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A blurry-eyed Sunday afternoon in Wivenhoe soon became a brilliant Sunday afternoon, with a trip down to The Station. Unlike the night before, no booze was involved this time. Instead, parked up at the back of the boozer was a vintage 50′s style American bus. A little bit of the great Mid West had come visiting downtown Wivenhoe.

The Vintage Mobile Cinema Bus is a project put in place by the good people of @firstsite. The idea is to take the twenty-two-seater bus around Essex, and play to the locals a selection of historic archive films that reflect the region.

What was extra special about the Wivenhoe visit was the collaboration with Moving Image, the independent community run cinema for Wivenhoe. A little local knowledge on the ground is always good, and who better to turn to than @wivmovingimage?

Basking in the deserved success of almost selling out the night before for Made in Dagenham at the Phillip Road Centre, our Moving Image friends went one better on Sunday by selling out of all the shows on board the bus.

A decent promotion campaign has been in place, both around the town and online, helped with the wonderful posters from the good @15percentkidney. But it wasn’t all about bums on the bus down by The Station on Sunday afternoon.

As Moira from Moving Image explains in the podcast below, many passers by hadn’t heard of Moving Image. The Vintage Bus was a great introduction to the fine film work that the cinema is currently providing around the town.

My lack of planning skills are legendary, and so sadly I missed out on booking a place for one of the six screenings. The conversations I had with folk coming out were all extremely supportive, saying what a unique way this was to spend a Sunday afternoon.

As for the refreshments?

…a cinema parked up in the car park for a pub has to be the way forward.

Chin Chin.

Many thanks to Moira from Moving Image for kindly agreeing to the @audioboo action below.