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50 YEARS OF THE BRITISH FILM COLLECTORS CONVENTION
In a world where retro is becoming increasingly fashionable, it's only right that the out-dated mechanical, photo chemical process known as film is now popular once more. People are travelling long distances in order to see classic and new releases of movies on film and in the case of movies that have been shot and finished with 15/70 IMAX film, some are travelling across continents in order to see the best possible image quality in the best possible venue.
Similarly, there are film enthusiasts around the world who still collect this out-dated medium and also travel great distances in order to attend film collector conventions where films can be bought and sold along with the opportunity to see promotional films, trailers, adverts and newsreels on a big screen in the company of fellow collectors. The original UK film collectors convention, the British Film Collectors Convention is still going and despite a bit of a hiatus in recent times, largely owing to the pandemic, it has returned and is now back in a prestigious venue at the Barn Theatre in Oxted, just south of London, near Croydon with direct trains from Victoria, London Bridge and Croydon. 
It has been 50 years since Paul van Someren and Stephen Herbert organized the very first British Film Collectors Convention at Holborn Library in London. Since then, it has moved to a number of different venues around London and the beautiful new Oxted venue is among the best of them. The intention is to turn the Barn Theatre into a Picture Palace for the day. To complete that ambition Darren Payne from Dirt In The Gate Movies has joined the team and has cleared a full 35mm feature with Park Circus to screen during the early evening. This will be the 1993 blockbuster 'Last Action Hero' directed by John McTiernan and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The early conventions carried on into the evenings and we are now returning to that format with an expected conclusion at around 9pm.  Robert Maynard who manned the BFCC ticket desk for many years recounts the changes he’s seen take place since the BFCC began in 1976.
For two years the conventions were held at the Rembrandt Hotel opposite the Victoria and Albert Museum. This posh venue had separate dealers halls and cinema. At this event Keith’s cut-down of ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ for Derann Films was launched with great success. Virtually every dealer at that event had a copy running on their stand: exciting days. I remember Keith requesting a stunning 16mm Technicolor print of this film from Warner’s with the tale that he needed to view it at the BBC since he wasn’t familiar with the film!  After the death of Paul van Someren, Keith became the joint organizer with Stephen Herbert and eventually when Steve moved on to other things Keith invited David Locke to co-organize. A new venue was being used - the Conway Hall in Red Lion Square which had separate screening and dealing areas. It wasn’t an ideal venue since it was difficult to blackout and rain leaked onto the dealer’s tables in the corridors. The convention was now very popular - particularly after it was featured on the BBC’s Film ’86 programme. Such was the response Keith suggested that it now be held twice yearly. After this the BFCC moved to the Watermans Arts Centre in Brentford which had a 120 seater dedicated cinema. The limited seating prompted a fight to get in on one occasion. It was while using this venue that Keith ‘disappeared’ from work for about a week (leaving me to hold the fort!) and returned with a fabulous 60 minute Super 8 documentary he’d knocked up on Errol Flynn. This was shown twice at the Watermans BFCC's. The next venue was the 1500 seater former Northfields Odeon which by then was known as the 'Top Hat Club'. This opened up more opportunities for Keith, now the sole organizer, to expand the dealer space and show films at their very best and include many shows with stereo sound (re-recorded from LaserDisc or HiFi video) using the club’s powerful 3000 watt sound system. On one occasion Keith, his son Mark and John Clancy built an enormous ‘one-off’ 34ft ‘Scope screen and the modified two-bladed Elmo Xenon GS1200 coped surprisingly well with this giant picture. It was at the Top Hat Club that the lunchtime concerts of film music by the 40 strong BBC Elstree concert band were introduced. These proved to be so popular that one year a special Gala Evening Concert was held with about 18 film and television stars lending their support. When the Top Hat Club closed to become a church, Ealing Town Hall came to the rescue. This move happened at a time when Super 8 releases had started to decline so more 16mm and 35mm shows were introduced to ensure the convention remained as interesting and as relevant as possible. Even a 70mm show, courtesy of Ben Wales, was achieved at the Ealing Town Hall and the addition of the huge 24ft wide ‘Scope screen made sure all of the shows were exhibited to the very best standard that could be achieved. With the introduction of DVD, Keith, aided by John Clancy, both advocates of film projection keeping up with the latest technologies, produced some stunning shows with Super 8 synchronized to Dobly Digital sound. The addition of the BFCC.biz web site, along with the increasingly ambitious shows, all this helped to generate a good reutation for the BFCC as a whole which started to attract film collectors from around the world and this became increasingly obvious on the ticket desk where we almost needed multi-lingual translaters to be able to fully accommodate everyone attending! Sadly Keith Wilton died on 2nd January 2026 so after more than 40 years at the helm, he won't be joining us for the 67th BFCC in Oxted. It will be the first ever BFCC without Keith present but his son Mark will still be on the team which means we will still have a 'Wilton' present just as there always has been. Keith has been the stalwart leading the BFCC since 1982 when he stepped up to be joint organizer alongside founder, Stephen Herbert. Stephen moved onto other things the following year and Keith remained in charge until the 2016 convention at St. Benedicts School in Ealing. He was master of ceremonies at the re-launch of the BFCC at the Churchill Hall in Chorleywood in 2023 but was already a little frail by then so he had to accept that he could no longer climb the ladder to the top of the huge screen to make sure everything was as perfect as he always demanded. It is Keith who kept the BFCC going through the years and we plan to make sure we reach for the heights he always aspired to. That is why the 67th convention will be returning to its roots and running on into the evening. It is also why for the first time we will be screening a 35mm feature full length complete with the requisite licence to do so from Park Circus. The BFCC has always been pushing to achieve the best and this is continuing in 2026.
The BFCC welcomes the return of David Locke to the team. David was involved with the very first convention and was responsible for so much until 1991 when he moved on to help Geoff Wheeler make a success of his Big Screen Time film collector conventions. David has been such a valuable asset to so many film collector gatherings over the last 50 years and this looks set to continue for many years to come. Big Screen Time has also enjoyed a 'Revival' thanks to the enthusiasm of new organizer, David Tatham. He has resurrected these conventions and we are delighted to welcome David Tatham onto the team for the 67th BFCC which will be a joint effort between the BFCC, Big Screen Time, the Blackpool Film Collectors Convention and Darren Payne of Dirt In The Gate Movies. We are aiming to achieve the best possible day for film collectors from far and wide and with the experience coming together for this one, we stand a very good chance of achieving that.  Keith Wilton, Dave Locke and John Clancy at work during the 50th BFCC in October 2005. Ben Wales is working on the sound system for the day and he is relaying everything to Darren Payne to ensure the 35mm shows are as good as they possibly can be. The screen will have to be masked down to around 20 feet in order to fit it behind the Theatre's curtains but we feel this is worthwhile in order to achieve that picture palace impression. Mark Norton is preparing Super 8 and 16mm morning shows for us and will be assisted on the day by Simon McConway - both chaps are from the team who saved the Blackpool conventions and have taken it onto new heights. John Clancy will be assembling Super 8 afternoon shows as well as demonstrations of some 4K UHD discs. But that is going to be a long throw for a home video projector so we will all have to be at the top of our game to ensure that works as well as possible. The idea is to switch from 4K UHD to 35mm so that we can all see and compare the differences between the two. Mark Williams is the man who co-ordinates the dealers as well as many other things. Mark has been doing great work for the film collecting hobby and has just published his second volume all about Super 8 package movies. We hope to have Mark in one of the dealer areas during the morning for anyone who wishes to purchase his latest book, or perhaps both of his books. Mark Wilton will be helping us all as usual as will Mick O'Regan and many other long term BFCC and Blackpool organizers. Much has changed over the years but we feel that film is fashionable again and people want the chance to see real film projected. At the BFCC we will have all the projectors in the auditorium so anyone who wants to see - and hear - a 35mm projector working then this provides a perfect opportunity. Our publicity is aiming primarily at film collectors but we are also going to try to attract the general public with youngsters being a particular focus. We'll have to see how well we do in that regard, but we can only try our best. For the future we will have to take things one step at a time. The 67th BFCC has to cover its costs before we can commit to a 68th BFCC. Having said that, bringing the conventions back was due to crowd funding when 13 of us contributed at least £50 to kick things off for the Chorleywood convention in 2023. A joint event with Renown Films/Talking Pictures in October 2024 added to our funds thanks to Sarah and Noel Cronin of Renown (who will have dealer tables in Oxted so please look for them) and now with a bit of sponsorship from the great Film Is Fabulous charity, setup after the 2023 BFCC by the indefatigable John Franklin, this has all meant we have been able to invest in the hire of The Barn Theatre. We hope you can support us by attending, that you enjoy the whole day from 10.30am until about 9pm, and that we can take things on from this to ever greater heights as a result.
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