Brand new film festival is coming to Hucknall

Run by the people behind the town’s Arc Cinema, The Torkard Film Festival will take place next January.

Mark Gallagher, manager at the Arc Cinema, said: “This came about when we opened our new Beeston cinema .

“And on opening night amongst other VIP’s, I met John Currie, founder of the successful Beeston Film Festival now in its eighth year.

"After a few phone calls between John and Mark it was decided that we’d go for it here in Hucknall.

"We picked January as far enough away to organise it and we decided on short films from the UK, rather than international.

"The intention is to try and select films that resonate with the Hucknall and Ashfield community, real relatable stories rather than abstract, artsy or pretentious films.

"The name started off as Byron Film Festival but we decided that it was too romantic and poetic and people might assume we were being too artsy so we decided on Torkard Film Festival as a nod to the original name of the town and hopefully a name that the local people can relate to.

"We’ve already had more than 30 films submitted and some of them are really excellent.

"We are hoping to do three sessions for the festival in late January on a Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Saturday night.

“In each session we’ll screen up to 10 films and there will be winners too and customers will be asked to vote on each film."

For details on getting involved with the festival, visit the Facebook page here.

The cinema has also been making a different kind of short film recently after it became the venue for the latest video by Birmingham rapper Mowgs.

Mark continued: "Mowgs and his management The Ko-Lab were looking for a cinema with a bit of history and traditional features and we quickly found them a four-hour period and agreed to let them shoot for free in exchange for a ‘shout out’ and some local PR

“Mowgs was a true gent and a pleasure to have in the cinema, his music is great and he has a huge following on Instagram and YouTube.

"We hope we have future projects with The Ko-Lab.”