January Club Night

Surrey Border Movie Makers held their January meeting online and were very pleased to welcome Ian Absolon to join them. Ian together with club member Peter Frost regularly contribute to the Surrey Border Movie Makers monthly club Journal Border Post with their features about Cinema.

Ian started his career as a Projectionist at the ABC Cinema in Kingston on Thames and has been collecting and researching old cinemas for many years. He has an ongoing interest in these beautiful buildings and interiors of cinemas, many of which have now been lost due to decay, demolition or re-purposing. At the meeting he showed a video called ’Cinema, it’s not just the Film’ and discussed his interest.

In this very interesting and intriguing film Ian records that Brighton was the oldest purpose built cinema which opened in 1910 whilst London’s oldest cinema was built in Regents Street in 1948, it had its own organ which has now been restored along with the cinema.

A cinema opened In Evesham in 1932 with seating for 945, it has been re-stored and re-opened in 2012.

The Rex Cinema in Berkhamsted opened in 1938 becoming derelict in 1988. it was re-furbished and re-opened in 2004. The Ultimate Picture Palace opened in Oxford in 1911, in 2011 it was bought on impulse and then in 2022 it became a Community Cinema.

Ian continues his historical cinema hunt knowing that there are many other old cinemas around, some will survive, others sadly will, or have been demolished.

Farnham has its own recently opened new modern REEL Cinema, which has become a very popular asset to the town, but there are also many old cinemas around the UK with great histories and stories to tell.

Following Ian Absolon’s film Cameron Gilroy who won the Overall Winner Trophy plus three other awards for his film ‘A Paddle Trip Now’ talked about how his film was made, he explained to the audience that it was shot on the river Wey, made and narrated solely by himself using sound layering and was the first film he had made. We are looking forward to seeing many more films from Cameron in the future. 

After the coffee break the BIAFF (British International Amateur Film Festival) awards (or star rating system) was explained by club member Tim Stannard who is also a BIAFF Judge. Two Surrey Border films ‘The Fall and Rise of Mr Punch’ and ‘Mrs Symms Royal Affair’ which were awarded 3 stars in the BIAFF Film Festival were discussed along with the accompanying judges’ comments.