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British movies dominate Edinburgh

British cinema is at the forefront of the 59th Edinburgh International Film Festival, which runs in the Scottish capital from 17 to 28 August.
The event opens with actor Richard E Grant's directorial debut Wah-Wah, a coming-of-age tale based on his own childhood growing up in Swaziland.

Grant is expected to attend, as are stars Emily Watson and Julie Walters.

Home-grown films in the line-up include Asylum, an adaptation of the Patrick McGrath novel from Scottish director David McKenzie; Kinky Boots, the new film from the makers of Calendar Girls; and Green Street, a drama about East London soccer hooligans starring Elijah Wood.


International premieres include zombie sequel Land of the Dead and sci-fi adventure Serenity.

British director Michael Powell will be remembered in a retrospective to be attended by his widow, film editor Thelma Schoonmaker.


Ms Schoonmaker will also be interviewed on stage, alongside Richard E Grant, Anthony Minghella and veteran designer Ken Adam.

Director Paul Schrader will present a screening of Dominion, his prequel to horror classic The Exorcist, while American Pie star Jason Biggs and actress Jennifer Jason Leigh are also tipped to appear.

"The beautiful thing about this year's festival is not only the quality of the films, but their diversity," said artistic director Shane Danielsen.

"There are works from over 37 countries, in a wide variety of styles, genres and scales - everything from blockbusters to arthouse movies and all points between."

Last year's festival opened with The Motorcycle Diaries, a film about the early life of the revolutionary Che Guevara.

However, the closing night film had to be changed after the original selection - Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 - was withdrawn from the programme.

Andrew Jones

It`s great that the Edinburgh festival is awash with british movies but how many of them are any good? Precious few I imagine. I love great british film and believe that when we do it properley we`re the best in the world at depicting the hard hitting realities of contemporary life and the human condition.
But we have no real industry in the UK at present. All of our major releases that get wide releases or that achieve some level of box office success are funded on American money and frankly, seeing that floppy haired twat Hugh Grant bumble his way into the affections of an A-List Hollywood actress is`nt stoking my passion for british film. Neither is watching a bunch of upper middle class toff kids pretending to be wizards.

Bring back the days when people like Alan Clarke and Mike Leigh were in their prime. Films by those directors were uniquely british. Films like 'Scum' and 'Naked' could`nt have been executed with the same reality and authenticity anywhere other than the UK. Now all up and coming film makers want to over-egg the cake,making movies the overblown Hollywood way,many times on lottery money or undeserved support from funding bodies who should be distributing their financial assistance to encourage more diverse and unique film makers rather than those misgudied souls just out to be the next George Lucas. Their films mostly end up as unengaging shite more akin in aesthetic to an MTV music video than a british feature film.

Someone needs to stop trotting out the Harry Potter and Love Actually box office receipts and face up to the fact that none of the profits from these "succesful british films" makes it back into the film making industry in this country. We are being raped and pillaged by this americanization of cinema,now more prevelant than ever.
Check out the beauty,edginess and innovation evident in european cinema,particularly french cinema. European film makers are light years ahead of the cliched tiresome Hollywood conventions. Take a look at europe and that`s the kind of film making those in the UK should be aiming for if we`re going to establish a real industry in this country that can distinguish itself from america and ignore Hollywood`s poisonous influence.

True Perfection Has To Be Imperfect

Steve Crook

The full timetable of all the Powell (& Pressburger) films at Edinburgh is available on the PaPAS website.

Thelma will be on stage on the 21st. The day before she'll be in London at the NFT as a part of the season of P&P films there. But she can only be here for the 2 days as she's got to get back to NYC and bury herself in the editing suite with Mr Scorsese.

The timetable of the films showing at the NFT is also on the PaPAS website.

Steve