THE 20th RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAMME IS ANNOUNCED
26 Sept – 7 Oct 2012
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The Raindance Film Festival announces its 20th festival programme at today’s press launch. This year’s lineup includes 105 features and over 138 shorts and 64 UK Premieres, 13 International Premieres, 5 European Premieres, 19 World Premieres and 24 Directorial Debuts from 38 countries with another exceptional year of internationally acclaimed films, special live events, exclusive Q&As and masterclasses. The festival will take place from 26th September to 7th October at its home of Apollo Cinema Piccadilly Circus SW1Y 4LR.
Opening the festival on Wednesday 26th September is the International Premiere of HERE COMES THE DEVIL – a powerful fantasy horror from Mexico. Shot in Tijuana, a married couple lose their children while on a family trip near some caves in Tijuana. The kids eventually reappear without explanation, but it becomes clear that they are not who they used to be and that something terrifying has changed them. The Opening Night afterparty will feature band The Real Tuesday Weld which The Sunday Times calls: “beautiful…giddily recalls Gainsbourg, Pulp, Cole Porter, early Disney soundtracks and seedy postwar revue bars” and received their Album of the Week.
Closing the festival on Sunday 7th October is the UK Premiere of 7 CRATES – from Paraguay and fresh from its screening in Toronto Film Festival’s vanguard section. The film focusses on Victor, 17, who lives in Asunción and dreams of having a TV set. He agrees to deliver seven boxes in exchange for 100 dollars. It sounds like nothing could be easier, but the boxes contain something everyone wants.
Sitting on this year’s Raindance Jury panel is: Karel Och, Artistic Director, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, French Actress Agathe Bonitzer, Gaia Meucci, Short Film Programmer, Encounters Film Festival, Karel Spesny, Program Director, Prague Short Film Festival, Kate Tancred, Managing Director, The Smalls, Sarah Radclyffe, Producer, William C. Martell, Screenwriter Nicolangelo Gelormini, Filmmaker (who directed this year’s trailer), Oli Harbottle, Head of Distribution, Dogwoof, Nic Baisley, Film Critic, FilmSnobbery, Virginie Selavy, Journalist, Electric Sheep and Helen Cowley, Head of Editorial and Digital Content, LoveFilm.
The UK HOMEGROWN STRAND will showcase the best in British filmmaking talent, including three World Premieres: Love Tomorrow written and directed by Christopher Payne, Produced by Stephanie Moon and co-produced by Emmy Award-winning dance producers/filmmakersThe BalletBoyz, Love Tomorrow is about a tentative friendship that grows into something more when two dancers meet by chance on the streets of London; City Slacker, comedy starring Tom Conti from the writer of Dummy which previously screened at Raindance and Confinestarring Daisy Lowe and Alfie Allen and Directed by Tobias Tobbell about a heist which goes wrong. Also in this year’s UK strand is String Caesar, featuring Derek Jacobi as Caesar alongside real life prisoners bringing Julius Caesar into the 21st Century.
Exciting films emerge from the AMERICAN INDIE STRAND this year, including the World Premiere of Dark Hearts directed by Rudol Buitendach, former prize winner at Raindance and starring Sonja Kinski, daughter of Nastassja Kinski; The Grief Tourist Directed by Suri Krishnama (also a former Raindance prize winner) starring Melanie Griffith and Michael Cudlitz; Mon Ami which recently screened to much acclaim at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival is Fargo meets Dumb and Dumber in a horror movie disguised as a buddy comedy; Me and You At the Zoo which screened at Sundance and provides a cautionary tale as it chronicles several years in the endlessly self-recorded life of Chris Crocker, who won fame with his 207 “Leave Britney Alone!” YouTube rant.
From the EUROPEAN STRAND comes Heavy Girls – an ultra-low budget feature from Germany about love and dementia; The Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Crying is a contemporary romantic comedy from Serbia and Vegetarian Cannibal – a multiple award-winner at the Pula Film Festival where it took both Best Director and Best Actor amongst others and Directed by Branko Schmidt from Croatia.
An extraordinary DOCUMENTARY STRAND kicks off with the legendary Jeremy Irons and composer Vangelis who will be in attendance for the excellent green documentary Trashed. Also featuring is EBE award-winning feature documentary Hidden Hand which examines the phenomena surrounding UFOs, Extra Terrestrials, alien abduction and the US secret military cover-up of supposed E.T. contact; the multi-award winning Zero Killed the documentary/feature hybrid directed by Michal Kosakowski who has been asking people with different backgrounds about their murder fantasies; the World Premiere of Orania which examines a community of Whites Only which exists in the heart of South Africa and Banaz – A Love Story, which chronicles the brutal honour killing of Banaz Mahmod, a young British woman in London, killed by her own family for choosing a life for herself.
A unique spotlight on QUEBEC this year includes 4 Features and 1 Documentary – including Over My Dead Body, a documentary on enfant terrible of the dance world, Dave St. Pierre who also suffers from cystic fibrosis and The Salesman about the perennial car salesman of the month starring Gilbert Sicotte.
There are three films focusing on dance. The feature, Love Tomorrow from The BalletBoyz, the documentary on Dave St Pierre, Over My Dead Body and Ballroom Dancer from Denmark.
Continuing the festival’s longstanding affiliation with music, the RAINDANCE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA STRAND is dedicated to music and alternative culture and this year features My Father and the Man in Black – presenting the untold story of ‘bad boy’ Johnny Cash and his talented but troubled manager Saul Holiff and Soundbreaker about Finland’s most daring contemporary musician Kimmo Pohjonen.
An exciting selection of international shorts makes it to the final SHORTS PROGRAMME at Raindance this year with some of the biggest names in Hollywood – including: Charlotte Rampling in The End; Charles Dance and Jenny Agutter in Mapmaker, Malcolm McDowellfor No Rest For The Wicked, Jennifer Lopez in Life & Freaky Times Of Uncle Luke, Nick Moran in 82, Phil Jupitus and Josie Lawrencestar in No Prisoner and Wonder starring Diana Hardcastle (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and Henry Goodman (Notting Hill), directed and scored by Johnny Daukes. One of the programmed shorts will win Film Of The Festival Award – which will automatically go into the Oscars™ shortlist for best short film. Raindance Film Festival is one of only two British film festivals with this honour.
In addition, Raindance will welcome American novelist and journalist Chuck Palahniuk to the festival, best known for writing Fight Club. Palahniuk will introduce his short film Romance which is based on one of his stories as well as host a fund-raising dinner for the Independent Film Trust (IFT), the UK charity which works to promote the cause of independent film-making.
Raindance is also extremely pleased to announce two very diverse retrospectives. One celebrating the life and work of the French auteur Chris Marker represented by three films never seen in the UK, including Sunless and Level 5, and a very special Trent Harris Retrospective, who is best known for Plan 10 from Outer Space, which debuted at Raindance in 1996. Rubin and Ed and The Beaver Trilogy starring Sean Penn and Crispin Glover are both screening at this year’s festival. Trent Harris will also be in attendance to launch the retrospective.
Raindance Film Festival Founder Elliot Grove said: “Raindance: 20 years on and the independent film spirit is stronger than ever – as this year’s outstanding selection proves. This year’s collection of outstanding films proves that despite the difficult international economic climate, independent filmmakers continue to amaze, impress and entertain.”
Raindance Film Festival Award winners will be announced on Saturday 6 October, 6pm at the Apollo Cinema West End.
For the full Festival programme and press accreditation please visit www.raindance.co.uk.
To see the new festival cinema trailer
< http://www.raindance.org/site/
For the full list of confirmed features < http://www.raindance.org/site/
The Raindance Film Festival runs from Wednesday 26th September to Sunday 7th October 2012 at the APOLLO CINEMA: West End, 19 Lower Regent St, SW1Y 4LR. For tickets please log onto the Apollo website: www.raindance.org
Tickets can be booked online at www.raindance.co.uk or by telephone on: 08712 240242 from mid-September.
