FILM65

During the University’s 50th anniversary year, Film at the University of Kent presented Film65, an exciting contribution to the 50th anniversary celebrations. Throughout the year, you could watch a season of 12 films released in 1965, each introduced by a name speaker.

1965 was a year when era-defining singles like The Beatles’ ‘Ticket to Ride’ and ‘Help!’ , and The Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’, were outsold by The Seekers’ ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’ and Ken Dodd’s ‘Tears’.

The No.1 album spot was shared exclusively between seven LPs: Beatles for Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul, The Rolling Stones No.2, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home… and the original soundtrack to The Sound of Music.
The highest-grossing films were The Sound of Music, Doctor Zhivago and Thunderball, with What’s New Pussycat?, Von Ryan’s Express and Disney’s That Darn Cat! not far behind.

Film65 proposed to capture the essence of what it was like to go and see a film at your local Rialto, Regal or Essoldo at that time; perhaps you walked through the winter slush, a copy of Freewheelin’ under one arm and the other around your Suze Rotolo lookalike girlfriend.

The season was intended to reflect both commercial and arthouse successes of the year. It was an eye-opening cross-section, recording the impact of spaghetti westerns like For A Few Dollars More, spy movies such as The Ipcress File, and the work of young European auteurs like Milos Forman, Jean-Luc Godard and Roman Polanski. Above all else, stars’ faces dominated: Clint Eastwood, Julie Christie, Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, and Ursula Andress.

Film65 aimed to be a colourful, entertaining, instructive and even astonishing souvenir of 1965.