Lost and
feund
Welles prepares it's All True
Forty-one years after the great magician gave the first Edinburgh Film Festival Celebrity Lecture on stage at the Catneo Cinema, the 1994 event will present not one. but two of the films Orson Welles never lived to see on a movie screen. During his brief sojourn in the Scots capital, Welles. with the dejection of the heavily recut Magnificent Antbersons already long behind him, spoke about the central dilemma for any film artist: how to balance the yearning for self-expression with the chafing dictates of the money men.
it was a quandary he knew only too
I well, as his long drawn-out. shoestring-
budgeted. uncompleted film of
; Cervantes’s Don Quixote more than bears out. Edinburgh Welles-watchers will be the first in the world to witness a posthumous assembly of the footage
shot in Spain during the 50s, with Spanish actor Francisco Reiguera as the fantasist knight, character stalwart Akirn Tamiroff as his trusty Sancho Panza, and Welles featured as a kind of latterday Cervantes following the pen'patetie duo across country with a camera crew to document their ‘heroic' odyssey.
Welles’s partner and collaborator during his later years, Oja Kodar, will be on hand to introduce the screening and fill in on the details behind the story ofthis legendary ‘lost’ film. Bounty enough in itself, you’d imagine,
; but there‘s more of the Welles legacy
5 revealed at last when his equally talked 7 about Latin American project It’s All
i True hits Edinburgh screens too.
Conceived during World War it as a portmanteau picture bolstering pan- American relations, the surviving Brazilian material has been edited together by a team from the American
Film Institute. The version to be shown includes recently filmed interviews and
testimony from those involved in the original production. A ‘don't miss’ recommendation, to be sure. (TJ)
It Is All True. Filmhouse I . Fri 19. 4.30pm. Don Quixote, F ilmhouse 1, Fri
i 19. 6.30pm and Cameo I. Thurs 25. 6.15pm.
Iflllllll Size matters
Next year, the world will be
celebrating the centenary of cinema, so why not pause now to reflect that, when the movies began, they weren’t
multi-million dollar epics, but concise ‘
little one-reelers. One hundred years on, and the short film must feel used and abused throughout a chequered history. The Film Festival, however, is determined to prove that short filmmaking is more than filler material, more than a flashy calling card for feature work - it’s an arttomr in itself, with its own rules and regulations.
The Short Film Forum on Monday 22 will address these stylistic conventions by means of a panel session, but - as a picture is worth a thousand words - perhaps more can be revealed about the qualities that Indie a truly excellent short by watching the accompanying films. Ouf! (Belgium) is a cross-city comic chase that is superbly choreographed without wasting a single frame; Silent love (Germany) tells its story at the perfect length, no more or less than the material demands; Snuff (UK) dives straight in and examines the fascination of the snuff movie for audience, filmmdrer and performer allre.
Elsewhere in the Festival fortnight are other gems that count their genius
Silent Love
in minutes rather than hours. Many are grouped into national programmes (a loose German collection, the best of British, the premiere of Scotland’s Tartan Shorts trio, two screenings bursting to the scans with 05 independent goodies). There are also sensually tantalising Erotic Tales (one by Desperately Seeking Susan director Susan Seldelnrann), raw war documentaries from the streets of Sarajevo and diverse others accompanying features. For a wholly satisfying festival witlrln the Festival, look no further than the prograrme of short films. hall, but perfectly formed. (Alan Morrison)
Short Film Forum, Filmhouse 1, Mon 22, 2.15pm.
I Priest The out-of—the-blue success story of the 1993 Film Festival was Antonia Bird’s Safe, a devastating debut that dealt head-on with youth homelessness in Britain. The film went on to win a BAFTA, while Bird received the Festival’s coveted Chaplin Award for Best New Director and was snapped up by Hollywood to make Mad Love with Drew Barrymore and Chris O’Donnell. That movie wraps this week, but Edinburgh audiences have a unique chance to see the full version of Bird’s follow-up to Safe — Priest — which stars Linus Roche as a gay yuppie
priest. who disagrees with the social concerns of his new church in Liverpool. The film, which also stars Robert Carlyle and was written by Jimmy (Cracker) McGovern, is billed as a ‘work in progress’ — it will be shortened before its
planned TV broadcast. (AM) - v v Y A “A a x I
Priest, Filmhouse 1. Sat 20. 6.30pm.
I Three Colours: lied The culmination of Kieslowski's tricolour trilogy confirms this remarkable undertaking as one of the key movie projects of the 90s. The Film Festival will be offering the opportunity to assess all three films. yet the hot ticket will surely be the Polish master’s latest offering. Three Colours: Red, a sparse,
thought-provoking and finally transcendent study in ‘fraternité' stars lrene Jacob
of Double Life Of Veronique fame. She’s a model, left on her own by a boyfriend off in England, who runs over a dog and so precipitates an unlikely relationship with its owner, a misanthropic judge played with glacial conviction by Jean-Louis Tn'ntignant. As ever, Kieslowski takes his time and trusts the viewer to piece together ajigsaw of clues, but the result carries a life-affirming charge that's the mark of true accomplishment. (TJ)
Three Colours: Red, Filmhouse l, Thurs 25, 6.30pm and Cameo I . Sat 27. 6.15pm.
The. List IQ—QS Arroirst IQQA 73