Listen in to what the David Lean Cinema has already described’

Listen in to what the David Lean Cinema has already described as “one of our all-time very best special events” – Tuesday night’s Q&A with Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton, conducted by the arthouse cinema’s patron, Joanna Scanlan.

Swinton was at the Croydon Clockhouse for the second occasion in six months, invited by one of her oldest friends, Thick Of It/After Love star Scanlan.

Following a screening of one of Swinton’s most recent collaborative projects, the eerie and moving The Eternal Daughter, in which Swinton plays a mother and her adoring daughter, the packed audience listened in on an hour-long discussion between the two actors and asked some of their own questions.

Inside Croydon was invited to the event, and it now appears as the first edition of Under The Flyover, our interview podcast.

Croydon Council attempted to shut the establishment down once. The David Lean Cinema is currently commemorating ten years since its reopening, thanks to a highly successful people’s campaign inspired by none other than Ronnie Corbett, which Inside Croydon helped start and promote.

BAFTA-winner Scanlan has tremendous excitement for the David Lean Cinema and the Croydon arts scene, and this is one way she and the volunteers behind the David Lean Cinema Campaign are attempting to highlight their essential work.

Swinton had flown in from Scotland through the winter storms, and in her opening remarks, she described the small, 60-odd-seat David Lean arts cinema as “a beacon” for London’s arts and film.

According to DLC officials, “The making of The Eternal Daughter with director Joanna Hogg (another old friend of Tilda’s) was covered in some detail, revealing that there were many hours of improvised conversation featuring Tilda in her twin mother and daughter roles, before the final cut was assembled.”

We also heard about Tilda’s outstanding dedication to independent cinema and the significance of Derek Jarman in her career since her debut in Caravaggio in 1986.

“One incredible surprise was that she almost appeared in a David Lean picture. She auditioned for Nostromo, a feature film that Lean was working on in the latter half of the 1980s before being unfortunately abandoned in 1990 owing to his worsening health.

“Tilda was struck by the resonance of referring to this ‘in his cinema’.”

You can now listen to the entire hour-long Q&A session in our current podcast by signing up as an iC subscriber.