialist Sandra Shevey Visits OC Covent Garden
This January, acclaimed writer and interviewer Sandra Shevey will be visiting our film club in Covent Garden. A specialist in Alfred Hitchcock's work, Sandra also runs The Alfred Hitchcock London Locations Walk - a walking tour around some of the director's famous London locations. We are very pleased to announce her as the first guest in our upcoming spring season.
For more information about Sandra's writings and the Locations Tour, please visit her website.
15 November 2010 - OC collaborate with Short & Sweet
OC have teamed up with London's only weekly short film festival, Short & Sweet. Held at Cafe 1001, Brick Lane, Short & Sweet offers inspirational and challenging evenings showing the best from the short film world. To launch this new collaboration, OC will be giving a short talk on Monday 15th November where we will be continuing our appeal for Crisis for Christmas volunteers.
November 2010 - Crisis at Christmas volunteers needed
We're looking for enthusiastic volunteers to help run our for-one-day-only pop up film clubs throughout December. If you're interested in volunteering please email volunteers@opencinema.net or come along to our open meeting on Wednesday 17th November at The Red Lion, Hoxton Street, 6pm.
30 December 2010 - Special guest, Alfred Hitchcock expert to appear at Endell Street
We're excited to announce that Alfred Hitchcock specialist and founder of The Alfred Hitchcock London Locations Walk, Sandra Shevey will be appearing at St Mungo's, Endell Street on Thursday 30th December. Sandra will be introducing suspense film, 'North from Northwest' and offering some of her expertise on one of England's most influential film directors.
To find out more about Sandra's fascinating walks around London, which include exclusive clips from both an interview with Hitchcock and his works, visit http://sandrashevey.tripod.com/hitchcock.walks/
November 2010 - OC Community Channel Screenings
Open Cinema have been offered a brilliant opportunity to screen some of our short films on the Community Channel. The four films to be screened are 'Windows' directed by members at an East London hostel, 'Footsteps to Music' by David Anstee, 'Finding Boris' by members from The Upper Room and our World Homeless Day version of music video 'Heroes and Villains'.
Tune in to the Community Channel - Sky 539/Virgin TV 233/Freeview 87 - on Tues 9th November at 10:30, 16:30 or 20:00, Fri 12th November at 10:30, 16:30 or 20:00, Sun 14th November at 18:30 and finally, Fri 26th at 14:00 to catch some brilliant OC made shorts. Congrats to all the filmmakers!
November 6th 2010 - Sheffield Doc/Fest Community Day
OC were thrilled to be asked to take part in the 'Involving Communities: Beyond Broadcast' session at Sheffield Doc/Fest this year. It was great to see so many other community media projects and for us to share ours. We all had a brilliant weekend along with many talented filmmakers, watching some inspirational documentaries.
21 October 2010 - OC film crew featured in Aviva / National Theatre "You are the Big Picture"
OC member-filmmaker Stuart Holmes and supervising filmmakers Kelly Davis and Jasper Delamothe were included in a series of photos of ordinary people from around the world, projected onto the big river-facing wall of the National Theatre in London.
21 October 2010 - OC Endell Street Launch
We are very excited to announce the launch of our sixth London film club at St Mungo's, Endell Street. Many thanks to our special guest, Natascha McElhone, who kindly came along on the night to show her short film, 'Deep and Crisp and Even', take questions from residents and introduce, 'The Truman Show' - a great evening was had by all!
10 October 2010 - World Homeless Day
To celebrate World Homeless Day, OC asked for footage from different worldwide homeless orgainisations to create a special edition of our popular music video 'Heroes and Villains'. We recieved a great response and have included film from places such as, Hawaii, South Africa, New York, California and Kansas. The video can now be watched on the official World Homeless Day website - http://www.worldhomelessday.org/
5 October 2010 - An Evening with Sir Tom Stoppard
For our October Gala, we were privleged enough to host an exclusive event with leading playwright Sir Tom Stoppard. The evening was held at Cineworld, Haymarket where Sir Tom talked through several of his award winning works and answered questions from acclaimed BBC4 presenter, Francine Stock. Special thanks to Cineworld, Sir Tom and Francine.
5 October 2010 - OC X-Centre Launch
OC is excited to announce the opening of our first film club in Exeter. The commencing season, 'The Things We Do For Love', was aptly kicked off with an exclusive screening of 'Scott Pilgrim vs. The World'. We are very grateful to Universal for allowing us to screen the film and also to Hazel, Angela and James for all their hard work organising the launch.
1 October 2010 - OC LA Screening
We held our pilot international screening in LA at Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row. It was a great evening with many families coming along to enjoy a special screening of 'Prince of Persia'. We were also joined by talented free runners, Tempest who gave an exclusive performance. We are very appreciative to both Tempest and Jackie Ling for all her hard work.
September 2010 - OC Screening at Centrepoint
In September, Open Cinema held a special one off event in East London at Centrepoint. We screened action film, 'The Expendables' and were lucky enough to have filmmaker, Tom Geens, come along to talk to the audience. We are currently in the process of setting up our first film club in partnership with Centrepoint. Many thanks to Lionsgate UK for allowing us to screening 'The Expendables'.
July 2010 - Open Cinema Joins Buzzbank as a Pioneering Venture
Buzzbank - a new crowd sourcing web initiative supporting social ventures - have just confirmed Open Cinema as one of their participating projects.
An Open Cinema venture page is on its way, but in the meantime you can see more information about what they do on their website. We're very excited to be working with them, and are busy thinking up creative ways for their users to support our work... watch this space!
June 2010 - Open Cinema Films Selected for Straight 8 London
Two short films produced by Open Cinema filmmaking projects - "London Wakes" by David Anstell at The Connection @ St Martins and "Windows" by five residents of an East London St Mungos hostel - have been selected for the Straight 8 London Premiere. Straight 8 is a worldwide filmmaking competition, inviting filmmakers to make a short on a single roll of Super 8 film in one take and with no editing. The selected films will be shown at two of London's most prestigious cinemas - the Curzon Mayfair and the Renoir, Brunswick Square - with tickets soon available from www.straight8.net.
We're thrilled for our filmmaking teams to be included in this event - please support them by coming along to see their work!
May 2010 - New Advisory Board Member - Steve Cabrera
Open Cinema is thrilled to announce that Steve Cabrera - a management consultant and social entrepreneur, and chair of the community health foundation the Jubilee Hall Trust - has become the newest member of our advisory board. Welcome, Steve!
April 2010 - ESCAPE THE CITY features OC
Open Cinema is currently a feature organisation of Escape the City... ETC offers crisply-suited city workers the chance to change things for the better by volunteering, donating, or jumping career altogether to a social business...
April 2010 - Shooters make donation to OC
Open Cinema would like to thank Shooting People for generously donating the unclaimed prize money from their 2010 Oscars Competition. They tell us it was the Best Foreign Film - The Secret in Their Eyes, from Argentina - which threw everyone...
November 2009 - OC scoops award for innovation
OC founder Christoph Warrack was awarded the Future 100 Award for social entrepreneurs, in a ceremony at The Hub Kings Cross in November 2009 attended by Peter Holbrook, CEO of the Social Enterprise Coalition...