Coinciding with the Ilkley Literature Festival, the documentary film Hello, Bookstore is Ilkley Film Society's next screening on Sunday, October 15 (8pm, Ilkley Playhouse).

Matt Tannenbaum is the owner of a bookshop in the small town of Lenox, Massachusetts - a town with strong literary connections, as novelists Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edith Wharton both lived there. His friend Adam Zax had been in the middle of shooting a multi-year documentary about The Bookstore when the Covid pandemic broke out, threatening the shop's existence. Zax decided to make this crisis the subject of a feature-length film, whose title is the phrase always used by Tannenbaum when he answers the phone.

Shot entirely inside the shop, the film comprises a series of encounters and conversations between the engaging Tannenbaum (whom, we discover, is much more of a book lover than a businessman), his customers and his two adult daughters. His motto is “I have a book for everyone” and he delights in knowing his customers tastes and recommending new reading for them.

Anybody who likes spending time in bookshops will enjoy the 86 minutes in Tannenbaum's company. Although the Film Society's policy is to screen American films with hard-of-hearing subtitles it will not be possible in this instance as the film, unreleased on DVD/Blu-ray in the UK, is to be screened from a disc created for the Society by the distributor, and which has no subtitles.

Non-members are welcome as guests (£5) but should email richardgsmith2@gmail.com or phone 0784 0872278 to guarantee admission. Please note this is not the usual contact as the Film Society's secretary Dave Howell will be at a film festival in Italy.

 Further information about the film and the rest of the Film Society season can be found at www.ilkleyfilmsociety.org.uk.