Cinema club to screen evening of retro and cult film in Leamington

CULT cinema lovers in Leamington can dress up as their favourite character and see an evening of short films on Thursday, courtesy of one of the more unusual projects to emerge from the town.

Leamington Underground Cinema will be screening Episode II, its second night of independent films and retro trailers at the Apollo Cinema.

Hosted by compere Jon Kennedy and the Underground Usherettes, the over-18s-only screening will include a quiz and a prize for the best film character costume.

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Among the films shown will be Frequency, directed by Gurchetan Singh and produced by former Animals That Swim singer Hank Starrs, who was involved in Anyone Can Play Guitar, a documentary about the Oxford indie music scene.

Leamington Underground Cinema is the brainchild of Old Town film lover Jim Morton, who set up the first night in May as a means of screening his short film The Toilet Story.

A labour of love - the group has its own London Underground-style logo and the screening has train tickets - it is the work of a small group of devotees.

Mr Morton said: “There is no huge, sinister organisation, it’s just me.”

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Using social websites to spread the word, he has organised online competitions asking followers to suggest the most inappropriate film double bill or post photographs of themselves re-enacting scenes from James Bond films.

His film The Toilet Story was the result of an ambition to work in film which he eventually reached fruition with the help of Leamington-based open-air theatre group Heartbreak Productions and staff and regulars at the Clarendon pub, where it was filmed.

Describing the eight-minute film as “a fairly unpleasant story about a man who has an accident in a toilet”, he is equally diffident about making films, an activity he describes as “pretty difficult and fairly boring”.

Mr Morton, who also contributes to paper-jam, a blog he and some friends write about films, music, art and other subjects, has since set up a ‘remote control’ film night in which people can watch films online, and has another planned in November.

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Thursday’s event will take place in the Apollo Cinema’s screen six, with a licensed bar.

Doors open at 7.45pm. Tickets cost £5 and are available from Mr Morton, the Cricketers pub or the Clarendon pub.

The screening is for over 18s only.

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