Pomona Rewind

Eighteen years ago today the Provisional IRA announced a ceasefire, followed not long after by the Combined Loyalist Military Command. Eighteen years on and the wounds from five decades of violence and division run deep amid all the political progress that has been made. This isn't all that surprising as there is still segregation in our society, there is still sectarianism and not enough time has elapsed to blunt the memory of daily conflict and suffering. In fact, it is normal. It arguably took Spain at least 40 years to emerge from the shadow of the Civil War and General Franco. It took the Irish Republic even longer to shake off the memories and break the political mould set by the Civil War. As a debate on the past in recent months has demonstrated (not least on this website) republicans and loyalists, unionists, nationalists and others, the British and Irish have a long road to travel before Northern Ireland reconciles the competing narratives of its past and overcomes deep d

As London prepares for the opening of the Olympic Games, the eyes of the world will be locked on the UK's capital city for 16 days. London has, of course, always been the focus of attention - especially in cinema - and it has rivalled New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Rome as a great filmmaking city. But if you were to choose 10 movies that have given moviegoers a taste of the city Benjamin Disraeli once described as a "Modern Babylon", what would they be? GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946) No list of films set in London would be complete without including one based on a novel by its greatest writer, Charles Dickens. This David Lean adaptation is without a doubt the finest, with John Mills charismatic in the lead role as the adult version of Pip, the orphan who rises up the social ranks with the help of an unknown benefactor. Lean's handsome movie boasts excellent performances from Alec Guinness as Herbert Pocket, Jean Simmons and Valerie Hobson as the child and adult versio

Arise Sir Danny Boyle! That was the common view on Twitter as a spectacular opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games unfolded on TV screens across the globe. Danny Boyle's opening ceremony celebrated Britain's rich landscape, history, culture, sport and even the NHS and was done with typical panache from the Oscar winning director of 'Shallow Grave', 'Tainspotting' and ' Slumdog Millionaire '. It began with a high speed trek down the Thames a la the opening credits of 'Shallow Grave'. In the stadium, Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins awkwardly sounded a giant bell to mark the start of the Games and there were pastoral scenes of Maypole dancers, village cricketers, actual livestock, a water wheel, barley harvesters and a thatched cottage all to the strains of Elgar and haunting choral versions of 'Jerusalem', 'Danny Boy' sung in the Giant's Causeway, 'Flower of Scotland' from Edinburgh Castle and 'Cwm

So the results are in and it is now official.  ' Citizen Kane ' is no longer the most admired movie of all time. The Sight and Sound poll has been the film connoisseur's poll of choice since 1952. Leading directors and film critics have been asked every 10 years to come up with a list of their 10 favourite movies. And every 10 years since 1962, Orson Welles' wonderful movie has topped the polls. As any film anorak will tell you, choosing 10 great movies is a very painful process - the cinematic equivalent of deciding which members of your family would you choose to evacuate from a volcanic island.  Do you count Francis Coppola's ' The Godfather ' trilogy as one seamless work or three separate films of varying quality? And what about Krzysztof Kiezlowski's 'Three Colours' trilogy or Satyajit Ray's 'Apu' trilogy? This year, Sight and Sound, the British Film Institute's magazine, decreed they must be treated as separate movies - o