Join the Campaign to Save the Edinburgh Filmhouse

Cinema goers were saddened last month when it was announced that the Centre for the Moving Image was going into administration, meaning the end of Edinburgh's Filmhouse Cinema (and its online sister Filmhouse at Home), Aberdeen's Belmont Cinema and the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The reasons given for the collapse of the charity include the effect of the pandemic on reducing cinema audiences (I've rarely been to the cinema since COVID struck and have watched films online including on Filmhouse at Home), the recent huge hike in energy prices in the UK and the general cost of living crisis. In truth, apparently, the signs had been there for years, but the charity hadn't made them public. I think if problems had been made public, then people would have rallied round to save the cinemas and festival before all this happened. 

At the same time, one of the major art galleries in Edinburgh has closed its doors until the Spring and there are rumours of other closures across the Scottish arts sector.

We need our cultural institutions! Depending on the film, cinema can offer escapism or directly address the issues that face the world. 

So, a campaign has been launched to Save the Filmhouse. You can read about the campaign on the Edinburgh Evening News website here, find out more on the campaign website or follow @SaveFilmhouse on Twitter. 

Edited to add: A crowdfunder has now been set up to secure the future of Filmhouse. 

 

Treacle - film review

Treacle is a new short bisexual drama from award winning director and actor April Kelley. 

Friends Belle (April Kelley) and Jess (Ariana Anderson) go on a trip together to help Jess get over a difficult break up. The two get drunk together and end up sleeping together. The next day they struggle to recapture their easy friendship. 

Bisexual Belle feels that Jess (who is straight) only got together with her as an experiment, thinking that as a bixesual woman she (Belle) would be up for experimentation. Would Jess have behaved the same way with a lesbian or with a man? Or would getting drunk so soon after a break up have meant she would have had sex with anyone who happened to be nearby? Jess can't or won't answer any of these questions.

Beautifully shot and acted, the film leaves the viewer wondering whether the two women can repair their friendship and supports the 'notion that bisexuality isn’t just a phase or an experiment nor is the ‘B’ there to just help the acronym roll off the tongue'.


This film premiered at BFI Flare: London LGBTQI+ Film Festival and had its US premiere at Frameline43: The San Francisco International LGBTQI Film Festival. The film will screen at the Underwire Film Festival (the UK's only film festival celebrating female film making) on Thursday 19 September as part of the Best Friends shorts screening.


Disclaimer: I saw a free online preview of this film in return for a review.

Tell it to the Bees - film review

Set in a small Scottish town in the nineteen fifties, Tell It To The Bees is the story of Charlie (Gregor Selkirk) whose father, returned from the war a changed man, walks out on his marriage. Charlie's mother Lydia (Holliday Grainger) works all the hours she can in a mill to try to keep a roof over their heads.

Jean (Anna Paquin) has returned to the village to take over her dead father's medical practice. She treats Charlie after he is hurt by bullies at his school and introduces him to her bees. She encourages him to tell his secrets to the bees and he starts keeping a nature diary based on his observations of the hives. 

Charlie's friendship with the doctor leads to his mother becoming friends with Jean too. When Lydia is threatened with eviction, Jean offers her a job as her live in housekeeper. The two women find themselves drawn into an intense friendship which develops into a sexual relationship. But gossip travels quickly in a small town and lesbian relationships weren't considered normal in the 1950s so the new household that the three are creating together is threatened right from the beginning. 

The bees are present throughout, as confidants to Charlie and playing an important role in the plot at one point too. 

It's in many ways an excellent film, the main characters and their relationships are believable (though Paquin's Scottish accent slightly less so) and the story sheds a light on the repressive attitudes of a 1950s small town community.

This is based on the novel by Fiona Shaw, though the ending has been changed (If you've seen the film, you may like this excellent article by Shaw about what she thinks of the ending).

Tell it to the Bees is screening at the Filmhouse until Thursday 25 July. 

Cross posted to my Crafty Green Poet blog here.

Two SF films at Edinburgh International Film Festival

Edinburgh International Film Festival ends tonight and here are my two final reviews. 

The Vast of Night 



The debut from director Andrew Patterson, The Vast of Night, framed as an episode of The Twighlight Zone, is set over the course of a single night a small town in late 1950s New Mexico. Most residents of the town are at a basketball game, except for radio presenter Everett (Jake Horowitz) and switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick), who hear mysterious sounds disrupting their lines and broadcasts. This leads to an investigation involving a veteran who phones into the radio station to recount his experiences and an elderly lady who shares snippets of a language she has heard that seems connected to the other strange sounds.

It's a beautifully made film which feels to very realistically evoke the era. It's a very low key drama, with the story developing slowly and there being little disagreement between Fay and Everett despite what must be trying events. A burgeoning romance between the two is very slightly hinted at but doesn't develop at all, avoiding the obvious sub-plot (though possibly decreasing the amount of engagement for some viewers?). 

Definitely worth watching, it should get at least a restricted release in the UK in the next few months.


 Time Crimes 




Going back in time (in more ways than one) Time Crimes is a 2007 Spanish film featuring Hector a middle aged man who finds himself caught in a time loop and tries to keep going back to correct what went wrong last time he travelled back in time. It's one of those films that messes with your brain, specially if you think about it too much. 

One of the great things about the Edinburgh International Film Festival is that it includes well curated retrospective strands that include films like this, that might otherwise be forgotten. 

Disclaimer: I received free press tickets for the public screenings of these two films. 

 You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019, by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

 Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world

How to Fake  a War (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) what happens when a rock star decides to meddle in international affairs?


Farm Animals on Film - featuring The Biggest Little Farm - an inspiring story of the creation of a sustainable biodiverse farm in California, plus Vulture, an experimental film about farm animals.

Virgin and Extra: Land of the Olive Oil.
 
Chef Diaries Scotland: Spanish Chefs the Roca brothers take the viewer on a culinary road trip round Scotland

 Up the Mountain - a year in an artists' studio in the Chinese mountains.

The Amber Light - a cinematic ode to Scotland's national drink

Aren't You Happy (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) - a writer searches for the meaning of life while not actually writibg anything

The Deer - a Basque language film following two poachers in a national park on the outskirts of San Sebastien.

Hurt by Paradise - a poet keeps searching for a publisher and an actor keeps trying to get a role

Photograph (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) - a street photographer in Mumbai invents a fiancee for himself....

Endzeit - an ecofeminist road movie with zombies. 

Vai and Venezia - 2 films from sinking worlds. 

Hamada - (on my Shapeshiting Green blog) life for young refugees of the Sahwari people in the Sahara. 

 Volcano - a photpgrapher gets lost in Ukraine

Black Forest - a dysfunctional family holiday in the German forest  

Carmilla - a gothic tale. 

Hamada - screening at Edinburgh International Film Festival

 

Hamada: (h 'ma:d ) n. (geology) a desert terrain that consists of a flat and rocky area mainly devoid of sand. For Sahrawi people, hamada also refers to ‘emptiness’ or ‘lifelessness’. 
 
Hamada follows the lives of young friends living in a refugee camp in the Sahara. A minefield and the second largest military wall in the world separates this group from their homeland that they only know from their parent's stories. The Sahrawi people have lived here for 40 years since Morocco drove them out of Western Sahara.

These young people have the same interests as young people in more fortunate circumstances, they want to learn how to drive, to develop skills, to find meaningful jobs, to find a girlfriend or boyfriend, to enjoy time with their friends and family. Their determination shines through in every scene but it is clear that all of them want more fulfilling lives than the refugee camp can offer them.

Hamada is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival at  1325, Saturday 29 June and at 1530 Sunday 30 June both at Odeon Lothian Road. You can buy tickets here.

You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019, by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

 Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world

How to Fake  a War (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) what happens when a rock star decides to meddle in international affairs?

Farm Animals on Film - featuring The Biggest Little Farm - an inspiring story of the creation of a sustainable biodiverse farm in California, plus Vulture, an experimental film about farm animals.

Virgin and Extra: Land of the Olive Oil.

Chef Diaries: Scotland - Spanish chefs the Roca brothers take the viewer on a culinary road trip round Scotland.

Up the Mountain - a year in an artists' studio in the Chinese mountains.

The Amber Light - a cinematic ode to Scotland's national drink

Aren't You Happy (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) - a writer searches for the meaning of life while not actually writing anything

The Deer - a Basque language film following two poachers in a national park on the outskirts of San Sebastien.

Hurt by Paradise - a poet keeps searching for a publisher and an actor keeps trying to get a role

Photograph (on my Shapeshifting Green blog) - a street photographer in Mumbai invents a fiancee for himself....

Endzeit - an ecofeminist road movie with zombies. 

Vai and Venezia - 2 films from sinking worlds. 


Volcano - lost in the borderlands of Ukraine.

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.

Aren't You Happy? Screening at Edinburgh International Film Festival

Writer-director Susanne Heinrich’s first feature length film is a cinematically interesting exploration of life, love and gender relations for today's young woman. 

A nameless and melancholy young woman (Marie Rathscheck) is a writer with writing issues (she's got no further than the first line of the second chapter of her novel). She searches for meaning to life and a bed for the night while waiting for the end of capitalism. She meets various men, none of whom she allows to mean anything to her. She visits art galleries and philosophises about beauty, feminism and consumerism.

The film is very stylised (reminding in this particular though not in others of Fassbinder's Fear Eats the Soul) and almost static, broken down into self consciously announced episodes. Everything takes place in a very distinctive colour palette dominated by pink and blue. 

Then suddenly in the middle there's a wonderful animated music video then we're back to the same clever and contrived format as before.  

There are moments of humour here and some ideas worth thinking about but mostly it's melancholy and feels as though it should be more entertaining than it is.

Aren't You Happy? is nominated for the 2019 Award for Best International Feature Film.

Aren't You Happy screens at the Edinburgh International Film Festival at 2020 Monday 24 June and 2040 Wednesday 26 June both at Vue Omni Centre. You can book tickets here.

You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019, by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

 Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world

How to Fake  a War what happens when a rock star decides to meddle in international affairs?

Farm Animals on Film - featuring The Biggest Little Farm - an inspiring story of the creation of a sustainable biodiverse farm in California, plus Vulture, an experimental film about farm animals.

Virgin and Extra: Land of the Olive Oil.


Chef Diaries: Scotland - Spanish chefs the Roca brothers take the viewer on a culinary road trip round Scotland.

Up the Mountain - a year in an artists' studio in the Chinese mountains.

The Amber Light - a cinematic ode to Scotland's national drink

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.

How to Fake a War - film review

This is how World War Three starts, an explosive mix of fame obsessed celebrities, fake news, international meddling in a sovereign state's affairs, naivety and misadventure.

Hip-hop star Harry Hope (Jay Pharoah) claims to have won every music and acting award going and now has its sights set on the Nobel Peace Prize. So when he hears about war breaking out on the border of Georgia and a neighbouring republic that no-one has ever heard of, he sees this as his chance and announces a major Concert for Peace. But almost immediately a ceasefire is brokered and Harry is annoyed that his opportunity for greater fame has been undermined. So he tasks his PR consultant, Kate (Katherine Parkinson), and her sister and intern, Peggy (Lily Newmark),with manufacturing a fake conflict for long enough for Harry's concert to be seen as the catalyst for peace. 

This is as dubious a proposition as it sounds and leads to mayhem, violence and the build up to potentially serious international conflict. 

Despite being billed as a comedy, this is more often very uncomfortable viewing. You may laugh at this seemingly ridiculous story, but underneath, in this world of fake news and celebrity obsession, you sort of wouldn't be too surprised to find out it's true.

How to Fake a War is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 at 1755, Saturday 22 June and at 1515, Sunday 23 June, both at Odeon, Lothian Road. You can buy tickets here.


You can read my earlier reviews from Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 (posted on my Crafty Green Poet blog) by following the links below:

Boyz in the Wood a group of teenage boys get lost in the Scottish Highlands.

2040 - can technology offer solutions to our current climate and ecological crises?

Bait - Cornish fishermen try to adapt to a changing world. 

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the film festival and attended a free press screening of these films.

The Lure - film review

The Lure is a wonderfully retro Polish musical featuring sister mermaids with vampiric tendencies who are taken on by an underground nightclub to perform backing vocals and striptease. Golden is the sister who most feels the lure of being a vampire, while Silver is the sister who tries to restrain her vampiric tendencies and falls in love with the band's bass player. However their love is doomed, she is a mermaid and he is a human and it's impossible for them to be together. At the same time, mermaid myth says that any mermaid who falls in love with a human who then marries another human will turn to sea-foam on her lover's wedding day..... Is Silver herself therefore doomed?

This is a wonderfully atmospheric film, coping equally well with punk concerts and underwater scenes. It's fun and upbeat but has a melancholy heart. Well worth watching.

The Lure is showing as part of Edinburgh International Film festival:

2055, 24 June at Cineworld.

 You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:





Endless Night.



Homo Sapiens.


Belles Familles.

The Olive Tree.

 Death is Only the Beginning - my review of The Correspondence and The Library Suicides.

The Mine.

The Islands and the Whales.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople. 

Bugs - are insects the food of the future?

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended free press screenings of these films

Best of Fest

Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced the line up of the Best of the Fest screenings to be shown on Sunday.

Tickets are on sale now and films screen from Saturday 27 - Sunday 28 June at:

• Filmhouse
• Cineworld
• Odeon Lothian Road.

And now for my own Fest of the Fest! Follow the links below for my reviews

Chicken - a beautifully made coming of age drama focussing on a teenager with learning difficulties and his pet chicken.

Scottish Mussel - a romantic comedy focussing on the fight to conserve the freshwater mussel

Black Mountain Poets - a hilarious tale of two sisters on the run who pretend to be poets and hide out at a poetry retreat in the Welsh Mountains

 Desert Dancer - amazing choreography in this fictionalised biopic of the Iranian dancer Adshin Ghaffarian

Liza the Fox Fairy - a surreal comedy from Hungary

When Elephants Fight - an important documentary about conflict minerals in the Congo

It's been a great festival and many of the films shown deserve to be released into cinemas. 

Disclaimer - I had a press pass for the film festival and attended free press screenings of these films (except for Liza the Fox Fairy)

Liza the Fox Fairy

I wasn't able to get to a press screening of Liza the Fox Fairy but managed to buy a ticket for the last public screening and went along with Crafty Green Boyfriend.

This is a surreal film ('delightfully bonkers' according to Crafty Green Boyfriend) set in a beautifully imagined alternative reality 1970's Hungary where capitalism has replaced communism and everyone eats at Mekk Burger.

Liza is the live in nurse for the widow of the Japanese ambassador. The ghost of a Japanese pop star lives in the same flat and onstantly sings to Liza, though no-one else can see or hear him.

A series of unfortunate incidents in which people close to Liza die convince her that she is in fact a fox fairy, a creature from Japanese mythology who kills everyone who loves her. Can she find her one true love who can break the curse?

This a wonderfully escapist film, entertaining and very funny in parts.

Liza the Fox Fairy was shown as part of the Edinburgh International Film festival and hopefully will eventually get released into cinemas.

To read my other reviews from the film festival, follow the links below

Scottish Mussel - a romantic comedy centred on the fight to save the freshwater pearl mussel

 Black Mountain Poets - sisters on the run join a poetry retreat in the Welsh mountains

Desert Dancer - drama inspired by the life of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian 

Under Milk Wood - a new cinematic interpretation of Dylan Thomas' classic prose poem

Brand New U - futuristic thriller /  love story 

 Of Chickens and Camels - a review of Chicken (a wonderful coming of age film about a teenager with learning difficultie) and Nearby Sky (a documentary about the camel beauty contests in the Emirates). 

Infini - disaster on an off-planet mine

La Tirisia - love and life in the cacti covered mountains of Mexico

When Elephants Fight - conflict minerals in Congo

 Iron Ministry - a cinematic journey through China by rail

 Index Zero - dystopian SF set in a future Fortress Europe

30 Days Wild goes to the cinema - how the landscape backdrops two films set in very different countries (Sand Dollars and The Gulls) 

Disclaimer - I have a press pass for the film festival and attended free press screening of  these films.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Two films about social activism

I came out of today's screening of Everyday Rebellion feeling strangely deflated. It's a film about non-violent resistance across the world, but it gave us snapshots of too many different groups, some of which, including Femen (the Ukrainian feminist activists) weren't really given enough screen time to fully articulate their campaign aims. So we got lots of footage of half naked Femen protesters covered in marker pen slogans and crowds on demonstrations at Occupy Wall Street and across the world. There were some quirky awareness raising ideas (for example writing Freedom on ping pong balls and then lettting them loose in the middle of a city), some great quotes (eg "If you want to defeat a boxer, challenge him to a game of chess) and some impressive cartoons and graffiti. However overall, it felt to me too disjointed and overlong and lacking in real emotional engagement. 
(Having said that the Everyday Rebellion website looks like a great resource for protesting on issues of social justice).

Last night however I had come out of the screening of Pride crying from laughter and emotion and feeling a real sense of the power of solidarity between unlikely groups. This is a drama, based on real events from the 1984 Miners Strike when a group of Lesbian and Gay Activists in London decided to support the a mining community in Wales. Initially there is a lot of distrust between the two groups but gradually they move towards understanding and a shared community spirit, having a lot of fun along the way. It's hilariously funny, emotionally engaging, incredibly moving and ultimately very hopeful and is an example of how drama can often be much more powerful than a documentary.

Everyday Rebellion was showing as part of the Take One Action Festival, which is happening in Edinburgh and Glasgow while Pride is on general release at the moment.

The Missing Picture - film review

Director Rithy Panh was 13 when the Khmer Rouge deported his family from Phnom Penh. Now in his fifties, and having made a series of documentaries about his homeland, he turned to a more personal project with The Missing Picture.

Finding that hardly any documentary evidence remained from the times of the Khmer Rouge atrocities, he decided to make a film using clay figurines to tell his story and that of his family. The figurines re-enact the hardships Panh and his family endured in the fields where they were forced to work with very little food or medical attention in a collective farm where no-one had any personal belongings other than a spoon and clothes that were compulsorily dyed black. The Khmer Rouge punished (and often executed) people for crimes as simple as picking mangoes to counteract the ever pervasive hunger. Many people starved to death, or died of preventible diseases.

The result is a film that is striking in its imagination and devastating in its emotional impact, though it can be acknowledged that it is unremittingly grim. Even the scenes showing happier times in Phnom Penh, before the Khmer Rouge, only underline the horror of the Killing Fields rather than adding any lightness. Which is less an actual criticism than an acknowledgement that this is not an easy film to watch.

Some commentators have said that the figurines, although very effective in conveying the powerlessness and silence of the Cambodian people during this time period, also dilute the emotional impact of the story. I didn't find this, I found that somehow they increased the feeling of shocked horror at everything that was happening.

The Missing Picture is showing at Edinburgh Filmhouse until Thursday 20 February.

Museum Hours

Museum Hours is the story of Anne, a Canadian woman in Vienna to care for a distant relative who has fallen into a coma. She speds a lot of time in the city's Art History Museum and is befriended by one of the guards there who acts as her unofficial guide to the museum and to selected aspects of the city.

The two discuss the meaning and value of art, politics and their life experiences, while wandering round the Museum, various coffee shops and the wintry streets of Vienna.

The film sometimes feels like an advert for the museum and in particular its Breughel collection, though the wider city doesn't come out of it looking quite so wonderful, as the clouds never seem to lift and the camera lingers on building sites and run down street corners.

However the film is a particularly intelligent tour guide, juxtaposing as it does scenes from the museum alongside the flea markets of the city centre and taking a tour into the underworld of a lake grotto just as Anne's relative slips into death.

Its a lovely, meditative film for anyone interested in art history or in Vienna.

Museum Hours is on at Edinburgh Filmhouse until Thursday 26 September. 

**

The film reminded me of my visit to Vienna, many years ago now and I may see if I can transfer some of my photos onto the computer and write about the visit!

Wadjda

Wadjda is the first feature length film made by a female Saudi Arabian director. Restrictions meant that Haifa al Mansour took five years to make the film and often had to work out of the back of a van because she wasn't allowed to mix publically with the film crew.

The result though is a wonderful film, beautifully made and acted. The story is a simple one, Wadjda, an 11 year old girl, wants to buy a bicycle so she can race with her friend Abdullah. But girls aren't supposed to ride bikes and Wadjda's family won't buy her one. Desperate for the cash, she enters the school Koran reciting competition. Meanwhile her father is looking for a second wife as Wadjda's mother can't have any more children and he wants a son.

The film gives huge insights into the restrictions Saudi society places on women and how young girls, full of natural curiosity and talent, are gradually cowed and moulded for a future with very narrow horizons. It isn't at all a heavy worthy film though, the characters are engaging and there's a lot of humour in the story.

Wadjda is showing today and tomorrow at Filmhouse, Edinburgh.

Die Welt

Abdallah works for a pittance in a Tunis video store where he delights in encouraging customers to try less commercial films. Behind his pride in his homeland though he dreams of leaving the country, inspired partly by his father, who had lived in the Netherlands for several years. Abdallah has a one night stand with a Dutch woman and soon after that loses his job, both of which make him more determined to leave the country.

Die Welt explores the dilemmas faced by young Tunisians, treating the subject matter with a light touch, including enjoyably witty dialogue and lots of vivid scenes set in varied locations including marketplaces, a traditional wedding party and a traditional baths.

The background to the film is interesting. The Dutch director (Alex Pitstra) has a Tunisian father (who plays the father in Die Welt) and the film was inspired by his reactions to the Jasmine Spring revolution in Tunisia. The film blends documentary into the fictional story, even including home videos of Pitstra's childhood in the Netherlands. This brings a revealing and insightful personal element into the film.

Die Welt is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:

2050, 28 June and 1910, 29 June both at Cineworld. 

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh international Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film. 

Lilou's Adventure

Lilou, the ten year old daughter of a Guinean father and a Japanese mother, doesn't have friends at her school in Okinawa. She keeps herself pretty much to herself, even not liking to join the groups of children who congregate with her father to play drums and dance. Her classmate Kokuru, meanwhile has stopped dreaming and is upset about this, because she has been keeping a dream dairy so she has something to talk about with her grandfather. The two girls ave a lot in common, both of them have musicians as fathers and both of them are shy and serious. Kokuru had been too shy to speak to Lilou until she stopped dreaming and then felt she needed to reach out.

This marks the beginning of the two girls adventures, in which reality, dreams, myths and video games all start to merge into a beautifully surreal collage. But can Kokuru save her grandfather before time runs out? At times I was wanting to shake the characters and tell them to hurry up! Partly this was because it felt like a very long film (it's almost two hours long) but largely because the viewer gets really sucked into the flow of the film and engaged with the two main characters.

The two young actresses playing the main roles give wonderful performances and the friendship between the two is beautifully developed. The film is a lovely meditation on friendship, belonging and the nature of reality.

Lilou's Adventure is showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival:

1450, 23 June and 1810, 25 June both at Cineworld

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film. 

From Tehran to London

From Tehran to London is an unfinished film and presented as such as a testament of the censorship that film-making is subjected to in Iran.

Mania Akbari stopped the filming of the film when several Irainian film-makers had been arrested. She fled to London where she finished producing the film, but left the narrative unfinished.

The story centres on a couple, Ashkan, a wealthy business man and Ava, a poet, who is suffering from writer's block. Near the beginning of the film, their maid Maryam disappears while the couple are on a business trip. Later, Ava's sister has moved into the house.

The whole film is made up of claustrophobic dialogue between the characters, long arguments between the couple and gentler discussions between the sisters as they perform their beauty routines together. Ava is angry with her husband for many reasons, but partly because she feels he is blocking the publication of her latest book of poetry, so the issue of censorship was already at the heart of the film before the director was forced to stop filming.

This is a fascinating film for anyone interested in gender relations or artistic self expression in Iran.

From Tehran to London is showing: 2015, 22 June and 1500, 23 June, both at Filmhouse.


Disclaimer, I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.

I'm posting most of my film festival reviews on Crafty Green Poet, you can read them so far here and here.

Silent Souls (Ovsyanki)

A bleak landscape. A man who has just lost his wife prepares her body for cremation and takes her, with his best friend and two caged buntings, on a last trip round places that were important to the couple when she was alive.

A funeral pyre on a beach. Ashes scattered in the river to find their way into eternity.

A mesmerising film of the Merja people of the Volga region of Russia.

Osyvanki (Silent Souls) is showing at Edinburgh Filmhouse until Thursday.

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other pages, where you can find out more.

Edinburgh International Film Festival Reviews

I'm delighted to have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival again this year. I'm reviewing films here and on Crafty Green Poet. This post is an index, which will include links to all the films reviewed on both blogs. This post will be updated after every review with the most recent reviews at the top, will be cross posted to Crafty Green Poet and will stay at the top of both blogs until the end of the film festival.

Rentaneko (Rent-a-cat) - a woman rents out cats to lonely people in a Japanese city
Children and Nature in films - I review Of Skies and Earth and Kid Thing.
What is this Film called Love? - a walking tour of Mexico city, with a few diversions along the way
Riding Zorro - a biopic of rodeo's most famous horse.
Captive Animals Captured on Film - I review Postcards from the Zoo and Bestiaire Vivan las Antipodas! a contemplation of life in four antipodal pair places on the earth
Hospitalité - a Tokyo household is disrupted by an old acquaintance
Official Best of the Fest - the film festivals list of most popular films which will be screened again on Sunday
Attractive Illusion - what happens to a group of illegal Nigerian immigrants on Greece?
The Lifeguard - an hour on the beach in Chile!
Memory, the Future and Experimental Film - I review Dress Rehearsal for Utopia (a collage of images from Mozambique) and Future My Love (thoughts about the failure of a relationship and the failure of the economic system)
Here There - 3 interwoven stories of Chinese life.
Rose - life in the Masurian region of Poland in the aftermath of World War 2. 
Modest Reception - a couple randomly give out money in the mountains of Iran
Poetry in Film - I review Demain, the biopic of Uruguayan poet Delmira Agustin and In Search of Emak Bakia, a movie about the making of Man Ray's film of that name.

as ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other pages where you can find out more. 

Hospitalite

Despite the French seeming title, Hospitalité is a Japanese film, described as a 'stylish mixture of deadpan social satire, Buñuelian surrealism and unnerving suspense'. 

A mild-mannered Tokyo man catches up with an old acquaintance he barely remembers. The newcomer manipulates his old friend into giving him a job in his small printing business. He soon moves himself and a blonde woman he introduces as his wife into the household that the printer shares with his sister, his second wife and his daughter from his first marriage.

The members of the local neighbourhood watch group are particularly enthusiastic about their civic duties and (along with the audience) watch the new arrivals with great interest.

The newcomers quickly disrupt family life by manipulating the family members, rudely abusing their hospitality. Things become more and more bizarre, disturbing and downright odd, with everyone turning out to have secrets and constant unexpected plot twists popping up. This is a wonderfully surreal and entertaining film, offering amusing insights into human nature.

Hosptalité is part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and is showing at: 15:20, 30 June at Cineworld 11.

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other pages, where you can find out more.