EIFF: FADE OUT

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.