The National Science and Media Museum’s Pictureville Cinema will be hosting a special homecoming premiere of acclaimed feature documentary A Bunch of Amateurs on Thursday 10 November, alongside filmmakers and special guests. The film follows Britain’s oldest amateur filmmaking club, the Bradford Movie Makers, as they fight to save their club and remake a major musical.
A Bunch of Amateurs is screening at Pictureville Cinema on Thursday 10 November at 19.30. To mark the film showing in Bradford, director Kim Hopkins will introduce the film, with the Bradford Movie Makers participating in a Q&A session after the screening.
Set and filmed in Bradford, this “hilarious and emotional” documentary follows amateur filmmaking club, the Bradford Movie Makers, as the group grows old together amid flickering memories and challenging final years as they fight to save their club and remake a major musical. The quietly hilarious, profoundly moving film speaks to the delusional escapist dreamer in us all and to the enduring power of face-to-face time together in an increasingly lonely, digital age.
Commenting on the special homecoming premiere at Pictureville Cinema, Kathryn Penny, Head of Screen and Cultural Engagement at the National Science and Media Museum said: “We are incredibly proud to be hosting the homecoming premiere for A Bunch of Amateurs, an acclaimed locally filmed documentary that shines a spotlight on Bradford’s rich film heritage. The documentary celebrates the magic of cinema and the experience of watching a film together, and we’re looking forward to sharing this with the cast, crew and film lovers in Bradford.”
Commenting on the film, Director Kim Hopkins said: “A Bunch of Amateurs is set in Bradford in the north of England, in an area where outsiders are treated with eyebrow raising suspicion, and those wielding a camera are outright cold shouldered. I was raised here, so I understand the local codes, working-class sensibilities and the tough history. The ghosts of a prosperous industrial past are everywhere, but Bradford is now one of the poorest cities in Europe. These working-class folks are the collateral damage of an ideologically split society that at best ignores them, at worst somehow holds them responsible. Here, comedy has a very serious function - to ward off the devil, be that devil sadness, loneliness or the Grim Reaper himself. Laughter is a sort of survival mechanism to get you through the bad times. They are good, honest people, the so called ‘salt of the earth’. It is these sentiments that I wanted at the heart of A Bunch of Amateurs.”
A Bunch of Amateurs is directed and produced by Kim Hopkins of Labor of Love Films alongside co-founder Margareta Szabo. The feature documentary has been supported by BFI Doc Society Fund and Screen Yorkshire.
The homecoming premiere of A Bunch of Amateurs will be at the National Science and Media Museum’s Pictureville Cinema on Thursday 10 November at 19.30.
For more information and to book tickets, visit our website.
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Notes to Editors
For more information and images please contact Brittany Noppe, Senior Press Officer on Brittany.Noppe@scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk or 01274 203356
A media pack of images is available to download here.
About the National Science and Media Museum
The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, West Yorkshire, opened in 1983, and has since become one of the most visited UK museums outside London. It draws on more than three million objects from its national collection to explore the science and culture of image and sound technologies, and their impact on our lives.
The Museum creates special exhibitions, interactive galleries and activities for families and adults, and is home to three cinemas, including Europe’s first IMAX cinema screen and the world’s only remaining public Cinerama screen. Entry to the Museum is free. www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk
About Labor of Love Films
Labor of Love Films is an award-winning, independent film production company specialising in intimate, character-driven documentaries. It was founded in 2013 by Kim Hopkins and Margareta Szabo. The Labor of Love Films team have filmed sensitive subjects in challenging locations such as healthcare in Ghana, Mozambique and Bolivia, women dissidents in Morocco, sex slaves in Moldova, brick kiln slaves in Northern India and honour killing in Turkey. Labor of Love Films have produced Hotel Folly, a feature documentary that premiered at IDFA and was broadcast on BBC Storyville. Labor of Love Films in association with Defining Entertainment and Independent Television Services (ITVS) have produced Voices of the Sea. It premiered at True/False FF and went on to play in many other screenings across the world. VOICES was broadcast on PBS, ARTE and BBC. Voices won Best Documentary at HBO New York Latino FF; Boston Latino Int FF; & DOCUDAYS. Current productions include A Bunch of Amateurs a BFI/Doc Society and Screen Yorkshire supported feature documentary.
About BFI Doc Society Fund
The BFI Doc Society Fund was launched in 2018, as Doc Society became the BFI’s delegate partner for independent UK documentary filmmaking. To date, it has distributed over £4.2 million to UK independent documentary films, thanks to National Lottery funding. The Fund supports creative and hybrid feature documentaries with bold cultural and social ambitions, and short films by diverse, emerging voices from all over the UK.
The fund has supported 44 independent documentary features since 2018, including Nothing Compares, Maya, African Apocalypse, Locked In, Bank Job, Men Who Sing, PolyStyrene: I Am a Cliché. The films have screened internationally and secured a number of award nominations, winning at The Grierson Awards, BIFAs, BAFTA and RTS.
Key partners include BBC Film, Doc Society’s Climate Story Fund, Creative Scotland, Film Cymru, Field of Vision and Northern Ireland Screen.
Forty-one short films, including Grierson and Emmy award winners, have been funded through the BFI Doc Society Made of Truth fund, in partnership with BFI NETWORK. They have screened at international festivals including Sundance, London, IDFA, Sheffield, TIFF amongst others and been distributed and exhibited by Guardian Docs, Nat Geo, POV & the V&A.
The BFI Doc Society Fund also facilitates a dedicated support programme aimed at building connections with documentary filmmakers across all corners of the UK and provides professional development opportunities for grantee filmmakers.
The BFI is a cultural charity, a National Lottery distributor, and the UK’s lead organisation for film and the moving image.
Our mission is:
- To support creativity and actively seek out the next generation of UK storytellers
- To grow and care for the BFI National Archive, the world’s largest film and television archive
- To offer the widest range of the UK and international moving image culture through our programmes and festivals - delivered online and in-venue
- To use our knowledge to educate and deepen public appreciation and understanding
- To work with Government and industry to ensure the continued growth of the UK’s screen industries
Founded in 1933, the BFI is a registered charity governed by the Royal Charter. The BFI Board of Governors is chaired by Tim Richards.
For more information, contact khadija@docsociety.org / Twitter: @TheDocSociety /
www.facebook.com/TheDocSociety / Instagram: @thedocsociety
About Screen Yorkshire
Based in Leeds, UK, Screen Yorkshire is the engine that drives the film and TV industries in Yorkshire and Humber. Our Film Office is staffed by industry professionals and supports productions from all over the world that want to film in the region. Our Yorkshire Content Fund provides production finance to encourage projects to shoot here.
We also deliver ground-breaking training and development programmes to foster talent and build a skilled, versatile and diverse workforce. Our national partners have included Screen Skills, National Film & Television School and BFI.
Established as one of nine regional screen agencies by the UK Film Council in 2002, Screen Yorkshire is a standalone company with two decades of experience and expertise behind it. We launched our first production fund in 2003, which went on to invest in iconic British films like the BAFTA-award-winning This is England.
- The Yorkshire Content Fund has part-financed more than 50 productions, from TV shows like Peaky Blinders, All Creatures Great & Small and Ackley Bridge, to feature films such as Official Secrets Dad’s Army and Yardie
- The screen industries in Yorkshire & Humber are estimated to support some 12,000 jobs (directly and indirectly through the supply chains) with a turnover of more than £1 billion
- Our Crewing Service, launched in July 2020, matches up crew in Yorkshire with productions looking for world-class local talent. In its first year, it facilitated more than4000days of work
- ONS data shows that employment in the TV and film industries in Yorkshire soared 82% between 2015 and 2018 and the number of film and TV businesses operating in the region grew by 27%
