Things are coming to a close here at the
Edinburgh International Film Festival: the press screenings have ended, the festival videotheque is increasingly empty, and thoughts are turning to everyone's journey home. There is a less frantic schedule in these latter stages, so yesterday I was able to accept an invitation from the EIFF's new artistic director,
Hannah McGill to participate in
Make Sure They're Dead, a panel discussion about film biography. (I was asked because I am currently finishing a biography of
Hal Ashby.) Alongside me on the panel were the esteemed chronicler of classic Hollywood,
Cari Beauchamp,
Diana Dors' biographer,
Damon Wise, and moderator
Andy Dougan, himself an active film biographer. Though the event took place at noon on a Friday, there was a surprisingly good turn-out and a lot of audience participation in our lively discussion.
Today, however, was all about the awards. All festival long, people have been saying that
Control,
Anton Corbijn's exceptional biopic of
Joy Division frontman
Ian Curtis, was a shoo-in for the Michael Powell Award, the prize for the best British film.
Control, which also won raves in Cannes and is released Stateside in October, has quickly won a legion of passionate followers, all of whom were delighted to see it rightly receive not only the Powell award but also the PPG Award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film, which went to its lead,
Sam Riley (above). Riley, a former rock singer, makes his screen debut as Curtis and inhabits the role so completely that there is a very strong case for him to get an Oscar nomination come the beginning of 2008.
Another film which first surfaced at Cannes, Argentinian debutant
Lucia Puenzo's excellent hermaphrodite coming-of-age movie,
XXY, took home the New Directors Award, ahead of a lot of very strong contenders including
Catherine Martin's
in the cities,
Kirt Gunn's
Lovely By Surprise and
Jeffrey Blitz's
Sundance-winner,
Rocket Science.
Billy the Kid, a firm favorite with audiences here, won the Best Documentary Award for its director,
Jennifer Venditti. I spoke to Venditti afterwards, who told me the excellent news that a U.S. distribution deal is in the works.
The festival's Audience Award went to a surprise winner,
We Are Together (Thina Simunye), a documentary about a choir of AIDS orphans in South Africa, directed by young British docmaker
Paul Taylor. I saw the film directly after the awards ceremony, and found it one of the most moving experiences I have ever had in a cinema. Importantly, it affects audiences not by manipulating their emotions but by straightforwardly portraying the lives of an incredible group of children. By simply telling its remarkable story, the film gives audiences an understanding of the plight of AIDS orphans and unites them in a desire to help these children.
We Are Together is being released in the U.K. at the end of the year, and hopefully U.S. audiences will have a chance to see it too sometime soon.
Finally, there is also great news about another of the most loved films of EIFF,
In Search of a Midnight Kiss, written and directed by
Alex Holdridge. Holdridge wrote to me today to tell me that the buzz on the film from Edinburgh has not only resulted in British distributors clamoring over the film, but also in interest from France.
Midnight Kiss will be on the U.S. festival circuit this fall in advance of its release next year, and it comes highly recommended.
# posted by Nick Dawson @ 8/25/2007 04:43:00 PM
Comments (2)
I'm really looking forward to Control especially now after seeing 24 Hour Party People. Not to mention I'm curious to see Corbijn's jump to feature filmmaking.
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posted by William @ 8/28/2007 9:00 AM
I saw the film a couple of weeks ago and really loved it. I think it's one of the best of the year.
I'm a huge Joy Division fan and really liked 24 Hour Party People as well. For me, the two films complement each other. Control, as it's based on his widow's book, is necessarily focused on the relationship issues. But Corbijn doesn't short-shrift the music, and I wound up feeling the film to be a complete portrait of Curtis. Winterbottom's film has much more Manchester, the music scene in general, and, of course, Tony Wilson. Martin Hannett, who is a major character in 24 and a crucial person in the Joy Division story, barely appears in Corbijn's film (and Wilson's part is much smaller). So, I think it's great both films are out there.
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posted by Scott Macaulay @ 8/29/2007 2:24 PM
