Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Shef's Pop-up Cinema Harringay Style
Shefik Mehmet (centre) hosted a pop-up film night on Green Lanes tonight.
Harringay has had a few flirts with pop-up and community cinema over the past couple of years and tonight saw our latest brush with ad-hoc film nights.
Harringay Traders Chair Shefik Mehmet is secretly an old movie buff and he's been collecting celluloid versions of film classics for a few decades now. Tonight he burst out of the closet and invited a few locals to a pop-up cinema night in his Green Lanes hairdresser.
It's an idea he's been nursing for a while now. He wants to start up a series of random pop-up film nights in a succession of Green Lanes venues showing some of his collection of films.
Tonight was the turn of Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford in the 1973 film The Way We Were. You might think that a Harringay hairdresser is an unusual venue to have a film night - and I wouldn't disagree. Nonetheless, never mind the unlikeliness of it all, somehow it worked. From the reels that arrived in a pizza box, to the film faded to rose colour all jumping with scratches and pock marks and the slightly out of sync sound track, it all worked. It's been an age since I've watched a celluloid film outside the confines of cinema and watching Shef's loved, aging old film reels tonight was a genuine pleasure. There was something compelling about being gathered in convivial company, sitting all higgledy piggledy on a mish-mash collection of chairs, snacking on popcorn out of a teacup and watching a film projected from evidently aged stock.
Good on ya Shef. I hope the rattling old film train keeps puffing round Harringay; it's a delight.
PS: In two week's time Shef's next film night will pop-up at the long awaited Tramp, down by the Beaconsfield. So not only will you get a great night, you get a pre-opening preview of a truly spectacular new Harringay venue. If you want to get on the train, pop in and see Shef at Cheriee (455 Green Lanes).
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gus Alston on
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Sounds fantastic. Green Lanes needs some more events like this!
On a slightly connected note, is there any info about Tramp?
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Ahh quite soon then possibly!
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Was going to do a " like " on this until I got to the mention of popcorn
I hate the smell of it .
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Permalink Reply by Roslyn Byfield on
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Sounds a great development but agree about popcorn. Holloway Road Odeon and Islington Vue both smell very strongly of popcorn and why, I wonder, do people feel a reflex action to eat and drink when watching a film?
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Good to see 16mm film is still around and being shown (on what looks like a Bell & Howell projector) to an audience - the location is not important.
In the seventies and eighties there was a strong film society movement in the UK using such film. It was possible for societies to hire films from a few specialist distributors. I helped run such a film society from the mid seventies to the early eighties. We were based at the Mountview Theatre in Crouch End. This was the home of the renowned Mountview Theatre School which had and still has a long relationship with Dame Judi Dench. To rent a film the screenings had to be members only and no publicity was allowed of any of the shows. This was all policed by an organisation know as The Kinematograph Renter's Association. Its function was to protect the interests of the commercial cinemas by restricting any possible competition. Any digression from the rules would result in the supply of films being cut off.
During our season we ran shows at roughly fortnightly intervals. The Mountview Theatre was not in very good condition at time and we never knew what we would find when we turned up on the Saturday morning to set things up. I used to bring an electric heater to supplement what warmth there was. If it had been raining there was usually a puddle on the floor in front of the screen. We had to devote a whole morning once to bolt a lot of the seats back to the floor as one collapsing during a show was not unknown.
Once everything was ready we retired to the Railway Arms for a pint or two and a toasted sandwich. One feature of the gentlemen's toilet was the intelligent graffiti such as "The Wages of Sin is Death, but the hours are good!" or theatrically "Back in five minutes, Godot!".
Despite all the problems we managed to put on a fairly professional show. We had a separate projection box with two projectors and we took care to ensure that there was a seamless changeover between reels (there were usually three).
We had a good selection of international films which were much appreciated by our faithful members who would normally keep their overcoats on in the auditorium!
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