(Stunning view) Trainspotting, (1996), Danny Boyle (Stunning view) Derwentwater, Keswick festival programme 1 welcome FESTIVAL PROGRAMME I hope you enjoy the 12th Keswick Film contents Festival. As always, there is a fantastic range of films for you to select from as well as opportunities to meet and talk to our guests. Do go and see the short films from Festival Information local film-makers. 03 Welcome 04 Guests This year we have a number of themes 06 Events as well as our usual Best of the Fests. 08 Keswick’s Views We have a Film Four retrospective with a chance to see some iconic films from over Film listings: the years. Agnès Varda’s contribution to 11 Thursday film is now being increasingly recognised. 12 Friday We are showing three of her back 17 Saturday catalogue. We are very lucky to have 24 Sunday a number of Pre-releases, plus a UK premiere. And we have a collection of Details Odd War Films and Special Events. 31 Tickets 32 Sponsors We are immeasurably grateful to all the 34 Film Timeline restaurants, caterers and brewery for 35 Town Map helping make the opening party such an enjoyable feature of the programme. Many thanks go to all those volunteer helpers, sponsors, supporters and partners without whom we would not survive and, of course, the biggest thanks go to you for coming and giving us your support. Ann Martin, Festival Director 2 3 guests KAY MELLOR LANCASTER MILLENNIUM CHOIR (Q&A, A Passionate Woman, Thurs 19:30, Theatre) (Performance, Frankenstein, Sat 18:00, Theatre) As a writer, she began working for Granada Television in the After we failed to invite this fantastic choir to sing their own version 1980s, writing for their hugely popular soap opera Coronation of ‘The Lone Ranger’ last year we just had to have them here for Street. She then wrote for Brookside, Dramarama, and co-creating Frankenstein. Singing a brilliant soundtrack and libretto alongside the long-running children’s drama Children’s Ward with Paul the classic silent film it’s a must see! Led by Andy Whitfield. Abbott. Since then she has written a host of highly-acclaimed and popular television drama serials, including Band of Gold (1995), Playing the Field (1998), Fat Friends (2000), Between the Sheets CRAIG McCALL (2003) and Strictly Confidential (2006). Outside of television, in (Q&A, Cameraman, Sun 13:30, Studio) 1999 she both wrote and directed the feature film Fanny and Elvis, starring Ray Winstone and has written plays as well as television. A new name who has made a wonderful documentary about She was awarded an OBE for her services to drama. Keswick Film Festival’s very first guest, film maker & director Jack Cardiff. The list of names lining up to pay homage to Jack Cardiff takes the film to another level and demonstrates the respect with which Cardiff was held within his profession. Among the venerable JACK GOLD (Q&A, Red Monarch, Sat 13:15, Alhambra) talking heads are the likes of Martin Scorsese, Charlton Heston, Sir John Mills and Kirk Douglas. Gold is a British film and television director and was part of the British Realist Tradition that followed Free Cinema. He is well For more information on our guests visit www.keswickfilmfestival.org known for having directed films such as; The Visit (1959), The National Health (1973), The Naked Civil Servant (1975), Man Friday (1975), The Medusa Touch (1978), Charlie Muffin (1979) aka A Deadly Game (USA), The Chain (1985) and Escape From Sobibor (1987). He has many TV works to his name including directing the final episode of Inspector Morse. 4 5 events OPENING PARTY (Thurs 18:30, Theatre, free entry) The opening party will be held at Theatre by the Lake for pass holders and invited guests to celebrate the opening of the 12th Keswick Film Festival. OSPREY SHORT FILM AWARDS (Sat 11:00, Alhambra, free entry) Established in 2009, The Osprey Short Film Awards are designed to recognise and reward All the shortlisted entries will be screened for both the Open the talented film makers from, or working in, Competition and the Under 18 Competition. The winners will Cumbria. be announced at this event and we hope that our sponsors Rheged will be present. This year’s competitions are judged by There are two categories for entry, the Open selected members of the Film Festival committee plus Carl Hunter Competition, and the Under 18 Competition, and Clare Heaney of Grow Your Own and our very own Accelerate. and each year the categories are judged by guest film makers from the industry. FREE WORKSHOP All shortlisted entries are showcased at the An Introduction to Directing – Creating Performance festival and the winners receive cash prizes to (Sat 10:00–14:00, Theatre, free entry, 19-25 year olds only) help them further their work. Working with a guest director from 104 Films, learn the necessary skills & techniques to successfully direct actors on screen. For details see page 32. To book your place, please email For entry details: www.keswickfilmfestival.org [email protected]. Only 15 places available. 6 7 Our favourite STUNNING VIEWS keswick 01 Derwent Water 04 Latrigg This famous and incredibly picturesque lake is A favourite low hill north of the town with right on our door step, next to the Theatre. fine views. The path is wheel chair friendly. 02 Skiddaw 05 Castlerigg Stone Circle One of 3 mountains over 3,000 ft in the Lakes. One of the most impressive stone circles in Pop up and down before the films start! Britain, only 2 miles from the town centre. 03 Surprise View 06 River Greta On the road to Watendlath, there’s a stop Running through the town, you can stroll part way up with truly breathtaking views. along its banks, or watch it pass you by as Accessible by car and there’s a small car park. you have a cuppa. 8 9 10 th thursday This year’s STUNNING VIEWS film 19:30, Theatre A PASSIONATE WOMAN listings (Special Event) NC. Kay Mellor/Antonia Bird, UK, 2010, 105 mins Thanks to Kay Mellor and High Point films A BBC-TV series broadcast in the Spring of 2010, writer Kay Mellor’s adaptation of her own stage play is now a feature film starring Billie Piper, Sue Johnston and Alun Armstrong, along with newcomer Theo James as the Polish heartthrob that quiet Betty falls for, hopelessly, in 1950’s Leeds. Kay Mellor writes: ‘Mum and I were washing-up one day when she confided in me she’d had an affair before I was born...I realised she’d kept this secret for 30 years and that she still loved this man. I knew these two periods of mum’s life were intrinsically linked and I was compelled to write the play.’ There will be a Q&A after the film with Kay Mellor. (A Passionate Woman, Thurs, 19:30) 10 11 Stunning view #3 FRIDAY 13:00, THEATRE vagabond 13:00, Alhambra JUMP THE GUN Varda’s masterpiece focuses on a dead young woman, Mona, played by Sandrine Bonnaire. (C4) 15. Les Blair, UK, 1997, 124 mins We keep returning to her body frozen in a Thanks to Park Circus ditch between flashbacks of her itinerant life. The subtle style has since moved into the Six very different working-class characters have tangled and mainstream: a striking mixture of documentary- entangled lives in the new, post-apartheid South Africa. Blair style realism, including a voice-over from Varda is a contemporary of Mike Leigh and shares with him an early herself as if she knew the woman, with great background in TV (he directed G F Newman’s seminal Law and formalism employing an acute cinematic eye. Order in 1978) and a taste for part-improvisation as a method ‘What a film this is. Like so many of the greatest of creation. But his work is more overtly political, and Jump the films, it tells us a very specific story, strong and Gun is a penetrating social-realist take on the consequences of unadorned, about a very particular person...- it major political change. ‘Episodic, unfocused and lacking a good is only many days later that we reflect that the ending, Jump the Gun ought to have been a mess. Instead it’s an story of the vagabond could also be the story of absorbing and insightful piece that grips the attention and refuses our lives.’ (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) to let go.’ (Totalfilm.com) (Varda) 15. Agnès Varda, France, 1985, 105 mins Thanks to Cine-Tamaris 12 13 15:30, Studio 16:00, Alhambra FAIL-SAFE THE GLEANERS AND I (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse) (Odd war film) PG. Sidney Lumet, US, 1964, 107 mins. (Varda) U. Agnès Varda, France, 2000, 82 mins Thanks to Park Circus Thanks to Cine-Tamaris Lumet’s serious look at the consequences of a mistaken American Gleaners are the people who snap up unconsidered trifles: the nuclear strike on the Soviet Union was well-reviewed, but its ugly potatoes left behind after the harvest, the discarded fruit and release followed close on the heels of the more anarchic Dr veg of a market. They are also artists. Varda uses Millet’s painting Strangelove so it was dwarfed at the time. Its reputation has of women in a wheat field, as well as modern-day gleaners in the however risen over the years and it was remade in 2000. But the streets of Paris, to produce her own hybrid: part-documentary, black-and-white original still shines, with terrific performances part-artwork, part humorous meditation on ageing (she’s in her 70’s by a non-comic Walter Matthau, and by Henry Fonda as the as she makes the film).