Before you read on, this is in fact not a review of the film made by local children in Brighton about plastic pollution, it should have been, but isn’t. Here’s why…

On Sunday 3rd Feb The Duke of Yorks screened the film The amazing adventures of a plastic bag, it was billed as a free short half hour film followed by a talk from a local artist, designed to raise awareness of the issues caused by consumption of plastic bags. Crucially, it was advertised in print and online at being screened at 3PM. When I arrived at 3PM ready to watch and provide a review I was told it had finished.

This was not the only free film today, there was another at 13:30, the hour long BBC documentary Hawii, Message in the waves. I can only imagine the cinema sensibly moved this film to follow on immediately from the earlier film to get the audience to stick around. But why not advertise the fact from the beginning, or at least on the website when the decision was made.

I find the fact the cinema moved the time of this film, without bothering to even update their website with the news very concerning. This was a one off screening, designed to raise awareness for a very important cause. By changing the advertised time, and not informing anyone, the cinema seem to be suggesting that no one would want to come to see the film unless they were already in the cinema, which shows a lack of respect for the makers and people involved with the screening. It certainly shows a lack of respect for anyone coming to see the film, as I was.

If it was not the cinema, but the organisers of this event - plastic bag free brighton - who are to blame for the error, and to an extent, it must be, then this is even more disturbing. How can members of the public take a campaign seriously when the organisers clearly can’t. Logisitics are not just a nicety, to be fiddled with at will, they show how serious you are about something.

I had hoped to write something about the issues in the film, and those raised by the discussion at the end. Instead you get a rant about logistics. What a shame.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 5:43 pm and is filed under Films. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.