Client: Samuel Marlow – sam@electriclanternfestival.co.uk
Business: Electric Lantern Motion Picture Festival
Description: Now in its third year, The Electric Lantern Festival is a week-long international film festival in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, at the start of September 2013.
Telephone: 07599 716453
Website: www.electriclanternfestival.co.uk/schedule.html
Kent Foundation for Young Entrepreneurs supported this event in it’s infancy and are now pleased to announce it’s growth and success. Read on to find out more and join in…
The Electric Lantern Festival, Tunbridge Wells’ International Film Festival has doubled the number of days it runs to cope with the volume and quality of submissions.
The director of Tunbridge Wells’ Electric Lantern International Film Festival, Samuel Marlow, announced that he was doubling the duration of the event to cope with the volume and quality of films the Festival has received this year.
Running for a week at the start of September in Tunbridge Wells’ Trinity Theatre, the Electric Lantern International Film Festival screens feature length and short drama, comedy, documentary, animation, music video and experimental film from local, national and international directors. This year the sponsor-funded festival is screening 63 films from 18 countries including the USA, Iran, Brazil, Cambodia, India and the Slovak Republic, with other films coming from people almost literally a stone’s throw from the venue.
Originally three days long, Samuel Marlow decided to expand the Festival to a week once the quality of the films being submitted became apparent: “You know something special is happening when you start watching another excellent film and your heart sinks because you’re thinking ‘Oh, no. I’ve got to find space for this one, too!'”Despite the extra days and the addition of a second screen, the Festival is still only able to screen about a quarter of what was submitted.
“It was exceptionally difficult to make the selection,” Sam continued. “I had to whittle the films down favouring premieres, films with a strong voice or unusual angle.” The Festival’s line-up boasts 41 world and UK premieres, and closes with “Traveller” starring David Essex and newcomer Billy Cook in an adaptation of John F McDonald’s novel.
The Festival’s full schedule can be found at: www.electriclanternfestival.co.uk/schedule.html
Tunbridge Wells resident Samuel Marlow founded the Electric Lantern Festival in 2011 to bring some of the best in independent films to his home town.
Business Tip
“The Festival’s strap-line is See The World In A New Light, and I feel we really stayed true to that. Whether it’s a documentary about caring for elderly zoo animals or floating schools in Bangladesh, a film about a plastic toy diver having an existential crisis or a drama about which of two communities you belong to, every film is surprising, enlightening of inspirational.”