Getting to Know on the Go: Timon Singh

Getting to Know on the Go: Timon Singh

Posted on: 21 May 2024

In-between films at Forbidden Worlds Film Festival 2024, we sat down with festival director Timon Singh to see how everything was going, and chat about some of his highlights of the festival so far.

 

How do you think the festival’s going so far?

 

It’s really going very well so far. Even the more niche titles that I thought wouldn’t draw as big an audience as Speed or Nikita – they’ve turned out really well. Most of our events are at over 200 capacity, and it’s a 300 seat auditorium (but we normally cap it at 280, so no one has to sit on the front two rows to watch stuff, and hurt their necks). But yeah, I think it’s going really well.

 

What’s your favourite ‘get’ for this year?

 

For several years now, I’ve wanted to do The Last Starfighter, but I know there’s been licencing issues with that. This year, with the 40th anniversary, the distributor finally let us do it. I was overjoyed to do that, I was really happy to see some people brought their kids along to see it – hopefully we’ve just inspired a whole new generation of Last Starfighter fans, because I think it’s just a really heartwarming film.

 

I thought that was really good, but also: with my ‘Bad Film Club’ hat on, getting a new 4K restoration of The Devil’s Sword tomorrow – I think that’s going to play gangbusters in the room.

 

 

There’s something quite democratic in this setup – these are films that don’t usually get to grace the IMAX. Is that an intentional aim?

 

I think it kind of comes from our ‘little video shop’ ethos – my co-director is Dave Taylor, who runs 20th Century Flicks – and when we were talking about setting this up, it was kind of like; we want to show the films that you would’ve rented on VHS but, ironically, whereas you might have watched them on a small 4:3 TV in the 80s or 90s, now you’re watching them on a massive 18x15m IMAX screen.

 

Obviously, these films aren’t presented in a full IMAX presentation, they haven’t been formatted that way, but we’re getting the best possible restorations of the films we can, to make them look as impressive as possible – and to either get people who only grew up with them on VHS to see them on big screen, or to inspire a whole new generation of film fans who have only heard of them.

 

It might seem to weird to say for someone our age, but we had loads of people at Speed who had never seen it before – and who were like “this is really good. This is really incredible!”. Of course it is, it’s Speed!

 

We’ve just watched the first of the two short film showcases – how’s the process been? Does it feel successful?

 

I think so. It was a little bit nervous about doing it at first, because we’re not an established film festival, and I didn’t know whether we’d get any interest. But, I think, by having clear guidelines of looking for fairly recent sci-fi and horror shorts – and opening it globally – we had about 45 entrants, which we whittled down to a shortlist of 12.

 

It’s really good, and – sadly – with Encounters Film Festival going on furlough this year...I don’t want to say it’s like we’ve stepped in to fill the plug, because that’s impossible to do, but at least we’ve given a bit of an opportunity for local filmmakers to get their projects shown – it just happens to be on the biggest screen in the city!

Finally – if you were in charge of Bristol for the day, what would you do?

 

In charge of Bristol for the day, what would I do...you know what? As someone who lives in Bedminster, I would definitely get a cinema built in South Bristol. Since the Cineworld in Hengrove closed down, there is no cinema in South Bristol. Watershed, and Showcase in Avonmeads, you have to go across the river to get there. So, if I’m in charge of Bristol, I would invest in a little bit of South Bristol cultural institutions, because I think we need it. Everything is the centre, or above, or in Clifton. South Bristol, we have the Tobacco Factory – but I think we could do with more.

 

What would you call it?

 

Oh, I’ve got no idea. I’ve got no idea! Um, probably something incredibly geeky. Something like ‘Outpost 31’. Something that 20% of the audience might get – or less.

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Patrick Bate

Patrick is a filmmaker with so much Bristol in his blood the white blood cells are graffiti'd. Educated at the Northern Film School in Leeds, he’s returned home to be a Videographer and Reviewer for 365Bristol and BARBI. When he’s not messing about with cameras, he enjoys playing guitar, spending far too much time on tabletop RPGs, and being an awful snob about cider. Have a look at his work here, or get in touch at patrickb@365bristol.com.