Starting on Sunday 29 June, the brilliant Duke Mitchell Film Club prsent their first DukeFest Zero festival, four nights of fun, intriguing and odd cinematic gems, including special guests, an anniversary screening, a music night, a mystery trailer reel and a live translation by someone who doesn’t speak the film’s language.
The festival kicks off with the European premiere of My Name is Jonah, a documentary on self-described ‘real-life warrior, adventurer and musician’ and cult internet icon Jonah. Monday 1 July is ‘Mix-It-Up Night’, including a screening of Stockholm Nights with live audio translation by Duke host and Electric Sheep contributor Evrim Ersoy (who doesn’t speak Swedish), the Japanese edition of The Great VHS Experiment, and Night of the Trailers. The following night is a music night including Death Waltz’s Musical Horror Trip and Music Video Found Footage. The festival closes on Wednesday 3 July with a 30th anniversary screening of Ulli Lommel’s SF musical comedy Strangers in Paradise, about a hypnotist who cryogenically escapes from the Nazis only to be defrost by fascist Americans in the 80s.
Loosely based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’, extravagant, sumptuous, macabre Alucarda hails from the golden age of Mexican horror. Raven-haired orphan Alucarda has been brought up in a convent to shield her from the evil influence of her diabolical father. But the devil in her blood cannot be suppressed and she draws the newly arrived Justine into her world. Thereon ensue copious amounts of nudity, wild-eyed hysteria, repressed desires, hints of lesbian love, religious exaltation, levitation, exorcism, self-flagellating nuns and unholy rituals, most of it set in a womb-like convent with nuns dressed in what looks like bloodied bandages. Part of the Panique movement co-founded by Alejandro Jodorowsky, director Juan López Moctezuma shared his interest in creating a magical and ritualistic kind of spectacle that would shake up audiences’ perceptions. He certainly succeeded with this astounding, surreal, eye-popping stunner.
+ The Moon Bird (Brothers McLeod, UK 2010, 15 minutes)
A dark animated fairy tale in black and white, about an orphan girl kidnapped by a witch who wants her tears for a magic potion.
Masonic Temple at Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street
Co-curated by Strange Attractor Press, this special weekend of EEFF screenings at the Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street’s Masonic Temple includes witches, ghosts and devilish mermaids, taking you from Wicca to haunted Mexican convents, and from British classics to a special evening with Dave McKean. Full schedule below.
12:00 Witchumentary Double Bill + Discussion
with Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor) and William Fowler & Vic Pratt (BFI Flipside)
Legend of the Witches
Malcolm Leigh | UK | 1970 | 72 mins
Featuring Alex & Maxine Sanders, the spirit of the late 1960s magical revival is captured in this exploration of the currents of English witchcraft.
Secret Rites (in association with BFI Flipside)
Derek Ford | 1971 | Derek Ford | 47 mins
A rarely seen mondo-esque documentary sees a young West London hairdresser join a Notting Hill coven in a spectacular nightclub rite.
15:00 Alucarda
Juan Lopez Moctezuna | 1978 | Mexico | 74 mins
Alucarda has been brought up in a convent to shield her from her father’s evil influence, but the devil in her cannot be suppressed.
The Moon Bird
Brothers McLeod | 2010 | UK | 15 mins
An orphan girl is kidnapped by a witch in this dark animated fairy tale.
18:00 Possession Double Bill
Invocation of My Demon Brother
Kenneth Anger | 1969 | USA | 12 mins
Part of Anger’s Magick Lantern series with a soundtrack by a Moog-wielding Mick Jagger.
Night Tide
Curtis Harrington | 1961 | USA | 86 mins
+ post-screening discussion with Will Fowler (BFI Flipside) & Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor)
Seaman Johnny Drake (Dennis Hopper) falls for Mora (Linda Lawson), who believes she’s descended from the sirens.
20:30 The Last Winter
Larry Fessenden | 2006 | USA/Iceland | 107 mins
Oil company employees, led by Ron Perlman, are building an ice road in the remote Arctic. When a member of their team is found dead, fears arise that nature may be striking back.
Eye of the Devil
J. Lee Thompson | 1966 | UK | 92 mins
Vineyard owner (David Niven) returns to his castle, where he and wife (Deborah Kerr) are confronted by a witch, calling for a blood sacrifice.
14:00 Night of the Eagle
Sidney Hayers | 1962 | UK | 87 mins
A psychology professor discovers that his wife has been practicing witchcraft and presses her to stop. Then things begin to go horribly, supernaturally wrong.
16:00 Audrey Rose
Robert Wise | 1977 | USA | 113 mins – 16mm Screening
A young Anthony Hopkins is unnervingly obsessed with the idea that Ivy Templeton is the reincarnation of his daughter.
19:00 An Evening with Dave McKean
Illustrator and designer Dave McKean has created books and graphic novels of The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman) and The Homecomeing (Ray Bradbury), worked with Richard Dawkins and Stephen King, designed characters for Harry Potter, and exhibited across the world. Join us for an evening with a truly unique artist, where Dave will discuss his work, and offer an exclusive first look at footage from his upcoming feature Luna. His other work can be seen on www.keanoshow.com
Mirrormask
2005 | USA/UK | 104 mins + Shorts + Dave McKean in conversation with SF Said
A collaboration with Neil Gaiman, Mirrormask is a dizzying journey into a complex fantasy world. 15-year-old circus worker Helena finds herself in a landscape filled with giants, monkeybirds and dangerous sphinxes. The mysterious Mirrormask is her only hope of escape.
The Week Before
1998 | UK | 23 mins
A card game between God and the Devil, inspired by jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.
[N]eon
2002 | UK | 28 mins
Bruised from a failed marriage, a man wanders around Venice finding old books, memories, and a momentary ghost.
Horror Channel, FrightFest and Movie Mogul have teamed up again, with new partner Wildseed Studios, to create SHORTCUTS TO HELL 2, a nationwide search for new filmmaking talent ready to make their first horror feature film.
The winning filmmaker will have their film produced by Movie Mogul and Wildseed Studios, entering production early 2015, with a minimum cash production fund of £20,000. The completed feature film will receive UK digital distribution, its world premiere at Film4 FrightFest 2015, and a broadcast premiere on Horror Channel.
Launching on 13 May 2014, the jury panel (to be announced shortly) will be looking for a highly driven individual with a burning desire to make their first feature film. All entries will need to submit a 3-minute short film version of their full-length horror movie idea and their submission must clearly demonstrate the core idea, premise, story and characters in narrative form. A shortlist of twenty-six finalists will then be invited to an interview where they will have the opportunity to pitch their feature film directly to the jury panel.
Three filmmakers will then go forward to this year’s FrightFest event at the Vue West End in London, and have their 3-minute films screened before the discerning FrightFest audience. Their work will be broadcast on Horror Channel throughout August and September, where the overall winner will be chosen by public vote. The twenty-six finalists will also receive significant exposure via Horror Channel and UK digital distribution channels.
All entries will have ten weeks to turnaround their cinematic visions of hell and upload to YouTube, submitting the link to submissions@shortcutstohell.com by 6pm on 22nd July. Downloadable T&C’s from shortcutstohell.com must be adhered to.
THE RULES
• Max duration 3 minutes
• Original material (made for the competition only). Existing film promos WILL NOT be considered.
• Max production budget capped at £666 (evidence required)
• Applicants with previous feature film credits as writer/producer and/or director will not be accepted
This year, the 12th Polish Film Festival brings not only its usual bounty of new works and rare classics, but also very excitingly includes the first major UK retrospective of the work of the brilliant Walerian Borowczyk, a firm favourite at Electric Sheep. We will celebrate this very special event by making Borowczyk the focus of our next theme, starting in May, exploring his work through articles and our usual columns, including a feature by Borowczyk expert Daniel Bird, who collaborated to the retrospective.
The programme will celebrate Borowczyk’s rich and varied body of work, including his artwork, early shorts, animation and live-action features, many of which have been rarely or never seen in the UK and have been fully restored. Best known for insane erotic masterpiece The Beast, Borowczyk had started as a poster designer and acclaimed animator, producing the wonderfully inventive Angels’ Games in 1964 before moving into live-action features with the splendidly surreal The Theatre or Mr and Mrs Kabal and Goto, Island of Love.
For the first time, BFI Southbank and the ICA will be jointly holding a retrospective in partnership with KINOTEKA, running throughout May with film screenings, an exhibition, events and talks, featuring newly restored prints. In addition, the ICA will also be hosting the first UK exhibition of Borowczyk’s artwork, including preliminary work for his animated films, as well as his wooden sound sculptures. The ICA Cinema will also screen two shorts programmes including Angels’ Games.
Career Retrospective ‘Cinema of Desire, The Films of Walerian Borowczyk’ developed in collaboration with Daniel Bird, runs throughout May at BFI Southbank and the exhibition Walerian Borowczyk: The Listening Eye’ takes place at the ICA from 20 May to 29 June.
Arrow Academy’s dual format (DVD + Blu-ray) box set release of Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection (released 18 August 2014) brings together key films from 1959 through to 1984.
Other highlights of the KINOTEKA festival picked from the press release include:
Pawel Pawlikowski multi-award-winning new film Ida will screen at a special centrepiece gala screening at the Barbican (24 May) ahead of its UK release later this year through Artificial Eye. Pawlikowski’s latest film is a poetic, almost Bressonian exploration of the limits of faith following the story of Anna, a young novice in rural 1960s Poland, who discovers a dark family secret on the verge of taking her vows. Exquisitely composed and shot in luminescent black and white, Ida won Best Film at the London Film Festival.
‘Sex in the Polish Socialist Republic’ is a fascinating and insightful look at sex and intimacy behind the Iron Curtain with a programme of Polish animation shorts from the Communist period, thematically linked around sex. The topic is transformed artistically and often ironically with works by leading Polish animators Julian Józef Antoniusz, Andrzej Czeczot, Piotr Dumała and Alexander Sroczyński amongst others. The screening at the Barbican (12 May) is organised in partnership with the London International Animation Festival.
Riverside Studios will showcase an exhibition of posters designed by Henryk Tomaszewski (21 April – 3 May) to mark the centenary of the birth of one of the founding fathers of the classic Polish School of Posters. Tomaszewski was known for creating expressive posters, based on visual shortcuts and metaphors, opening up a move towards greater simplicity as the foundation of his graphic language. The exhibition in London is a satellite event being held concurrently with a major exhibition of his work in Poland curated by Agnieszka Szewczyk; ‘I’ve Been Here; I Hope The Same For You’ Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (14 March – 10 June).
And we are particularly looking forward to KINOTEKA’S Closing Night Concert, which takes place at the Union Chapel on 30 May, described as follows:
Produced by the Barbican, the concert will premiere two short films by the Quay Brothers with live soundtrack provided by the legendary Arditti Quartet. The Gala will be the UK premiere of the Quay Brothers’ latest short film Kwartet Smyczkovy, and the critically acclaimed In Absentia, taking existing musical compositions for their inspiration. In Absentia directly responds to Stockhausen’s electronic composition Two Couples (1992/1999). The hypnotic visual language of the film and fragmented mode of narrative intensifies the associative power of the music like an additional, visual voice in the polyvocal texture. Kwartet Smyczkovy – Paraphrase on Peter Handke’s ‘The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other’ – is based on Lutosławski’s only string quartet, composed in 1964 and marks the centenary of the composer’s birth. The Quay Brothers react to the melodic superimpositions and flickering micro-rhythms of the composition with stark and eerie twilit images. The Arditti Quartet will perform these pieces live, in dialogue with the projection and will also perform Alban Berg’s Lyrische Suite, between the films, understood as an aural ‘film’ for the ears.
Alex Fitch talks to Ted Kotcheff, the director of ‘lost’ cult classic Wake in Fright (1971), and to Terry Gilliam, whose new film The Zero Theorem is released this month. Kotcheff explains how Wake in Fright was recovered by its editor, and discusses the way it depicts issues of masculinity in crisis and has an unreliable narrator. Gilliam, in an extract from a 2013 London Film Festival Q&A session, talks about how his new film responds to issues of NSA spying, continues his strand of casting actors against type, and represents a ‘full fat’ viewing experience!
Visit www.archive.org for more info + formats to stream / download.
FILM4 FRIGHTFEST IN ASSOCIATION WITH NE’ER DO WELL FILMS PRESENTS:
TURN OFF YOUR BLOODY PHONE IDENT COMPETITION
This summer, UK’s largest genre film festival Film4 FrightFest is giving up-and-coming filmmakers a chance to remind the audience of cinema etiquette and get their work shown on the big screen.
In 2012 a select group of filmmakers created a sensation in the festival with a quirky new brand of public service announcements.
In 2013, the festival recruited budding filmmakers alongside established names such as Andy Nyman, Patrick Syversen and Jacqueline Wright to encourage patrons to turn their phones off – the results were a series of amusing, sharp but always gory vignettes which continue to gather acclaim online still.
Now the festival wants to take the whole thing one step further.
Following on from the success of last year’s ‘Turn Off Your Bloody Phone’ idents, Film4 FrightFest (in association with Ne’er Do Well Films) is launching a competition to find the most inventive, crazy and funny ways of reminding the audience to not only turn their phones off during the screenings but also keep the etiquette of cinema-going alive.
To celebrate the 15th Anniversary of FrightFest, fans are encouraged to draw upon the festival’s rich, wild and varied history and create films which highlight the importance of behaving reasonably within the auditorium during the festival.
The competition is set to run between the 7th of March and the 11th August and will be judged by a prestigious jury including writer/director Sean Hogan and journalist and associate editor of Total Film Rosie Fletcher.
The five best entries as chosen by the jury will be screened at this summer’s Film4 FrightFest alongside works from some of the greatest genre directors at UK’s most prestigious genre film festival.
Birmingham’s brilliant Flatpack Film Festival returns for an eighth year for 11 days of inventive film delights, from 20 to 30 March. As always, expect a mind-stretching mix of new features, shorts and special guests, as well as avant-garde Austrian animation, a solipsistic installation, a Victorian magic lantern show, a psychedelic music night, walking tours and pop-up screenings in unexpected venues across the city.
Among the highlights:
• PHONO-CINEMA-THEATRE, the first UK screening of short films, many of them in hand-tinted colour, which were made for the 1900 Paris Exposition and featured theatre and variety stars of the day. The films include Sarah Bernhardt’s Hamlet and a can-can by Gabrielle Réjane; many of them have original sound thanks to an ingenious gramophone system.
• The UK premiere of THE GREAT FLOOD, a portrait of the devastation caused by the Mississippi floods of 1927 presented by experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison. Also screening are Morrison’s poetic take on archive footage of Durham miners’ lives from the 1900s to the 1970s THE MINERS’ HYMNS and his ode to cinematic decay DECASIA (we have an article on Decasia in our book, The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology, available from Strange Attractor Press).
• CAFÉ NEURO: a weekend of talks, screenings and activities that will exploit recent developments in brain-imaging and eye-tracking technology to explore what cinema does to our brains.
• JAPANIMATION: a retrospective of Japan’s offbeat DVD label Calf including work by Mirai Mizue, Tochka Collective and Atsushi Wada.
• DVD BANG, a Korean-inspired viewing lounge, where you can book in to watch a movie day or night.
Feature films include an immersive, semi-horizontal screening of Douglas Trumbull’s 70s eco-sci-fi movie SILENT RUNNING, electrifying Kathleen Hanna documentary that will make you happy to be alive THE PUNK SINGER, Haskell Wexler’s counter-culture classic MEDIUM COOL, fascinating, thoughtful UFO doc about disinformation and the creation of truth MIRAGE MEN, Ken Russell’s mind-bending ALTERED STATES, sensuous neo-gialloTHE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY’S TEARS, Krzysztof Zanussi’s 1970s exploration of the mind ILLUMINATION, F.W. Murnau’s classic silent horror NOSFERATU, part faux doc on East German 80s skate subculture THIS AIN’T CALIFORNIA and Eiichi Yamamoto’s amazing-sounding psychedelic animé BELLADONNA OF SADNESS, based on a French novel about medieval witchcraft.
The London Short Film Festival has just announced its programme and it’s packed with inventive and exciting events. The festival opens on January 10 with a screening of The Punk Singer (presented in association with Birds Eye View Film Festival), a documentary about radical musician and activist Kathleen Hanna, of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, who embodies many of LSFF’s ideals.
Running from January 10 to 19, the festival has expanded to 32 programmes, including their regular strands (Femmes Fantastique, Left and Luscious), to which they’ve added a Gothic and Grotesque selection to tie in with the current BFI season, Celluloid Traces, for experimental and documentary filmmakers working with film stock, and a late-night Thriller programme. Retrospectives include renowned screenwriter Tony Grisoni (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Red Riding) and animator Chris Shepherd. As always the festival has numerous music-related events, including Lisa Gunning’s new Goldfrapp video project and a Music Video Showcase playing for free in East London bars.
At Electric Sheep we are particularly looking forward to the live visual and aural remix of Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England by category-defying electro-post-rock band Teeth of the Sea, which promises to expand the psychedelic thrills of the film. The Ghost Box record label, which impressed us at the Flatpack Festival in 2010, will present one of their eerie visual and sonic shows, incorporating children’s programmes, 1960s underground animation, abstract op-art and 1970s TV to create a brilliantly hallucinatory experience. We are also intrigued by the performance of harpist and songwriter Serafina Steer in the magical Victorian surroundings of the Horniman Museum, alongside the work of animator Sam Steer.
Watch out for the Teeth of the Sea’s Film Jukebox in early January, in which the band discuss their 10 favourite films.
The festival will also feature a Straight 8 filmmaking challenge, debates and discussions, as well as industry events. Always buzzing with energy and ideas, LSFF is a terrific way to start the filmic year.
Author and film critic Kim Newman talks to Virginie Sélavy about Johnny Alucard, the latest and fourth instalment in his Anno Dracula series, which charts an alternative history of Dracula from 1888 to 1991, weaving in historical and fictional characters from Queen Victoria to Francis Ford Coppola.
Anno Dracula was set in a Victorian England ruled by vampires after Dracula successfully invaded Britain and married Queen Victoria. Its sequel, The Bloody Red Baron, took place during World War I. In the third volume, Dracula Cha Cha Cha, Dracula got married in 1950s Rome while the latest episode, Johnny Alucard, sees the story move from Transylvania to America between 1976 and 1991.
In the podcast, Kim Newman discusses the rules behind the Anno Dracula series, the vampire as dominant cultural icon, Dracula and Heart of Darkness, vampirism and celebrity, Andy Warhol and Orson Welles.
For Halloween, soundtrack label Death Waltz Recording Company and Paint It Black are presenting a very special event: legendary Italian composer Fabio Frizzi will perform a selection from his scores, including Seven Notes In Black, Zombi 2/Zombie Flesh Eaters, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, Manhattan Baby, live at the magical, atmospheric Union Chapel. In his first ever UK show Frizzi will be presenting his works in newly commissioned suites, accompanied by his seven-piece band and with an additional string section, the F2F Orchestra.
Together with Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai and Riz Ortolani to name but a few, Frizzi was one of the maestros who developed the art of soundtrack in Italy in the 1960s-80s, mixing rock, jazz, classical music, lounge, funk, psychedelia and electronica. He is best known for his work on some of godfather of gore Lucio Fulci’s most memorable films such as Seven Notes In Black, The Beyond, Zombi 2/Zombie Flesh Eaters, City of the Living Dead and Manhattan Baby. Frizzi’s ominous, dark synth scores add a whole new dimension to Fulci’s disturbing visuals and their seminal import has been re-apparaised in recent years, as musicians such as Umberto and Boards of Canada have acknowledged his influence – not to mention that the ubiquitous Quentin Tarantino used the theme music from Seven Notes in Black in Kill Bill Vol 1.
