HippFest

16/07/2026

We'd quite like a return of elaborate hats, please Open Culture 🎩 👒

'The melting pot demographic of the nickelodeon could be exhilarating, and audience members found they sometimes lost their inhibitions. “Somehow you enter into the spirit of the thing,” observed author W.W. Winters in 1910. “Don’t you slip away from yourself, lose your reticence, reserve, pride, and a few other things?”'

📰 Read in full:

I admit, I sometimes pay a premium at a certain dinner theater chain with a lobby-slash-bar designed to look like classic indie video stores of yore. It’s not only the padded recliners and half-decent grub that keeps me coming back. Nope, it’s the rules.

13/07/2026

Final reminder! There's only 1️⃣ week left to apply for the role of Freelance Marketing Officer, working as part of the team behind HippFest 2027.

If successful, you will be responsible for the planning, budgeting and delivery of the Festival’s strategic marketing plan, overseeing creation of marketing content and materials, email campaigns, monitoring ticket sales and liaising with Box Office, managing the designer (freelance) and ensuring that HippFest webpages are maintained and updated. The deadline for applications is 10AM, Monday 20 July.

📂 Download the recruitment pack/ find out how to apply: https://www.hippodromecinema.co.uk/get-involved/jobs/hippfest-2027-marketing-officer/
📸 Photography by Diana Dumi.

30/06/2026

Reminder! Falkirk Council are looking for two skilled individuals working as part of the friendly and dedicated HippFest 2027 team. We are currently recruiting:

🟡 Freelance Marketing Officer - closing date: 10AM, Monday 20 July
🟡 Freelance Producer - closing date: 10AM, Monday 10 August

For more information on both positions and to download the recruitment packs/ apply: https://www.hippodromecinema.co.uk/get-involved/jobs/

26/06/2026

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to yooou... 🎂 New podcast alert, and it's a Filmhouse Edinburgh celebration!

Filmhouse are turning one - technically tomorrow - and so this month we hear from Program Manager Raymah Tariq, reflecting on the first year running since re-opening in June 2025. Ft. a peek behind-the-scenes at programming strategy, first birthday celebrations including 'We Have A Cinema And We're Not Afraid To Use It', and how silent film/ wider repertory cinema fits into contemporary scheduling.

🎧 Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5rdvOGs45XX7ChvRqtggNV?si=Rg2i9kErQn-jvHezUGBvRg
🖥️ Full episode transcript here: https://hippfest.wordpress.com/2026/06/26/hippcast-episode-36/

25/06/2026

🥳🥳🥳

🎉 Bo’ness Fair Day at The Hippodrome 🎉
Join us on Friday 26th June as we celebrate Bo’ness Fair Day at Scotland’s oldest cinema, The Hippodrome 🎬
We’ll be screening Bo’ness Fair films on loop throughout the day—a perfect way to relive the tradition and soak up the atmosphere.
✨ Free flow event – no tickets required
(Entry managed on the door to ensure a comfortable experience)
☕ Our café & bar will be open 10am–3pm, serving drinks and snacks—please support the venue while you’re here 💛
📍 The Hippodrome, Bo’ness
⚠️ Please note: Due to licensing, all alcohol purchased must be consumed on the premises.
Come in, take a seat, and be part of a very special local celebration.

25/06/2026

A small selection of photos from 'Foreshore Fragments', a free mudlarking walking tour with artist and educator Eva Jack as part of HippFest 2026. 💎

Once a thriving centre of industrial activity, Bo’ness still holds traces of its past, revealed with each low tide. Armed with notebooks and curious eyes, participants in this session were led by Eva to discover the practice of mudlarking, gathering fragments of pottery, glass, metal and other tactile remnants of the town’s heritage. Thank you Eva!

📷 Photography by Kat Gollock.

23/06/2026

WE ARE HIRING! 📋 Falkirk Council are looking for a highly organised, detail-focussed Freelance Producer to oversee all production aspects of HippFest 2027.

Working as part of the friendly and dedicated team, this is a great role for a highly organised and committed person with an unerring eye for detail and a passion for putting on exceptional events. The Producer will be instrumental in the continued success of this much-loved and internationally respected film festival.

📌 More info/ recruitment pack: https://www.hippodromecinema.co.uk/get-involved/jobs/hippfest-2027-freelance-producer/
⏰ Closing date: 10AM, Monday 10 August

18/06/2026

Reminder: we are on the lookout for a Freelance Marketing Officer to join the HippFest 2027 team.

You will be responsible for the planning, budgeting and delivery of the Festival’s strategic marketing plan, overseeing creation of marketing content and materials, email campaigns, monitoring ticket sales and liaising with Box Office, managing the designer (freelance) and ensuring that HippFest webpages are maintained and updated.

📌 More info: https://www.hippodromecinema.co.uk/get-involved/jobs/hippfest-2027-marketing-officer/
⏰ Deadline for applications: 10AM, Monday 20 July 2026
📷 Photo from our 2026 Friday Night Gala, credit: Kat Gollock

15/06/2026

An interesting piece from 25-year-old Jared Griffiths, considering how to attract younger audiences to silent comedy, and reflecting on Neil Brand's recent Laurel & Hardy Centenary Tour.

'I think it’s important to remember film and TV of the past, especially since a lot of stuff we see today would’ve been influenced by what came before. I enjoy events by Talking Pictures TV, celebrating classic film and television. At the last few I’ve been to, I have been increasingly seeing people on the younger side attending. But I’m always one of the younger people there.'

📰 Read in full over at Voice:

In this post I explore how much or how little today's generation is interested in certain things that might be seen as a bit old-fashioned to some, from physical media to the classic joy of Laurel and Hardy movies.

12/06/2026

Have you tuned in to Episode 35 of our Festival Podcast? 🎧 In our latest release, we hear from silent film polymath Ben Model, who digs into some of the key themes in recent publication: The Silent Film Universe.

"I'm not an academic. I don't relate to a lot of that stuff, the polysyllabic words you have to stop and look up every five seconds. But I knew that I understood the language of silent film, having gone on the ride with thousands of movies, with thousands of shows over, you know, four decades or so..."

"I've always been interested in why does this work? Why does silent film, why can you show silent film to anyone, anywhere on the planet of any age, and they'll still get it?"

📻 Listen to the episode OR
💻 Read the accompanying show notes
⛓️ Both via the link in our bio!