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(Release Info London schedule; February 15th, 2020, Curzon Soho, 99 Shaftesbury Ave, Soho, London W1D 5DY, United Kingdom, 9:00 PM) https://www.curzoncinemas.com/soho/film-info/greed "Greed" "Greed" tells the story of self-made 'British' billionaire Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan), whose retail empire is in crisis. For 30 years he has ruled the world of retail fashion, bringing the high street to the catwalk and the catwalk to the high street, but after a damaging public inquiry, his image is tarnished. To save his reputation, he decides to bounce back with a highly publicized and extravagant party celebrating his '60th' birthday on 'The Greek Island Of Mykonos'. A satire on the grotesque inequality of wealth in the fashion industry, the film sees McCreadie’s rise and fall through the eyes of his biographer, Nick (David Mitchell). The film opens in Mykonos, Greece, where Richard McCreadie is building a wooden 'Roman Amphitheatre' for the amusement of his guests, who are flying in from all over the world. McCreadie’s party is always intended to be 'Roman'-themed. It’s actually quite similar to the kind of parties that people like Philip Green have always thrown. These ostentatious displays of wealth. In fact, in a way, you might say that someone like Philip Green is being more honest than other people who try to present themselves as a more touchy-feely version of capitalism, the Richard Branson, approach to capitalism. Having a woolly jumper and a beard makes him seem very friendly, but, really, it’s the same thing, just different clothes. So the decadence of 'The Roman Empire' seems to be a good metaphor for the decadence of 'The Modern Age'. And that parallel is drawn unwittingly by the character of Richard McCreadie. As the party draws nearer, McCreadie and his son Finn (Asa Butterfield) trade quotes from the 2000 Ridley Scott film "Gladiator", about a Roman general who wreaks his revenge on the corrupt emperor who sold him into slavery. It’s a very good metaphor, because it’s celebrating the idea of someone who can only measure success in a very macho, aggressive, testosterone-fuelled way. It’s a very Donald Trump-like rationale, really, it’s a very unambiguous, unsophisticated, but very popular way of thinking about success. This also explains the reasoning for McCreadie hosting what he thinks is the most extravagant party of the season. One theme of the film is the gap between the lives of the women making clothes for McCreadie’s brands and the lifestyle that can be bought by the billions of profits from their labor. So it has to be a lavish party, and we feel that a 'Roman'-themed party, with McCreadie cast as a 'Roman Emperor', As the guests start filing in for the festivities, we see that McCreadie is suddenly concerned by the arrival of some Syrian refugees in the coastline where his 'Roman Amphitheatre' is being built. In fact, McCreadie is not concerned at all by their plight. Instead, he worries that the great and good will have their evening spoiled by the temporary camp that’s been set up next door. McCreadie’s frantic obsession with pandering to his celebrity guests offered a rich seam of satire. One of the themes of the film is the way business billionaires like McCreadie use celebrities to try to make themselves glamorous, and part of the narrative of the film is that he's trying to get these celebrities, who’ve always come to his parties in the past, to come to his latest party. Because, having had his businesses investigated, and, having been criticized in the press, he’s trying to restore his reputation, so he thinks that getting all these celebrities to come along will restore his image and his brand. Which means part of the narrative is; is that strategy going to work? And will it help him reinvent himself as king of the high street? One aspect of the world of fashion that McCreadie embodies is the way it uses celebrity and fame to make their world seem glamorous, hence the use of celebrities to endorse lines of fashion in their shops. People can buy a £10 dress and somehow feel connected to Kate Moss or Beyoncé. It’s a way of making your business grow. And equally connected to that's the fact that rich people like to be seen with glamorous people, so the party is really a kind of marketing exercise, in the hope that McCreadie’s brand will become successful again, which is a way a lot of big businesses work these days. Let’s face it, celebrities, by their very nature, have plenty of money, but they’re quite happy to get paid to add a little glamor to clothes being made by people with very little money. They’ll still fly off to a free party on someone’s yacht, even though they’ve got $50m in the bank. The people we've in the film understand that's not a very positive image of someone like Richard McCreadie, they’re people who are happy to make fun of themselves and don’t mind sending themselves up. Aside from the bona fide celebrities, there's also a joke about the use of star lookalikes to pad out the A-list guest quota. The party on Mykonos is very surreal. It's surreal anyway to be doing a night shoot with a bunch of people wearing togas, in the sand. But it's also surreal because as well as the actors we've these amazingly fun guest cameos, people like Stephen Fry, Fatboy Slim and Pixie Lott. The film comes up with the character of Richard 'Greedy' McCreadie, a self-made man whose reputation takes a dramatic tumble just as he prepares to celebrate his '60th' birthday with a highly publicized toga party in Greece. Richard McCreadie is a complex character. It's a film about a larger-than-life businessman. He's someone who ostensibly seems quite odious, you've to mitigate that, you've to make the character funny, then that sugars the pill somewhat. So the audience is entertained by him while being repelled by him at the same time. He has his flaws, but he also has some good qualities as well. The film has this underlying message, which is a satire on the way that inequality has grown and grown over the last 30 years, in a way that McCreadie has definitely benefitted from. It's a film about Richard McCreadie’s career, and the ways in which he's a man of his times, from his dodgy, cheap beginnings in the ’80s with the whole rise of free-market 'Thatcherism' and globalization, without any great skills; just a determination to get rich. The film engages with that career right from the very moment his empire is starting to crumble. He has these overly white teeth made, which is a predilection of the super rich, they think that they look great with a permanent tan and ridiculously white teeth. They think, because they’re surrounded by 'yes' men, it makes them look really cool. But it just makes them look like a dick, and that’s funny. McCreadie wears well-tailored clothes, but they aren't too cool, just a bit unselfconsciously nouveau riche. There’s a sort of swagger to the way he walks. There’s a certain 'Estuary English' quality that he has, but he’s not too much of a barrow boy. He’s more of a public schoolboy who’s tried to rough himself up a bit because it makes him feel a bit 'Jack The Lad'. He likes to feel a bit street smart. And he's quite street smart; he’s a wheeler-dealer. Needless to say, Richard McCreadie is also a very funny man, and he wields his sharp tongue like a razor. He certainly has a certain amount of wit. Someone like, for example, Philip Green does have a certain amount of wit, in his own bombastic way. You could say, if you’re being kind, that he has a certain kind of charisma that allows him a certain licence, for a certain period, to behave in a way that most people would consider unacceptable. Because there’s certainly an arrogance there, which is exposed at 'The Select Committee' meetings. The film uses the likes of Philip Green to raise the subject of this kind of exploitative slave labor that makes people rich. People involved in this world, they sleep like babies. It doesn’t bother them. Richard McCreadie is like that, the only kind of success he knows is material success. There’s a spiritual bone in his body. Richard McCreadie isn’t necessarily the bad guy, he’s just a larger-than-life example of what everyone does, which is making clothes as cheaply as possible and selling them for as much as possible, and one way to do that's to make the clothes in Cambodia or Bangladesh. It just struck us as a rich and quite simple way of looking at what's quite a complex subject, because you’re seeing it through the eyes of a billionaire who’s very hands on and who has built his business through the ’80s, ’90s and into the ’00s. In a way, Richard McCreadie represents that kind of era; how the markets work, how the world has changed, how capitalism has changed, how globalization has changed the world, and so on. McCreadie is someone who could bring together quite large, different strands of how the world has changed in the last 30 years; he’s a man of his time. And one of the attractions is that you could draw together various different strands, whether it’s women workers in Sri Lanka, or dodgy business deals, or leveraged takeovers on 'The British High Street', from the point of view of one fictional character. He's quite a colourful character for the big screen. As preparations get underway for Richard McCreadie’s party, "Greed" tells us the backstory of the billionaire entrepreneur, and does so through the character of Nick (David Mitchell), a journalist who's writing McCreadie’s biography. Nick is a kind of everyman, and he represents ‘us’, whether that’s ‘us’ in the audience or even ‘us’ as in the people who are making the film. He’s someone who's sympathetic. He's a sort of whoring himself around and has to write the adulatory biography of a terrible man. Nick is someone who isn’t morally strong. He’s not the good guy taking down the bad guy, he’s just trying to write the story of Richard McCreadie, and he’s in an ambiguous position. He’s on McCreadie’s side, and he’s being paid by him, but at the same time he doesn’t always approve of his character or his business methods. So he’s in the same position as the audience, and he sort of draws us through the story. It's clever that he’s written not as a nasty man, but as someone who’s as morally ambiguous as we all are. We can sit in judgement on this economic system, but we also have to participate in it, and Nick taking the money to write the book is an example of that. You can see why he does it and you don’t dislike him for doing it, but he dislikes himself for doing it. So that’s a good, morally ambiguous way in, rather than seeing the film through the eyes of a virtue-signalling, perfect person. He's a person who's really quite ethical but who has his morality compromised and feels bad about it. He represents a certain kind of complicity. He feels a little bit out of it and he tries to be witty, but he’s also a bit of a nerd. So that’s what he contributes vocally, but mainly he’s watching and absorbing and becoming troubled by it, because throughout the film he sees it all. So the acting challenge is to have a good reactive face without overdoing it, but also without just looking vacant. Margaret (Shirley Henderson) is McCreadie’s mother. A lot of that character is really just Margaret coming in and inventing stuff, but it's a lot of reading around the careers of successful men, especially successful men in the retail fashion business, and it seems that, often, a strong mother is a factor that connected them. Margaret as a tougher, matriarchal version of Richard, someone who's all family, about getting on, about making money. Richard is made in her image, in a way. Samantha (Isla Fisher) is McCreadie’s ex-wife. Like the mother, Samantha, the ex-wife, is also strong, at least as strong as, if not stronger than, the Richard character. Samantha and Richard are divorced, but we’re one of those couples that probably should have stayed married. We've a great relationship. Partly because they're cut from the same cloth, so to speak. Samantha is very blasé about her wealth. She’s the kind of person who’s proud of being greedy, who sees nothing wrong with being able to exploit a system and enjoys very much the spoils of luxury. She’s essentially a deeply unlikable character. It seems that not all wives of billionaires live in the shadow of their husband’s success; some of them have thriving careers of their own and bring in a hefty fortune themselves. She's the kind of girl who likes to sit on a beach on a private island, Samantha’s also someone who’s very bright, who enjoys the sport of making money, who’s interested in numbers and being rich. So that makes her a much more interesting character than just being the trophy wife. She's more interested in the exterior and how she appears than she's with what’s going on inside. She’s great company, she’s funny and she’s provocative; in the very best way. It’s very interesting, because it’s not like she’s the long-suffering ex-wife. She loves Richard, even though they’ve broken up, and he loves her. That’s a very human quality. Samantha is a very believable, real character, and actually, on a personal level, really quite likeable. That’s one thing we've noticed when we've interacted with super-rich people; they can be great fun. But just because someone’s fun, it doesn’t mean they’re not nefarious or even wicked. Presenting a more human side to McCreadie’s empire is Amanda (Dinita Gohil). She’s basically his 'PA', his right-hand woman, and she’s involved in the party planning. She uses to work for McCreadie back in one of his shops, so she started off in retail and has found herself working in the hospitality side of things for this big party that he’s having. Amanda is really hard-working, and, initially, she seems quite unassuming, but she surprises us, because, actually there’s a lot more that’s gone on in her life than we initially realized. This involves the revelation that Amanda has family involved in the overseas rag trade. We find out that Amanda’s mother used to work in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, and that there was a fire there, much like, for example, 'The Rana Plaza' fire, which was a particularly devastating fire that happened in Bangladesh in 2013, at a garment factory there. One aspect of this film that's always going to be technically challenging is how to somehow bring all these different strands together. We've to look at Richard’s early school days, then his early business career, then how he amassed a fortune and then how he avoided paying tax on that fortune, and how he managed to buy huge businesses when he didn’t have that much cash himself. The first mechanism to hold it together is a big party to salvage his reputation. The film goes backwards and forwards to look at all these different aspects of McCreadie’s career. The film needs a character that draws these strands together. A connection between the women who are making clothes for McCreadie’s business empire in Sri Lanka, who are getting paid $4 a day, and the lavish party that McCreadie, who’s made his billions from those clothes, is throwing in Mykonos. So the main character that does that's Amanda, because her mother was a worker in Sri Lanka and her uncle works in the garment trade in Leicester. She uses to work for McCreadie’s retail empire, and now she works for the company that’s putting on the party. She crosses all the different strands of the film. She's most difficult character in the film. Although "Greed" begins with a somewhat light, irreverent tone the film takes a darker turn in the final third, when Richard McCreadie suddenly starts to become accountable to the people around him. There’s a morality tale aspect to it, in a way that hasn’t happened, well, so far, in reality. It’s wish fulfilment: you reap what you sow, what goes around comes around, call it what you like. It’s surprising, it’s shocking, it’s nasty, but you don’t see it coming and you didn’t know it's going to happen before it happened. The origins of "Greed" is briefly diverted to the subject of Philip Green, once the billionaire owner of 'The Arcadia Group', owners of 'Top Shop', 'Miss Selfridge', 'Dorothy Perkins' and many more, who had been called before a 'Parliamentary Select Committee' about the collapse of one of it's biggest brands; 'The British High Street Fixture BHS'. There are similarities between Richard McCreadie and Philip Green, "Greed" should not be seen as a thinly veiled attack on one specific individual. In general, the subject of the film is inequality, the way in which free market fundamentalism has worked over the last 30 years. We’ve seen films before in the area, so it’s not as though we're thinking of this as a new area. What's slightly unusual, though, is that, despite the seriousness of the subject matter, the film uses humour to get his message across. Comedy is always a tricky term. It's entertaining, and there are funny bits in it. But when we're trying to persuade people to give us money for a film and we've to give them an idea of the film, the references we give them are films like "The Big Short", which has comedy actors in it but is not a comedy at all, and other films about business, you could say it’s like a jokey version of 'Citizen Kane', looking back on someone’s career, or 'The Social Network'. All our reference points are about how to deal with complex business issues through films that take a certain character as a central point. There's never a reference to comedy films we thought it's going to be like. Prices are constantly driven down and the only way to change that's to make rules and regulations that make a fairer system. People are just trying to get by, trying to survive, and yet they’re seeing the profits from their labor being siphoned off into billionaires’ bank accounts, where it gets parked in offshore tax havens while they've their lavish parties. Even people in the fashion industry would like the system to change, but, for now, they all work within the system. And they've to, because that’s how the system works. There’s a definite point of view, and it’s provocative. Some people will love it, some people will hate it, a few people will be provoked into thinking about stuff that they ordinarily wouldn’t think about. You believe in karma? Some people don’t reap what they sow. That’s the important thing about injustice in the world: some people behave terribly, and appallingly, and they get away with it because they’ve got good 'PR'. The thing is, success breeds success. It doesn’t matter how much of a bastard you are, if you’ve got lots of money you can make it seem like you’re not a bastard, even though you're. You can control how the argument is framed, and everything that goes to make you seem great and have great branding. 'PR' helps accentuate all the positive stuff you do, and turn the volume down on all the terrible stuff you do. There are a lot of people like that out there. People who are quite visible, but who manage their own image very well, because they've good 'PR'. They've a support network of people around them who can present them in exactly the way they want to be presented. It’s about the human cost of fashion, and we need to make more informed choices when we buy our next pair of shoes. You don’t want your shopping sprees to be moral decisions, and they shouldn’t have to be. You should be able to go shopping while knowing about the conditions that the people who made your garment are working under, how much they’re being paid, and how ethical the clothes are themselves. "Greed" isn’t just a film about the exploitation of 'Third World' labor, there are just as many victims of this ruthless brand of capitalism to be found working on the high streets of major cities, especially in 'The UK'. There are all those zero-hours contracts to think about. But we feel that there are so many other issues, even beyond the whole 'Brexit' thing, that are obfuscating more important things that need to be talked about. There are lots of issues being discussed, quite rightly. But the biggest issue confronting society is the one that is least talked about, and that's the disparity between the rich and the poor. It’s the elephant in the room. When the super-rich get together and discuss how they can solve the ills of the world, they present themselves as wanting to help mankind. But in actual fact they're partly responsible for the very injustices that they're claiming to want to help resolve. But one of the things that all these people never want to talk about, the last taboo, is taxation. No one wants to talk about that. Everyone will throw a few sovereigns at a worthy cause, for the ‘optics’. But no one will really make a commitment. These people squirrel away vast, vast reserves in offshore tax havens, and then they throw a few coins at those they regard as being needy. Everyone thinks they’re really generous people, but it’s a smokescreen. Corporations do it. Big petrol chemical companies will build a couple of schools in some African country and then say, look how nice we're, look how kind we're, then maybe throw a few coins at some environmental thing. But it’s all bullshit. People have to understand more fully the nature of the economic system they’re in can only be a good thing. Our governments in the west have become increasingly poor at making corporate power act in society’s interests, and we've been sold a line by too many governments that regulating them is impossible, that corporate power is greater than governmental power. And that’s horseshit. You only have to look at the credit crunch. The corporate power was totally enfeebled by an economic accident, and it took governmental power to save them. Governments have a nature of power that corporations don’t, and if those governments are acting democratically, they should be able to control the corporations and make them behave socially responsibly. They've that power, but only if we, as citizens, are more vigilant in who we vote for and why. It’s not going to be a quick fix or an easy change, but the more people are informed about what corporations do, and that they’re not all about the charities that they give to or any of that bullshit, what they’re doing is avoiding tax and paying a pittance to people in slum conditions, then maybe the political messages that say, we would like to change that, will gain more traction. It’s a way of looking at a lot of things that have shaped the last 30 years in a way that's wrong. Free-market capitalism and the whole ‘80s 'Wall Street' ethos of "Greed" is good. We’ve come to the stage, after 30 years of that kind of capitalism, where there are more and more people who would like to see a fairer world, a greener world. We throw away a huge amount of clothes because we can buy them again so cheaply. That era is coming to an end, and this film is definitely looking back at the end of an era. But is it the fall of the whole empire? About waste, and about whether the fashion industry is going to address these issues. The fashion industry does a lot for 'AIDS' charities and all the rest of it. But if you ask them how much they exploit people in the developing world, they’ll suddenly go all tongue-tied, because that’s their 'Achilles' heel. This film opens up a discussion about how we want to live our lives, and how much we need to consume. There have been certain successes in that area we all know plastic bags are bad now, and that plastic straws are bad. Well, let’s broaden out that discussion and talk about the voracious consumption in the clothing industry. We talk about waste, which is a good thing, environmentally, but we don’t talk about exploitation. And even if we do, it’s marginalized. Rich people are happy to talk about how green they're, but they’re not happy to talk about how much they pay their most poorly paid employees. We don’t have to accept conventional ways of thinking, perhaps we need to be more radical about how we address these things. The media always says, being radical. Oh no, that’s for lunatics. What we've to do is carry on as we're and just change things a tiny little bit, and then everything will be fine. No, that’s not good enough. You've to unleash the lions.

Our 10th anniversary special edition! Featuring the best short films of 2020 at international film festivals, AND Presenting awards and trophies for the best films selected by our juries Regular Deadline: May 22nd 2020 This year, we're also excited to be programming films and film partnerships with our 2020 partners: Firenze FilmCorti - Florence Budapest Short Film Festival Manipulate Theatre & Animation Festival The Adriatic Film Festival Sardinia Film Festival Balkans Beyond Borders Film Festival https://www.edinburghshortfilmfestival.com/call-for-entries-filmmakers/

(Release Info London schedule; February 28th, 2020, Picturehouse Central, Piccadilly Circus, Corner of Great Windmill Street and, Shaftesbury Ave, London W1D 7DH, United Kingdom, 12:55 15:45 18:35 21:25) https://film.list.co.uk/listing/1517549-true-history-of-the-kelly-gang/ "True History Of The Kelly Gang" Legendary outlaw Ned Kelly (George MacKay) leads a band of rebel warriors to wreak havoc on their oppressors in this gritty and veracious western thriller. Set amidst the grueling badlands of 19th-century Australia, legendary outlaw Ned Kelly (Orlando Schwerdt) grows up under the bloody and uncompromising rule of 'The English'. Food is scarce, survival is filled with daily strife, and every opportunity the colonizers take to make their victims feel powerless is inflicted with searing brutality. In a desperate attempt to prime him for rebellion, Ned Kelly’s mother Ellie (Essie Davis), sells him off into the hands of the notorious bushranger Harry Power (Russel Crowe), where the young bandit discovers he comes from a line of warriors called 'The Sons Of Sieve'. Fueled by his roots and a voracious appetite for revenge, Ned Kelly leads an anarchist army to wreak havoc on their oppressors in one of the most audacious attacks the country has ever seen. Based on the novel by Peter Carey, "True History Of The Kelly Gang" brings a revolutionary twist to an iconic piece of folklore. The film spans two periods of Ned Kelly’s life. Ned Kelly wants to be a better man and wants to be great. Also in the book you could feel and understand that Ned Kelly is a writer, he isn't’t just some kind of ruffian and that there's something incredibly sophisticated about him. He has enormous potential, and there's a creative side to him that could have easily seen him as our 'Prime Minister' as opposed to our most famous bushranger. It's also important to be able to transform that innocence to the eventual violent, brutal and unforgiving man. It's not going to be 'Mad Max'. It’s not going to be 'Walkabout'. It’s not going to be 'Connor McGregor'. It’s just going to be like the tiniest flicks of colours, and then you just make what you want. We’ll all make what we want. Ned Kelly has become something to a culture, and has a meaning and an identity that's tied up in the folklore surrounding him. Joe Byrne (Sean Keenan) has a kind of beautiful, charming, loyal, very Australian beauty about him that seemed very timeless. Joe is of 'Irish' background and was mistreated by 'The English'. Byrne has grown up next to a community of 'Cantonese' miners and is subsequently fluent in 'Cantonese' and an opiate addict. It’s assumes in the film that he meets Ned in prison, their shared cultural backgrounds initiating a bond. Meeting Ned is a big turning point for Joe. Joe sees something in this man that he’d seen in a lot of others around him. And while he’s an addict, he sees things really clearly. He’s a bit of a fatalist and a nihilist, while Ned is so full of hope and has these massive dreams. Joe sees that in him and is attracted to the purity of that. Dan (Earl Cave) is Ned's brother. They're almost symbiotic. They've taught each other a lot, stole horses together, got tattoos together and had to grow up in this sort of tough atmosphere with everyone hating them. The brothers that Ned and Dan would have been, if Ned didn’t go to prison. Steve (Louis Hewison) is a quiet reticent guy, and then you hear stories from the family who say they use to call him the demon when he was young. He brings out both those sides, the gentle hippie and then the side that becomes at home in a film like 'Easy Rider. The character of Ellen Kelly is complex, a mother but also a survivor. She’s somebody who’s deeply yoked to her family and has a strong sense of family. But there’s a duality in her, she’ll do anything to survive, including using her own children to do that. Ellen is such a firecracker. She’s a fantastic mother but she's a wildebeest and she has so many elements and angles to her, she’s all about life and all about death. And she loves her children and, particularly, her sons, fiercely but she's a survivor and she’ll do anything to survive. Their relationship is incredibly powerful, controlling and manipulative but a deeply loving relationship, that the mother has for her boy. It happens a lot when suddenly there are really ambitious children who want to travel or have huge ambitions, that there can be a tendency for that to be fearful for parents, to want to kind of bring those ambitions back to them for fear of losing them. That becomes a kind of potent motivation to lead to the end of the film and understand the context of this massacre and siege at the end of the film. Young Ned is somebody who yearns for something else to kind of break away from the destiny that’s mapped out for them, of a future of crime and prison; it’s a really familiar path for 'The Irish' in Australia in that period. In that story is a kind of sweetness that you’re looking for but you’re also looking for somebody who has that edge and has the possibility of what they’re going to become. Next to 12-year-old Ned it needs an authority. Harry Power is an infamous bushranger. He's the greatest bush ranger in Australia. In the film Harry Power says to little Ned 'always make sure you’re the author of your own story because 'The English' will always take it and fuck it up' and that sort ingrains in little Ned that words matter and writing matters and documentation matters. You also need a sense that he's no longer Harry Power anymore and that he's getting towards the end and that there's a kind of tragedy in that; it's feels soppy. As mentors go he’s a dangerous one but there's actually a lot of love in Harry and a lot of the things that he’s passing on to Ned are about the reality of the world. When we reach older Ned’s life, two seminal characters in his trajectory are Constable Fitzpatrick (Nicholas Hoult) and Mary Hearn (Thomas McKenzie). Fitzpatrick is a man who’s been taken away from this sophisticated land of 'United Kingdom', arriving in Australia and sort of looking around and thinking ‘my god, where am I going to get my brandy'. He's mischievous and perverse. Fitzpatrick always has attraction to Ned, which is something forbidden. He has to be a certain sort of class and authority and Ned represented to him a kind of wildness, masculinity, a rebellion and spirit that he's attracted to. Ned is curious of Fitzpatrick and there's a sophistication he admires. Fitzpatrick actually really wanting to be friends with Ned and being intrigued by that family, their closeness and environment and what they're, and also probably being quite lonely. It's through Fitzpatrick that Ned meets Mary Hearn. Mary provides moments of a sort of clarity, an if only Ned would just leave with Mary moment in the unfolding of what's heading sharply towards tragedy. Bad characters and good characters are sharing the same bed in those times. What's happening then and the difference between cops and robbers is very thin. There's genocide happening in Australia and crimes of enormous proportions committed by authority so the line of what's good and what's right is obviously a very different conversation to what it's to now. An incredible piece of landscape called 'The Winton Wetlands' are the playground for 'Kelly Selection'. It's a meeting site where hundreds of Aboriginal peoples have met and that in Kelly’s time it would have been a supermarket, providing shelter, food and water. It has a varied history environmentally, having been damned, then dried up and subsequently all the trees started dying, although it's now also an amazing habitat for flora and fauna. While currently under restoration, it presents a gothic and scarred backdrop for 'The Kellys’ home. The landscapes the characters go through are incredibly varied in the film. There's something about going up and seeing Marysville, and 'The Gang' would’ve ridden through there, the landscape is extraordinary now after the fires, and there's a tragedy about that place and a beauty about it, that seemed to encapsulate this kind of story. Australia in the 70’s and 80’s, especially on men, is really similar to the silhouette in the 1870’s. It's taking a favourite period in Australian music, and art, and fashion and combining it with the 1870’s and seeing where that sweet spot hit. That whole kind of era becomes a massive influence for the gang. You can look at them and go it’s just a punch of skaters or it’s just a young kind of punk band just starting out. All of the references are of a particular period of Australian music and art, that's extremely exciting and fortunately the four of them are really attracted to those references There's a timelessness in Peter Carey’s novel as being the attraction to the story but also the springboard for not just the visual and character references, but the wider themes that can be explored in "True History Of The Kelly Gang". The novel is the quintessential take on the overgrown myth that Ned Kelly is to this country. It’s brutal. It’s visceral. There’s kind of a darkness in the violence to it but there’s also a very strong emotional through-line that’s really clear in the book, between that journey from boy to man. Ned’s been very much portrayed in the past as a hero, and the film is interested in characters on the wrong side of the law in terms of how they got there and why. A huge part of this film is about what's true and what's not and your history and your story and what you've done in your life can be easily stolen from you and recreated. The film shows Kelly as he was in this story, both the good and the bad, and let others decide. Some people will still call him a hero, and some people will still call him a cop killer, and that’s not for us to say. You don’t really know what’s said between those walls, between those men, so you've to invent. There's been a lot in the media about terrorism and people being persecuted because of their culture and their background; where they’re from. And when you put up with that persecution long enough, you decide that that’s enough and you decide to burn the world. On the flip side of the relevance to the current world, the film points to the danger of viewing characters with today’s societal worldview.

(Release Info London schedule; March 8th, 2020, Curzon Richmond, 3 Water Ln, Richmond TW9 1TJ, United Kingdom, 11:00am) https://www.curzoncinemas.com/film-info/the-truth "The Truth" Fabienne (Catherine Deneuve) is a much loved, larger-than-life icon of French cinema. She reigns amongst men who love and admire her. She despites her momentary lapses in memory, remains a venerable force to be reckoned with. When she publishes her memoirs, her screenwriter daughter Lumir (Juliette Binoche) returns from New York to Paris with her struggling actor husband Hank (Ethan Hawke) and their inquisitive young daughter Charlotte (Clémentine Grenier); for the occasion, with her in tow. A sharp and funny battle of wits ensues between the mother-daughter duo, as Lumir takes issue with Fabienne's rose-colored version of the past. It comes as no surprise to Lumir that everything in her grand childhood home still revolves around her mother, and as she begins to read Fabienne’s book it becomes clear it’s riddled with omissions and embellishments, especially with regard to her relationship with the great artistic rival of her past, Sarah Mondavan (Manon Clavel). The reunion between mother and daughter will quickly turn to confrontation: truths will be told, accounts settled, loves and resentments confessed. Fabienne herself has no time for explanations and small talk; she’s preparing for her next film, a science-fiction drama. Reflected cleverly by Fabienne's latest role in a sci-fi drama, their strained relationship takes a poignant journey toward possible reconciliation. When Fabienne’s long-suffering assistant unexpectedly quits, she and Lumir are reluctantly forced into an awkward working relationship, with Lumir revisiting the same film studios where she spent countless hours as a child. Fabienne is shooting her newest film, "Memories of My Mother", and the on-screen and on-set worlds become increasingly and amusingly intertwined in this shrewd exploration of reality and fiction, family and forgiveness. As the on and off-set worlds begin to amusingly, and movingly, intertwine, suppressed emotions can no longer be kept in check. Fabienne’s projects act as a catalyst, forcing the women to face long-buried, painful truths, a confrontation that will either bring them closer or rupture their relationship completely. The film tells the story of a cinema actress and her daughter who gave up her dreams of becoming an actress. The screenplay is based on a script about a night in the dressing room of a theatre actress coming to the end of her career. Fabienne is cheerful, adorable and deliciously mischievous. Lumir creates the initial spark. The story takes place in autumn to superimpose what the heroine goes through at the end of her life onto the landscapes of Paris at the end of summer. People will see how the greens of the garden change subtly as winter approaches, accompanying the relationship between mother and daughter and colouring this moment of their lives. If a fresh breeze of cheerfulness and freedom blows through "The Truth", even though it takes place mainly inside a family home, it’s certainly because Fabienne and Lumir charm and kindness irradiate the film from beginning to end. The young Charlotte reveals a personality and a presence full of life. As children often do in films, the little girl watches philosophically the confrontation between these slightly overwhelmed men and these women trapped in their past. It's a film that's not only serious but also light-hearted, where drama and comedy coexist, as they do in real life. The chemistry between Fabienne, Lumir and the amused gaze of the child succeed in setting the right tone. For his first feature set outside Japan, Kore-eda lends this hugely enjoyable film the observant, tender eye audiences have come to cherish to a 'Francophile’s' dream project. "The Truth" is a very special cinema experience: a gentle, sly and moving exploration of reality and fiction, family, performance, and the great spectacle of life. The film is a love letter to mothers and daughters everywhere. Charming, bold, and imbued with endless emotional insight, "The Truth" offers a relatable look at human relationships. It's a powerful and emotional story of family conflicts and family dynamics. What makes a family a family? Truth or lies? And how would you choose between a cruel truth and a kind lie? These are the questions we never stopped asking ourselves. Everyone who sees it will take the opportunity to find his or her own answers. Ultimately this is a warm and quietly moving story that jumbles acting and real life; truth and fiction. If "Shoplifters" is a story about strangers pretending to be relatives, this is a story about relatives pretending to be strangers.

(Release Info London schedule; March 7th, 2020, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Rd, South Bank, London SE1, United Kingdom, 18:15 PM) https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp (Release Info UK schedule; March 8th, 2020, Curzon Canterbury, Westgate Hall Rd, Canterbury CT1 2BT, United Kingdom, 1:30 PM) https://www.curzoncinemas.com/canterbury/film-info/radioactive "Radioactive" From the 1870s through to modern day, "Radioactive" is a journey through Marie Curie’s (Rosamund Pike) enduring legacies, her passionate partnerships, scientific breakthroughs, and the consequences that follow. In late '19th Century' Paris, Marie met fellow scientist Pierre Curie (Sam Riley). The pair went on to marry, raised two daughters and changed the face of science forever by their discovery of radioactivity. In 1903, the pair jointly won 'The Nobel Prize' in physics for their discovery, making Marie the first woman to win the esteemed prize. After the death of her beloved Pierre, Marie’s commitment to science remained unwavering and her work went on to win her a second 'Nobel Prize', taking with it the responsibility for discoveries which changed the world. This is a bold, visionary depiction of a legacy of an extraordinary life, the transformative effects and ensuing fallout of the Curie’s work and an exploration of how this impacted the defining moments of 'The 20th Century'. "Radioactive" is a cutting-edge historical drama which delves deeply into Marie Curie’s life and the aftermath of her discoveries. The film has three historical eras; 1893-1906 which forms the main part of the story; 1906-1911/12 after Pierre's fatal accident; and finally 1914 to Marie's death in 1934. The film starts in 1934 with the aged Marie Curie and then goes in two directions, back through her life and from the beginning of her life forward, in an overlapping narrative. Usually a film takes place in one place or period and there’s one language, but here we’re dealing with so many different languages, even 'The French' content spans a 50-year timespan. She arrives in Paris from Poland as Maria Skłodowska and reinvents herself as Marie Curie. 1886 is an era of huge discovery, whereas now we live in a world of innovation where we just enhance the discoveries that we already have. It's an extremely exciting time and you can see it in the way the women are received. When she arrives in Paris and enrolls at 'The Sorbonne', she's one of only 23 women in a science faculty of 4,000. At the time, in France, the word étudiante, the feminine version of 'The French' for student, is only used to describe the girlfriend of a male student; there isn't even a word for a female student. But Marie excelles and comes top of her class. But she's noted for being quite odd and outspoken and having no real gentleness in her approach to things, because she didn’t really see any point. She wants to get things done, and she's only really interested in science. Her discovery which she names radioactivity is the single most extraordinary discovery of 'The 20th Century'. The '1900s' are actually a moment of freedom and liberation for women. In 1903 Marie and Pierre Curie win 'The Nobel Prize' in physics for their discovery of radioactivity, marking the first time the prestigious award has been bestowed on a woman. After Pierre's sudden death, Marie continues her work and wins a second 'Nobel Prize' in 'Chemistry' in 1911. Marie Curie is an icon of the scientific world, a pioneer not just as a scientist but also as a woman working within a man's world whilst women were still campaigning for the right to vote. Together, 'The Curies' discover two new scientific elements, radium and polonium, with remarkable properties which would have consequences, both good and bad, that are still impacting us today; nuclear weapons, radiation for medical treatment and nuclear energy. Their working and romantic relationship turn them into celebrities, but after Pierre's death in 1906, Marie's reputation takes a blow after she has an affair with a married man. Marie grows up in Russian-occupied Poland, where she and her sister were forced to study the Russian curriculum. She led an uncompromising life. She never let her femininity get in the way of her achievements. She's also relentlessly honest, relentlessly true to herself. And she's poetic and represents the ultimate marriage of arts and science, and perhaps even more, the ultimate marriage of love and science. She has a scientific mind being a mathematician. And she really understands the connection between the science, our make up as human beings and our emotional lives. Marie Curie never defines herself as a successful woman. She defines herself as a successful scientist. Gender is irrelevant to her, and is very much of that mindset as well. She has no filter, she’s outspoken, she’s bold, she’s not essentially charming, and yet she’s charming because of all her oddities. On the page Marie Curie is very uncompromising, rude, confrontational, brash, arrogant. The character of 'Marie Curie' is an antidote to the stereotypes usually found on the big screen. Pierre Curie was raised in a non-religious family which was quite unusual for the time and when he meets and fell in love with Marie Curie, he's working with his brother Jacques (Ed Fleroff) on the invention of the quadrant electrometer, which measured the electrical values of different materials. Pierre comes from an extremely open-minded background, not the average 'Catholic French' family, and he wants a wife who he can work with and who challenge him. Marie is not his muse but rather they're two brilliant spirits, for the time they're an absolutely modern couple. It's so rare for two people to have a complete meeting of minds, to work to the common goal. And when he died so tragically, it crushes her. "Radioactive" doesn’t really conform to any existing genre of cinema, because it goes narratively in different directions, in different countries and in different time periods. The film creates a hospital complex where you can seamlessly go from 1874 Poland through a door into 1960s America, and then through another door into the hospital ward in 'Pripyat' near 'Chernobyl', after the explosion in 1986, and then through another door, through a part of 'Chernobyl' now, and down this enormous corridor, 120 metres of corridor, which is where her death plays out and the end of the film happens. The corridors of the hospital are mirrored in the several tunnels that feature in the film, including in metal tunnels in 'The Chernobyl' plant and the tunnel as Marie Curie buries her mother as a child in Poland in 'The 1870s'. So there are things fizzling in test tubes in very small detailed shots, and as we go through the film, the colours get more saturated and a glow of radium suffuses the film. Marie's costumes in the first section comprise simple white shirts with 'Peter Pan' collars and pin tucks and wide, full-length skirts. By 'The First World War', corsets are beginning to become less common and there's a much looser, more shapeless silhouette by 1920s and the 1930s. The color palette for all Marie's costumes range from greys, black and white to blues and greens, a visual link to Marie's great love for science in the costumes. The film is based on Lauren Redniss's graphic novel ‘Radioactive: A Tale Of Love And Fallout' in 2012. Beautiful, poetic, deeply serious about the science, unafraid of getting into an emotional journey around science, and about a really inspirational woman. It's a grippy story of the life and the work of Marie and Pierre Curie. But it’s also the story of the consequences of their work. So at once, it’s an historical biopic of a great woman and her husband and a story of the impact of their discoveries on 'The 20th Century' and beyond. The film aims to give audiences a sense of how important Marie Curie is and the vital role she played in changing the course of human history. Everybody knows her name but hardly anyone can tell you much about her. Marie and Pierre Curie are very important. They changed the history of the world with their discovery of the twin elements of radium and polonium and that there's a fundamental instability at the heart of the universe. As we say in the story, they picked up the pebble and they cast it in the pond, but they’re not responsible for the ripples. The consequences of their discoveries and the immense power that can been harnessed through them have been put to terrible use and to very good use; radioactivity at once causes cancer and cures cancer. At the heart of this story is an extraordinary mind that's able to get to grips with how the universe was formed, and how mankind could interact with two of it's most powerful elements. "Radioactive" creates a pretty complex time frame, where we go forward in time to beyond Marie’s death, or we go back to when she’s a child. We move around quite freely within the story; it travels from the 1870s to the 1980s and includes almost every decade in between, from 'Chernobyl', to 'Hiroshima', to the introduction of radiography machines, the first mobile X-ray units. We see the good and the bad consequences of Marie and Pierre’s discoveries, the discovery of an element and then the consequences of that discovery in a scene which is utterly unrelated. It’s like a biopic at once, of a woman, but also of her scientific discoveries. Most of the time we blame the scientist for the discovery of something. Science is for me synonymous with being human and curious, and the film addresses the lasting effects of a discovery which is highly important to talk about. We live in a world where we’ve known about this all our lives. But imagine you’d never seen inside the human body, and suddenly there's the skeleton! You can see why at the same time as the science is taking off, the world of supernaturalism and spiritualism is also taking off. Suddenly the spirit world seems to be very close to us.

Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani) is a promising young dancer in the National Georgian Ensemble. Yet when new student Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) walks in, Merab starts to develop new feelings and longings. And Then We Danced is a coming out story with a twist. Levan Akin’s third feature charts a young man slowly embracing his homosexuality played out against the backdrop of toxic straight culture in Georgia, alive to the crushing weight of traditional identities and values on a new generation. It’s an engrossing rites of passage tale that occasionally gets tangled up in cliché but wins out thanks to a talented young cast (especially lead Levan Gelbakhiani), offering a fascinating glimpse into a rarely seen society and numerous sequences of Georgian dance that are both crucial to the drama and thrilling. Prefaced by archival footage of traditional Georgian folk dancing, the film opens in a rehearsal studio with Merab (Gelbakhiani) dancing with longtime partner and kinda girlfriend, Mary (Ana Javakishvili in a paper-thin role). As Merab brings sensitivity and grace to the movements, he is constantly berated by his strict instructor. “Georgian dance is based on masculinity,” his teacher tells him. “There is no room for weakness in Georgian dance.” His life away from dance is no less tough; waiting tables in a crummy restaurant, fighting with his volatile brother and tending to his grandmother and unemployed mother. Things looks up, however, when bad boy Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) steps into the studio (we know he’s a rebel because he wears an earring). Merab initially considers him a threat in the upcoming National championships — he is particularly annoyed when Irakli usurps his place in a duet — but there is something about the kid he is drawn to. The film really hits its stride in a lengthy party sequence that takes place in a huge, shabby but chic manor. Hopped up on homemade wine, the pair share an intimate moment in the woods that opens Merab’s eyes to new delights and a new world — to celebrate, Merab dances with wild abandon to Robyn’s ‘Honey’ sporting a big fur hat, an intoxicating expression of new love. But after furtive glances in the car on the way back home, it soon becomes clear that the path of true love is not going to run smooth. Akin’s script steers a predictable course through gay love story tropes and flirts with melodrama. But, helped by a terrific performance from Gelbakhiani, he never loses sight of Merab’s inner life, which bursts out in a final dance sequence of uncomfortable intensity. Juxtaposing a coming-of-age flick with the confines of traditional Georgian culture, And Then We Danced is a film about the political and the personal. And oftentimes, a pretty powerful one too. Update: Happy Wheels 3D.

(Release Info UK schedule; May 31st, 2020, The Gulbenkian Theatre, Gulbenkian, University of Kent, Candterbury CT2 7NB, United Kingdom, 4:15 pm) https://film.list.co.uk/listing/1503798-les-miserables/ Les Misérables" Stéphane (Damien Bonnard) has recently joined 'The Anti-Crime Squad' in Montfermeil, in the suburbs of Paris, where Victor Hugo set his famed novel 'Les Misérables'. It's one of the most sensitive districts on the outskirts of the city. He finds himself thrown into a community rife with tension and nearing a breaking point. Alongside his new colleagues Chris (Alexis Manenti) and Gwada (Djebril Zonga), both experienced members of the team, he quickly discovers tensions are running high between local gangs. He soon sees the neighborhood’s fiery routine, the unorthodox methods his partners use to cope with.criminals, the gangs, and the rivalries between them. When the partners join an arrest gone awry, they find themselves in the midst of a full-blown battle between the police force and raging citizens; the result of years of tension. An act of spontaneous violence at the hands of one of Stéphane’s colleagues pushes them deep into the fractured realities of the neighborhood and immigrant communities they're meant to protect. A drone captures the encounter, threatening to expose the reality of everyday life. The title refers to Victor Hugo, and the film begins with French fags during the night following 'The World Cup' victory. It’s a pity there's no other bond for the people but at the same time, those are incredible moments to experience. The film starts with this, before shifting back to the bleaker reality of daily life, where each person lives their lives according to skin colour, religion, social class. The first forty minutes of the film is a calm immersion into the neighborhood. It’s like you’re strolling along, familiarising yourselves with the characters and the fabric of the neighborhood. Indeed, the music is more electro than hip-hop. Even the way they speak, they predictable suburb-film clichés. Between Chris, a white racist cop, and ‘The Mayor’, a black neighborhood figure, things are also complex; they hate each other but have little arrangements because they need each other. The Chris character is a real asshole. He’s really good in this part, and despite his hateful side, the audience still grows attached to him. The cops are often obliged to make compromises with the residents, or else it would be permanent war. Most of these cops aren’t well-educated, they themselves live in diffcult conditions, and in the same neighborhood. It seems everything happens against a backdrop of unemployment and poverty; the root of all the problems. It’s easy to live with each other when you've money. When you don’t, it’s a lot more complicated, you need compromises, arrangements, little deals, it’s a matter of survival. For the cops too, they're in survival mode, things are tough for them too. "Les Misérables" is neither pro-low life nor pro-cops. It's more a departure then an arrival. Everything is based on actual events, the jubilation of 'The World Cup' victory of course, the arrival of the new cop in the neighborhood, the drone, even the stolen lion and the gypsies. The film tends to view all the protagonists without preconceptions or judgements, because reality is always complex. There's bad and good on both sides. We operate in such a complex world that it’s diffcult to make quick and defnitive judgments. The neighborhoods are powder kegs, there are clans, and despite all this we all try to live together and to avoid everything spinning out of control. The daily accommodations everyone makes to get by. There's still hope in the suburbs, despite all the problems, that the people of these neighborhoods have talent and don’t always fit with the clichés they’re labelled with. It's an incredible diversity of these neighborhoods. "Les Misérables" is based on the web documentaries '365 Days In Clichy-Montfermeil' and '365 Days In Mali'. These documentaries were shot during the 2005 riots. All 'Kourtrajmé' films are available for free on the Internet, before 'YouTube' or 'Dailymotion'. Mali has become the most dangerous place on earth because of 'Al Qaïda' and the so-called 'Islamic State'. We've similar principles with 'Go Fast Connection' and 'A Voix Haute'. 'Go Fast' is a docu-fiction made three years after the riots, about the subject of the media’s treatment of the suburbs. A 'Voix Haute' is initially an indie project that 'France Television' eventually joined. The film, which won 'The Grand Jury Prize' at Cannes 2019, is an extraordinarily suspenseful and captivating drama. Inspired by the 2005 Paris riots the film is a thrilling and provocative insight into the tensions between neighborhood residents and police in contemporary France. How could the politicians ever be able to bring solve our problems when they don’t actually know us or how we live? Another reality shown in the film, which contrasts with the usual clichés, is the depiction of ethnicities. People from everywhere hanging out together. The film avoids video-promo editing, the stereotypical hip-hop music. It's important to let the narrative and the shots speak for themselves. "Les Misérables" is a humanist, political film, in the sense that you don’t judge individuals but implicitly denounce a system in which everyone ends up being a victim, residents and cops alike. Responsibility falls to the politicians. You could almost say things are going from bad to worse. Despite everything, we’ve all learned to live together in these neighborhoods; with 30 different nationalities living side to side. Life in the suburbs is light years away from what the media shows you. The film is far from an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, but it carries the same social critique of French society’s attitude toward it's marginalized citizens. Provocatively drawing a line between Hugo’s classic and the country’s contemporary realities, it's a thrillingly timely look at the crippling tensions at the core of modern France. We're young and crazy. Today we might be a little less crazy, but you always have to keep a bit of madness. We don’t want to be stuck inside a box, which is unfortunately sometimes the case in the world of cinema.

(Release Info London schedule; June 25th, 2020, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-young-ahmed-film-online "Young Ahmed" In Belgium, today, the destiny of young Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi), caught between his imam’s ideals of purity and life’s temptations. It's the story of the fruitless attempts made by various characters to dissuade the young fanatic Ahmed, the main character, from carrying out his murderous plan. Whoever these characters may be, his teacher Inès (Myriam Akhecktou), his mother (Claire Bodson), his brother Mathieu (Laurent Canon), his sister Rachel (Amine Hamidou), his caseworker (Oliver Bonnaud), the judge (Marc Zinga), the psychologist at the detention centre (Eva Zingano), his lawyer (Baptiste Sornin), the owner of the farm (Brazil Jail) where he's placed, his daughter Louise (Victoria Bluck) not one of them manages to reach the hard, mysterious core of this boy ready to kill his teacher in the name of his religious convictions. Ahmed is such an inscrutable character, capable of eluding us to such an extent, of leaving us without any possibility of a dramatic construction to catch up with him and bring him out of his murderous madness. Even Youssouf (Othmane Moumen), the imam at 'The fundamentalist Mosque', this magnetic figure who has harnessed the energy of the adolescent’s ideals to focus it on purity and hatred of impurity, even he, the master, is surprised by his disciple’s determination. But could it be any different? Could it be any different when the fanatic is so young, almost a child, and when, moreover, his charismatic master encourages him to venerate a martyred cousin, a dead man? How to halt the headlong rush towards murder of this fanatical boy, cut off as he's from the kindness of his educators, from the love of his mother, from the friendship and romantic games of young Louise? How can he be stopped in a moment when, without resorting to naïve optimism or an implausible happy ending, he could open up to life, converting to the impurity he has loathed until that point? What scene, what shots, could allow to film that transformation and trouble the gaze of the audience that has entered Ahmed’s night, as close as possible to that which possesses him, and to that from which he would finally be delivered.