CINEMA CITY (BELFAST FILM FESTIVAL 2013)
Ten months ago, Belfast was buzzing after the city's annual film festival.
Oscar winner Terry George brought Brendan Fraser, David O'Hara, Martin McCann and Conleth Hill to the Waterfront Hall for a sellout European premiere of his hostage comedy 'Whole Lotta Sole', with Foy Vance joining in the celebrations with his guitar.
There had been well received screenings of James Marsh's intelligent Troubles thriller 'Shadow Dancer' with Andrea Riseborough and also Kieron J Walsh's Derry drama 'Jump', starring Martin McCann, Richard Dormer and Ciaran McMenamin.
The festival hosted some magical screenings of classic legal movies like Sidney Lumet's 'The Verdict', Robert Mulligan's 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and an examination of scenes in Stanley Kramer's 'Judgement At Nuremburg' by the broadcaster William Crawley at the High Court in Belfast.
Stephen Rea and James Ellis reflected on their careers at two memorable festival events and the programme also boasted some fine documentaries including Alessandra Celesia McIlduff’’s ‘The Bookseller of Belfast' and Margo Harkin's 'The Far Side of Revenge'.
It is fitting, therefore, that the Belfast Film Festival returns for a 13th year just two weeks after the theatrical release of Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros d'Sa's wonderful Terri Hooley biopic, 'Good Vibrations'.
D'Sa and Leyburn's joyous feature film first set sail with a world premiere during the festival at the Movie House last May, with a packed screening also taking place down the road in the Ulster Hall.
And as we head into the 2013 festival, the positive reception 'Good Vibrations' has received at festivals across the world and from movie critics - especially for Richard Dormer's powerhouse performance as Hooley - continues to thrill the Northern Ireland filmgoing public.
So what are the key events and screenings to watch out for at this year's festival?
MADE IN BELFAST
What better way to the begin the film festival than a screening of a debut movie set in Belfast from writer/director Paul Kennedy?
The aptly named 'Made In Belfast' will be screened on April 11 in The Movie House on the Dublin Road, with Enniskillen actor Ciaran McMenamin in the lead role.
McMenamin plays Jack, a successful author based in Paris, who returns to Belfast trying to put right his relationship with friends and family who felt betrayed by the revelations about their own lives in his novel.
The movie features the cream of indigenous acting talent including Bronagh Gallagher, Stuart Graham and Lalor Roddy.
LA TRAVIATA
St Anne's Cathedral will provide a wonderful setting on April 11 for a screening of Italian director Franco Zeffirelli's lush 1982 adaptation of Giuseppi Verdi's beloved opera for the big screen.
Placido Domingo dazzles as the nobleman Alfredo Germont who falls for Teresa Stratas' Violetta at a lavish party and embarks on a relationship with her, amid some family resistance to their relationship.
Zeffirelli's movie got rave reviews and picked up Oscar nominations and BAFTA awards for the director and Gianni Quaranta's production design and Piero Tosi's gorgeous costumes.
Opera buffs will revel in Zeffirelli's sumptuous staging of set pieces such as Verdi's 'Drinking Song' and the New York Metropolitan Opera chorus's stirring version of 'We Are Gypsies' but there is also stunning choreography including a sequence featuring Bolshoi ballerina, Ekaterina Maximova.
THE MAYSLES BROTHERS COMPETITION AND OTHER DOCUMENTARIES
As always, the festival boasts a strong documentary strand - especially with the annual Mayles Brothers Competition bringing jaw dropping real-life stories from across the world.
Among the documentaries to keep an eye on will be Chico Pereira's 'Pablo's Winter', beautifully shot in black and white, at the Queen's Film Theatre (QFT) on April 12 about a stubborn septuagenarian living on borrowed time in a Spanish town.
A Canadian documentary 'Buzkashi' by Najeeb Mirza will be screened in the festival's Micro Cinema in Donegall Street on April 14 and focusses on a unique sporting event where horse riders pit their skills against each other in Tajikistan's Pamir mountains.
Watch out too for 'Winter Go Away' at the QFT on April 16 which features the films of 10 young moviemakers commissioned by a newspaper to chronicle two months of protests in Putin's Russia.
Outside of competition, it will be worth catching Northern Ireland born film critic and documentary maker Mark Cousins' quirky 'What Is This Film Called Love?' at the QFT on April 15, which was shot on a budget of just £10 in Mexico over three days, and also US filmmaker Brian Knappenberger's 'We Are Legion' on April 21 at The Beanbag Cinema in Donegall Street about hacktivists' protests against online censorship.
TONY GRISONI
He penned the screenplay for Terry Gilliam's 1998 movie adaptation of Hunter S Thompson's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
But it is for his work on Channel 4's stunning adaptation of David Peace's Yorkshire Ripper inspired 'Red Riding' novels that Tony Grisoni is probably best known.
He can be caught at the QFT on April 12, reflecting on a career that has seen him work with some of the best directors in the business like Jon Amiel, John Boorman, Michael Winterbottom and James Marsh.
And there will be a chance to get Grisoni's take on what happened to Terry Gilliam's ambitious 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote', which was famously abandoned after a series of on-set mishaps.
DESERT ISLAND FLICKS WITH MARK KERMODE
The popular 'Desert Island Flicks' strand brings arguably the UK's best known film critic Mark Kermode to The Black Box, talking about the subject he is most passionate about - his favourite and least favourite films.
Wittertainment fans will no doubt pack into the venue on April 12, as former festival director Brian Henry Martin quizzes the Observer critic and BBC 'Culture Show' presenter about the best movie for going out on a date and films that drove Kermode into and out of a cinema.
But will Belfast Film Festival audiences also be treated to Kermode's infamous impersonations of Danny Dyer and Gerard Butler which he likes to regularly trot out on his hugely entertaining weekly BBC Radio 5 Live film review show with Simon Mayo?
Expect Kermode to get a hero's welcome from local cinema buffs on the back of his enthusiastic championing of 'Good Vibrations'.
In another imaginative piece of programming, Stuart Rosenberg's 1968 prison drama starring Paul Newman gets a screening in one of Belfast's coldest and most iconic buildings, Crumlin Road Gaol on April 13.
However it is not the only prison drama that will get an outing, with the festival also screening clips from 'The Shawshank Redemption', 'Jailhouse Rock', 'The Blues Brothers', 'Stir Crazy' and 'Escape to Alcatraz'.
Rosenberg's movie features one of Newman's most charismatic Oscar nominated performances as the rebellious Lucas 'Luke' Jackson, sentenced to two years hard labour in a Florida chain gang for decapitating parking meters while drunk.
Luke takes on Strother Martin's tough warden, The Captain, and also George Kennedy's prisoners' leader, Dragline as he plots his escape from the prison farm.
In many ways a precursor to the equally rebellious 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest', the film features an infamous scene featuring boiled eggs.
Following recent dramatic events in the Vatican, festival goers will also want to catch BBC broadcaster William Crawley's reflection on how the movies and television have portrayed Pontiffs in 'Pictures of The Pope' at the Micro Cinema in Donegall Street on April 19.
A HIJACKING
Fans of Scandinavian dramas like 'The Killing,' 'The Bridge' and 'Borgen' will not want to miss this screening at the QFT on April 14 of Tobias Lindholm's thriller featuring many faces familiar to BBC4 viewers.
Set on a cargo ship, this tense film focusses on a battle of wits between Somali pirates who storm the vessel and the Danish crew.
Fans of 'Borgen' will revel in Soren Malling, Dar Salim and Pilou Asbaek's performances and Lindholm's assured direction.
And if that is not enough, 'Borgen' fans can also get their politics fix at a discussion in the MAC on April 17 called 'Political Drama - What Drama' chaired by Stratagem's Quintin Oliver and featuring contributions from Danish-born academic Matt Qvortrup, Simon Heath who produced the BBC2 Westminster drama 'Party Animals', Scottish broadcaster and commentator Leslie Riddoch and screenwriter Neil McKay who wrote 'Mo', Channel 4's biopic of former Secretary of State Mo Mowlam.
In what is quite a coup for the festival, they have secured a screening at the QFT on April 14 of Joss Whedon's surprise adaptation of Shakespeare's classic romantic comedy.
Fresh from the huge box office success of his super hero blockbuster 'Marvel Avengers Assemble', Whedon shifted genres and turned to some of his regulars for this well received adaptation of the tempestuous relationship between Benedick and Beatrice and the passionate romance between Claudio and Hero.
Alexis Denisof, who first worked with the director on the TV series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', and another Whedon alumna, Amy Acker bravely step into the roles of Benedick and Beatrice who bicker as they gradually fall in love.
Whedon's movie has received good worth of mouth on the film festival circuit, with screenings in Dublin, Glasgow, Bradford, the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, Seattle and in Wisconsin.
FARAWAY
The Movie House on Belfast's Dublin Road will host the premiere on April 18 of this intriguing Northern Ireland thriller which reflects the changing ethnic mix of the city.
Director Stephen Don breaks new ground with a multilingual thriller whose central characters, Karol and Lin, have emigrated to Belfast from Poland and China.
Both are innocently sucked into a situation where their lives are endangered in a quarry on the outskirts of the city.
Starring Jennifer Lim, Daniel York, Ignacy Rybarczyk and Tom Collins, Stephen Don's movie tells its story in Mandarin, Polish and English.
THE MAN WHO LOVED CINEMA/TOTO THE HERO
The QFT on April 20 will host a tribute to its founder Michael Open who brought arthouse and international cinema to the university area of Belfast during the dark days of the Troubles.
There will be a screening of Brian Henry Martin's documentary 'The Man Who Loved Cinema' which was shot on an iPad on no budget and notes how Michael Open's dogged commitment to screening the best in independent cinema influenced a generation of filmmakers.
The documentary will be followed with a screening of one of Open's favourite films, Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael's 1991 movie 'Toto the Hero'.
This stylish movie about an old man reflecting on his life, it skilfully shifts between flashbacks and dream sequences and features fantastic performances from Michel Bouquet, Thomas Godet and Jo De Backer as the elderly, child and adult versions of its central character, Thomas.
Tickets for Belfast Film Festival events can be purchased through its website. http://www.belfastfilmfestival.org/ or by phoning the festival box office on (02890) 246609.
(This preview originally appeared on April 10, 2013 on eamonnmallie.com)
(This preview originally appeared on April 10, 2013 on eamonnmallie.com)
Comments
Post a Comment