There was a very interesting article on-line in The Guardian newspaper the other day which discussed how film festivals were changing the way that they presented films. The Branchage festival in Jersey was an exemplary example of a new breed of film festival emerging in the UK. During the festival at Branchage this year, they put on a drive-in show of Superman projected on to the side of a dam, screened a documentary about bee colony collapse in an agricultural polytunnel and on a brisk Sunday night (in October) they managed to draw in 400 hot-chocolate-drinking festival goers to the harbour to watch French electro act Zombie Zombie play a live accompaniment to Battleship Potemkin on the deck of the Duke of Normandy tugboat.

This sounds incredibly innovative, which is one of things which makes their festival very unique. In the report, the Guardian mentioned that this is a trend which is starting to catch on at other festivals across the world. We at Abertoir have in fact contributed to this, as when we screened Vincent Price’s The Tingler at last year’s festival we installed vibrating seats in the cinema and pretended to electrocute viewers (similar to what happens in the film)!

All of the above is incredibally interesting as it represents a new way of watching films, and ofcourse a new way of watching a movie equals a completley different – and most importantly, memorable – film viewing experience for each spectator. I’m looking forward to hearing what the next upcoming unique film experience will be, and which festival will be hosting it…