Looking forward to the 2022 festival

Stroud based writer Nikki Owen looks forward to the festival

Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg said, "Every time I go to a movie, it's magic, no matter what the movie's about." Films have not only the ability to make us think, but they can also take us to another world.

And so to the 2022 Stroud Film Festival. In its 8th year, stretching from 4th-27th March, Stroud Film Festival is a phenomenon. Established by film experts and enthusiasts abound and run by volunteers with a love of all things movie, the festival is bohemian, progressive and boundary-pushing. Climate change, survivor's guilt, what it means to be Black and British at a time of perpetual change, the rise of female film directors, Nelson Mandela and the education system in South Africa. The themes and questions this year's festival poses are vital and illuminating.

"Films often raise questions in a uniquely accessible way," say the festival's organisers, Andy Freedman and Jo Bousfield. Director and Stroud Film Festival aficionado David Yates agrees. "Filmmakers set out to explore and convey the human experience in all its richness and complexity. There's nothing quite like watching films with an audience. Moments of human insight and emotion are more meaningful when we witness and share them with others."

So how does a director arrive at that insight? And what was the thinking behind making the movie? It’s questions like these that we often have after going to the cinema. The good news is that many of the incredible films being shown this year have a director Q&A at the end. So I caught up with a few to ask what inspired them to make their films.

Take That's What She Said. Happening at the SVA on 11th March, this is an evening of short films by female directors working across the South West. Curated to celebrate female talent, these short films explore reality, hidden worlds and identity. They are fresh, bold - and vital. Hatty Francis Bell's searching film, Bubbled is part of the lineup. "I was inspired by a frustration of being locked away with my parents during the Covid-19 pandemic," says Hatty of why she made the film. "I was curious about the feeling and compelled to explore personal relations, our inside and outside worlds and where they meet."

That sense of curiosity stretches to director Chloe Fairweather. Her film, Dying to Divorce, is showing at Lansdown Hall on 13th March, with a Q&A  after. The documentary film takes place at the heart of Turkey's gender-based violence crisis. I asked Chloe what led her to make this essential piece. "I happened to be in Turkey working with a journalist," Chloe tells me, "and met a woman who had been badly assaulted by her husband." This led to Chloe meeting female activists who were determined to get justice for women in a country where domestic violence is not recognised as a crime. "I had an urgent story in my hands," Chloe said. "I had to do something with it. I got to know these courageous women."

This theme of courage is prolific at the festival this year, and rightly so. Take the film Chasing Mandela's Rainbow. With a Q&A by its (first-time) director, Gary Janks, Chasing Mandela's Rainbow explores today's education system in South Africa and asks if it's a system Mandela would have wanted. It's an award-winning film that is as thought-provoking as it is moving. "I wanted to document not just the inequality in South African education," Janks says of the film, "but the inequality in people's lives, the socio-economic home backgrounds. I made this film to show how different children's lives are in South Africa and how it affects their futures." For Janks, the film has a link to his own parents, particularly his father, who went to Durban High School, the film's setting. Told through the lives of three courageous and determined children, this is a story of the struggle to achieve Mandela's dreams in an all too painful reality.

That idea of a painful reality is the central aspect of the film Beyond Solastalgia. Showing at Stroud Brewery on 16th March, this climate change piece directed by Peter Mosely looks at solastalgia - a form of mental distress caused by real environmental pain. "I wanted to highlight how irresponsible our society has been over so many years to have left such a legacy for our children," Peter tells me, "as well as show that we can find solutions by not being fearful." It was also important for Peter to pay tribute to Polly Higgins's work with this film. A barrister, author, and environmental lobbyist, Polly was described by Jonathan Watts in her obituary in The Guardian as "one of the most inspiring figures in the green movement." Having lived in Stroud for most of his life, for Mosley, showing his film at the festival means giving a voice to many. 

The concept of voice and, subsequently, sound takes me to two more Q&A-led films. Stroud-based filmmakers Joe Magee and Tom Jacob's event The Art of Sound in Film takes place at Lansdown Hall on 20th March. The two movie makers (Tom is also a composer and sound designer) will be talking about all things post-production, from sound design to foley and more. There will be a screening of their film/sound collaborations, Jackpot and No Sherbert, starring Keith Allen and Sean Gleeson. "Sound can make or break a scene," Joe tells me. "It can create an atmosphere and can generate feelings in the audience that sometimes visuals alone cannot."

Creating atmosphere is something Sisters With Transistors presented by Hidden Notes on 5th March at Lansdown Hall will undoubtedly achieve. With a Q&A with director Lisa Rovner in an event chaired by radio DJ and TV presenter Edith Bowman, Sisters With Transistors is the untold story of electronics' music's female pioneers. "When I first became aware of this film, I wanted to put it on in Stroud in front of a live audience," Hidden Notes co-founder Alex Hobbis tells me. "As Good on Paper, we've worked with Stroud film festival right from the start, so to bring this film here, one that highlights all this music by pioneering female composers who were often sidelined, means an immense amount to us. I deliberately haven't seen it yet because I wanted to experience the film, watching it with friends."

Friends, I think, is the word here. Friends help give us courage. They help create a connection that offers human strength in a world that often feels broken. Because friends - and films - can glue it all back together. The Last Cuckoo Night at the Subscription Rooms on 26th March is one example. Centring around director Mark Chaudoir's touching film The Last Cuckoo about much-loved Stroud poet and activist Dennis Gould, the evening is filled with appearances by legends of the spoken word, all of them friends, all of them loved. And this, to me, sums up not just what film is about, but what Stroud is about. The beauty of friendship, the joy of connection, of courage and of creativity. Stephen Spielberg was right - movies really are magic.

Nikki’s  piece first appeared in the March 2022 edition of Good on Paper