The Big Rethink: Holly Tarquini

Executive Director FilmBath

The situation for people who manage independent cinemas still looks pretty bleak. There are fears around opening in autumn and then being forced to close again if/when a second wave comes in the winter.

There is concern over wearing masks. If everyone in the cinema wears a mask that adds a powerful layer of protection to audience and staff, but feedback from audiences is that they don’t want to wear them.

If there was a government directive that masks HAVE to be worn, that would be incredibly helpful – though of course masks would impacts on popcorn and snacks which is income cinemas rely on; there is no simple solution at the moment.

We are looking into many different options for our November FilmBath festival – the most exciting of which is a collaboration of regional film festivals, working together to produce an online festival as well as hosting physical events in our own areas. You’ll have to sign up to our newsletter to find out more about how we get on with this…

If we can only sell tickets to a third, or even half the seats in the Odeon or The Little then we would make a loss on every screening: we are a small arts charity and we cannot run all our events at a loss. We usually sell out around 60–70 per cent of our films so this kind of reduced capacity would annihilate us.

In lockdown I have been up-skilling like mad – learning how to simulcast with streaming platforms using Skype as a multi-camera shoot. On 9 July we live-streamed our annual IMDb Script to Screen Award with three judges, 19 actors and a huge audience: much larger than we could have accommodated in Komedia, where we usually host the awards (watch this on our YouTube Channel). I love learning new skills, so although the process has been painful at times, it has also been exciting.

The overarching aim of FilmBath is to ‘amplify diverse voices’, but our ability to fly directors, actors and writers around the world is limited. Lockdown has shown us that we don’t need to fly them here – we can include those voices in the festival with live digital links: it’s something we have been trialling for a couple of years, but this has galvanised us to do more.

It seems likely that Coronavirus will affect everything we do for at least a year and cinemas are one of the more complicated areas to manage: we are all inside, close to one another, for at least 90 minutes. But Bath’s cinema managers are fantastic problem solvers and I am sure that solutions will be found.

Watching great films on a big screen with Dolby Surround sound, in a packed cinema is heaven: Netflix doesn’t come close

We have all been missing the cinema: the experience of sitting in the dark together and sensing how those around us are reacting to the film on screen is irreplaceable. It’s why, despite every generation doom mongering, neither radio, TV, video or streaming have killed cinema. Watching great films on a big screen with Dolby Surround sound, in a packed cinema is heaven: Netflix doesn’t come close.

My optimistic vision is that the pandemic will ensure that the NHS is protected from privatisation; that education becomes properly funded; that we find new and better ways to support rough sleepers and homeless people; that institutions and individuals will acknowledge systemic racism and do everything possible to achieve equity; that the workers who really matter (nurses, care workers, teachers etc) become the most financially valued members of society, and that we start adopting best practice rather than using essential services as a political football. The reason I can even imagine such a utopia is partly thanks to film which opens up the whole world to us and is such an elegant tool for exploring the possibilities of what we could be.

filmbath.co.uk

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