The Cambridge Film Festival at Home initiative, which is available to people throughout the UK, kicks off on 8th January with three outstanding films as part of the ‘A Film I Love…’ series of popular Pay What You Can Afford events. Coming under the CFF at Home umbrella, A Film I Love… showcases special guests who choose, introduce, and talk about a film they love and why it means so much to them prior to the screening of the film.
When the first lockdown was announced back in March 2020 the team behind Cambridge Film Festival feared the 40th edition of CFF would not go ahead. They immediately got to work to save the Festival and to ensure that film lovers would continue to have access to films that were not available via other platforms.
First came a partnership with three other UK film Festivals to produce AMPLIFY! a virtual Film Festival that ran throughout November 2020 and attracted an audience of over 15,000, not just from Cambridge but UK wide.
Now they are launching CFF at Home, another new project that delivers a range of films and film events directly into people’s homes across the country throughout the year.
As part of CFF at home, the online version of ‘A Film I Love…’ will see fortnightly premieres on the Festival website: camfilmfest.com. Leading the line-up in January are three of the UK’s top film critics and broadcasters:
Mark Kermode has selected a film that he confesses he does not understand at all, Andrew Kötting’s unexpectedly compelling The Whalebone Box (an image from the film is pictured above). The film tells the story of three men who undertake a journey to return a box made of whalebone to the place where the whale was beached.
Anna Smith, film critic and host of the Girls on Film podcast, presents the wonderful Booksmart by Olivia Wilde, a painful and hilarious comedy about being young. Olivia Wilde’s directing debut follows one chaotic day in the lives of two very smart girls who intensely love each other as best friends. This film is a sharp, very funny reboot of the classic coming-of-age buddy comedy.
Also confirmed for ‘A Film I Love…’ is BBC Radio 5Live and Scala Radio presenter Simon Mayo who, it turns out, really loves the three-hour epic Amadeus, which, coincidentally had its UK premiere at Cambridge Film Festival back in 1984. This masterpiece of filmmaking, which tells the story of the consuming rivalry between Mozart and Salieri, is engaging, beautifully performed and staged, and packed with emotional power.
Later in the spring, further guests include Radio Times film editor Andrew Collins, Empire magazine writer Helen O'Hara and The Observer film critic Simran Hans.
Alongside ‘A Film I Love…’ CFF at Home includes two other key projects later in the year:
Cambridge Film Festival In Your Community is a partnership with Cambridge City Council to present free film screenings in communities across north Cambridge, alongside a training scheme to develop the skills necessary for young people across Cambridge to deliver film events themselves in their own communities.
CFF Youth Lab, which launched in 2019 and is being expanded this year, is an exciting film education initiative focusing on young people’s film evaluation and criticism skills as well as encouraging communication and team working. Open to anyone aged 16-24 the CFF Youth Lab gives participants unrivalled access to filmmakers and industry professionals through workshops, talks, and discussion groups. It also places them at the heart of CFF’s awards process through the new Young People’s Film Award.
Matthew Webb, Executive Director at Cambridge Film Trust said: “We’re incredibly excited to have the opportunity to bring a series of fantastic films and film events to audiences in Cambridge and across the country, especially in these challenging times. We hope our wonderfully loyal Film Festival audience will love them, and that they will be a good build up to the 40th Cambridge Film Festival later in 2021.
“Kicking off with the online events that feature guests such as Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo, and then bringing hugely diverse screenings out of cinemas and into communities means we can reach out to everyone as there’s sure to be something they will enjoy.”
Full information about all aspects of CFF at Home can be found here: camfilmfest.com
CFF at Home is made possible by BFI’s Film Audience Network, with the support of The National Lottery.
Cambridge Film Festival’s Principal partners: TTP & Studio 24.
The Cambridge Film Trust is an independent charity founded to promote film culture in the East of England. Established in 2007, the Trust's main event is the annual Cambridge Film Festival, attracting thousands of admissions every year.
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