NICK BERTRAM & MARCUS SHEPHERD
Over the last decade, our award-winning and Time Out featured Stow Film Lounge, has entertained audiences with over 500 films, across 40 venues and reached 30,000 people (and counting) throughout Waltham Forest and beyond.
Founded by former Museum of The Moving Image (MOMI) actors, now respectively a film journalist and filmmaker - our unmistakably independent programming for the people, sees a back catalogue of Steven Spielberg and Sergei Eisenstein rubbing shoulders with Ava DuVernay and Celine Sciamma, as well as talent like John Maclean (Slow West), Robin Hardy (The Wicker Man), Jemima Dury (Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll), Adam Pearson (Under The Skin), Jo Robinson (Misbehaviour) and Gregers Sall (Senna) dropping by to join us in conversation.
With a unique take on the cinema experience, from Arthouse to Marvel, whether it be regular reinterpretations of classic film posters accompanying each screening or our Cycle-In Cinema or creating our own films and documentaries like The Tricycle Thief and Take The High Road, we continue to bring cinema right to the heart of communities everywhere.
NICK BERTRAM
Nick started his own mobile entertainment company, “The London Discotheque Company”, over 25 years ago and also worked as a DJ for a range of party planning companies including Joffins, Peregrine Armstrong-Jones, Bentley’s and William Bartholomew. He subsequently trained and worked as an actor performing in theatre-in-education, television and theatre. It was during his work at the BFI’s Museum Of The Moving Image (MOMI) that he met fellow actor/guide Marcus Shepherd.
More recently his entrepreneurial and events background have created Stow Film Lounge and resulted in it winning Waltham Forest’s 2012 small business award only a year after start-up. SFL was nominated as a venue in Time Out’s 2014 Love London Awards and in 2019 was featured as one of their Dream Screens (best indie screenings) in the London region – “A warm hug of a movie club”. Nick is a film journalist appearing regularly on BBC London 94.9FM radio. At the 2018 Waltham Forest “Love Your Borough Awards” he received the Leader’s Special Award for “outstanding cultural contribution” to Waltham Forest.
MARCUS SHEPHERD
Marcus started his career in the theatre, he worked at MOMI as an actor before moving into production at Gorgeous Films assisting top commercial director Chris Palmer. He’s directed and produced at Sky TV on shows like Barry Norman’s Film Night filming talent like Sir Michael Caine, Robert De Niro, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Traci Lords and Dame Judi Dench.
He’s worked in places like the Oscars in Hollywood, on a transatlantic Concorde flight, up a tower crane and at 10 Downing St filming the prime minister. He’s worked at the Cannes film festival, Venice and San Sebastián festival. He’s interviewed over a 100 movie-talents like Nick Nolte, Martin Landau, Charlton Heston, Ian Holm, Greg Kinnear, Renee Zellwegger, Ewan Magregor, Uma Thurman, Neil La Bute, Danny Boyle, Cate Blanchett, Paul Schrader, Christian Bale, Peter Bogdanovich, Ken Loach, Shane Meadows, Robert Carlisle, Wong Kar Wei, Marianne Faithful, F MurrayAbraham, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Stephen Frears and many, many others.
Becoming renowned for having conversations with talented craftspeople he’s also written & directed numerous programmes like Star Wars Making Of The Myth rated one of the best documentaries on the legendary movie and Cinema Nation with the remarkable broadcaster and John Peel producer John Walters.
He’s also made promos, commercialsand original comedies like STUPID CULT featuring Charlie Brooker, ADRIAN CRISP PSYCHIC INVESTIGATOR with Jonathan Parkyn and the series HOME MOVIES with Joe Wilkinson.
He’s won some awards for his work – THE SOFA, EL HOPPO! and THE TRIGGER. His first screenplay A KILLING IN THE WOODS won the screen daily Oscar Moore award judged by Anthony Minghella and Emma Thompson. His BFI developed award winning dystopian comedy DRYLAND was on the Brit-list for best screenplay and he has the Italian road trip comedy THE MONK, THE MERMAID & MOLISE ready for shooting, featuring Pink Floyd musician and comedian Guy Pratt and indie star Raeffello Degruttola.
For Stow Film Lounge, Marcus has written, produced and directed the children’s movie THE TRICYCLE THIEF, a cinematic celebration of the Children's Film Foundation - THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT and for the Barbican & Leytonstone Loves Film made two Leytonstone based documentaries - TAKE THE HIGH RD - a journey down the High Rd and ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF LANGTHORNE PARK - THAT’S OUR PARK.