Dead by Dawn - 20th Anniversary 2013. The Autopsy.
Looking from my small window, there is sun and blue skies.
I should want to be out there, I should want to be out there breathing deep the fresh air, I should be considering a long walk and a healthy lunch and cherishing the joys of later, taking my kids charging to the park to engage in another adventure.
I should, but I’m not.
I’m longing for those red curtains.
The view burned into my sockets of rows of red seats in front of deep red curtain, curtains that whisper to you as the weekend goes on, whisper of things that will haunt you for the next twelve months, that yawning chasm of emptiness that can only fully be scratched when you return to The Filmhouse and experience another weekend of wonders overseen by Adele Hartly.
Dead by Dawn’s 20th Anniversary was something people will talk of for years to come.
It will become a thing of legend and deservedly so.
A few months ago I got the tickets. As always, when you go in, ask for them and carefully put them into your wallet, an age before the event, there is a thrill down your spine. Those curtains start to twitch and they start to whisper. They are in your dreams, they are waiting for you.
Then, those tantalising emails of what is to come start to turn up and so builds the voice of those curtains, those endless possibilities, those nightmares yet to reach your retinas.
And then, okay, this is hard, but I will be honest. I trust Adele, her choices are sound she knows what she is doing, but, I had my doubts.
I looked at the programme and I worried. I saw a lot of films I knew well (I’m ashamed about how well I know some of them, like a relationship that stopped but never when away) and I selfishly considered my weekend away from parental responsibility as not being as fear and fun filled as I’d hoped.
And that passed and it passed quickly and with shame. I considered the time I spent in East Proctor and I longed to go back there. I knew every nail in that cabin out in the woods and I couldn’t wait to go back and count them again. And I knew those curtains would not let me down.
And they excelled themselves.
This was the best Dead by Dawn I have attended. I don’t say this just because I won the Dead Like Frank photo competition, I don’t say this just because I got lie on the stage in front of Screen 1 and play dead with Frank Henenlotter, I don’t just say this because of the fabulous bunch of people who let me exhibit some of my pictures on the Filmhouse walls and I don’t say this to make you jealous if you were not there (okay, that last one’s a lie), I say it because it is true. I say it because those curtains out did themselves.
There was not a wasted moment on that screen, not a minute badly taken up, not a second when I wanted to be anywhere but in that building, with those people and that onslaught of talented storytelling and genuine affection for a genre that has been my passion for as long as I can remember.
Dead by Dawn 2013 I salute you, your captain, your passengers and your crew.
Thank you red curtains, I’m going out into that sun now, I’m going to breath deep and I’m going to carry those red, red curtains with me for another year.
Reviews to follow…
I should want to be out there, I should want to be out there breathing deep the fresh air, I should be considering a long walk and a healthy lunch and cherishing the joys of later, taking my kids charging to the park to engage in another adventure.
I should, but I’m not.
I’m longing for those red curtains.
The view burned into my sockets of rows of red seats in front of deep red curtain, curtains that whisper to you as the weekend goes on, whisper of things that will haunt you for the next twelve months, that yawning chasm of emptiness that can only fully be scratched when you return to The Filmhouse and experience another weekend of wonders overseen by Adele Hartly.
Dead by Dawn’s 20th Anniversary was something people will talk of for years to come.
It will become a thing of legend and deservedly so.
A few months ago I got the tickets. As always, when you go in, ask for them and carefully put them into your wallet, an age before the event, there is a thrill down your spine. Those curtains start to twitch and they start to whisper. They are in your dreams, they are waiting for you.
Then, those tantalising emails of what is to come start to turn up and so builds the voice of those curtains, those endless possibilities, those nightmares yet to reach your retinas.
And then, okay, this is hard, but I will be honest. I trust Adele, her choices are sound she knows what she is doing, but, I had my doubts.
I looked at the programme and I worried. I saw a lot of films I knew well (I’m ashamed about how well I know some of them, like a relationship that stopped but never when away) and I selfishly considered my weekend away from parental responsibility as not being as fear and fun filled as I’d hoped.
And that passed and it passed quickly and with shame. I considered the time I spent in East Proctor and I longed to go back there. I knew every nail in that cabin out in the woods and I couldn’t wait to go back and count them again. And I knew those curtains would not let me down.
And they excelled themselves.
This was the best Dead by Dawn I have attended. I don’t say this just because I won the Dead Like Frank photo competition, I don’t say this just because I got lie on the stage in front of Screen 1 and play dead with Frank Henenlotter, I don’t just say this because of the fabulous bunch of people who let me exhibit some of my pictures on the Filmhouse walls and I don’t say this to make you jealous if you were not there (okay, that last one’s a lie), I say it because it is true. I say it because those curtains out did themselves.
There was not a wasted moment on that screen, not a minute badly taken up, not a second when I wanted to be anywhere but in that building, with those people and that onslaught of talented storytelling and genuine affection for a genre that has been my passion for as long as I can remember.
Dead by Dawn 2013 I salute you, your captain, your passengers and your crew.
Thank you red curtains, I’m going out into that sun now, I’m going to breath deep and I’m going to carry those red, red curtains with me for another year.
Reviews to follow…