The Purbeck Film Festival this year sees a feast of European film at the Lighthouse in late October.
One of the ‘themes’ of the Festival this year is Italian film, and that predominates in the Lighthouse programme. The major film directors of the fifties and sixties, sometimes known as the Leopards, are represented well by Visconti’s Bellissima (16th October at 5.50 pm), de Sica’s Sciuscia (21st October at 8.00 pm) and Antonioni’s Red Desert (24th October at 8.20 pm) and La Notte (29th October at 8.10 pm).

The Purbeck Film Festival has an educative function as well as providing entertainment. The Treasurer of the Trust, Michael Jacobs, has for some years run a course for a small group of enthusiasts, where there is the chance to discuss the psychological aspects that certain films portray.

Obviously Ingmar Bergman provides much food for thought, but this coming course, the fourth in as many years, starts in January and for once takes one of his lighter works, Smiles of a Summer Night, as the trigger for discussions about the nature of love. In contrast Haneke’s Funny Games provides the opportunity to think about the impact of screen violence on the psyche.

Continuing the theme of violence, but off screen rather than on it, another film which will be discussed is Equus, Shaffer’s adaption of his play about a boy who blinded horses. How does the psychiatrist understand him – and how do our participants? Completing the course will be discussion of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, which may be a huge puzzle, but throws up issues of the place of fantasy, personalities within a personality, and so on.

Each course is limited in numbers. Discussion revolves around the film with the aid of related papers which deal with psychoanalytic themes – we may not always agree with them, but they are certainly as provocative as the films. There are just one or two places left, and anyone interested should get in touch with Michael at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it It takes place, in Swanage on Wednesday mornings from January through to the first week of March.

We are delighted to present our Festival trailer by Keith Lawes. Keith is a local film maker who has already achieved considerable success with his first two animated shorts, Blind Date and Jab. Both of these were premiered at the PFF, and then went on to screen at other lesser festivals such as Edinburgh, London and Seattle. Blind Date has even been shown with live Wurlitzer accompaniment at venues in the US and Australia.

Enjoy the trailer (you might have to click on it twice to make it run on some computers) and check back soon for news of the 2008 programme. We hope to have tickets on sale on-line in September - you can make sure you find out when by subscribing to our email newsletter...

You can catch Keith’s first film, Blind Date, on YouTube . His second film, Jab, will be screened as a support film to the Corfe Village Hall showing during the Festival.