Free news and commentary about film and culture in Cheltenham
News (by which I mean events)
The best way to list events online would be with some sort of calendar or grid, but getting that to work on multiple ‘platforms’ (viewports, if you will) is tricky. So for now you’re getting text+, as I call it.
The clubs and societies
Cheltenham Film Society
On Tuesday January 27 2026, Cheltenham Film Society is showing Disco Boy at the Bacon Theatre of Dean Close School. 7.45pm, 92 mins, cert 15, director Giacomo Abbruzzese. There’s a review on their site. They don’t supply a trailer, but I will. It’s on YouTube: https://youtu.be/dIFnEGhVMWY
I have not seen it but Andrew Holt (of whom more below) has; he assures me it is good. It is about a couple of Belorussians going to France, joining the Foreign Legion, then going to Niger for a bit of digitally-enhanced fisticuffs in the cause of rescuing some French people being held hostage by terroristes environmental freedom fighters. These characters have a charismatic leader, one of whom wants to travel to l’hexagone (European France) to be a disco dancer. Interesting career pivot.
Apparently, there’s a lot of ‘pulsating electronic dance music’, and even its admirers admit a lot of it doesn’t make sense. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian says it is ‘quite a trip’. Oddly, I don’t find any of this particularly appealing. And Peter should refresh his antiquarian vocabulary.
The Eclectic Cinema
On Thursday 28 January 2026, the Eclectic Cinema is showing two films at the Playhouse in Bath Road.
At 14:45, there is Akira Kurosawa’s wonderful Dreams. This is a unique cinematic experience: nine individual stories based on the director’s own nocturnal visions, mostly told through dance, costume, animation, etc. It is very beautiful and should appeal to anyone one who loves the real Japanese aesthetic as much as its commercial manga and anime successors.
Kurosawa was a gigantic international director at the time of Seven Samurai, Kagamusha, Ran, etc. But by the time he came to make this one, nobody wanted to know. He scraped the money together from people like Spielberg and George Lucas. The irony of this is inescapable: it is Hollywood’s Oedipus complex in action. Having imitated, and then slaughtered, their artistic father (Kurosawa), the cash-rich filmbros felt sufficiently guilty to fund his final outing. Kurosawa’s anti-corporatist, anti-nuclear, anti-war, pro-humanity beliefs shine through: I do not believe there is any Dreams merchandising.
It features a brief, exquisite sequence in which a young Kurosawa figure looks at a Van Gogh landscape in a gallery and then walks into it. Therehe meets the painter, just released from an asylum, who is played by … Martin Scorsese. He fancied a day off while making Goodfellas.
I’ve uploaded the clip of just that sequence to my Vimeo site, which may actually work now that I have thrown money into the slot. I am not entirely convinced any human beings are involved at all.
Then, at 19:30, there is The Blues Brothers. Many of us will have seen this, or think we might have. It is funny, musical and interesting. You know the story: two white ex-convicts, played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, want to save the Chicago orphanage in which they grew up. To do so they reform their r’n’b (old usage) band and experience various adventures, during which they encounter many of the greats of black music. Obviously, there are isshoos for those who care about that: they are white saviours and the black people are in lowly jobs, blah blah blah.
Personally, I give them the benefit of the doubt: it’s an act of love, albeit the kind of love you can afford when you are on the television all the time and those you love so much are not.
It is certainly a film that begs to be seen with an audience, and with that in mind Andrew is encouraging people to, er, dress up. At last count it seemed likely there would be three Blues Brothers: one Jake and two Elwoods. I don’t suppose I’m giving much away if I say I am exploring other options. I’ll try anything but don’t think I could really hack it as Ray Charles. Or Aretha Franklin.
There is a local backstory. Andrew Holt’s enterprising Eclectic Cinema has been told by the Playhouse to attract more paying customers or take a hike. Then the Playhouse took its ticketing system down for four days. Now it is back and… well, you try it. Personally, I will pay at the box office.
To save the Eclectic, Andrew has done a survey, but inevitably he has only surveyed people on the Eclectic’s own mailing list. Apparently these dedicated souls want to see old films they’ve seen before. Quel surprise!
For Dreams, earlier the same day, he has cunningly persuaded the University to send (and pay for) a lot of illustration students to come along and be inspired. I like this idea: it’s film+, another of my slogans.
But I would like other people to come too. Young people. ‘New’ Cheltenham people. The problem is that the film is being shown in the afternoon, and people are working.
As for The Blues Brothers, I believe that as of today, Monday 26 January at 13:28, Andrew has sold 13 tickets. He really needs 50 every time.
It’s a general problem. If every arts organisation stays in its information silo, and just caters for its existing audience – ageing, just like myself – none of them will survive. Those of us doing events and the arts know that. We are trying to save culture. We are currently barely hitting 6/10. Must try harder.
Charlton Kings Film Society
The next film at CKFS is not until Friday February 6 at 19:45. It is Fremont, a stylish university-type rom-com about an Afghan woman working in a Chinese fast-food kitchen in the US. She has been a military translator in Afghanistan, escaped from the disaster and is now struggling in her new ‘home’. She puts a message in a fortune cookie and various soft-centred consequences and cultural confusions ensue, all in indie-film black and white. There’s a road trip and a discussion of Jack London’s White Fang: by coincidence, I was just telling someone about my visit to the grizzled writers’ cabin (or one of them), now marooned in a truly bleak glass-and-steel office park in Oakland, California. It’s rather as if someone took Ivor Gurney’s wrecked cottage and put it in the middle of Gloucester, alongside all the empty new buildings, waiting for a boom that – newsflash – is inexplicably delayed.
Anyway, I saw the film and quite liked it when it was shown at the 2023 Cheltenham International Film Festival. The Charlton Kings Film Society is great, especially when not crowded. It’s a church hall of course, so a bit challenging to see things from the back. But they have a good picture and sound and run a tight ship. Don’t be late or you might get told off (mea culpa).
The Festivals
Well, the various cats are still scrapping in the sack, but I have somewhat stepped back from my ringside seat. FilmChelt (aka #NewFest) are saying they’ll be back, from October 30 2026 to November 8 2026. Let’s wait and see. In the meantime, I would say they have been a little rash in squatting on the territory of #OldFest, the former Cheltenham International Film Festival now known as Cheltenham Film Festival. That is what FilmChelt has taken to calling itself on its own website. I wouldn’t have done it, but what do I know? I’m only the veteran of several dozen media law cases, after all.
Cheltenham Film Festival (formerly CIFF) doesn’t give a date for its own return on its website, but someone has alerted me to this collection of possible forthcoming attractions on the Cotswold Life website. Look carefully and you will find a reference to Cheltenham Film Festival returning in September 2026. Again, let’s wait and see. In the meantime, Cheltenham Film Festival (CIFF) is pushing on with all sorts of exciting educational events, which is my interest too, but I’m just watching for now.
For the guidance of all parties, here’s what Leslie Sheldon, founder of CIFF, has put on his CheltFilm.com website:
Note: Cheltenham Film Festival is the trading name of Cheltenham International Film Festival. We are not affiliated with any other organisation using a similar name. Cheltenham Film Festival™ is a pending UK trademark. The name is used in good faith as part of our ongoing brand identity and programming. All rights reserved.
Be careful out there.
Meanwhile, Tim and Catherine Mountain of Evenlode Films have some sort of plan to create yet another new organisation, with the hope of bringing together the various parties. This is an admirable aim, and I wish them luck.
My idea of a film festival is an amateur jamboree: by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts, with enthusiasts. I’m not very interested in ‘technical quality’ or sucking up to the dying industry. I’d watch a good film projected on a sheet on the side of a barn.
I suspect film festivals are ill-advised as a device for attracting money from people who still think of Cheltenham as sophisticated, stylish and rich. It is none of those, as anyone who has walked down the High Street recently will have noticed. Not at all.
Me, Me, Me
Well, as usual, I’ve run out of wind before saying what I’ve been doing. Next time maybe. But I’m pleased to say I now have my enhanced DBS clearance, thanks to the good people at the InLingua language school. That will allows me to work with young and vulnerable people; I am working on new publishing projects, some in other languages; I am in touch with the film makers we brought to the university in the autumn and have some interviews to edit and show; I am doing music; I am reading widely and planning to do some review; I am taking an interest in the town’s architecture and planning, notably the fate of Cavendish House and the deeply stupid Cyberslum being rolled across the countryside in the direction of the M5; I am going to Cheltenham Town quite regularly; and I am trying to enjoy life despite various depressing events, internationally, locally and between my ears. This Sunday I went to a Quaker meeting for the first time and found it most intriguing and appealing. I am for peace and for struggle: which is not a contradiction. Struggle is not war.
Before I go, a book recommendation. I’ve just read my old friend Marcus Berkmann’s Miscellany of Pop (£1 in The Works or online if you absolutely must). It is a wonderful rag-bag of anecdotes from other people’s interviews (he owns up to that), but done with the gob-smacking vigour and jaw-dropping rudeness that I always tried to achieve when I was active in that world.
I was particularly amused by his unusually printable story of the great Miles Davis at the White House.
‘A society lady asked him what he had done to be invited. “I’ve changed music four or five times,” said Miles. “What have you done of any importance except be white?”‘
For some reason that anecdote made me think of Cheltenham.
Thank you for reading.