FILM SCOTTISH
BACARDI BLACK
filmmaking talent.‘
I ESCA Film Festival: An all-night line-up of student and cult faves hits the Edinburgh Odcon on Friday 22 April from 1 1.30pm onwards as Edinburgh Students Charities Appeal hosts a fund-raising film festival. ()n the bill are The Blues Brothers. Monty Python '5 Life ()fBriun. Highlander: The Shining and Aliens. Ticckts. costing £5. are available on 031 225 4061 or from the ESCA offices in Guthrie Street.
I Scottish Student Video Festival: The second Scottish Student Video Festival moves westwards this year to Glasgow. Organised under the auspices of Glasgow University Student Television. it promises more workshops to complement screenings in its run between Friday 22 and Sunday 24
i April. More details will appear in the Eddie Dick, Director of (he SFPF next issue of The List. but information ‘Such an excellent Strike rate in [he first is available from Louise or Emma on year of Tartan Shorts is yet further 3 (M1 339 8541 (ext 30).
testimony to the quality of Scotland’s
I BAPTA Awards: Two of the first three films from the Scottish Film Production Fund/BBC Scotland’s Tartan Shorts initiative have been nominated in the Best Short Film category at the forthcoming BAFTA Awards. Fran: Kajka's It 's A Wonderful Life and A Small Deposit were selected from 70 entries. and now join fellow nominees One Night Stand and Syrup. ‘This is an enormous achievement.‘ commented
Director’s chair
3“ l
i ;
‘ I g I." g . I ‘ 2' k 7 9
Scottish Film Production Fund chairman Allan Shiach and Kerry Mackendrick, son of the late Alexander Mackendrick, were on hand on Monday 14 March, when the SFPF dedicated a sponsored seat in the Glasgow Film Theatre in celebration of the acclaimed Scottish director’s achievements. Pictured is a poster for one of Mackendrick’s Ealing comedies, The Maggie. Mackendrick — the man behind Whisky Galore, The Ladykillers and Sweet Smell 0f Success - was born to Scots parents in Boston in 1912, but attended llillhead High School and Glasgow School of Art before entering the film business. Photograph by Alan Wylie.
:— Bonnie prints
charter
it was wee goldies all round when the Edinburgh Film Festival, sorry, that’s orambuie Edinburgh Film Festival, finalised a new £750,000 three-year deal with its main sponsor.
Apart from the name change, which director Penny Thomson described as a concession that was well-worth making, the sponsorship package, which also involves Channel 4, means the festival can be planned ahead more effectively. Uncertainty over funding from year-to-year has in the past hampered the festival’s ability to compete with other festivals in the increasingly cut-throat market for British and European premieres.
‘lt’s not so much the amount of
money but the vote of confidence in the festival’s continuation that’s important,’ Thomson says. ‘orambuie is buying into the festival because of what it already is, so we’re not expecting any major changes.’ Thomson says the money will be used to boost attendances among audiences where the festival is perceived to be weak; particularly young wannabe filmmakers and filmgoers who bypass the Filmhouse on their way to the Lothian Road MGM. One option for widening the festival’s appeal is to introduce a series of drive-ins, which have already proved popular during Edinburgh’s Hogmanay. Attracting new filmgoers to the festival ought to have the knock- on effect of bigger audiences for the Filmhouse and Cameo, which traditionally see a boost in attendances during the month after the festival, according to Thomson. (Eddie Gibb)
mm- LOUIS MALLE
It may be three-and-a-half decades later, but the sheer class of Louis Malle’s debut features can still send a thrill through arthouse audiences. One of the first names to wash cinema’s boards clean with the nouvelle vague, Malle took well-worn genres and revitalised them with a hip approach to visuals and narrative, but never at the expense of moody insight into his
characters.
Miles oavis’s score to 1957’s Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud (Lift To The Scaffold) adds to the overall sexiness of this distinctively French noir thriller, 3 story of the perfect crime gone awry. Jeanne Moreau, despite being sidelined by a plot that succeeds in throwing up a new surprise every couple of minutes, still manages to deliver an archetypal femme fatale performance.
Moreau is on even finer form in Les Amants (The Lovers), an erotically charged examination of adultery that strikes far deeper notes than the
each.
Les Amants
director’s most recent effort, Barrage. Releasing herself into a night of passion, Moreau transforms from a repressed bourgeois lady into a liberated spirit in a succession of love-making scenes that are sensually composed to perfection. A landmark movie in terms of the obscenity charges it overcame in the States, Les Amants shows how what was once considered scandalous is now poetically beautiful. (AM)
Lift To The Scaffold (PG) and Les Amants (15) are both available on Electric Pictures Video, priced £15.99
.‘ I The Cement Garden (18) Atmospheric rendition of Ian Mcl‘lwan's novel. which gives a story of British teenage incest a decidedly European feel. Hiding the death of both parents from the outside world. a young family regresses physically and morally from the norm. although the androgynous casting of Andrew Robertson and Charlotte Gainsbourg as
the elder siblings
successfully takes the subject matter to a less
sordid. almost narcissistic level. (Tartan)
I Century ( l5) l-‘uii-ly
l swift rental release for
: Stephen Poliakoff's fresh
. and unusually modern
period drama. in which a
young doctor (Clive ()wen) joins a research
institute. only to become alarmed at the unethical
visions of its head.
Charged with the sense of
energy that surely was
i prevalent in this era of
discovery: ('entury proves
the past doesn't have to be
all parasols and stiff upper lips. (lilectric)
I Spend an evening on the run with Harrison Ford in the ()scar- nominated mega-hit The Fugitive ( 15. Warner): uncovering corruption deep in the heart of at Memphis law firm alongside Tom Cruise in The Firm ( l5. (1C): coping with murder. Japanese corporations and Sean Connery in Rising Sun (18. Fox); crooning with umptecn lilvises and Nicolas Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas (l5. first Independent): and dodging the bullets in London‘s sleazy clubland backed up by Harvey Keilel in The Young Americans ( 18. Columbia ’l‘ristar).
I Paris Texas i 15) This is a great road movie. a wide and epic view of America. and its broken sons and daughters. Sam Shepard's writing is at its best. set to a Ry C ooder soundtrack that is already a classic. ()ther fine moments from director Wim Wenders can also be enjoyed in his exciting. existential thriller The American Friend (PC). with a cynical Dennis Hopper luring Bruno Ganz into an unfamiliar hitman world. (Connoisseur £15.99 each)
i
I Un Chien Andalou ( 15) It is remarkable how the impact of a series of
visual images can be altered by the musical soundtrack. This limited edition collector's set
contains a book on the Dali and Bunuel short. as
well as two versions of
l the film —— the first uses ; Wagner and a tango to
heighten the surreal
comedy; the second. composed by Mauricio Kagel 111 1981. wrings a - more menacing mood
from its sombre discords.
(Connoisseur £15.99) j I Sarafina ( 15) llnfairly
dismissed on its cinema
release. this is a rare
musical where the music
itselfbecomes entwined
with its themes. Set in the run-down townships of South Africa. it follows the hopes and crushed dreams of a schoolgirl
who finds herself
suffering political torture. At times harrowing. but frequently buoyant and
uplifting. (Warner £10.99) I lilsewhere. Biggles
_(P(i. Video Rights
l; 10.99) takes to the skies. along with a ‘Making ()l‘...‘ featurette; Candyman ( 18. Columbia 'l‘ristar) brings more dark. urban myths into its widescreen; lilia Kazan turns to Tennessee Williams with the Southern decadence of Baby Doll ( l5. Connoisseur £15.99) and his own Greek roots in the long and disappointing America, America (PC. (‘onnoisseur £15.99): Mel Gibson causes mass swooning with Forever Young (PG. Warner £13.99) and new packages from the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series; and evangelist Steve Martin needs a miracle to stop the
dust gathering on copies
of Leap Of Faith (PG. CiC £ 10.99).
sponsored by BACARDI BLACK
14 The List 25 March-7 April 1994