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Festivals and Events
We like to cover independent and eclectic film festivals whenever and wherever we can, as well as more established festivals’ chosen highlights. We also welcome submissions of coverage.
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Analog Encounters: Video Workshop at the Encounters Film Festival
1 October 2014, by Alex WiddowsonThe Encounters Festival presents the viewing public with more than the darkened, flickering embrace of countless feature length screening events, in which back-to-back short film and animation programmes douse one’s mind with such wit and artistry that by the end excellence feels so common place, real world experience of film and television are a sorrow disappointment. I write specifically about the Encounters’ workshop and lecture programme, where I feel the true substance of the (…) -
Bristol Encounters Film Festival : Awards Winners
23 September 2014, by Abla Kandalaft, Elise Loiseau -
Bristol Encounters Film Festival : Awards Winners
22 septembre 2014, par Elise Loiseau -
New Horizons International Film Festival
25 August 2014, by Elise Loiseau -
Moralists Instruction Musical: The Revolutionary Conduct (Leeds Queer Film Festival)
11 July 2014, by Judy HarrisIt’s impossible not to fall in love with a film which includes the line ‘but heteroman, your arguments fall light as leaves cause your g spot is in your ass’. This mix of queer criticism and autumnal imagery is actually a line from a song, delivered in melodic unison by four queer superheroes in a ramshackle community centre which reminded me of the set of a Swedish Byker Grove. There’s a lot to love about this homespun film which offers wonderfully comic and imaginative means by which to (…) -
Leeds Queer Film Festival- Pay It No Mind
10 July 2014, by Ryan OrmondePay it No Mind is a loving documentary tribute to the late queer rights activist and ‘saint’ Marsha P. Johnson, built around archive footage of a 1992 interview with the legend herself. ‘Pay it No Mind’ is what Marsha P. Johnson would answer whenever asked what the ‘P.’ stood for. It is no coincidence that the songs of Antony and the Johnsons are used on the soundtrack of this soulful documentary: the band was named after her, and a track on their first album, movingly and fittingly used (…) -
Lilting (East End Film Festival)
21 June 2014, by Matt BrayHong Khaou’s study of love and loss opens with shots of 1950s patterned wallpaper and lilting background music, before panning to a vase of freshly cut hydrangea – their blue friendliness blackened by shadow. In this ‘old people’s home’, Junn, the Cambodian – Chinese mother of the tale, has been ‘imprisoned’ by her loving son Kai– “Why did you put me here?” she asks when he visits. Yet during these visits we witness the love they have for each other. We also feel the pressure that Kai is (…) -
Preview- Rhymes for Young Ghouls (East End Film Festival)
20 June 2014, by Coco GreenNow here is a Canada that we don’t see on postcards. Or in scenes of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ when Robin visits Canada for the weekend. On the Red Crow Indian Reservation in 1969 teenage Aila and her uncle, Burner, run a quaint weed dealing business to supplement the family’s income, which also allows Aila to save to leave the Res. But living isn’t easy, primarily because rogue Indian agent Popper rules the people with violence and bribes and theft to keep them in line. Aila plots to take a (…) -
Preview- La Distancia (East End Film Festival)
17 June 2014, by Judy HarrisLa Distancia is fantastically serene, profoundly tactile and deeply pleasurable to both eye and ear. A garden of eerie, earthly delights. Sergio Caballero’s post-industrial Siberia is a land haunted by radiation and inhabited by foxes, rabbits and telepathic dwarves. Three such dwarves (Scumek, Vólkov and Baransky) have been hired by a captive artist to break into an abandoned power station to steal an enigmatic object known as ‘The Distance’. Their task is both mundane and other-worldly; (…) -
Preview- The Forest of the Dancing Spirits (East End Film Festival)
9 June 2014, by Double RLinda Västrik’s ‘The Forest of the Dancing Spirits’ is an ethnographic documentary which attempts to represent the daily life of the Aka community while resisting the urge to romanticize their beliefs or universalize their experiences. The Aka live in the Congolese rainforest where Västrik joined them for extended periods, filming (and eventually editing) their daily lives. The film is shot without any accompanying voiceover from Västrik in order that the community represent themselves as (…)