Our monthly guide to independent film screenings in the Stroud District! The Stroud Film Festival also returns this month for its fourth year boasting a packed programme of film screenings, Q&A’s, exhibitions and workshops. We are happy to announce that Good On Paper is heavily involved in this year’s festival presenting a screening of Anton Corbijn’s Control at SVA’s Good Shed ft. a Q&A with Craig Parkinson (Line of Duty, Four Lions, Soul Boy) led by Joe Magee, followed by a Factory Records DJ set by Sean Roe from JunKroom Records at SVA John Street. We are also curating an exhibition with nine artists and illustrators reinterpreting iconic film posters in their own unique style…Visit stroudfilmfestival.org for the full programme and further info.
LANSDOWN HALL
Fri 2nd Transition Stroud and Stroud Community Seed Bank Presents: In Our Hands Transition Stroud and Stroud Community Seed Bank are coming together on the 2nd of March to make food sovereignty a reality. The two projects will co-host an event including a seed swap and screening of the film In Our Hands which is debunking the myth of the industrial food system and show-casing the farms and farmers who are making change a reality. The screening will be accompanied by a seed swap, giving growers and gardeners the practical opportunity to improve their gardens, develop their knowledge and in a small way, retake control of food production. All change begins with a story and In Our Hands is the story of the farmers who, through hope, hard-graft and sheer bloody mindedness are refusing to be victims of history. This one hour documentary takes you on a journey across the fields of Britain, past the orchards of forgotten fruit and through the fields of ancient grains. The film reveals both the wisdom of the old and the innovations of the young, who are bringing back the worm to the soil, the ‘culture’ to ‘agriculture,’ and the flavour to the tomato! We stand on a brink, the swallows are departing, but the future of this land is still in our hands… There will be time for discussion, sharing, seed swapping and tea drinking. 6:30pm Free (donations welcome!) Click here for the facebook event page
Sun 4th Stroud Greenpeace Presents: Two Short Films About Greenpeace A Time Comes: The Kingsnorth Six - Director Nick Broomfield tells the story of the Kingsnorth Six, a group of Greenpeace volunteers who scaled the 220m chimney at a coal fired power station in Kent in 2007 to protest against government plans to build new coal plants across Britain. In 2009 E-on where forced to shelve their plans to build a Kingsnorth coal power plant. Black Ice: The Story of the Artic 30 - When the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise set sail to protest the first ever oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean, none of the people on board could have known what was coming. Seized at gunpoint by Russian special forces, the ‘Arctic 30’ were thrust into headlines all over the world, facing up to 15 years in prison and finding themselves at the centre of a bitter international dispute. 2:15pm Free (donations welcome!) Click here for the facebook event page
OPEN HOUSE
Thurs 22nd Stroud Film Society Presents: Embrace of the Serpent We follow the interwoven stories of 2 European explorers through the Colombian Amazon, one in the early 1900"s the other 40 years later. Karamakate (the younger - Nilbio Torres, the older Antonio Bolivar) is an Amazonian Shaman, helping first the German, Theo Von Martius (Jan Bijroet) in 1909 and an American Evan (Brianne Davis) in 1940 to discover a "sacred" plant Yakruna. Art Cinema Award Cannes Film Festival, and many other awards. 7:30pm £6
THE ARKELL CENTRE
Fri 16th Nailsworth Film Club: Manchester By the Sea Best Actor Oscar winner Casey Afleck stars as Lee, working as a janitor in Boston, socially isolated by choice and burdened with a tragedy from his past. Called back to his home town in Massachusetts on the death of his brother, he finds he is guardian to his teenage nephew Joe and is forced to try and deal with his past. It’s a powerful film about life in the real world without Hollywood endings.7:30pm £6
THE PAINSWICK CENTRE
Fri 2nd Wick Flix: Dunkirk Christopher Nolan’s new film follows soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire, Canada and France as they’re surrounded by the German army and evacuated during the eponymous World War II battle. But this is a war film like few others, one that may employ a large and expensive canvas but that conveys the whole through isolated, brilliantly realized, often private moments more than via sheer spectacle, although that is here, too. 7:30pm £7 (includes one drink!) Click here for the facebook event page
ELECTRIC PICTURE HOUSE CINEMA Wotton Under Edge
Weds 14th My Generation + Q&A This engaging and playful documentary, narrated by and starring the inimitable Michael Caine, chronicles the cultural revolution of the Swinging Sixties and the societal upheaval it cause that still resonates today. Sourced from over 1,600 hours of footage, extensive research and over 50 interviews with key players, My Generation is an insider tour of a defining era. The screening is followed by a Q&A with Michael Caine and director David Batty, broadcast live from the BFI. 6:30pm