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Dancing with Dolphins in Festroia
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...
View ArticleKiwis Launch Film Festival in London
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,...
View ArticlePostcards from the "B" Festivals
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...
View ArticleAddio, Virginia Dignam
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,...
View ArticleA Night at the Opera
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...
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Everything's Coming Up Docs!
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...
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FEST begins at 40!
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...
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Reflections on a Golden Lens
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...
View ArticleBack to Byzantium: Turkish Delights at the 31st Instanbul Film Festival
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...
View ArticleLFA 10th Birthday and Future Talents Showcase
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...
View ArticleWELCOME CROATIAN CINEMA
Although the country of Croatia, which acceded to the European Union on July Ist this year, is not large in land it has a seemingly infinite number of islands,and, although its current production of...
View ArticleWELCOME CROATIAN CINEMA
Although the country of Croatia, which acceded to the European Union on July Ist this year, is not large in land it has a seemingly infinite number of islands,and, although its current production of...
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Cannes-cannes-eando
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...
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White Nights on the Black Sea
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...
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Cancaneando
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...
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Short shorts - Kalinin Calling!
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...
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Polish Films Spring into London at the 15th Kinoteka
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...
View ArticleAnimated Closing Gala at 15th Kinoteka in Londyn
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...
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Postcards from Blighty
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...
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