A London film enthusiast has produced a festival schedule of such complexity that watching any of the films would now be an unwelcome interruption.
The spreadsheet contains colour-coded venues, journey estimates and a separate tab for alternatives in case an ambitious first choice becomes financially or physically impossible.
Its creator, Alice Fenwick, initially hoped to see four films. She now has thirteen provisional bookings, three irreconcilable clashes and a system for measuring how much disappointment each cancellation would cause.
She describes the exercise as an essential part of discovering cinema. So far she has discovered two account passwords, a booking fee and the fact that one venue is much further away than its name suggests.
Friends have invited her to see something together, but this would require restructuring an afternoon already optimised for a film she may not enjoy.
Alice says spontaneity remains central to the festival experience. It has been allocated a forty-minute window between a screening and a discussion, subject to the earlier film ending punctually.
She plans to publish her recommendations once the festival finishes.
The first will be to start booking earlier. The second will be a particularly strong endorsement of staying home and watching something that has already been paid for.
