Arun Film

The Arun area has a long history connected with film & tv production, cinemas, film festivals, clubs & societies, dating back to 1907, and yet many movie buffs in the region are unaware of its rich history, what has taken place in the past, and what is going on today.

Film enthusiast Simon Meade, originally from Berkshire, but a Bognor Regis resident since 2018. has been going to the cinema since 1967 – his first big screen encounter, aged just five years old, was being totally mesmerised by Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book.

Since that early experience Simon has has dabbled in 16mm student film production, been involved in film festival planning and film journalism, even a short stint at Pinewood Studios where he saw cinema stars such as Peter Cushing, Faye Dunaway, Ernest Borgnine and Val Kilmer making movies.

Later Simon got to interview some of his favourite film directors such as Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Alfonso Cuaron and Danny Boyle.

He now has created a new website,
www.arunfilm.com
an online Arun Film hub, that he hopes will be the centre point of local film information in the Arun area, linking to every piece of interesting and fascinating film-related fact that he can find.

Simon has already been inundated with leads and suggestions via the many Facebook groups for Bognor Regis, Arundel, Littlehampton and many places in between.

He is creating this purely on a voluntary basis, with a lot of research still to carry out. However Simon will be ready to upload the first wave of information on the Arun Film site on 1st June for people to explore and perhaps provide more leads and also suggest amendments and improvements, with more content being added regularly.

If you have any information, ideas, or know people who can help, please email simon@arunfilm.com. Simon comments:

“I’m not planning to make an online encyclopedic epic, I haven’t the time to watch every old newsreel, every documentary, every short film or feature length drama, it would take too long, but I do want to share as much fun and interesting information about them, along with the region’s long cinema history. From 1907 to the present day, there are a lot of fascinating details and stories to explore!”