70th Anniversary Gala

70th Anniversary Gala - Invitation only event

We are delighted to present a special double bill to begin the evening, starting with a glass of sparkling wine, followed by our first film with live musical accompaniment from Jonny Best (Northern Silents). After a short interval for tea, coffee and a sweet treat, we will conclude with our second feature.

Harrogate Film Society is proud to celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2025/2026.

HFS has been part of the cultural life of Harrogate for more than half the history of film itself. Founded in 1956, just sixty-one years after the Lumière Brothers began their public screenings in 1895, the Society emerged after the Silent Era and during Hollywood’s Golden Age, when the studio system still flourished and the French New Wave was only just beginning to take shape.

From the outset, the Society has moved confidently with the times, screening films at the forefront of major cinematic movements, including Jiří Menzel’s ‘Closely Observed Trains’ (1966) from the Czech New Wave in Season 15, ‘Diva’ (1981) directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix, an early example of France’s Cinema du Look in Season 29, and Spike Lee’s 1986 debut feature ‘She’s Gotta Have It’, a landmark of American independent cinema in Season 34.

HFS has also honoured cinema’s rich heritage by regularly screening outstanding silent films and important classics from around the world. Each core season programme includes a vintage film celebrating its 50th anniversary, selected by our members. For our 70th Season, that honour went to Miloš Forman’s ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ (1975).

At the heart of the Society’s success is our core season programme, showcasing the very best of world cinema. Although films are now readily available through a wide range of streaming platforms, we continue to curate titles that might otherwise be overlooked, bringing them to the big screen in a warm, welcoming atmosphere with the support of the HFS team and our friends at the Odeon cinema.

Over the past 70 years, we have screened approximately 1,000 films to many thousands of members, supported along the way by around 100 committee members. Over the years, we have also hosted coffee mornings, quizzes, car boot sales, Christmas socials, welcome drinks, study days, guest speakers and discussion groups.

With the benefit of more extensive newspaper archives, we have since discovered that The Harrogate and District Film Society was first inaugurated in spring 1948 and was primarily dedicated to screening educational films. Its first season began in September 1948, with membership priced at 10 shillings for 12 months.

The very first screening, on 6 September 1948, featured a double bill of A Train Entering a Station and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

To mark this remarkable history, we have chosen to screen it once again.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari | 1920 | Germany | B&W | Silent | 69 minutes | IMDb 8.0

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Widely regarded as a defining work of early German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of a hypnotist who uses the somnambulist Cesare to carry out a series of murders. The film is renowned for its striking visual style, with jagged forms, distorted perspectives and painted shadows that create an unsettling, dreamlike world. This highly stylised design has been described as anti-realistic, claustrophobic and severe, reflecting the sense of anxiety associated with the Weimar period in which the film was made.

Singin' in the Rain | 1952 | US | Colour | G | 105 minutes | IMDb 8.0

Singin’ in the Rain is an American musical romantic comedy directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. The film stars Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds, with Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Douglas Fowley, Rita Moreno and Cyd Charisse in supporting roles. It offers a light-hearted portrait of Hollywood in the late 1920s, with its central characters navigating the industry’s transition from silent films to the new era of “talkies”.

The idea for Singin’ in the Rain was conceived by Arthur Freed, drawing on the catalogue of songs he wrote with Nacio Herb Brown. As many of these songs dated from the transition from silent cinema to the arrival of “talkies”, screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green chose to set the story in that period. The plot developed into that of a romantic leading man with a vaudeville background navigating Hollywood’s changing landscape, returning to his song-and-dance roots along the way. Gene Kelly, cast in the lead and collaborating closely with Stanley Donen, responded enthusiastically to the concept. Following its premiere at Radio City Music Hall, the film opened nationwide on 11 April 1952. Although now regarded as a classic, film historians note that MGM originally treated it as a relatively routine musical during production.

·      Screen 5 downstairs - Unreserved seating - four wheelchair spaces - please get in touch to reserve this

·       Doors open at 6.15pm

·       Parking at the Odeon is FREE after 6pm