Smudged with the finger prints of the Coen brothers comes Canadian slacker-kidnapping caper Mon Ami, a darkly comic feature from writer/director Rob Grant. His first film Yesterday garnered widely favourable reviews, something he can expect to continue with this follow-up. Cal and Teddy are best friends unenthusiastically working at a Hardware superstore, undermined by customers and going nowhere fast. When these two long serving employees are overlooked for a promotion they concoct a plan and, like all good plans it involves kidnapping their boss’ daughter.
Apparently unaware that ‘the best laid plans of mice and men oft do go astray’ this soon becomes plainly evident for our protagonists as, despite a meticulously prepared set-up theirs becomes a lesson in how not to conduct a kidnapping. From the offset the path is far from smooth as the practicalities of capturing the bait prove trickier than expected, quickly establishing our leads as truly inept hostage-takers. That (unlucky in more ways than one) hostage; Crystal, soon proves to be equally less reliable in her role as obliging victim than they had envisaged and when an attempted breakout goes unnoticed the stakes are invariably raised. Out of their depth and forced to alter their plan the two aren’t aided by the constant interruptions of Teddy’s wife Liz whose interspersed phone calls serve as effective tension breakers as well as to annoy the increasingly irritated Cal. The tension within the three is a running theme of the film and asks questions about male friendship and where they go if one’s life-plan differs to the other. Here, the perception is that they turn to crime to re-connect their bromance and there’s a felling that Cal is largely doing this simply to spend some time with his best friend away from his ‘nagging wife’ – that is very much the image of Liz in a role that won’t endear itself to many a female.
The graphically bloodstained moments of the film are reminiscent of Tarintino or American Psycho and well balanced with the comic elements of the film with the overall effect coming across as something far more akin to Fargo. It’s to Grant’s credit that the comparisons don’t feel far overstretched, taking care to establish these believable characters in unbelievable situations as well as crafting neat stylistic touches.
Yesterday was unfairly but inevitably compared to Shaun of the Dead but alongside his sophomore effort he can rightly claim to be carving out a niche very much of his own. By establishing his own set of rules, language and narrative his is a tone destined for cult following.
Jennifer Lynch’s directorial debut, Boxing Helena, a complete and utter critical failure, earned Lynch a Golden Raspberry award for “worst director of the year”, and was described by Time Out as “grotesquely misconceived”. Despite some success with 2008 follow-up, Surveillance, it’s apparent that initial critical drubbing still weighs heavy on the director’s mind.
Ostensibly a behind-the-scenes documentary about Lynch’s troubles directing the Bollywood horror movie Hisss, originally entitled Nagin; we find Lynch in India, about to embark on the most complicated and demanding shoot of her life, well aware that another botched movie could spell the end of her career as a director.
In fact Penny Vozniak’s documentary is simultaneously much less and much, much more than a typical making-of doc. Despite The Gods aims its sights squarely at Lynch herself, detailing her personal ordeal juggling the multiple demands of playing filmmaker, mother and stranger in a foreign land. As with all documentaries in this vein, it becomes doubly interesting should the wheels begin to fall off; and fall off they do. As the shoot goes over-time and over-budget, Lynch’s relationship with producer Govind Menon becomes fractured; a superstitious crew insist on blessing the set before every take; and the whole production is hampered by the very worst weather the country has to offer.
Pozniak keeps her camera firmly on Lynch, filtering the story of the faltering production through the director herself. The end result is a film which feels profoundly personal in its telling of a complex and wide ranging series of events. It’s interesting to be given such an intimate look at the everyday stresses and strains placed on a director, desperately attempting to juggle numerous balls. With the ever-present spectre of Boxing Helena hanging over Lynch’s head, it’s a treat to see her unwind as a character over the course of the documentary. Beginning the film as the anxious and uptight “worst director of the year”, she thaws considerably, ending the journey as an infinitely more relaxed person, mother, friend and lover.
The fact that Hisss bombed in its native India, and that Lynch’s involvement continued to be constrained to the bitter end, adds another layer of intrigue to the whole affair.
An intimate look at a cluttered and chaotic subject.
A tale of robbery, suspense, torment, kidnap and murder; with Confine, director and writer Tobias Tobell has managed to conjure up that most elusive and miraculous of things; a genuinely torturous horror movie. Following an horrendous car crash, former model Pippa (Daisy Lowe) has been reduced to a gibbering, neurotic shut-in, limping around her flat and communicating only via telephone or Skype. Facially disfigured by the accident, she never ventures from the safe confines of her living space, preferring to remain locked-away, dealing art in order to raise money for various charitable causes; the many hundreds of magazines that populate her bedroom, are a constant reminder of the life she has known and lost. Pippa’s life of seclusion comes to an end courtesy of Kayleigh (Eliza Bennett) and Henry (Alfie Allen), a couple of criminals involved in a nearby jewellery heist, who make Pippa a prisoner in her own home, before brutally turning on each other.
Confine attempts to generate a sense of discomfort, of visceral, verbal horror by placing its emphasis on the uneasy, potentially deadly relationship which is struck up between Pippa and Kayleigh. An unknown quantity, Kayleigh veers dangerously between perniciously cute, and sadistically violent. The result is a movie which may well have been superb, if it weren’t so incomprehensibly written or woodenly acted.
As she wobbles around the screen, wheezing into paper bags and muttering garbled nonsense, Daisy Lowe looks every inch a model pretending to be an actor pretending to be a model. At 5 foot 4 in heels and 8 stone wet-through, Eliza Bennett may well be the least physically intimidating villain imaginable. So ghastly is the double-act performed by Daisy Lowe and Eliza Bennett, it very quickly becomes difficult to watch. Protracted moments of supposedly-threatening dialogue, become toe-curlingly embarrassing, as the women bicker like a couple of siblings fighting over the last Turkey Drummer.
With so much of the film focusing so intently on the knife-edge relationship between Pippa and Kayleigh , there’s simply nowhere for its actors to hide; or its audience for that matter.
As curses go, the hex foisted upon young Serbian women Zoritsa would, at first glance, appear to be relatively minor. From a long line of moustached women, Zoritsa is the first to be born without even the merest hint of growth. But Zoritsa’s fortuitous hairlessness comes at a heavy cost; her prospective suitors have a habit of dropping dead.
Returning to her village after an absence of some 20 years in an attempt to break the curse on the much revered Day of the Dead; Zoritsa attracts the attention of sceptic policeman Mane, as well as pitchfork-wielding locals with a score to settle.
It’s no easy task to blend horror with moments of comedy. For every Shaun of the Dead there’s a Severance, for every Evil Dead there’s an Army of Darkness. Thankfully, Radoslav Pavkovic and Christina Hadjicharalambous’s movie is one of the more enjoyable offerings from this particular mix of genres.
Loveless Zoritsa plays out like a strange, modern-day fairy tale, with a charming visual style that owes a debt to the Universal horror films of the 30’s and 40’s. Zoritsa’s secluded Balkan village appears to be just that; a strangely antiquated little township that’s been spirited in from a time gone by.
There are no prizes for guessing how the relationship between Zoritsa and Mane will resolve itself, and perhaps the moments of comedy never quite elevate themselves above just strangely charming; but for a film which is as strangely charming as this, with its baying, incompetent villagers, its botched satanic rituals and its bizarre coven of wailing, moustachioed women; it’s not a particularly big problem.
Stephane Lafleur’s meandering, minimalist slice of Canadian life, Familiar Grounds, revels in the mundane, while simultaneously peppering its story with splashes of the remarkable.
Brother and Sister, Benoit and Maryse are living lives of utter monotony (and I do mean monotony) through a bleak Quebec winter. Living with his elderly father, Benoit despairs that everything he touches “turns to shit”. His budding romance with a single mother is scuppered by her son, his relationship with his father fractured, his inability to competently work the family Skid-doo a constant bone of contention. Following an accident at her work, Maryse begins to evaluate her life of domesticity, married to a tedious cycling enthusiast. The snow-blown boredom for these two is broken by the arrival of a used-car dealer claiming to be from the future. His words of warning to Benoit point to an impending disaster for his sister, should she go ahead with a planned roadtrip.
Lafleur’s story of disaffected siblings moves at an absolute snail’s pace, allowing the director to revel in the crushing bleakness of the unforgiving Canadian winter. The daily routine is broken only by the odd moment of sudden randomness, categorised as a serious of “accidents”. The rare moments of drama, as and when they do appear, throw into stark contrast the dullness of the daily grind. Family dinners become ruined monuments to the dead, trips to the garage grim portents of looming tragedy.
The end result is a movie which, with its excruciating study of the unremarkable, has a sort of dead-eyed charm. Glimpses of affection can be gleaned through the cold exteriors of the characters, the positively ice-age backdrop may seem half a world away, but the people are recognisably human.
The only trouble with all this is, a film which takes so much effort to revel in so much overwhelming tedium, can get a little, well tedious.
Washed-up punk-rocker Johnny Jones (Phil Daniels) begs a record company head-honcho to re-sign his band Weapons of Happiness after decades on the scrap-heap, only to be refused on the grounds that listening to anyone over the age of 30 sing is like “watching your parents having sex”. Faced with rejection, and staring at an anonymous middle-age spent in various caravan parks, Johnny hatches a plan to re-launch his music career. Assemble a group of TV-friendly kids as a front for his band; the kids can mime and wave, while Johnny and his pals roll back the years and kick out the jams backstage.
Johnny and his bandmates’ auditions for likely teenyboppers unearth the talents of troubled youngster Drainpipe (Jamie Blackley), a kid with a reckless streak, a passion at odds with the plastic, wipe-clean façade of the pop group he should be a poster boy for, and showmanship similar to that of Johnny himself. The band is launched, and their first single becomes an unlikely success.
Sara Sugarman’s warm-hearted tale of men behaving badly, and musically maladroit youths is based on the real-life story of Welsh band The Alarm who pulled of a similar hoax of their own in 2004. Vinyl extolls the virtues of six strings, pub gigs and cramped tour buses, over the auto-tuned, pre-packaged pop of X-Factor and the like. But while it invokes the spirit of the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle, Vinyl lacks the element of unpredictability so integral to the punk music it worships. It feels safer, less anarchic even than School Of Rock, a film with which it shares a certain DNA.
That’s not to say it lacks heart or humour. Daniels makes a decent fist of injecting sympathy into the selfish, pig-headed, oldest swinger in town, Johnny Jones. As the bad-boy of the Welsh seaside, Blackley radiates the impulsiveness and sex-appeal so obvious in the best and most dangerous of rock stars. Weapons of Happiness guitarist turned nursing home impresario, Perry Benson reminds us just what a fine comic actor he is also.
It probably won’t have you dusting off the leathers, but it will make you chuckle as it gives Simon Cowell a gentle kick up the backside.
Finnish Director Laura Hyppönen’s gritty East London debut film Live East Die Young has received a nomination for best UK feature film at this year’s Raindance Film Festival in London.
The film will hold its world premiere at the festival on the 4th October, shortly followed by French premiere at the Dinard British Film Festival where the film has been nominated for the festival’s Grand Jury prize, the Golden Hitchcock.
Shot on a shoestring budget and featuring a distinctive soundtrack from the indie underground wave (featuring cult bands Bo Ningen, Feral AKA MC Kinky and many others), Live East Die Young is a raw look at the lives of model Emma and her best friend, hairdresser Max, as they descend ever-deeper into a destructive world of parties, lies, sex and drugs. Shot entirely at authentic East London locations, from artist warehouses to club basements, the film offers a voyeuristic, dogma-esque look into their substance-fuelled lifestyle. The film also stars newcomers Zoë Grisedale and James ‘Jeanette’ Main, best known for his involvement with notorious real-life East London party collective, Boombox.
Hyppönen, who has been living in the UK for 11 years, produced, wrote and directed the film. She says: “It’s great that an edgy independent no-budget film like Live East Die Young has been recognised among recent UK successes like ‘Ill Manors’ and ‘Shadow Dancer’. The project has been a labour of love, made without any support from film funds. We are really excited to see how the audience will respond!”
The film is sold internationally by Paris-based Reel Suspects. Matteo Lovadina, CEO, who handpicked the project from Cannes during the Marche du Film, says: “I am pleased to work as the international sales agent for Live East Die Young. The film’s roughness and documentary look made me feel immediately inside the story. It’s a crossover film that can fit equally well into niches and attract the general public. The Raindance world premiere and Dinard competition selection are a confirmation of the film’s potential.”
Behind a secret door deep in Soho lies members club Apartment 58, this year playing host to the programme announcement of the Raindance Film Festival. The independently minded festival is in its 20th year and celebrated this milestone by receiving more submissions from more countries than ever before. Those selected play out at the festival’s home of Apollo Cinema Piccadilly Circus from 26th September to 7th October and feature an impressive blend of World, International, European and UK Premieres.
Opening the Festival is acclaimed Mexican feature Here Comes the Devil, forming part of the Latin American strand of the line-up which showcases the flourishing world of Latin American and Mexican cinema in all its varying scope. Also under this strand comes Sal, an Argentinean/ Chilean film likened to the worlds dreamt up by Sergio Leone and Quentin Tarintino as well as the already-well-received From Tuesday to Tuesday from Argentina.
Continuing Raindance’s fondness of all things continental, this years European strand focuses on, but is by no means limited to, Eastern Europe with films from Serbia, The Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Crying and Croatia Vegetarian Cannibal hotly tipped to impress and appal in equal measure.
Away from the subtitled films this years Raindance supports a wide range of UK and US cinema as well as shining a spotlight on (largely French speaking) Quebec with the Canadian province contributing 4 features and 1 documentary to this years line-up. Festival goers will be able to assess the acting chops of Daisy Lowe in her big screen debut alongside fellow young Brit from the gossip pages, Alfie Allen, in Confine. If that sounds all a bit too young and fresh, other UK films even things out with Tom Conti starring in romantic comedy City Slacker and Derek Jacobi bringing Caesar into the 21st century, complete with real life prisoners, in String Caesar.
Documentaries continue to be supported by the festival with everything from alien cover-ups (Hidden Hand) to Jeremy Irons’ environmental concerns (Trashed) being covered in the healthy looking Documentary strand of Raindance. Zero Killed blurs the lines of documentary and feature films in a dark look at murder fantasies while Banaz – A Love Story chronicles the brutal honour killing of Banaz Mahmod, a young British woman in London killed by her own family for choosing a life for herself.
There is also an international selection making up the shorts programme featuring the intriguing prospect of the Chuck Palahniuk short film Romance, based on his own story. The Fight Club author will be a guest at Raindance introducing his film as well as hosting a fund-raising dinner for the Independent Film Trust (IFT), the UK charity which works to promote the cause of independent film-making.
Retrospectives celebrating the work of Trent Harris and late French auteur Chris Marker complete what promises to be an exciting line-up.
- Matthew Walsh
Below is the official press release and trailer from the festival. We do hope to attend the festival and will bring you coverge at Cinehouse and The People's Movies.
The Raindance Film Festival announces its 20th festival programme at today’s press launch at London’s APARTMENT 58. This year’s lineup includes 105 features and over 138 shorts and 64 UK Premieres, 13 International Premieres, 5 European Premieres, 20 World Premieres and 24 Directorial Debuts
from 38 countries with another exceptional year of internationally
acclaimed films, special live events, exclusive Q&As and
masterclasses. The festival will take place from 26th September to 7th
October at its home of Apollo Cinema Piccadilly Circus SW1Y 4LR.
Opening the festival on Wednesday 26th September is the
International Premiere of HERE COMES THE DEVIL – a powerful fantasy
horror from Mexico. Shot in Tijuana, a married couple lose their
children while on a family trip near some caves in Tijuana. The kids
eventually reappear without explanation, but it becomes clear that they
are not who they used to be and that something terrifying has changed
them. The Opening Night afterparty will feature band The Real Tuesday
Weld which The Sunday Times calls: “beautiful...giddily recalls
Gainsbourg, Pulp, Cole Porter, early Disney soundtracks and seedy
postwar revue bars” and received their Album of the Week.
Closing the festival on Sunday 7th October is the UK
Premiere of 7 CRATES – from Paraguay and fresh from its screening in
Toronto Film Festival’s vanguard section. The film focusses on Victor,
17, who lives in Asunción and dreams of having a TV set. He agrees to
deliver seven boxes in exchange for 100 dollars. It sounds like nothing
could be easier, but the boxes contain something everyone
wants.Raindance is thrilled this year to celebrate a stellar LATIN
AMERICAN STRAND featuring some exceptional films from Latin America and
Mexico, including this year’s opening night film from Mexico Here Comes
the Devil. Also from the region we have Die Standing Up (Winner of Best
Mexican Documentary at the Guadalajara Film Festival) and My Universe
in Lower Case (Winner of Best Mexican debut feature at the Guadalajara
Film Festival) both from Mexico, Sal – a Sergio Leone, Tarantino
influenced feature from Argentina/Chile and Tuesday to Tuesday from
Argentina/Spain.
The UK HOMEGROWN STRAND will showcase the best in
British filmmaking talent, including three World Premieres: Love
Tomorrow written and directed by Christopher Payne, Produced by
Stephanie Moon and co-produced by Emmy Award-winning dance
producers/filmmakers The Ballet Boyz, Love Tomorrow is about a tentative
friendship that grows into something more when two dancers meet by
chance on the streets of London; City Slacker, comedy starring Tom Conti
from the writer of Dummy which previously screened at Raindance and
Confine starring Daisy Lowe and Alfie Allen and Directed by Tobias
Tobbell about a heist which goes wrong. Also in this year’s UK strand is
String Caesar, featuring Derek Jacobi as Caesar alongside real life
prisoners bringing Julius Caesar into the 21st Century.
Exciting films emerge from the AMERICAN INDIE STRAND
this year, including the World Premiere of Dark Hearts directed by Rudol
Buitendach, former prize winner at Raindance and starring Sonja Kinski,
daughter of Nastassja Kinski; The Grief Tourist Directed by Suri
Krishnama (also a former Raindance prize winner) starring Melanie
Griffith and Michael Cudlitz; Mon Ami which recently screened to much
acclaim at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival is Fargo meets Dumb and
Dumber in a horror movie disguised as a buddy comedy; Me and You At the
Zoo which screened at Sundance and provides a cautionary tale as it
chronicles several years in the endlessly self-recorded life of Chris
Crocker, who won fame with his 207 “Leave Britney Alone!” YouTube rant.
From the EUROPEAN STRAND comes Heavy Girls – an
ultra-low budget feature from Germany about love and dementia; The
Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Crying is a contemporary
romantic comedy from Serbia and Vegetarian Cannibal - a multiple
award-winner at the Pula Film Festival where it took both Best Director
and Best Actor amongst others and Directed by Branko Schmidt from
Croatia.
An extraordinary DOCUMENTARY STRAND kicks off with the
legendary Jeremy Irons and composer Vangelis who will be in attendance
for the excellent green documentary Trashed. Also featuring is EBE
award-winning feature documentary Hidden Hand which examines the
phenomena surrounding UFOs, Extra Terrestrials, alien abduction and the
US secret military cover-up of supposed E.T. contact; the multi-award
winning Zero Killed the documentary/feature hybrid directed by Michal
Kosakowski who has been asking people with different backgrounds about
their murder fantasies; the World Premiere of Orania which examines a
community of Whites Only which exists in the heart of South Africa and
Banaz – A Love Story, which chronicles the brutal honour killing of
Banaz Mahmod, a young British woman in London, killed by her own family
for choosing a life for herself.
A unique spotlight on QUEBEC this year includes 4
Features and 1 Documentary – including Over My Dead Body, a documentary
on enfant terrible of the dance world, Dave St. Pierre who also suffers
from cystic fibrosis and The Salesman about the perennial car salesman
of the month starring Gilbert Sicotte.
There are three films focusing on dance. The feature, Love Tomorrow from
the Ballet Boyz, the documentary on Dave St Pierre, Over My Dead Body
and Ballroom Dancer from Denmark.
Continuing the festival's longstanding affiliation with music, the RAINDANCE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA STRAND
is dedicated to music and alternative culture and this year features My
Father and the Man in Black - presenting the untold story of ‘bad boy’
Johnny Cash and his talented but troubled manager Saul Holiff and
Soundbreaker about Finland’s most daring contemporary musician Kimmo
Pohjonen.
An exciting selection of international shorts makes it to the final SHORTS PROGRAMME
at Raindance this year with some of the biggest names in Hollywood –
including: Charlotte Rampling in The End; Charles Dance and Jenny
Agutter in Mapmaker, Malcolm McDowell for No Rest For The Wicked,
Jennifer Lopez in Life & Freaky Times Of Uncle Luke, Nick Moran in
82, Phil Jupitus and Josie Lawrence star in No Prisoner and Wonder
starring Diana Hardcastle (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and Henry
Goodman (Notting Hill), directed and scored by Johnny Daukes. One of the
programmed shorts will win Film Of The Festival Award - which will
automatically go into the Oscars™ shortlist for best short film.
Raindance Film Festival is one of only two British film festivals with
this honour.
In addition, Raindance will welcome American novelist and journalist Chuck Palahniuk
to the festival, best known for writing Fight Club. Palahniuk will
introduce his short film Romance which is based on one of his stories as
well as host a fund-raising dinner for the Independent Film Trust (IFT), the UK charity which works to promote the cause of independent film-making.
Raindance is also extremely pleased to announce two very diverse retrospectives. One celebrating the life and work of the French auteur Chris Marker represented by three films never seen in the UK, including Sunless and Level 5, and a very special Trent Harris Retrospective,
who is best known for Plan 10 from Outer Space, which debuted at
Raindance in 1996. Rubin and Ed and The Beaver Trilogy starring Sean
Penn and Crispin Glover are both screening at this year’s festival.
Trent Harris will also be in attendance to launch the retrospective.
Raindance Film Festival Founder Elliot Grove said:
“Raindance: 20 years on and the independent film spirit is stronger than
ever. This year’s collection of outstanding films proves that despite
the difficult international economic climate, independent filmmakers
continue to amaze, impress and entertain.”
Raindance Film Festival Award winners will be announced on Saturday 6 October, 6pm at the Apollo Cinema West End.
The Raindance Film Festival runs from Wednesday 26th September to Sunday
7th October 2012 at the APOLLO CINEMA: West End, 19 Lower Regent St,
SW1Y 4LR. For tickets please log onto the Apollo website.
Tickets can be booked online at www.raindance.org or by telephone on: 08712 240242 from September 10th
