Interview:
Mother: interview with Bong Joon-ho
We Live in Public: interview with Ondi Timoner
Kakera: interview with Momoko Ando

Features:
53rd London Film Festival

Film Reviews
The White Ribbon
Bunny and the Bull
Lalapipo
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno
Paper Heart

DVD Reviews
The Sorrow and the Pity
Inside
All Tomorrow’s Parties

Film Jukebox:
The Non-Commissioned Officers

Film Writing Competition:
Rollerball

If you only see one film this month, make it Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, a masterful, richly enigmatic evocation of the ‘Nazi generation’ as children. Lighter entertainment comes courtesy of whimsical comedy Bunny and the Bull, directed by Mighty Boosh’s Paul King, and outrageous Japanese porn farce Lalapipo. The Korean Film Festival is at the Barbican and there is a Bong Joon-ho retrospective at the BFI Southbank, which includes screenings of his latest, Mother, as well as The Host and Memories of Murder.

Also in UK cinemas in November are Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno, a documentary investigating the gorgeous-looking crime thriller the French master could not complete, and low-fi indie romance Paper Heart, for which we have capsule reviews as part of our round-up of the 53rd London Film Festival – read about unknown gems as well as films you can look forward to see on UK screens in the near future. We Live in Public, a documentary about internet pioneer Joshua Harris that also screened at the LFF, is out this month and we have an interview with director Ondi Timoner.

In the DVD section, we look at two very different French works, the acclaimed documentary on France under German occupation during the Second World War The Sorrow and the Pity, and extreme horror thriller Inside and its connection to the Paris riots of 2005. We also review a documentary on the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival.

We have an interview with Momoko Ando, the young director of the wonderful Kakera – A Piece of our Lives, conducted during the Raindance Film Festival last month. You can read the winning review in our Rollerball film writing competition, which we run every month in connection with the Electric Sheep Film Club at the Prince Charles. And our Film Jukebox this month features the very unusual Non-Commissioned Officers, who formed a band to promote a film – or was it the other way around?

The Electric Sheep Magazine team

Interview:
The Beaches of Agnès: interview with Agnès Varda
Johnny Mad Dog: interview with Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
Colin: interview with Marc Price

Features:
FrightFest round-up
Ghost in the Shell 2.0: Retrofitting the Future
Secret Cinema: The Warriors
AND round-up

Film Reviews
Love Exposure
Thirst
Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee
Katalin Varga
Triangle
Pontypool

DVD Reviews
La Tête contre les murs
Herostratus

Short Cuts:
London International Animation Festival

Be ready to spend most of the month in dark rooms as October is offering a bumper crop of excellent films. Top of the list is Sion Sono’s extraordinary love and guilt epic Love Exposure, which premiered at the Raindance Festival. Equally as good in a very different style, Johnny Mad Dog is a gut-wrenching portrayal of wild child soldiers in an unnamed African country – we talk to director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire. Elsewhere, the grande dame of the nouvelle vague Agnès Varda tells us why she chose to revisit her life in cinema in her latest film, The Beaches of Agnès, while Marc Price of the ‘made-for-£45’ Colin reveals the secrets of low-budget zombie filmmaking. Park Chan-wook returns with stylish vampire love triangle Thirst, Shane Meadows offers the hilarious roadie mockumentary Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee, and newcomer Peter Strickland’s debut Katalin Varga, made in Romania, is an unusual take on the rape and revenge film.

Also out this month are compelling circular horror thriller Triangle, and smart zombie film Pontypool, which premiered at FrightFest in August. Mamoru Oshii’s animé masterpiece Ghost in the Shell is released in a CGI-enhanced version – this is the occasion for a discussion of the current trend of ‘retrofitting’ old sci-fi films with modern CGI animation. In the DVD section, we applaud the release of Georges Franju’s striking debut feature La Tête contre les murs, and re-assess the social critique offered by British avant-garde film Herostratus.

We report back from the last Secret Cinema event and from the AND festival, which offered a variety of visual delights to the intellectually curious. And in our Short Cuts section we review the outstanding Siggraph Asia programme that screened at the London International Animation Festival in September.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team

Interview:
Big River Man: interview with John Maringouin
Interview with Steven Severin and Danny Plotnick

Features:
Abandon Normal Devices
onedotzero

Film Reviews
White Lightnin’
Kakera – A Piece of Our Lives

DVD Reviews
Footprints
Goth: Love of Death
Rider on the Rain
Penny Points to Paradise
Separation

Short Cuts:
Don Hertzfeldt

‘Ther’s tha devil movin’ in my blood’. The autumn 09 print issue of Electric Sheep looks at religious extremes on film from Christic masochism to satanic cruelty. The extraordinary White Lightnin’ explores the Old Testament world of demented mountain dancer Jesco White while Klaus Kinski disastrously reinterprets the New Testament in Jesus Christ Saviour – and subversives Alejandro Jodorowsky and Kenneth Anger dynamite divine myths. Plus: Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Raindance 09, political animation, and louche mariachi rockabilly Dan Sartain picks his top films! [The magazine contains exclusive articles and interviews not available on the website.] The new issue is available from the specialist book store Cinéphilia, at selected retailers and cinemas or online from Wallflower Press.

This month sees the release of the exceptional White Lightnin’. You can read a short review online, but the interview with director Dominic Murphy is only available in the autumn 09 issue of the print magazine. Also out at the cinema this month is another unmissable film in an entirely different genre: Big River Man is a documentary about Slovenian champion Martin Strel’s attempt to swim the Amazon. Hilarious and tragic at the same time, with definite Herzogian undertones, it is one of the most enjoyable and affecting films of the year so far.

A crop of excellent festivals will be offering unique cinematic experiences throughout the month. Abandon Normal Devices is a new festival that seeks to challenge preconceptions about the moving image, taking place in Liverpool. AND will preview Pontypool, one of the smartest and wittiest zombie movies we’ve seen in a long time. Now in its 12th year, the digital festival onedotzero will also be showcasing new forms of moving images, including shorts, animation, music videos and audio-visual performances, starting in London before going on tour. And to mark the opening of the 17th Raindance Film Festival on September 30, we have a review of Kakera – A Piece of Our Lives, which will be screening as part of the festival’s focus on Japanese women directors.

In the DVD reviews we have wonderful, long-lost giallo Footprints, beautiful, melancholy Japanese teen-centred chiller Goth: Love of Death, little-known Charles Bronson gem Rider on the Rain, Peter Sellers’s first film outing Penny Points to Paradise and a short extract from the discussion of Jane Arden’s Separation, which appears in full in the autumn 09 issue of the magazine.

Finally, we have an interview with Steven Severin and Danny Plotnick about their work in music and film, conducted at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival by our Australian correspondent, while in the Short Cuts we have a piece on a Don Hertzfeldt event organised in June by the London International Animation Festival, which is in full swing right now.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team

Interview:
Sin Nombre: interview with Cary Fukunaga
Beautiful Losers: interview with Aaron Rose>
Members of the Funeral: interview with Baek Seung–bin

Features:
Film4 FrightFest preview

Film Reviews
Afterschool
Mesrine
Chiko
Home

DVD Reviews
The Fox Family
God Man Dog
Bad Boy Bubby
Mishima
The Stranger

Short Cuts:
Soho Rushes Film Festival

Film Jukebox:
The Nightingales

Afterschool was one of the best films we saw at last year’s London Film Festival so we’re very pleased that it is now getting a theatrical release in the UK. Other theatrical treats this month include Mesrine, a two-part epic about the charismatic criminal who terrorised France in the 70s, with a phenomenal Vincent Cassel in the title role. Germany offers its own take on the seductive gangster type with Chiko, set in the Turkish community of Hamburg. Sin Nombre is a powerful drama that combines illegal immigrants and Mexican gangs – read our interview with American director Cary Fukunaga to find out more about the unusual and dangerous making of the film. Beautiful Losers documents New York’s Alleged Gallery and the outsider artists such as Harmony Korine and Mike Mills who gravitated around it in the early 90s – we have an interview with director and Alleged Gallery founder Aaron Rose. Finally, Home is an intimate drama that looks at the coming apart of a family when a new motorway opens near their house.

Film4 FrightFest returns at the end of the month with a fantastic programme of chillers and shockers and we are particularly looking forward to Triangle, Pontypool, Heartless and Black. We are planning to attend assiduously and will report back in our September issue.

In the DVD releases we look at two new films from Terracotta, the exuberantly macabre The Fox Family and the understated ensemble drama God Man Dog from Taiwan. We also take a look at Rolf de Heer’s infamous Bad Boy Bubby, Paul Schrader’s Mishima and Orson Welles’s The Stranger.

We have an interview with Baek Seung–bin, director of the remarkable Members of the Funeral, which impressed us at the Edinburgh Film Festival, although it is yet to secure a UK release. In the Short Cuts we have a report on the Soho Rushes Film Festival while The Nightingales are this month’s Film Jukebox guests.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team

Focus:
Just Another Love Story
Antichrist

Interview:
Lars von Trier
Dario Argento
Claire Denis

Features:
Sydney Film Festival
Gay cinema

Film Reviews
Moon

DVD Reviews
Bloody Mama
Parade

Short Cuts:
Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

This month we look at disastrous Danish relationships with neo-noir Just Another Love Story and Lars von Trier’s latest, Antichrist. Two of our writers try to fathom von Trier’s extreme narrative of conjugal meltdown while in our interview with the director he explains some of the ideas behind the film.

Also out at the cinema in July is Duncan Jones’s Moon, a great new addition to British science fiction cinema. In the DVD releases, we take a look at Roger Corman’s Depression-era crime saga Bloody Mama and discover Jacques Tati’s little-known Parade.

We talk to Claire Denis about her new film 35 Shots of Rhum, report on this year’s Sydney Film Festival’s focus on female directors and assess the state of gay cinema through an account of the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and a review of Boys on Film 2: In Too Deep.

We are also very proud to have an interview with Dario Argento, who was a guest at Cine-Excess last month. And in the Short Cuts section, we talk to artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard about the films they made to accompany the re-release of the whole back catalogue of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team

Focus:
Franklyn
Summer Scars
The Disappeared
The Blue Tower

Interview:
Kenneth Anger
Javor Gardev

Features:
Joseph Losey
Cannes festival
Club des Femmes’ Swinging Summer

Film Reviews
Anything for Her

DVD Reviews
Primitive London
London in the Raw
Daisies
Goto, l’ile d’amour
Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbass
Baba Yaga

Short Cuts:
Rob Speranza

Film Jukebox:
The Phantom Band

Substitute is the theme of the summer 09 issue of Electric Sheep, with articles on the fraught relationship between Takeshi Kitano and ‘Beat’ Takeshi, the various cinematic incarnations of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley, interchanging identities in Joseph Losey’s films, the dangers of false impersonation in Danish neo-noir Just Another Love Story, the paradoxes of black and white twins in offbeat lost classic Suture, not to mention cross-dressing criminals, androids and body snatchers. Also in this issue: interview with Marc Caro, profile of whiz-kid animator David OReilly, comic strip review of Hardware, and The Phantom Band’s favourite films! It is available from the specialist book store Cinéphilia, at selected retailers and cinemas or online from Wallflower Press.

As the ICA hosts a season of new British cinema, we take a closer look at some of the young directors who are steering clear of narrow social realism and genre clichés to carve their own individual filmmaking paths. We have reviews of gritty supernatural drama The Disappeared, imaginative quotidian crime drama The Blue Tower and an interview with Julian Richards, director of the intelligent hoodie horror thriller Summer Scars. We also revisit Gerald McMorrow’s stunningly ambitious debut Franklyn to mark its DVD release this month.

From the new to the established, if somewhat underappreciated, names of film history: we are very proud to present an interview with the legendary Kenneth Anger, whose films have been collected as the Magick Lantern Cycle in a superb BFI two-disc set. And we have an article on Joseph Losey, who is the focus of a major retrospective at the BFI Southbank throughout June and July.

Other cinema releases include slick French thriller Anything for Her while in the DVD releases we review the mondo-style documentaries Primitive London and London in the Raw, Věra Chytilová’s exhilarating Dada-inflected Daisies, Walerian Borowczyk’s exquisitely absurd Goto, l’ile d’amour, Dziga Vertov’s sound experiment Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbass and Italian exploitation movie Baba Yaga, based on Guido Crepax’s comic Valentina.

We report back on the Cannes festival and preview Club des Femmes‘ summer programme of swinging lesbian films. We also have an interview with Bulgarian director Javor Gardev, who was presenting his brilliant Eastern European noir Zift at the Istanbul Film Festival in April.

In the Short Cuts we talk to shorts producer Rob Speranza who was a guest at the Glimmer 09 Festival. And Scottish innovators The Phantom Band are in the Film Jukebox guiding us through their favourite films.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team

Focus:
Timecrimes
Fermat’s Room

Interview:
Pascal Laugier
Ulrike Ottinger

Features:
Terracotta Far East Film Festival

Film Reviews
Momma’s Man
Delta
O’Horten

DVD Reviews
The Decameron
Arabian Nights
The Last of the Crazy People
20th Century Boys

Book Reviews
X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker

Short Cuts:
Birds Eye View: Sex on Screen

Film Jukebox:
Theoretical Girl

May is for Spanish brain-teasers with the theatrical release of Fermat’s Room, an inventive take on the locked room mystery, and the DVD release of ingenious time travel thriller Timecrimes. We have an interview with Timecrimes director Nacho Vigalondo who tells us about his love for genre cinema and playing god in his own film.

Also at the cinema this month are Azazel Jacobs’s touching low-key drama Momma’s Man, about a thirty-something man who regresses to childhood, delicate Hungarian tale of incestuous love Delta, and O’Horten, Bent Hamer’s understated meditation on old age and death.

In the DVD releases we have Pasolini’s ‘trilogy of life’, which includes The Decameron, Arabian Nights and The Canterbury Tales, taut, intense French drama The Last of the Crazy People, and the first instalment of the live action manga adaptation 20th Century Boys. The controversial French horror film Martyrs is also released this month and we have an interview with director Pascal Laugier. And we review Alex Cox’s book X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker.

Lovers of Asian cinema should keep May 21-24 free for the Terracotta Far East Film Festival, which promises many delights, including films by Johnnie To and Kim Ki-duk. And we have an interview with Ulrike Ottinger, femme terrible of German cinema, who we met last month at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

In the Short Cuts, we review the Sex on Screen panel and the erotic shorts that followed the discussion, which took place at the Birds Eye View Festival in March. And chic pop chanteuse Theoretical Girl picks her favourites in the Film Jukebox.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team

Focus:
Let the Right One In

Interview:
Nicolette Krebitz

Features:
Sci-Fi London Festival

Film Reviews
Encounters at the End of the World
Tony Manero
Shifty

DVD Reviews
Firefly Dreams
Red Riding Trilogy
Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion

Book Reviews
Naked Lens: Beat Cinema

Short Cuts:
Glimmer
Flatpack Festival

Film Jukebox:
Sleeping Years

The wonderful Swedish vampire romance Let the Right One In is released this month and you can read our interview with author John Ajvide Lindqvist in the spring 09 issue of Electric Sheep. Also on UK cinema screens this month are Werner Herzog’s unique take on the nature documentary Encounters at the End of the World, Tony Manero, a Chilean murder story involving a John Travolta impersonator, and micro-budget British urban drama Shifty.

John Williams’s accomplished first feature, Firefly Dreams, is released for the first time on DVD. An evocative tale about the pains of growing up made by a Welshman in Japan, it is a little-known gem worth rediscovering. Two new box-sets got our attention this month: first is the Red Riding Trilogy, adapted from David Peace’s moody Yorkshire crime dramas and recently seen on Channel 4. We also review Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion, the first instalment of the Female Prisoner Trilogy, which includes all three films of the 70s exploitation Japanese series directed by Shunya Itô and starring Meiko Kaji as the fearless female avenger.

We have an interview with Nicolette Krebitz, whose The Heart Is a Dark Forest opened the Birds Eye View Film Festival last month, as well as previews of the Sci-Fi London Festival and Glimmer, Hull’s international short film festival. We take a look at Naked Lens: Beat Cinema, the acclaimed book by Electric Sheep contributor Jack Sargeant, which has recently been published by Soft Skull in a revised edition. In the Film Jukebox, Sleeping Years’ Dale Grundle tells us about his favourite films. And we report back on the Flatpack Festival, which was the best film fun we’ve had in a while!

The Electric Sheep Magazine team

Focus: Berlin
59th Berlinale
Julia Ostertag

Interview:
Paolo Sorrentino

Features:
John Samson retrospective
Wild Japan: Blue Film Woman, Gushing Prayer and Secret Acts behind Walls

Film Reviews
Watchmen
Il Divo
American Teen
Bronson
Not Quite Hollywood

DVD Reviews
Traité de bave et d’éternité
Jean-Pierre Melville
Carnival of Souls
4:30
Jeff Keen

Short Cuts:
Flatpack Festival

Film Jukebox:
Ipso Facto

The spring issue of Electric Sheep focuses on Tainted Love to celebrate the release of the sweet and bloody pre-teen vampire romance Let the Right One In, with articles on incestuous cinematic siblings, François Ozon’s tales of tortuous relationships, destructive passion in Nic Roeg’s Bad Timing, Julio Medem’s ambiguous lovers and nihilistic tenderness from Kôji Wakamatsu. Also in this issue: Interview with Pascal Laugier (Martyrs), Berlin squat cinema, screen vamps, the Polish New Wave that never existed and comic strip on the Watchmen film adaptation! It is available from the specialist book store Cinéphilia, at selected retailers and cinemas or online from Wallflower Press for a 15% discount!

In March we turn our attention to Berlin with a report on the 59th Berlinale and a feature on Julia Ostertag, a guerrilla filmmaker from the underground scene that exists on the margins of the German capital’s film industry. Exclusive to the print issue we also have an article on squat cinema in Berlin.

New cinema releases include the Watchmen adaptation, Paolo Sorrentino’s exquisitely ironic take on Italian politics Il Divo, Nanette Burstein’s documentary American Teen, Bronson, Nicolas Winding Refn’s stylised biopic of ‘Britain’s most violent prisoner’, and Ozploitation documentary Not Quite Hollywood. Do not miss the John Samson retrospective at the London International Documentary Festival at the end of the month!

In the DVDs, we take a look at Isidore Isou’s 1951 avant-garde tour de force Traité de bave et d’éternité, the new box-set of films by French master of hard-boiled fatalism Jean-Pierre Melville, Herk Harvey’s 1962 seminal horror movie Carnival of Souls, Royston Tan’s heartbreaking meditation on loneliness 4:30, and the collection of short films by British experimental filmmaker Jeff Keen.

We have an interview with Paolo Sorrentino and a review of the best and rarest films seen during the Wild Japan season at the BFI in December, including Blue Film Woman, Gushing Prayer and Secret Acts behind Wall. In the Short Cuts, we preview the wonderfully eclectic Flatpack Festival and the supremely stylish Ipso Facto tell us about their favourite films in the Film Jukebox.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team

Focus: Asian Westerns
The Good, The Bad, The Weird
Sukiyaki Western Django

Interview:
interview with Kim Ji-woon

Features:
Reality Fiction
West London Fantastic Film Society

Film Reviews
Three Monkeys
Franklyn
JCVD

DVD Reviews
The President’s Last Bang
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
Divorce Iranian Style

Short Cuts:
Club des Femmes

Film Jukebox:
Eugene McGuinness

This month has a very definite oriental flavour, starting with no less than two Asian Westerns competing for our attention: in the ridiculously enjoyable The Good, The Bad, The Weird, Kim Ji-woon does Leone Korean-style while Takashi Miike takes on another 60s Italian cult classic in Sukiyaki Western Django. In our interview with Kim Ji-woon, the director explains all about ‘kimchi Western’ and why this spicy cabbage dish is the perfect symbol for Korean people.

For the second year running, the ICA is hosting Reality Fiction, a season of Japanese films inspired by real-life events. And if that’s not enough Asian thrills there is also the DVD release of the controversial Korean thriller The President’s Last Bang and the Shaw Brothers’ classic kung fu movie The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.

In other cinema releases, Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns with Three Monkeys, the eagerly awaited follow-up to Climates, the British thriller Franklyn experiments with an innovative hybrid of real-life drama and fantasy, and Jean-Claude Van Damme plays himself in the bizarre, hilarious, sincere, self-reflexive JCVD. On DVD, Kim Longinotto’s Divorce Iranian Style takes a warm and honest look at the lives of Iranian women. And we have a feature on the thoroughly brilliant West London Fantastic Film Society.

In Short Cuts, we have a report on the Club des Femmes strand of the London Short Film Festival while songsmith Eugene McGuinness tells us about some of the films that have impressed him.

The Electric Sheep Magazine team