Venus from Notting Hill's Roger Michell with a Hanif Kureshi script stood face to face with Penny Woolcock's collaboration with the brains behind Shameless, Mischief Night. Meanwhile, the meditiative Into Great Silence
explored the world of a Carthusian Order of monks in a French Alps monastery, at the opposite end of the audio spectrum to the documentary Loudquietload: A Film About The Pixies.
Box office Hotline 0113 224 3801
Film Festival Overview
The 20th Leeds International Film Festival features six major programme sections for which over 350 films from around the world have been selected. The Official Selection highlights some of the best new films of the year, most of them screening as exclusive previews, and presents the Golden Owl Competition, which promotes talented international filmmakers that haven't received attention before in the UK. In a strong year for British filmmakers (also see the UK Film Week section), the Official Selection opens and closes with two highly anticipated films from UK talent: Roger Michell (Enduring Love) directs Peter O'Toole in sparkling form as a veteran actor who falls for a woman fifty years younger; and Forest Whitaker plays Ugandan dictator Idi Amin inThe Last King of Scotland, directed by Kevin MacDonald (Touching the Void). Between them there is a diverse line-up of comedies such as Wrong Side Up and Dark Horse, the music documentaries American Hardcore and Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, the archive discoveries Captain Milkshake and Poitin, award-winners like Esma's Secret and Along the Ridge, and the UK Premiere of Kim Ki-duk's Time.
The Golden Owl Competition embodies the spirit of discovery that drives the Film Festival selection and the line-up for 2006 is the strongest yet, with nine UK Premieres of films from Brazil, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Belgium, Poland, Japan, and Taiwan.
The
Fanomenon section of the Film Festival has always screened the best
genre films from around the world, delivering an exciting mix of
horror, sci-fi, fantasy, anime and action films. For the 20th Leeds
International Film Festival, Fanomenon is even bigger and better,
showcasing a heady mix of zombies, ghosts, monsters,
serial killers and Bruce Campbell!
The Fanomenon Horror Weekend is a brand new three day event, running from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 November screening the bloodiest, scariest and weirdest horror features and shorts from around the world. Add to that a live performance by Weird Paul, a Fanomenon party, special guests, competitions and more, and you have the makings of an unmissable event. At only £40 for the whole weekend, you would have to be a mindless zombie to miss it!
The infamous Night of the Dead VI returns to the Hyde Park Picture House for another night of zombies, demons, aliens and genetic mutations to delight genre fans who enjoy that sort of thing.
Fanomenon continues to bring emerging talent to the attention of genre audiences and 2006 is no exception with a number of UK and European directors making their debut features, including the ultra- shocking Broken, Isolation, a tale of genetic engineering gone haywire and the psychological terror Hole. These films are competing with several others for the prestigious Silver Meliès award, organised by the European Fantastic Film Federation. As the only UK affiliated member of the Federation, Leeds is proud to once again present the esteemed competition.
Cinema Versa is the exciting new strand dedicated to inspirational documentary filmmaking and the exploration of unconventional cinema. Expanding the standard cinema experience, Cinema Versa, like the Fringe in previous years, populates alternative venues from the city's vibrant bars and clubs to the Holy Trinity Church. The Film Festival's new home, The Carriageworks Theatre also provides the opportunity to centralise the focus with screenings running alongside other strands.
Music takes centre stage with new docs on artists from cult indie heroes The Pixies (Loudquietloud) to world music stars Amadou and Mariam and free jazz trailblazer Albert Ayler. Audiovisual experiments flourish in the lookandlisten club night, reinvented soundtracks and live accompaniment from Jeff Mills, John Foxx and Inecto School. A diverse range of provocative political and human rights films enlighten and encourage debate on environment (A Crude Awakening), empire (The Empire in Africa) and economy (Black Gold). Eccentrics and eclectic cultural phenomena are analysed in Darkon ( American role playing gamers), Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis and Next: a Primer on Urban Painting.
For the first time, the Film Festival also collaborates in challenging boundaries with theatre (West Yorkshire Playhouse's Hotel Methusaleh) and art exhibition (the LMU's Re-Possessed).
Once again the Film Festival champions those films coming from our own fair isle with a wealth of features that range from the funny to the shocking, from the sublime to the ridiculous and from the painfully real to the joyously fantastic. UK Film Week opens with Mischief Night, Penny Woolcock's bold drama set in Leeds. It's not the only film with a local connection, as Yorkshire has become the hottest place in the country to produce and shoot films and breed new talent. There's also the extremely powerful Ahlaam, directed by a former student at Leeds Metropolitan University and Like Minds, a twisted thriller, is a UK / Australian co-production that was partly filmed in Leeds.
Speaking of genre, Splinter throws off its low budget limitations to create an inventive sci-fi drama whilst Scottish filmmakers The Finnigans have come up trumps once again in Bits 'n' Bites. If you fancy a laugh, then Jam, Hardcore and The Penalty King will provide you with a very British sense of humour. London to Brighton is perhaps one of the best UK debuts of the past few years whilst Dead Man's Cards and Colour Me Kubrick, featuring John Malkovich, will also be certain to impress.
Interestingly, the majority of movies in UK Film Week are debut features and represent the next wave of talent that will carry our industry into the future. Come and discover some of the freshest and most exciting films!
The Devotional Cinema section of the Film Festival presents rare moments in film, moments where our senses and psyche are united and the ritual of cinema feels to be lifted into a spiritual dimension. Inspired by the writings of US avant-garde filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky, the programme presents exquisitely crafted films that move through time with poetry and grace, and balance sensitively between our experience of the world and the infinite depth and luminosity of the screen.
The first half of the series presents six essential features including Into Great Silence, Philip Groning's new meditation on monastic life in the Grande Chartreuse; Ordet, Carl Dreyer's rarely screened masterpiece about faith and compassion; Diary of a Country Priest, Robert Bresson's pure and exacting story of a new priest's struggle with his own belief; and films by Michelangelo Antonioni, Yasujiro Ozu and Kim Ki-duk. The Devotional Cinema section continues with a carefully selected programme of avant -garde film, including the ravishing, complex and rarely screened work of Gregory Markopoulos; Nathaniel Dorsky's sublime meditations on the everyday; Jonas Mekas' intimate and monumental diary films; and other key works by Stan Brakhage, Phil Solomon and Jack Chambers.
Shoot is the brand new name of the short film section of the Film Festival and not only refers to the physical process of filmmaking but also to the flowering of original talent and innovative ways of story telling. Shoot aims to prove that short films inform the future of the cinematic form whilst providing thought provoking entertainment.
The Louis Le Prince Short Film Fiction Award will showcase the best shorts from across the world vying for the award of £1000 provided by the Louis Le Prince Centre for Cinema, Photography and Television. The Short Film Panorama will provide a heady mix of mini-masterpieces whilst the World Animation Award abounds with inventiveness. This country is represented by the Best Of UK Shorts whilst the Yorkshire Short Film Award will see people from this region attempt to walk away with the £1000 prize provided by Screen Yorkshire and Propeller TV.
For full details the Shoot Short Film Brochure will be available from venues across the city. Keep checking the website for information. See all the short film programmes with the Shoot Pass, a bargain at only £30.