Raindance Film Festival, now in its fifteenth year, will take place from September 25 – October 7 2007 in London. Highlights include a Jean Luc Godard retrospective, curated by the man himself, a pitching panel headed by Ewan McGregor (see below) and a jury that includes Iggy Pop, Cannes & Oscar winner Andrea Arnold and Mick Jones (The Clash). The always excellent trailer (directed by last years short film winners, Edwin McGill and Kashmir Burgess) is now online...

(higher res file | youtube) Full details of the festival below.

Live! Ammunition is Raindance’s now-legendary pitching event where your idea for a movie can be heard by the people who matter. Where else would you have the undivided attention of not just one, but FIVE people who could help get your film made? This year that illustrious crowd includes Ewan McGregor, NFTS head Nik Powell and UK Film Council Premiere Fund head Sally Caplan.

With the recent decision to move the legendary annual Hull short film shindig to April, a special mini festival entitled the 5 ½ Hull International Short Film Festival will take place between 5th and 7th October 2007 for everyone who is worried about missing their fix of excellent short films during the autumn months.  The first Hull event since former Leeds Film stalwart and Netribution DVD-reviewer Laurence Boyce took over, will include a Humphrey Jennings retrospective, a Simon Ellis strand (who just followed his Edinburgh win for Soft with a Palm Springs gong) and films from the brilliant Slack Video.

 

The 51st London Film Festival, which begins on 17th October, announced its lineup today.

The festival will open with the UK premiere of David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, starring Naomi Watts and Viggo Mortensen, and set amongst a notorious organised crime family in London.

The closing night gala on 1st November will feature the UK premiere of Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. The film follows three American brothers, played by Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody, on a trip across India.

The Angel Film Festival kicks off its second year on 15th September at the King's Head pub on Upper Street in Islington, North London.

The films will be screened in 4 different locations around Islington over the weekends of 15th/16th and 23rd/24th September.   

OK, so Edinburgh was so good I've not yet managed to write it up and now I'm away again, so in the meantime here are some of the films made by Colin, Ian and the rest of the festival video team, published on the fest's YouTube channel, as well as the awards lowdown. (Personal faves were Ratatouille, We Are Together [which EMI is releasing on a not-for-profit basis - kudos due] and my new favourite film of the year, I'm A Cyborg and That's OK).

The winner of the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Film, Control 

 

An impromptu Franz Ferdinand gig (mobile phone quality - not from the festival)

The 23rd Haifa International Film Festival will be held 27th September - 4th October 2007, and is to close with A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie and Dan Futterman.

The film is an adaptation of Mariane Pearl's book, A Mighty Heart. It is a memoir of her journalist husband's kidnap and murder in Pakistan while investigating the case of a shoe bomber, Richard Reid. 

 

 

 

The Black Film Maker International Film Festival (BIFF) will be launched on 6th September at City Hall. A week of screenings from 7th – 14th September in London, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) – Pall Mall and Odeon West End – Leicester Square will show over 50 unseen films, features, shorts, music videos, animation, documentaries, comedy and more.
 
BIFF was established in 1999 with the aim of filling a void within London’s film exhibition scene. Menelik Shabazz, BIFF founder, says: “There was a complete absence of black world cinema both in terms of the multiplexes and existing festivals like London or Edinburgh, which would show the occasional film but this was a long way short of the wealth and depth of work available.”