Bill Walton selects some films from the Cinema Versa strand of the festival programme:
Last Festival I only managed to see two documentaries (in the Cinema Versa section): Something Left Behind (2018) about the legendary Leeds band The Wedding Present; and What is Democracy? (2018) which highlighted how the very understanding of democracy varies from place to place around the world and over time.
They inspired me to make sure that I see more Cinema Versa films this time. So far on my list are:
Next in our series of posts on Leeds International Film Festival, Hannah tells us about her festival plans…
Last week, on a bit of a nostalgia trip, I watched the French film A Town Called Panic (2009) This showed on bonfire night at the Picture House during LIFF24 in 2010 and was my first taste of the film festival. Since then, my festival has steadily grown from the occasional odd film when I happened to be in Leeds to being an essential fortnight of my autumn calendar, around which all other things must be carefully arranged.
This year I’m going
full tilt into LIFF (can we call it LIFF33?). After 2018, I said I’d take it
easy and have time to reflect between screenings, maybe pop home occasionally,
check in with my family or go for some leisurely lunches. You know, the things
it’s nice to do when you’ve taken a week off work. Unfortunately somewhere in
the planning, that idea has been bulldozered. The changes in ticketing for the
festival, a jam-packed programme to choose from and a kind of film festival
FOMO have conspired to keep me as square-eyed as ever.
The Picture House
has been the scene of some of my favourite LIFF memories and this year has some
exciting offerings:
The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty – A 1926 silent found-footage film marking the 10th anniversary of the 1917 revolution with live piano accompaniment.
The Hidden City– a documentary by Víctor Moreno on subterranean worlds; the pipes, tunnels and transport beneath our cities.
Night of the Dead and the inaugural Sci-fi Day – the marathon events at HP are staples of the film festival programme and this year the line-up includes a sci-fi run back to back with NOTD. If you’re really going for it you could attempt both, and I’m sure some will!
Outside the Picture
House, I’m really looking forward to:
The Gangster The Cop The Devil – Thanks to LIFF, I’ve discovered a love of Korean action. A gangster and a police officer hunt a serial killer – the trailer is promising and I have high hopes.
Come to Daddy– Elijah Wood in a grizzly family drama. It might tip into type-casting, but Wood does wide-eyed terror well and I expect it to be put to good use here.
Days of the Bagnold Summer– the directorial debut from Simon Bird (Will from The Inbetweeners) is an adaptation from the graphic novel of the same name by Joff Winterhart. A story of a teenage boy and his mum navigating a long summer holiday together. The cast includes British favourites Alice Lowe, Monica Dolan and Tamsin Greig, with Earl Cave (Nick’s son) in the central role.
Family Romance LLC– A Werner Herzog documentary exploring a business in Japan that rents out actors to substitute in others’ lives, like a nonfiction rendering of Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2011 film Alps. That film was strange enough and I’m interested to see how the real version might work. From the trailer and bits I’ve read online, it’s going to be an odd one.
With a programme
that offers such a variety and by giving myself the freedom to take some risks,
the LIFF experience to date has dramatically expanded my cinematic horizons.
Before discovering them in the cinema, I probably would have skirted all sorts
of excellent foreign-language films because they felt like too much of a
challenge and I definitely wouldn’t have gone out to see many documentaries on
the big screen. These days the reluctance has vanished and recent years have
been a feast of the weird and wonderful.
Taking an afternoon off work to go to the cinema feels like a decadent treat, something you can file under ‘self care’ and spoil yourself rotten at a matinee. Take a whole day off to go to the pictures and it might start to feel strange – more than one film at this time of year and you’ll barely see daylight. Take a few more and step out of your day-to-day life, disconnect from rolling news and immerse yourself in the moving image. There in the dark, you might learn something new, experience something you wouldn’t have otherwise, and lose yourself in other people’s imaginations. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
LIFF 2019 starts on
Wednesday. I’ll see you in the cinema!
In the run up to the Leeds International Film Festival we’ll be taking a look at some of the films making up this years programme. First up is Stephen…
I wasn’t sure what to expect in this years selection of films but after last year’s late addition of Roma I was hopeful we’d get a chance to see The Irishman on a big screen. Disappointingly it wasn’t in the launch programme but that big gap on Thursday 7th was soon to be filled with Scorsese’s latest. This feels like the real opening film of the festival for me and I just hope the Town Hall seats aren’t too uncomfortable for the three and half hour running time. Netflix seem to making more effort to get this in cinemas and it should also be playing at the Picture House after the festival.
I love the variety of films shown at the festival and often find myself drawn towards the weirder sounding films. There don’t seem to be that many oddities in this year’s programme but perhaps that because the strangeness has gone into the mainstream with Jojo Rabbit. I’ve loved all of Taika Waititi’s films so far (Boy, What We Do In The Shadows, The Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Thor: Ragnarok – I still haven’t seen Eagle vs Shark) and I’m sure this won’t disappoint although the trailer left me a little cold.
In between those opening and closing films I’m currently planning on seeing around 50 films (and therefore really grateful that the Gold Explorer pass was introduced). Over the years I’ve come to trust the programming team and think there’s usually a good reason to see any of the films in the programme. I’ve tried to take a more practical approach to my schedule this year, trying to avoid dashes across town or upturning my entire plan to fit in films I assume I’ll be able to see elsewhere e.g The Cave, The Two Popes, Ordinary Love and Matthias & Maxime (by the way isn’t it strange that there are two films called The Cave as well as Marriage Story and A Marriage Story in the programme). If you are still making your plans and want to see a better view of when films are showing you may find this Clashfinder useful.
Most of the films I’m looking forward to are from directors I already know and have been praised at other film festivals. All of the following have headline slots and are likely to be popular:
The Nightingale – Jennifer Kent’s follow up the The Babadook (2014).
The Lighthouse– I wasn’t a fan of The VVitch (2015) but keen to see what Robert Eggers has done with this.
Portrait of A Lady On Fire– Girlhood (2014) and Tomboy (2011) are fantastic and Céline Sciamma’s latest film very different from those, she was also screenplay consultant on one of my favourite ‘forgotten’ LIFF films Bird People (2014).
Some of the lesser known films I’m looking forward to include:
Patrick– Really not sure what to expect from this but it was one film in the trailer reel that really stood out as a typical WTF LIFF film.
The Incredible Shrinking WKND– another strange sounding one dealing with time-loops. It’s part of the Sci-Fi day at Hyde Park and I’ve taken the easy option of settling in the the entire day.
La Belle Époque – the idea of being able to recreate any moment from the past sounds like an intriguing one.
Little Monsters– more well known but looks like a lot of fun.
I’m disappointed I haven’t been able to fit in more of the classic films, the Mother Cutter strand is a great idea and a wonderful selection of films. I do have some free time so I may be able to fit some of these films in as well. I’m also glad that the short films are getting more screenings, I’ve not been able to get to many of these in the last few years but this year it seemed easier to fit them around other films.
As always we’d love to hear from you, please leave comments below or head over to our Twitter and Facebook pages to tell us what you’re looking forward to at the Festival.
This is the second feature both written and directed by Shola Amoo. It is fine production, beautifully put together. The cast are good with a fine leading performance by Sam Adewunmi as Femi. The film follows his development as a young boy with a foster-parent, through life with his actual mother up until his late teens. The setting move from rural Lincolnshire to urban inner-city London. Visually and aurally the film is a pleasure. There is fine cinematography by Stil Williams, fine editing by Mdhamiri Á Nkemi and excellent sound design by a team of engineers.
The narrative and representations are less sure. Both the supporting characters and the settings tend towards stereotypes. This is partly because they are undeveloped; for example, we never really get a proper back-story either for the foster-parent or for Femi’s actual mother. Underneath some distinctive settings and plotting there is a fairly conventional narrative. The music is judicious but I think that it [deliberately] emphasises the conventional aspects of the story.
The script uses a number of extended ellipsis and I think this introduces an element of fragmentation into Femi’s story. This seems to me an example where the director would have benefited from a fellow scriptwriter.
Even so it is an absorbing title and is great to both watch and listen to. And the subject is both interesting with a contemporary relevance. Definitely worth going to see at the cinema as it is in both colour and full widescreen.
Now October is here it’s time for us to start thinking about Christmas. Every year the Friends organise a free Christmas screening for members and this year we’d like your help to select a film. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a Christmas film but should be one that captures the festive spirit. Our recent screenings (see below) have tended towards classic films but there have been a lot of new festive films recently. It’s likely to be the last Friends event before the closure so it would be good to make it special.
Leave a comment, contact us or post your ideas on Facebook or Twitter and we’ll collate all the suggestions and see what we can do. Please let us have your suggestions by Sunday 20th October and It’s A Wonderful Life will be having it’s traditional screening at the Picture House so we (probably?) won’t be showing that.
This is the latest release by the German film-maker Christian Petzold. He has already had three of his fifteen credits released in Britain; all fine movies. The last, Phoenix (2014), was a powerful and stylish drama set in Berlin and exploring changes of identity in a story full of noir tropes. This new title has parallels with the earlier one; the question of acquiring an identity, the displacement of war and the impact of a radical new situation for the main characters.
The title refers ‘transit zone’ where people wait for the official papers to leave; they are displaced and where
“here’s no fixed home. Home is basically homelessness.” (Christian Petzold in the Press Notes).
The story comes from a novel by Anna Seghers from 1944. The settings are Paris and then Marseilles. This adaptation treats period ambiguously so we seem neither in the past nor the present. This can challenge the audience but emphasizes the situation of the protagonists:
“They’re borderline phantoms, between life and death, yesterday and tomorrow.” (Petzold).
There are a number of key characters but at the centre is a man seeking transit papers Georg (Franz Rogowski) and the wife of a writer Marie (Paula Beer). So there is a love story in the plot but this has to try and work itself out in a world where war has produced chaos, where police are a threat and officialdom is both remote and overwhelmed.
The idea of ‘transit’ has raised parallels with both Casablanca (1942) and Port of Shadows / Le quai des brumes (1938). And there is a reflexive narration which Petzold himself has compared to Barry Lyndon (1975). In both its plot and narration it also reminded me of The Sheltering Sky (1990) with two young US characters adrift in North Africa..
There was a single presentation at the Picture House which was well attended. However, it seems no other cinema in the area has screened the title. The production is distributed by Curzon/Artificial Eye who rely as much on online as theatrical. And the title has not been helped in Sight & Sound where it received a normal review in September 2019 whereas a title I felt was inferior achieved the two-page spread offered to only three releases an issue. My colleague on ‘The Case for Global Film‘ rates it one of the best new movies of the year and I absolutely agree. Hopefully it may return for another screening at the Picture House; I should certainly like to enjoy it a second time.
Our next committee meeting of trustees will take place on Monday 30th September, 7:30pm at Headingley Enterprise and Arts Centre (HEART). If any members have issues to raise or would like attend to find out more about helping with the committee please contact us as soon as possible so we can ensure we have enough space and time.
Please note these are working meetings with a busy agenda but we are also looking for somebody to help organise more social meetings for the Friends.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are established stars of the Tarantino empire and have made another corker with his 9th film. Is it his 9th? You have to count Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 as one long epic, and remember that even though the Hateful Eight felt like it was 19 hours long, it was still only the one film. The director has repeatedly said that he only ever planned to make 10, so the pressure’s building to go out with a bang.
It’s 1969, Charles Manson is on the loose, Roman Polanski’s still a welcome neighbour and the Hollywood bubble is thriving in Los Angeles. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, an actor fading out of his 30s and his cinematic heyday, with Brad Pitt as his put-upon sidekick/stuntman/driver/dogsbody Cliff Booth.
Rick is known for a 50’s cowboy TV show and as the film starts the series has come to an end so Rick is on the hunt for his next job. His flavour of dashing leading man is no longer in vogue and increasingly typecast as the villain in one-off shows and movies, Rick looks to Europe and the booming spaghetti western scene. Cliff’s career follows Rick’s, albeit in a less fortunate way. Cliff does as he’s told, travels in economy class and patiently tags along, accompanied by his faithful hound Brandy. Cliff and Brandy live in an out-of-the-way trailer, which is a far cry from Rick’s gated community mansion in the Hollywood hills where Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate are new neighbours Rick hopes to befriend to help boost his fading stardom.
There are snippets of life on set and their past filmmaking experiences, including an on-set brawl between Cliff and Bruce Lee and Rick’s encounter with a wise-before-her-time child star. We’re given some wonderful flashbacks to films he’s auditioned for and starred in, including an alternative version of a 60’s classic and one where he tackles Nazis with a flame-thrower. Like the Machete trailer in the Grindhouse double-feature, part of me hopes that we could one day see the rest of the film, although I’m afraid Tarantino might just have shown us the ending.
Once Upon A Time… skips between the big story and the small and inconsequential in a familiar way if you’ve seen any of Tarantino’s previous 8 films. Rick and Cliff chew the fat when they’re driving in a way that has a very similar feel to the ‘royale with cheese’ conversation in Pulp Fiction and the bursts of violence at the ranch and in the climactic scenes yell Tarantino’s name. He clearly isn’t squeamish about subjecting younger, female characters to the same kind of nastiness we’ve more often seen his leading men dole out to each other. He might not be squeamish about it, but I found the dynamic of those fight scenes quite difficult to watch.
If you don’t know what happened when the Manson family met Sharon Tate, you can probably ignore the departure from reality, but I’m torn about it being an alternative history when the real things that happened were so terrible. Injecting new characters on the edges of a real-life story is one thing, but then changing how that story plays out made me uneasy. I’ve read that it could be seen as a way of paying homage to Tate, a way of wishing away the truth, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s a bit of a self-indulgent fantasy on Tarantino’s part.
Misgivings aside, I enjoyed the Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood. It’s long, but checking back I’m surprised it’s as long as 160 minutes. Hollywood glamour on the cusp of the 70s, the flash cars and constant sunshine set the backdrop for an immersive ride. If it’s really to be Tarantino’s penultimate film, it lives up to his catalogue so far and sets an exciting tone for a blow-out number 10.
Last Saturday Leeds Black Film Club in association with Kush Films presented a special preview screening of Sprinter.
Sprinter is a warmly entertaining and funny film with many laugh out moments. I love it when everyone laughs at the same time. Sometimes they were laughing when I wasn’t, which meant I’d missed something that a native Jamaican hadn’t.
The things I enjoyed most about Sprinter was the humour, the music and the use of the beautiful Jamaican landscape.
I didn’t find the film too predictable and at certain points, I wasn’t sure which way the story was going to go – which is good! There are many layers to this story: parent-child separation, family ties, high-school-sports and others (#nospoilers). It’s a lot to weave into one film but I think it’s done well.
The only downside was thinking Bryshere Y Gray’s character was too similar to his Empire role. I would have liked to see him do something different but it doesn’t take away from the film which has some very (very) special moments.
After the film preview, there was a lively Q&A session with the Producer Rob Maylor and actress Shantol Jackson (who plays Kerry Hall) and they both shared personal stories about their own families and how they got to where they are today.
It was heartening to hear how passionate they were about retaining the cultural authenticity in many different ways such as ensuring the accents were on point and how their hard work paid off when they saw how the locals reacted to the film.
We all love a good sports movie and Sprinter has all the elements that make it one to add to the list – even more so for me personally – it is great to see a strong black sports film showing young people who are driven and focussed on achieving great things.
The September Festival celebrating all forms of moving image exhibition returns to Leeds. The city is one of the areas which has an extensive and varied selection of titles; in both theatrical and non-theatrical settings. And the programme offers classics, less-known films, documentaries and animation.
‘Animated in Leeds’ on September 7th at Chapel FM Arts Centre offers a selection of some of the short films made by this pioneering Women’s Collective. The Leeds Animation Workshop has high standards of technical accomplishments and the productions invariably address important social issues.
Cutter’s Way (1981) is what is known as a neo-noir. It features many of the characteristics of the classic film noir. There is the world of chaos into which the protagonist is drawn by the siren call of, here, a mystery rather than a mysterious woman. The film is in colour but offers many sequences shot in chiaroscuro. And, intriguingly, one could argue that the film offers both a seeker and a victim hero; both caught up in triangular relationships. It screens at the HEART in Headingley on September 9th.
A series of events highlight the film work of Bob Fosse, ‘Fosse in film’. Fosse started out as performer and dancer and took up stage choreography. He then worked on several Hollywood productions and progressed to direction. He directed five features between 1963 (Sweet Charity) and 1983 (Star). The screenings in the Festival are of this three most famous and successful films.
Cabaret (1972) Thu 12 September at Wardrobe, ST. PETER’S SQUARE One of the great film musicals and the best film version of Christopher Isherwood’s memoir
Lenny (1974) Sat 14 September @ 10:30 pm. Hyde Park Picture House. Dustin Hoffman is perfectly cast as the scabrous and subversive stand-up comic Lenny Bruce. The film is beautifully shot in black and white by Bruce Surtees. [Unfortunately the Sunday screening is gone!]
All That Jazz (1979) with post film discussion on Bob Fosse and Power & Exploitation Thu 26 September @ 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Riley Theatre, 98 Chapeltown Road. Fosse uses his own life and experiences to present the story of a Broadway director, choreographer and film director (Roy Scheider). The parts are better than the whole with some brilliantly staged sequences.
To celebrate Babylon’s recent U.S. release, and commemorate the Windrush generation, we’re holding a special screening of Franco Rosso’s film, followed by a DJ set …
Babylon(1980) Tue 17 September @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm Square Chapel Arts Centre, 10 Square Road. A seminal film on black culture set in the 1980s. Directed by an Italian film-maker who had already made a documentary about the infamous ‘Mangrove 9’ case. The eye of an outsider brings a distinct sensibility to a world that British cinema had yet to address in a meaningful way.
A series of short films on life and art and music of Palestinians in Palestine and exile today: as their struggle for National Liberation continues.
Films include Colours of Resistance about art and music of Palestinians trying to retain their identity with a country that is being deprived of its right to exist, Palestine Underground showing the music and hip-hop scene in Ramallah and Made in Palestine. Tue 24 September @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm LS-Ten Skatepark, Unit 1 Kitson Rd, Leeds.
If you want more information or to check our other parts of the programme visit the Leeds Web Pages.
If you are away from Leeds there maybe Scalarama where you are going, so check out the National Web Pages.
Friends of Hyde Park Picture House 