Heritage on Screen at The Common Room

This summer, Side is working with The Common Room to bring films from the AmberSide Collection into their Summer of Discovery programme.

Running through the school holidays, Summer of Discovery is a free programme for families, with trails, creative activities, family film screenings and archive drop-ins at The Common Room on Westgate Road. As part of the programme, Side is supporting Heritage on Screen, a series of afternoon screenings focused on industry, work, place and North East life.

Together, the programme gives visitors a chance to see Amber films in a building shaped by the region’s industrial and engineering history. These are films about working lives, changing industries, collective memory and the people whose stories sit at the centre of those changes.

Screenings are free and drop-in. On film screening days, visitors can also explore archive material from The Common Room, including images from The Bell Collection and Coal Queens.

Screening:

The Filleting Machine (1981, 45 mins)

Adapted from Tom Hadaway’s play, The Filleting Machine was Amber’s first drama. Set in the North Shields fishing community at the end of the 1970s, the film follows 15-year-old Davy as his parents argue over his future: his mother wants him to find office work, while his father wants him to continue in the fish filleting trade. The film looks closely at family, work and changing expectations in a community shaped by economic uncertainty.

Dream On (1991, 115 mins)

Set on the Meadow Well Estate in North Shields, Dream On follows three women navigating difficult personal circumstances while looking for humour, escape and hope in everyday life. The film grew out of Side’s long engagement with North Shields and was shaped by writing workshops with women from the estate. Blending realism with dreams, fantasy and magic, it offers a layered portrait of women’s lives, friendship and resilience.

Double Vision (1986, 60 mins)

Double Vision blends documentary and drama to explore the world of boxing in Hartlepool, centred on the gym run by George Bowes. The film follows an ex-boxer reflecting on his past and a television researcher trying to understand the sport from the outside. More than a film about boxing, it looks at discipline, ambition, masculinity and survival in a region shaped by industrial decline.

Launch (1974, 10 mins)

Made in 1974, Launch documents the construction and launch of the World Unicorn oil tanker at the Wallsend shipyards. Filmed on a small budget, the short film captures the scale, skill and drama of shipbuilding on the Tyne, showing the tanker not only as an industrial object, but as something that dominates the working landscape around it.