Filmic 2015, Bristol
Who better to get this audiovisual celebration started than the brothers Johnson? Director Gerard gave us 2009’s Tony and returns with Hyena this Friday; his brother Matt, moonlighting from The The, provided the music. They’re in conversation on 8 Mar while their Sunday brunch selection takes in the pioneering Forbidden Planet (Sun), Popul Vuh’s score for Aguirre, Wrath Of God (22 Mar) and the Ry Cooder-backed Paris, Texas (15 Mar). There’s also Gazelle Twin and Carla Mackinnon’s selection of experimental shorts (19 Mar).
Watershed & St George’s, Sun to 26 Apr
Viva! Spanish And Latin American Film Festival, Manchester
Owing to the Cornerhouse’s imminent move to its new HOME venue, its Spanish and Latin American film festival has been split into three parts this year. So Hispanophiles get one weekend now, another (of Mexican cinema) at HOME (18 to 21 Jun), and a third in the autumn. This first event kicks off with madcap kidnap farce ¿Quién mató a Bambi? (pictured, Thu & 7 Mar), presented on 7 Mar by the film’s director Santi Amodeo. There’s also a Galicia-set recession tale, Os Fenómenos (Fri & 7 Mar), starring Lola Dueñas and Luis Tosar, plus new offerings from Ecuador with Feriado (7 & 8 Mar), which mixes teen sexuality and black metal, the rainy Caribbean coast of Colombia with Ruido Rosa (8 & 9 Mar) and, from Argentina, María Y El Araña (9 Mar) about street kids and Spider-Man – not the Marvel one.
Cornerhouse, Thu to 9 Mar
Vera Chytilová, London
Her 1966 film Daisies alone should cement Chytilová’s status as a pioneering hero of cinema, but there’s more where that came from. A joyously surreal and playful farce in which two young women mock their male-dominated world, Daisies (pictured, 9 & 10 Mar) exemplifies the director’s lifelong mission to question conventions both cultural and cinematic, usually through women’s experiences. After The Fruit Of Paradise (11 & 15 Mar), a stylised murder story with biblical themes, there was a period when Chytilová found it impossible to make films in Soviet-era Czechoslovakia. She returned with The Apple Game (Fri & 8 Mar) in 1976 and continued to work until her death last year. Few of her films have ever been seen abroad; something this season rectifies.
BFI Southbank, SE1, Sun to 17 Mar
Italian Film Festival & Cinema Made In Italy, Nationwide
The country may not be in great shape financially, but Italy’s film industry seems fine, judging by the offerings at these two festivals, which overlap in content. Economic woes are indirectly acknowledged in the likes of I Can Quit Whenever I Want, in which a sacked university researcher goes Breaking Bad; or Gianni “Mid-August Lunch” di Gregorio’s comedy Good For Nothing. Veteran director Ermanno Olmi returns with Greenery Will Bloom Again (pictured), a visually striking first world war drama. And, on a slightly brighter note, The Mafia Kills Only In Summer takes a Forrest Gump-like nostalgia trip to mobbed-up 1970s Sicily.
Various venues, Fri to 19 Mar; Ciné Lumière, SW7, Thu to 9 Mar
