A collaboration between Ark and Margate Film Festival, celebrating Jewish culture in the UK.
About Canvey:
(40 min, documentary)
Stamford Hill has been associated with its ultra-Orthodox Jewish residents since the 1800s but as properties have become increasingly out of reach, some families have decided it is time to move. A community has started to develop in Canvey Island, which in 2013 was voted the most English place in Britain. This extended version of the fascinating BBC documentary follows one family from London as they adjust to their new home and explores the challenges of integration awaiting both the newcomers and the existing, non-Jewish Canvey Islanders.
This event is part of L’Chaim!, a series of events celebrating the heritage of our building. L’Chaim is part of Jewish Culture Month (16 May – 16 June), a new national festival celebrating Jewish life in the UK.
Plus short films:
Samuel-613
Billy Lumby | 2015, UK, 15 mins
Dir. Charlotte Peters, Writer/Prod. Olivia Maiden | 2025, UK, 19min [Local Film]
Birmingham, 1979. An orphaned girl and her estranged uncle try to navigate their shared grief, connecting through faith, hope, and the creation of a kite
My Amulet
Dir Leah Thorn | 2011, UK, 7min
Set among the beehives and high heels, fur stoles and Ford Zephyrs of 60’s and 70’s London suburbia, My Amulet offers a personal take on Anglo-Jewish Ashkenazi identity. Combining kaleidoscopically-edited handheld Super 8 with current digital video footage and a commissioned soundscape by Moshik Kop & Yaniv Fridel, the film delivers poet Leah Thorn’s spin on assimilation, acculturation and ‘other such aggravation’. A creative collaboration between Leah, Ben Hole and Ruth Novaczek