Well, the event on Thursday 13th January was quite a hit.

It was a combined event with the London Short Film Festival and we had around forty-five visitors - our highest attendance yet. It was absolutely heaving. People started arriving an hour early, so that by the time we kicked off at around 7.15 there was scarcely room to move.

Denise Hicks from the London Short Film Festival gave a short introduction, followed by Martina Constantinescu of Curious Quests, who gave a short presentation about the SlickFlick platform for mobile phones. SlickFlick has a competition for filmmakers and storytellers. For full details, please see below. Tom Lowe was our resident projectionist and front of house duties were managed by Parissima Darabhiha and Gwendolen von Einsiedel, our marvellous LSFF volunteers. Thanks to all of them and of course to Phil and Chloe of LSFF for organising the tie-in and to Darren Moore, our friendly publican.

Thanks very much also to audience member Josh Solomon who not only brought a group of his students with him but also stepped in to help when we had projector problems. He also pointed out that we were the only free evening film event in London that night.

THE FILM PROGRAMME
We showed an improvised programme of films brought along on the night. We started with "Viva Fitzrovia", actually a live-action documentary about the surrounding area, which we showed as a tie-in with LSFF. It was really nice to find out about where we were and director Paolo even brought along some of his interviewees.

As always we had a great mixture of work, from comedy to experimental and lyrical. All the filmmakers present introduced their work so we got to understand the context. We even got a short talk by Una Marzorati about her work in progress "Daugarpils", which even featured illustrations, designs and an animatic. I am really keen to encourage the screening of work in progress, so please feel free to bring such work along.

We had contributions from prolific filmmakers and LAC regulars Stuart Pound and Kate Jessop; Kate had also showed her film "Girl's Guide to Muso Boyfriends", which we showed at LAC in November, at an LSFF screening earlier in the festival. Milo Waterfield, whom I had met at the 4mations event earlier in the day, dropped in and screened his excellent "Lobster Club", one of the 4mations-funded films. We then closed with a number of Bob Godfrey films, courtesy of Tom Lowe.

Here is the screening programme with appropriate links where possible.

"Viva Fitzrovia" (2010) by Paolo Sedazzari
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbyro6_viva-fitzrovia_travel
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/bg-5002361/viva_fitzrovia_paolo_sedazzari/

"Money" (2011) by Ieva Petrus
http://www.ievapetrus.com

"Green Water Dragon" (2010) by Stuart Pound
http://vimeo.com/17670651
"Ein, Zwei, Drei" by Stuart Pound
"Simple, Simple, Simple" by Stuart Pound and Rosemary Norman
http://www.britfilms.com/britishfilms/catalogue/browse/?id=5771ABA01156213E22Sio15596FA
"Dear Foreigner" by Kate Jessop
http://vimeo.com/14480549
"Nosers" by Nicolai Vorontsov
http://nosers.blogspot.com/
"Daugarpils" (a work in progress) by Una Marzorati
"Christmas Card" by Una Marzorati
http://www.youtube.com/user/animuna

Illustrations and designs for "Daugarpils" by Una Marzorati
"Lobster Club" (2009) by Milo Waterfield
http://www.sevenzeds.com/lobster/index.html
"Unaccompanied Lady" (2006) by Kevin Baldwin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXyqzTOFQxo
"Know You Europeans - UK" (1994) by Bob Godfrey
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1361321/
"Bob's War" trailer (2011) produced by Jody Gannon of the Big B Animation Co. and Tom Lowe of the Bob Godfrey Collection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HxLPdZrEBk

Captain Zip on "The Home Movie Roadshow" (BBC2, 2010) featuring clips of his 8mm punk films
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtM-wwZAds8
"Do It Yourself Cartoon Kit" (1959) by Bob Godfrey, Keith Learner, Nancy Hanna and Vera Linnecar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpoLkKYsUDE
"Happy Birthday, Switzerland" (1990) by Bob Godfrey
"Small Talk" (1993, nominated for an Oscar) by Bob Godfrey

SLICK FLICK COMPETITION
"Slick Flick Short to Photo Story Competition: SlickFlick is an innovative platform and a great new medium for storytellers. The aim is to make stories out of pictures. You – the storyteller – create a narrative series of photographs (filled with imagination, urgency, wit and desire). Slick Flick brings your story to the world.
"Turn your short film into a photo story & enter the competition! All eligible entries get promoted and distributed on the Slick Flick app and receive individual feedback from industry experts with no hold whatsoever on your film rights. Winnings include cash prizes, meetings with top agents, producers and directors, special promotion and more. See http://slickflick.com/contribute/competitions.php for competition details and how to enter."

A NICE COINCIDENCE
Ellie Land has just emailed me to say to point out that the "British Mars Exploration Programme at the website http://www.marsipan.co.uk/ are also based in a pub called "The Green Man." Appropriately, "marsipan" is maintained by Nicolai Moustakov who is an occasional visitor to London Animation Club.

Our next event will be on Thursday 3rd February at the Green Man once again. See you there.

Love from Martin