Speaking as someone who’s recently attended the Brighton Hip-Hop Festival, the Brighton Food & Drink Festival, the Brighton Comedy Festival, the Brighton Digital Festival and the Brighton Festival of World Sacred Music (that one was a mistake), it’s come to my attention that we have quite a lot of festivals in Brighton. The past few weeks have been no exception, and from November 15th to December 2nd we were treated to the fifth annual staging of ‘CineCity’ - the Brighton Film Festival. It’s like Sundance, but with drizzle.
Despite the wealth of films on offer, the fact remains that you can’t beat a freebie, and on November 25th the people behind Final Cut (a monthly screening event for local film-makers) teamed up with Screen Archive South East and the council’s VisitBrighton website, to present a free evening of films looking at how Brighton has been depicted on celluloid over the past hundred years. Some of the footage had never been shown in public before, and for someone whose knowledge of Brighton stretches back to about 2003, it proved a fascinating evening.
The earliest films on display were made in 1896, and featured groups of very wooden-looking Victorians trying (and failing) to appear nonchalant on camera as they strolled along the pier. Things soon lightened up, however, with the 1906 film ‘Flying the Foam and Some Fancy Diving’ (where do they get these titles?), featuring self-styled pier entertainer Professor Reddish, who liked to ride a bicycle down a ramp off the end of the West Pier and into the sea. A hundred years later and he could have made his fortune on ‘You’ve Been Framed’.
The Professor was followed by ‘Bank Holiday Dyke’, which would mean something entirely different these days, but in the early 20th century meant footage of a funfair at the Devil’s Dyke. I’m beginning to think that most of our forefathers had a death wish, as having watched them cycling off the pier and riding a rickety rollercoaster down the Dyke, we then saw them attempting to land planes on the beach as part of the 1913 Hendon to Brighton Air Race. It’s a wonder any of our grandparents survived.
Footage of Madeira Drive from a hundred years ago is instantly recognizable, but whilst the seafront may have changed surprisingly little, the locals appear very different. Back in 1913, residents were filmed on a temperance march through Kemp Town, warning the world of the dangers of alcohol. These days we have Pride and the Naked Bike Ride. I think that’s what you call progress.
A procession of modern cars from the 1920s looked uncannily like this year’s classic car run, while footage of VE Day proved that bling had been invented in 1945 by featuring Brighton’s Mayor with more chains than an escapologist. The highlight of the evening, however, was the 50th anniversary screening of John King’s ‘Brighton’, the earliest surviving publicity film of the city.
Made in 1957, the film informs would-be visitors that Brighton has “one of the gayest piers in Europe”, before claiming that “you just cannot be dull in Brighton” (although I know a few people who try). It’s a colourful and entertaining portrait of the city, though it’s about as politically correct as a Carry On film.
Having wallowed in nostalgia for an hour, the second half of the evening brought us bang up to date with a film about The Meeting Place café in Hove, and the winners of a council-run competition which challenged residents to create a 60-second film promoting Brighton as a tourist destination. As if to emphasise how times have moved on, the nine films screened that night are all available on YouTube, and the top two are well worth a look, particularly ‘B Right On’ by Drew Cameron, which took the People’s Choice award.
The overall winner was announced as ‘Brighton’s Worst Kept Secret’ by Tony Moon, and I was particularly looking forward to the prize-giving ceremony. According to the competition website, "the prizes will be presented by a well-known Brighton TV and radio personality". Given that Steve Coogan is listed as one of the CineCity patrons, my hopes for a celebrity encounter were high. So who did we get? Councillor David Smith, chair of the council's tourism committee. I wonder what TV shows he's been on..?
