sneersnipe film review

Cambridge is the best film festival in the UK.

Not what you expected? Cynical when you learn that I live in Cambridge?! When it comes to film festivals, our isles are somewhat lacking in the international league. Every five minutes it seems like a smaller film event is going on somewhere from Filmstock to Raindance to the Sheffield Documentary Festival to many more, to whom I humbly apologise for not mentioning. Name the big guns on the film festival circuit though and you’ll probably come up with Cannes, Sundance and so and so forth before one might mention Edinburgh somewhat in passing further down the list. The only other UK domestic biggie would of course be London.

Both the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals are excellent events of the highest calibre but neither seem to generate the international press or razzmatazz of say Berlin or Venice. The Edinburgh Film Festival occurs during the Edinburgh International Festival, one of the biggest arts events in Europe, so despite the obvious quality of the programming distraction is all around. Take a slight detour from any of the cinemas, stroll onto the Royal Mile and one is besieged by legions of performance artists desperately vying to hit the big time. The London Film Festival meanwhile acts as a kind of film depository. Unsurprisingly for a festival organised by the British Film Institute, London cherry picks many of the high profile titles the casual film observer may have noticed premiering elsewhere creating a smorgasbord of greatest hits matched by an intimidating range of cinema from the archives and elsewhere.

So that would leave the humble minnow of a film festival Cambridge in third place? Wrong. Since it’s resurrection in 2001 Cambridge has been snapping at the heels of both Edinburgh and London with it’s commitment to bring the very best international cinema to the widest possible audience, by premiering and previewing outstanding new work as well as acknowledging cinematic classics through retrospectives and revivals. In 2004 for example Cambridge premiered Stage Beauty and Supersize Me (in the UK), two films that later received Scottish premieres at Edinburgh to considerable more acclaim and national UK press attention.

Although just like Edinburgh and London, Cambridge plays a sweeper role scooping up those international festival hits which have premiered elsewhere, strong yet broad programming strands occur in the background which meld the desire to look at cinema’s past with a genuine love of film, investing the results with a hip marketing savvy. The result is an unnerving selection of films that surprise and delight in equal measure reminding one constantly that there are many films out there which simply have to be seen. Last year Cambridge held a retrospective on Richard Linklater building to the premiere of Before Sunset. This year the festival will be holding a Studio Ghibli strand. Using the festival to go further back cinematically in 2003 the festival ran a series of Alexander Dovzhenko films, the near forgotten master of Soviet cinema, and then followed this with a series of Cecil B. DeMille films in 2004. This year the festival will be running a series of early Dziga Vertov films, the fabled Soviet documentary maker and director of Man with a Movie Camera. For a world enjoying a documentary film boom this is very prescient programming indeed.

All Cambridge now needs to do in order to enter the big league is to turn the festival into more of a film industry event by increasing the number of domestic, European and World premieres it shows. With more genuinely new films the festival could hold its own competition (beyond the obligatory audience award) attracting more media attention. The casualty of this kind of approach would be simple joy of the Cambridge Film Festival as it has existed so far – all the screenings are open to the ticket buying public. The Cannes Film Festival for example is certainly the biggest European film industry event but it is only accessible by accreditation. It isn’t open to the general public. Other major international film festivals are open to the public (notably Sundance) but such are the dilemmas of the larger events. Whatever happens in the future if the last few years are to go by, the Cambridge Film Festival will go from strength to strength confirming its place as the best film festival in the UK.

Anyway nearly forgot. Happy 25th Birthday Cambridge Film Festival.

Five to watch out for at the Cambridge Film Festival 2005

1. 3 Iron
Director Kim Ki-duk is simply an outstanding visual artist unafraid to use violence to make a point. Surpassing even art-house friendly Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, 3-Iron is a superb fairy tale of a love story. (Review here)

2. Pusher 2 – With Blood On My Hands
I’ve just watched Pusher and I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. It’s like a down to earth, salty Reservoir Dogs or Trainspotting, with all the excesses drained away. This is the sequel and expectation is high.

3. The Last Mitterand
A cerebral biographical piece on the late French President Francois Mitterand may not be to everyone’s tastes but this is reputed to be one of the best films this year. (Review here)

4. King’s Game
More Danish drama (like Pusher 2), this time a political thriller that has been compared to the BBC drama State of Play on equal terms.

5. Nightwatch
Russian Vampire Blockbuster Hit! It’s good but 20th Century Fox are promoting the hell out of this one, so catch it early before the marketing campaign starts. (Review here)

And because there’s so much good stuff here I couldn’t simply stick to just five…

6. The Studio Ghibli Season
Frankly I personally don’t think Howl’s Moving Castle is as good as Princess Mononoke but the comparison is as facile as comparing, say, Goodfellas to Raging Bull. Watch them all and decide for yourself.

7. The Djiga Vertov Selection
Modern documentary boom. Reality Television. Television in general. Blame it all on Djiga Vertov, a man so obsessed by film that he changed his name from Denis Kaufman to Djiga Vertov which sounds like a camera and its actions.