| BRADFORD INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007 |
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| Friday, 09 February 2007 | |
 The 13th Bradford International Film Festival : 9th - 24th March 2007. Jigsaw Lounge's Neil Young has (again) selected several features for the programme in his capacity as International Programming Consultant - many of which have been already reviewed on this website. The selections: 'PREVIEWS & PREMIERES' section --------------------------------------- Border Post : Rajko Grlic : 94m : ex-Yugoslavia/UK 2006 The Boss of It All : Lars Von Trier : 110m : Denmark 2006 Destined for Blues : Jan Kidawa-Blonski : 101m : Poland 2005 : UK Premiere 8-BIT : Strawhand & Ramocki : 76m : USA 2006 : UK Premiere The Feast of St Barbara : Maciej Pieprzyca : 76m : Poland 2005 : UK Premiere Fantasma : Lisandro Alonso : 63m : Argentina 2006 : UK Premiere [+ Los Muertos : Lisandro Alonso : 78m : Argentina 2004] Fetching Cody : David Ray : 89m : Canada 2005 : UK Premiere For Bread Alone : Rachid Benhadj : 100m : Italy/Morocco 2005 : UK Premiere Fresh Air : KOCSIS Agnes : 109m : Hungary 2006 Ice Games : ZHANG Hui Lin : 75m : China 2006 : UK Premiere Isolated : David Marques : 80m : Spain 2005 Lost In Tokyo : KOTARO Ikawa : 91m : Japan 2006 : UK Premiere Minor Revelations : Marie Vermillard : 55m : France 2006 The Other Half : YING Liang : 111m : China 2006 : UK Premiere Pitbull : Patryk Vega : 100m : Poland 2005 Regarding Buenos Aires : [collective of 11 directors] : 81 mins : Argentina 2006 A Roof Over Our Heads : Adrian Popovici : 110m : Romania 2006 : UK Premiere Six Figures : David Christensen : 108m : Canada 2005 : UK Premiere A Summer Day : Franck Guerin : 91m : France 2006 Summer in Berlin : Andreas Dresen : 105m : Germany 2005 Taking Father Home : YING Liang : 101m : China 2005 Tales of the Rat Fink : Ron Mann : 78m : Canada 2006 : UK Premiere Tomorrow Morning : Oleg Novkovic : 84m : Serbia-Montenegro 2006 Windows On Monday : Ulrich Kohler : 88m : Germany 2006 UNCHARTED STATES OF AMERICA (see essay, below) -------------------------------------- Analog Days : Mike Ott : 80m : 2006 : UK Premiere Apart From That : Shainin & Walker : 120m : 2006 Dance Party, USA : Aaron Katz : 66m : 2006 : European Premiere Dangerous Men : John S Rad : 79m : 2005 : European Premiere a Darkness Swallowed : Betzy Bromberg : 78m : 2006 : UK Premiere Hamilton : Matthew Porterfield : 65m : 2006 : UK Premiere Lay Down Tracks : McCaffrey & Lombardi : 59m : 2006 : UK Premiere Loren Cass : Chris Fuller : 83m : 2006 : European Premiere One Way Boogie Woogie / 27 Years Later : James Benning : 116m : 2005 Police Beat : Robinson Devor : 80m : 2005 Who Is Bozo Texino? : Bill Daniel : 56m : 2005 : UK Premiere Who Killed Cock Robin? : Travis Wilkerson : 73m : 2006 : World Premiere [new version] CINEFILE : documentaries on cinema ------------------------------------------ Anger Me : Elio Gelmini : 72m : Canada 2006 Budd Boetticher - A Man Can Do That : B.Ricker : 85m : USA 05 : European Premiere Cinematographer Style : Jon Fauer : 86m : USA/Germany 2006 : UK Premiere Directed By John Ford : Peter Bogdanovich : 108m : USA 2006 : UK Premiere Dream Makers : Susan Cardinal : 47m : Canada 2006 : UK Premiere Hedy Lamarr - Secrets of a Hollywood Star : Dubini, Dubini & Obermaier : 84m : Ger 06 : UK Premiere The Slanted Screen : Jeff Adachi : 60m : USA 2006: European Premiere Still Alive - Krzysztof Kieslowski : M.Zmarz-Koczanowicz : 80m : Poland 06 : UK Premiere The Well : Kristian Petri : 107m : Sweden 2005 : UK Premiere THE FILMS OF PATRICK KEILLER ------------------------------------- shorts Stonebridge Park (21m : 1981); Norwood (26m : 1983); The End (18m : 1986); Valtos, or The Veil (11m : 1987); The Clouds (20m : 1989) feature-length London : 85m : 1994 Robinson in Space : 82m : 1997 The Dilapidated Dwelling : 80m : 2000 -------------------------------------------------------  UNCHARTED STATES OF AMERICA : an introduction "I reject this term underground. I don't live underground. What am I, a gopher? These labels! Avant-garde - do you know what that is? It's a military term for soldiers who are sacrificed, who die for the risks they take going first. Basically what I am is independent. I have never worked for another company, never had a boss my whole life. I am not beholden to anybody. Call me independent." Kenneth Anger You'd be perhaps forgiven for thinking that independent American cinema began with sex, lies and videotape in 1990, and has since that date consisted entirely of quirky comedy-dramas, offbeat romances, and deadpan crime-romps - preferably starring Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey, Patricia Clarkson and/or William H Macy. The "American Indie" has now become a genre of its own: viable at the box-office, the darling of critics, a magnet for prestigious awards. Too often, however, on closer inspection these "independent" films turn out to be nothing of the sort: funded by "speciality" wings of major studios, they feature a plethora of well-known actors, and are intended as calling-cards for writers and directors set on lucrative Hollywood careers. But genuinely independent American cinema - in the experimental, transgressive, proudly low-budget, wildly eclectic traditions of, say, Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Maya Deren, Marie Menken, John Cassavetes and Russ Meyer (as touched upon in our CineFile documentary Edge of Outside) - is as vibrant today as it's ever been, even though these days it can be all too easily overlooked. As Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival and its imitators become increasingly (and unashamedly) corporate, a rowdy network of underground events have emerged across the country - created and sustained purely by the passion and commitment of their participants and organisers. It's this strain of challenging, rough-edged, beholden-to-nobody cinema which Uncharted States of America seeks to showcase and celebrate. Some of these twelve films are slick productions which wouldn't look out of place in your local arthouse - others are proudly confrontational, even disreputable affairs which reject compromise, commercialism and safety at every turn. This is a journey around some unexposed corners of this dizzyingly vast and diverse nation - from rural idyll to urban wasteland. We take in the Pacific northwest (Police Beat; Apart From That; Dance Party USA), via southern California (Analog Days; Dangerous Men); across to the post-industrial hinterlands (Who Killed Cock Robin?; One Way Boogie Woogie / 27 Years Later); and coasts both east (Hamilton) and south (Loren Cass.) Any areas not already mentioned will surely be have been visited at some point during our continent-hopping, 16mm double-bill (Who Is Bozo Texino?; Lay Down Tracks). And then there's the most alluring, bizarre and terrifying landscape of all: the mysterious inner-spaces of a Darkness Swallowed. a Darkness Swallowed's creator Betzy Bromberg is a "name" already well-known among devotees of avant-garde cinema; One Way Boogie Woogie's James Benning is, to say the least, a living legend in that sphere. Robinson Devor and Travis Wilkerson have quickly established themselves on the "respectable" film-festival circuit. But nine of the other ten directors represented here are, we're proud to say, unfamiliar to most: youthful, energetic, articulate, politically-savvy representatives of a wealthy and educated land where film-making equipment and know-how is, relatively speaking, easily accessible (the tenth: Dangerous Men's sexagenarian, Iranian auteur - the walking enigma that is Mr John S Rad.) The on-screen participants will be even 'fresher' faces: only Loren Cass's Jacob Reynolds is remotely likely to ring any bells - his role in Harmony Korine's Gummo (though central, and once seen, indelible) doesn't exactly make him what you could call a 'movie star.' Nevertheless, we defy you to find a single weak link in any of the ensembles assembled here. Indeed, the work by (to name but two) Dance Party USA's Anna Kavan and Apart From That's Alice Ellingson represents screen acting of the highest calibre. Extremely good things in (mostly) small, seemingly unlikely packages: that's what we aim to deliver with these twelve glimpses into the cinematic soul of a nation at (yet) another fascinating juncture in its ever-turbulent history. Neil Young January 2007
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