Ventnor Blog

A new, multi-media arts event is to take place at The Winter Gardens on Sunday 25th May (bank holiday weekend) from 6pm – 11pm.

This promises to be a show with a difference that will showcase contemporary and up-and coming artists from Ventnor and across the island.

As well as painting and fine arts, there will be a music tepee playing original electronica by Andy Jones and students. (more…)

BAFTA Award Winning, Pan’s Labyrinth is a fanciful and chilling story set against the backdrop of a fascist regime in 1944 rural Spain.

The film centres on Ofelia, a lonely and dreamy child living with her mother and adoptive father; a military officer tasked with ridding the area of rebels.

In her loneliness, Ofelia creates a world filled with fantastical creatures and secret destinies.
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Books worms and film buffs - here’s the latest on what’s new at the Library. Some corkers this month and with DVD rentals at only £2.75 per week or £1 a night what are you waiting for?

DVDS
The Nines – The Matrix via Donnie Darko
Butterfly on a wheel – paying the ransom is just the beginning
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A couple of weeks ago we went along to the premiere of a new Streets Ahead production which was created in association with the IOW Chlamydia Screening Programme.

You might remember also, that last week we published a podcast with Sarah Stringer, chlamydia screening coordinator, but she wasn’t the only person we spoke to that evening.

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Last week we felt very lucky to be asked along to the Island premiere of Gum Fu: Enter The Clinic.

The film was created by the Streets Ahead team in association with IOW Chlamydia Screening Programme and after the screening we chatted to those involved.

The film was excellent, it was extremely informative as well as being full of humour and professionally produced. First up in our series of podcasts is Sarah Stringer, chlamydia screening coordinator for IOW. (more…)

As we reminded you yesterday, Alan Titchmarsh will be launching the 2008 National Year of Reading this coming Friday and from Saturday all residents are invited to join the libraries all over the Wight.

If you’re not a member, you might not realise that you can borrow up to 30 books (and other things) at a time?
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Many thanks to Sandy from the IOW FIlm Network for reminding us about this great new competition and film festival. It was launched a couple of months ago, but reminders are going out again as the deadline for entries draws closer.

The Isle of Wight Short Film Festival will be taking place in July 2009 with quarterly heats at Quay Arts kicking off this summer.

The Festival will be an opportunity for the Island’s best filmmakers to have a voice and a chance to grab not only a Jury Award but also an Audience Award, which will be presented for the best films.
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Those of you who pay attention to the photos from Flickr on the far right of the page will have noticed some new additions to the VentnorBlog Flickr Pool.

One of our members, Ventlindown, has been busy adding old pics of Ventnor to the set and courtesy of uncle, Frank Warbey, has recently added a couple of videos too.
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All of you Bestival ticket holders have got this to look forward to … those who have been slow, regret at leisure, as all of the tickets for this year have just sold out.

We had a ball at Bestival last year, as did our camera-man, Spanish-born DJ, conga player and film-maker, Lucho Limpo.

If after reading the 150 articles that we’ve written about Bestival over the years, you’re still not convinced that it is the best festival going, why not sit back, turn up the volume on your computer and take a walk with Lucho through the crowds of Bestival 2007?

He’s managed to capture is that blissful, confused experience you have wending your way through the wide array of fancy dressed revellers in the wonderful surroundings of Robin Hill Country Park with the sun kissing the back of your neck.

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The life of Oscar-winning filmmaker Anthony Minghella is to be celebrated at a thanksgiving service in Newport on Saturday April 26.

The service is being organised by the Isle of Wight Council with the agreement of Mr Minghella’s family. Mr Minghella was born in Ryde and remained a passionate ambassador for his native Island throughout his illustrious career.

In 1997 he was made a Freeman of the Island by the council in recognition of his achievements.
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Any old friends of one-time-Ventnorians Ergo Phizmiz and Martha Moopette will be interested to see this lovely short film just released.

Film-maker Martha explains that Chicken Trees is actually a film for the kiddies, but as there’s a kid in everyone, we should all enjoy it.
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A new, multi media arts event is due to take place at The Ventnor Winter Gardens on Sunday 25th May (bank holiday weekend).

This is aimed as a showcase for up and coming island artists and will include painting and fine arts, photography, sculpture, film, animation, music, dance etc, and is in response to the lack of opportunities for new and existing talent to show their work on the Island, so don’t miss out on this chance!
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New at Ventnor Library during March !

Adult DVD’s
Silk- Based on the novel by Alessandro Baricco
American Gangster – Denzil Washington and Russell Crowe
Brick Lane - from the award winning novel
Into the wild – inspired by the true story of Christopher McCandless
Beowulf – computer enhanced Ray Winstone as the eponymous hero
Jane Austen book club – 6 months, 6 novels, 6 members
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David Lynch fans are in the for treat in April as Quay Arts feature one of his classics in their film club nights.

After a car wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesiac, she and a perky Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting adventure beyond dreams and reality.

In this complex tale of suspense set in the unreal universe of Los Angeles, writer/director David Lynch explores the city’s schizophrenic nature, an uneasy blend of innocence and corruption, love and loneliness, beauty and depravity.
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Many thanks to Marcia for sending in the following tribute to Anthony Minghella, who sadly died last week. Ed

For a film director, film is a journey through uncharted seas and particularly for Anthony Minghella, because he intuitively got inside the essence of the story, usually working from his own screenplay before putting together an amazing crew of old and new talents, to tell that story on film.
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The Ventnor Film Society hope that you will be able to join them tonight for the showing of Darratt.

A darker, fiercer and less accessible parable of guilt and revenge than Haroun’s last film, Abouna - a story of anger and violence, which marries up a personal story of rage with Africa in general and Chad in particular, where a civil war has raged for decades and whose cycle of slaughter and counter-slaughter can only be brought to a halt when its victims make the agonising decision to forgive - or at any rate to forget.
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Newsflash - The news-wires are just reporting that Anthony Minghella has died at the age of 54 (update: of a brain haemorrhage).

A great loss to the Island - and clearly far, far too young to go.

He’s well-known globally as an Oscar-winning screenwriter and director, as well as locally for his extensive, strong and consistent support for the Isle of Wight.
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Film buffs don’t forget that Lady Chatterly will be showing at the Ventnor Winter Gardens tonight.

This is a kinder, gentler version of the story most people know as Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

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A kinder, gentler version of the story most people know as Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

While endorsing Lawrence’s approval of transcendent lust, the film also has a great deal of time for flowers, running water, close-ups of hands and long shots of trees (as well, of course, as for the class struggle and lusty sex).
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We’ve lots of new items at Ventnor Library this month. DVDs for all and lots of great new books.

DVD’s for adults
Atonement – Oscar nominated from the novel by Ian McEwan
Elizabeth :The Golden Age – Oscar nominated
Sense and Sensibility- BBC Series
As You Like It –Directed by Kenneth Brannagh

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Don’t forget that tonight the Ventnor Film Society will be showing locally made short film Harvest as well as feature length Stray Dogs.

Entrance is Tickets: £4.50 and film starts at 7.30pm.

The Isle of Wight Film Network continues their programming for the Quay Arts cinema season from Jan - Apr 08 with their chosen theme of Cannes Film Festival award winners.

The Isle of Wight Film Network is an organisation for film professionals on the Island, and for bringing mainland filmmakers to work and shoot here.

An ordinary high school day.
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Just a quick reminder that the French Film Day planned for the Ventnor Winter Gardens this Sunday has been postponed.

Thought we’d remind you just in case you’d put it in your diary but didn’t see the update.

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Following the locally made film, Harvest will be Stray Dogs.

When their mother is put in prison for remarrying after her first husband disappears, brother and sister Zahed and Gol-Ghotai are allowed to stay with her at nights, but chucked out first thing in the morning.

Free to roam the streets of Kabul, they look for a way to join her permanently by trying to get in trouble with the law.

Iranian director Marzieh Meshkini offers compelling insights into the plight of women in post-war Afghanistan. (more…)

For those of you disappointed by the cancellation of the french film day, fear not, for next Tuesday you can get a bellies worth of French shorts at the Winter Gardens when the Ventnor Film Society present Paris je t’aime.

Welcome to Paris, the city of love with its multidimensional charms and enchantments.

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