After a sell-out critically acclaimed season, The Great Game: Afghanistan returns to the Tricycle, London before embarking on an American tour.
The festival, which runs between Friday, 23rd July and 27th July 2010, features, documentaries and shorts, to give a celluloid glimpse into the joys, sorrows and adventures of everyday life in Afghanistan. Like the wider festival, the film festival encourages the exchange of ideas between artists and audiences through a series of Q&A sessions from visiting filmmakers.
The Tricycle welcomes talent including international award-winning director Siddiq Barmak, who ran the Afghan Film Organisation until 1996, when his work was banned by the Taliban. His most acclaimed work Opium War (Best Film, Rome Film Festival 2008) will be shown alongside a selection of his shorts, all screened in conversation with the director, to celebrate one of the most significant individuals in Afghan culture today (Saturday, 24th July 2010).
Other guests over the five day festival include directors Martin Herring and Havana Marking, alongside screenings of Afghan Star, following the post-Taliban Pop Idol-style television programme, and their more recent Vote Afghanistan! (Friday, 23rd); directors Lucy Gordon and Jawed Taiman who attend as part of an evening around The Poppy & Afghanistan, with screenings of This Is My Destiny and Addicted In Afghanistan (Monday, 26th); plus the controversial film The Dancing Boys Of Afghanistan, alongside a Q&A with director Jamie Doran (Tuesday, 27th); and an evening of shorts entitled An Afghan Perspective made by first time filmmakers in Kabul, which offer a personal perspective to the realities of life in the country (Tuesday, 27th).
For more information on the event, visit the festival’s official website here.
The event, which kicks off on 4th July at Riverside Studios with a screening of Road To Peace, runs until 30th July across various venues in London, before it goes on tour from August.
This is the third year for the festival, which celebrates Tibetan art and culture, showcasing new work by young and emerging Tibetan, Indian and women filmmakers. This year’s strong theme is the environment and music – Damien Rice will be performing after the screening of documentary When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun (see trailer below) at the ICA on 29th July.
Alongside feature-length films, documentaries, shorts and musical performances will be director Q&As and panel discussions.
The Tibet Film Festival is a purely non–profit initiative and this year we will be donating any proceeds from the festival to community projects in the Tibetan exile community through Tibet House Trust. The event will also be supporting the relief efforts in the Kyegudo area of Kham, Tibet, which was struck by a devastating earthquake on 14th April 2010.
For more information on the event, including a list of venues and screening times, visit the festival’s official website here.
The 7th edition of the Romanian Film Festival in London will be opening on 2nd July 2010 with a Gala Screening of the award winning film Police, Adjective at the Curzon Cinema in Mayfair.
The festival, which has been running since October 2003, and is organised every year by the Romanian Cultural Centre and the Ratiu Foundation, will then show films including Dana Pitta’s controversial ‘80s flick Sand Cliffs; The Medal Of Honour; and Florin Serban’s Silver Bear Grand Jury winning If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle (see trailer below) on Saturday, 3rd and Sunday, 4th July.
There will be Q&A sessions and guest appearances throughout the three-day event.
For more information, visit the festival’s official website here.
“The Anime Machine: An Illustrated Lecture” is a presentation by Thomas Lamarre on how Japanese anime encourages a specific approach to thinking about our place in a world saturated with technology.
“Lamarre's recent book, The Anime Machine, lays the foundation for a new critical theory demonstrating how Japanese anime differs fundamentally from other visual media. Working at the intersection of the philosophy of technology and the history of thought, Lamarre explores how the 'animetic machine' encourages a specific approach to thinking about our place in a world saturated with technology.”
The lecture is to be staged by the BFI at the National Film Theatre on Southbank on 11th July 2010, and, to coincide, there will be a screening of Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence (see the original Japanese trailer below).
For more information on the event, visit the BFI website here.
The London Indian Film Festival launches from 15th – 20th July 2010 in London, with a range of cutting-edge movies from some of India’s hottest independent talents, “we aren’t talking Bollywood here, but films that challenge, make you think and show a more realistic view of India today in all its colour and diversity.”
The festival’s selection of films are screened across London, opening in the city centre at Cineworld (Haymarket), then Barbican, Nehru Centre, Watermans and Genesis cinemas.
The festival promises to cover a wide range of themes, from family dramas, coming-of age tales to twisted urban romance. “What pervades many of these movies is a new more assured Indian cool, experimenting with cinematic styles, new technology and influenced by themes both East and West, which has helped them win favour with the young in-crowd in super cities like Mumbai.”
Highlight of the festival is said to be Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (Love, Sex and Betrayal), by director Dibakar Banerjee, which opens the event. “Through three intertwined tales, this controversial film explores sexuality, voyeurism, love and betrayal in modern India.”
Other highlights include “the high-impact City Of Gold, by the maverick director Mahesh Manjrekar, on the forgotten history of mill workers of Bombay, whose livelihoods were crushed when the mills were converted into the glitzy shopping malls and five star hotels; and Last Chance Mumbai, a sophisticated multi-strand ensemble exploring the connective lives of the city’s inhabitants over a 24 hour period by acclaimed director Saeed Akhtar Mirza.”
India is the largest film producing country in the world producing up to 1,000 films a year, out stripping Hollywood, but apart from mainstream Bollywood, very few of these films are seen in the UK. Festival Director Cary Rajinder Sawhney explains: “Apart from just showing great movies, we also aim to help get these film talked about and screened more broadly in cinemas in the UK, in the same way that Iranian cinema has been. London, of course, has a huge Asian audience for these movies, but many Brits would also like to see what’s going on in the 1.2 billion strong India today, and cinema is a great way to do this.”
The Satyajit Ray Foundation’s Short Film Competition has joined the festival with the winning filmmaker receiving a £1,000 Award on 20th July at Cineworld, Haymarket. More guests are expected to be confirmed nearer the time.
For more information on the event, visit the festival’s official website here.
The Barbican has announced they will be a key venue-partner to The London Indian Film Festival, “a brand new festival introducing new voices of Indian cinema to London audiences with a programme of cutting-edge independent films - from human rights to provocative thrillers, the shocking, comical, or even downright sexy.”
The cinema will screen Last Chance Mumbai on Saturday, 17th July, and Road To Sangam on Sunday, 18th July 2010.
Last Chance Mumbai
A multi-strand ensemble set in the megalopolis of modern Mumbai. Acclaimed director Saeed Akhat Mirza explores the lives of the city's inhabitants over 24 hours; among them street kids hustling and struggling to live, a sleek night thief (Vijay Raaz), who inadvertently steals from the wrong car, a self-indulgent millionaire playboy, a corrupt politician, and a love triangle involving a starry-eyed model (Amrita Arora). “As the threads gradually entwine, a tense police hunt unfolds, and each character is caught in a revelational spotlight.”
Road To Sangam “Evokes the powerful feelings of sacrifice and secularism that Mahatma Gandhi still elicits for many Indians, over sixty years after his death.” When Gandhiji’s ashes are discovered, it is decreed that they must be carefully transported to the Hindu holy river Sangam, and Hashmat, a devout Muslim mechanic (Paresh Rawal), has been entrusted with the job of repairing the historic lorry that will carry the remains of the Mahatma. However, when a prominent religious leader (Om Puri) calls a strike to protest against the unjust arrest of two Muslim youths, Hashmat is caught in a dilemma of morals.
For more information on the event, visit the festival's official website by clicking the post's heading.
