0 Because they’re short . . . Short is sweet. 4 Minute Festival. which opened the Film Festival a few years back. condensed Melbourne's fortnight long film festival into a mere fraction of a hour via a hyperspeed montage of footage played against a funky soundtrack.
0 They’re not long . . . During Edinburgh's festival month do you really have the time to spend hours sitting in the dark? Last year's Film Festival premiere. the Japanese film Eureka. may have been critically lauded. but the bugger was 218 minutes long. That's getting on for four hours! An arse marathon. no less.
0 They feature famous people . . . You wouldn't think famous film stars had time for short film nonsense. but often celebs get surprisingly passronate about a nicely written short film. Go see Ewan McGregor in the New Found Land programme. if you don't believe me. And although it's billed as a feature. Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet features seven shorts by seven famous filmmakers. including Spike Lee. Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders.
0 They’re undiscovered gems . . . Just waiting to be unearthed. Shane Meadows is back in Edinburgh with his fourth feature. Once upon a Time in the Midlands. with stars like Robert Carlyle in it and everything. But Meadows was discovered through his. ahem. shorts (such as Where's the Money. Ronnie?) Go find another in the Explosive Fragments 7 programme.
0 Ironically, however . . . A compilation of short films comprises the Film Festival's longest: the Mirrorball film Video Jukebox: The History of the Music Video compiles enough examples of the pop promo to keep you in your seat for 390 minutes. Six and a half hours to you. me and our arses. (Miles Fielder)
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42 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 8 15: Aug 1/“;
The Backyard
4 law wife (Lesley Manvillel. The” relationship is out of fuel and their two overweight kids (Alison Garland and James Cordenl are respectively
passive and aggressive. It takes a near
tragedy to unite them.
Bleak moments. yes. but humour too. as. once again. Leigh's imi)rowsational method mines the comedy and pathos of ordinary speech. And there's warmth and humanity in the performances of Spall and Manville. (Jason Best)
The Cuban Game 0... Film/rouse. 8pm. Set against the back drop of the 2000 baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the
Broadway, Black Sea
Cuban national learn. the first of its kind in over 30 years. this thorOLighly researched documentary details the bedet—mng history of Cuba's national game.
After a slow. slightly confusing start this settles down into a fascinating film that shows the gradual politicisation of baseball after the revolution in 1959. Players old and new (amongst them a lot of ex-pats who escaped Castro's regime in order to play internationally) give their two-pennies worth. It's a fraught and frustrating tale of embargos and belligerence and Spanish director Manuel Martin Cuenca keeps things lucid and well
Fellini: I’m a Big Liar
DOCUMENT
The Film Festival’s programmer Jenny Leask on this year’s documentaries
Fact is always more dramatic. a good deal funnier and infinitely stranger than fiction. So. what documentaries do we have for you this year?
Well. apparently. when Bill Clinton didn't get impeached. Jesus left the kingdom of heaven (in the huff, I guess). Luckily. John Lennon (bless him) has been keeping spirits up ‘up there' by organising singalongs of his new songs. Songs which a medium who lives in Fargo has been psychically channelling. and performs to her husband on her little electronic keyboard. We have a film about them called Where has Eternity Gone? part of the Document Sherts programme.
All over America. teenage boys who have watched too much WWF beat the crap Out of one another in their back yards. With props. Like clubs wrapped in barbed wire. And broken glass. And staple guns. We have a film about them too. It's called The Backyard.
It's not all Americans being crazy though. We also have a baby being born by moonlight in the Black Sea (Broadway. Black Sea): a little boy in Indonesia dancing in a puddle in a shaft of sunlight that breaks through torrential rain (The Eye of the Day): Hitler's personal secretary. talking ab0ut her life before. during and after her time working fo.r the fi‘ihrer (Blind Spot): an Edinburgh roofer. who does yoga on top of buildings (Sky High) as well as three Palestinian widows. who have to live with armed Israeli soldiers occupying the stairs and roof of their home (Detained).
And there are new films on Federico Fellini (Fellini: I'm a Big Liar) and Marlene Dietrich (Her Own Song). both featuring previously unseen footage. plus a fresh take on the phenomenon of blaxploitation (Bt'iadasssss Cinema).
And then there are more Americans being Crazy. Well. they are pretty good at it.
I The door/mentary strand of the Film Festival runs 15—24 Aug. See /istings for further information.
Blind Spot
balanced. (Paul Dale)
I Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet O... Cameo. 8pm. A largely successful attempt at the much-maligned portmanteau form: seven directors give seven personal. ten-minute takes on 'time'. wrth varying degrees of success. ranging from Chen Kaige’s odd aberration through Werner Herzog's fascinating anthropological (IOCLllltOllIZlW. to the sublime B&W mini-masterpiece by Victor Erice. Lite/rites.
In between. Wim Wenders' tense race-against-time road movie. Jim Jarmusch's dull tale of an actor waiting off-set. Aki Kaurismaki's typically