East End Film Festival 2011: Preview

festivals & awards

The East End Film Festival has always carved its own niche in the UK festival scene and it continues to pursue its singular interests with its focus on music-themed film, multimedia events and East European cinema.

The confluence of music and film is particularly close to EEFF's heart and its significance is apparent from the opening film: The Libertines - There Are No Innocent Bystanders. Roger Sargent's warts 'n' all account of the band's 2010 reunion tour aims to shed new light on an often misrepresented group.

There's a hedonistic vibe to the features selection, with Kanchi Wichmann's Break My Fall, an East End-set youth drama that looks like a more credible update of Human Traffic. Plus several music films get special screenings in club-type venues, followed by DJ sets and live bands, including a documentary on legendary turntablist Norman Jay, titled (unavoidably) Good Times. And another intriguing hybrid is We Made Our Own Disaster, a collaboration between filmmaker Robin Mahoney and acclaimed electronic musician Si Begg, which sounds like an Adam Curtis-esque, audio-visual socio-historical mash-up. With dance music.

Other British features include Morag McKinnon's Donkeys, the second in the Lars Von Trier-backed Advance Party Project (the first film, the excellent Red Road, also gets a screening), which stars James Cosmo as an ageing ne'er-do-well attempting to right past wrongs.

Alongside the dozens more enticing new features from around the globe, there are also some notable archive screenings. Adrian Utley from Portishead introduces a new 4k restoration of Taxi Driver, and don't miss a rare chance to see only the second ever screening of Ken Russell's director's cut of The Devils. If you still need convincing, Mark Kermode explains here why you should try and catch Russell's uncompromised vision on the big screen.

This year's lineup of short films is exceptional and arguably now the strongest selection you'll see in London outside of specialist short film festivals.

The New UK Talent streams offer some of the best shorts, although the newness of the talent could be questioned, featuring as it does established filmmakers like Tony Grisoni. Another well known name is Chris Shepherd, whose Bad Night For The Blues was co-funded by Film Network, a riotous comedy that should be priority viewing in New UK Talent 2! The same screening also includes new films from Rob Brown and David Schofield, plus Max Myers' highly watchable Watching.

New UK Talent 1 includes the exceedingly warped Mr Dorothy from up-and-coming playright/filmmaker Gabriel Bisset-Smith and a new film from Uriel Emil, while in NUKT3 you can see Mike Forshaw's latest and Kim Albright's unforgettably strange Albatross.

For those keen on a London theme, the East End Tales programmes include new films from reliable talents like Rob Curry, David Alexander and Ryan Vernava, plus two recent festival circuit favourites in Loren Slater's Just Before Dawn and Dave Alexander Smith's disturbing In The Meadow, although the East End connection to that pastoral-set film isn't obviously apparent.

And for even more parochial audiences there's a selection of films from Hackney-based filmmakers, called Land of Kings (indeed), which includes a new one from Christoph Steger and Mikey Please's awesome Bafta-winning animation, The Eagleman Stag.

The more artistic side of things is covered by the Adventures in Experiments strand, which features a short from celebrated feature filmmaker Andrew Kotting, along with Theo Tagholm's Drift and a new work from Hannah Beadman.

Documentary is also ably served by two strands, where you can catch efforts from Sam Huntley and Sacha Andrews. There are also two well-stocked programmes of World shorts showcasing filmmaking from around the globe.

Of course we've only mentioned a tiny selection of what's on, so check out the full programme of one of the UK's most dynamic and inventive festivals.

The East End Film Festival runs from 27th April until 2nd May 2011, at various venues in London.

James Rocarols, 13 April 2011