Film Festivals

Tom Linay continues his coverage of the Festival de Cannes, showing how passionate about film he is, by “working” over the weekend!

The first weekend of Cannes is over and my celebrity spots have been off the scale, including Harvey Weinstein, a Thai princess, Olga Kurylenko and Sanjay from Eastenders, all within a few hours on Saturday evening. I’ve also seen some striking films, the best of which is Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring.

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Cannes dwelling Tom Linay (temporarily) continues his coverage form the world famous film festival, updating us on all the important news.

The talk today has been not so much about films but global warming. Last year, Cannes was unusually wet. Queuing outside for screenings wasn’t pleasant and screening rooms eventually smelled vaguely of wet dog. Maybe it wasn’t so unusual though as two days in to Cannes 2013 and it has rained almost constantly and the forecast suggests it’s not letting up any time soon.

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Our “Man in Cannes”, Tom Linay, tells us all the big film news from one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world.

You only need to look at the jury for the 66th Cannes Film Festival too see it remains the world’s premiere film festival. It’s like a particularly starry episode of Stella Street, with the most famous of all film directors, Steven Spielberg chairing a jury that also features Nicole Kidman and recent Oscar winners, Ang Lee (Life of Pi) and Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained).

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Smart brands will find plenty of big films in the coming months to associate themselves with, Tom Linay writes.

Highlights included UK premières for Sundance’s 2013 US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary winner, Blood Brother, and Lake Bell’s directorial debut and the winner of a screen-writing award, In A World. There were also music performances, workshops and Q&As providing a Millennium Dome-shaped Mecca for film lovers.

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Every year, the San Francisco International Film Festival invites a well-known public figure to talk about the intersecting worlds of contemporary cinema and visual arts, culture and society, images and ideas. Past speakers have included Jonathan Lethem, Walter Murch, and Brad Bird. This year, Steven Soderbergh (Oceans Eleven and Magic Mike) took the stage.

Speaking about cinema versus movies, he compared the relationship to auteurs versus studios. He told the audience that art will always be a human need, as humans have always needed to tell stories.

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Robert Redford’s Sundance film festival is back in London for the second year this week for a four-day stint at The O2 between 25 – 28 April. As well as the UK premières of American independent films fresh from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, there will be panel discussions and filmmaker Q&A’s. The line-up features a series of music gigs making the event a real intersection between the arts.

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Late last night, the power brokers of the film industry met to recognise the best in the business at the 85th Academy awards, or to you and me, “The Oscars”.

Some surprises were in store on an unpredictable evening, with the top categories (Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress) all going to different films. This just shows the calibre of the films and talent in contention.

Ben Affleck’s Iran hostage thriller, Argo, won the Oscar for Best Film, following the nominees being introduced by First Lady Michelle Obama from the White House.

Daniel Day-Lewis picked up the Best Actor award for a record-breaking third time for his portrayal of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. He previously won in 1989 for My Left Foot and in 2008 for There Will Be Blood and has secured his place amongst the all-time acting greats.

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The young characters of My Brother the Devil live in a world of perpetual violence, gang feuds and abuses both chemical and physical. It’s a world where a legitimate road to success is all-but invisible, and brash machismo – often backed-up by cold steel – is an ugly substitute for ambition. They’re pawns to their generals, men in their late-20s whose council houses are decked out like City Boy bachelor pads, except that for every set of iconic black-and-white photographs in a frame cluster, there’s a pair of antique machetes.

This is the world that Sally El Hosaini presents, and it’s one we’re all familiar with. Over the last decade, British cinema has indulged in something of an angry love affair with ‘the endz’, pushing out a steady stream of ‘gritty crime dramas’ with a tendency to feel like washed-out retreads of Boyz N the Hood with more muddled Afro-Caribbean patois and fewer barbeques. This recent tradition is carried over into My Brother the Devil but, thankfully, there’s something else going on underneath…

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Billy Connelly (nearly Headless Nick), Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall), and Michael Gambon (Professor Dumbledore)…no I’m not talking about a top secret Harry potter project but Quartet, the directorial debut from Dustin Hoffman (aka Captain Hook for the 90s kids out there).

The film centres on a retirement home for the old and extremely talented. From the start, you instantly get a taste of the characters and what’s in store as Gambon, head of the choir, shouts and instructs, the choir sing at the top of their lungs and Billy Connelly takes the mick!

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On the rainiest of Wednesday nights, the DCM faithful padded over a sodden red carpet into a packed-out UK premiere of End of Watch – the new cop thriller by the writer of Training Day, David Ayer. The influences really show too – the action is stark and brutal, with sombre down moments and tension hitting fever pitch at the grand finale.

This is no mindless shooter mind you, and underneath the gritty handheld realism and harrowing subject matter this is a buddy cop movie with a sincere heart. The magnetic on-screen chemistry of Jake Gyllenhall and Michael Pena (present on the night to welcome the crowd) would be enough to carry the audience through from start to finish, displaying a friendship that is layered and believable. They even make mention in the script that they are beyond friends – they are brothers.

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