How many festivals are going on in London at the moment? More than anyone can keep track of, as far as we can tell. The City of London festival is still running, India Now is just gearing up, and in a week or so the Portobello Film Festival is going to join in, bringing a programme full of Portobello-focused free film events throughout August.
(Picture of bustling Portobello Road by Abiola Lapite.)
The programme (in pdf format) kicks off on the 1st of April with a “gala screening” of Barney Platts-Mills’s Looking for Tomorrow, and carries on from there. It’s not all films, either, despite the name of the festival. There’s talks, comedy, photography exhibitions, and more.
If it’s the films themselves you’re keen on, there’s screenings of Love is the Devil (on the 5th of August), Parzania (on the 7th), five hours of horror-themed shorts (on the 8th) and more throughout the festival. If you’re in the mood for discussion instead, then you could try out Nicki Kentish Barnes talking about working with Woody Allen, on the 8th, or director Greg Hall talking about film-making on a low budget, on the 9th.
This year the festival has a “magic” theme, which is mostly pretty irrelevant but which does mean you can see presenter Aladin showing “The World’s Greatest Magicians”, clips from magic-themed cinema over two nights. Later on in the month, you can attend a performance of some live close-up magic on the 18th. Alternatively, on the 18th and 19th there’s free music on Portobello Green, which doesn’t fit the “magic” theme but is surely a good thing anyway. And if none of this catches your fancy at all, there’s exhibitions running throughout the festival: recent graduates from London art schools at SaLon gallery, for example, and plenty of photography.
With hundreds of short and feature-length films showing, spread across a dozen venues, it’s almost worth turning up in the area in the evening and wandering around until something catches your attention, and it’s certainly worth checking out the programme: unless you’re bored by films, magic, comedy, public talks, festivals and music, there’s bound to be something you’d enjoy.
Portobello Film Festival: Various locations around the Portobello Road area, 1st August to 22 August. All events free.
