Wednesday 8 September 2010

The 2010 Raindance Film Festival

With my invitation to today's London Film Festival press launch mysteriously lost in the post, it fell to the Raindance Film Festival to provide my film-festival-press-launch needs yesterday, at a posh hotel in London which on any other occasion would have kicked me out the moment they saw my shoes.


My primary reason for going was that I was told there would be freakin' apes there, which sounded amazing. As it turned out there had been a hilarious error in pronunciation because when I arrived it transpired that the freakin' apes were in fact free canapés. But what canapés they were:

Hand model supplied by Ultra Culture. Shirt: Model's own.

Post-canapés, a man in what appeared to be a pair of 3D glasses failed to introduce himself before talking about the 18th Raindance Film Festival. I'm assuming he was someone who had something to do with it rather than a bloke who'd just stumbled out of Piranha 3D, into the hotel and read out the the press release, but he left quite quickly so we'll never know.

Raindance's opening film is Jackboots On Whitehall, a film whose trailer contains exactly no LOLs despite advertising it as a comedy. It's released on the same day as A Town Called Panic, drawing inevitable comparisons between two comedies starring crudely animated plastic figurines destined to face off against each other in a battle of the box office, which will probably be won by The Life And Death Of Charlie St Cloud, starring Zac Efron, a completely different crudely animated plastic figurine.



The festival's closing film is Son Of Babylon, a "poignant Iraqi drama" about which I have no jokes.

In between there's a skipload of "alternative" (i.e. low-budget) films I've never heard of with brilliant titles like Flooding With Love For The Kid, Hi! Otsuka Drugstore, Lummox, Ollie Kepler's Expanding Purple World, Robert Mitchum Is Dead, The Vice Guide To Liberia and Too Much Pussy.

Raindance's most news-worthy screening is a private showing of cheery laff-blast A Serbian Film, already touted as the most depraved, sick and generally unpleasant thing ever made in the history of ever. You can read a synopsis of it on Wikipedia if you haven't eaten recently, although it'll be all over the Daily Mail before long getting all the publicity it needs.


Raindance's other big draw is the fact that on its jury is none other than Lemmy from Motörhead, whose qualifications for being on a film festival jury include acting roles as diverse as 'Lemmy Von Motörhead' in Airheads, 'Bum In Park' in John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut and 'Good Lemmy / Bad Lemmy' in Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV.
If I get to see anything at Raindance I'll share my brains with you, but if you'd rather see them yourself than have some crap-rambling halfwit spoil them for you, pop along to the Apollo Cinema in London's Piccadilly Circus sometime at the begining of October and hope that A Serbian Film isn't on the day you're there.

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7 comments :

  1. I've just read the Wiki description of A Serbian Film. I feel like I've just been slapped or punched in the face; or slapped and punched somewhere anyway!! At least I am looking at the sweet image of Lemmy now to calm my nerves!

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  2. "but he left quite quickly so we'll never know."

    Oh wow, what do you know, seems like this is your lucky day! The "guy" you are talking about is the founder of Raindance Film Festival and also someone who knows quite a bit about filmmaking, and this is why he was there reading the press launch. And I highly doubt he would even like Piranha 3D let alone star in it...

    (As for the canapes, I will have to agree with you. But as it seems that's how they like it at the Mayfair hotel... nothing to do with Raindance unfortunately.)

    Oh, and also, don't be so scared of the Serbian film...and maybe stop reading the Daily Mirror. I heard somewhere it's not good for your health.

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  3. Thanks for the skinny "Anonymous". I wasn't suggesting that he starred in Piranha 3D but that he was watching it. Hence the 3D glasses.

    Hang on, it's you isn't it?

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  4. I'm sorry I know I have seen A Serbian Movie but nor would I want to...and no I haven't read the Daily mirror but I have read quite a bit about it in various film mags and frankly it sounds like the makers just want to push the boundaries as far as they can, and their lame excuse that it is a comment on Serbia as a country doesn't wash.

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  5. Of course that should have read haven't not have...kinda spoils my argument doesn't it...oh well!

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  6. i am posting with great news!
    my movie tittled ON HOLIDAY will be screening at THE RAINDANCE FILM FEST on Sept 30th at 6:30pm
    I was very lucky to be a part of the film IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS which played the RAINDANCE film fest in 2007 and later that year, opened in theaters all over the U.K. to amazing reviews!
    KISS was the third film that i made with the director Alex Holdridge. I acted in all of them.
    when it came time for me to direct, i had to put alex in my film as an actor. and he did a fantastic job! Sara Simmonds for KISS appears in the film as well, along with such greats as Harry Dean Stanton and John Haweks.

    Just two weeks ago i won "BEST NEW FILMMAKER" at THE LOS ANGELES DOWNTOWN FILM FEST 2010. so we are off to a good start. RAINDANCE will be the 2nd film fest for ON HOLIDAY.

    watch the trailer here:

    ON HOLIDAY
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYzC5saLFWo

    and join us at our facebook:
    www.facebook.com/onholidaymovie

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  7. I hear Lummox is the one to watch if you want a great laugh, with a dash of poignant, poignant? that doesn't look right.

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