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To the Philip Road Centre! …on Saturday evening for the first Moving Image film of the new season. The Independent community cinema for Wivenhoe returned after the Christmas break, and was greeted with a full house for the screening of One Day.

The Philip Road Centre can be a cold and uninviting cavern when empty; fill the space with local folk with a passion for film, and the building soon becomes a valuable community asset. The smiles of the hard working Moving Image volunteers shortly before the lights faded was a story to be told in itself.

The film focusses on the changing relationship between a couple that never quite get it on over a twenty-year period. St Swithin’s is the only constant throughout. There isn’t a happy ending.

This is the one downside to sharing a cinema experience with the same people that you might share a half shandy with on a weekday night. Tears before bedtime for many locals, and that was just the hardened blokes sitting on the back row.

It is this very ambience that makes Moving Image such a unique cinematic experience. Sure the Odeon in town dazzles, but it doesn’t allow you to share those rare and genuine moments when the whole audience becomes caught up in such an emotional film. Crocodile tears aren’t shed in the company of someone you will see in the newsagent the following morning.

With Moving Image having recently celebrated its first anniversary, planning is well underway as to how build upon the experiences of the first twelve months. Filling out the Philip Road Centre each week would be a good start.

But it’s not all about bums on plastic seats. Moving Image is far more than a ticket selling enterprise. Cinemagoers on Saturday were asked to complete a short questionnaire, with suggestions for what works well, and what can be improved. I had no shame in writing Purple Rain when prompted for a film that I would like to see in Wivenhoe.

And so something of a triumphant success for the first screening back after the Christmas break. There is clearly an audience for an independent community cinema in Wivenhoe. The lovely Moving Image folk just need to repeat the formula that made Saturday evening so well attended.

More weepies?

Purple Rain is a winner, I tell ya…

We left the Philip Road Centre, and then were back at base in time for a milky hot chocolate and the football highlights in bed. This is the life. Wivenhoe is the most rural place that I have lived in. It is also the closest that I have ever lived to a cinema. This is something to celebrate, and to keep the momentum moving forward.

Tears as I type…