Edinburgh round-up

'Serenity', South African AIDS drama 'Tsotsi' and Scorsese's editor were all stars at this year's fest.

Aug 31 2005

It was highly appropriate for the 59th Edinburgh International Film Festival to be co-hosting the Michael Powell retrospective with London's NFT, since 'I Know Where I’m Going!' would do very nicely as the event’s motto at this stage in its lengthy history.

Now in the fourth year of Aussie Shane Danielsen's stewardship, the EIFF has a genuinely confident sense of itself, building on the sound work of Danielsen's predecessors Lizzie Francke and Mark Cousins.

The British section, competing for the Michael Powell Award, represents the centrepiece, and was offset by sundry international mavericks and discoveries, a reliably strong set of documentaries and, for 2005, an especially distinguished line-up of onstage interviews.

Add funky brochure design, Danielsen's irrepressible presence as enthusiastic frontman, and the combination seems to be cooking quite nicely, thank you.

While Edinburgh always has a place in its heart for risk-taking fare such as Carlos Reygadas' Bresson-meets-Jodorowsky eroto-spiritual Mexican odyssey 'Battle in Heaven' and Kornél Mundruczó's wonderful 'Johanna', a contemporary operatic re-imagining of the Joan of Arc story in the bowels of a Budapest hospital, genre fans had a particularly good deal of it this year.

It was cheering to see George A Romero back in town with 'Land of the Dead', confirming him as the undisputed boss of the political zombie flick, while the hottest ticket of all was 'Buffy' creator Joss Whedon's appearance to support the world premiere of his splendid directorial debut 'Serenity' – think Howard Hawks in space (no, really).

Someone in the audience paid £210 on the internet just to be there, and the buzz around the event showed that the festival has no problems matching creative integrity with the popular touch.

A fantastic year for British cinema would have set the seal on everything, but, alas, it wasn't to be. The likes of 'Wah-Wah' (first-time writer-director Richard E Grant's autobiographical tale of domestic discord in the dying days of colonial Swaziland), 'Guy X' (Saul Metzstein's artful but ultimately unsatisfying tale of murky doings on a US military base in Greenland) and 'Stoned' (producer Stephen Woolley's visually evocative directorial debut looking at ill-fated Rolling Stone Brian Jones' last days) all shared a problem: how to bring a sustained execution to an initially strong idea.

Less ambitious but better was 'Gypo', Jan Dunn's Dogme-styled look at tangled lives amid the immigrant influx in Margate (boasting a brilliant performance from Paul McGann as a hate-filled racist), but the star of the show by far was the UK-South African co-production 'Tsotsi'.

A rich, involving and emotionally compelling look at the cycle of AIDS and abandonment that's creating a violent generation in the townships, Stuart Hood's film could have graced any festival in the world, but the producers chose to bring it to Edinburgh to give themselves a following wind before hitting the key North American festival of Toronto. Judging from the overwhelming audience reaction in the Scots capital, UK distributors should make this one a priority.

There was excellent work as ever in the documentary programme, including 'Grizzly Man', Werner Herzog's mesmerising tale of environmentalism gone shockingly awry, and 'Gunner Palace', a definitive portrait of grunt-level life for US troops stationed in Baghdad.

This was complemented by a much-deserved ten-year celebration for 'Mirrorball', the festival's pop-video section, which has lauded the likes of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry before their cinema breakthroughs, and this time showcased their compadre Mike Mills' sweet-natured feature debut 'Thumbsucker', a suburban American coming-of-age story boasting strongly attuned performances from conflicted teen Lou Pucci and self-absorbed mum Tilda Swinton.

In many ways, though, the highlights of EIFF 2005 have been the interview sessions running in the afternoons.

The perennially impeccable Anthony Minghella gave a stirring eulogy to the enriching significance of non-English-language cinema, no matter that he's also chairman of the British Film Institute.

Legendary production designer Ken Adam told an amazing story about sneaking Stanley Kubrick onto the set of 'The Spy Who Loved Me' to seek his advice on the best way to light the evil-genius hideout constructed inside a vast mocked-up oil tanker.

Most touching of all, however, was Thelma Schoonmaker's fascinating editing masterclass, which through choice clips showed the influence of her late husband Michael Powell on her regular collaborator Martin Scorsese.

As she choked back tears describing how Scorsese's 1975 Edinburgh Film Festival visit sparked the two men's personal relationship and began Powell's personal and professional resurrection, we cried with her too. An unforgettable moment in a memorable year.

The Winners:

Standard Life Audience Award – 'Tsotsi'

Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film – 'Tsotsi'
(Special commendation – 'Son of Songs')

Guardian New Directors Award – Mike Mills ('Thumbsucker')

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