Glastonbury: The Movie to make restored return for 30th anniversary

This June will mark the return of Glastonbury: The Movie, an original footage filmed at the legendary Somerset festival in 1993. Capturing shots before live BBC coverage, camera phones, and ticket ballots became the norm. 

Set to be screened across the UK from Friday 26th June to mark its 30th anniversary, which coincides with when Glastonbury festival would typically take place, if 2026 were not a designated fallow year.

The restoration of the film, now to be shown in 4K, was created from the original 35mm Panavision CinemaScope negative, enhancing both the film’s picture and sound quality, and will be screened in 62 cinemas across Britain.

During the time of shooting the film in 1993,  the introduction of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, legislation that significantly expanded, which meant tighter regulations on rave culture, free parties and outdoor music gatherings across the UK. At the time, the movie was also the first feature film to receive funding from the newly established National Lottery. 

Director and head of Mensch Films, Robin Mahoney, shared, "Shooting in 1993 gave us something we only fully appreciated in retrospect. Television cameras had not yet arrived at Glastonbury, the first live broadcast came in 1994, and British popular culture was on the cusp of a seismic shift. What feels like recent history now reads as another era entirely. Because we set out to capture the experience of being at the festival from the ground up, from the perspective of a festival-goer rather than a camera pointed at a stage, the film has become an inadvertent portrait of British life at a particular moment." 

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Header image credit: Glastonbury Festivals / Facebook.com