Hastings's Electric Palace cinema revives its Book to Film Club

Spokeswoman Annie Mannion said: “The Club will begin with six screenings of film adaptations of inspirational books. You are invited to discuss your thoughts and opinions in a friendly and open discussion forum after the screening. Screenings will start at 7.30pm and will be followed by a discussion of the book and its film adaptation.

“Just turn up on the day if you wish, or email info@electricpalacecinema.com to request more information. Find out more: https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/book-to-film-club

“You can still attend the cinema to enjoy the films and the group without having read the books in advance.”

Upcoming films in the series:

The first two screenings in the series are:

Thursday 29 July, 7.30pm: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014, Iran/ US, 101mins). A skateboarding vampire preys on men who disrespect women in this one-of-a-kind debut 'vampire western'. Based on the graphic novel A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night written by Amirpour, with illustrations by Michael DeWeese, the film is a delightful transfiguration of vampire horror according to the young and feminist restlessness of our current times.

Thursday 26 August, 7.30pm. Zama (Lucrecia Martel, 2017, Argentina/ Brazil/ Spain/ France/ Netherlands/ Mexico/ Portugal/ US, 115mins). Based on the homonymous novel Zama, by Antonio Di Benedetto, published for the first time in 1956. Zama takes place in the late-18th century. Don Diego de Zama, a white clerk born and bred in America serves at the whims of the Spanish crown while dreaming of leaving that ‘despicable end of the world’.

Book now: https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/whats-on/zama

The monthly film screenings will be chaired and hosted by Natalia Christofoletti Barrenha, one of the Electric Palace’s new film programmers. Natalia is a film researcher and programmer who specialises in Latin American cinema. She moved to St Leonards in mid-2020 when the Covid pandemic slowed down for some months.

"As a film lover, when moving to a new place, one of the first things I do is take a look at the local cinema," says Natalia. And then she discovered the Electric Palace. "The cinema was closed then, but I wrote to the director Rebecca who kindly showed me the lovely venue and we had an exciting talk."

Natalia proposed to bring more films from Latin America into the Electric Palace programme. "I was thrilled by how the team welcomed my idea!" she says.

The Electric Palace is a community interest company, an independent cinema in Hastings Old Town that aims to screen a wide range of films for the local community to share and enjoy.

Natalia is the author of two books about Latin American cinema, and is co-editing a volume on directors including Lucrecia Martel's for Edinburgh University Press, which will be published just next year. Find out more about Natalia's publications.

She has worked with film festivals such as the BAFICI – Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente, London Indian Film Festival and São Paulo International Short Film Festival, among others, and has organised several film cycles with her production company Buena Onda Produções.

Natalia holds a doctoral degree in multimedia from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas – UNICAMP (Brazil), and conducted postdoctoral research at the UNICAMP Institute of Language Studies, with a short period as Coimbra Group Visiting Fellow at the KU Leuven (Belgium). She is currently a Visiting Researcher at the Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave.

Find out more about Natalia: https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/meet-our-staff-natalia-christofoletti-barrenha