Cannes…Sundance…Tropfest…and now introducing the Marquis of Granby International Film Festival!  Held on Tuesday 4 November at the Marquis of Granby, located at 2 Rathbone Place, this is the second annual short film festival hosted by the Marquis.

The brainchild of Fitzrovia resident and freelance cameraman Jason Stander to provide a platform for local filmmakers, it was introduced to coincide with the (slightly) more prestigious London Film Festival held in Leicester Square.  Although with this particular festival being held in a pub it was less “champagne and red carpets” and more “pints and sticky floorboards”.

But the setting of the Marquis provided a pleasant neighbourhood feel, with the majority of the crowd being made up of regulars, friends of the filmmakers, and other members of the local film community.  With first prize consisting of an engraved pint glass, this competition was clearly more about having fun – and an excuse to spend a Tuesday night in the pub.

“It’s made in a pub, by people in a pub, for people who drink in a pub,” says Jason.  With the only stipulation being that the short films must take place in or around the Marquis of Granby the range of entries included an account of a Fitzrovian alien invasion, a music video, a touching black and white ghost story and the classic “man walks into a pub” joke with a slight twist.

Jason himself starred in fifth-placed “0 to Drunk in 60 Seconds”, an amusing fast-forwarded view of two men spending the day in the pub, with cameras creatively mounted right in front of their faces capturing their descent into inebriation.

Holding a film festival in a pub didn’t only benefit the attendees: “I’ll be honest, we did all hold rather a large number of ‘planning meetings’ in the pub,” admits Jason.  But even with all that “planning” at least one of the films was not actually completed until moments before the competition was due to start. 

Fortunately the final rush to finish his film didn’t affect filmmaker James Dean, who came in first place with “Time At The Pub”, a clever tale of a clone-creating toilet time machine.  James, of Liminal, a production company based in Riding House Street, also took home the coveted pint glass last year. 

With the concentration of production companies in Fitzrovia resulting in a community of filmmakers centred around the Marquis of Granby, landlady Dani Higginson was a driving force behind getting the festival up and running.  “We are surrounded by the media here, it seems like the perfect place to showcase local talent, and have a bit of a laugh,” she says.  While not only happily supplying the pub as a set, Dani herself appeared as a metallic-skinned alien in second-placed “Fitzrovia Aliens” by Titch Productions.