UK Film Review Forum

The 10th Anniversary edition of the ESFF with more short film screenings in Edinburgh, International Film Festival showcases, trophies, cash prizes and awards! We're also excited to be programming showcases of our best films for our 2021 partners: Adriatic Film Festival Budapest Short Film Festival Firenze FilmCorti Krakow Int. Film Festival Etiuda & Anima Cortoglobo Film Festival and Manipulate Theatre & Animation Festival! Max Length 25 minutes, international films welcomed, all genres eligible. Early Bird Deadline: Monday Feb 22nd Regular Deadline: Monday 17 May Late Deadline: Monday June 21st Open for entries online ESFF 2021 ENTRIES

(Release Info London schedule; January 29th, 2021, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-assassins-film-online "Assassins" In 2017, Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of 'North Korea’s' leader Kim Jong-un, was assassinated in the bustling departures hall of 'Malaysia’s International Airport'. The spectacularly brazen murder happened in broad daylight, filmed entirely by security cameras. Footage showed two young women approaching Jong-nam from behind, covering his eyes with their hands, and pressing 'VX', the most lethal nerve gas on earth, into his eyes. He stumbled away and was dead within an hour. But if the murder was extreme, the story that came next was even more bizarre: The two women who killed Jong-nam claimed they had simply been hired to pull a video prank and had no idea what they're really doing. 'The Malaysian' government scoffed, arrested and imprisoned the women and put them on trial for murder, facing execution. But was their outlandish story actually the truth? And would anyone believe them? "Assassins" travels from the sanctums of 'Pyongyang' to the rice fields of 'Indonesia' and 'Vietnam' to the courtrooms of 'Kuala Lumpur' to tell an extraordinary tale of manipulation and subterfuge in the age of social media. A masterful investigation that offers an unprecedented look at the real story of Kim Jong-nam’s murder, "Assassins" is the wildly improbable tale of a calculating dictator, a nefarious plot, a very public murder, and two women fighting for their lives. Siti is represented by 'The Gooi & Azura' law firm. They've a contract with 'The Indonesian' embassy in 'Kuala Lumpur' so any time an 'Indonesian' citizen in 'Malaysia' is on trial facing the death penalty, they get that case. Doan’s situation is a little bit different. 'The Vietnam Bar Association' ended up hiring a team to represent her, three different lawyers in two different firms. Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, the main character in our film who’s her representative, is a big-time lawyer in Malaysia and in death penalty cases specifically. We feel that Siti’s and Doan’s lawyers don’t get enough credit for how brave what they're doing actually is. They're two of the only groups to publicly point the finger at 'North Korea' in a way that 'The Malaysian Government' would not, in the way that other foreign governments would not. It's almost as if nobody wants to take on that assertion, to say clearly that even if these women were the assassins, they're not the masterminds. Siti and Doan are from different countries, they've different backgrounds, they've different educations, it's really chilling, the idea of what might have happened to them. Worldwide almost everyone presumed that Siti and Doan were guilty, that they must have been part of this regime in some way, or that they're paid assassins. No one would ever jump to the conclusion that two people could be tricked into pulling off a major political assassination. Everybody on the ground thought that they're going to be convicted, the odds were so stacked against them. So the more we realized that they might be innocent and the further it got into the trial and the more likely it looked that they're going to be executed, the more heart-wrenching it's. Somewhat morbidly we assumed that because they're going to be convicted and sentenced to death. One of the more heartbreaking parts of the film is when Doan says that the world used to be pink to her and now she won’t trust people in the same way that she did. It’s so sad because that's robbed from her, why shouldn’t she be allowed to be trusting? But this film illustrates how dangerous the world can be if you're too trusting. Every time we follow the women at trial, day in and day out, the women are immediately escorted onto the elevator and up to the courtroom. And one day the elevator isn't there on time so the women have to wait a second and the camera is able to get this single shot of Doan clenching her fists with her handcuffs on. That shot gives us goosebumps because you can just feel what she’s feeling. Her hands are bound behind her and she’s feeling so much emotion and that’s how she expressing it, with these hands that she can’t move as she walks into a courtroom where she listens to a trial that’s not in her native tongue and faces the death penalty. The film creates a real sense of apprehension about whether Siti and Doan will be found guilty and put to death. The nexus of the film is the exploitation of young women. Even though this story goes in the most warped, bizarre, perverse direction, in the end these were women who were exploited because of the circumstances that they're in, who were vulnerable. And that's happening worldwide. Kim Jong-nam was assassinated in February of 2017. To go back and look at history, that was Donald Trump’s first full month in office. Most Americans, remember it as a huge news story the day that it happened, but very quickly it subsided in 'The American' news because so much of the airwaves were dedicated to Trump. The assassination became one of those stories that everyone remembers happened but they don’t remember exactly what happened. They remember bits and pieces, they remember that it was something sensational. People say, weren’t they female assassins? And then they've some crazy version of how the women killed Kim Jong-nam, and those stories are always very elaborate and wrong. We’ve heard poisonous lipstick, we’ve heard darts, we’ve heard guns; everything but what actually happened. We didn’t have that big-picture view of the arc of Kim Jong-un’s rise to power and what role Kim Jong-nam’s assassination played in that rise. There’s a theme to the whole story about vulnerability and the exploitation of young women; it’s almost as if they've to force themselves to be gullible because they’re so desperate to survive and find a way forward. Anna Fifield, who's the Beijing bureau chief of 'The Washington Post', published a book last year called 'The Great Successor', which is an amazing account of Kim Jong-un. We feel like he’s often seen as a caricature, he’s laughed at, Trump calls him 'Rocketman', and Anna’s book really traced his pathway to power in a way that treats him seriously. When we read her book, it's like a missing link from the film. The story feels so bizarre, and so distant that in a way your first thought is that you don’t relate to these women. And then as you dig deeper into it and you realize exactly what happened to them, you recognize that this could have happened to anybody, that this appeal of fame and opportunity and a better life, particularly when you're more vulnerable, could lead you to do things that others may see as ridiculous. When you’re hoping so much to find a better life for yourself and you’re presented with something that seems like it will give you that, of course you’re going to want to do it. And also they've seen it happen successfully to other people around the world, people who had found fame and fortune with social media and Internet opportunities. So it didn’t seem far-fetched that it could happen to them. What’s so interesting about it's that in the end it did bring them fame but for the worst possible reason, for a crime neither of them knew they're committing. To see them toward the end with all of these cameras is just so ironic because in a way that’s what they both wanted but certainly not under those circumstances. That's something that we're always batting around. And there’s going to be no answer. No one will ever know why it was done in such a spectacle. There are various theories around the personality of Kim Jong-un, who loves the world of pop culture and spectacle, that perhaps that world influenced the choice of the way to do it. The one common denominator that most people come to is that this murder was a message to opponents of the Kim regime that you’re never safe no matter where you're, that they can get you at any time. This murder is so brazen and so terrifying, done in a public space, all over camera, by people who might not even be assassins and in a way that would grab the headlines in a sensational way. It’s a warning to all of 'North Korea’s' enemies. Even though there are so many factors that implicate 'North Korea' and specifically Kim Jong-un, we can’t say for sure. Assuming he's responsible, he had so many ways and opportunities to kill Kim Jong-nam and yet he chose to do it this way.

(Release Info London schedule; January 15th, 2020, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-mlk-fbi-film-online "MLK/FBI" "MLK/FBI" is the first film to uncover the extent of 'The FBI's' surveillance and harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on newly discovered and declassified files, utilizing a trove of documents obtained through 'The Freedom Of Information Act' and unsealed by 'The National Archives', as well as revelatory restored footage, the documentary explores the government's history of targeting 'Black' activists, and the contested meaning behind some of our most cherished ideals. Featuring interviews with key cultural figures, including former 'FBI' Director James Comey, "MLK/FBI" tells this astonishing and tragic story with searing relevance to our current moment. This documentary is about 'The Civil Rights Movement' to date. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of the most iconic symbols of civil rights in 'The United States'. In 1987 and 1988 Dr. King went to Chicago to bring 'The Movement" from 'The South' to 'The North'. It's a wake up call to know that Dr. King wasn't always loved and embraced by 'The American' public. It's a continuation of our understanding of the contradictions in terms of how King is looked at today by most Americans, and how he was really looked at back then. One of those interesting things in the film is when Beverly Gage mentions the fact that there was a poll taken after King and Hoover met, the only time they ever met, about who was more popular. Hoover was much more popular than Dr. King. Most people forget that now, because Hoover is looked at as a pariah, but most Americans back then thought he was a hero. We embraced 'The American' notion of what 'The FBI' was all about. Watching 'The FBI' show on television, watching an old movie from 1959, Jimmy Stewart. 'The FBI' were heroes; beating the gangsters, fighting communism. 'The FBI' was so frightened and afraid of this man they're willing to go to any lengths to destroy his reputation. Something people overlook, is that the civil rights movement was not just Dr. King. America always has to create one person who takes us to the mountaintop, when there were lots of foot soldiers in 'The Civil Rights' movement who got us to the ‘64 and ‘65 'Civil Rights Act', 'The Voting Rights Act', Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph Abernathy and Dorothy Cotton and Fannie Lou Hamer, there were so many people, it wasn’t just King. He’s been made into the titular head. There’s more than one way to look at Dr. King, and at 'The Movement'. There's a very important distinction at the end of the film that 'The FBI' wasn't a rogue agency. King was pitted against the entire power structure of the government, in that 'The White House' was privy to the surveillance. But it goes back to this decision that was made in 1992, that in twenty-five years some of the documents collected by 'The Congressional Committee' investigating assassinations would be unsealed. Because they investigated both Kennedy and King's assassinations, when documents are released about one, there's always the other. 'The Congressional Committees' all knew about it. Nobody stopped it. So it was something that went just beyond 'The FBI-Headquarters' and the suspicion of King in the halls of power persisted for so long. You know, Reagan didn’t even want to sign the holiday into law. We know, of course, there were allies in 'The Movement' who might be tipping off 'FBI' agents about King’s plans, but the new discoveries make it plain how coordinated and vast the bureau’s sources were. You get to a point where, on the night he died, for example, they’re not even tapping his phones anymore, they've such good informant coverage. All the same, it’s important to note that, given Hoover’s motives, you can never take anything that's in these files, even once they're declassified, at face value. One must always remember the source; where it comes from and why. What happens to people who are very important in our history is that over time they're revisited. A great example is how we grew up thinking Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Now, we learned over time that Lincoln didn’t initially want to free the slaves. It just became something that was necessary to win 'The Civil War'. In some ways he wasn’t 'The Great Liberator' or 'The Great Emancipator'. But has it really tarnished his reputation? Not really. You know, he's still considered one of the great American presidents. So the fact that we've known this already about Dr. King, that he was not a monogamous man, that he was a human being like everybody else. It's always interesting to learn the true story behind these organizations that we mythically make so heroic. The film looks at the complexity and the accuracy of 'The American' landscape in terms of the federal government. This film is a wakeup call for America, to understand how complicated this notion of being American is, and how complicated 'The FBI' is today.  It’s eerie how similar the crisis over 'Black' safety inequality in the period covered by the film feels today. And 'Civil Rights' issues are once again at the fore of 'The American' consciousness. We're a country that's always constantly struggling with the issues of race, because this country is founded on the backs of slaves. We've what we call a tipping point and a reckoning in America with Trump in office, with 'The Black Lives Matter' movement and the protests after the murder of George Floyd and the horrific murders that are taking place in this country. So it's extremely timely. But this film will always be timely, because America and the issues of race never leave. 'Black' men being murdered in the streets of America, by the police, is endemic. It happens every damn day. The work of administrations is to say there's chaos in the streets, get your weapons out because America is going to fall apart, it happens not only in 'The Republican' administrations, but it happens in 'Democratic' administrations. This is not unusual, but it's like a huge avalanche now.  What Dr. King went through and what America's going through today is so connected. The importance of protesting speaks directly to what's happening in the streets of America today. Because this is America, quite honestly, and unless we've a real revolution, it's going to be the same cycle over and over and over again. Above all, it's what this story tells us about the American character. Especially right now.