Raindance F-P 09 10/9/09 16:39 Page 1
NEW TITLES FROM THE DOGWOOF KENNEL
www.dogwoof.com
NEW SFL Advert.pdf 08/09/2009 10:30:50
C PROUD SPONSORS OF THE RAINDANCE FESTIVAL M
Y CM We are London’s only MY full service film CY laboratory. Based in the CMY
K heart of Soho, we offer full film post and printing services and a multi-format rushes service to cater for you.
WE, LIKE YOU, LOVE WHAT WE DO OUR THANKS TO PRINCIPAL SPONSOR Julia Brown, Amy Gustin, Ian Powell and Pat Gale at Apollo Cinemas, Kattarina McGrath at Delta Air Lines, Sally Reid and all at Ascent Media, Nick Leese, Junior Foster, Alex Rowley Megan Han and all at Organic, Ian McNaught and all at Pearl and Dean, Barry Wilson and all at London Calling, Maurice and Tom at the Phoenix, Candi Perez MAJOR SPONSORS and Olvido Salazar Alonso at Instituto Cervantes, Matteo Fazzi and all at the Italian Cultural Institute, Junko Takekawa at the Japan Foundation, Brad Day and everyone at New Day Pictures, Nick Agha at Don’t Panic, Virginie Guichard at Electric Sheep, Antony and all at the Vinyl Factory, everyone at Total Film, Neil McCartney and Marcia Degia at the IFT, Danny Miller at Little White Lies, Zara Ballantyne-Grove, André Burgess SUPPORTING PARTNERS and all at Crucible Media, Johanna von Fischer, Tessa Collinson and Shell Coe at BIFA, Ken Loach and Rebecca O’Brien at Sixteen Films, Oli Harbottle and all at Dogwoof Pictures, Riz Ahmed, Armando Iannucci, Peter Bradshaw, Kerry Fox, Momoko Ando, Billy Childish, Christine Langan, Jon Ronson, Tom Waits, Jamie Graham, Andy Williams, Bill Martell, Kiyomi Nakazaki, Keiko Funato and all at Unijapan, all at Revolver, Vertigo Films, Aida LiPera at Visit Films, Deanne Sowter at E1 Enterntainment, Keiko Funato at U-Media, Keith Greenhalgh, Chris Auty, Will Stevenson, Dean Goldberg, Gee Vaucher, Penny Rimbaud, Jail Guitar Doors, Stephen Coates, Ronni Raygun Thomas, and all the volunteers who have CULTURAL PARTNERS helped us so much Raindance Patrons Nick Broomfield, Jonathan Caouette, Henrik Danstrup, Mike Figgis, Terry Gilliam, Ken Loach, Dave McKean, Martin Myers, Alan Parker, Jonathan Pryce, Marky Ramone, Vanessa Redgrave Benefactors Anastasia Atanesyan, Christopher Cameron, Simon Cameron, Matt Coughlan, Federico Forcolini, Sophie Galleymore Bird, Claude Green, Freddie MEDIA PARTNERS Hair, Tiina-Annukka Heinomen, Helen Hoffman, Sam Holland, Hal Lever, Ann McTaggart, Fuad Omar, John Payten, Chris Perkins, Mariana Pimentel, Darren Priest, Cherry Read, Katharine Robinson, Janet Smith, Catherine Stanley, Adina Tarry, Lee Thomas, Roger Twohey, Stuart Wells, Tim Willrich In memory of Mark Shivas and Simon Channing-Williams
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 3 CAS_Raindance 148x210 ad_GO3.indd 1 16/9/09 11:40:22 VENUES & MAP
APOLLO CINEMA RAINDANCE FILM CAFÉ PHOENIX ARTIST CLUB 19 Lower Regent Steet The Vinyl Factory (Phonica) 104–110 Charing Cross Road London SW1Y 4LR 51 Poland Street London WC2H 0JN London W1F 7LZ Ticket Prices Full price £12 / Concs £8 Screenings take place at the Apollo, unless otherwise specified Box Office Passes can be purchased online or by phoning 020 7387 3833 0871 220 6000 and collected at the Raindance Film Café. It hosts seminars, masterclasses, screenings and events throughout the festival Special Offers Screening Pass £150/£125* The Phoenix Artist Club is a private members bar underneath Discovery Pass £20 the Phoenix Theatre on Charing Cross Road. Passholders will
*discount for premium members of have access to this marvelous late-night drinking establishment Raindance, WFTV, students, OAPs for the duration of the festival
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 5 APOLLO CINEMA A
WEDS 30 SEPT 19:00 Humpday APOLLO CINEMA B
THURS 1 OCT 14:30 House of Numbers 15:00 Shorts Programme 1 16:45 Planeat: How to Feed a Planet 17:15 It Came from Kuchar 19:00 You Won’t Miss Me 19:15 Bomber 21:15 Modern Love Is Automatic 21:30 Playing Columbine
FRI 2 OCT 14:30 You Won’t Miss Me 13:15 Bomber 16:45 Shorts Programme 2 15:30 Peaches Film Festival Shorts 19:00 25 Carats 17:45 The Narcotic Farm 21:15 Down Terrace 19:45 True Adolescents 22:00 Easier with Practice
SAT 3 OCT 12:30 Digital Democracy Seminar 13:15 My Big Break 14:15 Shorts Programme 3 15:45 Vacation 16:45 The Panda Candy 18:30 No One’s Son 19:15 Exam 20:45 Redland 21:45 Colin
SUN 4 OCT 13:30 Love Exposure 12:15 Colin 18:30 Journey of the Childmen – The Mighty Boosh on Tour 14:30 Chameleon 20:45 Storage 17:00 Guts 19:30 All the Years of Trying 10:00 The Blair Witch Project
MON 5 OCT 15:00 Shorts Programme 5 15:15 No One’s Son 17:15 Son of the Sunshine 17:30 At The Foot of a Tree 19:30 The Overbrook Brothers 19:45 Crying with Laughter 21:45 Locked Out 22:00 The Longest Night
TUES 6 OCT 15:00 Crying with Laughter 13:45 Borges and I 17:15 Shorts Programme 7 15:45 Shorts Programme 6 19:30 In Your Name 17:45 Mime-Mime 21:45 I Think We’re Alone Now 20:00 Mackendrick Lecture + Of Time and City
WEDS 7 OCT 13:45 Down Terrace 14:30 Mime-Mime 16:00 Shorts Programme 8 16:45 In Your Name 18:15 Until the Light Takes Us 20:45 A Piece of Our Life – Kakera 20:45 They Call It Acid
THURS 8 OCT 14:45 Shorts Programme 9 14:30 Resurrecting the Street Walker 16:45 Shorts Programme 10 17:00 Carmo – Hit the Road 19:00 Desire 19:30 Lily Festival 21:15 Popatopolis 22:00 Gogol Bordello – Non-Stop
FRI 9 OCT 14:15 A Piece of Our Life – Kakera 15:15 The Philosopher Kings 16:45 Shorts Programme 12 17:15 The Investigator 18:30 The Cry of the Owl 19:30 The Dinner Party 21:00 Deadline 22:00 Lalapipo
SAT 10 OCT 12:00 Exam 12:00 Music & Film Panel 14:15 Shorts Programme 13 14:15 Radar Video Panel 16:30 A Normal Life Please 19:00 The Twilight Dancing 18:30 My Suicide 21:15 Stuck! 21:00 A Necessary Death
SUN 11 OCT 11:45 Shorts Programme 14 11:45 SOS Love 14:15 Shorts Programme 15 14:00 Ain’t No Tomorrows 19:00 The Girlfriend Experience
6 SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL APOLLO CINEMA C PROUD GALLERIES, CAMDEN
16:00 Hotaru 18:30 Breaking Rocks Screening + Gig 18:15 The Slovenian Girl 20:30 Instant Swamp RAINDANCE FILM CAFÉ
16:00 Plymouth College of Arts: Short Films Screening 18:00 Raindance Film Café Opening Night with Billy Childish 18:15 Werner Herzog: La Soufrière + The White Diamond 22:00 Filmmakers Networking Drinks
14:00 Robyn Hitchcock – I Often Dream of Trains 13:00 Bill Martell Seminar: Guerilla Marketing Your Script 16:30 I Need That Record! 15:00 Low Budget Make-Up Workshop 18:45 Believe 17:00 The Making of Colin: Panel + Q&A 19:00 Chinese Night with New Pants 22:00 Filmmakers Networking Drinks
12:00 Bill Martell Seminar – Your Idea Machine 13:45 Shorts Programme 4 16:00 Day in the Life of My… + Hugh Metcalfe & Penny Rimbaud 18:30 Borges and I
13:45 25 Carats 15:00 Plug and Play 16:00 The Hand of Fatima 19:00 Live!Ammunition! 18:30 Schemes of Affection 20:30 Live!Ammunition! Party 22:00 Filmmakers Networking Drinks
13:45 Locked Out 13:00 Bill Martell Seminar: More Sex and Violence 16:00 Breaking Rocks 15:00 Plug and Play 18:15 Moths 19:00 Japanese Party 22:00 Filmmakers Networking Drinks
13:45 Redland 13:00 Bill Martell Seminar: Making a Scene 16:15 The Philosopher Kings 18:00 Ctrl Alt Shift Party 18:15 Resurrecting the Street Walker 22:00 Filmmakers Networking Drinks
14:15 The Longest Night 13:00 Bill Martell Seminar: Structural Freaks 16:30 The Director’s Cut 18:00 Meet The Sales Agents 18:45 EKV – As It Once Was 22:00 Filmmakers Networking Drinks
14:15 Shorts Programme 11 18:00 RFC Closing Night with The Ralfe Band 16:30 Special When Lit 22:00 Filmmakers Networking Drinks 19:00 Memory and Desire – Stephen Duffy and the Lilac Time 21:15 Miles Away
12:30 The Slovenian Girl 14:45 The Cry of the Owl 17:00 Llik Your Idols 19:15 We Fun 21:30 The Life and Death of a Porno Gang SCREENING 12:00 Deadline 14:15 The Dinner Party SCHEDULE
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 7 devil in the blood: From Christic masochism to satanic cruelty: religious extremes on film.
AUTUMN 09 4.50 / $5.95 £3.75 / €
electric sheep cinema a deviant view of a deviant view of cinema electric sheep
FLIPSIDE
Devil in the Blood From Christic masochism to satanic : a howling hillbilly hell trip cruelty: religious extremes on film White Lightnin’Jesus Christ Saviour Legendary British horror ) Klaus Kinski as Devil in the Blood ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: of Terry Gilliam House of Whipcord The ImaginariumAbandon Normal Devices directs this colourful, low budget & homage to the gangster thriller. Raindance 09 Also includes Pete Walker’s pulp
ment 19/08/2009 09:02:55
The film magazine that explores the darkest corners of the cinematic base 0
‘Ther’s tha devil movin’ in my blood’. The extraordinary White Lightnin’ explores the Old Testament world of demented mountain dancer Jesco White while Klaus Kinski disastrously reinterprets the New Testament in Jesus Christ Saviour – and subversives Alejandro Jodorowsky and Kenneth Anger dynamite divine myths.
Plus: Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Raindance 09, Don Hertzfeldt, and louche mariachi rockabilly Dan Sartain picks his top films! Autumn issue on sale now.
www.electricsheepmagazine.com Above 25 Carats, My Suicide, No One’s Son, Vacation, You Wont Miss Me Below Crying with Laughter, Desire, Down Terrace, Exam, Resurrecting the Street Walker
FESTIVAL JURY PRIZES
To recognize the outstanding achievements of the filmmakers showcased at the 17th Raindance Film Festival in 2009, a number of jury prizes will be awarded. The winners will be announced before the screening of the Closing Night Film The Girlfriend Experience at the Apollo Cinema on Sunday 11 October at 7pm. The nominees are:
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE BEST DOCUMENTARY 25 Carats [Spain] It Came from Kuchar [USA] My Suicide [USA] My Big Break [USA] No One’s Son [Croatia] A Normal Life Please [Japan] Vacation [Japan] The Philosopher Kings [USA] You Wont Miss Me [USA] Special When Lit [UK] BEST UK FEATURE BEST UK SHORT Crying with Laughter SPONSORED BY DELTA AIR LINES Desire Crazy Hands Down Terrace Infidel Exam The Rules of the Game Resurrecting the Streetwalker Screaming Skull The Taxidermist BEST DEBUT FEATURE The Dinner Party [Australia] BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT The Longest Night [Germany] Hollywood Jerome [USA] Mime-Mime [Japan] The Mouse That Soared [USA] A Necessary Death [USA] Of Best Intentions [Ireland] Redland [USA] The Slow Game [Italy] Ten for Grandpa [Canada/USA] BEST MICRO BUDGET FEATURE All the Years of Trying [UK] FILM OF THE FESTIVAL [SHORT] Bomber [UK] For the sixth consecutive year we are excited Colin [UK] to present this award. Each year, the winner is Locked Out [Japan] offered the chance to film the following year’s Memory and Desire[Canada] trailer with the support of the Independent Film Son of the Sunshine [Canada] Trust who helps finance the production.
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 9 THE FESTIVAL JURY
Riz Ahmed is an award-winning actor and musician. His films include Michael Winterbottom’s The Road To Guantanamo, and Shifty, for which he was nominated for a BIFA. As Riz MC he has played the Glastonbury Festival and the BBC Electric Proms, and in 2008 opened the Meltdown Festival with Massive Attack at the Royal Festival Hall.
Momoko Ando began her experiences on a film set as a member of a film crew while still a student. After studying in England, her professor recommended that she travel to New York to complete a short program at New York University majoring in directing. Returning to Japan, she started her career as an assistant director to Eiji Okuda who is her father as well as an internationally acclaimed film director. With this critically applauded first feature, she is being hailed as the Japanese Sophia Coppola.
Peter Bradshaw has been the Guardian’s film critic since 1998. He wrote and acted in Baddiel’s Syndrome (2001) and contributes regularly to BBC Radio, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer.
Julia Brown is the Apollo Cinemas Commercial Director.
Billy Childish is an English artist, author, poet, film maker, musician and filmmaker. He is known for his prolific work-rate – he has published 40 books of poetry, produced 2500 pictures and released over 100 albums – and is admired by people such as Kurt Cobain, Robert Plant, PJ Harvey & Jack White. He has been described as ‘one of the most outstanding, and often misunderstood, figures on the British art scene.’
Kerry Fox is one of the world’s leading actresses. She received praise and a nomination from the Australian Film Institute Awards for her leading role in Country Life, starred in Danny Boyle’s breakout British hit Shallow Grave with Ewan McGregor, and was nominated for the Canadian Academy Award (Genie Award) for her supporting role in The Hanging Garden. In 2001 she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress in Intimacy at the Berlin Film Festival and is now starring in Jane Campion’s Bright Star, as well as a new West End play Speaking In Tongues.
10 SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL Jamie Graham is the Deputy Editor of Total Film magazine.
Armando Iannucci has written and produced numerous critically acclaimed television and radio comedy shows, notably On The Hour, which most famously spawned The Day Today and Alan Partridge. He has fronted his own satirical programmes for Radio 4 and written and directed The Thick of It, winner of Best New TV Comedy in 2005. His debut film, In the Loop, featuring Peter Capaldi and James Gandolfini, was a critical and commercial hit.
Christine Langan is an English television and film producer. Her career began in the late 1980s when she worked for an advertising company, moving onto Granada Television where she produced three series of the comedy-drama Cold Feet. In 2003 she produced the television play The Deal and later, in 2006, its theatrical follow-up The Queen. She joined BBC Films in 2006, and was appointed Creative Director this year.
Jon Ronson is a journalist, author, documentary filmmaker and radio presenter. His journalism and columns have appeared in British publications including The Guardian newspaper and Time Out magazine. He has made several documentary films for television and two documentary series for Channel 4. He wrote The Men Who Stare At Goats featuring George Clooney and directed Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes (2008).
Tom Waits is a renowned musician, actor, singer-songwriter and composer. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One From The Heart. He has recorded 20 albums, winning Grammy Awards for two, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. His acting career includes roles in Rumblefish, Short Cuts and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He is shortly to be seen playing the devil in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus.
Andy Williams is a BAFTA award winning television producer and writer who has produced work for the BBC, The Walt Disney Company, Channel Five and Turner Entertainment among many others.
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 11
ALEXANDER MACKENDRICK WAS ONE OF EALING’S MOST TALENTED DIRECTORS. BUT, BY HIS OWN ADMISSION, HE FOUND HIMSELF ILL-EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH HOLLYWOOD. FRED HOGGE LOOKS BACK AT THE CAREER OF A DIRECTOR WHOSE MEMORIAL LECTURES RETURN TO RAINDANCE THIS YEAR
ERE’S A CURIOUS thought: had a nuclear war been declared, Alec Guinness may well have owned the last face to be shown on British television. The penultimate broadcast, before the pre-recorded voice of Peter Donaldson announced our imminent doom, would most likely have been an Ealing comedy. Oh, how thick the irony had it been The Man in the White Suit, Alexander Mackendrick’s satire about the bomb itself. HMackendrick is a director whose body of work has slowly-slowly re-established its reputation. Always well-reviewed in his day, he has never been revered like David Lean or Carol Reed, his direct contemporaries in British cinema. This may be because of his five film spell at Ealing Studios, the home of cosy English nostalgia. But Mackendrick was never cosy, and never nostalgic. His Ealing films are all deliciously ambiguous. If it’s cosiness you want, it’s there for you. But there too, with equal clarity, is a rage and wit Alexander Mackendrick, © BFI/Artisan Mackendrick, Alexander of formidable acuity, pushing the very limits of the Ealing brand. It may be because his Hollywood career did not unfold so smoothly. While Sweet Smell
Opposite of Success, which he made for Burt Lancaster’s production outfit HHL, now is recognised
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 13 SHARE THE (FILM) LOVE, SUPPORT THE CAUSE…
The Independent Film Trust was established to advance the cause of independent filmmaking The Independent Film Trust works with the British Independent Film Awards and the Raindance Film Festival with the aim of seeking out and showcasing the best in independent film, promoting innovation and celebrating the vitality and diversity of the sector
The Independent Film Trust is proud to be the sponsor of: – The Raindance Film of the Festival Award and the Raindance Film Festival trailer – The Raindance Training Scholarships – The Raindance Film School in a Box programme
Find out more at www.independentfilmtrust.org For further information contact Commercial Director Marcia Degia at [email protected] And for regular updates please find our group on facebook
Patrons Alan Parker / Michael Caton-Jones / Mike Leigh / Bill Forsyth / Tim Roth / Nick Broomfield / Samantha Morton / Faye Dunaway ‘Mackendrick was never cosy, and never nostalgic. he did not present his work as art or himself as an auteur. Instead he was a craftsman’
as one of the high points of 1950s cinema, it wasn’t exactly a hit. Add to that his dismissal from HHL’s follow-up picture, The Devil’s Disciple, and then from The Guns of Navarone, not to mention MGM’s re-cutting of A High Wind in Jamaica: suddenly, compared to Lean and Reed, Mackendrick’s reputation seems diminished. Hollywood didn’t suit him. He said ‘At Ealing… I was tremendously spoiled with all the logistical and financial troubles lifted off my shoulders, even if I had to do the films they told me to do… When I arrived here… I found that in order to make movies in Hollywood, you have to be a great deal- maker… I have no talent for that… I realised I was in the wrong business and got out.’ Or it may be because he himself did not much like the so-called ‘cult of the director’. So he did not present his work as art or himself as an auteur. Instead he was a craftsman who, as a teacher, passed on his understanding of craft to his students. And it is largely through his book, On Filmmaking, edited by Paul Cronin, that his work has come to be re-appreciated by new audiences. Mackendrick, the consummate perfectionist, who wrote that ‘the great directors manage to disappear and dissolve into their work’, emerges inadvertently as an auteur, with preoccupations and thematic concerns running in rich veins throughout his work. Craft comes before art, and his dedication to craft allows us now, in retrospect, to appreciate the art of his work. Mackendrick left filmmaking to teach film direction at CalArts in Pasedena. There were precious few film schools at the time. Training back then was an on-the-job thing. The film schools, such as they were, were focused on appreciation, on criticism of film as an art. So Mackendrick was inventing a tradition for the teaching of directing and screenwriting from scratch. For that, we at Raindance and at film facilities everywhere, owe him a great debt. I wrote in the programme notes to the first Alexander Mackendrick lecture: ‘Where many can claim to have made films, few can say they made filmmakers. He could, and at Raindance that is something we respect beyond measure.’ So it’s with real pleasure that, this year, we restore the Alexander Mackendrick Memorial Lecture to the Raindance schedule.
Fred Hogge interviews Terence Davies at the Alexander Mackendrick Memorial Lecture takes place at 8pm on Tuesday 6 October at the Apollo Cinema, followed by a screening Of Time and the City
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 15 IN OUR RETROSPECTIVE SCREENING THIS YEAR FRED HOGGE LOOKS BACK TO 1999’S OPENING NIGHT FILM AND TELLS THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT CAME TO RAINDANCE
HERE ARE TWO things I remember,’ Ian George, former head of marketing Opposite at Pathé, tells me over the phone. ‘It was possibly the trendiest festival opening
I’ve ever seen! Most of the music business were there: the Gallagher brothers, Dave Stewart & Nicole Appleton, Raindance 1999 the Verve. And the second one was the plastic trees.’ I’d forgotten the plastic trees. ‘They were spilling out onto the street; they were the only dressing there was!’ TSpeaking from Washington, Blair Witch co-director Eduardo Sanchez, says: ‘It was this huge, massive thing.’ Says Sandra Grant, then the Raindance head of PR: ‘I just remember all the paparazzi in the press pens screaming at me to be allowed into the screening. Even I didn’t get into the screening because I gave up my ticket to Claudia Schiffer.’ And as for Elliot – he says: ‘It was just insane.’ Ten years on, as Raindance gears up for its seventeenth opening night, the Blair Witch Project premiere remains fresh in the Festival’s collective memory. The film was a global phenomenon. But as with all these things, when it began, its ambitions were much more humble.
16 SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
‘The main thing was to try and make a scary film,’ Ed recalls. ‘You know, in the early ’90s, when Opposite we came up with it, there weren’t many scary movies coming out. And Dan and I started talking
about the movies that scared us as kids.’ Noel Gallagher at the London premiere of The Blair Witch Project, Raindance 1999 Says Dan: ‘We had a common interest in a lot of the old ’70s mockumentaries like In Search of… and Ancient Astronauts. We found them to be very creepy, mainly due to the fact that they were portrayed as being real, or dramatisations of real events. So we thought it would be interesting to create our own fictional “real event”, and build a narrative film around it.’ Shooting began in early 1997, for a film which would feature the first-person footage of characters Heather, Mike and Josh, supported by archival footage and interviews. Ed: ‘That was the original idea for the film. But we realised that every time we cut away from the first-person footage, we lost a certain magic that the footage was creating. And in the end, right before we entered Sundance, we thought: “OK, let’s just go with the footage and forget about any of this other documentary stuff.”’ Dan: ‘It was this kind of creative evolutionary process: as we were going along, it ended up in a place we hadn’t necessarily pre-conceived when we started shooting.’ It was this evolutionary process which would begin to capture people’s imaginations. Ed: ‘About a year before Sundance, we had got some limited exposure on John Pierson’s show, Split Screen. And that particular episode, about the Blair Witch, blew up on their website. There were people discussing it, trying to get more information. So we were, like, we’ve gotta get our own website up.’ Dan: ‘That got the initial interest going, which built up momentum for our website, which in turn built up momentum going into Sundance.’ Ed: ‘When the site went up, we started getting a lot of traffic. And I started beginning to feel the heat, the kind of pitched interest in this thing. Heather Donahue kept a journal when she was in the woods. And it was a very cool, creepy journal. So I scanned all the pages, transcribed everything, and I would put up a new page every week or two. But I would hide the page. And people would scour the site, and if they found it too quick, I would change the URL. So I began to feel the momentum that the film was carrying. And I was thinking, “Man, if we could just get into Sundance and find an audience, I think this thing is going to be pretty huge for an indie film.”’ Dan: ‘Initial screenings with reviewers ‘I couldn’t get in because were very positive. The film was really getting embraced early on, and once we I had to give up my ticket were at Sundance, we were kind of the for Claudia Schiffer’ film to watch. And by the time we got to Cannes, that’s when it started dawning on us, I suppose, that we had something that was going to be bigger than your typical cult movie.” Ian George: ‘It was bought for us by Berenice Fugard. And the price, well it was so low that she didn’t even need approval from the higher ups. And then the US release happened. It exploded in the US. It was a phenomenon. They’d done a real grassroots thing, and it was a phenomenon.’ Even before that, the film was making waves in Cannes. Elliot: ‘That’s where I heard about it. So I hounded Pathé for it. Finally, I got through to Maj-Britt Kirchner, who was running Pathé at the time. And I kept bumping into her on the street. Well… I kinda got her schedule… Then, one day I got a call from Margaret, saying: “I think Raindance is the perfect place for Blair Witch.”’ Ian George: ‘You couldn’t have got a better platform for us. A lot of European territories had rushed it into release to capitalise on the US thing. But we felt we needed to replicate their
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 19 Happy to be hosting
The perfect location at which to host your Corporate Events, Product Launches, Press Shows, Conferences, Private Parties, Preview Screenings, Film Premieres and Presentations.
For event information and booking contact [email protected]
For film info or to book tickets for Raindance or any other film 0871 220 6000 or www.apollocinemas.com
Apollo Piccadilly Circus, 19 Regent Street, London, SW1Y 4LR
Apollo_RaindanceAd_v2.indd 1 18/9/09 17:37:13 Eduardo Sanchez, Elliot Grove and Daniel Myrick at Raindance 1999
campaign, to step up to the plate ourselves. We decided to go with Raindance and a Halloween release, and to keep it underground. We came up with the strategy and the strap-line: “Everything you’ve heard is true.” It gave us the chance to be playful.’ Elliot: ‘I announced Blair Witch. We sold the tickets. And then Ian calls me up. Can we have tickets for this person, and for that person. Suddenly, I have 400 tickets sold for a 200 seat cinema.’ Dan: ‘In our minds, everything was total chaos. It was all coming so fast, yet everything was getting done. It was really like being caught in a river of rapids, and you know you’re going to get to the other end of the river somehow, but you don’t know how or where the current’s gonna take you. And by the time we got to the UK, we were stunned. The response at Raindance…’ Ed: ‘It was totally frickin’ cool.’ Dan: ‘There was this kind of fervour and rock-star status we had, that I didn’t even contemplate when we were making the movie. Even to this day, it was quite surreal.’ Ian George: ‘We wanted lines around the block. We got absolute chaos, and it was fantastic.’ Elliot: ‘Blair Witch put us on the map, simple as that.’ Ten years on, the effects of the film can still be felt on the indie film scene. Its marketing strategy, conceived just as the internet went mainstream, changed the way that filmmakers try to reach and nurture their audiences. Says Ed: ‘I mean, look, we didn’t invent this. There were other movies that had come before that had used the same aesthetic. But for us, it was a kind of combination of using these things in the horror mode, and it was our only solution to make a cheap film. And it was like lightning in a bottle.’ Dan: ‘We started from an emotional standpoint, with “how do we scare ourselves”. And we built a movie around that. You can do that in all sorts of different styles and all sorts of different ways — every story has its own DNA, its own mythology. The trick is trying to make a good, solid film.’ The Blair Witch Project is certainly that, and a bona fide hit too, a genuine independent which caught a global imagination. We’re delighted to screen it again as this year’s retrospective.
The Blair Witch Project screens at 10pm on Sunday 4 October at the Apollo Cinema
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 21 38 SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL JAPANESE WOMEN FILMMAKERS HAVE NEVER BEEN IN THE LIMELIGHT BUT THEIR INFLUENCE AND CONTRIBUTION TO CINEMA IN JAPAN IS UNDISPUTABLE. THIS YEAR RAINDANCE CELEBRATES THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS AND JASPER SHARP DISCUSSES JAPAN’S LEADING WOMEN FILMMAKERS
N AN ERA when young men are more likely to be holed away playing video games than queuing to catch the latest Michael Bay blockbuster, the huge revenues generated by Mama Mia, Sex and the City and Twilight last year emphasised a point that to many has been obvious all along: that a sizeable chunk of movie audiences worldwide are women. It’s estimated this market share is around the 75% mark in Japan, a fact those in the industry have long been party to. Back in the 1950s, Shiro Kido, the pragmatic president Iof Shochiku, explained his rationale for targeting this very demographic with his sentimental ‘Ofuna- flavour’ melodramas, named after the studio where they were made: ‘Women never go to the cinema alone. They will always bring either a friend or a lover. Another thing is their voluntary promotional activity: she will convince acquaintances to go and see the film she has just seen.’ But ask someone to reel off a list of ten Japanese directors, and it’s doubtful you’ll hear a woman’s name amongst the roll call. They’ll most likely list such lofty auteurs as Akira Kurosawa Momoko Ando or Nagisa Oshima, or cult directors like Takeshi Kitano or Takashi Miike. Even among those towering figures praised for their feminist (feminisuto) opuses back in the day, namely Kenji Mizoguchi
Opposite and Mikio Naruse, or the contracted directors of Shochiku such as Yasujiro Ozu and Keisuke
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 23 Mime
Kinoshita who made the studio’s classic romances or home dramas featuring iconic actresses such as Setsuko Hara or Hideko Takamine, you’d be hard pushed to pick out a single woman behind the camera. It would be unfair to level any accusations of chauvinism solely at Japan, as by and large the pattern was similar across the world. Even now it isn’t much better. While you’ll notice a strong female presence at the front-office end of the business – as promoters, interpreters, journalists, festival organisers – sadly this is not the case at its creative heart. According to global industry reports, only 6% of directors and 12% of screenwriters worldwide are women, a statistic that sees the Japanese industry in a pretty positive light. The rising tide of women filmmakers in Japan should rightly be regarded as among the most significant developments of the past decade, and is now virtually impossible to ignore, with the last twelve months seeing a spate of titles from names like Yuki Tanada, Naoko Ogigami, Satoko Yokohama, Tsuki Inoue, Miwa Nishikawa, Mari Asato and Shimako Sato, most of whom have at least a couple of features under their belts, in genres including comedy, drama, erotic, horror, action. It’s also worth remembering the other roles women play behind the camera too. Last year’s critically- garlanded Tokyo Sonata not only boasted a female cinematographer, Atsuko Ashizawa, but the producer Yukie Kito, who effectively hired director Kiyoshi Kurosawa for the project. This phenomenon has already been identified as an important point of discussion in one overseas festival this year, Frankfurt’s Nippon Connection, and so it seems fitting that the 17th Raindance celebrates it too with a special focus featuring five features and one shorts programme all directed by Japanese women, and the world premiere of A Piece of Our Life – Kakera, the debut feature of Jury Member Momoko Ando (whose sister Sakura also appears in two of this year’s selection, Love Exposure and Ain’t No Tomorrows). To what should we attribute these changes? Before the 1980s, women directors in Japan virtually all came from an acting background. Tanaka Kinuyo has been seen as something of a pioneer in this respect, though the six films she made from her 1953 debut Love Letter to Love Under the Crucifix in 1962 were never as popular as her performances in the films of Kenji Mizoguchi. Sachiko Hidari directed and starred in The Far Road (1977), a social drama about the family of a railroad worker, while another, Midori Kurisaki made Love Suicides at Sonezaki (1981) as a live-action traditional Bunraku puppet film. Others like Sumiko Haneda and Toshie Tokieda worked in the field of documentary. The one major exception was Japan’s first woman director, Sakane Tazuko, a protegée of Mizoguchi who directed only one feature, First Figure (1936), based on Émile Zola’s Nana. The film is now lost, and even these other works are nigh on impossible to see. The hierarchical corporate structure of the major studios was the main bar to women entering the industry, and so it seems perversely fitting that the subversive sphere of the independent erotic
24 SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL Ain’t No Tomorrows
‘pink film’ should have provided an avenue for potential women helmers. Again, many came from a performing background, including Kyoko Ogimachi, the genre’s first female director with Yakuza Geisha in 1965, but it does seem ironic it was this softcore sex film sector that fostered the first women with any real power in the industry: the current president of Kokuei production company Keiko Sato, and Sachi Hamano, not only the first woman to forge a successful long-term career as a director, but with over 400 films under her belt, by far the most prolific. Alongside her numerous pink films, Hamano has directed indie films with more emphatically feminist themes, including Lily Festival (2001), part of this year’s focus at Raindance. But the most significant development has been in the opportunities provided within the burgeoning indie scene, bolstered through the support of the Pia Film Festival. Established in the late 1970s to provide an industry entry point to jishu eiga (amateur) filmmakers, PFF’s beneficiaries include Shiori Kazama, Naoko Ogigami, Noriko Shibutani (whose Bambi Bone played Raindance in 2006, along with Yuki Tanada’s Moon and Cherry) and this year’s Mime-Mime by Yukiko Sode. Though not a PFF alumni, Naomi Kawase also hails from this jishu eiga background. Following her series of 8mm confessional shorts, her first feature Suzaku won the Camera d’Or at Cannes in 1997, causing a media storm in Japan ‘It seems perversely fitting and giving rise to a new genre of ‘films by women directors.’ The hubbub has that the subversive sphere died down to some extent now, and of the independent erotic this new wave is no longer seen as something distinct from the norm, just “pink film” should have another feature on the wide-ranging provided an avenue for landscape of Japanese cinema. Many of the directors don’t see gender as potential women helmers’ having any bearing on the type of films they make, as Yuki Tanada told me, ‘I think if you had the same script and gave it to a different filmmaker, whether they were male or female, a different movie would come out.’ Perhaps Atsuko Ohno, producer of films including Takashi Shimizu’s horror Marebito: The Stranger from Afar (2004) and organiser of the annual Peaches Festival, which showcases up-and- coming female talent, best sums up the the sea change: ‘I wasn’t quite sure if there was a need for this festival, but I’m a woman, I have a lot of women drinking buddies and friends making films, so I just thought, “Why not?” I’m not any sort of woman’s lib-type person, or some sort of feminist, but I thought maybe it’s just a way of categorising the films.’ It’s a sentiment I hope is reflected in this year’s Raindance programme too.
SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 25 SHION SHON IS ONE OF JAPAN’S MOST NOTABLE AND ENIGMATIC DIRECTORS. JAPANESE FILM PROGRAMMER JASPER SHARP RETRACES HIS CAREER AND EXAMINES HIS LATEST FEATURE LOVE EXPOSURE
HE WORD ‘MAVERICK’ gets bandied around too often in film circles nowadays, Opposite but if there’s ever a director who deserves the label, it’s Shion Sono. It’s difficult
to think of a less commercial proposition than Love Exposure, which premiered Shion Sono last December at Tokyo Filmex. For starters, it’s around four hours long, an almost suicidal proposition in a commercial environment where venues need to cram as many films into their schedules as possible, and where certain countries’ Tcensorship boards charge by the minute. And then there’s the content, taking onboard such heady subjects as child abuse, Catholic repression and murderous religious cults within its epic span. If all this sounds a less-than-tempting proposition, one should add that the results are not only rather moving, but incredibly good fun. The films of Todd Solondz provide a convenient point of reference in their irreverent treatments of the various societal taboos that might be best left to grittier socio-realist works by more serious directors, but rendered as a colourful pop-cultural fantasy, the theatre of the absurd that is Sono’s film is an altogether more exuberant affair. One hesitates to call Love Exposure a comedy, though there are certainly some funny moments. Switching dramatic registers and defying expectations at every turn, there’s enough material
26 SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
Love Exposure
for several films in the first half alone, and you’ve got to admire the balls of a director bold enough to put the film’s title credit an hour into proceedings. Shion Sono’s name may be unfamiliar, but he’s actually been around some time, with his previous film, Exte, a J-horror pastiche about killer hair extensions featuring Battle Royale / Kill Bill icon Chiaki Kuriyama released on DVD in the UK. Laying the two works side-to-side, it’s immediately apparent that this is not an easy filmmaker to pigeonhole. Sono’s debut, Bicycle Sighs (1989), a 16mm indie feature about two no-hoper university chums who have deferred their final exams for the past three years, instead surviving by delivering newspapers while one strives to complete the super-8 masterpiece they began as adolescents, was one of the standout titles of the 1990 Pia Film Festival, also playing widely at numerous overseas festivals. This was followed by a number of more experimental titles, including Room (Heya, 1992), in which a murderer looks for a new apartment, his estate agent leading him across a Tokyo cityscape blighted by the collapse of Japan’s economy, and Keiko Desu Kedo (1997), about a lonely waitress who obsessively records every event in time following the death of her father to cancer, and several forays into the world of the erotic pink film, including one gay title, Dankon: The Man (1997). But it was the opening of his 2001 cult hit Suicide Circle, in which a phalanx of 54 uniformed schoolgirls leap in unison beneath an oncoming rush-hour train at Shinjuku station, that really got people talking. From then on, Sono has ‘For a start it’s around continued to dazzle Japanese film fans with works including Noriko’s Dinner four hours long, an almost Table (2005), a more sober companion suicidal proposition’ piece to this breakthrough film, and Strange Circus (2005), an erotic- grotesque work that takes place in, as the title suggests, a strange circus. This eccentric embrace of radically different subject matters and genres is reflected throughout the entirety of Love Exposure, but even as the film continues its trail picking up film festival prizes and plaudits across the world unabated, Sono is forging ahead into new and even odder territory. After already popping out another film, the surprisingly modest family drama Be Sure to Share, he’s currently shooting his first English-language feature Lords of Chaos, based on the early-90s Norwegian Black Metal scene detailed in Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell’s documentary Until the Light Takes Us, also playing at Raindance, with Jackson Rathbone (aka Jasper of the Twilight films) touted as playing the murderous Varg Vikernes. Now that is strange…
Love Exposure screens at 1.30pm on Sunday 4 October at the Apollo Cinema
28 SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
8;M ; ; =FF; EFK@D< Fe\ f] k_\ ZflekipËj dfjk gifd`e\ek ]\dXc\ Z_\]j# :\c\Yi`kp :_\] D`Z_\cc\ 9\iejk\`e _Xj Zi\Xk\[;\ckXËj9lj`e\jj N@E< %%%=C8K N`e\j\c\Zk`fej]ifdDXjk\iJfdd\c`\i8e[i\X IfY`ejfe [\Ylk\[ fe 9lj`e\jj )''0;\ckX8`iC`e\j#@eZ% BILLY BRAGG’S ATTEMPTS AT HELPING PRISON INMATES REHABILITATE TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD HAVE BEEN DOCUMENTED IN A FASCINATING DOCUMENTARY BY ALAN MILES. PAT GILBERT EXAMINES HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT N EARLY 2007, documentary filmmaker Alan Miles received a phone call from Billy Bragg with a remarkable proposition – he wanted Miles to shoot footage of a visit Billy was making to Guys Marsh prison in Dorset. The songwriter and man once dubbed a ‘one-man Clash’ was delivering the gift of some acoustic guitars to a prison worker called Malcolm Dudley, so inmates in his music class could practise the instrument between lessons. The visit marked the beginning of Bragg’s Jail Guitar Doors campaign, Ithe extraordinary story of which is told in Miles’ gritty and uplifting new film, Breaking Rocks. For the filmmaker, that first trip into Guys Marsh opened his eyes to the reality of life behind bars, and the need for an emphasis on rehabilitation in the prison system. ‘People think prison is an easy ride,’ explains Alan Miles, who juggles filmmaking with his day-job as a firefighter. ‘But when you hear those keys rattling, the banging of doors, the constant process of locking and unlocking… it’s claustrophobic and scary. Inmates can be locked up for 20 hours a day, and when they’re let out Billy Bragg with Mick Jones Billy Bragg with Mick to “associate” together it’s very tense. Getting them involved in music at least gives them an outlet.’ For Billy Bragg, the appeal from Malcolm Dudley – who died suddenly from a heart attack Opposite in 2008 – for help supplying instruments for his workshop struck an instant chord. ‘I understood SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 33 Left to right JGD graduates: Jonny Neesom, Leon Walker, JGD Louise Wells and Theone Coloeman how playing an instrument helps you transcend your surroundings, and how valuable that could be in a prison cell,’ says Billy. ‘Prison has to be about much more than just locking people up – we want people to be able to move on from their situation and reconnect with the outside world, and my hunch was that playing an instrument – particularly a guitar – could help that.’ The edgy subject matter of Breaking Rocks will come as no surprise to admirers of Alan Miles’ work – nor will the film’s emphasis on the redemptive power of music, with its apparent ability to heal social, political and spiritual rifts. Miles’ last film, 2005’s Who Shot The Sheriff?, focused on the story of the late ’70s Rock Against Racism movement and its legacy today in the Love Music, Hate Racism campaign. His cinematic debut, The Last Night London Burned, made three years earlier, documented the poignant events of 9 November 2002, when The Clash’s estranged songwriters Joe Strummer and Mick Jones shared a stage together for the first time in 19 years at a benefit gig in west London for striking firefighters. ‘People think prison is ‘The Strummer and Jones thing was a sheer stroke of luck,’ smiles Alan, who studied part- an easy ride but when time for his degree in Film & TV Production you hear those keys from Hertfordshire University. ‘The Fire Brigades Union heard I made films and invited me to travel rattling, the banging around Britain to document the two-day fire- of doors, the constant fighters’ strike in November 2002. When Mick got onstage with Joe that night I just ran and locking and unlocking got my camera – I wasn’t filming the gig. Then it’s claustrophobic when Joe died a few weeks later I felt moved to make sense of it all in a film.’ and scary’ As the Jail Guitar Doors initiative – the campaign is named after a Clash B-side – gathered momentum throughout 2007 and 2008, Alan Miles was there with his camera to capture the drama. He was privileged, he says, to film interviews with The Clash’s Mick Jones and Topper Headon, and, to complete the set, once arrived in a fire engine outside the home of The Clash’s bassist Paul Simonon to secure his signature on a prison-bound acoustic guitar. The most compelling scenes in the film, however, almost inevitably centre around Bragg’s prison visits, to talk with prison workers, officials and see donated JGD instruments in use. Miles admits that filming this footage was his biggest challenge. ‘I’ve always been very careful,’ he explains. ‘There are some people in prison you can’t film for legal reasons but, also, you have to be aware that some of the inmates might be embarrassed to be inside, or perhaps someone in the audience SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 35 =IFD =IFD D<>8E=FO KF >L@CC K?<?F99@K KF @IFED8E)ËJ =IFD K?<>8D<$:?8E>@E> D8EP? 8M8K8I =IFD EFC8EËJ KF @E: +free!and avatar jennifer’s body poster! on sale now For blockbuster subscription oFFers visit www.totalFilm.com/subscribe TFM160.raindancead1 1 2/9/09 12:08:27 pm Wayne Kramer at Sing Prison, New York May 2009 State, who doesn’t understand the bigger picture of what we’re trying to achieve may not want to see a particular inmate on the screen. ‘In Dartmoor, within ten minutes of me filming, quite a crowd had gathered and were larking about in front of the camera. It brought home just how bored people get in there. Inmates were getting boisterous, screaming and shouting, so then you had to manage the situation and move on quickly.’ As Breaking Rocks pointedly shows, Jail Guitar Doors is already paying dividends, with several former inmates who were given access to guitars through the scheme now making waves as performers. Four of these graduates – Jonny Neesom, Leon Walker, Louise Wells and Theone Coleman – will be playing at the premiere of the film at the Proud Gallery in Camden Town on 1 October. Billy Bragg admits he’s immensely proud of them, and says ‘they’ve got something to tell us that’s seldom heard – so often [prison life] is glamorised in music, rather than performers emphasising the scary reality.’ They will be joined onstage by Mick Jones, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly and Chris Shiflett of Foo Fighters, plus MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, who is spearheading the initiative in the US. ‘I took a whole gaggle of rock luminaries into the notorious Sing Sing prison in New York,’ says Wayne, who himself did time in the late ’70s for cocaine dealing and was eulogised in The Clash’s Jail Guitar Doors song. ‘It was a powerful experience, for both the inmates and the musicians. As a result of that, some of the guys in there have started a band – I just shipped out a couple of old amplifiers to them. I want to organise a prison tour of the whole country next, because if you reach out to just one person, that’s how it starts. ‘Ninety-five per cent of people in prison are one day going to come out and live next door to someone,’ he continues. ‘Do you want them to have been locked up like animals, or rehabilitated? It’s our choice at the end of the day, we pay the taxes.’ Breaking Rocks screens at 6.30pm on Tuesday 6 October at the Proud Galleries, Camden and 4pm on Tuesday 6 October at the Apollo Cinema SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 37 OLY RALFE FIRST CAME TO RAINDANCE IN 2006 WHERE HIS DOC ‘THE BALLAD OF AJ WEBERMAN’, A PORTRAIT OF A CRAZED BOB DYLAN FANATIC, WENT ON TO WIN THE RAINDANCE AWARD AT THE BIFAS. SINCE THEN HE’S BEEN BUSY TOURING WITH THE RALFE BAND AND NOW RETURNS TO THE FESTIVAL WITH A FILM DOCUMENTING THE MIGHTY BOOSH ON TOUR. HE TALKS TO JAMES MERCHANT The Ballad of AJ Weberman resonated with audiences at the festival a few years back. Opposite Were you surprised at the response, and where did you go with it following Raindance? We were definitely both surprised and humbled. James (Bluemel, the film’s co-director) and Oly Ralfe by Ki Price I were really pleased that people seemed to find the same interest in this character as we did. As something of a Dylan fanatic I really wanted to make a film about him, and seeing that it was pretty much impossible to feature Dylan himself it made sense to try and seek out one of his most notorious stalkers. After Raindance and the BIFA win we were lucky enough to screen at Slamdance in the States, which runs alongside Sundance, so it was amazing going over there and seeing how they do it over the other side. It’s played at a number of festivals since then and we’re now thinking of putting it out in some way on DVD, as we’re constantly being asked where it can be seen. I think maybe we can sort something out through the website [www.balladofajweberman.com]. Or maybe sell it at your gigs? What have you been up to with your band? The band’s been great. We released our second album Attic Thieves in 2008 and went on a tour of Europe in support of that, playing at lots of festivals. 38 SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL Including Glastonbury. What was it like playing to crowds of that size? It was amazing as you’d expect, but my favourite thing about festivals is always getting the chance to see other artists’ talents, whether at music or film festivals. No matter how huge an act or film may be everyone seems to judge it on its own merit, so it’s always exciting getting the opportunity to play at these kinds of events. Things can always get a bit crazy, with tour managers and other personnel filling you with wine to the point where you almost forget that you have to go on stage that night, but I suppose it’s all part of the experience. When you were growing up were music and film equal influences? I had a mutual passion for both music and film when I was younger, though of course it was easier back then to pick up a guitar or play the piano than to make a film. I think the first film to really inspire me creatively was Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). It really stuck with me. Your new film about The Mighty Boosh tour is screening at this year’s festival. How did the experience of touring with them compare with your own? The scale, in a word. The size of their shows is just insane; everything is a thousand times bigger than what I’d seen before. And more goth teenage girls, I don’t think we get quite as many of those at our gigs. How did the project come about? I’d known the guys from the Boosh for about ten years; I was an early fan and used to see them at dingy old pubs where they would just show up and perform. It was incredible watching them rise to the point where they’re at now. We’d remained friends and I had been on the show a few times in a cameo role, so after they saw The Ballad of AJ Weberman and liked it, they asked me to shoot their tour as a documentary. It was something that was immediately appealing to me, as I really don’t think that there’s anything like them, someone that fuses comedy with music and a million other things. I really believe that there hasn’t been anything like this since Monty Python. You’ve also completed the musical score for Warp Films’ forthcoming drama Bunny and the Bull. How was it working as part of the creative team on a larger production? It was a real privilege to be asked. I had never done anything like this before, it’s a fully composed score, so it was really interesting being part of a larger creative team, With Weberman it was really just James, myself and then later a few other key crewmembers, but this was a much larger project. So even though your musical career is flourishing you are still keen to be involved with film at the same time? Very much so. I would love the opportunity to make a drama one day. And as your own profile is rising, do you think that having made a film that explored the psyche of a crazed fan you will be more sympathetic to those who may take their love of Oly Ralfe too far? Hahaha, I don’t think anyone has been through my bins just yet. I think that’s the point where you know you’ve really made it. Journey of The Childmen – The Mighty Boosh on Tour screens at 6.30pm on Sunday 4 October at the Apollo Cinema 40 SEVENTEENTH RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL