Amateur film-making in Bradford was once a glamorous pastime. At the height of the Bradford Movie Makers’ powers there was a seven-year waiting list for membership, hundreds attended the organisation’s annual film festival and every year bus loads of immaculately dressed members would descend on the seaside town of Bridlington for their summer trip.
Fast forward to 2019 and former club president Colin Egglestone, now 89, was outside in the middle of winter in pitch darkness determinedly painting over the graffiti on the doors of the clubhouse. It would barely last the evening before a fresh set of scribbles appeared. Bradford Movie Makers – set up in 1932 as Bradford Cine Circle – was in trouble. It had an ageing membership that barely reached double figures, with no new blood coming in. The organisation was five years behind on the rent, its premises a constant target for vandalism, break-ins and fly-tipping, and its backyard a convenient dumping ground for anything from fridges to condoms to used needles. The end looked imminent.
Now, with the aid of a Covid small business grant and a truly dedicated membership, things are looking healthier. The grant paid for a wall to be erected to keep vandals out, along with a refurb of the clubhouse, and soon new members began to join. The group and its history are now the subject of a documentary, A Bunch of Amateurs, which has just premiered at the Sheffield international documentary festival. It quickly became a word-of-mouth sensation, receiving standing ovations and winning the Audience award. It is a profoundly moving and funny film that acts as an extraordinary document of the power of community and art.
The film paints a portrait of a disparate group of characters who are bound together, not only through a love of film but also a deep friendship. “I was quite touched because people were asking which friends we’d be bringing to the 90th party, and Phil said: ‘I’ve got all my friends here at the club,’” says 86-year-old Harry Nicholls, before Phil Wainman, one of the youngest members at 49, dryly retorts: “What I meant was that I have no other friends outside the club.”
Nicholls’s history with the club goes back decades. If you were wandering the streets of Bradford back in 1979 you may have stumbled on him in front of a camera dressed as Captain Marvel in his wife’s pink tights. While the club primarily makes original films, short and long, from comedy to drama, Nicholls has a taste for remakes that extends to recently playing Superman, superimposed flying over the flickering lights of Bradford at night. He also recreated the opening scene of Oklahoma!, riding a white stallion and singing Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’, complete with Stetson hat and neckerchief. When he proposed that they remake the scene, however, he overlooked one problem: “How’s he going to get on a horse? He’s 80-odd,” someone points out in the documentary, before a suggestion comes. “We could get a Shetland pony, I suppose?” The end result was weeks of work at home for Joe Ogden, who had the task of CGI-ing Nicholls’s head on to the body of a woman who rode a white horse around a field in Nicholls’s outfit.
It’s a scenario that captures the essence of the group: something that may seem comical is also underpinned by talent, creative problem-solving and a collaborative approach to film-making that has seen the club produce hundreds of films over the years. These vary from Wainman’s more arty experimental shorts, such as Halloween horror The Haunted Turnip, to local history documentary Bradford in the Frame. Ogden alone is currently working on around 16 films of varying length and genre. “The club is very prolific,” says Nicholls. “A lot of us have really studied the art of movie-making, the proper language of film.” They all chip in too. “I will do anything for someone else’s film,” says Wainman.
The club has proved to be personally significant for many of its members. “I’m trying to occupy my nights because I lost my dear wife,” says Nicholls. “Then I lost my younger brother and what really shook me is that I lost my daughter. So I’m trying to keep myself occupied creatively, making films and staying with my friends. You’ve been used to having a family and you’re left on your own. The next-door neighbours are having a barbecue and they’re all laughing and joking and the people on the other side have children out playing and I’m just in on my own. To be able to go to the club is an outlet socially.”
Similarly for Wainman, who is a carer for his disabled brother, the club means a lot. “It’s leaving the problems of the real world,” he says. “We go in and we lock ourselves in our own little world. My dad died and my care responsibilities have got tougher, so I’ve become more isolated and it’s harder for me to get out. I live for my film-making. I want to be a professional film-maker. I know bugger all else about life but that creative thing of wanting to write scripts, work with actors, edit films … that’s there. And if I lost that, there would be nothing there.”
Having followed the organisation around at the club and at home, including during some of the most testing and isolated moments of their lives during lockdown, A Bunch of Amateurs director Kim Hopkins has seen how important the club is up close. “Where social services have failed people, I think the club has stepped in and kept that community going,” she says. “Thousands of people have been up those rickety stairs and had a lot of pleasure out of that place. It’s really valuable. In the pandemic we all got a taste of what it might be like to feel isolated. What I witnessed was the club really helping them – it saved them.”
But there’s also pride in the work. The title of the film refers to a split in the club a few years ago, when it was put to a vote that they move from their dilapidated clubhouse to a Conservative club. “I wouldn’t be seen dead in a Conservative club,” says Wainman. “But some older members wanted it to be like a gentleman’s private film club, where they just show old films and talk about the old days.” The majority voted to stay put, causing several members to leave and one to proclaim, on storming out: “You’re a bunch of amateurs.” But, in the title of the documentary, it’s a badge of honour, not an insult. “Professional films need to make money, but as amateur film-makers we can actually tell stories,” says Ogden. “Our stories are just as important as any big Marvel film or any other stuff around.”
The group’s current president, Marie McCahery, is feeling optimistic about the future of the club ahead of its major milestone. “It’s rejuvenated,” she says. “With the Covid money, the documentary and Bradford becoming city of culture in 2025, I feel confident of our future.” Many film clubs have closed in recent years, including one in Leeds, but there are still many dotted around the country, from Burnley to Newcastle upon Tyne. “I’m hoping the film will encourage the rejuvenation of other clubs,” says McCahery. “We don’t want to be the only one left standing.” One of the aims of the 90th party is “to do Colin proud”, she says, of the member who is only one year younger than the club itself. On the day his wife died, he still made it to the club out of a sense of commitment, as well as to seek comfort. “I’ll keep going until I’m in my coffin,” he says.
A Bunch of Amateurs will be released later this year.
