Danny Boyle's SHUFFLE Festival

July 30 to August 4 sees Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park become a unique festival space for film, music and the arts.


For five days, SHUFFLE Festival will transform Cemetery Park with an innovative programme of events centred around the City, Nature, Death and Survival. Together with two outdoor cinemas and a live music stage, the event will also host a swimming pool, pop-up restaurant, street feast, art installations and more.


With a unique ecosystem, Cemetery Park contains a wealth of plant life rarely seen in London. SHUFFLE has created a bespoke menu and signature SHUFFLE drink, pressed from locally sourced flowers only found in these woods. Other drinks (already brewing) include homemade cordials, tonics and a SHUFFLE Festival limoncello.


As well as a SHUFFLE pop-up restaurant and bar, Le Cordon Bleu chef India Hamilton will create – with locally foraged ingredients – a feast for 500 local residents to open the event, on July 30.


Sunday sees the presentation of Danny Boyle’s inaugural short film competition. Following a screening of The Selfish Giant by director Clio Barnard (also a SHUFFLE judge, in attendance for the film’s Q&A), winners will receive one of three prizes (across three broad categories):


'Science and the Imagination'

• A trip to California to be part of the world’s most cutting-edge filmmaking and digital media technology, which includes a virtual reality session and a visit to Google HQ in Silicon Valley.


'The City'

• A one-on-one mentoring session with Danny Boyle – a remarkable insight into how the Oscar-winning filmmaker works – plus a trip to New York.


'Young Filmmakers' (under 25s)

· Panalux advice and bespoke five-day lighting package for the winner’s next film.

This year’s feature presentations include: a 25th anniversary screening of Spike Lee’s seminal “joint” Do the Right Thing (followed by an exclusive Q&A), Danny’s Boyle’s 28 Days Later (followed by a Q&A with Boyle), the groundbreaking Walkabout (followed by a Q&A with director Nic Roeg), and Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, followed by a guided bat walk through the cemetery, at twilight.


Voicewalks returns with a bespoke tour of the cemetery, exploring inner speech and voice-hearing experiences. Stopping by strategically placed voice-hearers – telling their stories - the tour will end at Southern Grove Community Centre, with a film about what it’s like to hear voices.


In addition, there will be a specially curated film programme for the deaf with signing, films include Ted Evan’s award-winning The End. Exploding Seenema – an anarchist cinema movement – will project short films all over the woods, in the most unexpected places.


“SHUFFLE is the most fun anyone can have in an asylum and graveyard in Mile End,” says Danny Boyle. “It's going to be brilliant: outdoor film screenings, live music, a restaurant serving locally foraged food, and a fantastic programme of science events. The point of the festival is to help build a stronger community in East London and campaign for permanently affordable housing in the area, so please do come on by."


SHUFFLE’s artistic director, Kate MacTiernan, adds: “This year sees the inaugural short film competition, of which we have a stellar collection of judges. We’re thrilled that Clio Barnard and Danny Boyle will announce the winners on August 3. Now in its second year, SHUFFLE takes place in London’s best kept secret – a Cemetery Park behind the old St Clements asylum – a space for festival-goers to have fun and discover the unexpected.”


An award-winning festival, SHUFFLE is about living in the city, in the best way possible. It's about the quality of spaces in the city and the connectivity of the people that exist in these places. It is about shaping an area for healthy, affordable living.


Born out of the Community Land Trust (CLT) – providing sustainable housing in urban areas – SHUFFLE is about bringing a sense of community back to London. SHUFFLE began in summer 2013 to create awareness of the UK’s first urban CLT, the former asylum of St Clements Hospital. SHUFFLE secured the space as a cultural centre for Mile End. In 2014, this initiative moves into the surrounding streets, with a SHUFFLE pre-party July 26 (along the Mile End mile long hopscotch route) and to Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.