Just Shoot Film is Sponsoring Norwich Film Festival 2026!

It started with a room full of people who care about making things.

In 2025 I was invited to the meet and greet and Friends of the Festival opening for Norwich Film Festival. Just Shoot Film had only just started running again after a slightly difficult start, and it was well on its way to becoming an integral part of the Norwich creative scene. Walking into that room felt like a sign we were heading the right way.

I met Joe Bird and Rory Heaton from the festival's marketing and production team, and the conversation quickly turned to the project they were part of. Norwich Film Festival has been running since 2009. It is a BAFTA and BIFA qualifying short film festival and a registered charity, and it has been championing filmmakers for years. It is not about photographic film, but its cornerstone is still the physical, analogue craft of making moving images. Digital plays its part, but the heart of it is respect for the original medium.

Another conversation that night stayed with me. I got talking to Professor Richard Sawdon Smith from Norwich University of the Arts, where I studied from 2006 to 2009. We both spoke passionately about the importance of analogue photography and analogue creativity in a world that feels increasingly digital, and increasingly shaped by AI. I used the darkrooms in my first year, but for my final two years I was heavily discouraged from shooting on film, and the darkrooms were removed altogether in 2011. Now, with the resurgence of film, the university is keen to bring them back. I was genuinely glad to hear it.

I believe that if you want to be a good photographer, you should learn analogue first, even if you go digital later. It slows you down. It teaches you patience and discipline, and both will serve you well whichever direction you take. Students, or anyone really, should be given the option to decide for themselves.

Over the following months, Joe and Rory became semi-regular customers at Just Shoot Film Photo Lab. The more we chatted, the more we realised we had in common. Sometime in the next few years, we would like to explore developing motion picture stock, whether that is Super 8, Super 16, 16mm or 35mm. First we need to get the fundamentals perfected, but it is a path I would love to go down.

This year, I was invited to be a sponsor of the festival, which is a great honour. And who could resist a screening of Don't Look Now, Nicolas Roeg's wonderful 1973 horror starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, projected on 35mm? It is followed by a live discussion with Matthew Holness, creator of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and writer-director of Possum, and Mike Muncer, host of The Evolution of Horror podcast. Real film, on a real projector, in a proper cinema. A different medium to the photographic film we process, but the same belief in the physical, analogue craft.

The festival itself runs from 6th to 15th November 2026. Come and see what independent filmmaking in Norwich looks like.

Get your tickets: Don't Look Now (35mm) + Q&A at Cinema City Norwich Film Festival events and tickets

Find out more: Norwich Film Festival website About the festival Norwich Film Festival on Instagram