Festivals and Events

The Dead Sea, which screened on Thursday evening as part of LSFF’s Global Movements night at the Hackney Picturehouse, follows Emanuel and Olu who, after almost reaching Europe by boat, are returned to Libya and incarcerated in one of its infamous migrant detention centers. Unable to meet up at the event, writer/director Stuart Gatt and I chatted online after the event. Here’s our Q&A below. Mydylarama: What is your background and how does it relate to The Dead Sea? Stuart Gatt: (…)

Treasa O’Brien is a Ireland and London-based filmmaker whose works (doc and narrative) ‘explore art politics, poetry, social change, the individual and the collective, ecstatic truth, storytelling, reality, the usual.’ Her film Noor at Mytlini Port screened as part of LSFF’s Global Movements at the Hackney Picturehouse last night, where I had the chance to chat with her about the refugee situation, Noor, filmmaking and activism just before the event. Mydylarama: Your film seems like quite (…)

‘THIS IS HAPPENING WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION’ (“Her Jazz”, Huggy Bear, 1992) London Short Film Festival (LSFF) - 6-15 January - has announced its 2017 programme. According to the organisers: "This year’s festival mantra comes from Huggy Bear’s 1992 single Her Jazz, one of the rare UK representatives of riot grrrl in the early nineties. Based on the song’s ethos ‘this is happening without your permission’, LSFF 2017 has embraced this ideology, showing a huge wealth of diverse and challenging (…)

Clotilde Couturier, correspondante au festival international du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand, échange avec Leyla Toprak, réalisatrice et chorégraphe du film "Uzak mı ..." ("Dûr e..." / "Distant..."). "Uzak mı..." a reçu la « Mention Spéciale du Jury » en Compétition Internationale au Festival de Clermont-Ferrand 2016. Clotilde Couturier, correspondante au festival international du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand, échange avec Leyla Toprak, réalisatrice et chorégraphe du film Uzak (…)

What drew you to filmmaking? I got into a lot of trouble as a teenager. A counsellor suggested that my mom find me a creative outlet so I started practising theatre and photography. Then after a couple of years, I combined the two to make films. I made my first documentary when I was 16. ...and what led you to Berlin and its underground scene? I came to Berlin for a semester when I was at university. It was the opposite of where I was living (NYC). There is common sense in politics. (…)

What was your background in film prior to Redistributors? I started out as an editor and got indulgently trained at the BBC in Bristol on wildlife shows with David Attenborough. Then moved to London and cut a lot of TV. What sparked the idea behind the film? Do you have a background in PR? I worked for some years filming corporate CEO interviews where people talked utter drivel. I kept wondering ‘What if one day someone told the truth?’ - this gave me the idea for the inciting incident (…)

I gather your background is a mix of Liverpool and California? How have both environments influenced you and your work on Native? (And does Liverpool produce better alien beaches than LA?) In my experience Los Angeles and Liverpool are generally open and welcoming to outside influences and people, but on this movie that is not the sort of environment we needed the characters to inhabit. I wanted to burden Cane and Eva with an insidious social claustrophobia that can either be a help or a (…)

Following a BAFTA nomination for their first feature film (Black Pond), Tom Kingsley and Will Sharpe return with an atmospheric story of troubled sibling relationships and mysterious canals. Though very different from the world created in Flowers (Sharpe’s TV series, currently available on Channel 4), the characters here are as eccentric as the relationships are dysfunctional. When the police give up searching for Zach’s sister Alice (played the very watchable Tiani Ghosh, who is also (…)

Based on its landlord’s memoirs (Tales From The Two Puddings by Eddie Johnson), Rob West’s documentary focuses on the iconic East End pub’s trend-setting quirks, its links to 1960s legendary characters such as the Kray twins, Harry Redknapp and David Essex, and its influence on the Barry Keefe classic The Long Good Friday. Between super 8 footage and 60s tunes, the film ignites a common nostalgia 1960s Stratford, that we see deeply transformed within seconds, sad that we won’t be able to (…)

This international production directed by Daniel Florenico follows David Pillard, a once talented photographer, now broken down paparazzi, as he himself chases a tabloid story. Before the film ends, David will find something quite different from what he was initially looking for. Gudmundur Thorvaldsson is grippingly believable as the grieving and ailing photographer, as is Patrick Baladi who plays Olly, a classic London cad and David’s partner in tabloid crime. Chasing Robert Barker - (…)