Glasgow Film Festival 2010
Bell towers Miles Fielder checks in with The Wire’s Idris Elba, who closes this year’s festival in Glasgow- produced film Legacy
H is show-stealing performance as smart Baltimore drug dealer Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell in the acclaimed US TV crime drama The Wire propelled Hackney-born actor Idris Elba into the big time. Subsequent to his two-year stint on the show that’s thought by many to be the best television series ever, the now 37-year-old former pirate radio DJ scored roles opposite Denzel Washington in American Gangster and Beyoncé Knowles in Obsessed. Last year he appeared in the popular US version of The Office and this year he takes the lead in new British crime series Luther. But before that Elba’s heading back to America to play a Norse god in the latest blockbuster adaptation of a Marvel Comics superhero, The Mighty Thor, currently being shot by Kenneth Branagh.
Elba’s next big screen appearance, however, will be in the modestly-budgeted British thriller Legacy, which is written and directed by Nigerian-English filmmaker Thomas Ikimi, produced by Glasgow production
GALA Trucker
MUSIC & FILM Chopin: Desire for Love
STATE OF INDEPENDENTS Against the Current
EUROPEAN Hilde
WORLD Ajami
Interestingly messed around melodrama in which a workaholic lady trucker (Michelle Monaghan) is forced to rediscover family values when her ex-husband becomes terminally ill. GFT, 3.30pm, Mon 22 and 11am, Tue 23 Feb. The Polish composer’s relationship with Aurore Dupin, aka George Sand, gets the historical romance treatment in this carefully realised film. The screening is preceded by piano recital. GFT, 5.45pm, Mon 22 Feb.
Pleasingly quirky deadpan comedy about a widower’s attempt to swim the length of the Hudson River in one month. Joseph Fiennes stars. Cineworld Renfrew Street, 8.30pm, Mon 22 Feb and 1.30pm, Tue 23 Feb.
This fascinating biopic of singer, screen idol and author Hildegard Knef tracks the star’s route from war-torn Berlin to Broadway and back again. Cineworld Renfrew Street, 6pm, Tue 23 and 1pm, Wed 24 Feb. Compelling thriller set on the mean streets of Jaffa, one of Tel Aviv’s toughest neighbourhoods. Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Cineworld Renfrew Street, 8.30pm on Tue 23 and 1.15pm on Wed 24 Feb.
24 THE LIST 18 Feb–4 Mar 2010