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(Release Info London schedule; November 2nd, 2020, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-how-to-build-a-girl-film-online "How To Build A Girl" This irreverent comedy is about Johanna Morrigan (Beanie Feldstein), a girl on the cusp of womanhood desperate to reinvent herself as a rock music critic. Johanna is a bright, quirky, 16-year-old who uses her colorful imagination to regularly escape her humdrum life in Wolverhampton and live out her creative fantasies. She's extrovert from the outskirts of Wolverhampton with raging hormones, an unstoppable imagination and gigantic dreams. Her bedroom is adorned with posters of her heroes such as 'Jo March', 'Cleopatra' and Sylvia Plath (Sharon Horgan), who come to life and provide the closest thing to friendship that she has. Desperate to break free from the overcrowded flat she shares with her four brothers Krissie (Larrie Kynaston), Lupin (Stellan Powell), Charlie (Evan Kenneth Jones), Andy (Scott Mason-Cherry) and her eccentric parents Pat (Paddy Considine) and Angie (Sarah Solamani), she submits an earnestly penned and off-beat music review to a group of self-important indie rock critics at a weekly magazine. Yearning to make a name for herself, she answers an ad seeking hip young gunslinger journalists for a cool London music magazine, she's accepted, reinvents herself as 'Queen Of Mean' rock critic 'Dolly Wilde', a venerable, impossible-to-please music critic with an insatiable lust for fame, fortune, and men. Despite being brushed off initially, Johanna clamors to the top of the 90s rock music scene. It isn’t long before the rapid pace at which Johana’s life is changing becomes overwhelming and she runs face-first into a devastatingly real, existential crisis. Is this the type of girl she wants to become? Or does she need to start over and build again from the ground up? As her critical savagery brings her greater and greater success, the lines between Johanna Morrigan and 'Dolly Wilde' begin to haze. She has certainly figured out how to build a girl but is this the girl that she wanted to be? How unlikely is it that we get funding a film about a weird, sexual teenaged girl set in Wolverhampton in the '90s'? A 16 year old girl who goes on this huge emotional journey from an innocent sweet girl liking '19th Century' literature to this rock and roll type 'Rik Mayall' character? Johanna Morrigan is extrovert with raging hormones and gigantic dreams. She looks like some kind of 'Disney' princess via a Wolverhampton council estate. Even though she loves her big, boisterous family, Johanna yearns to get out and make a name for herself, which she does, reinventing herself as revered and feared music journalist, 'Dolly Wilde'. But as her critical savagery brings her greater and greater success, the lines between Johanna Morrigan and 'Dolly Wilde' begin to haze. She has finally figured out how to build a girl; but is this the girl that she wanted to be? As Johanna charges toward her future in journalism with wit, determination and courage she quickly realizes that to guarantee success she must shed her original skin and invent new, better pieces of herself. Yet only in the course of tearing herself down entirely can she recognize that the woman who she needs to become, lives in the foundation of the girl she has always been. Inspiring and redemptive, Johanna is the heroine who speaks to all generations reminding us that growing-up is a lifelong task and that however far we may go down one path it's never too late to stop, reset and start again. She begins and ends in two completely different places in her life. More challenges come with the ‘hero wall’ that Johanna has in her bedroom, featuring famous faces from history. Mel and Sue as 'The Bronte Sisters'. Lily Allen plays Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Sheen as Freud. Amanda (Emma Thompson), who turns up on set with a box of chocolates from an incredibly fancy chocolatier and went around like a very glamorous version of Mrs. Overall on 'Acorn Antiques', offering them around to everybody. That’s the kind of person she's. That’s as near as you get to a heavenly entity. Based on Caitlin Moran’s semi-autobiographical novel, "How To Build A Girl" is a sassy, sexy, and a profoundly touching coming-of-age comedy that traces the rocky road to womanhood through the lens of a unique and wildly hilarious protagonist. It's a hilarious, inspirational coming-of-age comedy that's set to be the homegrown crowd-pleaser of the year. For anyone who’s read the book, they’ll see that the script has taken a departure from the 'A-B Story' in the novel. But it’s the same girl and all of the substance and Caitlin Moran messaging is there. It’s an emotional journey. The music is a huge part of the film. All the bands you see playing are playing live. What you hear on screen, if it sounds like it's in the scene, it's in the scene. There's been a big swing towards the '90s' sound and you see them in the film playing their own songs, written now, mixed with a known soundtrack.. We realise why so many 'British' women are not really represented on film because it’s such a hoo-ha and fuss. And as a 'British' woman you just feel like going around apologising to everybody saying, ‘I’m so sorry you had to put 30 Winnebago’s on the street'. "How To Build A Girl" resonates with young women today. It seems that from the screenings we’ve had, that it appeals to fifteen year old girls and their mothers. Because although, weirdly, a lot of women in-between have been really interested and excited. They’re the ones that love '90s' music. But fifteen year olds and their mothers; the mothers went through it at the time and the girls are going through it now. With a spectacular imagination and an irreverent spirit, "How To Build A Girl" has shades of "Lady Bird" and 'Juno' with a sprinkling of 'Bridget Jones’s Diary' whilst finding it's own unique blend of comedy and heart to excite the coming of age canon.

(Release Info London schedule; November 6th, 2020, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-recorder-the-marion-stokes-project "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project" A 'Communist' radical who became fabulously wealthy later in life, Marion Stokes secretly recorded 'American' television 24 hours a day for 30 years from 1975 until her death in 2012. By the time of her death, Stokes had amassed 70,000 'VHS' tapes, capturing not just world history, but who we're; what we watched, what we valued, and what we thought. For Marion, taping was a form of activism to seek the truth and she believed that a comprehensive archive of the media would one day be invaluable. Her visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart, but now her tapes are being digitized for future generations. The story of this remarkable archive, and the enigmatic woman behind it, provides a fascinating look into the media’s crafting of history, and our complicity in watching it. Marion Stokes was secretly recording American television twenty-four hours a day for thirty years. It started in 1979 with 'The Iranian Hostage Crisis' at the dawn of the twenty-four hour news cycle. It ended on December 14th, 2012 while 'The Sandy Hook Massacre' played on television as Marion passed away. In between, Marion recorded on 70,000 'VHS' tapes, capturing revolutions, lies, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows, and commercials that tell us who we're, and show how television shaped the world of today. Before the era of 'fake news', Marion was fighting to protect the truth by archiving everything that was said and shown on television. The public didn’t know it, but the networks were disposing their archives for decades into the trashcan of history. Remarkably, Marion saved it, and now 'The Internet Archive' will digitize her tapes and we’ll be able to search them online for free. A mystery in the form of a time capsule, the film delves into the strange life of a radical 'Communist' activist who became a fabulously wealthy recluse archivist. Marion’s work was crazy but it was also genius, and she would pay a profound price for dedicating her life to this visionary and maddening project. Marion diligently handwrote the dates, times, and networks on the spines of each of her tapes. When her son Michael and her trusted secretary Frank Heilman began the onerous task of organizing her collection, they stored her tapes in thousands of cardboard file boxes, which Marion amassed over her lifetime. Those boxes were loaded into a parking lot full of storage pods, but Michael and Frank didn’t know if anybody would take the tapes. They feared that it would all just be thrown away. Remarkably, in 2013, 'The Internet Archive' acquired Marion’s unprecedented collection with the commitment to digitize her tapes and to make them accessible online. The storage pods were shipped from Philadelphia to 'The Internet Archive’s' storage warehouse in Richmond, California, where the tapes currently live on hundreds of pallets. The film creates a unique conveyer belt system with a digital camera, and a crew of archivists captured high resolution photos of the spines on Marion’s tapes. Zooming into these images allowed us to track the contents of each tape through Marion’s diligent documentation. "Recorder" creates an eclectic wish list of dates from Marion’s start in 1979 through the day of her death on December 14th, 2012. These greatest hits include an eclectic list of events, from historic dates like the fall of 'The Berlin Wall', to esoteric pop culture moments like the collapse of 'The Miss America' pageant’s stage. Each of Marion’s tapes are 6-8 hours because she recorded on extended play, and the preservationists at 'BAVC watched these tapes in real time to assure a clean image from these degrading analog videocassettes. In total the film transfers 100 tapes for approximately 700 hours of television footage. People sometimes ask if Marion was just a pathological historian whose uncontrollable hoarding tore her family apart. She was an uncompromising activist, whose insight into media and technology was decades ahead of her time. Marion’s 70,000 tapes are an endless collage of fuzzy clips, from tragic and triumphant, to historic and mundane, images that show the texture of our times. Her work is incredibly relevant today. We're living in the era of so-called 'fake news'. Now more than ever, the truth is under attack. The truth is hard to find, to know, and the truth is more important than ever. This is what Marion committed her life to. She recognized that television is a persuasive and pervasive medium, and that it can be manipulated to shape public opinion. Her story should inspire others to fight for the truth in unusual and creative ways. Whether it’s vintage 'Kellyanne Conway' defending 'Bob Dole' on 'CNN' or a four-screen montage that shows how the news of '9/11' broke on various networks in real time. Viewers see familiar things in a new way. This story is also a mystery. Marion’s an enigmatic and complicated character, and one of the ways we got closer to her is with stylized recreations that peer into her private world. These cinematic sequences from Marion’s limousine or her secretive recording stations in her apartment trace the evolution of television and computer technology as vintage footage plays on screens. The film reflects on Marion’s mission, his anger and frustration about her selfishness, and her pride in her accomplishments. Like Jobs, Marion wasn’t warm and fuzzy and she put her work and her ideas above her personal relationships. She thought differently and people didn’t always get it. But she made profound sacrifices to pursue a project that she hoped would take on a life beyond her own. And now we've the opportunity to use it.

(Release Info London schedule; November 27th, 2020, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-falling-film-online "Falling" John Peterson (Viggo Mortensen) lives with his partner, Eric (Terry Chen), and their daughter, Mónica (Gabby Velis), in California, far from the traditional rural life he left behind years ago. John's father, Willis (Lance Henriksen), a headstrong man from a bygone era, lives alone on the isolated farm where John grew up. Willis is in the early stages of dementia, making running the farm on his own increasingly difficult, so John brings him to stay at his California home so that he and his sister Sarah (Laura Linney) might help him find a place near them to relocate to. Unfortunately, their best intentions ultimately run up against Willis’s adamant refusal to change his way of life in the slightest. During his stay at John's California home, tension builds between Willis and the rest of the family. Willis’s abrasive nature, by turns caustic and occasionally funny, is aggravated by his memory loss, bringing past and present into conflict and causing old wounds and years of mutual mistrust between father and son rise to the surface. As Willis and John confront the events that have torn them, including their differing recollections of John’s mother Gwen (Hannah Gross), the challenge they face is to find a way to forgive each other, to accept what has happened in the past and, most importantly, what's happening to them in the present. We embark on a journey from darkness to light, from rage and resentment to acceptance and hard-won grace. In "Falling", set in the winter of 2009, John is an ex-'Air Force' officer turned commercial pilot who lives in Los Angeles with his partner Eric and their adopted daughter, Mónica. His father Willis continues to live in the rural 'Northeast' on the large, isolated farm where John and his sister Sarah were raised, but he’s now struggling with the onset of dementia. Aware of the fact that running the farm on his own is becoming increasingly difficult, Willis agrees to travel to California with John in order to find a more manageable place to retire. The differences between John’s modern, urban life and sensibilities and Willis more conservative mind-set and ingrained prejudices come into stark contrast. As the story unfolds, the film moves back and forth in time, gradually exposing, through individual as well as shared memories of the two men; pivotal events that have defined their complex relationship. The dynamic of their relationship is driven by generational and geographical divides between a conservative, aging farmer and what he views as his wayward, morally weak son. It’s also a contrast between rural, heartland USA and 'West Coast' urban progressive society. In the end, the damaged bonds of familial affection that once united them, and which the story visits through their differing subjective recollections, aid them in overcoming some of the pain they've caused themselves and each other in the decades since John’s childhood. His father's shadow hung over the new home he made with his mother for years after they'd both moved on and found new partners. It's a complex and relatively unpredictable ailment that we've experienced up close, as we've been a caretaker in several instances. John is the image of a certain kind of 'West Coast' progressive. By contrast, Willis, born and raised in America’s heartland and an independent farmer by trade, is the definition of a traditional conservative man. An important aspect of the movie is that it offers a compelling study of changing views of masculinity and traditional family models. Willis is a man who has always been fiercely independent and self-sufficient but struggles as his mind begins to betray him. He's slipping into a kind of confusion, and his memories are all coming back, like ghosts. He’s aware that his mind is playing tricks on him and he's angry about it. As the film cuts back and forth between the past and the present, we also meet Willis (Sverrir Gudnason) as a young man, first meeting the love of his life and raising a young family, a man who, while still obstinate, is not as hardened and angry as he eventually becomes. He's not very good at putting himself in the shoes of other people and understanding their feelings. He kind of expects everybody to think and act like he does. And if they don't, he's not very patient about it. He loves his son and he loves his family. He works very hard. He provides for them, and he puts food on the table. And at the same time, he's like an island emotionally. He's constantly fighting these wars, and he doesn't understand that if a relationship is a war, he can never win. As Willis gets older, his inflexibility ultimately drives John’s mother Gwen, the love of Willis’ life, to leave him, taking John and his sister Sarah with her. Willis will never get over this life-changing setback. The film weaves back and forth in time looking for clues as to where the rift began. A lot of the movie is about trying to understand why that breach happened. John is trying to come to terms with his father’s bitterness, and Willis is trying to come to terms with the man John has become. The story is also about them resolving the conflicting feelings they've about John’s mother, Gwen. Gwen is the conscience of the movie. She's the fulcrum that the principal characters gravitate around. Gwen is someone who has a real love of life and who pretty effortlessly lives in the moment. There's a real searching quality about her, she's someone who enjoys expanding her world in various little ways, someone who's curious. And that curiosity is imbued with a really deep sense of caring, like a lot of women of that era, she has this yearning, this searching quality, but is also not entirely sure of how to express it. And when she’s met with resistance by the person who's supposed to love and support her, things become pretty difficult. When you're a kid, there's so much you don’t understand. And then when you're a grown-up, you get to know your parents from a broader point of view, but their world may be beginning to contract somewhat. It's a story about growing up and growing down at the same time. Subjectivity of perception and unreliability of memory are equally important themes in "Falling", underlying its narrative structure and enhancing our understanding of it's characters. It’s layered throughout with memory, and memory is imperfect. One person will remember the same moment, the same scene, the same person, differently than someone else will. We become fixated in these imperfect memories that come to define how we see ourselves and others. The film explores the fractures and contrasts of a contemporary family. There are few relationships as fundamental and complex as that of parent and child, and few events as destabilizing as the loss of a parent; when the tethers that bind you to the earth are cut. It's in this shifting and reflective moment in life where the story is placed. Our mind is flooded with echoes and images of our family at different stages of our shared lives. Feeling a need to describe them. Impressions have evolved into a story primarily make up of conversations and moments that have never actually happened, parallel and divergent lines that feels right somehow, that widened our perspective of the actual memories we've built about our family. It seems as though these invented sequences allows to get closer to the truth of our feelings for our mother and father than any straightforward enumeration of specific memories can. It's about a fictional family that shares some traits with our own. The timelines and the structure of the flashbacks are roughly in place, and the visuals feel strong. The film is interested in what lens someone has chosen, why and how a scene is lit in a certain way, why a certain coat or dress is chosen. It's always liked the collaborative aspect of moviemaking, the opportunity to witness and fully participate in the story-telling process. If a movie works, it only works as well as the compromise everybody makes, the joint sacrifice that a team of creative people makes. The visual style of "Falling" is natural and unaffected, with camera movement restricted to genuinely motivated moments. Recognized for his quiet, understated family dramas, often dealing with generational conflict, Ozu’s films employed a semi-austere, observational style that often allowed scenes to play out at length in a single frame. You see the space the characters inhabit and the scene can breathe, you can see the behavior and the gestures. The memory sequences generally have a warmer tone. The freedom of a memory-based story is that you don’t need to be dictated to by light continuity and you can really go off what feels right and follow your gut on the day. Memory is feeling, really. In the end, it’s all feeling, because you can’t remember the specifics of everything, but you can palpably recall how it felt. What's strikes about "Falling" is how it captures a very fundamental conflict at the heart of relationships and existence. We generally accept a fairly black and white version of what we perceive the truth to be, the truth of who we're and what has happened in our lives. But memory is much less of a fixed thing than we may wish to believe. We choose which memories we keep with us and we only remember the events of our lives from our point of view. And then these imperfect memories come to define us and who we become. We become defined by these self-selected moments that we can remain stuck in for a long time, if not forever. Not everyone is forgiven. Not everybody figures out a way to communicate. Some people try and fail. Some don’t try very much at all. The way that you get acceptance and forgiveness in this story, and perhaps in most stories, is by making mistakes and at least sometimes admitting that you made those mistakes. If you believe in what you're doing individually and together with other individuals in a team, and events have been allowed to unfold in a way that’s specific and feels authentic to the characters from moment to moment, then there's a chance that other people will believe in the story, be drawn to it. The commitment to every detail of performance, of picture and of sound, that deep attention to having each element contribute to the creative whole, is what makes "Falling" a standout film.

https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-proxima-film-online "Proxima" At play here's the transmutation of the body, like in Cronenberg’s movies. Sarah Loreau (Eva Green) must separate from 'The Earth' and from her normal 'Earth' body. She must become a space person. When we see her disinfecting her body with iodine, or when they make the mold of her body for her seat in the rocket, there's the sense of her becoming a space creature. "Proxima" is a distant galaxy and also what's close to us, like Sarah’s daughter Stella (Zélie Boulant-Lemesle). The film plays on the contrast between near and far, the intimate and the cosmic, which are both opposites and mirrors of one another. Sarah goes to a place where she has never been before. Physically, in the way she moves, she makes a very credible astronaut. Sarah is a fighting machine and that sat well with her character. Sarah’s’s path in the movie is to open up to emotions. She's in that equilibrium between mission and emotion, a precarious position to the extent that emotion puts the mission at risk at one point. The film contrasts the infinitesimally small and infinitesimally big. To bring space into daily life. Sarah is a superhero and mother, in a single body. The cinema does not often show those two states in a single person, as if being a hero and mother are incompatible. Female superheroes are always detached from issues of maternity or femininity in daily life. That’s the feminist aspect of the movie, showing that a woman can be both a mother and a high-flying professional. The best practice for becoming an astronaut is being a mother. Because a mother constantly multitasks. There's this prevailing idea, a pure social construct, that a child is primarily a mother’s responsibility. At the core of the films, there's always the relationship with the body. The film shows the mother-daughter relationship units physical dimension. For example, when they’re swimming at the hotel, as if in an amniotic pool. Also, the film shows that the human body is not cut out to live anywhere other than 'Earth'; in space, it grows 10-15 cm, our airways are not made for life up there. The intensive training sessions are a point of intersection between the documentary aspect and cinematic obsessions; the body as guinea pig, strapped into machines and centrifuges. The film explores the process of separation of a mother and daughter, which resonated with the separation of the astronaut from 'The Earth'. It's a film of liberation and conciliation. Sarah completes a journey in the face of personal obstacles as a woman and mother. She overcomes her guilt complex. Her little girl also takes flight. She frees herself from the maternal cocoon. The screenplay is structured like the separation of the stages of the rocket, there are stages in the separation from 'The Earth' as well as between mother and daughter. The real liftoff protocol includes confirmation of umbilical separation, so the metaphor is not afigment of our imagination alone. Sarah’s fighting qualities can be those of a mother, just not the kind of mother typically depicted in movies. The most difficult part is trying to reconcile the warrior side of the character, who confronts a very masculine, competitive world, with the tenderness of a mother. That's the fate of a lot of women today as they try to combine career and family life, devoting themselves equally to each. The horses symbolize the little girl’s imagination, and the idea that she remains attached to 'The Earth' while her mother has just taken off for the stars. The horses are 'The Earth'. They also represent a form of wildness, anti-conformism, that's sometimes peculiar to children. Finally, for the girl, the horses represent emancipation from her mother’s hold. Like her mother, she has come a long way to accept her mother’s departure. Her mother’s mission is part of her daily life. She's pleased for her that the takeoff went smoothly. Above all, the film is a credible, moving, very human and very modern story, which shows the turmoil of a woman torn between her passion for her work as an astronaut and her love for her daughter. Mike Shannon (Matt Dillon) is not-always likable character. That’s the difficulty of his character. Between Mike and Sarah is an ambivalence emerges, affectionate friendship. Thomas Akerman (Lars Eidinger) is a nod toward the genuine rivalry that exists between astrophysicists and astronauts, between those who stay on the ground and those who take off in the rocket. It’s two different worlds, like cast and crew in movies. Astronauts have more bling, a greater public profile, while the scientists stay behind the scenes. Wendy (Sandra Hüller) is a kind of godmother-figure. Like Mike she needs to be loved, while maintaining the cold facade that comes with her job. "Proxima" points out that international cooperation works far better in space exploration than the geopolitical sphere. That's one of the exhilarating aspects of the shoot, and the international factor is mirrored in the makeup of the crew, which mix together French, Russians, Americans, Germans and Kazakhs. That mix of nationalities make us feel united in our shared humanity. The liftoff scene, when the rocket takes off, is awe-inspiring. The audience has a physical sense of being wrenched free of 'The Earth'. Space exploration makes us realize how fragile we're, how much we belong on 'Earth'. "Ptoxima", is a singular and ambitious project in the context of French cinema. We're fascinated by space. With regard to space, however, American movies have swamped all others, and the goal is to make a European space movie. In Hollywood pictures, the astronaut verges on superhuman, but the research with 'ESA' shows us there's nothing more human and fragile than an astronaut. Going into space means experiencing human fragility and realizing just how attached we're to 'The Earth'. "Proxima" is more earthbound than spatial. For example, the film shows the very physical ordeal that the astronauts bodies endures. In that respect, Tarkovsky is more important than 'Hollywood' movies. The film tackles head-on everyday machismo in the space industry. Those scenes might seem to verge on caricature but they're still below real-life experiences. It’s a male environment, conceived by men for men. For example, spacesuits are weighted on the shoulders because men have strong shoulders, whereas women are stronger in the hips. Women have to work twice as hard to gain entry to this man’s world, but they mustn’t make their presence felt either. The film pays tribute to women who've to reconcile all this, which is exacerbated, obviously, in the business of space exploration. In movies, heroines tend to be ethereal, except perhaps "Erin Brockovich". The final credits point out to the audience numerous female astronauts they've probably never heard of. There's a kind of conciliation at the end of the journey. With space exploration as the backdrop, it’s a compelling environment, which the public only knows from the outside looking in. It's a feminist film, in the sense that it highlights the audacity of a woman who dares to follow through on her passion. It's still taboo to take a year out from raising your child to fulfill your dreams.

(Release Info London schedule; December 11th, 2020, Curzon Viktoria, 58 Victoria St, Westminster, London SW1E 6QW, United Kingdom) https://www.curzoncinemas.com/victoria/film-info/songbird "Songbird" In the terrifying thriller "Songbird", 'The COVID-23' virus has mutated, and the world is in it's fourth year of lockdown. Infected Americans are ripped from their homes and forced into quarantine camps known as 'Q-Zones', from which there's no escape, as a few brave souls fight back against the forces of oppression. Amid this dystopian landscape, a fearless courier, Nico (KJ Apa), who's immune to the deadly pathogen, finds hope and love with Sara (Sofia Carson), though her lockdown prohibits them from physical contact. When Sara is believed to have become infected, Nico races desperately across the barren streets of Los Angeles in search of the only thing that can save her from imprisonment; or worse. In 2024, during the COVID-23 pandemic, the wealthy continue to live comfortable, privileged lives, while the rest of the world suffers. The haves in "Songbird" are 'The Griffins'; William (Bradley Whitford) and Piper (Demi Moore); whose wealth protects them from the everyday terrors of a raging pandemic. But it doesn’t shield them from marital discord, betrayal, and corruption. William is a morally bankrupt showbiz guy, a music executive. How horrible it would be to be in a dead relationship, and stuck together, when the world suddenly shuts down. It would be excruciating for those involved, and that’s what’s going on with William and Piper. 'The Griffins' are a wealthy couple who may hold the key to Nico’s mission. William is involved in a furtive affair, if you can call it that, with a wannabe singer, May (Alexandra Daddario). With her career going nowhere, thanks to the virus. May must resort to singing online to a coterie of fans from her seedy motel room. One of May’s most appreciative fans is Michael Dozer (Paul Walter Hauser), a disabled veteran who’s isolated in his own small apartment. Dozer doesn’t know much about life outside the military, but he's accustomed to loneliness. He has a lot of self-doub and feels he has little to offer anyone else. So, Dozer uses his only friend, a drone he named Max, to help deliver packages and keep a watchful eye on the road warrior couriers. Max is Nico's best friend, his eyes and ears to a world that has left him behind. Max is Dozer’s person until he makes a surprising connection with May. Dozer’s and Nico’s boss, Lester (Craig Robinson), is the owner of a fulfillment operation that supplies both necessary and luxury items to those who can afford them. Lester has some rich clients, and some shady stuff goes on with them. Lester is terrified of the virus, so he goes to extreme lengths to stay disease-free, even donning a full Hazmat suit when he goes outside his warehouse while using a flamethrower to sterilize discarded packaging. While Lester, and much of the rest of the world, are terrified of the silent plague, those select few who've immunity enjoy unrestricted privileges and access. Some, like the city’s sanitation engineer (Peter Storemare), take it to the next level, accumulating unlimited power. He's is the corrupt head of the city’s sanitation department, which seizes those infected and transports them to 'The Q-Zone'. The first feature film to be made during 'COVID-19' in Los Angeles, and about the pandemic itself. What does a plague-ridden Los Angeles look like in the year 2024? It’s pretty empty, grungy, and nature is slowly taking over. You can see through the city’s fragility; it’s degrading little by little due to the pandemic and being unable to sustain itself. Opportunistic footage has a privileged point of view into the world of the characters, but it’s not intrusive. It has a production scale that you can never recreate because the film captures what's taking place outside of our doors. "Songbird" is a scary, hypothetical look into our future. The film depicts increasing isolation, militarized enforcement, fear and loss. It also champions values like love, courage, bravery and compassion. It's ultimate message is one of human redemption and hope. Set in Los Angeles, four years in the future, 'The Covid Virus' has mutated, culminating in a more infectious and deadlier strain; 'COVID-23'. Lockdowns are now mandatory, curfews, food shortages, and broken supply chains are a fact of life. It’s what we think would happen if the lockdown we experienced continued for another few years. But at the film’s heart, "Songbird" is a love story about two people who can’t be together; star-crossed lovers who must figure a way out of their dire circumstances to be together. It has all the thrills of a popcorn movie, but with a lot of heart and relatability. But the film not just trying to scare audiences; it's a film that will have audiences root for the heroes, hiss the villains, and realize that we’re all in this together. It’s not a dark or bleak story. "Songbird" is about the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity. It has scope and scale, is deeply romantic, and is, in the grand tradition of 'Hollywood', making movies about momentous and dangerous times. Movies can sometimes be escapism, or hold a magnifying glass to the world we’re living in. We're completely immersed and lost in this world of "Songbird" so that every emotion is palpable and real. Limitations can foster ingenuity and this film is certainly rich with ingenuity. It’s a time capsule of the world we’re living in right now. But most of all, the film wants to be an entertaining, action-packed love story that takes audiences on a ride.

(Release Info London schedule; January 15th, 2020, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-heroes-dont-die-film-online "Heroes Don't Die" After being violently called out by a stranger, Joachim (Jonathan Caizinié) believes he's the reincarnation of a Serbian soldier who died on the very day he was born. He embarks with his friend Alice (Adèle Haenel) and a small film crew on a journey to Bosnia to track back details of his former life. In a country haunted by war, Alice will manage to make him reach immortality. The film practically starts with 'The Srebenican' burial ceremony. During the film, we don’t know where we’re going, we're even saying to ourselves that this quest for the ghost is going to fail. And you follow the belief in reincarnation through to it's conclusion, with a superb final sequence. If this story goes through to the end, it's because it's led, orchestrated in a way, by a gesture of love, of friendship. The character of Alice gives this end to Joachim. Friendship is the engine of this history. There's a really comical angle with 'The Pieds Nickelés' (French comic) or 'Thomson And Thompson' aspect of the characters, who always get off on the wrong foot with the locals. When the French characters enter a bar or car scrapyard, we could believe that it's a live documentary shot. But is the fact that those situations are scripted, and 'The Bosnians' are played by actors. This film attends the university of life as it's. In the early 2000s, 'East Bosnia' and that’s where the reincarnation story comes from. We've very striking memories of 'The Bosnian War'. We followed it on the news and we didn’t really understand it properly, but in some way it functioned as a sort of accompaniment to our childhood. We come to Sarajevo looking for what met us behind that door that day. The desire for culture, to watch films, to have access to passionate and engaging discussions. It’s clear that "Heroes Don't Die" comes from a 'Bosnia-Serbia' experience among other things. Bosnia is not exactly the other end of the world! It's really intense work on mourning and death. The idea of this proximity to death is even more evident in a country like Bosnia where the errant ghosts of the recent war float around, as if there had just never been an end to the end of the war. All that gives a film where the character travels to confront his own death without knowing much about where he's laying his feet. Do we really believe in reincarnation or is it just a good fictional engine? A bit of both. We want to believe in it, we prefer imagining there's something at the end, for us and for others. It’s a thought that reconciles nicely with the idea of life. The film starts from a science-fiction basis then continue with the fiction, sort of without the science! Srebrenica embodies all the ugliness of that war, how neighbours were able to eliminate each other with a violence that's inexplicable today. The film is a reminder that at the heart of Europe, two hours on a plane from Paris, is a country of which the capital city is muslim. Culturally, Sarajevo is European, very close to us, but it’s Turkish also, it follows the rhythms of the calls to prayer. It's a city where 'The Austro-Hungarian' empire meets 'The Ottoman Empire'. It's a country that embodies our collective European failure, still divided, still ready to implode, and now burdened with the other latent tensions with the route of refugees and a Europe preoccupied with identity. Usually, fantastical films involve very careful shots, with special effects and very careful lighting. Here, the aesthetic is more rough, raw. The film adopts those documentary methods in terms of lightness and certain rules. Lightness in the sense of a very small team which is nimble, without complex constraints. And the rules in the sense that it has to be believable that this film is capturing unforeseen situations. It's as though the film obliged us to reject direction in order to search a point of view. 

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; February 12th, 2021, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-barb-and-star-film-online "Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar" It’s been way too long since we’ve been able to get together with the people who matter most, and way too long since we’ve been able to get away from it all with a vacation to a beachy paradise. Take a trip and break out of your shell with Barb (Kristen Wiig) and Star (Annie Mumolo). Lifelong friends Barb and Star embark on the adventure of a lifetime when they decide to leave their small 'Midwestern' town for the first time ever. Romance, friendship and a villain’s evil plot hold onto your culottes. Barb and Star’s need to get away is thrown into sharp focus when they're kicked out of their 'Talking Club'. What’s a 'Talking Club? It’s a weekly group with Barb and Star and three or four other ladies. They pick a topic. It’s the kind of meetup taking place in homes and restaurants everywhere. But even if women everywhere will recognize their own relationships, Barb and Star’s 'Talking Club' might be a little different from the usual. They pick a topic out of a jar, and you can’t stray from the topic. They've a strict leader who keeps everyone in line. Women are most in their element when in a group with each other and doing something they love. But this group definitely has a lot of rules and not much wiggle room there. Barb and Star are part of an underrepresented group of women who've their own passions and dreams. The film brings them to life and get inside of them and take them on the adventure they deserve. That means not only windproof hairdos, but a thematic underpinning that’s similar to one in 'Bridesmaids' female friendship. Barb and Star are each other’s life, it’s this very sweet, dependent relationship they've. And they kind of need to go through a hiccup. Is it a culotte or a pair of culottes. Anyway, it’s Florida; it’s their paradise. As Barb and Star travel from their monotonous surroundings in Nebraska to the exciting sights of 'Vista Del Mar', the entire world shifts. The first palette the film starts with is definitely more muted. Beiges, browns, everything sort of muddy and earthy, representing their life in Nebraska. Then the film moves to a super vibrant palette where it’s pops of color everywhere and you’re totally stimulated by this tropical resort. 'Vista Del Mar' is the ultimate vacation spot for singles in their middle years. People who want to wear vacation clothes and eat shrimp and drink sugary alcoholic drinks. And ride glass bottom boats. If you like 'Tommy Bahama' and 'Jimmy Buffett', this is your place. A magical middle-aged paradise of Floridian pleasures, 'Vista Del Mar' is too good to exist in real life. It’s not just Florida, it’s Florida on steroids. Unknown to our heroes, though, an evil plot is afoot, one involving killer mosquitoes, a handsome but sexually frustrated second-in-command, a mysterious boy henchman, an inept superspy, and Mickey Ravelet (Wendi McLendon-Corey), an extremely pale and pasty female crime lord. She’s a unique villain with a tortured past, misunderstood, if you will. For instance, she suffers from 'Pigmentatia' degenera hysterica white skinaka. Her look is evil, but also pretty. She’s allergic to the sun. When Barb and Star land in Florida, they almost immediately cross paths with Edgar Pagét (Jamie Dornan), who's secretly working to advance an evil plot, and, not so secretly, a hopeless romantic. The other sidekick is known as Yoyo (Reyn Doi). Is he a sweet Barbra Streisand, loving suburban paperboy? Or a Bond villain à la 'Goldfinger’s Oddjob' He has a soul of a 95-year-old man in a little boy's body. But he's so incredibly warm and bright and funny and natural. And he’s up for anything. When Edgar fails to get the job done, the villainess brings in the big guns with the world’s worst spy, Darlie Bunkle (Damon Wayans Jr.). The film is rooted in the emotional journey of two women. Beyond the hysterically funny stuff, beyond the slapstick, there's this heartfelt story about two ladies. They’re finding their own identities, finding their way back into a friendship. And while that sounds so serious, that's our hook. At the end of the day, after all the shtick and the funny voices and the one-upmanship, we've to care about them. And if we do, then we'll go along with the rest. A main character can start emotionally singing for two and a half minutes. Even in the background. We've scenes with 500 people wearing shrimp masks. There's the shrimp queen beauty pageant. There's a woman all dressed in white with blue goggles, marching through the crowd. There's a human cannon. The script is a love story to middle-aged women, with the message that it’s never too late to find your shimmer. Sometimes all you need is to step out of your comfort zone and shake things up a bit. It's utopia of a certain-aged person that wants to get their groove back. “Vista del Mar is not spring break for 18-year-olds, and it's not like a quiet, laid-back retirement community. It's a party zone for middle-aged people. It’s for people who like to strut past the pool wearing a tube top and full jewelry. You're free to walk around in your Speedo from morning till night, if you want to. You can go to the restaurant still in your Speedo, you can parasail still in your 'Speedo'. You can be in every scene in a movie still in the exact same 'Speedo' if you want. In a way, we're going back to "The Wizard Of Oz". Basically, we're going from the beige-brown world of Kansas into the full color world of 'Oz'. So the film pulls out all the stops. 'Cancun' has gorgeous oceans, 'The Caribbean Sea' is this magical turquoise, It's a place filled with strange columns and wrought-iron balconies and pools upon pools with footbridges and skylights. It has very much the classic 'Hollywood Busby Berkeley' overhead patterns, It’s very much the intent of the movie to evoke those classic moments, but it’s also wrapped up in a very contemporary, modern kind of storytelling. .

(Glasgow Film Festival: Film At Home; Fri 26 Feb to Mon 01 Mar) https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/my-wonderful-wanda-ctbc "My Wonderful Wanda" Wanda (Agnieszka Grochowska) nurses Josef (André Jung), 'The Patriarch' of the wealthy 'Wegmeister-Gloor' family. When an unexpected complication arises, family secrets come to light and arrangements are made to try and appease everyone in this biting family drama. "My Wonderful Wanda" is an ensemble film, it’s about parents and children and what members of a family can do to each other. It’s not only Wanda who wants to be treated with respect and dignity; each member of the family longs for that as well. Wanda is the protagonist, she’s the catalyst for the developments and changes in the other characters, but these are just as interesting: a prosperous family gets themselves a cheap carer for the head of their family, but everyone in the family avails of her assistance to their own ends. Telling this story in all it's consequences allows for varying perspectives and surprising plot twists. In the end, Wanda has indeed helped the family, but to a much greater extent than they've imagined. And her relationship with her own family in Poland has also benefited from these events. The film portrays Wanda as a victim. Wanda is being exploited, of course. But she also goes along with it even to the extent that she secretly sleeps with her patient for money. So she can’t view herself as a victim. Wanda is exploiting the family, too. And what’s more, she gets along well with Josef. It’s simply a deal that brings her added value. Her conscious trading of 'sex for money' paradoxically lends Wanda power. Portraying her as a victim would’ve been too easy and also would’ve made it impossible to show her contradictory and strong aspects. Wanda thus turns the tables on the exploitation/subservience, above/below issues. The house has to display the family’s prosperity without seeming ostentatious or off-putting. Content-wise the film sees the location as an island, a metaphor, the story could take place anywhere where people are wealthy and able to isolate themselves. Family, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. Family is a motif we return to again and again. What's it about this strange microcosm, this genetically random family unit in which you feel secure or maybe even restrained? Family is a very broad narrative field, and everyone can feel their way into it somehow because everyone has family. 'The Wegmeister-Gloors' are put to the test, cracks appear, and unpleasant facts come to light. All it's members are forced to be honest with each other. This is liberating, at times funny, yet also very painful on occasion. The family almost falls apart; but for this is nonetheless a film about getting closer. "My Wonderful Wanda" thematizes the current issue of care migration. The outpatient care market is booming in 'Switzerland'. Agencies apply phrases like 'cheap, caring, warm-hearted, and there for you round the clock' when brokering staff from 'Eastern Europe' to care for the elderly in their residences rather than in a home. Increasingly often, over-qualified women from 'Poland' and 'Hungary' are commuting monthly between their own families and 'Swiss' households. The film is interested in what happens when a complete stranger gains deep insight into a family’s structure, and the inevitable intimacy that ensues. The model is often referred to as a winwin situation; relatives in need of care don’t have to be placed in a home, the family saves money, and the carers earn much more here than in their homelands. But this view is too one-sided. We’re ignoring the fact that these women have private lives, their own families, a daily routine they've to give up, and that money nonetheless remains scarce back home. So the benefits are very one-sided. What has to happen for these parties to meet on equal footing and for these exchanges to become fair? But there's also room for funny or absurd moments. There's room for imagination and suggestions. So not a classic social drama, but rather a 'comédie très humaine'. And the narrative tone is dry and sober to avoid moralizing.

(Release Info London schedule; March 7th, 2021, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-spring-blossom-film-online (Previews 7 March - 9 March as part of the Glasgow Film Festival 2021) https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/spring-blossom-n-c-12 "Spring Blossom" Suzanne (Suzanne Lindon) is 16. She's bored with people of her age. Every day on her way to high school, she passes a theater. There, she meets Raphaël Frei (Arnaud Valois), an older man, and becomes obsessed with him. Despite their age difference, they find in each other an answer to their ennui and fall in love. But Suzanne is afraid she’s missing out on life; that life of a 16-year-old, which she had struggled so much to enjoy in the same way as her peers. At the beginning of the movie Suzanne certainly does not know her desires or what she wants. She's naive because she's young but she's never afraid of saying what she wants, or to be who she's with him. She's not a seductress, she's seductive without knowing it. She achieves her ends because he starts to become a sort of obsession for her. She fantasizes about him and she's so intrigued by him that meeting him and knowing him becomes a need. Suzanne seems out of step with her friends and people of her age. She gets bored with people her age, and finds something in Raphaël that she can’t find elsewhere. She's burning with envy and desire but she's still a child and not yet ready to live such an adult life. Raphaël’s life is very repetitive; the same props, the same troupe, the same play, the same place. The arrival of Suzanne and their love story is a kind of new breath given to this place. It's the most common place in the world for him, and the most intriguing in the world for her. So the theater is to a symbol of excitement and desire but at the same time a symbol of weariness. Through the character of Raphael, the film approaches difficulties linked to the acting career; the weariness of rehearsals, the loss of meaning in the face of a meticulous director. At 16, it's the daily life of our age that bores us, that's to say high school. Adults, this is different, it's our job. But a profession, and especially that of an actor, is something that we choose. The film likes the difficulty the character has in continuing to do what he has chosen to do, and what he's supposed to be passionate about. So it's also a way of emphasizing the feeling of boredom and emptiness in Raphaël’s life. This is her meeting with Raphaël that makes her grow up and realize that she's burning with envy and desire. On the other hand, she knows what she does not want, what does not correspond to her; this adolescent life to which she feels a complete stranger. The characters are drawn together around the 'Theatre of L’Atelier', both a place of weariness for Raphael and a place for expression of desire and the emerging intimacy between the couple. There's a gentleness and courtesy between Suzanne and Raphael as they become more familiar, for example the kisses on the neck rather than the lips. The modesty in their relationship is obvious because we've always think that modesty is a sign of respect, and Suzanne and Raphael are respecting each other a lot. Talk about the universal topic of adolescence and the romantic encounter, it's necessary that everyone, from all eras combined, be able to identify with this story. This is why there's no era marker in the film. No phones, no computers. In the movie, this is their language, they kiss on the neck or on the hand, they dance. They've their own sensuality, their own way of living their love story. The film likes the idea that they don’t rush each other, that they pay attention to each other. The most beautiful and sincere human relationships are those that are unfamiliar. We know that when we're moved by someone, we don’t dare reveal everything, and at the same time we feel more ourself than with anyone else. This is exactly the same with Suzanne and Raphaël, the two characters of the movie. They're moved by each other and they treat their relationship really preciously, as if it's fragile because it's rare. Furthermore it's important to show a certain form of courtesy and modesty in the movie because we live in a time where everyone allows themselves to be familiar with everybody. The character of Suzanne’s father (Frédéric Pierrot) Is really important, because it's the only male figure she has, so he's her way to learn a little more about what a man would like or want. He's the only point of comparison she has, and we've to understand that she asks him questions because they've a relationship of trust even if they've trouble showing that they understand each other. Between them, there's a lot of modesty, tenderness. More than being a mentor to her, he's just a reassuring figure who looks at her with a lot of respect because he never wants to know too much about his daughter. He just takes what she gives to him, without even understanding sometimes. What's interested with Suzanne and Raphaël’s relationship is that they don’t want or desire anything before they desire each other. The question of living an adult life is important in the movie. The thing she's not yet ready to do is to completely abandon the teenage life that she thought she's having such a hard time enduring. This daily adolescent life that she feels foreign, she now feels ready to face it and to live it fully thanks to the meeting she has with him, because it helped her to discover her envy, her desire, what she wants and who she really is. Suzanne, despite her naivety and lack of experience, seems very determined and achieves her ends; she seduces Raphael, and it's she who later puts an end to their story. The fact that she's the one who puts an end to their story is very important, because it's a way to show how this love story allows her to move forward, and it gives her hope, energy and the desire to face her real life and not to be bored by it anymore. She does not ride a scooter when she does not want to, she never forces herself to do something she does not feel, and she has the strength to leave a man she loves if she feels that it will make her move forward with her life. How does it feel to fall in love? What does it mean to meet someone, to be yourself with someone else? It's the summer before starting high school; about this certain age, where you're not totally a child anymore, but not really an adult yet. Adolescence is a difficult period because you discover new things before really discovering who you're and what you really want. It does not mean that we've to fight or rebel ourselves against our parents or family in general. Relationships at that age are more complex than just rebelling against people with no reasons. It's about two people, a young girl and an older man who are not the same age but who are living exactly the same routine. In a way they're at the same point of their lives. At 16, we sometimes fall in love with an idea more than a person. And we really want to talk about that, about the fact that they find each other, and they fall in love because they're no longer bored when together. The sixteen year-old girl we talking about in the movie is a misfit, she does not really know how to live or behave with people her own age. Being sixteen is also the moment when love stories start to become more important. This is always about legitimacy, which is kind of a vicious circle. Especially today, in the times we live in, the film shows a balanced and respectful relationship between these two. Today with the telephone and social networks, we've the feeling we know people before even meeting them.

(Release Info London schedule; May 17th, 2021, The Prince Charles Theatre, 7 Leicester Pl, London WC2H 7BY, United Kingdom, 6:15 pm) https://princecharlescinema.com/PrinceCharlesCinema.dll/WhatsOn?f=17320550 "Nomadland" Following the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad. "Nomadland" features real nomads Linda May, Swankie and Bob Wells as Fern’s mentors and comrades in her exploration through the vast landscape of 'The American West' A sweeping panoramic portrait of 'The American' nomadic spirit set on the trail of seasonal migratory labor, "Nomadland" is a road movie for our times, now doubly relevant and resonant in this moment of redefinition and change. We see the grandeur of 'The American West', from 'The Badlands' of South Dakota to 'The Nevada Desert', to 'The Pacific Northwest', through the eyes of 61-year old Fern. Fern is a woman who has lost a husband and in fact her whole former life, when the mining town where she lived is essentially dissolved. But in her process, she gains strength and a new life. Fern finds her community in the nomad gatherings she attends which include Linda May and Swankie (real life nomads who play themselves), closer companionship with Dave (David Strathairn), and along with others she meets on her journey. But most importantly, in nature, as she evolves, in the wilderness, in rocks, trees, stars, a hurricane, this is where she finds her independence. The film incorporates non-actors and have them be themselves in the moment, then Fran has to somehow be herself in the moment as well, because she couldn’t know what they're going to do. That’s why the film has so much of her in the character. It’s a way to make practical things that you need, things for bartering on the road. A big part of Fern's evolution is learning to live with nature. Living in a van, she becomes increasingly more exposed to nature, it's beauty and hostility, it's ability to replenish and to heal. The sound design is very important to the film and is tailored to the very different specific landscapes Fern travels through. The film keeps the sound design true to the soundscapes of the places where Fern finds herself. This film is based on the non-fiction book 'Nomadland: Surviving America In The 21st Century' by Brooklyn writer Jessica Bruder. The book is a work of investigative journalism and each chapter has a different topic. Half of the book focuses on nomadic living, and the other half is actually undercover reporting. Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear; the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break. We sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun. We've always been deeply drawn to the open road, an idea we find to be quintessentially American; the endless search for what’s beyond the horizon. The film captures a glimpse of it, knowing it’s not possible to truly describe 'The American Road' to another person. One has to discover it on one’s own. The film uses the classically male/'Western' genre tropes to tell a more universal story of triumph over adversity and the will to survive and adjust one’s dreams. There's been this promise made to the baby boomer generation, that if they just did 'X', 'Y', and 'Z', it would all work out by the time they got to retirement age. Clearly that didn’t happen and isn't happening. The safety net has ripped, and many people are now falling through it. It's like 'The Titanic's' going down. And this situation dovetails with the tradition of rugged American individualism. Many of these people who are finding themselves forced into this sort of life are discovering an independence and a new sense of themselves. Beholden to only themselves for the first time in their lives. It's inspiring, complicated, of course, in the way that so much in America is so layered and complicated right now. These are people who are redefining 'The American Dream'. The film grapples with this idea of 'The American Dream', and seeing it from a fresh perspective. "Nomadland" enters this world, explores a unique American identity; the true nomad. Being a 'Nomad' is a choice, not a circumstance. NOMADLAND 93rd Academy Awards Best Picture 2021 · Frances McDormand, Chloé Zhao, Peter Spears Best Actress 2021 · Frances McDormand Best Director 2021 · Chloé Zhao Best Adapted Screenplay 2021 · Chloé Zhao