Offbeat London: Leytonstone Pop-Up Cinema

The London Perambulator/A13: Road Movie

Shown as part of the Leytonstone Festival at the Luna Lounge, a small basement venue, these two interesting and entertaining documentaries from local film makers John Rogers (London Perambulator ) and Stuart Bamforth and Rayna Nadeem (A13) were followed by a Q&A session involving the film makers and Nick Papadimitriou the subject of The London Perambulator.

The London Perambulator is about Nick Papadimitriou who ranges around the outskirts of London, primarily interested in the bits between the urban and the rural or the forgotten bits of London which are often not easily accessible. You could argue that it would be hard not to make an interesting film of this character; he has a unique insight into the areas that the majority of people don’t notice are there or just ignore. He has developed this idea of ‘Deep Topography’ to describe what he does and I was particularly interested in his idea that what he sees, the gap between houses that reveal the lie of the land before it was built on, are like portals into other worlds. Iain Sinclair, Will Self and Russell Brand provide their insights on Nick, always interesting although Self does his usual thing of using as many words as possible that ordinary people can’t understand. Half way through the film it is revealed that Nick was an arsonist in his youth, he matter of factly tells us that he burnt his school down…’twice’ and spent time in Ashford Remand Centre. Then at 23 he was sent to Wormwood Scrubs in the cell next to serial killer Dennis Neilson, ‘I woke up one day to find Neilson in my cell doorway just after he was sent to the Scrubs, I think he wanted to strangle me, it would’ve been quite a coup for him’ all delivered in his laid back Middlesex accent.

A13: Road Movie traces the route of the A13 from its beginnings in East London out to Shoeburyness on the Essex coast. The film sets out to find the beauty in the often overlooked, hidden or unusual from the social history of an interview with two original residents from the country’s first Chinatown in Limehouse to the huge electricity pylons on Rainham marshes. A diverse range of people are featured from musician Billy Bragg to MP David Amess to Pakistani restaurant owners and lay-by burger van proprietors. I would estimate that about two-thirds of the film covers the road in East London and one third in Essex, I’m not sure if that is because the film makers found East London more interesting or if it just reflects the fact they are based in East London so they had more footage from that area.

Two very interesting and entertaining documentaries, catch them if you can or at least have a look at the clips at the following links.

http://www.dekkoproductions.co.uk/

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3404781272889245700
http://venturesintopography.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/nick-on-newsnight-feature-about-deep-topography/