FILM SCOTTISH
SCOTTISH FILM
Scottish premieres and return appearances by old favourites. The day begins with children's workshops at
VIDEOS
mam- FRENCH CINEMA
I Irish Cine Cabaret: When Mel Gibson‘s William Wallace saga Brave/tear! skipped over to Ireland to finish shooting last summer. those in the Scottish filrn industry were quick to point out the financial benefits offered to filmmakers on location on the Emerald lsle. But what of low-budget work by young Irish filmmakers? ls their situation comparable with their Scottish colleagues?
lrish Focus‘s Cine Cabaret is an excellent opportunity to view about 80 minutes of 16mm footage taken from a range of films by lrish filmmakers working in English and Irish languages. The screening is accompanied by an exhibition and will provide an opportunity for information exchange. The tour stops off at the Tramway in Glasgow on Sunday 26 and at La Belle Angele in Edinburgh on Monday 27. I East Kilbride Animation Festival: A truly impressive line-up of British and international animated short films comes to Strathclyde on Saturday 25 March. Oscar nominees The Big Story. The Janitor and Triangle are part of a day-long celebration at East Kilbride Arts Centre that also boasts several
l0.30am. the results of which (two three-minute long films. one on video. the other on 35mm) will be screened after the premiere of Bretislav Pojar‘s Polish feature for children. The Flying Sneaker. at 1.30pm.
Further programmes consist of collected shorts by male (Boy-s“ ()lt'll Adventure Stories at 3.30pm) and female animators (Women (;(’, Animated at 5.30pm). The day ends at 8pm with a real treat — a retrospective of the work of Barry l’urvcs. who will be present to talk about the excellent .S‘t'reenplay. ()peravox's h’t’go/etto and rushes from his current project. Achilles.
I Crusaid’s Oscar Night: Only the incredibly dull and boring will stay in to watch live coverage of this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. Those in
'1 the know will have headed along to the 3 Edinburgh Filmhouse where. beginning
late on Monday 27 March. Crusaid are holding a benefit all-nighter. Simon Fanshawe plays host and. as well as showing the ()scars themselves on big screen TVs. the event includes an auction of to-die-for memorabilia and screenings of two nominated films as yet unseen in Scotland.
First up. and kicking off proceedings
at llpm. is Woody Allen‘s Ballets ()rer
Broadway. which will be competing in the Supporting Actor. Supporting Actress. Director. ()riginal Screenplay. Art Direction and Costume Design
3 categories. While we‘re at it. let‘s also
keep our fingers crossed for Peter Capaldi‘s Tartan Short Fran: Kafka's It's A ll’ontler/itl Life. which is tip for Best Live Action Short.
Glasgow rides the wave
With an Oscar nomination for one of the first Tartan Shorts and a percentage of the profits on Shallow Grave about to return to the coffers, the Scottish Film Production Fund and the Glasgow Film Fund, which it oversees, are tasting major success for 1995. The double impact of the organisations has this year brought to Glasgow a rolling production rota that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.
Currently wrapping its principle shooting in the city is The Near Room, a thriller written by Robert Murphy and directed by David Nayman. It will be closely followed by Gillies and Billy McKinnon's long-cherished project, Easterhouse, a BBC Scotland feature with plans for a tight post-production schedule that should see it ready for the Drambuie Edinburgh Film Festival in August. The jewel in Glasgow’s film crown, however, will be the arrival in late summer of Ken Loach for his latest film, Carla’s Song. Although the
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Ken loacthlasgow bound
liner details of funding have to be completed, the GFF has agreed in principle to provide £150,000 for the Jroduction, which tells of a Scottish human rights worker in Nicaragua.
Other projects due to shoot in part or whole in Glasgow this year include the new Tartan Shorts films and Trainspotting, from the Shallow Grave term. like Shallow Grave, Trainspotting will take advantage of funding incentives by shooting the majority of its interiors in Glasgow while picking up on a few Edinburgh locations on account of its capital setting. (AM)
Arrow Film Distributors have frequently been on target with the French films they have brought to British cinemas, and five of their most popular titles now hit the video
shelves.
Despite its star power, Sommersby never completely eclipsed its source, Daniel Vigne’s 1982 classic The Return Of Martin Guerre (15). The twisting narrative, with hidden psychological depths, is a cracker: a stranger (Gerard Depardieu) turns up in a French village and, recognised as a long-lost inhabitant, is welcomed back into the arms of his abandoned wife. Never fully convinced of his identity, the audience swings from one pole to the other, fascinated by the ambiguity of this husband/wife relationship. Depardieu and director Vigne teamed up again in 1985 for the comedy romance One Woman 0r Two (15). Sigourney Weaver ably handles her bilingual role as an advertising executive determined to use archeologist Depardieu’s female missing link discovery in a perfume campaign. The inevitable clash between culture and commercial exploitation hasn’t lost its edge (it’s still Europe vs America), but there are too many subplots and hastily tied loose ends for it to be a success.
Afar better comedy of errors is Yves Robert’s spy spoof, The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe (15). Few periods have dated worse on film than the early 705, but this 1973 Berlin prize- winner is classic farce. Secret service in-fighting brings about a brilliant ? escalation of coincidence, proving no one is really a citizen above suspicion.
The Return Of Martin Guerre: “classic Another excellent film from the very same year is Claude lelouch’s heist character study La Bonne Annee (12). Lino Ventura is a smoothly seductive I heavy, distracting himself from a 1; Cannes jewel store robbery by having an affair with an intellectual antiques dealer. lelouch, director of A Man And A Woman, concocts a stylish mix of post-new wave jump cuts and hand- held shots. The final welcome release is Oiane Kurys’s debut Peppermint Soda, aka Diablo Menthe (15). For some reason, the French have always been experts at conveying the moods and thoughts of adolescents on film, and this semi-autobiographical work gently uncovers the attitudes of two sisters to their parents’ divorce, uncaring teachers, first loves and the ; growing political awareness of the 605. (Alan Morrison)
All titles are released by Arrow Video, priced £15.99 each.
I A TV Dante ( l5) Frequently an artist before a filmmaker. Peter (ireenaway collaborates with Tom Phillips for a televisualisation of the first eight cantos of the Inj'erno. Making brilliant use of the medium, and hinting at interactive formats still to come. they interrupt the poetry with on-scrccn ‘footnotes' frorn relevant experts. Artistically and technologically iltlpt‘cssivc. this interpretation ptrlls together Dante‘s 14th century concerns with modern day pr‘eoccupations. touching on universal themes of guilt and punishment. (Academy £l5.99)
I The Art Of Love ( 18) A classical ‘lover's guide' from Walerian liorowczyk. master animator turned liuro arty soft porn merchant. except that here the advice is doled otrt by Ovid in SAD. Virtually an illustrated lecture on seduction. it's
unnecessarily wordy antl full of inappropriate camera techniques. liither the editor was an amateur. or the censors cuts have rendered the plot
unintelligible. (Jezebel
l
£12.99)
I Friends ( IS) The
current unsettled political situation in South Africa means that lilaine
; Proctor's excellent drama
3 has not lost its edge.
5 Essentially. this is about
the problems of people of distinct cultures living together. seen frorn a woman's perspective. Shallott- Grave's Kerry Fox gives a tough. committed performance. (Tartan. £15.99)
I Jack De Nimble t 18) A disappointing.
overwrought modern fairytale from New Zealand‘s Garth Maxwell. which strives fora David lynch atmosphere. As in many classic folk tales. it centres on twins separated at birth. whose inevitable meeting brings death and revenge. There's a lot going on in the film‘s favour. but the whole thing tightens the strings so far that they snap. (Tartan £15.99)
I Ladislaw Starewicz — Selected Films (U) A little known. but extremely influential animator. Starewicz advanced the art of stop- rnotion photography during the first third of this century. This important video release shows hitn at his best. often using animals and insects to reveal. parable- like. the subtleties of human nature. As well as his solo masterpiece. The Tale ()fT/te For. the tape contains four shorts -— The Cameraman 'x Revenge. The Mascot. Love In Black And White and Town Rat. Country Rat. (Academy “5.99)
22 The List 24 Mar-6 Apr 1995