Sat 14 Nov: Splash!

SORRY – THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Dir. Ron Howard / USA 1984 / 111 minutes / PG

An 80s classic, this charming ‘fish-out-of-water’ romantic comedy propelled Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah to Hollywood’s front rank.

Hannah plays the mermaid who arrives in New York to find the boy she saved from drowning many years ago.  Hanks and Hannah make a pair of charismatic leads, and sidekick John Candy gets the best gags. Director Ron Howard piles on the good-natured fun and manages to keep soppiness at bay.

Where: Wavelengths Leisure Pool, Giffin St, Deptford SE8 4RJ. Map
When: 7pm Saturday 14 November 2015
Tickets: £15 includes free swim.

★★★★ “A romantic comedy that is as salty and bracing as a plunge in the surf.” Time

★★★★ “A perfectly light, warmly funny romantic comedy that’s kept afloat by unobtrusive direction and charming performances” Rotten Tomatoes

Part of BFI Love, in partnership with Plusnet, this programme is supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London and proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network bfi.org.uk/love

There is something quietly wonderful about a community film club that treats cinema as a shared ritual rather than a product on a shelf. In neighbourhoods where multiplexes have closed or never arrived, the simple act of gathering for a single screening becomes its own kind of resistance. A film club stitches together neighbours, neighbours’ friends, and the curious passers-by who wander in because a poster caught their eye. The result is an audience assembled by enthusiasm rather than algorithm, ready to laugh, gasp, or fall silent together. Over time that habit of showing up, watching, and lingering afterwards builds a small, durable culture of its own.

Special screenings in unusual venues give familiar films a second life. A romantic comedy projected beside a leisure centre pool, or a musical blaring across a deck on a summer evening, asks the audience to step outside their ordinary expectations and rediscover what cinema can feel like. The setting does not compete with the film so much as amplify it, adding texture, temperature, and a sense of occasion. Sound bounces differently off tiled walls than it does in a velvet-seated auditorium, and audiences respond to that shift, laughing a little louder, settling in a little faster.

Foreign-language films, arthouse discoveries and beloved classics all share space in a programme built on curiosity rather than trend-chasing. A club night might move from a Tuareg road movie to a golden-era musical without apology, trusting the audience to travel between registers. That willingness to mix eras and genres keeps the season feeling alive, and gives viewers permission to revisit old favourites with fresh eyes or take a chance on something completely unfamiliar. The pleasure lies partly in the surprise, in trusting a programmer who clearly enjoys the work of assembling a list worth showing up early for.