There’s no better way to spend a wintry evening than curled up in a comfy chair in Britain’s oldest cinema watching the best that the coming season of films has to offer. Luckily, for the next three weeks Cine-City, the Brighton Film Festival, allows us to do just that.
Now in its eighth year, Cine-City presents a host of highly anticipated major releases, giving you a chance to view films hotly tipped for success in the awards season months before their cinematic release. The festival also showcases a number of titles from around the world that are unlikely to screen again in the city, and many special one-off events.
Film festivals can form something of an alternative distribution network offering audiences their only chance to see a range of films on the big screen. It is this element of discovery combined with the opportunity to meet, discuss and share a passion with other members of the audience and to talk to visiting film-makers that lies at the heart of the film festival experience.
The festival opens with The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter. Directed by Tom Hooper, the film has been gathering rave reviews, and both leads are already generating Oscar buzz.
Other highlights include Never Let Me Go, an adaptation of the Kazuo Ishiguro novel, directed by Mark Romanek, written by Alex Garland and starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley; Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, which won the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival, her first film since Marie Antoinette in 2006; The Allen Ginsberg biopic, Howl, with James Franco; and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Biutiful, starring Javier Bardem. British comedian and actor Richard Ayoade’s debut feature, Submarine, closes the festival.
The Duke of York’s Picturehouse, the UK’s oldest purpose built cinema, recently celebrated its 100th birthday. Cine-City has been working with the Dukes throughout the year to present a programme of special events and a community history project collecting memories, photographs and ephemera relating to this very special century of cinema. To round off the centenary year Cine-City 2010 presents a selection of screenings and special events: Brighton & Hove’s own film pioneers from over a century ago, Smith and Williamson are celebrated with a special screening with live music; a new programme of archive treasures highlights the magical world of silent colour; and there are screenings of new films from Gustav Deutsch and Peter Tscherkassky exploring elements of early cinema.
For more information about the festival, or to buy tickets, head over to http://www.cine-city.co.uk/festival-2010.
