Manchester Film Festival: Day 4

Final day and I was making sure I squeezed the most out of my festival pass! The day started with Planet Ottakring, an Austrian gangster comedy with underlying commentary on inner-city Vienna's diverse immigrant culture and the economic issues surrounding more deprived areas like Ottakring. The mood is along the lines of Run, Lola, Run …

Manchester Film Festival: Day 3

Three features to comment on today. First up, Josephine Doe - yet another film in which the main character has a mental illness and things aren't quite what they seem. Shot in black & white which appeared to mirror a muted range of emotions for the main character, I was waiting all along for some …

Manchester Film Festival: Day 2

Today's features largely chosen because of their timings. The first screening was Stanley A Man of Variety, starring only Timothy Spall. Spall plays a man suffering from mental illness, in addition to all the people he sees in his head as a result of the illness. These characters are largely variety show characters from last …

Manchester Film Festival: Day 1

This year's MANIFF looks a little different - it's a young festival (2017 is its third year) and so this is to be expected. This time around, there seem to be fewer films and only one venue. I don't know if there have been simply fewer submissions, or if it was a conscious decision to …

Det borde finnas regler – There should be rules

As a rule, I avoid anything which has the tag 'coming of age' - I don't want my leisure time to be filled with precocious teenagers. And while there is an element of that with one of the friends, Mia - who takes centre stage - is fortunately more interesting than this and is played …

Despite the Falling Snow

I wonder if Sam Reid will ever grow up to play himself? He's been a young Peter Firth in Spooks, a young Stellan Skarsgård in The Railway Man, and here he's a young Charles Dance. But this cold war/thaw film, which jumps around quite a bit in the first third between the early 1960s and …

Broke

A washed-up former rugby star is given a chance at redemption when he is offered shelter by a fan who remembers his glory days. Match-fixing is apparently a real problem in Australian rugby, so this is addressing topical issues, some of them head-on. I liked the performances, particularly the daughter (Claire van der Boom), and …

No Limits – Impossible is Just a Word

If you take this at face value, then Alex Zanardi is nothing short of a iron-willed saint. A former F1 driver who lost both legs after an accident, who went on to become Paralympic and World para-cycling Champion, he is now embarking on his next challenge - being part of a 3 man driving team …

Vince Giordano – There’s A Future in the Past

For anyone even remotely interested in jazz music of the first half of the 20th century, this will be an interesting watch. According to Manchester Film Festival's website, 'Vince Giordano is responsible for the period music in Todd Haynes’ “Carol”, Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator”, Robert DeNiro’s “The Good Shepherd”, Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Cotton Club”, …

All Rise

  Mildly interesting documentary that would have whiled away 90 minutes in the background on Netflix. Each year, law students form all over the world face each other in a moot court to argue the case for an imaginary nation embroiled in an international dispute with its imaginary neighbour. This film follows a selection of students …