The Friends of the Hyde Park Picture House is a registered charity made up of a group of people who enjoy cinema and feel some way connected to the Hyde Park Picture House. We want as many, and as wide a range of people as possible to be able to experience the same enjoyment through it that we do.
My name is Jon Holmes and I’m a former Friends of HPPH member who lived in Headingley for 12 years, leaving in 2013 to continue pursuing a career in sports journalism. The Picture House was one of the most important places in my world – I loved our Film Club meetings and getting to chat about whatever movie we’d just seen that night.
Before writing this, I looked up an old film blog I used to keep from 2010 to 2012. It mentions many of the HPPH screenings I saw around that time – from “A Single Man” to “Submarine”, from “Laura” to “Lilting”… Film Club was always “An Education” and I got to connect with lots of beautiful people along the way.
I recently reached out to Stephen and the team because on Saturday 18 July (1.15pm), I’m helping to bring a new documentary to the Picture House for a special screening and Q&A event.
“The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel” (2025) is about a forgotten professional footballer called Tony Powell who left England in 1981 and within a few years, had completely cut ties with family and friends back home. He’s discovered at the eponymous motel in West Hollywood, L.A., and he has a remarkable tale to tell. By sharing his life story with the film-makers, it opens the door to a reckoning and perhaps a chance to alleviate the pain of the past…
Supported by Leeds Queer Film Festival and the Premier League, there will be a special introduction and a post-screening Q&A (it’ll be an honour for me to host that in the Picture House), followed by drinks and networking at Brudenell Social Club. The event continues into Leeds Pride weekend, with World Cup ‘watch party’ opportunities and the parade on the Sunday.
If you’re reading this in time, and can come along, we’d love to welcome you to see “The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel” and be a part of our wider weekend event. Tickets are on sale now from the HPPH box office; you can read more about “Football Pride” here; and if you’d like to connect around anything you’ve read here, just drop me an email at jon@footballvhomophobia.com.
And to all the Friends of HPPH, I know you’ll all keep up the excellent work, and continue to make the cinema a place where everyone feels welcome to enjoy the films their way and take part in great conversation. Thanks for being there for me!
Happily after a ‘reel film’ drought we have new newly released Rose of Nevada screening from a 35mm print this coming Saturday and Sunday. The film is directed by Mark Jenkins and produced by the BFI. This new release, like the director’s previous film Bait (2019), was shot on 16mm and blown-up to 35mm. I was only able to see Bait in a digital transfer but it was a movie worth watching. Rose of Nevada comes with a lot of recommendations from critics and personally from friends who have already seen it. The travails and solutions of the 35mm projection system recently are set out with great clarity by the senior projectionist Mike Sharples in the Picture House Journal. It is well illustrated and, of course, there are regular tours of the projection rooms with their two 35mm projectors. Mike also refers to the help received from the Projected Picture Trust, whose archive in Halifax is worth visiting.
As Mike explains, 35mm films has a distinctive visual character and offer a special pleasure for cineastes.
We very much enjoyed last month’s First Thursday with people stopping by to chat after Slow or before heading in to see The Blue Trail. There was an appreciation of Mark Jenkin’s films and anticipation for Rose of Nevada (should we see it now or wait until the 35mm screenings on June 6th and 7th?)
We will be meeting again on Thursday June 4th when you will have to make a difficult choice from a very varied selection. As part of the Cinema Africa strand there is the great opportunity to see the best Nigerian shorts from the 2025 Lagos Film Festival. You might be in the mood to challenge your comfort levels in abandoned spaces by watching Kane Parsons’ sci-fi horror Backrooms or you might prefer to play it safer and go with the feel-good pairing of Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas in John Carney’s Power Ballad. We aim to be in the bar between the early and later evening screenings from 7.30pm. As ever you can just come along to chat about these or any films you’ve seen recently without necessarily seeing them on the night.
We will be meeting again on Thursday May 7th when the Picture House is screening four very different but equally special films. You might enjoy a bit of early evening horror in Hokum or the much more gentle 16mm Lithuanian film Slow which premiered at Sundance in 2023 and closed LIFF2023.
You could also see Primavera which explores aspects of Vivialdi’s life or the amazing Brazilian feature The Blue Trail which follows the adventures of 77year old Tereza as she challenges her society’s expectations for older citizens.
We aim to be in the bar between the early and later evening screenings from 7.45pm. As ever you can just come along to chat about these or any films you’ve seen recently without necessarily seeing them on the night.
We very much enjoyed First Thursday on 5th February when Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice was the most popular choice of the evening.
We will be meeting again on Thursday March 5th when we will aim to be in the bar between the early and later evening screenings from 7.30pm. Lots and lots of choice this month “Wuthering Heights”,If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Sirat and as ever you can just come along to chat about these or any films you’ve seen recently without necessarily seeing them on the night.
This British-born director who became an important international film-maker died in October last year, aged 90. He made a number of important films categorised as docudramas, though alternative documentaries would cover his varied work better. His distinctive approach was to present historic, contemporary or possible future events in a newsreel or TV style, highlighting both political narratives but also thee treatment of these by the media. His uncompromising approach did not fit with the dominant values of the mainstream media and his work was censored, banned or just difficult for audiences to access.
In the early 1960s he was working at the BBC. He first made a docu-drama about the battle of Culloden, 1745. His innovation was to present the battle through the eyes of a C20th reporter and film crew, with the reporter interviewing participant from the Highland and British armies during the battle. This radical presentation met with critical and audience praise.
The BBC then commissioned Watkins to direct a documentary about the effects of a nuclear attack; at a time when disquiet and opposition to nuclear weapons was a central issue in Britain. The finished film, The War Game, presented a dystopian vision of a post-nuclear attack in Kent, likely to shock viewers. It certainly shocked the BBC and the Government; the film was banned from Television though ‘selected audiences’ were able to view it in the cinema. In one of those ironies in the transatlantic alliance the Hollywood Academy awarded the film Best Documentary.
Our first event of our 2026 calendar will be First Thursday on 5th February. We will aim to meet in the bar around 7:30pm between the screenings of Nouvelle Vague at 17:40 and No Other Choice at 20:10 and some of us will stay to watch No Other Choice.
We’re just coming back to bleary–eyed reality after spending the eighteen days of Leeds International Film Festival dashing in and out of darkened rooms seeing fabulous films. Now we have December’s First Thursday and our Christmas screening just around the corner.
For our December meet up on Thursday 4th we will be getting together in the bar area from about 8pm between the 17.20 screening of Wake up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and the 20.45 screening of Pillion. We hope to see some of you there for a drink and chat.
Our Christmas Screening this year is Tokyo Godfathers on Wednesday 17th December, doors will be open from 5:30pm and you may want to come along early for some extra festive treats. We’ll have more news on that soon
This year’s Festival runs from November 12th until December 6th, including two titles appearing in the Leeds International Film Festival. The complete programme is presented on the LPFF webpages. There are twelve events, both feature titles and documentaries, and art/activity events.
Happily, several of the screenings are at the Hyde Park Picture House. These include two much anticipated new works from Palestinian and Arab film-makers.
The Great Arab Revolt 1936 -1939
In the coming week there is a screening of Palestine 36 (2025); it is already sold out but there are further screenings of the feature in December. This is the latest feature from Annemarie Jacir and the screening on the 20th includes an introduction with a recorded video from the director. Her two previous productions are among the most interesting of recent Palestinian movies. Wajib ( 2017) is set in contemporary Nazareth and explores the Palestinian community as a father and son hand out invitations to a wedding. When I Saw You (2012) is set in Jordan in 1967 as another Nakba forces more Palestinians into exile while Fedayeen develop the armed resistance to Zionist occupation and aggression. Now with Palestine 36, Jacir returns to the Great Palestinian Revolt against British occupation from 1936 to 1939. A rebellion by the dispossessed Palestinian people against British colonial rule, it was brutally suppressed by the British military, aided by the armed Zionist militia. The defeat of the rebellion laid the ground for the 1947/8 Nakba. Yet it has been over-looked in much of the discussion of the settler colonial occupation in the west. Note, Wikipedia has a detailed page on the rebellion.
Then there is The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025), a drama-documentary that recreates the ordeal and death of a five-year old child under fire from the Zionist military; it is harrowing viewing. The case was widely publicised in the media and the details of the atrocity are given on a Wikipedia page. The feature is directed by the Tunisian film-maker Kaouther Ben Hania. Her previous feature, 4 Daughters (2023) was a really distinctive drama-documentary exploring women’s situation in Tunisian society. This title also has further screenings at the Picture House in December.
There has already been a screening of Yalla Parkour (2024) and there will be Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (2025). These and other presentations in the Festival explore Palestinian resistance and their support across the world. As well as offering varied examples of fine film-making and supporting activities the Festival continues to present the the resistance of the Palestinian People to the ongoing Zionist genocide and ethnic-cleansing. As has been the case for decades the ruling classes in Europe and North America continue to support Zionist war crimes, though among the oppressed peoples support for the Palestinians is strong. So the Festival is an important part of the ongoing support for Palestine and for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign.
Four our First Thursday meetup we’ll be getting together in the bar around 8pm after the screening of La Grazia on the 6th November and hope to see you there.
Let us know what else you’re planning on seeing or if you have any recommendations in the comments below.
Friends of Hyde Park Picture House 