Dannevirke's Regent Cinema To Hold 'CANS Film Festival'

Bring a can of food for the food banks in lieu of purchasing a ticket

Clare Green, one of the volunteers of the cinemas operator, the MovieFest Charitable Trust, recently stated that "The growing number of volunteers assisting with the operation of the Regent Cinema in Dannevirke have come up with the idea of helping the local community by organising an event that will achieve two objectives.

The first is to provide the two Dannevirke food banks with a much needed supply of canned foods, and secondly to give the local residents an opportunity to examine what they have taken on board and are doing with the cinema.”

She went on to say "This special event will commence at the beginning of August and will kick off with a screening of the amazing story one of New Zealander, who with his enormous passion, has amassed the world's largest private collection of large mainline steam locomotives."

He now has over 20 of them in scattered around New Zealand, as well as in Australia and South Africa, with many of them having already been restored to run and still able to, with a few having been up through the Tararua on many occasions, on the way to either Napier or Gisborne.

The man in question, Ian Welch, will be coming to Dannevirke on Saturday evening the 6th August, and his appearance and film will initiate the start of the 'CANS Film Festival', that will run each screening day with a different film at differing times until the following Sunday.

The price of admission will be one good can of food for each person attending the various films, that are being advertised on our web site, Instagram and Facebook pages, with all the cans being be donated to the Dannevirke food banks.

The cinema has been a hive of activity and new people are stepping up to volunteer regularly with more still needed, and Clare noted, "This event will signal the inception of regular events such as festivals, screenings of special films such as early black and white ones including some silent ones, and concerts on a portable stage that we will soon be constructing.

We are also about to commence the construction of a small 16 seat theatrette at the rear of the foyer area, that will be screening free to view historical films including ’This is New Zealand' during the day, and feature films in the evening.”

We have had some filmmaking equipment used by the National Film Unit donated and some of these items are currently on display with others going to join them in the weeks to come.

The Regent Cinema is fast getting back to its former glory days of being a salient part of the Dannevirke community, however we will be expanding its role beyond just screening new movies.

With the donated digital cinema projector, we are unable to screen the latest movies owing to a revised policy by the major producers of films, and until we can raise the around $80,000 needed to purchase a new one and the accompanying computer server, we are making the most of being able to revisit some of the cherished films of fifty or more years ago.

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