"The East End of London is the typical planet earth place... It's like a little picture of the general world's state."
— With Gilbert and George, EEFF 2007
This year’s Features ( alphabetical order)
Opening Night Gala:
Bronco Bullfrog
Closing Night Party, hosted by Shutterbox
Click for more information
Feature film screenings
All The Years Of Trying
Ana Begins
Bank Robbery (PangarööV)
Be Calm and Count to Seven
Bilal
The Border
Buben, Baraban
Cargo 200 (Gruz 200)
Cook County
The Cost Of Love
Cowboys In India
Crush (Korotkoye Zamykaniye)
Disco and Atomic War
East End Lives 2
Erasing David
Fearless Freaks
Firaaq
For a Moment Freedom
Francesca
Ghost Bird
I am (Ya)
I am Yours (Jestem Twój)
I Killed My Mother (J’ai Tué Ma Mere)
Julia (Julenka)
Land Gold Women
Leaves
Lives Of The Artists
The Lodger
Lonely Pack (Kleine Wölfe)
Lost Times (Utolsó Idök)
Mall Girls (Galerianki)
Manila
Men Of The City
Metastases (Metastaze)
Morphia (Morfiy)
Now and Forever (Teraz i Zawsze)
Piggies (Świnki)
Presumed Guilty
Rime of the Modern Mariner
Russia 88 (Rossiya 88)
Shed Your Tears And Walk Away
Skid Row
Slovenian Girl (Slovenka)
SUS
Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam
Therapist
Tibet In Song
Today Is Better Than Two Tomorrows
We Don’t Care About Music Anyway
Who Shot The Sheriff?
The Wild And Wonderful Whites Of West Virginia
Please click on Programme Themes (also in the top right hand menu) to see films and events by programme strand.
86 min | UK | 1969 | Dir: Barney Platts-Mills
Del Quant is a 17-year-old welder’s apprentice who lives in London’s East End. He and his friends have little money, nothing to do and nowhere to go. They get their kicks robbing from the local café, bragging about their friend Bronco Bullfrog who is on the run from Borstal, and dreaming of girls and criminal adventures. Del eventually befriends Bronco, and he also meets Irene, a 15-year-old schoolgirl whose father is in prison for armed robbery and whose mother is determined that she will rise above her surroundings.
British East End working-class youth are realistically portrayed in this cult film that’s become a mod classic. With a great sixties soundtrack by The Audience and atmospheric black & white photography, and with a sharp “mod” and “swinging sixties” feel and style with a kitchen-sink sensibility, it’s like the first film Mike Leigh should have made.
The East End Film Festival presents a brand new HD screening, in collaboration with the British Film Institute’s Flipside, which discovers and brings back to life lost gems from British cinema.
We also look forward to welcoming on stage some of the original cast and crew from this classic film.
Followed by a night of subcultural dance and cocktails with food courtesy of S&M at The Brickhouse on Brick Lane.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
Bronco Bullfrog will be showing at the BFI Southbank and Genesis from June 11
61 min | UK | 2009 | Director: Dom Shaw
Part music documentary, part concert film, Dom (Rough Cut & Ready Dubbed) Shaw’s film concerns ‘lost’ late seventies punk poet Patrick Fitzgerald, who’s fans include the likes of John Cooper Clarke and more recently, King Blues. Born in 1956 in Stratford, East London to working-class Irish immigrant parents, he began performing and recording his acoustic bedroom anthems during the punk rock explosion of 1977. Kicking against the punk orthodoxy by performing waif-like and vulnerably alone with an acoustic guitar and a tattered book of poems at the height of the punk revolution, his anthem ‘Safety Pin Stuck in My Heart’ struck a chord that’s been felt into the next generation of singer songwriters. The film mixes archive footage, interviews with Fitzgerald’s contemporaries and culminates with his recent live performances in London and as part of a Patrick Fitzgerald festival in Norway.
Following the screening Dom Shaw will be in discussion, followed by a series of live performances bringing punk rock and poetry together.
* Scrappy Hood from Milk Kan brings his busking talents out of the bedroom following the bands signing to the Blang indie label in 2007 (where they’ve been known for their superb song titles God With an i-pod and Bling Bling Baby)
* Tim Clare, poet, author (We Can’t All Be Astronauts), Channel 4 presenter (How To Get A Book Deal) and musician, brings his ukele to Whitechapel (Look out for his debut solo show, Death Drive, in the Edinburgh Fringe this summer.)
* Poet and filmmaker Ross Sutherland was born in Edinburgh in 1979. He was included in The Times’ list of Top Ten Literary Stars of 2008. His debut one-man show “The Three Stigmata of Pacman” transfers from London to Edinburgh this August.
* Tim Wells cultivates a laugh that’s more like a caress. He walks properly. He does not slouch, shuffle or stumble about. He knows that wide, floating trousers are only good for wearing on a veranda with a cocktail in your hand. His latest collection, Rougher Yet, is published by Donut Press
* Steve Micalef is the ‘lost’ editor of Sniffin’ Glue magazine, who worked alongside Mark Perry and Danny Baker in the late 70s, and is the self-styled “most prolific poet in the country”.
* Resident East End Film Festival and Hackney-based poet Jan Noble (and drummer with The Cesarians) will host the event, as well as perform from his own body of work which includes his time with the Brick Lane Poets..
This film is part of the Festival’s ‘Riot Race and Rock & Roll’ programme strand. For a full list of screenings and events, please see Riot Race and Rock & Roll
Please also see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
80 min | UK | 2008 | Dir: Ben O’Connor (First Feature)
Ana’s husband has died, and she finds herself alone and isolated in her home on the outskirts of a rural village in North Devon, trying to start again during a cold, grey and wet February. Her neighbour Frazer is there as someone to lean on. But he is also lost, trapped in a marriage that died years ago. The older Frazer begins to fall in love with the young and beautiful Ana, and their relationship develops, but not without tension and guilt.
Ana Begins is a subtle and intricate love story, and the directorial feature debut of British director O’Connor, who has worked in short film, documentary and drama
Followed by Director Q&A
To book tickets online via Cineworld, please visit www.cineworld.co.uk
93 mins | Estonia | 2009 | Dir: Andrus Tuisk (First Feature)
Hannes is bullied at school and lacks parental love. His uncle Madis, a tattooed former boxer and lifelong criminal, is just released from prison. With Hannes looking for a father figure, the two misfits link up and head off on a road trip into rural Estonia, leading Madis back to a life of crime.
First time feature director Tuisk show us that life is harsh, and captures brutality here without resorting to gratuitous violence. Smoking and hard drinking play prevalent supporting roles! Bank Robbery is a gritty film with some genuinely moving moments by Tuisk, who’s built a solid career in commercials.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
89 mins | Iran | 2009 | Dir: Ramtin Lavafipour (First Feature)
Motu is the leader of a gang of young people who make their money by gleaning smuggled cargo from the sea, recovering abandoned and illegal merchandise. While their families are often part of the operation, Motu’s father vanished while smuggling illegal aliens, and no one knows where he is or even if he’s still alive.
This lyrical portrait of a remote Persian Gulf fishing village highlights that the smuggling of consumer goods and people has changed the traditional way of life. A feature debut from Lavafipour, the dynamic cinematography catches the actions and moods of a changing world.
To book tickets online via the Rio Cinema please visit www.riocinema.co.uk
88 min | India | 2009 | Dir: Sourav Sarangi
At first glance, Bilal is a normal 3 year-old kid. He goes to school; he plays with other kids in his neighborhood; he teases his younger brother. But dig beneath the surface and there’s something a little bit special about Bilal. Looks can be deceiving, you see. In fact, they can be totally redundant. Bilal and his brother can see perfectly well, but both their parents are blind. All four live in a 12’ x 8’ room in central Kolkata. It’s a tiny, tangible universe. Independent filmmaker Sourav Sarangi spent the best part of a year filming in this absorbing environment. The result is Bilal, a documentary that’s rightly proving one of this year’s big successes on the international festival circuit.
Please see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
72 min | Slovakia | 2009 | Dir: Jaroslav Vojtek
A documentary about the absurdity of how political decisions on paper can have disastrous effects on the ground. The village of Slemence in 1946 suddenly found itself divided between two countries: Czechoslovakia and the Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), when the border between those two countries was drawn at random. Families call to each other over the fence to pass on the latest news about weddings and funerals, and have to travel 150 km to get a visa to visit the other side.
A Slovakian film crew spent seven years in Slemence. They were there when an EU referendum made border controls even stricter; ironic given the 20th anniversary festivities of the fall of the Berlin Wall was to celebrate living in a Europe without borders..
+ EXIT (Poland 1989 / 2009, Malgorzata Bienkowska-Buehlmann, 29 min)
This documentary is made up up footage shot in October 1989 on the closed border of Poland and West Germany, as refugees attempt to escape to the West. It’s a fascinating document, given what we know happened just a month after this footage was filmed.
These films are part of the Festival’s Human Rights Focus programme strand. For a full list of screenings, please see Human Rights Focus
Please also see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
105 mins | Russia | 2009 | Dir: Alexei Mizgirev
Set in the late 90s in a small mining town in Russia, this distressing drama centers on Katya, 45, a local librarian who leads a solitary life, her only friend being her youthful colleague and neighbour. Unable to make both ends meet on her meagre and often delayed salary, Katya is forced to steal books from the library and sell them at the train station in disguise. But her life brightens up when a navy captain comes to town and she encounters a true love she’s been longing for years.
In his second feature Mizgirev’s presents an exemplary character study. Natalia Negoda as Katya delivers a brilliant performance as a woman who struggles with grinding poverty, anguish and the emptiness of her life.
To book tickets online, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
89 min | Russia | 2007 | Dir: Alexei Balabanov
This terrifying and absurdist film is set in Leninsk, a fictional provincial Russian factory-town, in 1984, during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. As the economy and the party are collapsing, and the bodies of slain Soviet soldiers, code-named Cargo 200, arrive regularly from the war, so the locals dance and drink their way to escalating depravity, as the film focuses on the abduction of the young daughter of a local Communist Party official.
Balabonov’s vision plumbs near-comical depths of anti-Communist fury, as the characters, seem too tired to grasp what is happening to them. Critiquing the late-Soviet period, this brutal and fetid vision of sadism and political policy is a work of serious, modern social criticism that attempts to combat a growing Putin-fueled nostalgia for the Soviet era. “I show what filth we lived in,” the director has said.
Balabanov is best known in the UK for his nineties BROTHERS films, but the East End Film Festival welcomes him to London to present his more recent work, and to attend a Q&A session after both this film and MORPHIA, screening at 8pm
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
US | 2008 | Dir: David Pomes | 93 min (First Feature)
An excellent drama about the horrors of meth addiction in rural America, following the story of a family going through complete meltdown into full-blown addiction, and how it affects their 6-year-old daughter.
This screening is part of Grits n Gravy Sunday, an entire day dedicated to Deep-South cinema held at our Filmmakers Centre on 25 April. Buy a ticket for all 3 matinee screenings, free Bloody Mary cocktail, and hog-roast on the roof garden (weather permitting) for just £6.50!
To book tickets, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
95 min | UK | 2010 | Dir: Carl Medland (First Feature)
A modern love story that speaks to us all regardless of colour, sexuality or age, featuring diverse characters and the price they pay for falling in love. Set over four days, the film follows Dale who creates a whirlwind with everyone he comes into contact with.
Medland’s debut drama was filmed in Greenwich and Docklands, a true cosmopolitan area of London; an area that reflects modern day city life. And although the film will speak loudly to a gay audience, it has equally as many straight characters. With a comic upbeat feel married to more poignant moments, this film presents an honesty that exists in us all.
Followed by Q & A with Director.
Please note that running time for this feature may change slightly.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
77 min | UK | 2009 | Dir: Simon Chambers
Documentary filmmaker Chambers (Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears) visits Orissa, India, where tribal people fight with bows and arrows against multinational mining moguls from London, fighting to save a sacred mountain whose resources will supposedly bring prosperity to the people. Chambers, aided by two hopeless local guides, searches for answers amongst conflicting allegations, as the truth becomes more and more elusive, as accusations of murder and whether company-built hospitals and schools actually exist, land these investigators in bigger trouble than expected.
A humorous film about a serious subject.
Please see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
95 min | Russia | 2009 | Dir: Petr Buslov / Alexei German Jr. / Boris Khlebnikov / Kirill Serebrennikov / Ivan Vyrypaev
CRUSH is an anthology film joining five stories which become five directorial statements about love. The main characters are the marginal heroes of our time. They are lonely but struggle to express their feelings, although they all share an important quality of being open-hearted and not afraid of loving.
CRUSH brought together leading representatives of new generation of Russian filmmakers who shared their original insight on how people meet each other and fall (or not) in love in modern Russia.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
80 min | Estonia | 2009 | Dir: Jaak Kilmi
A documentary about growing up in the Soviet Union, but close enough to Finland to receive the forbidden fruit of Finnish television - a window to a world of dreams that the authorities could not block. Though Finnish channels were banned, many households found some way to access them leading to a strange kind of information war, where a totalitarian regime stands face-to-face with the heroes of popular culture, when it was possible for the erotic film Emmanuelle and JR in Dallas to bring down the Red Army!
This personal deadpan-comic document shows how director Kilmi and other grade schoolers in early-80s Estonia had their lives altered, and has it’s tongue planted firmly in its cheek.
Please see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online via the Barbican, please visit www.barbican.org.uk/film
30 min | UK | 2010 | Dir: Hazuan Hashim and Phil Maxwell (world premiere)
+ Q&A with the Directors and real-life cast
Following on from the success of their documentary East End Lives, this second film will again explore life, culture and history of the East End through the eyes of a diverse group of characters. The second instalment includes a range of new and diverse characters including retired East End publicans, Les and Georgina, Imaan a young aspiring artist who is just starting at George Green School and Dilruba, a photojournalist who migrated to the East End over 20 years ago. Despite the changes that the film documents so well, the viewer is left with the overwhelming feeling that there is a constancy that binds East Enders together with a heritage drawn from so many different cultures.
We’re delighted to welcome both directors and several cast from the film to the sceening
Please see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
Erasing David + Satellite Q&A
80 min | UK | 2009 | Dir: David Bond / Melinda McDougall
We live in one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world. Filmmaker David Bond decides to find out how much private companies and the government know about him by putting himself under surveillance and attempting to disappear, which is a decision that changes his life forever. Leaving his pregnant wife and young child behind, he is tracked across the database state on a chilling journey that forces him to contemplate the meaning of privacy and the loss of it.
Director David Bond will introduce the film screening in person, which will be followed by a live link-up Q&A.
Please see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online via Stratford Picturehouse please visit www.picturehouses.co.uk
US | 2005 | Bradley Beesley | 103 min
A documentary on the evolution of the Oklahoma band The Flaming Lips and an insight on what it’s like to be a rock star.
+ DANCING OUTLAW
US | 1991 | Jacob Young | 40 min
Introducing us to Jesco White, a hard-living, tap-dancing Boone County resident whose repeated run-ins with the law have interfered with his dream of becoming as renowned a “mountain dancer” as his late father, D. Ray White.
This screening is part of Grits n Gravy Sunday, an entire day dedicated to Deep-South cinema held at our Filmmakers Centre on 25 April. Buy a ticket for all 3 matinee screenings, free Bloody Mary cocktail, and hog-roast on the roof garden (weather permitting) for just £6.50!
To book tickets, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
101 min | India | 2008 | Dir: Nandita Das (First Feature)
Based on a thousand true stories, Firaaq follows the life of several ordinary people, some who were victims, some who were silent observers and some perpetrators, set one month after the 2002 violence in Gujarat. We meet Mohsin who is a young Muslim boy who has been orphaned during the massacre, but is still searching for his father; Aarti who is a middle-aged Hindu woman traumatised because she did not open the door to a Muslim girl being chased by a mob, and many others.
Indian actress Das (Ramchand Pakistani) makes her flawless directorial debut here, and brings together some of India’s finest actors in a powerful piece of activist filmmaking that doesn’t shy away from the human psyche.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
101 mins | Austria | 2008 | Dir: Arash T. Riahi (First Feature)
The powerful story of three groups of Iranians refugees who have all managed to escape from Iran and Iraq, now stuck in Istanbul in Turkey, in a dodgy hotel, hoping each day that their applications for asylum will be approved. Although freedom is within their grasp, they first have to wait.
These people are heroes who have done nothing except to escape from their homes, when they realise that the struggle for their ideals could no longer be reconciled with any hope of survival. They have to flee merely to carry on living. They have made the decision to become refugees a reality.
Young Austrian-Iranian filmmaker Riahi depicts the plight of people trying to flee their homeland and their curious, transitory state of asylum-seekers, with tragic comedy and great suspense. His film is a reaction to and commentary on the political and social situation in Europe today, where racism and hatred of foreigners has become acceptable to a frightening degree.
These films are part of the Festival’s Human Rights Focus programme strand. For a full list of screenings, please see Human Rights Focus
To book tickets online via the Rio Cinema please visit www.riocinema.co.uk
94 mins |Romania | 2009 | Dir: Bobby Paunescu (First Feature)
Francesca, a young teacher from Bucharest, is eager to work in Italy. But her friends and family tell her horror stories about how Romanian immigrant workers are treated there, and although she tries to stay optimistic about her dreamed future, doubts creep in. She has a plan to have her boyfriend join her as soon as he closes his small business, but things take an unfortunate turn.
This film ignited strong reactions when presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2009, and at the request of Alessandra Mussolini, it has been banned, but the ban was soon lifted after a court decision. Bobby Paunescu’s film is an attempt to bring about a need for a change.
We welcome director Bobby Paunescu for a Q&A following the film.
With thanks to The Romanian Cultural Institute.
To book tickets online via the Rio Cinema please visit www.riocinema.co.uk
US | 2009 | Scott Croker | 85 min
A documentary about a small town in Arkansas, an extinct giant Ivory-billed woodpecker and everybody looking for the Holy Grail of birding, while examining the meaning of hope, faith and the limits of certainty in the quest to resurrect this lost bird!
This screening is part of Grits n Gravy Sunday, an entire day dedicated to Deep-South cinema held at our Filmmakers Centre on 25 April. Buy a ticket for all 3 matinee screenings, free Bloody Mary cocktail, and hog-roast on the roof garden (weather permitting) for just £6.50!
To book tickets, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
Please see full listing of documentary films here
88 min | Russia | 2008 | Dir: Igor Voloshin
A truly hallucinogenic story of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll set in a Russian psychiatric unit that centres on the generation destroyed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The story concerns a playwright who admits himself into a psychiatric ward and tells tales of life inside; these range from the mundane to the strange story of a messianic rock star. The film’s visuals act as their own form of electroshock therapy!
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
105 min | Poland | 2009 | Dir: Mariusz Grzegorzek
In times of pain and weakness, people sometimes give in to basic desires which have everlasting effects. Marta (played wonderfully by Malgorzata Buczkowska-Szlenkier), thirty years old doctor, learns this the hard way in Mariusz Grzegorzek’s I Am Yours, a story about how selfishness and common baseness can have irreversible consequences. In the middle of an ugly separation, Marta in a moment of desperation falls into the hands of the new groundskeeper Artur. Unbeknownst to Marta, Artur is an ex-con with dangerously obsessive tendencies that become worse when he finds out Marta is pregnant with his child. In a battle over the child’s custody, the film introduces a variety of characters all with their own intricacies and neuroses that further complicate Marta’s life.
A film about unresolved jealousy, resentment and perversion, Grzegorzek never hesitates to pierce into the ugliest corners of the human mind. A stylistically tight and well crafted movie manufactures strong emotion throughout.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
96 min | Canada | 2009 | Dir: Xavier Dolan (First Feature)
The semi-autobiographical tale of a young gay man coming of age while struggling with his tortured relationship with his mother. Their fights escalate until Mom decides Hubert will be shipped off to boarding school. Being banished to a mother-free zone might have seemed a good option for Hubert, but the move simply leads to an ultimate standoff between them.
With his first feature, Dolan writes, directs and stars in I Killed My Mother. Combining assured writing, a confident directorial style, and a beautifully rendered performance, Dolan’s arrival on the big screen is an achievement that cannot be ignored.
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
102 min | Russia | 2009 | Dir: Alexander Strizhenov
A university professor, who wants a quieter life, moves with his wife and daughter to a small town and starts a new job as a teacher in a girl’s school. But something weird is happening with his class; these girls don’t play with dolls! Led by a destructive little girl, who plays with human lives and prompts her classmates to do the same, our teacher’s life and his family are soon jeopardized by something evil.
With a nod towards The Omen, Strizenhov’s creepy, horror outing Julia projects an otherworldly air of menace, and has a standout performance by the young Darya Balabanova as Julia, who can give you serious goosepimples with a single creepy look that tells you she means business.
+ THE LAST BREATH (UK, David Jackson, 11 min)
Whilst a family group outing goes scuba diving in an idyllic countryside lake, there’s an unexplained catastrophic event and they are the only survivors - or so they think.
To book tickets online via the Rio Cinema please visit www.riocinema.co.uk
99 min | UK | 2009 | Dir: Avantika Hari (First Feature)
Shot entirely on location in Birmingham, LAND GOLD WOMEN follows the story of a British-Asian family caught between Eastern tradition, Western culture and political turbulence. Nazir Ali Khan is an immigrant Indian professor who teaches at a British university, and lives with his wife and their two teenage daughters, whom he loves and indulges their love for all things English while trying to keep the link to home strong. When his older daughter is found in an illicit relationship, Nazir is suddenly on the brink of a tough decision.
At the core of this film is the relationship between father and daughter and how their dynamics play out when she decides to take her life into her own hands. This Anglo-Indian collaboration aims to highlight the problems of forced marriage and honour crime, which affects thousands of women in Britain and across the world.
Following the screening will be a discussion, with cast and crew, about issues raised in the film.
This screening is part of the Festival’s Human Rights Focus programme strand. For a full list of screenings, please see Human Rights Focus
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
58 min | UK | 2009 | Dir: Ian Waugh (First Feature)
Arriving at an isolated farmhouse for a weekend holiday, David and Leah hope to fix their breaking relationship. David is distant and distracted, so Leah explores the surrounding woods alone taking photographs but captures the ghostly blur of a man watching her in the background.
Leaves is that rare breed of a mid-length feature film by Scottish filmmaker and photographer Waugh, with a brooding atmosphere about emotional disorientation, and a man’s inability to distinguish the environment around him as real or illusionary.
+ THINGS WE LEAVE BEHIND (UK, Andrew Brand, 16 min)
Whilst clearing the country cottage of his missing father, Chris unearths some unexpected truths.
+ BACK TO NATURE (UK, Guy Pitt, 19 min)
A young woman finds out some unexpected truths about her partner whilst on a cycling holiday in the countryside.
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
81 min | UK | 2009 | Dir: Ross Cairns
This film project documents the personalities of three of our own 21st century contemporary ‘artists’: The abrasive and dramatic British hardcore punk band Gallows on tour across the US; Freeride snowboarder Xavier de Le Rue in the incredible untamed wilderness of Greenland; Big wave surfers Tom Lowe and Fergal searching for the world’s ‘most perfect’ wave in Teahupoo, Tahiti.
Filming for a year in some of the most dangerous, remote, inspiring and romantic places on earth, we witness the light and dark sides of these artist’s personalities, who push and suffer for their art as they search for fulfilment.
Followed by Q&A with Executive Producer, Marc Cave.
Please see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
75 min | UK | 1927 | Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Based on the book by Marie Belloc Lowndes about a mysterious lodger who is suspected of being a local serial killer with a penchant for “golden curls”, with obvious references to the nearby Jack The Ripper legend around Whitechapel and Spitalfields itself. Made at Gainsborough Studios in Shoreditch, The Lodger is considered to be Hitchcock’s first thriller, bringing together those stylistic and thematic elements which would go on to epitomise his American suspense noirs. The Lodger’s critical acclaim quickly established Hitchcock as a name director, which is astonishing considering that the film was almost never released. The distributor told him: “Your picture is so dreadful, that we’re just going to put it on the shelf and forget about it.” Thankfully, this did not happen and trade journal Bioscope called it “the finest British production ever made”.
MINIMA
Minima’s music is an audacious 21st century interpretation of the images of silent films. Formed in 2006, Minima have since performed in a variety of cinemas and art centres, music festivals and unusual venues such as churches and railway arches, and including here at Spitalfields at the 2009 East End Film Festival where they accompanied silent horror classic Nosferatu. So, we welcome them back to the Festival for 2010; not to be missed.
The outdoor screening and live music accompaniment at Spitalfields is free. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.
48 min | Germany | 2009 | Dir: Justin Peach / Lisa Engelbach (First Feature)
This documentary follows one day with a group of street children in Katmandu, Nepal, including eleven year old Sonu who lives on the streets, where the daily routine is a fight to survive. They’re always on the prowl for food, drugs, charitable tourists, as well as fun and adventure. Their lives are shaped by hunger and violence but filled with childlike moments of freedom.
Lonely Pack has no narrator, no music, or no staging. The story is told in true cinema style by the kids themselves.
+ LAGUNA NEGRA (UK, Michael Watts, 24 min)
This documentary explores the core values of a subsistence farming community in Huancabamba in Peru, threatened by large scale mining.
+ ECHOES (UK, Rob Brown, 11 min)
A female sex trafficker faces a moral dilemma.
+ NO WAY THROUGH (UK, Alexandra Monro / Sheila Menon, 17 min)
This short drama highlights the mobility restrictions imposed in the West Bank in Israel in an affective and powerful way that hits home.
These films are part of the Festival’s Human Rights Focus programme strand. For a full list of screenings, please see Human Rights Focus
Please also see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
Genesis, Wednesday 28th April, 6pm
90 min | Hungary | 2009 | Dir: Áron Mátyássy (First Feature)
Young car mechanic Iván lives in a godforsaken village in eastern Hungary, where he looks after his mentally disabled sister Eszter and earns extra money smuggling diesel oil from Ukraine. But, tragically, Eszter is raped and a police investigation gets under way. In the meantime, Ivan’s lover, a girl from the village, wants to leave to go to city college. Iván plainly also wants to leave his old life behind him, but he finds a clue that might lead him to the rapist.
With a neo-impressionistic palette and gauzy cinematography in intriguing contrast to this gritty story of bleak lives, this is New Hungarian Cinema with it’s elements of “magic realism” at it’s best.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
82 min | Poland | 2009 | Dir: Katarzyna Roslaniec (First Feature)
At 14 it’s important to feel accepted by your classmates, be part of a group, not feel an outsider. Alicja is an ordinary girl, a newcomer, one who looks her age, wears no makeup. She finds herself on the fringes of a trendy group of teenagers. Rude and crude they make her life hell before slowly inviting her to join their world, hanging round shopping malls hitting on guys who pay them for sexual favours with cash or fashion accessories.
Popular at the box office in Poland and well received at festivals, where Roslaniec has won several awards for this debut feature, Mall Girls considers the fate of a generation that may have been exposed to too much too young.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
90 min | Philippines | 2009 | Dir: Adolfo Alix Jr. / Raya Martin (First Feature)
Manila is divided into two sections. The day segment is the tale of drug addict William (played by Filipino superstar Piolo Pascual) following his escape from a brothel as he wanders around trying to re-connect with the world. The night segment is a noirish thriller focusing on Philip (again played by Pascual) who is a bodyguard for the local mayor’s son, but on the run from the police after an incident.
Featuring a star-studded roster of past and present stars of Philippine TV and cinema, we see the dark and unforgiving underbelly of Manila, while paying tribute to the Philippines’ most influential directors Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal.
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
60 min | UK | 2009 | Dir: Marc Isaacs
This new feature documentary by Marc Isaacs was filmed over two years in the Square Mile of the City of London. The film focuses on four main characters, ranging from a high-end hedge fund manager to a street sweeper, as we experience the financial crash through their journey and the effects it has on each of their lives. Those people who work in the City either make money out of money, or from their proximity of money. But what do they feel about their jobs, particularly in the current financial situation?
Isaacs has an incredible knack for managing to capture British life and people accurately, as no character is painted in either a sympathetic or negative light but merely presented as they are without judgment or assessment. And here Isaacs may have made the most insightful film we’ll ever see about the current economic situation and its affects.
Followed by Director’s Q&A
Please see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online via the Barbican, please visit www.barbican.org.uk/film
82 min | Croatia | 2009 | Dir: Branko Schmidt
Four young junkies without jobs, future or any kind of perspective, spend their time drinking, fighting, shoplifting, stealing, fanatically cheering for their local soccer club, and drug smuggling.
Metastases can be described as Croatian “Generation X” or “Trainspotting”, with it’s depiction of recent social problems in Zagreb. It explores the ‘illnesses’ that plague modern Croatia in the wake of war, and reflects the petty hatreds, violence, prejudices and moods hanging over the country with no cure in sight.
+ DIEGO’S STORY (UK, Alex Garcia, 15 min)
Diego becomes victim to a terrifying ordeal when returning home from work.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
110 min | Russia | 2008 | Dir: Alexei Balabanov
This film is based on the semi-autobiographical short stories by Mikhail Bulgakov, best known for his novel The Master & the Margarita.
Morphia takes place in 1917 when young Russian doctor arrives at a remote Siberian village hospital, after just having freshly graduated from medical school. As the only doctor in the rural district, he works hard, but after an allegic reaction to a vaccination he has his nurse give him morphine and gradually he slips into addiction.
This powerful and bizarre tale of the slide into the abyss of drug addiction as the country around slides into the horrors of civil war, one can feel a dread presence in every scene. Bulgakov is considered Russia’s greatest and most controversial author of the 20th century, and the film is strongly recommended for anyone who enjoys Dostoevsky and classical Russian literature.
Balabanov is best known in the UK for his nineties BROTHERS films, but the East End Film Festival welcomes him to London to present his more recent work, and to attend a Q&A session after both this film and CARGO 200, screening earlier in the day at 5pm
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
94 min | Poland | 2008 | Dir: Artur Pilarczyk (First Feature)
Marcin, a University Sports Education student, is going to be a mountain rescuer. He is in his element climbing. Marcin likes his fellow student Marta, but despite his efforts, the girl seems not to notice him. One day Marcin goes to the church for a meeting of a charismatic community. This event changes his life completely…
A story about the phenomenon of faith, about the price one pays for the spiritual dimension and about the unusual experiences accompanying this faith. The film is Pilaczyk’s first feature and has won several awards in Poland. In 2008, at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, “Now and Forever” was considered as a Polish candidate for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2009 Oscar Awards.
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
94 min | Poland | 2009 | Dir: Robert Glinski
Tomek is 14 and a good student. He’s interested in astronomy and plays football to please his father. But then he meets Marta at a disco and falls in love with her. He starts to think up ways of earning money in order to keep her interested. Set in a poor border town plagued by unemployment, just across the river lies Germany with all its relative affluence, Tomek approaches a local pimp who seeks out local boys for his German clients.
The topic of child prostitution is one of the hardest to grasp in the cinema, but Piggies is a surprising human portrayal of such a harrowing industry.
Glinski spent months looking for teenagers to cast in the film’s most crucial roles, and the nonprofessional actors he chose bring to Piggies an appropriate rawness. And screenwriter Joanna Didik has lived for 20 years in the town where the story is set.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
85 min | UK / Mexico | 2009 | Dir: Roberto Hernández / Geoffrey Smith
The heart-wrenching story of a man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a December day in Mexico City in 2005, José Antonio Zuñiga was pointed out by a boy from a police car, and he was subsequently arrested then charged with murder. 48 hours later he was sent to prison. A judge who never heard him speak sentenced him to 20 years on the testimony of a single, shaky, eyewitness.
Mexican lawyers recruited local filmmakers to follow Zuñiga with a camera in what seemed a hopeless quest to get the case re-tried, but through this one man’s extraordinary two-year struggle to regain his freedom, Presumed Guilty documents the contradictions of a judicial system that presumes guilt, where prisons are full of people serving time for crimes they didn’t commit.
Mexican director Hernández has teamed up with UK documentary maker Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon) to show courtroom scenes chillingly similar to Kafka’s absurd The Trial. Turning the lens on this dysfunctional legal system, Hernández and Smith show just how difficult it is to achieve any sort of justice. At a time when there is a strong push for the death penalty in Mexico, the film is important not only as a document of the system’s flaws but as a vehicle for change.
Following the screening, we welcome Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, for a led discussion with co-Director Geoffrey Smith, about issues raised in the film (tbc).
This screening is part of the Festival’s Human Rights Focus programme strand. For a full list of screenings, please see Human Rights Focus
Please also see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
40 min | UK | 2010
Director: Barry Adamson
World Premiere
From cultural saboteur Barry Adamson we are pleased to present the world premiere of Therapist. Unashamedly an artists film, the story follows Monika, a Polish immigrant searching for her sister, who encounters both tragedy and destruction. But is her story real or the metaphor for another man’s emotion, a story straight from the therapist’s couch? A truly metafictional experience, the film, with it’s looping narrative and world within a world structure, focuses on our experience-as-reality and the contradiction between memory, fantasy, truth and the experience of life itself.
We are pleased to welcome Barry for an extended discussion after the film
To buy tickets for the screening and extended discussion, please visit http://www.wegottickets.com/eeff
THE RIME OF THE MODERN MARINER (World Premiere)
UK | 2010 | Director: Mark Donne (First Feature)
World Premiere + live music score performed by composer Anthony Rossomando and very special guests
The Rime of the Modern Mariner is a new artist documentary that explores the culture, community and folklore of the London Docks.
Directed by journalist Mark Donne and narrated by musician Carl Barat (The Libertines, Dirty Pretty Things), the film’s unfurling narrative reveals the decaying architecture, music, and native languages that remain etched in the masonry and bloodstream of this unique quarter.
For hundreds of years the London Docks were the watery capital of a maritime nation and the largest port on earth – when they were closed in the late 1960’s, and an entire way of life was sucked into a vacuum. Amazingly, a handful of Dockers, and a residue of those who sailed to the seven seas from London can still be found, huddled in dilapidated social clubs and the only remaining seaman’s mission, recounting a catalogue of extraordinary memories. The film is set to an atmospheric score which samples bell ringing from East London dockside churches and field recordings including a creaking hull, hammering cargos and engine room rhythms from a container ship voyage.
The screening will be held in the unique setting of St Anne’s Church in Limehouse, and will include a live performance of the dramatic score by composer Anthony Rossomando and ensemble including Rose Elinor Dougall and some very special guests
Please click music for further listings of films and events in the programme with music focus.
Please also see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
104 min | Russia | 2009 | Dir: Pavel Bardin
Shot entirely on a handheld camera this docu-drama tells a fictional story of a Moscow skinhead gang called “Russia 88” who make propaganda videos and distribute them via the Internet. When their leader discovers that his younger sister is involved with a man from the Caucasus, drama turns into a tragedy.
Bardin’s controversial debut shows the neo-Nazi movement gaining strength in Russia. His use of authentic interviews with Moscow inhabitants openly supporting racist views, and the genuine Nazi gear and propagandistic records in the film were legally purchased in Moscow shops and on-line. The true-life facts of murders, pogroms and terrorist attacks all come from the police reports, bringing a frightening feel of reality to Russia 88.
+ YAEL (UK, NJ Silva, 11 min)
Yael is a Jewish freedom fighter who is captured and tortured by the Nazis in Hungary in 1944.
To book tickets online via the Rio Cinema please visit www.riocinema.co.uk
90 min | UK | 2009 | Dir: Jez Lewis (First Feature)
The small and pretty Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge, where film-maker Jez Lewis grew up, is a beautiful and quirky rural idyll. But while it is paradise to many, it is purgatory to others. In the twenty years since Lewis left, dozens of his old friends have died young, many of them through suicide and drug overdoses. Shed Your Tears... begins with a personal quest for understanding, but the film moves into a year-long drama of human tragedy and redemption as Lewis re-bonds with his oldest friend Cass, who attempts to lift himself out of the cycle of self-destruction he has lived amidst for so long.
Part documentary, part personal intervention, Lewis filmed among friends with absolutely unrestricted access, to give a searingly authentic portrayal of a marginalised and overlooked people.
Followed by Director’s Q&A
Please see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online via the Barbican, please visit www.barbican.org.uk/film
80 min | US | 2008 | Dir: Ross Clarke / Niva Dorrel / Marshall Tyler (First Feature)
A documentary that chronicles Grammy-winning Fugees rapper Pras Michel’s 9-day experiment as a homeless man in downtown Los Angeles. Skid Row in Los Angeles is an area where poverty runs notoriously rampant, with the largest homeless population in the entire United States. For those 9 days Michel struggles to find food and shelter but gradually gets to know the men, women, and children who call the sidewalks their home, and hear their tragic and heartfelt stories of survival.
Followed by Director’s Q&A with Ross Clarke
Please see full listing of documentary films here
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
90 min | Slovenia | 2009 | Dir: Damjan Kozole
Alexandra is a student studying in Ljubljana, and working as a prostitute under the name ‘Slovenian Girl’, to enable her to live in nice uptown apartment and to earn extra money to get her life heading to where she wants it to. She can make a lot of money from European diplomats and businessmen who are in Ljubljana during Slovenia’s E.U. presidency. But one of her diplomat clients dies from a heart attack while in her company in an anonymous hotel room.
There is a remarkable debut performance by Nina Ivanisin who is in virtually every scene. Her relentless pursuit of money is a clever metaphor for the dubious values of capitalism and personal gain that have spread fast through the new Eastern Europe.
*NEW ADDITION* We are delighted to welcome director Damjan Kozole, to introduce the screening of his film.
To book tickets online via the Genesis, please visit www.genesiscinema.co.uk
96 min | UK | 2010 | Dir: Robert Heath
It’s 1979 Election Night, as Thatcher comes into power. SUS takes place in a police interview room on that very night, where Delroy (Clint Dyer) is being questioned over about his pregnant wife who has been found dead in a pool of blood. With all the evidence stacking up against him Delroy continually refuses to confess. He suffers a night of callous humiliation at the hands of two racist coppers (Ralph Brown and Rafe Spall), both high on the impending Conservative landslide victory, and more concerned with the outcome of the election than establishing the truth.
Written in 1979 by Barrie Keefe (The Long Good Friday) and based on a true story, SUS is a powerful cry against institutional racism which is as relevant today as ever. Instead of SUS (Suspect Under Suspicion) there is now Stop and Search under Section 44 of the Terrorist Act of 2000.
Following the screening there will be a panel discussion, in association with human rights charity Liberty, with cast, crew and guests including Doreen Lawrence, Stephen Kamlish QC, David Akinsanya, Pennie Quinton and Shami Chakrabarti.
This film is part of the Festival’s ‘Riot Race and Rock & Roll’ programme strand. For a full list of screenings and events, please see Riot Race and Rock & Roll
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
80 min | Canada | 2009 | Dir: Omar Majeed (First Feature)
Boston’s The Kominas belt out an anthem for a new generation of young Muslims in a basement of a decrepit Chicago punkhouse, with a mob of like-minded Islamic misfits sneering along. In the summer of 2007 these Pakistani punkers have arrived at the last stop of their U.S. tour and are celebrating with tourmates and fellow bands: Vote Hezbollah featuring an Iranian kid from San Antonio; the all-girl Secret Trial Five featuring a Pakistani lesbian from Vancouver; Al-Thawra who pound heavy metal beats into Arabic drones, plus East London’s own Riz MC who gives his Taqwacore support. At the centre, pumping his fists in the air and shouting, is a white American convert named Michael Muhammad Knight; the Islamic punk music scene would never have existed if it weren’t for his 2003 novel, The Taqwacores, in which Michael imagined a community of Muslim radicals such as Mohawked Sufis, riot grrrls in burqas, and skinhead Shi’as. Although the book and its characters were entirely fictional, the movement they inspired is very real.
The film follows Michael and his real-life kindred spirits on their first U.S. tour, where they incite a riot of young hijabi girls at the largest Muslim gathering in North America, then travels with them to Pakistan where The Kominas, bring punk to the streets of Lahore.
UK filmmaker Hammad Khan will chair a panel discussion DON’T PANIC, WE’RE ISLAMIC! following the screening, which will include Menhaj Huda (director / producer Kidulthood), Sanam Hasan (Mara Pictures), and Kaleem Aftab (Film Critic, ‘The Independent’), to discuss film and music as a means of confronting and dealing with race, faith and identity in a post post-9/11 decade.
This screening is part of the Festival’s Human Rights Focus programme strand. For a full list of screenings, please see Human Rights Focus
Please also see full listings for documentaries or films with music focus here
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
85 min | US | 2009 | Dir: Ngawang Choephel (First Feature)
Folk music exists for many as another musical brand or label, surrounded by iPods, instant downloads and an ever-changing onslaught of new music and performers; a simple song is easily taken for granted. But in Tibet, a country the size of Western Europe, folk songs serve as the connecting tissue between regions, passed down in the oral tradition through an increasingly fragmented region, much of which still remains under harsh Communist Chinese rule after 50 years of occupation. China’s “patriotic re-education” of Tibetan citizens through its dissemination of nationalistic pop songs is designed to wipe out Tibetan culture through a rigid, unwavering system of control.
Tibet in Song examines what happens when one man, a Tibetan native who fled his country of origin for India at the age of two, returns home to capture the music of his people before all is lost to the ashes of time and history. Director and producer Choepel was arrested in Tibet on charges of espionage by Chinese authorities in 1995. Accused of collecting sensitive material on China, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison, serving nearly 7 before his highly publicized release in 2002.
This screening is part of the Festival’s Human Rights Focus programme strand. For a full list of screenings, please see Human Rights Focus
Please also see full listings for documentaries or films with music focus here
To book tickets, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
75 min | Ireland | 2009 | Dir: Anna Rodgers (First Feature)
This coming of age documentary follows Leh and Bo, eleven-year-old cousins who leave their home on the banks of the Mekong River to find a better life in the temple city of Luang Prabang, Laos. Leh enters the Buddhist monastery as a novice monk where he will study for the next ten years, whilst Bo travels to a new home two hours away to attend a run down school. Both dream of a better future away from the hard toil of the rice fields, whilst struggling to come to terms with their isolation from their families.
First conceived when she was a young backpacker travelling Asia, and four years in the making, Rodgers has created a meditative and fascinating insight into a unique culture. Shot with no crew, no funding and no on-location translator, this an outstanding debut.
Followed by Director’s Q&A
To book tickets online via the Rio Cinema please visit www.riocinema.co.uk
80 min | France | 2009 | Dir: Cédric Dupire / Gaspard Kuentz (First Feature)
From the radical turntablism of Otomo Yoshihide to the laptop music innovation of Numb, via the classical instrument hijacking of Sakamoto Hiromichi, Tokyo’s avant-garde music scene is internationally known for its boldness. While introducing some of the greatest musicians of the scene, this documentary offers a kaleidoscopic view of Tokyo, confronting music and noise, sound and image, reality and fiction.
A masterfully choreographed tour-de-force through Japanese avant-garde art and music, this hypnotic work challenges the boundaries of the artistic, with concerts ranging from cacophonous industrial noise to energetic no-wave. Watch a group of originals, whose eccentric visions simply have to be seen on the big screen.
Please click music for further listings of films and events in the programme with music focus.
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk
70 min re-edit | UK | 2010 | Dir: Alan Miles
Featuring the infamous 1978 Carnival in East London’s Victoria Park, Who Shot the Sheriff? tells the story of one of the most exciting mass movements in British history. The film features interviews and unseen footage of artists from the Rock against Racism (RAR) movement of the 70s including The Clash, The Specials, Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots, X-Ray Spex and Sham 69. With rarely seen archive material from the punk and RAR era - It tracks the rise of racism and the National Front in Britain during the 70s and shows how a generation, black and white, fought back against the Nazi threat.
The story uses a wealth of interviews with the leading artists and activists who created RAR - many speaking for the first time about what happened - including Mick Jones, Jerry Dammers, Tom Robinson, Neville Staples, Jimmy Pursey, Poly Styrene, Don Letts, Billy Bragg, and RAR founders Red Saunders and Roger Huddle.
As well as documenting a great political and musical movement, Who Shot the Sheriff links the struggle to stop the National Front in the 1970s with campaigns like Unite Against Fascism, Love Music Hate Racism and Hope Not Hate aiming to stop the likes of the fascist British National Party gaining ground in Britain today
This screening will be followed by a live gig from the ‘All Stars’, a band comprising of a medley of well-known musicians headed up by Sam Duckworth of Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.
This film is part of the Festival’s ‘Riot Race and Rock & Roll’ programme strand. For a full list of screenings and events, please see Riot Race and Rock & Roll
Please also see full listings for documentaries or films with music focus here
To book tickets, please visit wegottickets.com/eeff
86 min | US | 2009 | Dir: Julien Nitzberg
Shoot-outs, robberies, gas-huffing, drug dealing, pill popping, murders, and tap dancing! Just a few of the elements of being a member of the White Family, the legendary family known as much for their wild, excessive criminal ways as they are for their famous mountain dancing members, including Jesco White, the star of the cult classic documentary Dancing Outlaw (see special events: Grits n Gravy).
Executive produced by Jackass star Johnny Knoxville, this documentary explores both the comic and tragic sides of life on the other side of the law; a stylish, fast-paced family portrait exposing the powerful forces of corruption, poverty, and West Virginia’s environmentally and culturally devastated coal mining culture that helped shape the White family, a dying breed of outlaws preserving a dying form of dance.
This screening is the culmination of Grits n Gravy Sunday a day dedicated to the warmest, deepest Southern American cinema. For more information, or to buy tickets for the daytime programme, please click here
Please also see full listings for documentaries in the Festival programme.
To book tickets online via Rich Mix please visit www.richmix.org.uk