Hi there. Our film of the week is usually posted on Monday – eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that we’re already a day late. Shocking. I can only apologise wholeheartedly, and rest assured, I am lashing myself as I write.
This week, we’re going back as far as we’ve ever gone – to 1920, for One Week, in which Buster Keaton gets married, then goes off with his new bride to assemble their new home. Events don’t go according to plan. The American Library of Congress selected the film for preservation because it was “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” – personally, I reckon it’s all three.
I’ve seen One Week many times; first, 10 years ago at a Buster Keaton exhibition in Perth, Western Australia and most recently, a fortnight ago, with live accompaniment, at a festival in Shoreditch park, so it gets around. It’s a wonderfully daft film with a brilliant punchline, and if you haven’t seen it, now’s your chance. Remember… you’ve got one week.
(Hahaha, geddit?! Sorry. I shall continue to lash myself.)
Thursday’s screening was an absolute whopper. We had a blast – thanks so much to the huge number of you who turned out to gorge on our short film feast.
What went down? We were a captive audience for 9 short films (a veritable buffet of docs, fiction, animation and experimental), 1 bespoke Kino ident courtesy of Mr Oliver Smyth (thanks Oli) and our extra-special guest filmmaker, Emily James.
So, who screened?
Losing the Plot - Emily Menzies & Leopold Hughes Don’t Know Jack - Dan Brownlie Loco - Oliver Smyth Deer Park - William Walsh The End - Michael Glass Fik and the Moon - Mariano Melman Ineffective Words - Riki Kim Vienna – Samuel Hilton 310 – Andy Lewis Break-in – Jon Plant
We’ll be chatting more about some of these films in the coming weeks so watch this space.
One lucky screener got a challenge for bending our time limit rule. Michael Glass will take inspiration from “This time I think I’ll fly, or let me show you with my hands”…we look forward to it, Michael!
Our guest filmmaker Emily James treated us all to her eye-opening short film The Candy Factory and the trailer for her brand-new feature-length documentary project, Just Do It: get off your arse and change the world, before spilling the beans about why this is such an important time for independent documentary film and how creative doc-making is straining at the leash of current commercial production models.
And so adieu until next month. But never fear, no need for Kino withdrawal. Keep checking back for more great shorts, film-related thoughts, and of course the next screening date to be announced very shortly!
______________________________________
Want to screen at Kino #20?
You know what to do…
If you want to see your film on our screen, make sure it follows our three simple rules to Kino happiness then email Laura at: screen@kinolondon.com with the title and duration of your film.
Supergoths, written by Wendy Bevan-Mogg and directed by Oliver Smyth
At Kino we’re pretty resolutely without favourites. The totally open-door policy of our night puts everyone on an equal footing, and we’ve always thought that’s pretty important. Anyone can screen at Kino, as long as they’re happy to stick their neck out and say “I made this”, which by my reckoning, over 200 people have done since we got going last year!
That said, there’s certainly some films that have made an impression, and some filmmakers who always seem to be able to pull it out of the bag, so to speak. Oliver Smyth first screened with us in December, with perhaps the funniest Christmas-themed short I’ve ever seen. Not the wierdest, by a long way (those are normally about murder) but anyone who didn’t smile whilst watching this must be a little, well, hard. I’ll no doubt take the opportunity to do another posting about it when December comes round again, because it has to be watched when the Christmas tree’s up.
Well, Oliver Smyth is back with his latest at Kino #19 this week. He’s a bit shy about it he tells me, as it’s a little more personal than his other shorts – we’ll see what that means on Thursday I guess.
In the meantime, here’s the last ouevre that Oli brought down to Kino, back in the spring. Written by Wendy Bevan-Mogg, and directed by Oli, Supergoths stars sometime Kino-MC Lewis Georgeson as an arrogant TV anchor in search of Goths with special abilities in Leeds (“that’s in the north of England“). It’s full of nice touches, like the ever put-upon camerman, the cat (you’ll see) and the deceptively simple way in which it’s put-together (which is actually weeks and weeks of post-production).
It’s split into 3 parts, so part 1 is at the top of this post, and parts 2 and 3 underneath. Enjoy. And if you like it, come to Kino on Thursday to see Oli’s latest. I hear that a collaboration with Kino regular ANGRYDAN is on it’s way too. Very exciting.
Kenneth Anger is a devout champion of the short film form. To date, he’s made almost 40. He shot this one in 1950 but it was another 22 years before it saw the light of day. After shooting, he left his footage in the ramshackle archives at the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris until 1970 when he finally finished and released it, eventually making two cuts – one in 1972 and one in 1979 (which is the one you can see here).
I first saw this film three years ago, crouched over a laptop in a cramped Paris flat. And I haven’t forgotten it. Mr Anger’s world of surreal mysticism was hypnotic: a dark place where a clown is besotted with the unobtainable moon that is home to a rabbit. You follow?
The set is magic – I like the way it looks so handmade and cobbled together. Like Kenneth might have enlisted some children to cut out shiny pieces of paper and pritt stick aluminium foil to an old sheet – “Make me a magical forest glade, kids”. That arts and crafts quality feeds into the film’s projection of itself as an artificial creation. It’s unapologetically aware that it’s recreating a theatrical world and it doesn’t shy away from the construction of it or try to dress it up as anything else. In fact, it does all it can to make sure we know it too. The clown’s costume, the harlequin, the children who appear with mirror and lute – Anger goes the whole hog in building his imitation theatre.
Rabbit’s Moon isn’t really a typical Anger film. Fireworks and Eaux d’Artifice are much better examples of his style. But it’s worth a watch. And on a Monday there’s nothing like a tortured clown for distraction. Enjoy.
In 2009 acclaimed filmmaker Emily James began documenting the covert movements of several groups of UK Climate Change activists. Trusty camera in hand, she embarked on a journey which would take her over fence and undercover. With her exciting new feature – Just Do It: Get off your arse and change the world – coming together nicely in the edit, Emily put down her egg and marmite sandwich to tell Kino London about crowd-funding, Creative Commons distribution and why she believes everyone’s in charge.
Just Do It follows a number of individuals as they stand up and fight against climate injustice. “This film is the most ethnographic film I’ve made so far”, says Emily. “The ideas and the movement, all those networks of people pushing in the same direction – trying to find a way to capture that has been challenging.”
“I come from broadcast TV and most of the films I’ve made have been for Channel 4 but the film and TV industries have become dominated by commercial formats.” And it’s these rules and regulations which encouraged her to make a film that belies modern media obsession with the commercial and stays true to the ethics of the individuals it portrays.
And so the challenge is funding. Enter: the crowd-funding appeal. The Just Do It team has devised a unique production model: individual donations now mean the film will get made and be available for free when it’s released early next year. No creative constraints, no financial pressures from investors, no compromise.
What problems has the lack of funds during production thrown up?
“On a practical level, the lack of funding meant it was a ‘catch as catch can’ situation.” (And can caught 250 hours of footage!) “But because I wasn’t filming for broadcasters, the activists opened up and respected me. They saw that I was there for the same reasons as they were there. They didn’t treat me as an outsider they treated me as an insider. It became evident to them that it was something I was doing out of passion.”
And passion won out as Emily finally gathered her footage together and thought, now what? Instead of selling the material to one of the major broadcasters, Emily and the Just Do It team have decided to release the film under a Creative Commons license. Rather than seeking to capitalise on the film, it will be given away for free.
“Aside from not having funding, trying to make a film about people who according to the law are criminals means that they of course have concerns that must be respected. In a normal documentary, the contributors sign consent forms which mean they effectively sign away their rights. We didn’t ask people to sign forms.”
This is a crucial plank of the project. “This film cuts across the documentary and reality TV industries and the way they deal with people. The people we filmed with have become involved with the project. I’m determined to make a film which doesn’t take its subject for granted.”
What does she hope to achieve with the film?
“I don’t think this is a film that is going to win over Sun readers. Its target audience are those people who know that it’s a problem but aren’t taking any action in their own lives. The film is imbued with a strong sense of community, a sense that action is an empowering experience, that there are things they can do. What I hope is that people will come to the film and feel inspired to take action of their own. My main message? Everybody’s in charge. We’re all culpable, we’re all guilty but we can all do something about it.”
Emily is our special guest filmmaker at Thursday’s screening. Don’t miss the chance to put all your questions to the director herself and to see one of the shorts made as part of the project. Check out the website to get a head start.
I want to start by saying sorry, but it’s a slightly hollow apology, given that I could have just posted something different. Anyway, I’m sorry because this film is not actually that short, and at 38 minutes, might have got Pavel Jurácek booed off stage at one of Kino’s monthly screenings. By some way, it’s the longest [...]
Posted on Jul, 19, 2010 by Andrew under Film of the Week | Comments Off
Last night, I dreamt that I went to see Inception, but I fell asleep in the cinema because it was utter gubbins. Before long, I was having a dream within a dream, where I went to the cinema to see Inception, but after an hour or so, I fell asleep because it was utter gubbins. [...]
The animator extraordinaire responsible for this week’s Film of the Week My First Crush is Julia Pott. Here Julia has a virtual cup of tea and a biscuit with Kino London, tells us more about the making of the film and why animation floats her boat.
Kino [...]
Posted on Jul, 16, 2010 by Laura under Interviews | Comments Off
Local Hero, written, produced and directed by Charlie Graley
So, farmers are in the news again. Appeal Court judges have put a stop to a badger cull in Wales. Rock star Brian May’s dead happy about it, but apparently ministers and many farmers, whose cattle are allegedly being killed by TB-infected badgers (that is, by the [...]
Our next open-mic screening happens on Thursday 29th July, at Vibe Live, Brick Lane (see photos of our June screening here).
As always, there are no themes and no pre-selection of the films we show. We ask only that films be under 6 minutes, on dvd, and include the Kino London logo (just for [...]
CC-BY-NC