Go to the BFI website to see the other ways they are marking the bicentennary

And we too will be marking this at From Page to Screen 2012…..

One grey day in January, Jonathan Coe, guest director and hero of the 2011 festival, met Francine Stock to hand over the reins of power and the mantle of responsibility to her as Guest Director 2012. Their conversation flowed over the festival itself, the nature of adaptation and what Francine hopes to achieve with the festival this year. The complete and unmissable conversation will be on the blog next week, but here as a little tease, are The Best Bits.

With many thanks to Adrien Munden for the beautiful filming, editing and music.

Interview by Sarah Thompson

Hi Joe, it was great to see you at the screening of Submarine at Bridport Arts Centre recently. The Bridport Literatti: a tough crowd?
Not at all, I thought everyone was very friendly. I was surprised to see such a large crowd—it was probably one of the biggest readings I’ve done—so that was a bit intimidating but I really enjoyed it.

You’ve become something of a celebrity since Submarine’s success – how do cope with public appearances like tonight and what’s the biggest crowd you’ve had to face so far?
I’m quite a sociable person so I’ve enjoyed doing the readings and meeting people— it’s always been a real perk of the job. After a long promotional tour when Submarine first came out I did begin to feel like I was repeating myself at times and going through the motions a little bit so I stepped back from some of the public appearances slightly, just to get my freshness back. The biggest and best reading I did was at the South Bank for World Book Day— I read with Margaret Atwood in front of over a thousand people; terrifying but fun.

When you wrote Submarine did you have a film somewhere in the back of your mind or was it always a book?
It was always a book. I love film and a lot of the writing I had done before Submarine had been quite film-influenced and, as a result, felt pretty derivative! So with Submarine I tried really hard to seek out pleasures that are unique to reading a book.

How did the film come about?
I was living in Norwich with a good friend from university (I studied English at the University of East Anglia) who had been a film studies student but was working at the Halifax while he was trying to find a job in the film industry. I’m a big fan of Warp Records who had recently set up a film arm and noticed they were advertising for an intern, so I told him about it, he went for it and got it. By that stage I’d just finished Submarine and my friend read it one day, liked it and showed it to his boss, who optioned it straight away. So it was kind of strange in that the book and the film happened almost at the same time.

As a writer it must be hard to see all the cuts and plot-changes that make your book a film. How do you deal with that?
I had been warned to expect the worst so I was steeling myself for the horror, but to be honest it was a lot less painful than I was expecting. Once I had accepted that at least a third of the book would be lost it was kind of liberating to see the real core of the novel coming through.

Oliver Tate is a great character in the vein of Adrian Mole and Gregory Underwood – what is it, do you think, about teenage boys and ‘coming of age’ stories that makes us laugh so much?
I think all teenagers have a great sense of self-belief and determination—they are motivated and truly believe their behaviour can change things— so in that way they are fun to write, and fun to laugh at. I think boys in particular can be pleasingly pompous and self-promoting, so maybe that’s what makes them especially good value.

From Page To Screen celebrates the art of adaptation. What are the adaptations that have influenced you? Which book would you most like to see adapted for the screen?
I loved A Clockwork Orange, Trainspotting, The Squid and the Whale and Flirting, which is a film with a really young Naomi Watts, Nicole Kidman and Noah Taylor (who, many years later, would play Oliver’s dad in Submarine). Noah Taylor’s performance in that film was a template for Oliver. Like many people I have a fear of seeing my favourite books turned into films. I dare not watch The Road or Revolutionary Road for fear of destroying my perfect memories of the books. Having said that, there are loads of books I’d like to see adapted — NumberNineDream by David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) would make a great film, I think.

You were the script-editor on Submarine. Was this the first script you’ve been involved with and how is it different to writing a book?
Yes it was the first script I’d worked on and it was a completely different experience, largely because I was no longer autonomous; I had to listen to other people, be less egotistical. There were also fewer tools at my disposal, I couldn’t wriggle my way from one scene to another with flowery language or a nice turn of phrase, I only had dialogue to work with so I really admire scriptwriters, it is a much more restricted discipline.

What was the most surprising thing about the making of the film, something you hadn’t realised would happen?
Going to the set first the first time and taking in the scale of it. I went on a day when they were shooting at a school in Swansea where I grew up and seeing all the extras in their 1980s uniforms was when it really began to sink in. I watched a scene — the bullying scene in the film — that was a pretty close replica to how I’d imagined it. It was thrilling — like being a ghost in my own imagination.

Submarine’s screening was the un-official launch of From Page To Screen 2012 – a small independent film festival. What part do you think events like this have to play in today’s multi-media entertainment world?
In a culture dominated by downloads, where any of us could watch anything we choose online at any time, it’s important that we still meet and experience and discuss film together, in an old fashioned, human way. Festivals like From Page To Screen are important because they help us do just that.

“A new writer has just come into the literary scene called Joe Dunthorne. He is a young writer, who has accomplished a great deal. He has recently released his second novel, Wild Abandon, after his rapid rise in popularity from Submarine, which has now been made into a film directed by Richard Ayoade. For those who are unfamiliar with Submarine, it is a novel about Oliver Tate – an eccentric, troubled teenager facing problems such as relationships and school. The protagonist is a very strange, unique character as he uses phrases such as “my body has been replaced by a shell”. I recommend this book, as it is a hilarious comedy with an enormous amount of adolescent awkwardness and uncertainty.

When Dunthorne took to the stage in Bridport Art Centre, the set was atmospheric with dark lights and draped in cloth of various colours. Joe first read from Submarine, which resulted in frequent bouts of laughter from the audience. For example, when he read, “I recently discovered that my mother has being typing the names of as-yet-uninvented mental conditions into Yahoo’s search engine” the audience could see that this clearly demonstrates the unusualness of Oliver. The story is set in late 90’s in South Wales so incorporates many aspects of this time as a “dial up modem” instead of broadband, and telephones rather than mobile phones. This coming of age novel shows the world in Oliver’s perspective, which is very different from a regular person’s, as his vocabulary is extremely vast; the first chapter is entitled “triskaidekaphobia”. Not only this, but the way Oliver thinks is very distinctive “ I also discovered that my father suffers from bouts of depression: I found an empty bottle of tricyclic antidepressants that were in a wicker bin under his bedside table” This style of language continues throughout the novel, which sets the tone.

Joe then continued by reading a few poems from the Faber poets collection. The most influential poem (according to the audience’s response) was a poem about a scene from Apocolypto; when a man is decapitated and the head’s last thoughts. Other poems include Experiential, which was about the experience of an experiential theatre group following you around all day.

Joe then went on to read from his new book, Wild Abandon. This is about a Welsh commune, set in the present day. It explores the lives of many characters but mainly, Kate, who is a seventeen-year-old girl and rebels by escaping to the outside world. Her younger brother; Albert, however, is hoping for an apocalypse and being the only human being (along with his sister) to survive. Everyone in the commune have their own individual story, which is explored throughout the novel.

Dunthorne’s writing style is unique, as his novels don’t have a specific genre. They are generally about the characters’ lives as opposed to an actual plot. All of his work is extremely entertaining and distinctive and would advise anyone to read them”.

Nidhi Rao, Year 12

Tomorrow, Joe Dunthorne on the book to the film, From Page to Screen. “Like many people I have a fear of seeing my favourite books turned into films. I dare not watch The Road or Revolutionary Road for fear of destroying my perfect memories of the books. Having said that, there are loads of books I’d like to see adapted….”.

Come back tomorrow to find out what!

In a ballroom in Nairn, Scotland, s he held a miniature film festival, deck chairs, bean bags, fish finger sandwiches and home baking. Tilda Swinton said they were aiming to “reinject some romance into the film festival circuit” which chimed exactly with how Steven and Nic were thinking in another little town at the opposite end of the British Isles; not just the” film for films sake” as Nic says, but the whole experience from food (in From Page to Screen’s case, often provided by incredible local baker Leakers) to music to decoration, creating a magical atmosphere.

For From Page to Screen, all these ideas and influences came together in 2010, the first proper festival and a much bigger affair with… number of events…. It also marked the first year of collaboration between Bridport’s two venues, the Arts Centre and the Electric Palace – for Steven, the sell-out showing of A Single Man at the Palace was his best moment of the festival; the combination of the film, the subject matter, and the speaker, Katherine Bucknell. For Nic, the lassoing of Lynn Barber to close the festival with a screening of the film of her autobiography, An Education, was his greatest coup; hearing her talking on a BBC breakfast show, he emailed in an invitation and moments later had the satisfaction of hearing the invitation read out live on air. “That sounds lovely” said Lynn Barber “let’s talk later”. Some talk later, and Lynn was secured as a guest at what would go on to be a sell out screening of this Oscar winning film.

And from there, we moved on to 2011, the biggest festival so far. The greatest addition here was the concept of a Guest Director, something that many literary and film festivals have embraced (most famously with Port Eliot’s addition of Martin Scorsese to programme a few films at their festival in Cornwall). Steven had heard Jonathan Coe speaking about They Were Sisters on Francine Stock’s Radio 4 show The Film Programme (the synchronicity of this not to be lost on us) and invited him to speak at the 2010 festival. To Jonathan’s disappointment, he’d been unable to attend ‘I was very regretful about that because it sounded like a wonderful idea for a festival and I did want to be involved and I assumed as you do when you turn something down that they’re never going to ask you again….”. So when Steven got in touch and asked him to guest direct the whole thing, he was more than happy to oblige. “He was probably the best person we could have got to be the first curator” says Nic “he didn’t see it as a token post but absolutely threw himself into the whole idea of planning a season and having very ambitious ideas which he said probably wouldn’t come off…. what was fantastic was he DID it!”. His ambitious ideas included Kazuo Ishiguro, Bill Forsyth, Nicholas Mosely and many others. (More about the 2011 Festival in a later entry – and keep your eye on the blog for the filmed interview between Jonathan Coe and Francine Stock as Jonathan passes over the mantle…).

To the sadness of all, Steven stepped down from the festival after 2011 to progress to pastures new. The work that he did in establishing the festival never went unappreciated, and his good humour, enthusiasm and boundless good ideas made the festival a pleasure to work on. A good time to sing his praises and THANK HIM from everyone on the committee, past and present. So with 2011 a bright and burning success, and 2012 looming on us under the brilliant guidance of Francine Stock, what does Nic, as only surviving member of the original team, see as the future of the festival? “It’s all about growing the festival bigger and more significant as a place to consider this art form; adaptation” he says “There’s no reason why it can’t become a very important opportunity and an endless exploration of it, thanks to the endless supply of adaptations. Adaptation has always been here and always will be”. With the Flash Film competition making a name for itself among young film makers (250 words of winning fiction from the Bridport Prize turned into 60 seconds of film) and more emphasis on craft and the secrets of film-making this year, the festival will continue to embrace new ideas.

And who would be their dream curators for Francine to pass the baton on to? For Nic, it’s festival hero and friend, Kazuo Ishiguro. For Steven? Because of her heartfelt belief that non-mainstream filmmaking is important, Tilda Swinton herself. Here’s hoping.

Programme Details the 2012 Festival to be announced soon!

And next on the blog, an exclusive interview with Joe Dunthorne!

In a series of incidents lost in the mists of time, and over numerous lattes at The Bull, From Page to Screen was born.  Brought together by Lindsay Brooks, at that time the new director of the Bridport Arts Centre, Steven Horner and Nic Jeune sat down together to discuss their ideas for bringing a film festival to Bridport. “I felt strongly that there was an audience and a need for film in Bridport” says Steven “we needed to find a way to give it an edge that was different to every other festival… how could we make it specific to Bridport?” The obvious answer was to embrace Bridport’s already established reputation as a centre for literature, with the Literary Festival and the Bridport Prize.With this in mind, the first event was a screening of John Fowles’ The Collector and The Last Chapter as part of the Bridport Literary Festival 2007.

A screening of the films and a Q&A with adapting screenwriter David Tringham were sellout events, and it became apparent that the marriage of books and film in Bridport could be something that would work. In 2009, came a pilot season of one film a day for five days, including Che, Far from the Madding Crowd, and The Girl with a Pearl Earring with producer Andy Paterson and screenwriter Olivia Hetreed (now known as screenwriter on Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights and making a repeat visit to talk about this film at the festival this year).

The festival was gaining momentum; “Our biggest decision at the time was, it had to be an excellent film, it had to be an excellent adaptation, and it didn’t have to be a lot like the book, contrary to a lot of people’s views”.  For Nic and Steven as “film people” the main point of the adaptation was not how good the book was, but did the film tell the story of the book visually and still get across the essence of ideas, did it transcend the literature?  “It isn’t about mimicking the book into celluloid; it’s about could adaptation be an art form in it’s own right” says Nic. This is a question that still fuels the heart of the festival and comes up time and time again in festival discussion; there’s more to adaptation than just putting the book on screen.

Francine Stock (guest curator 2012) said recently;  “Adaptation is not all about words!  It’s mise en scene, also – surely that’s very much the point…  a 3 second shot of Diagon Alley can convey what JK Rowling takes 2 or 3 pages to describe”. With film able to do visually or through sound design in 30 seconds what it might take a book two chapters to say, the two forms are coiled together, with a huge range of interpretation and re-imagining that screenwriters and directors can, if they choose, bring to an adaptation. Exploring this is at the heart of From Page to Screen.

Things did not all run smoothly in the 2009 pilot season (a near disaster with distribution and speaker problems at Che “we were selling tickets for an event that possibly had no film and no speaker…” says Nic jovially, though I doubt he was so jovial at the time) but by the last night, spirits were high “we finished by thinking well, that wasn’t bad!” says Nic “well” puts in Steven, feet on the floor “we finished thinking it went better than we thought….”.

But for Nic the realisation of this pilot season really turning into something came as Olivia Hetreed pulled out her copy of Girl with a Pearl Earring; suddenly the adaptation process slotted into place; “here was that physical copy of the book that this screenwriter had absorbed, broken down… you could see people going ok… book, person, film, the whole process”.

This is the genesis of the entire From Page to Screen idea; the festival bug had bitten, and with the final night a huge success they were keen to begin to emulate this in future years.

Read Part Two tomorrow to find out what happened next!

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First, let’s introduce you to Bridport. There’s no question but that it is all happening in this small, mad West Dorset market town. With film festivals, book festivals, food festivals and hat festivals (and that’s no exaggeration) – there’s something for everyone in the mix. Keep an eye on the blog for more about all these things in the future!

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But for now…. How does the From Page to Screen festival fit in? It’s a question of bringing two key strands together, Film and Books …

With our two beautiful venues: Bridport Arts Centre …

and The Electric Palace an art-deco gem with a funky interior (keep an eye on the blog for a future entry about this incredible building, and primarily, it’s original monster of a projector) Bridport is a natural home to a film festival. We’ve also got the award winning Bridport Film Society which has been showing films here for nearly 50 years, pop-up village cinemas and most recently, the partnership of Curzon Cinemas with the Bridport Arts Centre.

Not only does Bridport love to watch films, it also loves to be used as locations,
Anwar Brett, author of Dorset in Film will be writing
an exclusive article for the blog in the future….

Books and Bridport go together like toast and honey. With four booksellers in the town, the incredible Saturday market stalls poetry reading a regular feature in Bridport pubs, as well as the many authors living in the area, it’s hard to get far in the town without stumbling over something or someone literary.

The Bridport Prize run by the BAC is the largest open creative writing competition in the English Language; it was judged this year by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. No surprise then that we also have two literary festivals, the Bridport Literary Festival  and the Open Book Festival . Bringing film and books together for an event as part of the Bridport Literary Festival in 2009 (a screening of John Fowles’ The Collector) was the first step towards the establishing of From Page to Screen… see the blog for a future interview with the founders of the festival, Steven Horner and Nic Jeune and more about how the festival has evolved over the past four years, to it’s peak last year with BAFTA and Booker Prize winners, Bill Forsyth and Kazuo Ishiguro.

And now, with the Flash Film competition bringing together the prize and the festival – 250 words turned into 60 seconds of film – the festival grows and grows by the year. It’s all about bringing people together to discuss books, film, and film making. As Francine Stock, this year’s guest director of this year’s festival, said in her interview with Jonathan Coe (soon to appear on the blog), “a sort of 3D Book Club”. Could anywhere be better suited to this than Bridport? Keep up with the blog for more on Bridport, the festival and news as it breaks. We’re setting our programme now for what may well be the biggest and best FPTS so far!

From the company that brought us Secret Cinema and Future Cinema  (keep your eye on the blog for more about this at a later date – including an exclusive interview with the set designer on Secret Cinema!) comes Future Shorts, a pop-up film festival of short films from all over the world, screening at locations all around the country.

Bridport Film Society are pleased to sponsor one of these very evenings at the Hayloft on Tues Jan 17th at 7.45. The programme comprises both locally-made short films from PVA MediaLab and the prize winning selection from Future Shorts; free admission though donations for film hire and projection will be gratefully recieved.

A drink and an evening of film in the cosy environment of The Stable. What could be nicer?

A very happy christmas and new year to everyone involved with FPTS! Keep an eye on the blog for upcoming developments, programme announcements and other good news for 2012!