The Portuguese already had their earthquake and somehow managed to survive and rebuild most of Lisbon since 1755. Although there was a little tremor during the week (about two-and-a-half on the Svetoslav Richter scale, or however it is called when measuring how much the earth moved for you), the otherwise sunny city of Setubal, one of Portugal's  most important port-resorts and home of the poet Bocage,manages to mount the 27th edition of the international film festival Festroia surmounting many more difficulties than are usually weathered by such events.

Since the 3rd of June the event has unreeled with evident success... some strong selections of films in multiple sections, a lively selection of international guests, film-makers and sundry press, a sprinkling of cocktails and wine-tastings, and a growing number of enthusiastic film-fans of vastly varying ages at the screenings. All of this in a country that seems fast fado-ing towards euro-bankruptcy, and in a city where the main venue of the festival, the vast Forum Luisa Todi, a theatre-cum-cinema dating from the 1950s, is still under reconstruction(since 2008, and now unlikely to be ready to reopen its doors until the latter part of 2013).

Yet Portugal, it should not be forgotten, is one of the most cinephile countries in Europe, as - unlike Germany, Spain, Italy, France- it never dubbed films - Salazar, who had a villa that was a summer residence nestling in the leafy hills above Setubal, actually passed a law forbidding synchronisation in the cinema and the result is that even today on the many TV channels films are always shown in their original versions with subtitles, and every usherette, barman,and Portuguese festival director can at least understand- if not also capably speak- several European languages. The other gift for the film-maker here is the abundant and brilliant light, which rivals that of Greece, and ensures that filming can be conducted on most days of the year  in many parts of the country.The local film industry, of course, is a different question- Portugal can be proud of having probably the oldest living film director in Manoel de Olivera, who is still making features at 101 or more, though it has yet to produce anyone like Almodovar to put lusomovies on the map, while the modest handful of stars of Portuguese origin are,frankly, only widely known because of their work in Paris or Hollywood.Indeed, one of the loveliest,  Maria de Medeiros descended from Roissy, aptly enough on the national holiday here (June 10th) commemorating the death of Camoes and the Dia do Portugal, to host a characteristically civilised press conference - in her latest film, whose posters are everywhere evident on the Lisbon metro, she actually speaks Russian as her character hails from that rather different old empire.

Festroia is very much a family affair, as its Director Fernanda Silva fearlessly keeps it alight with a tight young team, and the supprt of friends around the  festival circuit, while many of the staff seem to be related by blood or marriage.Though its main venue is still dark, she has again imported a huge screen and adequate sound and projection equipment into the Anunciada auditorium, which is in the hands of a religious order, and whose temporary transformation into a festival cinema soaks up a goodly portion of the overall budget.  The building has been festooned with flags, film posters and even a red carpet greets the guests and audiences. On the brighter side, the historic municpal cinema Charlot has been renovated at a cost of over 200,000 euros since the 2010 festival and its comfortable new seats have been accommodating growing crowds during the 10 days' wonder that is this Festival.

The audiences deserve to be congratulated for their curiosity- the identity of Festroia, and what gives it its long-time FIAPF-approved status as a competition, is that its Official Section is restricted to features coming from countries that produce less than 30 films a year.....the First Worksp parallel section is open to all-comers,as is the largely shorts/documentary section entitled  Man and his Environment, but there are a further 10 sections in the 11 day programme, and in spite of budget cuts, Festroia has managed to import no fewer than two dozen jury members,all comfortably lodged and adequately refreshed during their stay (and not only with the delicious local aperitif).In front of the main festival hotel, a futuristic couple of Kubrickian "Bubbles" have been constucted as guest centre and meeting point, where opening and closing cocktails were held, as well as nightly rendez-vous for fim-makers and film-lovers to discuss the meaning of Malick over Moscatel until four in the morning.

Phillip Bergson

The first of the month saw another first for the  Barbican Arts Centre, nestling in the City of London, as it hosted the first New Zealand Film Festival in its capacious Cinema 1 (from 1-3 July, 2011). Timed to coincide with the City of London's arts festival which takes Oceania as its focus for a continuing season of recitals,lectures and large-scale concerts in a number of historic venues, the opening night was spectacularly successful with a memorable pre-film reception in the Barbican's Conservatory garden, which filled with the fauna  of NZ's London community headed by the High Commissioner himself, and sundry lawyers and other professionals sipping the fine wines from home amid the  flora of the Barbican's exotic party-room, with a veteran from the very first NZ film made half a century ago, while jetting in from Los Angeles (where he recently acted in The Green Hornet)was the personable and highly talented Taika Waititi, star and director of the opening selection Boy, which was the box-office champion of the year in New Zealand, and won a major prize in the Generation section at the Berlinale. Barely had the guests finished grazing on the tastiest canapes(lamb, duck, but no kiwi-fruits or otherwise), when a ferociously tattoed troupe of Maori maids and muscle-men furnished a memorable floor-show of music and (I presume) happy hakas. Suitably encouraged, the distinguished invitees proceeded into the bowels of the Barbican, via some recalcitrant lifts, to find the cinema practically full of many more (paying) spectators. Waititi made a suitably laid-back introduction to a double -bill of his films- the 2003 short Two Cars, One Night which secured an Oscar nomination and contains the themes of Boy in miniature- the rivalry between pre-teen brothers in a tiny community somewhere on the rural East Coast of New Zealand.In his expanded feature Waititi  himself plays the absent and rather daft dad whose influence on his sons leaves much to be desired. Both films are full of sharp, wry observations and the feature is well-paced with day-glo colours that call up Douglas Sirk and Almodovar and their most visually vibrant.Its setting in 1984 (though shot in 2010) enables it to have as a festive finale a lively tribute to Michael Jackson and his Thriller.

The enterprising weekend programme  also included Waititi's 2005 feature Eagle vs. Shark, with the director fielding a Q+A with a local(London)  film critic,and another half a dozen selections of features and shorts, with the actress Celeste Wong also atttending. The whole  event was thought up apparently seven years ago, while bigger brother Australia has been mounting film festivals for the past 16 years in London. New Zealand  film is a welcome addition to the cinematic calendar of the capital, and should definitely be back  in spades next year.

Phillip Bergson

A curious coincidence seems to have confined me, so far in unseasonal 2012, to attending international film festivals in cities beginning with a B!  This is not to say that any one of them is a B-Festival (we know, pace F.I.A.P.F., that the world of 613-4,000 festivals is not really divided into 'A' category and 'B' category events) but even though --for the first time-- I missed the Berlinale, for a variety of reasons (though I did manage to preview it on BBC World Service Radio from London, and select some of its subsequent award-winners, regardless!), see how these locations chime...

Belgrade.....Bucurest....Byzantium (well that was how Istanbul used to be called)..and -perhaps the most exotic of all - Bradford. Not to mention the 10th Birthday of Kinoteka, the splendid celebration of Polish cinema in London and elsewhere, that culminated with a film and music event in the Barbican, our medieval answer to the Centre Pompidou.

And the highlight, in unsunny Yorkshire, at the 18th BIFF was the Lifetime Award, conversazione, and screen tribute toBarbara Windsor. But enough of this alphabet soupery, let me file my reports....as best I can bientot !

It was a gloriously sunny day but there was a capacity crowd in the East Chapel in Golders Green Crematorium, in north London, for the Celebration of your life, Virginia Dignam, sometime actress, published poetess, film reviewer on  The Morning Star, and long-serving hard-working Honorary Secretary of the UK Critics' Circle("a shrivel of critics" you used to call us, in your pert and often impertinent way).It would have been your 87th birthday, but you'd left us, after a sudden, short illness, on the eve of Cannes's 65th. Many colleagues sent affectionate regrets from the Croisette. As Viriginia Lewis, you came from the Welsh valleys, went up in the world (or on the stage at least) when you married into Kirby's Flying Ballet- divorce from Derek left you with two children; marriage to the distinguished Shakespearean actor Mark Dignam brought two more of your own productions, and a wealth of professional and personal friends.

We first met, I feel sure, at the Berlin Film Festival, in the Wintergarten inside the historic Literaturhaus.Peter Bogdanovich was playing a white piano,  you were at the bar with a films buyer from the BBC, and I had just been selected by the Sunday Times as a 'New Critic'.It was one of a string of film receptions we enjoyed around Europe, which you graced and enlivened.Your wit and wisdom were immediately apparent, and I came to appreciate the perceptiveness of your reviews, your unforgettable good (if often cheeky) humour, and your unfailing championing of talent, whether on the page or on the stage.A fixture at press screenings in London and foreign festivals, which you tirelessly put into weekly bulletins for our benefit, you often served on juries, and I was honoured when you accepted to serve on one at my own festival in Oxford, where you sat with Harlan Kennedy, a fine American critic, and- I think- Bertice Reading, the jazz singer and some-time screen partner of Gerard Depardieu, and the only person who ever rivalled you for the exuberance and ebullience of her laugh.I was honoured also when you encouraged my invitation to join the Critics' Circle, after, I think, only a decade of writing and broadcasting film reviews. Any panel you served on, any programme you spoke on, benefitted from your lively and well-informed views. You lived in an historic farmhouse in the shadow of an overpass, where horror-film crews damaged the carpets;Boy George's acolytes frolicked at the bottom of your garden parties.I feel sure you said you'd lodged Dylan Thomas, and lent him money.

The service was not sad- there were Welsh hymns, a lovely lullaby played by Sophia Dignam, the opening of Under Milk Wood,an indignant, unscripted interruption from an actor you'd helped,one of your own poems read by Sally Lewis, Piaf's Milord, and- as the perfect finale- Liza Minnelli'slife-enhancing soundrack of Cabaret.

I did not go back to the Welsh wake, which I hope is still going on. After you had retired from regular reviewing and festival go-going, although I had seen you at the launch of Vapiano Southwark, you had often invited me for  a Chinese  lunch  sometime, but that time never came. So on 25th May 2012 I went to the Oriental Star for some roast duck and I hope you were there in spirit. A lot of laughter has left London with your passing, Ginny, and fewer and fewer reviewers remain who love film and the mirrors it holds to life  with your passion and understanding.

Phillip Bergson

I go back quite a way with Gaius Caligula....having studied his crazed life and inevitable death when I was  a Classics Scholar at Balliol, and read his first 'biog'in Latin, what more natural  than that ,during  my third excursion to cover Cannes (for BBC radio and other media), I should have been invited by Andre Previn's movie-exec brother to attend the   very secret and first presentation in the world of the full-length, unexpurgated  film version of Caligula.It was an off-Market screening, in one of those discreet private cinemas,dotted about the Festival, hosted by the producer Bob Guccione, who had wrestled the work away from the director Tinto Brass. It was nasty ,brutal and long, quite shocking, with a suitable climax- that brothel on the galleon- with people coming and going and coming all over the screen, with sundry dwarves, as well as some -by now-very famous actors and actresses.I felt it was as accurate a recreation of Roman scandals as the texts suggested,and should be screened intact to provoke a discussion on the decadence of film, and I promptly agreed to invite it for its public world premiere in competition  as the film surprise at the 5th Oxford Film Festival later that summer.Subsequently ,UK authorities advised that when the print would arrive at Heathrow airport from New York,  they would be obliged to burn it, as some 9 minutes 20 seconds could be considered obscene according to the meaning of the act, and the film was eventually withdrawn, much to the fury of jurors Walerian Borowczyk and Lina Wertmuller (who had seen the film privately in Rome and were determined to award it a prize even if the Oxford Film Festival was not  to be permitted to screen it)-- the details of this gory story I shall save for a later publication, but that is how I later became the only critic in the world who received a free ticket to see the film on its  subsequent (but heavily cut) release in New York.

We flash forward a few years and  this is why I feel justified in reporting for you here and now  on the UK premiere of the new German opera Caligula, which had a rousing first night in our superb Coliseum, one of the largest theatres in London, imperiously designed by Frank Matcham in somewhat Roman style over a century ago, and which for some years was the home of Cinerama in the UK, as it functioned as a cinema for a decade or more, having housed many famous stage musicals before that.

It has more recently been the home of English National Opera (the UK equivalent of a Volksoper, where productions of classic and  newer operas and operettas are always performed in English, and usually in a more lively, visually striking or original way than those mounted  round the more expensive corner at Covent Garden, where seat prices are usually at least double those charged at ENO).A number of film directors have been responsible for highly acclaimed mise-en-scenes here (such as Jonathan Miller,Terry Gilliam, or the late Anthony Minghella whose production of Madame Butterfly is still in the repertory as I write).

Based on Albert Camus's  wartime play, Caligula,was first staged in Frankfurt, in 2006. The composer is Detlev Glanert, and Hans-Ulrich Treichel's libretto has been elegantly and eloquently translated by Amanda Holden. Although most of the singing rang out with clarity, surtitles on a discreet screen above the huge stage usefully corrected anyone attempting to improvise the lyrics. The music is atmospheric, rather than melodic, occasionally redolent of Strauss (Richard of course, not any of the Viennese ones) in its sensuality, and from time to time chords evoke sonorus, ominous  heart-beats --or the rushing of blood to the head.The orchestra under the dashing young Ryan Wigglesworth was much applauded.

The cast, too, performed heroically, especially Peter Coleman-Wright as a somewhat hairier(-and rather older-looking)  titular maniac in a light business-suit.Christopher Ainslie excelled as his counter-tenor PA and slave, Helicon, and Yvonne Howard perhaps made the strongest impression, helped by some soignee  evening-dress as Caesonia, the unlucky, unloved wife of the depraved despot. The four acts are separated by danced intermezzi, and the silent figure of the deceased Drusilla, in a very tight body-stocking, dominates much of the stage, as well as her brother's deranged mind.

The concept,and stage-look, of the Australian director Benedict Andrews, could not be further, alas, from the Felliniesque follies of Danilo Donati and the Penthouse-financed neo-porn movie. For the entire opera is set within a football stadium, its plastic seating raking up into the flies, but offering Piscatorian(or do I mean Brechtian? ) levels for acting, poisoning and the occasional strangulation. Costumes- where worn- are contemporary; the Praetorian guards are sinister modern soldiers, who carry corpses on and off the stage in hygienic plastic body-bags evocative of Costa-Gavras's Missing ,or any number of films about South American or Arabic murderous dictators. The black humour-- Caligula was nothing if not entirely aware of his insanity and oscillating ironies- is emphasised in the lines and music, but the whole affair manages to stay this side of the tone of a dubious spoof such as sensed in the new film  The Dictator. The chorus in various odd garbs (I think I spied a Mickey Mouse and a pair of Pinocchios, though there were some welcome show-girls that seem to have wandered in from the Folies-Bergere and who  parade around statuesquely in high style) is large and in fine voice.It makes for a fascinating evening, very different (one hopes) from the home life of our own dear Queen, and one worth braving by anyone who admits to owning the now-available-on-DVD uncensored version of the big screen Caligula.

Further performances in repertory, 29th,31st May, 7th, 9th, 14th June

Performance times, ticket detaila on www.eno.org

Phillip Bergson

Suddenly this summer documentary festivals seem to be mushrooming across England.On the eve of Cannes I attended a crowded croissants and coffees Launch for the Sheffield DocFest, in the smart offices of the The Guardian newspaper in Kings Place, on the fast-developing side of the Kings Cross railway station.It was a very professional presentation by the Festival Board and programmers with many clips of selected entries, and ample footage of previous festivals which seem to have filled the centre of Yorkshire's largest city with impressive professional and public audiences for a genre of film that a decade or so ago would have been considered minority, marginal and often monotone. Endless juries, prizes,pitchings, and fundings from a host of agencies and TV companies seem to have turned Sheffield into a dynamic equivalent  of the more established, content-driven (as I believe the vogue phrase is) older international documentary festivals such as Leipzig, or Thessaloniki(which I 'approved' for FIPRESCI a decade or so ago and seems happy to flourish without my attendance ever since- beware of Greeks not bearing gifts anymore).

A livelier contrast was the Media Launch about a month ago of what is only the 2nd Open Citydocumentary film festiva,l which hosted a very congenial party in a stylish subterranean student bar, even closer to my central London home, with a good showreel presentation and even more literate speeches of welcome and information from the admittedly more academic team behind this event, which is housed largely in University College  London premises, and aims to open the same to the public during the rest of this week, with some very high-class jurors, Master Class guests from across the Channel, and screenings in some of the usual art-house venues across the capita as welll.In spite of the open bar, where multi-lingual student staff generously dispensed double Zubrowkas, there was a crowded audience for the subsequent screening of two documentaries and a panel discussion in the marvellous Screen@rada-- the main modern auditorium within the legendary Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, which happens to be a part of the University of London, and, thanks to recent donations from such alumni as Alan Rickman, now can also function as an excellent cinema.

So the auspices for the 2nd Open City festival this week in London bode well and assuming I find my way into the Festival Hub in the heart of London's Bloomsbury I shall report at  greater length in due course.

For full programme details see www.opencitydocsfest.com or find the printed brochures in sundry London venues now.
Runs 21-24 June 2012,UCL/Torrington Square,London WC1

Phillip Bergson

What makes a festival successful? Great films and great audiences, and Belgrade's 40th FEST had both in spades- indeed, the event was such a hit, it was extended by a day to accommodate a last-minute regional premiere for The Artist, fresh from its triumph at the Oscars in Hollywood(and in keeping with its immaculate organisation, there was even an advance press screening of the French 'surprise' gift to Belgrade's enormous audiences.

For the event is centred in what must be one of the most convenient of all Festival venues in the greater Europe. Although the event began as a non-competitive showcase, back in 1971, to bring the best of the fest circuit to what was then Yugoslavia, when the extraordinary Sava Centar opened (to designs by Stojan Maksimovic which at the time of its construction -1976-79-must have been relatively futuristic, but now have a retro charm, redolent of the decor of a Stanley Kubrick film), and bearing in mind President Tito's cinephilia, its main auditorium far out-Cannesd Cannes. For live concerts it held 4000 seats, and I believe for the screenings during FEST some 3400 were in use, and often full, even for matinees when the early Spring sun was shining.(The event ran from 22nd February to 4th March,this year).

Not only does the complex house boutiques ,shops ,sundry bars, cafes and modestly-priced and sustaining restaurants, smaller cinemas for press and industry screenings, well-fitted venues for press conferences, festival guest and organisation offices,press bureaux and a daily journal,but it is connected by a covered walk-way to the 5-star Continental Hotel,main home for most of the fest guests, and equipped  itself with a host of the usual facilities,On the night I arrived Peter Bogdanovich was holding court in one corner of the foyer, while Jiri Menzel was ensconced in another.One could follow the entire Festival,eat drink sleep and view ,without ever coming out into the fresh Serbian air.

In the capacious corridors en route to the screenings, a fascinating photography exhibition commemorated the hey-days of FEST, when- like the more summery Pula over in Croatia- it welcomed the greats of Hollywood and ,indeed, of international film-makers.The event was suspended,I think, in 1993 and 1994, understandably due to certain local difficulties,but now seems well on its way to regaining its previous prestige, having added a competive section in 2007.

But the heart of the festival is still the best of the fests, and Artistic Director Boris Andjelic and FEST Selector Ivan Karl can be congratulated for bringing an eclectic and stimulating mix of award-winners from Cannes and elsewhere,with a dozen rich and strong features in the Main Program,a varied half-dozen from Hollywood(from Drive and The Beaver to War Horse, perfect for the huge screen in the Sava Centar),a baker's dozen of 'Europe in Europe'(from Chantal Akerman to Vaclav Havel's film of his own play Leaving),then some further 17 variegated features constituted a World Panorama, with modest side-bars focussing on Britannica,Canada,documentaries,and hommages to attending legends,Peter Bogdanovich,Jiri Menzel, and Menahem Golan.

Although there was briefly snow one evening when a guest dinner was organised in the Zemun suburb, famed for its fish restaurants, the weather was unseasonally sunny and I was able to enjoy the reviving splendours of downtown Belgrade.(The Sava Centar, and a riotous closing party in a brand-new bar even the FEST Director could not find, occupied what is called Novi Beograd, but in the older city centre screenings were also held in a crowded European Youth Centre, where both circle and stalls were full even for the less mainstream European films,and in the charming art-deco home of the Serbian Cinematheque, where Menahem Golan received an Honorary Medal).Later in the festival I moderated a Master Class with that lively legend of Hollywood and Israeli cinema, in a crowded private arts university hall, aptly enough in the same street as the still-surviving Synagogue,and also in the spectacularly well -equipped State Film and Drama School, which looks as if it might have been designed by the architect of the Sava Centar,or one of his disciples. FEST was also screening in an historic cinema, now  apparently a multi-purpose arts centre, close to the fabled Moskva Hotel,which is emerging, like the city itself, from a fine restoration.

The only technical hitches were beyond the powers of the festival.External work on electricity cables caused a series of power cuts across New Belgrade-  most evident during the press viewing of Pawel Pawlikowski's The Woman in the Fifth, but in spite of some five coupures  hardly anyone left the screening, so engrossing is this strange tale of love and obsession in which Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas share a danse macabre in the seedier suburbs of Paris.I was trapped for the longest ten seconds of my life in the Continental lift one evening, but reached the lobby to find Israeli pioneer spirit had ensured Menahem Golan and his daughter had walked  down the entire eight floors for their dinner date.

And what of the festive fare? Daily lunches in the Fest restaurant were simple but tasty,and elegantly served, while nightly banquets beckoned in fine eateries far-flung about the metropolis.Memorable indeed was the Jury lunch high above the centre of the old city, chaired by distinguished director Darko Bajic, with Czech colleague Radovan Holub and myself far from coming to blows over exquisite rakijas as we discussed the merits of the seven features, selected on the basis,if I understood correctly, that they were not produced within the EU.Our eventual choice, and unanimous I think, went to Bedouin, which as its title might hint, ranges far and wide,strikingly well -handled by director Igor Voloshin, charting the tribulations of a Ukrainian train stewardess who ,to finance her young daughter's operation,travels to Sankt Petersburg to  become a surrogate mother for a gay couple, but finally finds a more homeopathic solution in Jordan(the film benefitted from co-production aid there).Both director and leading actress Olga Simonova will go even further in the future,we were confident,and the award seemed to be a popular one(and Menahem Golan immediately put in a bid for its distribution in Israel).

The closing ceremony was a spectacular affair, with the premiere of a most handsome new film that mixes Hollywood and Yugoslav film nostalgia- Doctor Ray and the Devils, directed with evident flair and authentic  period colourings by Dinko Tucakovic, charting the true but little-known adventures of Nicholas Ray's efforts to film Dylan Thomas's novel in the Avala Film Studios in Belgrade, to bring glory to the film commissars of the time.Although featuring cameos with actors amusingly impersonating D.W.Griffiths, Orson Welles, Charlton Hestonand Juliette Greco,long stretches of the dialogue are in Serbian and there had not been time to sub-title these in English, so I shall withhold a fuller review until later.But the huge cast and crew were presented to wild applause on the vast stage, and it seemed a fitting official close to an event that knows how to balance past and present, and mingle emerging talents with the established.FEST definitely deserves its place again "Among the Greats", as its well-produced catalogue and motto suggest.

Most press and public screenings either used prints already sub-titled in English, or benefitted from electronic sub-titling (into English,or Serbian as appropriate).

Phillip Bergson

Jury of the “Europe out of Europe” competition program, consisting of Darko Bajic (the President), Philip Bergson and Radovan Holub awarded the prize for best film, the statuette “Little Big Tree” by Nebojsa Djura Veselinovic, to Igor Volosin, for his film “Bedouin”.

Nomen est omen - what's in a name? I have to title the homeland of the marvellous Manaki Brothers International Cinematographers Film Festival with considerable care, as the Art Director of this fine but moveable feast of film in Balkan Bitola already bollocked me for locating it in what we in the EU are obliged to call FYROM, and which my Grecian friends will be equally horrified if I style simply  the Republic of Macedonia.(Indeed, it was the much-missed movie magnate Max Roman- thoroughly Greek in spite of his name- who campaigned for Before the Rain, I think, to be designated as hailing from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia when it competed from that new nation for an Academy Award in Hollywood). Not in dispute is the fact that the Manaki Brothers themselves were pioneers of film-making in the so-called Balkans, and this festival is the oldest in the world- just- to focus on the art and practice of the cameraman (or cameraperson, not to be presumptuous and risk offending anyone else). A statue of the siblings proudly stands before the vasty Cultural Centre, in the heart of this Ottoman outpost, which is a welcoming city with mosques and Tito-era constructions, elegant belle epoque consulates, and vibrant contemporary bars. A suburb contains the stunning archaeological site of Heraclea Lyncestis, thought to have been founded by Philip II in the 4th century B.C.,and which this Phillip was delighted to revisit- on a festival excursion one sunny afternoon (between 10-21 October 2011)-and find growing, as more is revealed and restored each year, from mosaics to an ancient theatre.

Bitola is today the second largest city of the modern Republic, with a population of something over 100,000 souls, and much rakija, but it was also the place where the man who became Attaturk went to military school, and more recently has furnished locations for one of Turkish television's most popular serials. Sarah Bernhardt also played the place in 1917, touring as Hamlet (or should that be Hamlette?) to the delight of French soldiers between manoeuvres (as recreated in a lavish local short Sarah, The Myth (directed by Sasha Stanishic, world-premiered and competing, helas unsuccessfully in the Short Film Program). It is more or less equidistant from two very different international airports which share a name--Thessaloniki's, in the other Macedonia, commonly called Greece (and a lot more besides in view of its tragic Euro-crises), which is in a different time zone from F.Y.R.O.M - literally, one hour ahead. I have often arrived there in the middle of the night, wafted from Prague or Rome (Thessaloniki is not the best connected of cultural capitals as far as scheduled flights go and come- not many do at decent times)-and have managed to reach my room in the superbly-situated Hotel Epinal(across the street from  Bitola's Festival Centre) not so long after the touch-down of my Skyteam flight, on Alitalia or CSA.

Sadly CSA no longer serves the UK, so I was obliged to fly via Zagreb to Skopje, capital of the modernising Republic of Macedonia, and at midnight found the other Alexander the Great airport greatly transformed, into a huge, gleaming new structure - apparently owned and built if not run by Turks- with capacious and efficient facilities but few flights, in or out. The arrivals area is dwarfed by a statue of -let's say- not Colin Farrell, on horseback waving a lethal-looking boarding-card. When Polish maestro Lech Majewski landed with a short delay, the festival driver sped us to Bitola in a couple of hours, but not in time to catch even the dregs of the opening party, hosted, I think, by the President of the Republic Gjorge Ivanon, an evident fan of movies and monuments.(Fortunately, I had already seen the striking opening film  The Forgiveness of Blood, a contemporary Albanian revenge drama directed by an American, as a juror at the Prishtina Film Festival, but don't let's get into who recognises the land where that festival lurks and what it is called, and for that reason had opted to take Croatian Airways twice at civilised times, rather than leave a London airport in the night of the previous day in order to reach Bitola in time for the Opening Ceremony).

It is appropriate for a festival to focus on cinematography in the Republic of Macedonia as the light here - just as in neighbouring Greece,as Walter Lassally never failed to insist- is so right for shooting film, and on many days of the year. Unsurprisingly, more and more foreign producers are becoming aware of this and the Macedonian Film Fund fosters more and more co-productions with the limited means at its disposal.

Celebrating its 32nd edition, Manaki Brothers is senior to the better-known (as simpler to pronounce, perhaps) Camerimage in Poland, held in chillier winter, and which has also become something of a moveable film-feast as it has flitted from Torun to Lodz to frankly I'm not sure where now.(But it must have good food,as Mike Leigh has attended). But Manaki must have the most beautiful film festival director in the world (sorry, Chicago), in the exquisite persona of the actress Labina Mitevska, who has shown herself adept in front of many cameras (not least before those wielded by her sister, the film director Teona Mitevska). And if the country does not bring forth any wodka of note, mastika and local wines and some heavenly rakijas (especially those made by monks) are strong rivals, and the food is fine everywhere (and such large portions, for low prices).

So a goodly hundred or so international guests gladly gather for this annual celebration of the art of the cinematographer(as no less a luminary than Vittorio Storaro expressed it there in a Master Class a few years ago, it's not just camera-work, capisce? Good to see also local audiences increasing for the screenings in the huge hall, and young enthusiasts crowding into a smaller auditorium in the same building for sessions with the selected honorees Dante Spinotti (Jury President) and Bruno Delbonnel, presenting clips from their films and discussing them articulately and amusingly, as well as the excellent actor Miki Manojlovic, receiving a deserved career tribute as the star of the closing film Besa,  a most charming guest at an exquisite lunch hosted by the French Embassy in the boutique Hotel Milenium, nestling on the Corso, Bitola's vibrant version of the Via Veneto. This small but beautiful newish hotel also served a gourmet feast organised by the Macedonian Film Fund, amply highlighting how truly cosmopolitan the local cuisine is in influences and variety.

Striking also was the strength of the entries in the parallel New Vision program- particularly the riotous Icelandic King's Road, truly a road movie with a vengeance- an anarchic and deliciously black comedy. directed by Valdis Oskardottir with fine performances by Daniel Bruhl and Ingvar E.Sigurdsson, largely set around and on a road where residents seek to extract tolls from passing trolls. The National Jury gave their award in this section to Shelter, one of the impressive new wave of films from Bulgaria - this first feature by Dragomir Sholev focusses on a young punk overlooked by his family (but this film was not overlooked by yours truly when a jury member at Durres in 2010).

The International Jury which included Eva Zaoralova,doyenne of Karlovy Vary,  young writer Goce Smilevski (whose first two novels are already being published in 20 countries and destined for film adaptations),Welsh camera wizard Nigel Walters, now president of IMAGO, and the dapper director of the Austrian Film Commission Martin Schweighofer, awarded the Golden Camera 300 to The Turin Horse, Hungarian Bela Tarr's hail and farewell to cinema, for Berlin-based Fred Kelemen's outstanding black-and-white imagery, while the Russian entry  Silent Souls took the Silver Camera 300, which Kristina Depo (representing the Sparkasse Bank, sponsor of a lively cocktail party during the festival) handed over to Mikhail Krichman for his contribution to Aleksei Fedorchenko's sad romance), The Bronze Camera 300 was awarded to The Mill and the Cross, the remarkable recreation of Pieter Breughel's painting by Lech Majewski, who had already left to present it in another festival in another country.

The calendar is crowded with film festivals of every shape and size, The Manaki Brothers event is dedicated to the most vital element of cinema and takes the camera seriously,This last edition was well organised, with the  human dimension retained and the social aspect well to the fore, in spite of a modest budget. Good facilities for press, translations on screen and at conferences, and the traditional excursions to Ohrid enable professional guests to see one of Europe's loveliest lake-side old cities, home to a celebrated summer arts festival and which could be a wonderful setting for a film festival. There may well be 365 churches still visitable but there is not a single cinema. Quand meme, the enterprising French manage to mount a film week there, later in the year. However it should be named, the Republic of Macedonia deserves to get by with a litle more help from its friends.

Phillip Bergson

The 33rd Manaki Brothers International Film Festival runs 15-21 September 2012                    

www.manaki.com.mk

Whatever name you call it- Constantinople or Byzantium- or however you spell it    (Graham Greene's Orient Express-connected novel, also filmed, styled it Stamboul Train), modern Istanbul is unquestionably a world city, a beautiful bustling megalopolis, literally joining Asia to Europe, and the only capital that has a leg in two continents. A fascinating fusion of ancient, medieval, religious and secular architecture and cultures, cuisine and  and stylish contemporary design and fashion, where the everyday is imbued with a touch of the exotic, and a promise of the erotic, it is an unforgettable bazaar of legends and legerdemain, and a natural backdrop for countless films, often involving espionage (From Russia With Love, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The World is Not Enough) or larceny (Topkapi, set in the sublime Sultan's Palace,is one of several celebrated caper movies making free with the infinitie treasures housed within the broken walls of a city of 12 millions and more permanent inhabitants). Turkey's own film industry, hugely popular at home and in diasporas in Berlin, Mannheim, Dalston, as well as the post-Guney new wave of art-house fare ,sweeping up awards at Cannes and around the festival circuit in the past five years, make this a perfect venue for an international film festival.

In fact, the city hosts a string of arts events through the calendar, and several with a film connection. I participated once on a  panel in snow-swept January at an annual event devoted to European Cinema (which brought me the mixed pleasures of staying in the fabled Peras Palas Hotel, alas before its recent renovations- though the bar,lift and salons certainly were graced by Agatha Christie and Greta Garbo and countless passengers on the real Orient-Express and retained their art deco allure, in my period room the hot running water was legendary if not mythical).But since 1981, the unmissable rendez-vous for festivaliers has been the Istanbul Film Festival, organised under the auspices of the IKSV(The Instanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts,which this year celebrates its own 40th year of business, presenting and promoting all the arts through a variety of activities-concerts,exhibitions,publications- of which the Film Festival must be the single largest and costliest).
Marking the progressiveness of this majority-Muslim country, the current Festival Director is again a  lovely,lively lady, Azize Tan, who has succeeded the graceful Hulya Ucansu, who was in charge when I first attended a decade or more ago. Guests and sponsors came and went, as the festival with its competitive focus on features with a connection with the arts (adaptations of books,biographies of painters,films inspired by music or opera) and national local competition showcasing the latest Turkish works in all categories was  a huge fortnight  of crowded screenings, in the Taksim (European) heart of the city, with galas in the vast but antique Emek cinema,and screenings in other equally quaint cinemas in the vicinity.Foreigners lucky to be accommodated in the luxurious Marmara Palace hotel usually had a fine view of the traditional May Ist riots, as the Festival's dates often followed Easter, and the more international part of the Festival was always the second week.Often one of the newest  domestic films,which we were privileged to see in preview, sub-titled in English, would be selected for an increasingly important section at Cannes, and certainly would make its way around the circuit, as guests included a judicious blend of international critics and festival directors or selectors.

A festival often comes to reflect the personality of its director- even though all festivals are of course run by a team of people- and when that person changes, the familiarity fades a little, and it can be wise not to go back quickly, to permit the festival to find its way anew. After a gap of several years, I could not be more delighted to have returned to the Istanbul Film Festival for a long weekend, culminating in Orthodox Easter this year, and found the festival renewed,comfortably re-housed,and more successful than ever,on both the public and professional levels.

Phillip Bergson

There were plenty of tricks and treats at the 10th Anniversary  and Graduate Showcase of the London Film Academy, with a well-attended screening in the recently-refurbished NFT 1, the largest auditorium in what we are now encouraged to call the BFI Southbank, overlooking the Thames ,on Hallowe'en (31st October 2012).A dozen shorts of varied styles and contents demonstrated how well this commercial film-school in leafy Fulham has been developing under the dynamic duo who founded it and who gracefully hosted the proceedings,Joint Principals Daisy Gill and Anna MacDonald.In their Old Church a lively group of international film students are evidently benefitting from the tuition of permanent and visiting tutors and film professionals. Their diplomas were presented by one of our greatest cinematographers and directors Nicolas Roeg, who judiciously praised the last-screened work, Interference, deftly directed by John Danvoye with a flair for gadgetry reminiscent of Veit Helmer. The film duly won the Audience Award, presented in a lively reception in the so-called Blue Room(which only recently had served as the Delegates Centre for the London Film Festival, though now there were considerably more- sponsored- drinks on offer including a flavoursome rum, Admiral Vernon's Old J,and a Belgian beer appropriately named Vedett!, while graduates went fishing for compliments and complimentaries.

As Roeg remarked, it is invidious to single out shorts without name-checking everyone, and clearly students had worked in different capacities on colleagues' productions as well as their own diploma offerings, but I was much taken by Department of Fate,(director Mick Dow,writer Federica Arevalo) which brings a literal Cupid into the contemporary world, with considerable humour, and a witty resolution. Certainly, the students are well-drilled in the technical skills at the LFA, though the shorts with professional players came across more convincingly, and as the longest full-time courses seem to last only a year.it is fast becoming a powerhouse to be ranked favorably alongside our longer-established film schools.

Phillip Bergson                                 www.londonfilmacademy.com

Jean-Marc Thérouanne Festival de Vesoul

If you go down on the beach today may 21st - de cinq a sept- you're sure of a big surprise.....the biggest clutch of film festival directors in one party..

All summoned by FilmFestivals.Com supremo Bruno Chatelin  -for it is he- to the most truly international bring-a-bottle party you ever might see.

This traditional Cannes rendez-vous  is jointly hosted by that maven of the Black Nights of Tallinn - Madame Tina L. - for it is she-and Laurie Gordon Animaze Montreal International Festival of Animation, housed for a couple of sunny hours on the Estonian Pavilion - with much corkscrewing (will the Cork festival director attend0, will Chicago have the chutzpah to pre-empt his own secret soiree elsewhere ce soir, will Chichester cha-cha with Rio, and Rotterdam run riot with Reykjavik?)--- but if Russia decides to annexe Estonia tonight, most of the world's film festival circuit just might collapse.

Watch this space... and check the pictures on facebook...

Phillip Bergson

The Romania International Film Festival celebrated its 10th edition with a hot and wild new location, the famous -if not notorious party-beach resort of Vama Veche, a mile away from the border with Bulgaria.A kind of Felliniesque (think -Satyricon rather than La Dolce Vita)holiday rendezvous for the not-too-gilded youth of Central Europe its vibrant music and drinks-fuelled atmosphere makes the revels of the Karlovy Vary Festival seem like a vicars' tea-party,with the dress sense of the original Mad Max.Here all-night routs mean literally that so the screenings were restricted to four feature programmes, in 2  alfresco venues, as night descended- in the Amfiteatr La Pescarie the screen billowed against the Black Sea, and Chinese Lanterns winged high in the sky, the occasional paraglider passed in silhouetted, and many of the aficionados were high in their seats.  Somehow, the International Jury of  actor-director Mike Sarne (UK), cinematographer Doru Mitran and BBC broadcaster Yours Truly managed to present these awards in a late-night buffet party in the gardens of the  Vila Maris, a luxury enclave and boutique hotel that seemed far from the madding crowds but is only 500 metres from the balmy Black Sea Beaches.

Best Director WOMEN IN CINEMA-Laila Marrakchi for ROCK THE CASBAH(Morocco-France) for her mastery of the medium of film, revealing the paradoxes women face in their lives in Moroccan society- where man has the upper hand-and brilliantly handling an ensemble of characters (headed by Omar Sharif as a not-so-dearly departed patriarch) with great perception and welcome humour.

Best Director CINE BLACK SEA - Niki Iliev  for LIVING LEGENDS (Bulgaria) for amusingly showing how the lives of young friends took very different paths but a sudden accident brings them together for eventual fulfilment with surprising but very entertaining results.

Best Acting   The Jury unanimously agreed to share the Best Acting Award  -ex-aequo  (as Ovid, who was exiled to nearby Constanta-Ultima Thule, would have put it)- between two remarkable young actresses  MELANIE DOUTEY (in POST-PARTUM, Belgium), who brings a new face to a universal problem,  and SANY ILIEV-BORISOVA (in LIVING LEGENDS,Bulgaria), for her well-judged depiction of a daughter in search of her identity.

The Jury also congratulated the Ukrainian Cinema- in the Special Focus hors concours-for maintaining high artistic standards in the face of mounting difficulties - and the Festival will make  a donation to the EFA campaign for Oleg Sentsov-and gave an Opera Prima Trophy to Viktoria Trofimenko for her assured debut feature  BROTHERS;THE FINAL CONFESSION.

Festival Trophy for Best Film (sponsored by the perfumery Beautik) went to Ramin Matin for THE IMPECCABLES (Turkey), a film that surprises on every level, with a tale of two sisters, with their evident conficts, who can't live with or without each other,and the reason why is brilliantly revealed at the masterful conclusion of this highly original piece of blackly-humoured  Black Sea drama.

Phillip Bergson                                                                                                                  www.ro-iff.ro

My arrival in Cannes was unusually smooth, having found- only days before travelling- a return flight on British Airways that was somehow cheaper in sogenannt Club Europe than in Economy Class (albeit it to and from Gatwick- where the only BA lounge still open after 3pm was surprisingly well-stocked).

After the usual diplomatically-ignored delays, we arrived more or less on time, on the eve of the festival, and although Nice Airport's carousel threatened a 57 minute wait for my luggage, they landed quicker than my exchanges with a Jane Campion-lookalike, and I managed to wade through the multi-tongued hordes to board- for the first time- the local bus to Cannes.

It was so packed with cases and festivaliers sitting on each other that I expected to hear Jamie Lee Curtis screaming, and it did stop at every possible bus arret between Terminal 1 and its Final Destination in Cannes, but for a 90 minute ride the fare of !.50 euros was truly a bargain.

And as the palms of the peripherique hove in to view I realised that it would stop literally around the corner from my own Hotel berth, again a last-minute offer, in the lovely Lutetia.

For my return I took the more comfortable, and vastly more expensive Airport Express, as I was able to board even closer to my hotel, and so did not resent too much having to cross the driver's palm with 20 euros.The usual British Airways version of "Yes it is on time, no suddenly there is a 30 minute delay" was of course played out in the rather tackier Rivera Lounge, which was well fuelled with madeleines but curiously devoid of champagne and had only a sprinkling of reading material.

I should draw a veil over the afternoon tea that was served in Club Europe (it was in fact a British Midland aeroplane and suddenly the proliferation of all these subsidiary services from Gatwick began to make sense- in spite of the delays in boarding we did land in time and both my cases were safely and promptly delivered).

I realised then how many places in Cannes--whether old familiar cafes bars hotels-had similarly been renamed or rebranded, as part of corporate takeovers, or simply in an attempt,akin to the mangling of language in Animal Farm, to make you think some venue has been transformed as if by magic, when if it was simply translated,you would realise it was the same old tat of yesteryear.

Phillip Bergson

More than a visual visiting card for a young or debuting film-maker, the short film should be a work of cinematic art in its own right, comparable to the stories of Guy de Maupassant or the exquisite etudes of Frederic Chopin. It is fascinating to view the graduation pieces or early narrative films by established directors, where often their look, style, techniques, and continuing concerns can be discerned in embryo form, and would be developed in future feature films.The film festivals are the natural home and haven for the short film, but in Great Britain shorts often were screened in commercial cinemas,coupled to a major studio picture (and until the abolition of the Eady Levy benefited from box-office commissions intended to encourage the production of films locally). At major festivals a competing new short usually preceded an official competing feature, and had its own awards, but probably because even professional audiences used it as a smoking break, or were annoyed at being obliged to wait in the foyer until it was over, both the Berlinale and Cannes not so very long ago relegated all their officially- selected shorts into one or at most two curated programmes, invariably screened on the Riviera on the hottest afternoon of the year, with the huge auditorium almost empty escape  for  the film-makers, their mother, and the hardiest of festival programmers. Few new short-makers will share the joys of a large and enthusiastic festival crowd such as when the Berlinale screened The Waving Girl (Das Winkende Maedchen,if you will forgive my German, which I never formally learned), a brilliant parody of screen credits to Ravel's Bolero,which unanimously won the Golden Bear for Best Short  and prompted a delightful sequel The Return of the Waving Girl (I am not even going to try to remember its original title).Recently Cannes has estaStblished the Short Film Corner,in the bowels of the Film Market, and though its screening rooms are tiny, its catalogues are excellent, and there are many panels, and networking events for the short film-makers and their enthusiasts and selectors.There are still notable international as well as local or thematic festivals that champion the short, from Clermont-Ferrand,in chillier February to Krakow, Leipzig, Annecy (for animated shorts,of course),while the European Film Academy has for the last decade or so- with the help of some island beverage as sponsor- highlighted short films in designated annual  events, ensuring that their prizes qualify them for eventual BAFTA or Hollywood 'Oscar' qualifications.

Yours truly has a screenplay credit on one of the last UK shorts that, thanks to its accompanying feature, saw over 450 35mm copies circulate in cinemas across the  country, while as a Jury Member in Bruxelles I was among those giving to Jaco Van Dormael his first prize, which in those far-off January days,was worth more than a fistful of Belgian francs, for his graduation film E pericoloso sporgersi, so the short film is something that I think is important. As a Jury Member at Thessaloniki, which was competitive originally (before Melina Mercouri cancelled it and others later  gave it new life and dates) only for short films, which could run as much as 55 minutes, we often had 90 minutes of films to view before each international feature premiere. Currently most film festivals impose a limit of 20 minutes for competing shorts,which rather restricted the after-life of one of the most professionally-produced selections of the 2014 Cannes Corner,The Enchanted Forest directed by Romanian Andrei Enoiu (who has subsequently gone on to become one of the executive producers of the engaging documentary We are Many,currently on release).With the mushrooming of film festivals around the globe, young hopefuls stream, submit, send DVDs far and wide,seeking what is the right of any good film, a screening before an audience in the dark.

The Siberian-born, British-resident film-maker Dimitry Kalinin swapped a career in banking for study at what used to be called the London International Film School, and with his first film, made there on a tiny budget with stringent production restrictions, HOLY SMOKE demonstrated an unusual understanding of the dictates of the short.This delightful skit runs less than four minutes, and all its principals are professional actors,whilst in the crowd scenes - I declare an interest- your correspondent makes an apparition tres fugace, with some other experienced extras from across Europe.Seeing Kalinin on the set- an actual church in London's Maida Vale-he displayed an unusual confidence, yet was able to communicate easily with crew as well as cast.The popular English comic actor Nickolas Grace pertly plays a visiting Bishop, with Timothy Walker as the vicar chastising a cheeky altar boy, who wreaks revenge by slipping something alien into the incense.The film almost brought the house down when shown in the huge-and fully filled- auditorium deep in the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square at a LIFF pre-graduation show, and has just been screened at the Studio 35 Comedy Film Festival in Columbus,Ohio.

Confirming that his first short was no flash in the pan, his utterly different second short OVER- in just over nine minutes-is a gift for international film festivals as it contains no spoken dialogue at all.It is handsomely photographed in lush Irish landscapes (not far from Cork, which coincidentally was the other famed festival for shorts,like Thessaloniki,presenting them in tandem with random international feature premieres for decades- though I do not  think Rita Hayworth ever attended, though she did make it to Greece, and was then invited to Oxford where her non-attendance was legendary, but that is for another article).There is a most atmospheric original score(by Andrew G.Vassall) and the film evokes effortlessly an infinite longing and regret and perhaps reconciliation.A George Clooneyesque solitary painter in his rural cottage is visited nocturnally by a muscular motorcyclist and we realise this a ghostly visiteur du soir following a  crash. This has just been screened at the curiously-named Schwein Gehabt Film Festival (I think it takes place in a former slaughter-house, in Karlsruhe- sounds very Vonnegut) as well as at the Art Color Digital Cinema International Film Festival(in Montreal) and is now cruising the festival circuit.

Kalinin's latest short is SHINGLE, at nearly 13 minutes, also with a death, and a doctor, his patient and his lover caught in a web of complicated relations on and near a beach on the South Coast of England. It is exhilarating to see a directing talent develop and it is not meant as reproach to the short film as a format to say the next step has to be a medium or full-length feature for Dimitry Kalinin,simply because outside the festivals there a few opportunities to view such fine work. For a time Channel 4 in Britain and ARTE across Europe would screen short films, late at night or as part of thematic evenings, and now the young and hip will say there is YouTube and Apps and ups and mobile phone exposure, but a  well-made short film deserves to be seen on a larger screen and with a communal audience,just like a feature (call me old-fashioned).Disney and Pixar occasionally release short subjects into the cinemas,  though often they seem like cynical commercial exercises.But do not forget, as Cannes 2015 spectacularly reminded us with its LUMIERE screening , the origin of cinema was the short, without dialogue, which captivated,moved, and entertained audiences around the world.

Phillip Bergson

The Polish Film Spring came early into London this year, as Kinoteka unreeled, for the 15th time, from 17th March to 5th April, 2017,in various venues across the capital, presenting new and classic features and shorts, documentaries and animations, with workshops,talks,master-classes, art, music, a dinner,and a plethora of tasty Polish cakes.

It is quite literally a rich programme, capably curated as ever by movie-mad Marlena Lukasiak, and her old and new colleagues in the Polish Cultural Institute in Londyn.This year the Opening Gala relocated to what for me is now London's loveliest cinema,the Regent Street, historic site of the Freres Lumiere's first presentation of film on this side of the Channel in 1896, in  a theatre which was part  of the Royal Polytechnic Institution. After the Second World War it became a celebrated art-house, the Cameo-Poly, and subsequently a Classic Cinema (where I recall seeing Sidney Lumet's The Seagull when very small), until it again became a teaching space for 30 years.As the Poly was translated into the University of Westminster, the venue was gradually transformed, thanks to individual benefactors and sundry Funds and Trusts, with the 1936 Compton Organ refurbished,and the Art Deco interior splendidly renovated for its re-opening as a full-time cinema in May 2015.It is now a congenial home for classic double-bills,marvellous musical matinees (for its recent screening-I think as a 35mm print- of Kismet,I had to join a queue that snaked along Regent Street- how long is it since you saw an actual line at any box-office, in our days of Apps and booking online?),and frequent foreign film weeks and festivals,It was the perfect venue for the UK premiere of Andrzej Wajda's final film, his autumnal envoi Afterimage (Powidoki),a moving tribute to the avant-garde painter Wladislaw Strzemynski, severely handicapped after being wounded in the Great War.He was born in Minsk,and a student in St Petersburg and colleague of Malevich and Chagall, but  film focusses on his last years, as a victim of Stalinist policies,his abstract art vilified in the 1950s era of social realism,and himself hounded from the Art Institute he founded,humiliated and even prevented from painting, in penury and ill.It is a heroic performance by Boguslaw Linda who now has more than a look of Wajda himself (who completed the film with his customary vigour, clearly himself remembering the political regimes under which he often himself suffered, but sadly he died less than a month after its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, though at 90 was still planning a further film).The film is handsomely shot by Pawel Edelman ,the cinematographer who  worked with Wajda several times and was Oscar-nominated for Polanski's The Pianist, and aptly features music by Andrzej Panufnik, who had to pursue his career outside a Poland dominated by Stalin's  strictures. Forced to teach in secret to his devoted students, Strzemynski's theories on art were posthumously published and the film appropriately concludes with a blaze of colour from some surviving canvases.

A lively, informal Reception followed  the screening in the cinema's own cafe-bar,where guests included the Quay Brothers (they really are twins, I never know which one is which) who have again made a  characteristic festival logo/trailer, and the bright star of Polish stage and screens big and small, Maciej Stuhr, who features in the selections Planet Single, the successful romantic comedy directed by Slovenia's Mitja Okorn, and the 1950s music- drama Eccentrics, The Sunny Side of the Street(showing on Sunday 26th March, 7.30pm,Regent Street Cinema).There was an  abundance of sumptuous cakes from co-sponsor The Polish Bakery, and in the evident  absence of wodka,  vouchers for 20% discounts throughout the Festival in the DRY MARTINI Bar, a short walk away in the historic hotel partner, the Melia White House, the Art Deco  hotel-cum-apartment house on to which Kenneth Williams's  windows looked for many years.

Kinoteka continues with screenings of eight great films by Wajda, from early classics such as Ashes and Diamonds to Man of Marble,more or less smuggled into the  Cannes Film Festival  where the film caused a sensation in 1977, winning the FIPRESCI Prize ,and its follow-up Man of Iron, which also premiered at a later Cannes (and incidentally initiated my regular reportage on Polish cinema on the BBC Polish Service, as I was covering the festival for domestic BBC outlets and subsequently interviewed Wajda many times, though we mostly spoke French together, off-microphone.I later saw his own exquisite art works exhibited during the European Film Festival in Lecce, evidently inspired by Japan,with delicate drawings and exquisite colours.The last time I saw and spoke with  the master film-maker was at the inauguration(with retractable roof)  of the marvellous Shakespeare Theatre in Gdansk, a project he had long championed).There are also newer films, documentaries, and other events in many venues . Kinoteka returns to the Barbican for its spectacular close, pairing the live music of British Sea Power with animated shorts by such internationally-awarded talents as Piotr Dumala (Wednesday 5th April, 8pm, Barbican Hall). Polish films have been performing well in their own country as well as collecting awards around the world and Kinoteka always assembles a striking showcase of the classic and contemporary It is a timely addition for Brexiteers and Polonists alike.Na razie!

Phillip Bergson

For full programme and ticket details see www.kinoteka.org.uk   For wodka martinis , melia.white.house@melia.com

Following a string of contemporary and classic Polish film screenings in a variety of venues across London, the 15th  Kinoteka came to a spectacular close in the labyrinthine Barbican Centre (on Wednesday  5th April, 2017).This annual Polish Film Festival always creates something original,besides the usual programmes of features and documentaries, workshops and presentations-  another  on-screen logo by the local Quay Brothers, and this year Kinoteka  commissioned new scores to be performed live on the stage of the large Barbican Hall by the indierock band British Sea Power to accompany an eclectic selection of Polish classic animated shorts, ranging in date of production from 1932 to 1983. The visual eccentricities of films made under the watchful eyes of communist censors partnered well with the insistent rythms of the six-strong group of modern musicians who drew a capacity crowd to the large venue.Highlights onscreen were The School,made in 1958 by Walerian Borowczyk, later famed for his colourful  erotic features (and a jolly Jury Member at the Oxford International Film Festival where a different kind of censorship prevented the complete Caligula from  competing as film surprise in primo mondiale,though W.B.and fellow juror Lina Wertmuller had privately seen it in Rome and for a time threatened to prize it-- even though  the representative of Customs and Excise, or some such entity, who had viewed it with the then Secretary of the British Board of Censors James Ferman, threatened to burn the print due to be sent by Bob Guccione from New York,  since he believed it contained 9 minutes and 28 seconds of obscenity, within the meaning of the Act, which could not be removed when the 35mm print would reach Heathrow airport en route for its Saturday night premiere at the largest theatre in Oxford),and Black Riding Hood,made in 1983 by Piotr Dumala.a very dark version of the traditional fairytale.From the charming stop-frame animation of the oldest film The Lion and the Fly (1932) by Ladislav Starevich to the repetitive trickery of Tango (1980, Zbyniew Rybczynski) in which 20  photographed figures are made to pirouette in and out of a modest domestic room, the new live musical soundtracks made a fascinating counterpoint to the visual  techniques of shorts with, for the most part  no spoken dialogues, or  an occasional semi-human sound. The 90-odd minute show was enthusiastically received, as was, for the fortunate invitees, an elegant after-party in an adjacent Barbican salon, lavishly decorated by atractive posters of Poland, with the traditionally tasty birthday cake (The Polish Bakery happily still a sponsor) and, in the absence of any stock of wodka, a lively delegation from festival hotel partner The Melia White House, with discount vouchers for its  Dry Martini Bar.Even the canapes seemed to be nouvelle elaborations of traditional Polish cuisine.

Phillip Bergson

www.barbican.org.uk

Not only the not-so-very United Kingdom is facing crises of identity and culture-clashes currently, in the months apres-BREXIT and avant the various elections looming across Europe, but the cinema itself seems to be going through spasms of schizophrenia, as evidenced by the fiasco of the Academy Awards announcement of Best Picture (unwittingly split between a pastiche Hollywood musical and a very diverse coming-of age drama set in Miami) and the continuing oscillations for  box-office-hits between costly remakes--even of cartoons!--and ever-sillier franchise epics, and tenderer independent pictures which seem hardly to be released but to escape and somehow limp around the festival circuit and, succoured by  critical acclaim, occasionally sneak onto an actual cinema screen somehow, somewhere.But that is the ever-present conflict between an art and an industry.Sir David Lean called film the best near-art form of the 20th century, and who was it who when asked what he thought of the British Film Industry, said that would be a good idea?

As Cannes officially embraces a VR entry, at least in short form, for the first time in the Official Selection, and everywhere young cineastes are not only viewing but making films on mobil phones, I want to raise the flag for the well-made film screened in a well-designed cinema.Film London has lately hosted a couple of Exhibitors' Breakfasts to showcase a host of local-and some national-organisations booking and promoting films on all kind of screens and recently selected two marvellous new venues,the Everyman Muswell Hill which has renovated the legendary Art Deco Odeon, retaining and restoring its main auditorium,complete with balcony or circle area, while also inserting a couple of smaller luxury halls, a well-run bar and cafe area and in warmer weather a large terrace, adjacent to many shops,buses and life in general in this leafy northern suburb of the capital. The other in the heart of the Huguenot East  End and fringing the City of London is the Curzon Aldgate, a  five-screen new-build art-house complex where in spite of the few number of seats individually screens are large,dimensions are generous, and there is the most enormous foyer, currently fitted out with fashionably retro "found" decor, fotos, books and magazines and doubling as an attractive cafe and bar with more than drinks served day and apparently night. It is close to an Underground station (Aldgate East,in which there is currently no signage to the cinema so check your exit carefully or you''ll end up kilometres away as I did!) and nestles in a pedestrian enclave of offices and eateries.If it introduces a Happy Hour for film tickets,I would happily trek there to see anything.

Less recently the Film Distributors' Association launched day-long previews of usually three new features, occasionally with a guest attendee for a Q and A selon arrivage (Ken Loach and the I.Daniel Blake team literally dropped in on their way to its official post-Cannes UK premiere last year) and these are useful catch-ups for invited press,media,and critics. They tend to be more mainstream, about-to-be-released features but lately I have managed to catch some top-quality new British productions in screening conditions slightly superior to some of the private preview theatres, as these movie marathons now unreel in the Vue, Piccadilly, a five-screen miniplex in the very heart of the West End,and although auditoria range in seating capacity from much less than a hundred to slightly over 200, each screen is large and sightlines are good, as are projection and sound.

The opulent spectacle of VICEROY'S HOUSE did not look out of place on such a screen, though this intelligent, well-cast and -performed  recreation of our Imperial "brexit" from India does not seem to have stayed the course on release,at least in what are left of the British Isles so far.Hugh Bonneville makes a dignified Mountbatten with Gillian Anderson excellent as his wife (though her alleged amour with Nehru  seems to have been airbrushed out of the script) and there is a rich cast  of historic cameos in sumptuous settings, with a romantic cross-caste sub-plot that does not deserve some of the criticisms it generated.

Let me also bring to  your attention THE LOST CITY OF Z,a fascinating Fitzcarraldo-like epic of the flawed British explorer Percy Fawcett(expertly impersonated by Charlie Hunnam with Tom Holland as his anarchic son) and a fascinating true-life  memoir of the occupation by the Nazis of Jersey ANOTHER MOTHER'S SON immaculately played by Jenny Seagrove, John Hannah and erstwhile pop star Ronan Keating; a capable contemporary detective thriller CITY OF TINY LIGHTS starring Star Wars "Rogue" Riz Ahmed as an Anglo-Pakistani gumshoe; the literary flash-back drama THE SENSE OF AN ENDING with Jim Broadbent at his least avuncular and Charlotte Rampling at her most enigmatic; and best of all,a  delightful Dunkirk-era spoof(though also evidently inspired by a real-life story of a wartime script girl THEIR FINEST  which also plays to the best strengths of British cinema, recreating the past -- especially that of the Second World War,= with convincing decor and skilled playing for a large and recognisable cast,  but with humour, wit and warmth. More on each of these anon.

PHILLIP BERGSON

www.launchingfilms.com