The Rocket Post

2004 (Limited release in Scotland only) / 2006 (Limited UK release) - Dir: Stephan Whittaker

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 26th March, 2011

This films holds the dubious record for the longest time taken from shooting to showing in the cinema. In 2002, it won a major prize at the Stony Brook Film Festival in New York State, and there were other special screenings, including one at the An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway in 2005. The film even came out on DVD in Scandinavia, but still took years to find a UK distributor. Sadly the director died before his work hit the big screen and the producer took up an new career promoting wind farm technology. The rather lame explanation given by the distributors who eventually gave it a very limited release was that the film would not have appealed to the young people who inhabit multiplex cinemas - and these are the same people who regard the film society movement as a "minority market". Haven’t they heard? We’re all living longer!

The cast of this £5m production, shot largely on the Hebridean island of Taransay in 2001, includes Trainspotting star Kevin McKidd, Gary Lewis from Billy Elliot and newcomer Shauna Macdonald. Not in any way edgy or challenging, The Rocket Post does what British films do best – light, quirky comedy with lots of familiar faces, picture postcard scenery, a splash of romance and a dash of drama.

The real Gerhard Zucker appears to have been a bit of a charlatan. In the early 1930s he organised a number of rocket demonstrations in German villages. The impressive rocket was really a large canister with some large fireworks stuffed up the rear end. It took off with an impressive roar, rose about 15 metres and then inevitably crashed to the ground. Zucker made money by selling postal covers which (fraudulently) claimed to have been transported by one of his rockets. After the war he became a furniture salesman but was unable to resist further experimentation with rockets. In 1964 one of his contraptions went out of control and killed a bystander. This led to all non-military rocketry being banned in Germany. Undeterred Zucker resumed launching fraudulent 'rocket postal covers'. Having done a great deal to set back scientific rocketry in Germany, Zucker died at home in his bed in 1985.

Round Ireland With A Fridge

2010 - Dir: Ed Bye

Shown in FeckenOdeon 2 on 16th March, 2011

The current state of the film distribution industry in Britain means that very few home grown films are shown in mainstream cinemas. It’s a situation that’s been exacerbated by the introduction of Digital Cinema. The very technology that should have made it possible for cinemas to be flexible and adventurous in their programming has been used to narrow the choice even further. Because the equipment needed for digital projection is so expensive it has been necessary for cinemas to enter into finance deals with the large American studios.. which, of course, means that the studios expect the cinemas to show their films and very little else. There are token nods towards diversity in the form of "alternative content" - operas and sporting events - but in reality the multiplexes are condemned to a sold diet of "RoboPotter of the Caribbean Part 9" and our British film makers are forced out into "straight to DVD" or, even worse, free distribution on the internet or direct to your mobile phone.

Tonight’s film is a case in point. Firstly the Americans liked the book. They said they might like to make a film of it. Then they said nothing. Then they said maybe. Then they said nothing again. Then Tony Hawks said "Sod it! I’ll make the thing myself". So he did. And then no-one would touch it. A minor distributor toyed with it, put it out on DVD... and walked away. It didn’t even get a showing on the telly. And there things would have languished if Mr Hawks hadn’t been made of sterner stuff. He got in touch with community cinemas like The FeckenOdeon as well as film festival organisers to tell them that he’d got a good British film - and would we like to show it? It’s not the best film or funniest film or the glossiest film ever made - but it’s a happy, professionally made hour and a half of entertainment. The sort of thing we like in Britain... and certainly in Feckenham!

This story has been repeated many times over in recent years. Even our next film in the main cinema has suffered - it took the producers no less that 7 years to get a very limited UK release for "The Rocket Post". We’re now getting offers of British movies that in the past would have had a guaranteed modest showing on the big circuits. Do it yourself is now seen as the only way forward. There are over 350 film societies in the UK and there are about 100 full time independent community cinemas - that’s a "circuit" of about 450 screens and it may well be the only way for British films to be seen by the public they were made for. We shall be delighted and proud to play our part!