So, what’s it like watching your film have its world premiere?
Autumn has certainly arrived – and
sometimes for me it’s the close, dark misty days of a European city that really
bring that home. The Netherlands is a wonderful country but I have certainly
seen the sun there all too rarely I have to admit. It’s more often a collar-up,
hat on, kind of place. This Thursday was no different. As I and my colleague
and friend David Bickerstaff landed in Amsterdam, I swear we could have reached
up and touched the grey clouds. I was
reminded of the week we spent filming in Den Bosch six months earlier when,
again, the sun came out only once – remarkably when we were filming a wide shot
of the city from across some fields. It
hadn’t mattered much as the success of the Hieronymus Bosch exhibition at the Noordbrabants
Museum had meant they were staying open to 1am every morning (!). That meant we had to film the exhibition from
1.30am to 8.30am over subsequent nights.
It was the most glorious exhibition and rightfully deserved to be a huge
success – 421,000 visitors which for a provincial gallery is astounding. People drove from all over Europe. Some even
flew from overseas – even Australia. Once again this proves our love of
art.
It is, in fact, almost exactly a
year since we first heard about the exhibition and made an instant decision to
make a film about it and Bosch. Now, November 3rd 2016, here David
and I were in Bosch’s hometown to host the world premiere of our 13th
and latest EXHIBITION ON SCREEN film. I
think what made this a particularly enjoyable film to make was that, really
without exception, the museum was staffed by the loveliest, most helpful
folk. From the museum’s director to the
security guards who looked after us through the nights of filming, they could
not have been more co-operative and welcoming. So it was a delight to be with
them all in the local ‘Old Biscuit Factory’ cinema. After an introductory drink and welcome to
all, we took our seats and waited for that magical movie moment – when the lights
go down. Who doesn’t have that sense of
anticipation and excitement as, seated where one can’t be reached by the outside
world, darkness falls and you know you’re going to be taken to another
world. I love cinema – and always
have. It’s part of the motivation for
making these art films first and foremost for the cinema – it’s still far and
away the best place to see any film. And
so, 100 or more or us sat together in the darkness and witnessed the opening
credits…EXHIBITION ON SCREEN & SEVENTH ART PRODUCTIONS present… And off we went. My, how stunning the film looked! I hadn’t seen it finished on the big screen
and the quality was astounding. It costs
us a small fortune to send small hard drives to every cinema (almost 1500
worldwide now) but – with cinemas having upgraded their digital capabilities
enormously in recent years – you, we, the audience can now watch at a quality
level previously undreamt of. After the
film, even those who had lived with those Bosch paintings through the
exhibition said they had seen details they had not noticed before. There was a warm ovation for the film at the
end followed by a bit of a bar crawl in Bosch’s home town…maybe drinking in the
same bars he himself once drank in. On the other hand, judging by his pictures,
maybe he’d have gone straight home to say his prayers.
