Don’t worry about megapixels: Megapixels are over-hyped, people don’t realize that all that is changing when you go over about 8 megapixels is the size of the finished photo (which will be huge) and therefore the amount you can zoom in if you are editing it etc. Unless you are doing lots of photo editing and need to zoom in a lot, or you do really need poster-sized prints, then don’t use megapixels as the deciding factor between cameras.

Looking at total zoom: There are two types of zoom with digital cameras, optical zoom which is actual zoom where the front of the camera moves out and helps you zoom, and then digital zoom which is just the camera zooming in using software to make the image appear bigger. Most cameras will quote you ‘total zoom’ though which is the two numbers multiplied together, but that can mask a camera with poor optical zoom. For example, if you had a camera with a low optical zoom like 2x, then you could give it a large digital zoom like 10x and still get 20x total zoom, the same as a camera with 5x optical and 4x digital zoom. So you can now see why you need to look at the optical zoom figure for a camera before you buy.

Not trying them out: While a camera might look great on paper or the computer screen, when you get it then it could be a totally different story. You might find that the LCD screen is impossible to see in sunlight, that the settings are hard to navigate, that it is uncomfortable to hold and hard to get the memory card in etc. These are the kind of things you can only find out if you actually try one out in person. To do that pop into an electrical store and ask to try a display model out, usually they will be more than happy to oblige, and then you can find out what it is really like.

Those 3 tips will help you to avoid the common pitfalls when camera shopping, so you can find a camera which you are comfortable with and one that will give you fantastic pictures for years to come!

If you want a funky model then consider getting a pink camera to liven things up, just remember the tips above so you pick the best one.

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Exils or Exiles tells the spirited, energetic and heartfelt story of Naima (Lubna Azabal) and her lover Zano (Romain Duris) on their journey to the land of their fathers, Algeria. Lost in the perils of immigration, these two children of the Diaspora defiantly take to the road with music as their only belonging, or as Zano puts it “music is my religion.”

Tony Gatlif, himself an immigrant to France in the 1960′s has explored the theme of Diaspora, of returning to his roots, “from my yearning to consider my very wounds. It has taken me 43 years to return to the land of my childhood,” explains Gatlif.

Shot in a simple documentary style, Exils explores displacement and the emotional place of Second Generation immigrants in France at a timely juncture, shot before the riots of October last year, it captures the anger and frustrations felt by this generation, epitomised in the displacement both Zano and Naima face. “I’m an alien wherever I go,” states Naima, having been asked “where are you from.” Her Arabic looks and name allow her a certain acceptance in Algeria, but also allows hostilely targeted at her western clothes and lack of hijaab (head scarf) and burkha (long coat). When she finally dons it, she is unhappy with her appearance, “I look like a witch,” she declares and hurries to take it off, whilst justifying it with the explanation, “I need some air.” Gatlif is careful to avoid a long discourse into the place of women in Islam and the West’s opposition to it, but succeeds in showing Naimas predicament as a young girl brought up in the West and feeling the suffocation of an alien culture that she has long ago rejected. The story unfolds of Zano and Naimas wounds being healed through their physical and emotional journey played alongside the musical journey. This reaches its climax when they are invited to heal their wounds by a Sufi Mystic, through music and dance Naima and Zano reach a trance-like state and are able to escape themselves and gain enough strength to overcome their fears and frustrations.

Gatlifs own life is mirrored in the story of Zanos father, having left Algeria at the turn of the ‘60s he arrived empty handed in France and became a street kid, experiencing delinquency and juvenile correction homes. According to his press notes Gatlif decided to meet with the actor Michel Simon, who he idolised. Simon, it is reported wrote a letter of recommendation for his agent. Next came the acting classes and five years later Gatlif secured a part on the TNP stage and wrote his first script based on his experiences at the correction home. After a series of films based around ‘drop-out’ characters, Gatlif directed Pleure Pas My Love and then Gaspard et Robinson, a buddy-movie social comedy dealing with un-employment. Latcho Drom (Safe Journey) took the audience through a vivid musical journey and is a true tribute to Gypsy music, charting the route gypsy music may have taken, through Rajasthan, Andalucia, Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary and France.

Gadjo Dillo (Crazy Foreigner) followed a foreigner (again played by Romain Duris) arriving in a gypsy village in Romania looking for a missing singer who is the missing link to his dead father. Again the music plays a heavy component to this film, and like Exils, the music helps release him from his wounds. Gatlif wrote the original score for Exils and is no doubt as passionate about music as he is about film.

Whilst dealing with serious social issues Exils manages only to scratch the surfaces of them, yet remains a charming, surprising, hilarious and touching tale.

Exils is currently showing on general release.

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Meeting at the UK Pavilion. Dealing with passes and accreditations. Sorting out the usual mumbo-jumbo required to cruise through the festival.

‘Volver’ from eternal ‘enfant-terrible’ Pedro Almodovar is on show and has the usual red-carpet treatment. Penelope Cruz – gorgeous in a white Balanciagga dress, or is it? – and Carmen Maura, the co-stars are with him. Penelope returns to our first director and says: “There is one and only one Pedro, he is my priority in all fields. He writes for women who are 14, 35, 50 or 80 years old, this film is perfect example; there are lots of female characters of all ages in his films. I’m sure that my career wouldn’t have been the same without Pedro, my life wouldn’t have been the same without him. I hope that in the future that this will continue. I am very grateful to possibilities given to me somewhere else, it is interesting, one can learn a lot, but I worked in the United States for seven years, and in Europe for about fifteen, but Pedro still remains truly exceptional for me.

As for Pedro Almodovar. You can’t help but feel that each film is a complex description of his obsession for his mother…A bit like Woody Allen and his New-York or Spike Lee and…well New-York too… This is what the master had to say: In Volver, I speak of the women around me when I was a child. I was brought up by women, the men being in fields, whom I practically never saw. Volver speaks of the way I grew up, listening to these women. I would hear them singing whenever I went along the riverbanks with my mother; I accompanied her from my very earliest age. That’s how I learnt a lot about dramatic art, there are many roles that I have written which were inspired by my sisters or my mother, by characters firmly anchored in reality, even if they belong to the realm of fiction. They are characters who spin extraordinary tales, which has always immensely impressed me.”

Another Palme d’or favorite is: Fast Food Nation which casts a critical eye on the fast food industry in the US, via the destinies of three main characters: a marketing executive of a fast food chain, an employee of the same chain, and a clandestine immigrant working for slaughterhouse. For this movie, Richard Linklater has been able to recruit A-list cast with Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear, Patricia Arquette, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Patricia Arquette and Bruce Willis.

Apparatchiks aplenty in sight for the tribute paid to Russian filmmaker Sergei M. Eisenstein yesterday with the screening of two of his films – Bezhin Meadow and October – Headed by the Cannes Film Festival President Gilles Jacob, the director of the Russian State Archives for Literature and the Arts Tatiana Goriaeva, the director of the Eisenstein Memorial Naum Kleiman, and the vice-president of the Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Igor Tolstounov, a stellar night devoted to the director of the masterpieces The Battleship Potemkin and Ivan The Terrible.

20th & 21st May

We have been given a lot of business cards and collected a more impressive number. As always in Cannes, during the festival, we have late, late nights and early mornings (12:00 AM). The mix of sleep depravation, the crowd, the expectation, open the floodgate to a huge array of emotions from fascinating to scary, to fun, dull, exciting all in one. The mood changes minute by minute. Survival is the key here.
Samuel L. Jackson was dining in the Majestic on a table next to us. Al Gore on the red carpet… Otherwise you do see lots of people you think might be someone but you can never really be too sure. But that is not why we are here: We have to sell our projects and establish contacts/bridges with the industry.

The first French Film in the running for this year Palme d’Or, was Charlie Says It does re-introduce us to the films of filmmaker-actress Nicole Garcia, who was a Jury Member in 2000. Nicole Garcia returns to an essentially male world, twelve years after having directed the trio Gérard Lanvin/Bernard Giraudeau/Jean-Marc Barr in The Favourite Son. This time, the film revolves around a quartet of actors – Benoît Magimel, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Benoît Poelvoorde and Vincent Lindon – and a child – the famous Charlie embodied by the young Ferdinand Martin – whose destinies appear to criss-cross on screen. Not in a ‘crash’ way as Benoit Poelvoorde will put it: “This film is so ‘Nicole’. She is the one who entirely carries the film, the actors are relieved of any pressure. That’s why we clown around!” – Benoit stole a few grins with that one.

Nicole has made over the years, her business of filming complex male interactions and stories. Charlie Says could be another stone brought to her body of work:

“Men have this photo genius, this blend of robustness and fragility which fascinates me. They bear in them contradictions which make us wonder what they are going to become. It is these contrary tendencies which interest me. In Charlie Says, it is a question of variations on various kinds of men, about corpulences and various psychologies. This is a territory which I wanted to explore.”

After Wesh, Wesh (2002), a highly remarked debut feature film, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche introduces us to ‘Bled number One’ in the section Un Certain Regard, the “follow-up” (or prologue) entitled Bled Number One. “The end of Wesh, Wesh,” he explains, “ends with a shot of a pond after a car chase between a cop and Kamel. We then hear a gunshot but we don’t know if Kamel has been killed or not. The only thing which I do know is that Kamel was a victim of the double punishment, therefore we could make a second film: double punishment, double film! We already foresaw a follow-up by making Wesh, Wesh. Whether it takes place before or after is of little importance. Why always consider time as something purely chronological?” Kamel is barely out of prison and is expelled to his country of origin, Algeria. This forced exile obliges him to cast a critical eye upon a country in full effervescence, transformation, torn between a youthful desire for modernity and tradition.

Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche wanted to show: “The energetic manner of filming can recall that of documentary cinema, but it is true that we aren’t for all that dealing with current events. It is another relationship with time, when it isn’t necessarily a question of filming some immediate reality, in realistic way. It is simply a proposal, just to present things, not to bear judgment. (…) To write Bled Number One, I didn’t return at all to Algeria to capture something about today’s youth there. I wrote this story based my holiday memories. But it is also because I felt that things hadn’t really changed, that time passes differently there. You have the time to reflect and be, faced with the elements. (…) A film is a gesture, a burst, a job, an enterprise, an action. An action in life, a pure lesson of life. It is here that we seize something alive. For it is necessary to remain alive, no matter what happens.”

Which leads us to what Cannes, has been famous for the world over; Parties…’Snooty’ French can do parties too: The Cannes Mix program has a DJ set headed by Fred Elalouf at the Beach Cinema.

The Menu? :

- Soundtracks of French films of the 60s and 70s
- Made in Bollywood

This didn’t give us enough opportunity to find our beds. We swapped showers for after-shaves and headed the next day. – After a brunch at the Majestic….always Brunch there if you can afford it! – for the international village, where we crossed the borders from Maroc to the Netherlands and back again. It reminded to some of us, the town of Basel in Switzerland where you can cross three borders within walking distances (France, Germany, and Switzerland). We also saw a film by Daft Punk. Very interesting.

We were also moved by Nanni Moretti’s The Caiman…Great filmmaker always seem to have that obsession, they tend to film time and time again. Nanni is no different. He again speaks about politic and democracy, but avoid acting in it, which is a first, five years after having won the Palme d’Or for The Son’s Room. It’s his 10th feature film, and the 5th presented in the Official Selection. Released in Italy in the middle of the controversial elections, a few days before Romano Prodi’s victory, The Caiman is the story of a young filmmaker (played by Jasmine Trinca, also in The Son’s Room) who wants to make a film about Silvio Berlusconi, and appeals to a producer in crisis of serie “Z” movies (Silvio Orlando, Moretti’s old buddy) to finance her movie. Moretti says: “The Caiman is a love story, a homage to cinema and a political films,” resumes the director, who clarifies his intentions: “I tried to tell, using the means of the motion pictures, a reality which we are no longer able to see or perceive. I think that our problem is one of habit: we’ve become used to characters and situations however truly incredible for the sake of democracy.’

Another particular highlight of the day was the last piece of a trilogy about China The Orphan of Anyang (2001) and Night and Day (2005). This time, the filmmaker allows his camera in the life of a schoolteacher close to retirement, who set out to search for his son. His wife, gravely ill, would like to see their son one last time before dying. He hasn’t given any news for a long time. The father will be welcomed by his daughter who does shifts as a hostess in a nightclub…Brace yourself for a solid family drama with confrontations aplenty.

“Luxury Car,” explains Wang Chao, “falls within the continuance of the reflections and criticisms already expressed in my first two films, on the reality and historic and political allegories of contemporary China. Here, the gap between the rich and poor, the distance which separates people from happiness, the contradictions between the social system inherited from past and the burden of the present are so many problems which I myself, as a full-fledged member of the people, feel all the weight and intensity. That’s why it made me decide to shoot the picture.”

On the party radar, at the Cannes Mix. The new wave soundtracks are honored. Can’t wait for my suit and sunglasses and rehearse my JL Godard ‘A Band apart’ moves…Which implies another night without sleep. I know, I know…

22nd & 23rd May

The ‘babe’s battle’, Halle Berry and Rebecca Romijn: Sublime visions of nature’s most famous achievement on the red carpet. For your eyes only…Their presence allegedly being required for the promotion of the third X-Men movie… As for the film, wait for the DVD release, or PSP, or Podcast, or Palm, or…On a more serious note, ‘Bamako’ by Abderrahmane Sissako. Born in Mauritania, raised in Mali, read film at the prestigious VGIK in Moscow before releasing his first work in 1990 (Le Jeu). After string of international awards (Fespaco, Perugia,…) Cannes awaited to be seduced in 2002 by Waiting for Happiness. ‘Bamako’ is out of competition…As is the seminal film about French ‘demi-god’ Zinedine Zidane. Helmed by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, acted by none other than double Z or ‘ZZ’ himself. The film celebrates the bizarre cult of Zidanemania, shot in real time during a Madrid game supported by no less than 17 high-tech HD cameras, aimed solely at the artist Thierry Henry refers to as ‘the man who do stuff with his foot, you could only dream of doing with your hands’…It’s a pity the film didn’t really try to develop a narrative we would follow but rather lays on the technological foundations pitched to us beforehand. But if you enjoy seeing master at work, be my guest!
To the International village and another trip to Germany and Canada, then South Korea…That’s where the buzz is at the moment…
Kidulthood by Menjah Huda from the UK was also screened over there at 12:00 PM…Couldn’t make it, but should be up for DVD viewing, back in London…

ON THE PARTY RADAR: For two nights, the Didier Riey Group, a gypsy jazz collective will take over the Cannes Mix programme opening for the outdoors screening, made of a selection of twelve animation-shorts by Canadian Norman McLaren, featuring Horizontal Lines, Stars and Stripes, and The Grey Hen. On Wednesday, The Holy Mountain a tale about a quest for immortality by Chilean director/artist Alejandro Jodorowsky. A student of the mime Marcel Marceau (other prestigious alumni include Michael Jackson….), friend of the surrealists Topor & Arrabal. ‘El Topo’ his first mainstream movie, became a cult classic in 1970. When work dried out in films for the Chilean director, he went into comic books, working with fellow cult author Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud – Lieutenant Blueberry, adapted for the silver screen by Jan Koonen of ‘Doberman’ fame in 2004 – Van Hamme, Gal,…achieving cult-status within the comic book fraternity when releasing l’Incal and working on its follow-up: ‘The Meta-Barons saga’. If you want to grasp his influence in modern western comic-books, you would have to speak of him in the same breath as a Hayao Miyazaki(Nausicaa), Akira Toriyama (Dragonball), Katsuhiro Otomo, (Akira) or a Chris Claremont (X-men)…

24th & 25th May

TELEGRAM:

Was in Monaco. /Stop/ couldn’t be bothered to be in Cannes. /Stop/ had a few business dealings to handle. /Stop/. Didn’t have time to blog lately, sorry. /Full Stop/

Telegram, heh? What a funny thing…How many of you remember what it was to send a telegram at the other end of the world? Here we are taking this world for granted. Anyone who’s been on the French Riviera during that period of the year is aware of the fact that we are reaching the high points of the season with the Monte-Carlo tennis tournament, the Cannes festival, the Monaco grand prix, then Avignon festival in Provence, (equivalent to the Edinburgh theater festival…) and so on…We stopped in Grace and St-Tropez too…bumped into Michael Stipe, Robin Aubert, the director and lost our lawyer inside a casino…in Monaco…also known as the ‘Millionaire’s playground’ …
Formula One is the toy here…The noise, the smell, the gas, the sheer pollution it creates and with the little amount of overtaking opportunities, due to the tight confines of the roads, the Monaco Grand Prix must be an ecologist idea of hell.

With preparations in full swing it is quite difficult to drive through the city. Remember, the Monaco grand prix is the last of its kind, as the race track is made of the principality’s own streets. It’s the world’s most famous street track…

An open city as was Rome in January 1945 when the remnants of the German army occupying the ‘eternal city’ are about to surrender …A priest and a communist worker, the two pillars of post-war anti-fascism in Italy will join together to defeat Nazism. The movie buffs among you will recognize the pitch for ‘Rome, open city’ and the birth of Italian neo-realism. Black and white movies, with strong ‘real’ characters shot in the streets, as Cinecitta the babylonesque studios built by Mussolini had been bombed during the war. Serge July, editor of left-wing daily newspaper Liberation, directed a short-documentary called ‘Once upon a time…Rome open city’ showing in Cannes…

Another graceful vision, Barbie Hsu. Her sensual and timeless interpretation left very few moviegoers untouched. The actress is the lead in ‘Silk’ by Taiwanese director, Chao Pin Su: “We tried to make the best possible feature film on all levels,” explains the director. “Usually, in all Taiwanese films, the action is relatively slow and the atmosphere rather dark. I believe that we impose limits on ourselves due to various points of view, even when due to creative talent. This time, we had the good fortune of securing solid financing, which allowed us to develop our ideas with complete serenity. The entire crew is very satisfied with it. This picture is really different from the rest of Taiwanese productions.”
As for Barbie: “It was a true challenge to take on this character, I had a lot of fun playing her. Furthermore, there are terrible deaths in the film, which I greatly enjoyed from this point of view. Not to mention the end, it really touched me.”

Another timeless vision, but this one celebrates a movie dynasty. Like the Douglas, the Van Peebles, etc…Here come the Coppolas! Sofia, the daughter of Francis is back in Cannes with Marie-Antoinette (Her third movie after ‘Virgin Suicides’ – Director’s fortnight – and ‘Lost in translation’). The film charts the life of. ..’Marie-Antoinette’, queen of France during the 1789 revolution and famous for answering to a starving crowd asking for bread: ‘Let them eat cake!’
For me, Marie Antoinette has remained, first and foremost, the symbol of a totally decadent style. I didn’t realize to what point these people, who were called upon to govern a country, were in point of fact no more than teenagers. Daily life in the Château de Versailles is also, for these adolescents, a form of apprenticeship set in a tense, difficult environment. It is this position and the complexity of the character of Marie Antoinette which interested me.” (Sofia C.)
A few recognizable faces in the casting like Steve Coogan (yes…I know!), Marianne Faithfull, Kirsten Dunst and Aurore Clement…However, Sofia is adamant she never tried to make a political statement: ‘I wasn’t making a political movie about the French Revolution, I was doing a portrait of the character Marie Antoinette and my themes are in the film. She was a symbol of decadence. It was very interesting to read and research more about Marie Antoinette, more about the human experience of this young girl who went to Versailles when she was 14 and how she developed in the Cour de Versailles. I thought she was an interesting character. I have always been attracted to the 18th century in France. I knew so little about the personal side of her. The story is about teenagers in Versailles so I wanted it to have the energy of youth, a teenage feeling to it.” I am making one if I tell you that the movie is adapted from a book written by Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham also known as CBE lady Antonia Fraser…?

Anyone who’s been on the French Riviera during that period of the year is aware of the fact that we are reaching the high points of the season with the Monte-Carlo tennis tournament, the Cannes festival, the Monaco grand prix, then Avignon festival in Provence, (equivalent to the Edinburgh theater festival…) and so on…We stopped in Grace and St-Tropez too…bumped into Michael Stipe, Robin Aubert, the director and lost our lawyer inside a casino…in Monaco…also known as the ‘Millionaire’s playground’ … Formula One is the toy here…The noise, the smell, the gas, the sheer pollution it creates and with the little amount of overtaking opportunities, due to the tight confines of the roads, the Monaco Grand Prix must be an ecologist idea of hell.

With preparations in full swing it is quite difficult to drive through the city. Remember, the Monaco grand prix is the last of its kind, as the race track is made of the principality’s own streets. It’s the world’s most famous street track…

An open city as was Rome in January 1945 when the remnants of the German army occupying the ‘eternal city’ are about to surrender …A priest and a communist worker, the two pillars of post-war anti-fascism in Italy will join together to defeat Nazism. The movie buffs among you will recognize the pitch for ‘Rome, open city’ and the birth of Italian neo-realism. Black and white movies, with strong ‘real’ characters shot in the streets, as Cinecitta the babylonesque studios built by Mussolini had been bombed during the war. Serge July, editor of left-wing daily newspaper Liberation, directed a short-documentary called ‘Once upon a time…Rome open city’ showing in Cannes…

Another graceful vision, Barbie Hsu. Her sensual and timeless interpretation left very few moviegoers untouched. The actress is the lead in ‘Silk’ by Taiwanese director, Chao Pin Su: “We tried to make the best possible feature film on all levels,” explains the director. “Usually, in all Taiwanese films, the action is relatively slow and the atmosphere rather dark. I believe that we impose limits on ourselves due to various points of view, even when due to creative talent. This time, we had the good fortune of securing solid financing, which allowed us to develop our ideas with complete serenity. The entire crew is very satisfied with it. This picture is really different from the rest of Taiwanese productions.” As for Barbie: “It was a true challenge to take on this character, I had a lot of fun playing her. Furthermore, there are terrible deaths in the film, which I greatly enjoyed from this point of view. Not to mention the end, it really touched me.”

Another timeless vision, but this one celebrates a movie dynasty. Like the Douglas, the Van Peebles, etc…Here come the Coppolas! Sofia, the daughter of Francis is back in Cannes with Marie-Antoinette (Her third movie after ‘Virgin Suicides’ – Director’s fortnight – and ‘Lost in translation’). The film charts the life of. ..’Marie-Antoinette’, queen of France during the 1789 revolution and famous for answering to a starving crowd asking for bread: ‘Let them eat cake!’ For me, Marie Antoinette has remained, first and foremost, the symbol of a totally decadent style. I didn’t realize to what point these people, who were called upon to govern a country, were in point of fact no more than teenagers. Daily life in the Château de Versailles is also, for these adolescents, a form of apprenticeship set in a tense, difficult environment. It is this position and the complexity of the character of Marie Antoinette which interested me.” (Sofia C.) A few recognizable faces in the casting like Steve Coogan (yes…I know!), Marianne Faithfull, Kirsten Dunst and Aurore Clement…However, Sofia is adamant she never tried to make a political statement: ‘I wasn’t making a political movie about the French Revolution, I was doing a portrait of the character Marie Antoinette and my themes are in the film. She was a symbol of decadence. It was very interesting to read and research more about Marie Antoinette, more about the human experience of this young girl who went to Versailles when she was 14 and how she developed in the Cour de Versailles. I thought she was an interesting character. I have always been attracted to the 18th century in France. I knew so little about the personal side of her. The story is about teenagers in Versailles so I wanted it to have the energy of youth, a teenage feeling to it.” I am making one if I tell you that the movie is adapted from a book written by Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham also known as CBE lady Antonia Fraser…?

Left the sea, s… and sun…for gritty, rainy London. But Cannes is not over yet. I have to give you a few tips for the ‘Palme d’Or’ …This year’s festival has been very ‘serious’ and has featured movies with ‘gravitas’. The president of the jury is Wong-Kar-Wai filmmaker renown for his uncompromising style. Two films spring to mind, when thinking about the Palme d’or or Jury’s prize. The two have wars at their core: ‘The wind that shakes the barley’ by Ken Loach and the excellent ‘Day of glory’…

The movie is about the Algerian, Moroccans, and Tunisians, Senegalese soldiers or goumiers dead and forgotten during the Second World War, who liberated France from Nazism. The director, Rachid Bouchareb, has assembled a stellar ensemble cast, made of some of France’s finest actors: Sami Bouajila, Rochdy Zem, and the two icons of French’s suburbs youth culture, Sami Naceri (Taxi 1 to 3) and Djamel Debbouze (Amelie…).

Rachid Bouchared, the director knew straight from the get-go what would be the major stumbling block for such a movie and forecasted it in his approach: the cinema is a vehicle for encounters and emotions, perceived by audiences first as feelings, even if it gives them more to discover. It was only in this way that I could carry the story and creates a tie with the audience,” he adds. “I didn’t want to be didactic, which serves nothing. We developed the screenplay over two and a half years. We needed 25 versions to be able to step beyond history and concentrate on the human subject matter, on all the tiny details of daily life which reflect life far better than any speech.”

Sami Naceri as always very intense, took the bait with hesitation first, before putting ‘a lot into this film, to the point of even learning Arabic. I literally charged into the story. It isn’t a vindictive picture, nor political. But those in school should learn that these North Africans were the first to fall under German bullets for the liberation of Marseilles, Toulon and Corsica.” Djamel Debbouze, who is considered as one – if not the one – of the most bankable actor in France at the moment had to chip in to get the project going: ‘On the one hand, we come up with budgets in the several million euros to produce comedies where audiences want to see me slipping on banana peels, and on the other hand, I see that a project such as Rachid’s which was non-stop revised downwards. France still has difficulty in coping with its own past.”

Djamel Debbouze, the actor has fulfilled most of his dreams emerging as a disabled kid from the suburbs to one of France’s most recognizable face but the producer was looking for a strong project to sink his teeth in, refusing the usual farces, he is now renowned for: ‘ After Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, I received a multitude of scripts of the kind Asterix vs. the North Africans or Rabin Hood, and I was extremely skeptical. While Rachid’s film presented pleasant and noble challenges to be defended. It was therefore perfectly normal and logical to go all the way for such a film. As co-producer, I am proud that Days of Glory is presented at Cannes, it’s all the better for us. To put together funds for this film, I was even compelled to go meet Sarkozy, which really taught me a lesson!”

R. Bouchardeb went one step further, by asking rai icon Khaled (worldwide hit, ‘Didi’) to score the music for the film, despite early reservations: ‘in normal times, I sing of love and peace, so I was somewhat taken aback when Rachid suggested to me working on the music of a film about war. He then explained to me that it wasn’t really a war picture, its goal was rather to honor those people who helped lead to the Liberation and who brought us the joy of doing certain things. It is out of respect for his people who died for us that I joined Rachid.”

From one master to another: Sydney Pollack, the American director and actor with more than 40 years in the trade and 20 films under his belt. His filmography includes ‘Out of Africa’, ‘Three days of the condor’ and as an actor, the last Kubrick’s work ‘Eyes wide shut’. The night is called ‘A Film master class with Sydney Pollack’. His first words were: ‘I just have to say that anything I am presenting that has the name” master class ” is enough to ring every alarm bell in my brain,”. A master-raconteur, Sydney Pollack cruise through the night dispensing words of wisdom like: To be absolutely honest, I don’t think of myself as a visual director. That’s an area that I work very hard in because it’s my weaker muscle. My stronger muscles are with performance. Because I feel that I am stronger in performance, I try to concentrate as hard as I can on the visual aspects of the movie because it isn’t my forte. There are great visual styles that I admire immensely like Bertolucci. The danger with somebody like me who comes from the theatre as an actor is to follow along with two-people talk scenes and I like to do those. My films are full of them.” Sydney Pollack was also presenting out of competition ‘Sketches of Frank Gehry’, the patron of the arts and founder of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao among other things…

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Roger Corman’s B-movie factory of the sixties and seventies produced a number of leading film talents like Francis Ford Coppola,Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson and James Cameron who have become big cheeses in Hollywood. They’ve each created large niches for themselves and become marquee names whose presence will guarantee a following. Even more regular cheeses like Joe Dante, Peter Bogdanovitch, and Monte Hellman have become known for their idiosyncratic visions and their adherence to signature styles. Graduates from the Corman studios tended to become iconoclasts, probably as a result of Corman’s high concept, high turnover approach forcing directors, writers and actors to think on the run and be brave with their decisions. Fellow Corman graduate, John Sayles has always been different – one of America’s best independent filmmakers, he has worked with genuine skill and clarity as a writer, director, editor, actor and script doctor for nearly 30 years. What separates John Sayles from his peers is his refusal to play out his work in terms of a simple hero/ villain morality, his refusal of the strictures of iconoclasm.

Silver Star, Sayles’ latest release due out in late July, is three films in one: a detective story reminiscent of Chinatown, a satirical look at the political and intellectual credentials of George W. Bush, and an indictment of the weakness of mainstream journalism in pursuing politicians and their paymasters. John takes us through his gallery of shady deal-makers, migrant Mexicans, leftist bloggers, cynics and the disaffected to delineate his vision of what really has gone wrong with the American political system, using an extraordinary cast headed by Danny Huston (who, after his performances in this and Ivansxtc, is as amiable as freshly buttered toast and should be in every American film made from here on in). The film feels like 70’s conspiracy thrillers in the vein of Winter Kills or The Parallax View with an overriding air of pessimism rather than paranoia – the bad guys can’t be caught, nothing really changes by the end of the film and the only victories are relatively minor human ones.

Silver Star flies in the face of prevailing Hollywood wisdom (leftist documentaries aside), being both political and not particularly heroic. Most, if not all, Hollywood films have a very simple structure: present the hero as someone in whom the hopes and ideals of the audience can be vested, introduce and play out a conflict that the hero must overcome, and finally see the conflict resolved. Simple. Except that life is rarely ever that simple, even if information is increasingly skewed to this model; witness the last Gulf War where first we see Bush and Blair as heroes fighting terrorism introducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction wielded by Sadam Hussain (the pre-eminent bad-guy of our times), secondly the exposition of this conflict through various media, and finally ‘shock and awe’ – roll credits. The good guys win, the bad guys are made to suffer, and we, the audience, are invited to cheer. The duplicity of this structure is that you either go with it or you refuse to suspend your disbelief, there is no active engagement with the scenario and no nuances to discuss or modify. John Sayles’ work displays exactly the opposite sensibility drawing on stories that are as much about the society in which they are based as they are about the people that inhabit them. His work tends to act as a social, political and emotional travelogue rather than a straight-line narrative. The films are all about nuance, all about the compromises that exist between individuals and the society in which they live; points of view being drawn richly, sympathetically and non-judgmentally (he mostly eschews didacticism in favour of letting the audience make up its own mind). Community and social mores emerge as lead characters in his stories and, since changing society is as difficult as twisting a melon, his stories tend to have downbeat or open-ended conclusions.

After graduating with a Psychology degree in 1972, Sayles worked in a series of blue collar jobs whilst penning short stories for magazines and working on novels. He eventually found work with Roger Corman as a writer, producing scripts for Piranha, The Lady in Red and Battle Beyond the Stars (all, quite frankly, derivative of other more successful films but fun with a nice line in characterisation), learning the rudiments of film-making along the way. Using the money saved from writing these films, he made his debut as a director with The Return of the Secaucus 7, a warm, dialogue-heavy comedy of character and connections whose story structure was followed three years later by Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill. The film was a critical success but not a commercial one and John went back to his day-job, writing scripts for films such as The Howling and Alligator (both of which are terrific monster movies, The Howling in particular being a witty and postmodernist update of the werewolf myth and just about the best werewolf film ever made) whilst raising money for his second film Lianna, dealing with issues of sexuality and its social and emotional fall-out. His first studio film, Baby It’s You, again showed Sayles’ ability to write wittily and incisively about personal and social issues with a story about a high school romance that falls apart in the post-school years because the social gulf between them is just too wide. Sayles never worked for a studio again because of arguments over the final cut of Baby It’s You.

His independence allowed him to make a string of American film classics exploring the emotional, social and political landscape of America working with a regular cast of actors including David Strathairn, Joe Morton, Chris Cooper and Gordon Clapp. The Brother from Another Planet looked at Harlem through the eyes of a mute alien on the run from bounty hunters, Matewan used a Western scenario to present a complex look at union politics, Eight Men Out presented the story of a sporting scandal in rich and illuminating detail, City of Hope used a multiple narrative to show the workings of a city bathed in compromise and on the edge of despair, Passion Fish showed the often fractious relationship between two very different women and earned a best original screenplay Oscar nomination, Lone Star distilled issues of community and race from an investigation into a 20 year old murder using multiple narrative and gained another Oscar nomination for best screenplay, Men With Guns was filmed entirely in Spanish and uncovered the harsh politics of an unnamed war-torn Latin American country, Limbo is a parable about three people trapped on an island tinged with ideas about the death of community, Sunshine State was another multiple narrative tale about a real estate development in Florida, and Casa de los Babys which was a study of six women who travel to South America in the hope of becoming adoptive mothers. In between films Sayles works as a script doctor, lending his intelligence to films like Apollo 13 and Mimic amongst others.

A john Sayles film has a ‘no bullshit’ guarantee, he strives as he scribes to find the emotional and intellectual truth in his material with dialogue that is pithy, witty and wise (and often all three at the same time). Like Mike Leigh or Ken Loach, his films are heart-felt and humanist, although he tends not to involve caricature as much as Mike Leigh and works on a broader canvas than Ken Loach. Like Robert Altman, Sayles’ technique of using multiple narratives offer the opportunity of looking at a subject in different and sometimes contradictory ways but unlike Altman, whose approach produces a compendium of short stories, Sayles uses it more as a novelist would, to deepen and enrich the story. John Sayles may well be the most politically aware director working in America who has pursued his writing career with a blue collar work ethic. He is a true individual, telling complex stories with precision and, in turn, should be seen as a real icon.

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Nina considers the musical language of jazz to be one of her greatest inspirations. Her exhibition, Jazz in the City is the culmination of a life’s work for this innovative and unique artist.

It also begins a tour featuring Nina as an artist in residence, to include The International Jazz Festival in Moscow, during which Nina’s work will be exhibited at the State Museum for Contemporary Art, Moscow.

Nina was born in the Russian city of St. Petersburg and obtained a Masters Degree from Moscow’s Gubkin Academy. In 1991 after

she moved to Germany, Nina started her career as an artist where she studied under teacher and artist Margarita Budini. From 1994 to 1998 she established her studio in The Netherlands and in 2000 she moved to London where she has been living and working as an artist. Now based in Richmond, Nina finds artistic inspiration for her paintings in music, poetry and philosophy. The powerful colours and dramatic shapes in her paintings reflect her own experience of living in different cultures, while still infused within her Russian heritage. Nina says of her traveling experience, “I have found the most success in London, because London is a cultural centre and a major port. Kinky-Kalinki Transrussian Express is a tribute to London’s art scene, to show how you can be poor and foreign in London and still be accepted.”

Kinky-Kalinki Transrussian Express is a documentary film charting London’s art, music and club scene from 2000 to 2005, the length of time that Nina has lived here. “I have focused on one east London club in this film,” says Nina, “Rhythm Factory on Whitechapel road where it is possible to have live music, art on the walls and a club night all in one. East London is a buzzing area, that’s not to say that Richmond where I am based is not buzzing, but East London has a modern and contemporary feel.”
Old Vinyl.

Nina has exhibited her work in both solo and group shows and has begun to exhibit her work across Europe and overseas. In December 2003 Nina represented the UK at The Florence Bienniale and in November 2004 was invited to be Artist in Residence for Black History Month at the National Opera Studios in London. Other artistic residencies include River Walk at The OXO Tower and The Players Theatre in The West End.

Carol Cordrey will be in conversation with Nina on the 22nd of September at the Glass House Gallery and comments, “Jazz was once the music of yesteryear. Now, it is growing in popularity in cities the world over. Its powerful rhythm and improvisation have always appealed to performers with strong characters. Using instruments or voices, passion or pathos, they have used jazz to stir the human spirit. Nina Gruschwitz has an expressive personality, loves jazz and imbues all her work with a plethora of emotions. With brushes for instruments, this artist reinforces the contemporary impact of jazz. It is now seen and not just heard.”

Nina Gruschwitz’s exploration of Jazz and its influence on her art is to be exhibited at the Glass House gallery from the 13th of September.

The Glass House Gallery
2-3 Bull’s Head Passage, Leadenhall Market, London EC3, 13 Sept – 9 Oct
In Conversation: Artist talk with Carol Cordrey: Thu. 22 Sept 6 – 8pm
Special event: Kinky-Kalinki Transrussian Express: Wed 21 Sept 8pm-midnight
Rhythm Factory
16-18 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1EW
info@thecynthiacorbettgallery.com
www.thecynthiacorbettgallery.com

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Of special note are three documentaries screening at City Hall telling the migrant stories of the first Chinese settlers in east Londons Limehouse Basin in the very first China Town. The film explores their views on British life and eventual settlement here. Memories of the genuine children of Limehouse Chinatown is an informal documentary film capturing the historical experience of Connie Hoe, Leslie Hoe and Leslie Heng, now in their eighties and nineties who take you on a journey to the Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields area of east London, before the second world war. Reminiscing about their Chinese fathers from Hong Kong and Shanghai, their historical east end upbringing, the Blitz, all the fairy tale myths that have sprung up about the Chinese community and how they have integrated and settled in London, Connie Hoe, Leslie Hoe and Leslie Heng will also be available to talk to at the end of the screening. Whispers of Time charts the lives of London’s elderly Chinese people who have settled in Britain since the 1950s. They discuss their life stories, childhood experiences, the war years, marriage in China, migration their early impressions of Britain, settlement, achievements and the next generation.

The National Portrait Gallery screens two striking romantic films from prominent filmmaker Zhiang Yimou, The Road Home and Happy Times. Yimou is an internationally acclaimed director and after graduating from the fifth class of the Beijing Film Academy in 1982, along with classmates such as Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuang, became known as a Fifth Generation filmmaker alongside his peers. Together they produced a new Chinese cinema rejecting the politicised angst of national survival in films of the first half of the 20th century and the class heroics of socialist realist cinema under Mao Zedong after 1949. Two decades on, Zhang Yimou is one of the most versatile and significant of these Fifth Generation directors.

The National Film Theatre also hosts Jiang Wen in conversation with Anthony Minghella. Wen is a celebrated Chinese actor and director whose film Devils On The Doorstep (2000) was a winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, but was never distributed in the UK. Anthony Minghella is one of the UK’s most outspoken and respected film directors and is also the Chair of The British Film Institute.

Shanghai on Screen: Various venues

Museum in Docklands
No 1 Warehouse, West India Quay, Hertsmere Rd, London E14 4AL
www.museumindocklands.org.uk

National Portrait Gallery
Ondaatje Wing Theatre
2 St Martins Place, London, WC2H
www.npg.org.uk

City Hall
The Queen’s Walk, SE1 2AA
www.london.gov.uk
National Film Theatre South Bank
Waterloo, SE1 8XT
www.bfi.org.uk

Vue West End
3 Cranbourn Street, Leicester Square, WC2H 7AL
08712 240240
www.myvue.com
www.london.gov.uk

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‘Catalyst’ is a collaborative mix media project based around poems by London writer and visual artist Cat Miranda aka Cat Catalyst. Cat’s poetry explores spiritual and humanist concepts, embracing emotion and looking for a deeper meaning.

Choreographer Briar Adams creates the movement and composer Danbob Clarke contributes electronic beats, with lyrics by director Cat Miranda.

In addition to Cat Catalysts poetry, there are special guest appearances from active poets David J, Tim Wells, Ramshackle Event, Salina Saliva, Baden, Pom Pom Poets and more.

Rhythm Factory
16-18 Whitechapel Road
London E1 1EW
020 7375 3774

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East London Metropolitan Opera continues to bring together top professional musicians with members of the local community and children from Hackney schools accompanied by a full orchestra.

For those with more contemporary, independent tastes, a hip triple bill on the 13th July with Billy Childish and the Buff Medways, Ed Harcourt and Paul The Girl, is not to be missed. A cult figure in America, Europe and Japan, Billy Childish is arguably the most prolific painter, poet and songwriter of his generation. In a twenty-year period he has published 30 collections of his poetry, recorded over 90 full-length independent LP’s and produced over 2000 paintings. High praise comes from Alternative Press, USA, “Of all the ’70s punk survivors Childish is one of the select few who didn’t sell out, or end up sucking.” Whilst Time Out describes Billy as “terse, gutsy and powerfully humane.” Ed Harcourt, reviewed by the Observer Music Monthly, has been praised also, “the blissful sound of a besotted drunk in love…Harcourt retains a composer’s eye for detail which repays whatever attention you care to give it.” British artist, Paul The Girl is an admired and accomplished musician; The Guardian review wrote,”…on her own tiny label, Paul is making the most original music of any British artist, of either gender.” Spice festival goers will be spoilt for choice with the line-up of drama performances. From Cardboard Citizens; an clectic mix of theatre, circus and music developed and devised by This Way Up, the UK’s largest arts performance programme for homeless people, to Rajni Shah Theatres’ story of Queen Elizabeth I, a traditional Indian bride and according to the synopsis, “…the relationships we have to the land we live on, and the theatres we all invent.”

Let’s not forget the little people for whom the Movingstage Marionette Company bring double bill, Captain Grimy and The Three Little Pigs, a charming puppet show re-telling these familiar, timeless tales. Also presented by Spice Festival is Richard Pinner, Gold Star BAFTA award winner who will be performing, “excellent close-up magic,” as described by The Stage.

The diverse drama available includes internationally renowned theatre company Rotozaza presenting their unique and innovative acts without any rehearsal. Actors perform by following live instructions. ROMCOM or The Distance Love Can Be Maintained Between Any Two Fixed Points, by Glen Neath is performed by two unprepared actors with headphones telling them what to say and do. The Glasgow Herald likens it to,”…one of Godards movies…as well as comedy it’s a complex study of compatibility and communication.”

2005 Events

Opera Gala Evening:
Hackney Empire:
Tuesday 12th July: 8pm, Tickets: £8, concessions £2.50

Billy Childish and The Buff Medways, Ed Harcourt, Paul The Girl:
Hackney Empire:
13 July: Doors 8.15pm Tickets: £10, conc. £7.50

Cardboard Citizens:
Acorn Theatre:
Thursday 21st July: 7.30pm

Rotozaza:
Hackney Empire:
17th July: 3pm: Tickets: £12/£8

Rajni Shah Theatre:
Acorn Theatre: Sunday 24th July: 4pm & 7.30pm: Tickets:£10/ £7

Movingstage Marionette Company:
Acorn Theatre:
16th July. 11am & 2pm: Tickets:£6, children £4.50.

Richard Pinner:
Bullion Theatre:
Sunday 24th July: 2.30pm: Tickets: £6 children, £4.50.

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40 films, many of them UK Premieres, from eight East Asian countries will be shown in four venues over eleven days.The increased appetite for East Asian film internationally, brought on by the successes of Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Kung Fu Hustle as well as the critical acclaim for movies as diverse as Old Boy, Untold Scandal and Ong-Bak, has also brought on a heightened awareness of East Asian films which are not given UK releases. Firecracker Magazine through their monthly online magazine (www.firecracker-magazine.com) is offering a cogent range of films backed up by reviews and reports from their correspondents based in the region.

A wide range of films from almost every conceivable genre. From thrillers to kung fu epics, from horrors to love stories, documentaries, satires and cult oddities, from some of the hottest brand new movies, to some recent but neglected gems, to older classics, the festival throws open the doors to display the astonishing depth of brilliant filmmaking from across East Asia.

As well as recent films from more established movie hotspots such as Japan, Hong Kong, China and new boy Korea there is a chance to watch dynamic films from Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

No Blood No Tears (Ryoo Seung-wan, South Korea 2002), UK Premiere. One of several dynamite Korean movies in the showcase that to date have unbelievably slipped through the net. The showcase closes with director Ryoo Seung-wan’s brilliant Crying Fist, but don’t miss the first UK outing for his earlier pulp-noir masterpiece that makes Thelma and Louise look like The Golden Girls.

Weds Sept 14, 9:00pm,
Genesis Whitechapel

Nuan
(Huo Jianqi, China 2003) UK Premiere

A visually stunning story of wistful nostalgia following a young man’s return to his rural home after years in Beijing, and the rekindling of an old romance, the wonderful Nuan highlights the talents of ‘Fifth Generation’ filmmaker Huo Jianqi, a contemporary of Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, but still relatively unappreciated outside China.

Thu Sept 8, 6:45pm Curzon Mayfair
Thu Sept 15, 4:00pm Genesis Whitechapel

Screenings will take place at the Curzon Soho, Curzon Mayfair and the Genesis Whitechapel with a series of Firecracker Nite Movies at The Gate in Notting Hill featuring a selection of ‘out-there’ East Asian night movies, screening during both weekends of the Firecracker Showcase.

The Firecracker Classics sidebar, screening at the Curzon, Soho and the Genesis, Whitechapel, brings a special event: The History Man: Special Focus on Im Kwon-taek. Honorary Golden Bear award winner at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, Firecracker Magazine and the Korean Film Council present a special focus on director Im Kwon-taek, a man with an astonishing 99 films to his name, whose films offer a fascinating, rich and emotional sense of Korean history. The History Man presents three of this extraordinary director’s very best.

Pattaya Maniac
Yuthlert Sippapak
Thailand 2004
UK Premiere

Just your average Thai slacker comedy: unscrupulous gangsters, dreadful karaoke, and misplaced bets on Manchester United.
Fri Sept 9, 7:00pm
Genesis Whitechapel
Thu Sept 15, 9:00pm
Curzon Soho

Opening Night

The UK premiere of Nuan, directed by the multi-award winner and ‘Fifth Generation’ filmmaker from China, Huo Jianqi will open the festival. ‘Fifth Generation’ filmmakers from the Beijing Film Academy include internationally well received Zhang Yimou, director of House of Flying Daggers and Hero. Huo is little known outside China and Japan and this will be the first time Nuan, winner of Best Film and Best Actor at the Tokyo Film Festival, will be screened in the UK; screening at the Curzon Mayfair and Genesis, Whitechapel. Director Huo Jianqi and Producer Mr Dong Fan will be attending the screening. Life Show by Huo Jianqi is also being screened during the festival.

Gangster
(Bade Haji Azmi, Malaysia 2004)
European Premiere
Not NY, not LA, but KL. Three stories woven into one crackerjack movie, as loan sharks, drug-pushers and illegal racing play out on the streets of Kuala Lumpur in a movie that was a sensational box office hit on home soil, now premiering for the first time in Europe.

Fri Sept 16, 9:00pm – Genesis Whitechapel
Sun Sept 18, 6:45pm – Curzon Mayfair

Gagamboy
(Erik Matti, The Philippines 2003)
UK Premiere

How come Marvel Comics never came up with Cockroachman? Someone in the Philippines realised what the world of superheroes had been missing. Here, for the rest of us, is the quite ridiculous answer.
Tues Sept 13, 9:00pm
Genesis Whitechapel. Also screening in Firecracker Nite Movies.

A West Lake Moment
(Yim Ho, China 2005)
UK Premiere

The stars of Balzac & the Little Chinese Seamstress reunite in a subtly measured and emotionally-involving contemporary love story set in China’s ‘paradise on earth’, Hangzhou as two people who are forced to assess their true feelings after a chance encounter.

Sun Sept 11, 2:00pm -Genesis Whitechapel
Fri Sept 16, 6:30pm – Curzon Mayfair

For full listings of screenings at other venues visit www.firecracker-showcase.com

The Genesis, 93-95 Mile End Road, London E1 4UJ
020 7780 2000, www.genesis-cinema.co.uk

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Dogwoof Digital in partnership with Tiscali, Genesis Cinema & Silverscreen is releasing Cottonopolis films production EMR simultaneously in cinemas, on the internet and on DVD after its London premiere on 15 July 2005.

Directed by James Erskine and Danny Mccullough and financed on a micro-budget, the film is a triumph of the spirit of Independent film making under adverse circumstances. Made for less than $100,000, the film was shot on the highest quality digital cameras available (High Definition), the very same cameras that George Lucas shot the latest Star Wars on. Moreover, the film makers were able to shoot the film in both the UK (London, Essex, Hampshire) and the USA (San Francisco, Los Angeles).

Whilst talk of simultaneous releases has been underway in the US recently, with Steven Soderbergh’s deal with 2929 Entertainment, this is the world’s first simultaneous release. As the release windows between cinematic releases and DVD releases have been narrowing, this pre-empts a logical move by the studios and bigger players. Not surprisingly the lead has come from the more flexible independent sector.

This release will collapse traditionally staggered release windows and gives consumers a choice for the first time, regarding how and when they want to see a film. The filmmakers believe that the choice as to how consumers view films should rest with the consumer and that theatrical, DVD and internet forms of distribution need not threaten each other, and may indeed be mutually complimentary.

Londoner Adam Jones (Adam Leese) is stuck in a dead end job; lives alone with his cat and spends his free time obsessing over the latest conspiracy theories on the internet. Taking an experimental drug for his epilepsy, manufactured by the Pfenal corporation, Adam begins suffering from seizures, black outs and terrifying visions. When he wakes up in a hotel room in Mexico missing a kidney, Adam becomes convinced that he’s unwittingly stumbled into the middle of a conspiracy. Drugged by mysterious paramedics (Gil Belows), Adam finds himself back in his London flat. Just as he assumes it’s just been a bad dream, the pain of a scar on his back serves to convince him that something dark and disturbing is indeed happening.

Worse still, Adam’s one friend at work, Tracey (Jemma Walker), informs him that he’s been missing from work for a week and as a result he’s been fired. He turns to his doctor (Lara Cazalet), but she seems to be overly zealous in prescribing the drug company’s medication. His only confidant is his beautiful and mysterious internet correspondent, whom he knows only by her screen name CyberBunnyLily (Whitney Cummings) and who lives in San Francisco. With his reality becoming more and more fractured, and unable to trust anyone, let alone himself, Adam sets about trying to uncover the truth about the mysterious drug company Pfenal. The transatlantic connection seems ever more prominent in solving the mystery. Will he escape his torment and be united with his beloved Lily, and if so, at what cost?

Just as he finally feels that he is able to rid himself of the ordeal of his medication, Adam finds himself confronted by two of the drug company’s agents (Guy Henry, George Calil). And the reality of his situation turns out to be worse than his wildest conspiratorial nightmares. Raindance was the first public screening of the completed EMR and the film won the Jury Prize for Best UK Feature 2004. Previously it was shown as a work in progress at the Washington DC Independent Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Film. It has also screened at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival and at Germany’s cult ‘Weekend of Fear Festival’ where it won the Golden Glibb (Best Feature). Moreover, EMR was official selection at Jeonju Film Festival 2005, Korea; San Francisco Independent Film Festival 2005; and Dead Centre Film Festival, Oklahoma. The cast of EMR features some of the hottest emerging British acting talent. In his breakthrough role, Adam Leese stars as Adam Jones, supported by an Anglo-American cast.

British actors include Guy Henry, George Calil, Tom Hardy, Ross McCall. As well as debut film roles for Jeremy Edwards and Eastenders star Jemma Walker.

American actors include Gil Bellows, star of Ally McBeal and The Agency, Kevin Christy, Anthony Azzizi and Whitney Cummings. The film was produced by John Lentaigne, Erskine and McCullough and George Calil. Original screenplay by James Erskine and Danny McCullough. Directed by Erskine & McCullough and Director of photography John Halliday.

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