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I EVERYBOOY'S FIHE Having opened the 1989 Film Festival with Cinema Paradiso, Giuseppe Tomatore returns with another feast of unashamed sentimentalism as oldster Marcello Mastroianni tracks down his estranged offspring. Time forthat economy-sized box of hankles. Cameo cinema, Sat 25 Aug, 8.45pm.
I SlLEllT SCREAhi David Hayman makes an impressive leature debut with this portrait of convicted murderertumed Barlinnie poet Larry Winters. played with extraordinary commitment by lain Glen (who scooped
the Berlin best actoraward ).
Filmhouse 1. Fri 24 Aug. 6.30pm.
I STORY OF BOYS AND GIRLS It you only see one of the Pupl Avatl movies althls year's ElFF, make sure it's this one. A beautifully controlled and highly touching chronicle of two very different Italian families getting together for a wedding party, this isflne iilmmaklng by anyone’s standards. Filmhouse 2, Sat 25 Aug, 8.15pm.
I WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART Clint Eastwood is to be present at this screening oi his latest offering, an arresting account oi an obsessive movie director lilmlng on location in Africa that's loosely based on John Huston's experiences shooting The African Queen. We're excited already. Cameo cinema. Fri 24 Aug. BASpm.
I WILD AT HEART David Lynch’s crazee splatter-packed road movie will flay your mind. Nicholas Cage and Laura Dem feature as the star-crossed lovers beset by a cavalcade oiweirdness, at the head of which is Willem Daioe's villainous headcase Bobby Peru. Cameo cinema, Sun 26 Aug, 8.45pm and 11pm.
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I YOUR CHEATlH‘ HEART John Byme's follow-up to the hugely successful Tutti Frutti has John Gordon Sinclair and Tilda Swinton in a new BBC series that's already being billed as ‘posslbly the world’s first film noir (country 'n') westem'. Filmhouse1,Sai 25 Aug, screening in three parts at 10.45am, 2pm and 6.30pm.
F E S T l V A L _ film/enevrt-zw
Afore Ye Go
It seems that the 1990 Edinburgh
' International Film Festival has saved
up much of the year‘s Scottish productions until the last few days of
l the event. Seeking to add
5 Edinburgh‘s Michael Powell award
for British cinema to lain Glen‘s well-deserved best actor Silver Bear from Berlin is David Hayman's
’ impressive first feature Silent
l l
Scream, in which the ever impressive Glen portrays convicted murderer turned Barlinnie artist Larry Winters. Hayman has opted for an ambitious mosaic. coaxing together fragments ofchildhood memory. feverish fantasy and brutal prison experience to create a film whose formal vigour is as provocative as its impassioned outcry against the inadequacies of the penal system. While Silent Scream truly has to be seen in a cinema, the good offices of BBC Scotland have been responsible for one of the Film Festival‘s audience winners in Mike Alexander‘s treatment of the William Mcilvanney story Dreaming. The remarkable Ewen
_ Climaetie Reels
There was a genuine sense oi disappointment when Clint Eastwood somehow managed not to show up for the 1988 Edinburgh Film Festival screening oi his excellent Charlie Parker biopic Bird, but this yearthe most successful of all actors in turning to a directorial career should more than make amends when he appears with his latest film White Hunter, Black Heart (Cameo, 24 Aug, 8.45pm). Based on writer Peter Viertel’s experiences when working with John Huston on The African Oueen, this latest confirmation oi Eastwood as a filmmaker oi the first rank also boasts one of his most impressive performances, stepping out a little from his time-honoured star persona to otter an alternately charming and supremely egocentric take on the Huston legend.
David Lynch, to vastly understate the case, seems quite a different breed of
director from cigar-chomping ol’ JH, but if the evidence of the Cannes Palme '
D‘Orvictor Wild At Heart is anything to go by, his own peculiar legend is assured (see feature). While the Film Festival’s official brochure claims the movie's closing Edinburgh gala (Cameo, 26 Aug, 8.45pm) a British premiere, it's a rather unusual deiinltion oi the term, the screening coming some two days alter Wild At
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Bremner plays a kind of Scots teenage Billy Liar, among whose fantasies feature cameo appearances by the likes of Billy Connolly and Deacon Blue.
Similarly assured of punter appeal is Saturday‘s special event. which sees a complete showing (all six fifty-minute episodes) of the new John Byrne series for BBC Scotland, Your Cheatin’ Heart, with the promising cast ofJohn Gordon Sinclair and Tilda Swinton in a patter-packed tale of the Scots c‘n’w underground.
Last year. Scots director Gillies MacKinnon attracted much favourable attention for his handling
Heart’s muhype London opening. Perhaps the sight oi star Nicholas Cage protierlng a cheery wave from the
iront of the auditorium will make all the a difference, but as the credits roll on the
Lynch extravaganza and the Festival's prizes have at last been distributed to their worthy recipients it should be time to reflect on a year when the Edinburgh event’s strengths and weaknesses became more readily apparent than ever before.
ElFF is value for money, no doubt about it. David Robinson and his programming associates assembled from the scantest of resources a massive, varied and often stellar
of the screen adaptation of Manfred Karge‘s Conquest ofthe South Pole, and he now returns with another BBC piece destined for television transmission early in the autumn. but receiving a welcome showing here. Needle is an honest. unflinching look at the drugs problem in contemporary urban Britain, whose attempts to encompass the full spectrum of the narcotics debate and MacKinnon‘s refusal to take the easy moralising route out are to be commended. (TrevorJohnston)
See Film Festival listingsfor programme details and ticket
in ormation.
catalogue of riches. However, the expansiveness oi the programme has been met with irequently disappointing ticket sales. With three films oiten showing at once, there have been times when there weren‘t enough bums to go round the available seats. Given Edinburgh's dependence on a continuing healthy box oitice, it could be a recipe for some anxiety.
Maybe there is too much going on at one time, but one can look at the Film Festival's efforts to promote itself and find them wanting. The misprint-packed and mistake-ridden main brochure seems wilfully user-unfriendly for a start, while a chalked-up blackboard outside Filmhouse is hardly the most impressive way to herald the appearance of a topnotch Hollywood talent of the order of John Landis. Little wonder that the screening of American Werewolf In London had to be liberally peppered with journalists to save the director the embarrassment of facing rows oi empty seats.
One can have nothing but admiration for the staff's untlagglng efforts at keeping the show on the road, but this iestival-goer often had the feeling that their organisational capabilities were unfeasibly overstretched. Medals all round to be sure, but without a goodly increase in the overall funding of the event, perhaps Robinson’s successor should consider making the 1990 extravaganza a leaner, litter beast.
(TrevorJohnston)
55'l‘heultisl 24» RilAugust l‘)‘)(l