Edinburgh International Film Festival 2

The Film Festival ends tomorrow, but I saw my last film there today. It was How Is Your Fish Today? a Chinese documentary film about a screenwriter, intertwined with a film that he is trying ti write. It offers interesting insights into China and into the writing process, particularly the prose writers relationship with their characters.

Other films I've seen since my last post on the Film Festival include:

Sieben Himmel - a bizarre German film about the unlikely relationship between a young goth and a nightwatchman who seem to be stuck in a time loop (though the siginificance of this is never explored). I enjoyed the film but the experimental camera work was too much for me.

Interkosmos is another German film, this time a mockumentary about the fictional East German plans to colonise the moons of Jupiter and to set up a permanent space library of communist literature. Excellent film, truly bizarre with a wonderful cameo appearance from the Space Guinea Pig animation.

Skin is a Portuguese film that had great potential in terms of exploring issues around race and gender in a post colonial society, but the wonderful art direction and attractive cast were let down by the clumsy dialogue and the clunky character development.

So which of the films that I saw will come back to UK cinemas? I would guess Skin will come back and I would be surprised if Wristcutters doesn't. The others however probably won't. Which is a shame in a lot of ways, but personally I always consider my money to be best spent in the Film Festival if the films don't come back - ie I use it as a way to see rare films.