Love Walton is delighted that The Everyman Cinema Walton will be hosting TWO FREE screenings of Disney’s 1951 original version of Alice in Wonderland. A wonderful opportunity to introduce younger members of our community to the original film! With only 98 seats available per screening, we expected spaces to be snapped up really quickly!

Booking will be essential, watch our social media for details of how to book your seats. You can only book for one screening, to ensure the widest number of Walton (Elmbridge) residents can attend.

Refreshments will be available as normal from the Everyman Cinema bar and will be chargeable.

The screening time: Saturday 20th May, 11.30am

The Film Festival is a celebration of the works of Cecil Hepworth, so using their cinema licence The Walton Village will be hosting an evening of his short film works with musical accompaniment. What better way to spend a fun evening, stepping back into the cinema world of the 1900’s.

No obligation to purchase anything, but we all know Tuesday’s are two pizzas and two drinks for £20* at The Walton Village, or they have plenty of other totally lovely food and drink!

*conditions apply, visit: Tuesday Two Pizzas & Two Drinks Deal – The Walton Village

With the help of Elmbridge Museum, Elmbridge Borough Council Arts Team and the amazing Maggs Latter areas of The Cecil Hepworth Playhouse will be turned into a FREE ‘Hepworth Museum’ during the Film Festival.

So we welcome our community and any film enthusiasts to come along and learn all you can about Walton’s most famous British film director, producer and screenwriter Cecil Hepworth.

OPENING TIMES:

Tuesday 23rd May –  15:00 – 16:15

Wednesday 24th May – 10:30am – 16:15

Thursday 25th May – 14:00 – 16:15

There will be SHORT TALKS ON THE MUSEUM CONTENTS  by members of Elmbridge Museum Staff at the following times and then time for questions:

Tuesday 23rd: 15:30

Wednesday 24th: 11am, 13.00, 15:30

Thursday 25th: 14:30, 15:30

THEATRE TOURS:

The Trustees and Volunteers of The Cecil Hepworth Playhouse – Theatre for the Community (CHPTC) will be running tours of the theatre on Thursday 25th on the half-hours from 15:00 – 18:00.

We are delighted to confirm that local treasure, actor, speech and drama teacher Celia Andrews will host a one-off ‘Alice in Wonderland Storytime’ for 4–7-year-olds in the café / bar area of The Cecil Hepworth Playhouse, on Wednesday 24th May 2023 at 4.30pm.

Children can bring their own cushion.

Fruit juice, water and a treat will be provided after Storytime!

Nominal Fee £2.50 to attend*.
* If you decide not to come along, please do let us know so we can let someone on the waiting list know.

Wednesday 24th May 4.30pm – 7pm

Love Walton, Dramacube and The Charity of Robert Phillips have come together to offer a FREE Movie Makers Workshop for secondary school students – aged 11 – 14 Years, as part of the Walton Film Festival.

Attendees will work with a professional film-maker and creatives, participating in drama games, improvisation exercises and screen make-up as they collaborate to make their own short film inspired by Walton on Thames film-making history of Cecil Hepworth and celebrating the fact 2023 is the 120th anniversary of his film adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

This FREE workshop will be held at The Cecil Hepworth Playhouse on Wednesday 24th May 4.30pm – 7pm. Places are limited and allocated on a first come first served basis.

Discover more about Dramacube school workshops, termtime productions and holiday workshops at www.dramacube.co.uk

Love Walton is delighted that The Everyman Cinema Walton will be hosting TWO FREE screenings of Disney’s 1951 original version of Alice in Wonderland. A wonderful opportunity to introduce younger members of our community to the original film! With only 98 seats available per screening, we expected spaces to be snapped up really quickly!

Booking will be essential, watch our social media for details of how to book your seats. You can only book for one screening, to ensure the widest number of Walton (Elmbridge) residents can attend.

Refreshments will be available as normal from the Everyman Cinema bar and will be chargeable.

This Screening is on: Thursday 25th May, 4.30pm

The R.C. Sherriff Trust’s Rosebriars Project invites Elmbridge residents over the age of 60 to come along and join our Film Festival special silver screen ‘film’ singalong!

Hosted at The RiverHouse Barn Arts Centre 11am – 12:30.

Complimentary refreshments will be provided by Walton Film Festival. We look forward to welcoming you, simply come along on Thursday 25th and join our wonderfully welcoming group.

Come and join us at the Cecil Hepworth Playhouse for a rare opportunity to see one of Hepworth’s few surviving silent feature films, shown in full on the big screen with live piano accompaniment.

“What I really wanted in this case was to capture the wonderful atmosphere of the story. So we all went to Haworth – where Emily Bronte and her sisters had lived…we seemed to feel the dour, cruel environment which I wanted. Up on the moor…it was far more intense and somehow it managed to get into the picture as I wanted it. It was one of Almay Taylor’s best bits of work”

(Cecil Hepworth on Helen of Four Gates in Came the Dawn: Memories of a Film Pioneer, 1951)

Based on the 1917 Bronte-esque gothic novel by Lancashire author Ethel Carnie Holdsworth Helen of Four Gates centres around the character of Helen, who grows up in a loveless home on the Yorkshire moors. Her ‘father’ Abel Mason, is not her father at all, but the spurned lover of her mother, who entrusts young Helen to Abel when she dies. Consumed by hatred, Abel swears to do all he can to ruin Helen’s life and crush her indomitable spirit.

The book was a bestseller and was adapted for the screen by Hepworth’s principal screenwriter, Blanche MacIntosh, who also lived in Walton on Thames. The company stayed true to the spirit of the novel and shot the film in and around Hebden Bridge and Haworth in West Yorkshire. With an all-star cast featuring many of the leading players of the Hepworth company at the time, including Alma Taylor as Helen, James Carew as Abel Mason, and George Dewhurst at Helen’s love interest, Martin Scott, Helen of Four Gates represents the Hepworth company at the pinnacle of its creative powers, encapsulating Hepworth’s reputation at the time for high-quality English dramas with peerless production values and performances. Describing the film as ‘a study of hatred intensified to the point of mania that irresistibly recalls Wuthering Heights’ the trade magazine The Bioscope declared, ‘with the extraordinary artistry that characterises all his pictorial work Hepworth has transferred to the screen the sinister, brooding beauty of the barren Yorkshire hills…there is no other producer with Mr. Hepworth’s sensitive feeling for, and genius in interpreting, the spirit of British landscapes.’ (30 September 1920)

The film will be introduced by Hepworth historian and expert Dr Simon Brown, and accompanied live on the piano by Stephen Horne, one of the world’s leading accompanists of and composers for silent film. This very special event takes place in the Cecil Hepworth Playhouse, the last surviving building of the Hepworth studios, the construction of which was in the planning while Helen of Four Gates was being shot. Join us for the chance to see a classic example of British silent cinema with live music, just as it was experienced by audiences over one hundred years ago.

Doors from 19:15 – ending approx. 21:30

• Fun Fair Rides,
• FREE – Face-painting
• FREE – Alice in Wonderland Balloon Modeller
• Meet & Greet ‘Queen of Hearts & White Rabbit’
• FREE – Gaming Van – up to 12 players at any one time
• Mad-Hatter Entertainment Shows:
  12:00 – 12:30, 12:45 – 13:15, 14:15 – 14:45 and 15:15 – 15:45
• Eat me! Drink Me! – Food & Drinks provided by businesses on the High Street

Brass Band Film Repertoire Performance, including the awards presentation of the Creative Writing Competition.

Cobham Brass Band will be performing an open air ‘Film Repertoire’ at the film festival on Bank Holiday Monday, in Ashley Park Open Space, KT12 1ET*.

Their performance will top and tail the presentation of awards for the creative writing competition. So be prepared to bring your own chairs, rugs, picnic and refreshments** (no catering provided) and enjoy this unique event.

*Ashley Park Open Space is next to the council car park and Walton Cricket Club, accessible on foot from Ashley Park Avenue and the green space opposite the entrance to The Heart Car Park / Sainsburys off New Zealams Avenue.

** please take all litter home with you.

The amazingly creative Imogen Andrews will lead this workshop for kids aged 7-14 years who love Acting, Creative Arts and Film making.
Travel through time to discover the History of Film Making in Walton-on-Thames…
You will:
• Write your own scene
• Make movie props
• Dress up or make your own old timey costumes
• Perform silent movie scenes as we film it for you to keep!
Please bring a packed lunch!
This workshop has been funded by The R.C. Sherriff Trust, who have supported the Arts in Elmbridge for 30 Years!

Limited spaces – 25 in total
Tickets available on Eventbrite, £5.00 1 child, £8.00 sibling discount (2 family members).

We are delighted that Walton Library is offering an ‘Alice’ themed craft session– for children aged 6 – 11 years old, on Tuesday 30th May 15:45 – 16:45.

Tickets are just £1.50, please book your place at the library counter by visiting them at The Heart Shopping Centre, Hepworth Way, Walton on Thames. Places limited so don’t miss out!