Written by Malik Hilliman.
Malik is a Staff Writer for Novel Entertainment by day and tests the limits of how much a person should talk about film and TV by night.
Nothing good generally comes from an automated rejection email, which often concludes with the classic line ‘thank you for your time’. But outside of the large amounts of ice cream you may consume to get over a rejection like this, one good thing can sometimes be an idea.
This is exactly what happened to my colleague Onyero and I, when we decided to put ourselves forward for a position on the ICO (Independent Cinema Office) Advisory Group. As well as hard selling our ‘two heads are better than one’ theory we also had to describe our love of cinema and we realised one thing: We really love cinema! We talked for hours about the first films we fell in love with, our first experiences at the cinema, and how this influenced us as the people we are today.
Curious about whether other people felt the same way, we decided to write a series of blogs, starting with our first memories of falling in love with films, and then interviewing others to find out about their first cinematic loves.
So let’s take a moment to thank the ICO Advisory Board for that rare rejection that brings about some good; we may not have got an interview but we did rediscover those beautiful “movies that made us”.
Here’s my story.
In 2003, at the tender age of 7, I moved to England from Guyana. You might be wondering, ‘why on earth would you leave the South American weather for England?’ Well firstly, no one told me it would be quite this rainy. But the real reason is much more pragmatic. In Linden, the small town in Guyana where I grew up, they hosted an open call for new nurses. My Mum accompanied her friend, with absolutely no intention of becoming a nurse. But somehow they both signed up, my Mum got the job and her friend didn’t (a friendship breaking moment, my Mum would later tell me) and this seemingly chance decision- is what led her coming over to England as a nurse.
So we made the move across shores and settled in Maidstone, Kent. It was quite a culture shock. Specifically, sitting in what I believed to be a fun and unique restaurant called McDonald’s, my sister and I ordered a Happy Meal and received a small toy of a boy in a green leotard, who was apparently called Peter Pan! After some hours (okay, days) of begging, my Dad volunteered (or my Mum volunteered my Dad more specifically) to take us to the cinema to watch P.J Hogan’s live-action Peter Pan (2003). Thankfully he managed not to take us to the 1924 silent movie adaptation!
This was my first experience at the cinema. Packed into a busy Odeon, sat at the edge of my seat. Not even my Dad’s snoring throughout the majority of the film (the magic was somehow lost on him?) could ruin the experience. It was an escape of the kind I hadn’t experienced yet.
As soon as we got home I started making up my own stories, running around my back garden on my own, pretending I was Peter Pan, dodging my own imaginary pirates, and saving my own metaphorical Wendy. It’s safe to say I was completely hooked (HA! Who doesn’t like a hook pun? No apologies for that!). I’d discovered that coming up with stories is easy until you try to do it for a living!
Years later my Mum told me that she would frequently get phone calls from teachers, concerned about the extent to which I seemed to exist in my own world. These teachers didn’t know that I was saving Neverland, so there was hardly time to talk to anyone else!
Nevertheless, I had found my new love. Escaping to the cinema to be transfixed into a new world, a world where you didn’t have to grow up, a world of adventure.
And while you can’t run around at the age of 26 pretending you’re Peter Pan on your own in a park (or you really shouldn’t), the imagination this film planted in me has stuck with me forever. It turns out there’s a version of running around, pretending to be someone else that is socially acceptable – it’s called writing.
It’s safe to say that without my Dad reluctantly taking my sister and I to Peter Pan that night in 2003, I wouldn’t be writing this now.
So, thank you to Mum, thank you to Dad, thank you to Peter Pan.
And most importantly… Thank you to cinema, for the awfully big adventure that never ends!