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Electric Sheep at EEFF: Alucarda

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Alucarda

Alucarda

Screening date: Saturday 14 June 2014

Time: 3pm

Venue: Masonic Temple, Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street, London

Part of the East End Film Festival, 13-25 June 2014
Director: Juan López Moctezuma

Writers: Alexis Arroyo, Tita Arroyo, Juan López Moctezuma, Yolanda López Moctezuma

Original title: Alucarda, la hija de las tinieblas

Based on the short story ‘Carmilla’ by: Sheridan Le Fanu

Cast: Tina Romero, Claudio Brook, Susana Kamini, David Silva, Tina French

Mexico 1978

74 mins

East End Film Festival website

Electric Sheep is proud to present an afternoon of orphans and dark magic with a screening of Alucarda at the amazing Masonic Temple, Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street, London, on Saturday 14 June, as part of the Magic and the Macabre weekend at the East End Film Festival. Acclaimed writer and festival programmer Kier-La Janisse, author of House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (FAB Press), will introduce the screening.

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.

review_moonbird

+ 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.

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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.

Saturday 14 June

DAYTIME TICKET: £13.00 | BUY TICKETS
EVENING TICKET: £13.00 | BUY TICKETS

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.

Sunday 15 June

DAYTIME TICKET: £13.00 | BUY TICKETS
EVENING TICKET: £13.00 | BUY TICKETS

12:00 British 60s Double Bill

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.

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East End Film Festival 2014

La danza de la realidad
The Dance of Reality

East End Film Festival 2014

13-25 June 2014

Various venues, London

EEFF website

Opening on Friday 13 June, the 13th East End Film Festival will run for 13 days until Wednesday 25 June, presenting a selection of new films from around the world as well as industry and music-focused events. One of the most exciting highlights of the festival is the screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s fabulous life tale The Dance of Reality, and there is a possibility that the director will be in attendance.

We are also delighted to be taking part again in a special weekend of screenings at the Masonic Temple in Liverpool Street – details to be announced shortly.

The festival opens with the world premiere of Dermaphoria, the second feature by filmmaker and DJ Ross Clarke. There will be a special focus on new Mexican cinema, co-curated by Mexican filmmaker Sebastian Hoffman, which includes excellent miminalist post-apocalyptic zombie drama The Desert.

Among other highlights we are looking forward to Sergio Caballero’s surreal heist movie The Distance, Romanian animator Anca Damian’s first live action feature A Very Unsettled Summer and rockabilly barbershop documentary Stay Greasy.

And as it enters its 13th year, EEFF will also celebrate teen films in their various ventures, including Class Enemy from Slovenia, in which students blame a new teacher for the suicide of a classmate, and White Shadow, which tells the story of a young Albino on the run from witch doctors who want to use his organs for their potions. Also screenig is Metalhead, which follows a heavy metal fanatic who performs before the cows on her family farm while dreaming of escape.

Tickets go on sale on 13 May 2014. For more information about the programme and how to book tickets please visit the EEFF website.
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Terracotta Far East Film Festival 2014

Moebius
Moebius

Terracotta Far East Film Festival 2014

23 May – 1 June 2014

ICA and Prince Charles Cinema, London

Terracotta website

The Terracotta Far East Film Festival returns with a killer line-up. Running from 23 May to 1 June 2014, it starts with a spotlight on the Philippines at the ICA, including Erik Matti’s Cannes-selected crime and corruption thriller On the Job, horrific teen drama How to Disappear Completely and Andrew Leavold’s documentary on tiny Filipino superstar, The Search for Weng Weng.

We are particularly excited about Kim Ki-duk’s highly anticipated Moebius, Snow White Murder Case, the latest film by Yoshihiro Nakamura, as well as the Terror Cotta Horror All-nighter, with Takashi Miike’s Lesson of Evil, psychological thriller Killers by Kimo Stanboel and Timo Tjahjanto (who co-wrote and co-directed the ‘Safe Haven’ segment in V/H/S 2 with The Raid’s Gareth Evans), nightmarish Malaysian horror In the Dark, and Erik Matti’s macabre vampire comedy Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles.

Encompassing a variety of genres and countries, the programme also includes thoughtful Mongolian teen tale Remote Control, spy thriller Commitment and historical saga The Face Reader from South Korea, charming tribute to 1960s Taiwanese cinema Forever Love, as well as the expected Hong Kong actioners and quirky Japanese dramas. In connection to Forever Love, there will be an exhibition of theatrical posters at the festival hub.

The next Terracotta Film Club on 21 May at the Prince Charles Cinema will serve as an appetizer for the festival’s spotlight on the Philippines with a screening of For Y’ur Height Only, which features the Filipino James Bond and shortest martial artist and superstar Weng Weng as Agent 00.

For more information and to book tickets please visit the Terracotta website.
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SCI-FI-LONDON 14

Upside Down
Upside Down

SCI-FI-LONDON

24 April – 4 May 2014

Stratford Picturehouse and BFI Southbank

SCI-FI-LONDON website

The London International Festival of Science-Fiction and Fantastical Film returns for the 14th time with a programme packed with discoveries from Hungary to the Dominican Republic, programmes of shorts and special events including the 25th anniversary of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and anim&#233 and aliens all-nighters.

Taking place at Stratford Picturehouse and BFI Southbank, it opens on 24 April with the premiere of American psychological thriller Lost Time and closes on 4 May with spectacular French-Canadian sci-fi romance Upside Down.

We’re particularly looking forward to Suicide or Lulu and Me in a World Made for Two, inspired by Adolfo Bioy Casares’s brilliant novella The Invention of Morel, The Phoenix Project, described as ‘Primer meets Frankenstein’ and noir action thriller The Scribbler. We’re also intrigued by supernatural love story Soulmate, speculative exploration of genomics The Perfect 46, Dominican Republic thriller Wake and offbeat Belgian oddity When I Will Be Dictator.

For more information and to book tickets please visit the SCI-FI-LONDON website.
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Kinoteka 2014

kinoteka_2014
Poster for Kinoteka 2014

Kinoteka: 12th Polish Film Festival

24 April – 30 May 2014

Various venues, London + touring around the UK

Kinoteka website

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 J&#243zef Antoniusz, Andrzej Czeczot, Piotr Duma&#322a and Alexander Sroczy&#324ski 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’ Zach&#281ta – 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 Lutos&#322awski’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.

For more information please go to the Kinoteka website.
Check it out, Competitions, Festivals

Turn Off Your Bloody Phone Ident Competition

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FrightFest Ident 2014

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.

All that remains is for the fans to get involved!

For more information fans can go to to the FrightFest website.

Read our past coverage of the Film4 FrightFest festival.
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Flatpack Film Festival 2014: Preview

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Flatpack 8 (photo: Miwa Matreyek)

Flatpack 8

20-30 March 2014

Birmingham, UK

Flatpack website

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:

&#149 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 R&#233jane; many of them have original sound thanks to an ingenious gramophone system.

&#149 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).

&#149 CAF&#201 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.

&#149 JAPANIMATION: a retrospective of Japan’s offbeat DVD label Calf including work by Mirai Mizue, Tochka Collective and Atsushi Wada.

&#149 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-giallo THE 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 anim&#233 BELLADONNA OF SADNESS, based on a French novel about medieval witchcraft.

Read our previous Flatpack coverage.
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The 11th London Short Film Festival

ThePunkSinger
The Punk Singer

The 11th London Short Film Festival

Dates: 10-19 January 2014

Various venues, London

LSFF website

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.