Edinburgh International Film Festival 2008 Overview

With over 130 films shown over two weeks, seeing everything at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival was always going to be on the tricky side. At the end of the fortnight I notched up in the region of twenty-five films, four talks, a handful of industry panels and a number of shorts.
I still managed [...]

EIFF 2008 Day-by-Day: Saturday 28 June

Saturday started for me at 11am with moody Polish political thriller Warsaw Dark. Not my usual sort of start to the weekend, Warsaw was inspired by the death in 2001 of one-time Polish minister for sport, Jacek Debski. Thought to have been ordered by crime bosses, a prostitute called Inka was at the centre of [...]

EIFF 2008 Day-by-Day: Friday 27 June

Following the disappointment of Faintheart yesterday, I wanted to try and end the week on a more positive note so caught up with a film I’ve been meaning to see since last week, Better Things.
The first feature from short film director Duane Hopkins, Better Things is a look at the love lives of various couples [...]

EIFF 2008 Review: WALL-E

What better topic for a new kiddie-friendly Pixar movie than the destruction of Earth’s eco-system through over population and the subsequent evacuation of the planet by the entire human race? Thankfully WALL-E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class), the star of the new movie, is on hand to make the subject slightly more palatable.
WALL-E [...]

EIFF 2008 Day-by-Day: Thursday 26 June

As the week rattles along at a fair old speed, tiredness is catching up with me. I maybe mentioned elsewhere about early starts and late nights, and after a fortnight days tend to blur a bit. Last night I went to a UK Film Council hosted celebration of various new short film makers and had [...]

EIFF Day-by-Day: Wednesday 25 June

With my Death Defying Acts review for the Evening News sent in, today could be spent watching more films and meeting a living legend.
I started off watching Of Time and the City, director Terence Davies love letter to Liverpool. Archive footage of the city and a highly personal commentary from Davies combine to make this [...]

EIFF 2008 Review: Fear(s) of the Dark – (Peur(s) du noir)

Recurring nightmares, bloodthirsty hounds and parasitic girlfriends; just some of the elements featured in a piece that boldly fuses the idiomatic vignettes of five multinational animators working under one title: Fear(s) of the Dark.
More or less an ensemble piece unified by a host of similar thematic threads, the film does exactly as it sets out [...]

EIFF Day-by-Day: Tuesday 24 June

Today was mainly taken up with watching The Fall, a film that has been around since 2006 but that still hasn’t received distribution in the UK and only has limited release in the US.
I adored this film. As I’ve mentioned before I’ll be doing full reviews for everything I’ve seen over the next week or [...]

EIFF Day-by-Day: Monday 23 June

Does the internet sound the death knell for print criticism? This was the question asked at today’s 6pm panel at the Traverse, so I went along to listen to the views on offer.
Hosted by British Film Council chief executive John Woodward, the panelists taking part were:

Dave Calhoun, Time Out London
Tim Robey, from one of my [...]

EIFF 2008 Day-by-Day: Sunday 22 June

As Edinburgh dried out after a rainstorm of biblical proportions last night, I took myself to the Cineworld this morning to watch the new Guy Pearce, Edinburgh-set, movie Death Defying Acts.
Telling of Harry Houdini’s (Pearce) trip to Edinburgh in 1926 and his subsequent relationship with self-styled psychic Mary McGarvie, I had high hopes for this [...]

EIFF 2008 Day-by-Day: Saturday 21 June

It’s been a bit of a mixed bag of a day at the EIFF today, both film and weather wise.
As I made my way to documentary The Order of Myths in the morning it was sunny and verging on warm, but by the time I’d watched Time Crimes late at night it was bucketing down [...]

EIFF 2008 Review: International Shorts: Childproof

The first set of films in this year’s programme of international shorts attempts to shake up our expectations of children and adolescents as protagonists as well as the kind of stories we have come to associate with young ‘uns in the lead role.
Although ditsy plotlines and cutesy characters are given the boot in favour of [...]

EIFF 2008 Day-by-Day: Friday 20 June

A slightly more relaxed day today, kicking-off for me at 11.00am rather than the usual 9.00am.
First up was the new Robert Carlyle film, Summer. Described by the EIFF website as “combining an intelligent, moving study of loyalty and loss with an eloquent critique of the effects of social exclusion”, this is low budget film making [...]

EIFF 2008 Day-by-Day: Thursday 19 June

The morning after the night before as the effects of the opening night party linger. The event at Teviot House was fantastic, a 1940’s themed event with hundreds of folk dressed to impress. I really must invest in a fedora.
Film-wise I took myself along to the new Pierce Brosnan and Chris Cooper film, Married Life, [...]

EIFF 2008 Day-by-Day: Wednesday 18 June

Well, it’s started. The Edinburgh International Film Festival 2008 (or EIFF) officially kicks off tonight just up the road from my flat at Fountain Park’s Cineworld cinema with the screening of The Edge of Love, the new Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller biopic of Dylan Thomas.
I saw the film on Monday and enjoyed it, though [...]

EIFF 2008: Traverse Film Festival Events, 21 – 24 June, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

With the Edinburgh International Film Festival launching on Wednesday 18 June, the Traverse Theatre have published details of three performed reading events taking place from Saturday 21 – Tuesday 24 June:

Heritage by Nicola McCartney on Saturday 21 June (2.30pm) – Nicola McCartney’s own adaptation of her hit stage play for the big screen. Set in [...]

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2008: Film Festival Under the Stars

A welcome return this year for the Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Film Festival Under the Stars strand of movies, each screened at the Mound, next to the National Gallery.
All of these films are worth going along to see, with Local Hero and Back to the Future particular favourites of mine.
The lineup is:

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2008: Six of the Fest: Horror

Just up on the Edinburgh International Film Festival website is a list of their top five horror films from this year’s programme.
While they’ve got all the synopsis for each film over there, I’ve had a hunt around for some trailers to complement their selection – sit back and enjoy some scares that are coming your [...]

Film Preview: Edinburgh International Film Festival 2008, 18 – 29 June

Although it’s always a major part of my filmgoing year, I’ve not yet mentioned the 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival, this year running from 18-29 June, on itsonitsgone.com. Partly because full details have yet to be announced but mainly because I’m still trying to work out the best way to cover the event to do [...]