OffBeat Folk Film Club was set up to celebrate working lives, folk culture and community storytelling in Britain through film.
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OffBeat Folk Film
Festival 2025
About Us
OffBeat was started in 2022 by Mike Hankin and Rita Conry as a regular screening event but it has grown into something interested in what folk culture is today. We host regular events at The Walthamstow Trades Hall and, in 2025, ran our first full-scale film festival in venues across London where we curated a programme talks, music and contemporary films looking at folk culture.
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OffBeat is run by filmmaker Rita Conry and artist and lecturer Mike Hankin. We started OffBeat in 2022 screening films to our friends and the project has gone from strength to strength. It was set up in 2022 to share, often overlooked, archive films about folk, heritage and working culture in the UK. OffBeat’s work paints a joined up, depoliticised and inclusive picture of what it is to be British.
In 2025, we started the first ever film festival dedicated to folk culture and screened 48 contemporary films made by people from around Britain over a week of 11 sold-out events. OffBeat’s broader mission is to promote, celebrate and amplify the culture, art and output of normal people in Britain.
If you have any questions about OffBeat, or would like to get involved somehow then we would love to hear from you.