For more than three decades Portobello Film Festival has been celebrating independent film making and festival culture at the original epicentre of the British Underground. Free to enter and free to attend, the festival is an annual reminder of a time when Ladbroke Grove was to London what San Francisco was to America.
At a multicultural crossroads and with a unique blend of cheap (or no) rent, open spaces and independent venues, the area provided the perfect conditions for a vibrant music and art scene with psychedelic rock developing alongside the Notting Hill Carnival.
One of this year’s highlights is a feature on Laura Del-Rivo, Britain’s first female beatnik author whose debut novel provided the inspiration for Michael Winner’s West 11. Supplementing her income by trading on Portobello Road Market while continuing to write about the changing life of the neighbourhood, she was affectionately known as “The Tights Lady”.
A curated evening on 17 September is dedicated to Pink Floyd and to collective art-making. Original shorts from the late 60s are shown alongside a newly released documentary on The Exploding Galaxy, a group of artists, musicians, poets and dancers with a shared creative spirit.
Creatives as diverse as Pink Floyd and David Hockney were all based in and around the Grove at the time, with Hockney maintaining lifelong links to the area. He painted one of his most daring early works in support of Oz, a magazine devoted to political dissent. The magazine did not survive the longest obscenity trial in English history, and London’s hippie dream died with it.
The anti-establishment vibe of the Ladbroke Grove freak scene continued and led to the collision of punk rock and reggae. New subcultures developed with the construction of the Westway flyover which is widely considered the birthplace of the British street art scene.
One Foot in the Grove revived the spirit of psychedelia, punk and 80s graffiti with a spectacular display of murals, giant sculptures and fire-breathing robots under the Westway in 2009. While most traces have long since disappeared, a ceramic mural by Carrie Reichardt and the Treatment Rooms Collective remains as a permanent reminder. Members of the collective return with a group show at The Muse to run alongside Portobello Film Festival. The exhibition opening party on 10 September is accompanied by a screening of Vive Le Punk, Danny Garcia’s documentary marking 50 years of punk by following four bands still active today.
Another half-century of free culture is celebrated down the canal at Meanwhile Gardens which was created from waste ground in defiance of urban development and commercialisation. It boasts one of London’s oldest skate parks, rehearsal space for the Metronomes Steel Orchestra and a busker’s festival hosted alongside free community events. Rumours of an anniversary concert with bands who played at Meanwhile over the years are yet to be confirmed.
The opening night at The Gate Picturehouse on 3 September is the only ticketed event. There is no need to book for more than 200 new films. Tomorrow’s cinema today – all free to attend!
