Northampton cinema reopens with Christmas movie 'mash-ups'

Illustration student Charlotte Rudge put Miss Piggy into a scene from Die Hard for the Northampton Filmhouse

An independent cinema has celebrated its reopening with a series of Christmas "mash-up" movie scenes created by local students.

The Northampton Filmhouse, run by the Royal & Derngate theatre, has been close since March due to Covid-19.

Students from the University of Northampton's BA Illustration course have created pictures and animations which will be shown before films.

Combinations to have teamed up include Home Alone with Elf or with Die Hard.

Chief executive of the theatres, Jo Gordon, said the artwork was "a joy".

Buddy from Elf teamed up with Home Alone's Kevin McCallister in Laura Mckenzie's illustration

Bonnie Hadman combined George Bailey from It's A Wonderful Life with Buddy from Elf

Students were each given a well-known Christmas movie and asked to create a "mash-up" with another popular festive film.

The films also included The Muppet Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life.

Michael Caine's Scrooge from The Muppet Christmas Carol looks at Bruce Willis as John McClane from Die Hard in the illustration by Deimante Judickaite

Georgia Haines created a "mash-up" of Die Hard and Elf

Ms Gordon said: "Creative learning opportunities are very central to our work at Royal & Derngate."

She said she hoped the students would enjoy seeing their illustrations "put to good use and brought to a wider audience" as supporting features.

Julie Jahant brought together Home Alone and Die Hard

Kevin McCallister from Home Alone joins Kermit and Scrooge from The Muppet Christmas Carol in the illustration by Katie Bell

The two-screen cinema reopened on Friday with help from a £2.1m grant from the government's £1.57bn support package for the arts.

Seating capacity has been reduced and cinema-goers will be given a specific time to arrive to reduce queuing.

Kevin McCallister from Home Alone joins the Muppets for Christmas in the picture from Mia McNiff

Zoe Taylor, senior lecturer for the BA Illustrations course, said: "It's been great for the students to have had a real live project to get their teeth into, on such a fun topic, and to get some insight into the operations, marketing and branding of an organisation like Northampton Filmhouse."

Stephen Hopper has Kevin McCallister from Home Alone taking on John McClane from Die Hard in the famous paint can scene

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