Lost River & Ryan Gosling Q&A
Nationwide
Perhaps Ryan Gosling’s biggest mistake with his directorial debut was his failure to cast Ryan Gosling in it. Maybe he had other commitments. Gosling is at least on view at these special screenings of the film in question, Lost River, via a post-screening Q&A from London, which will be broadcast live to cinemas across the UK. Lyrical, hallucinatory and challenging, Lost River hasn’t been to everyone’s tastes, it must be said – not something you can say about its director. At the very least, the film is a who’s who of star names: Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes and a shaven-headed Matt Smith, while the plot recasts modern-day Detroit as a decaying, purgatorial realm, somewhere in the neighbourhood of David Lynch or Gosling’s own collaborator, Nicolas Winding Refn. Gosling recently confessed that the story is partly autobiographical, inspired by his own single-parent childhood, so maybe he is in it after all.
Various venues, Thu
Kinoteka Polish film festival & Masterpieces Of Polish Cinema
London, Edinburgh & Nationwide
A Polish film (Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida) won the best foreign language film Oscar this year, but if that’s not recommendation enough, take Martin Scorsese’s word. The director has curated Masterpieces Of Polish Cinema, which plays in London and Edinburgh as part of the Kinoteka festival, and then tours the UK until September. There’ll be familiar names such as Andrzej Wajda alongside the unsung Krzysztof Zanussi, who presents his 1976 campus satire Camouflage.
Various venues, Wed to 29 May
Page To Screen
Bridport
You don’t have to look far to find a film adapted from a book, even if some great movies hide their literary origins well, such as The Night Of The Hunter, The Bicycle Thieves, Walkabout and Jules Et Jim, all of which play here. But this festival is more about building bridges. Writer Deborah Moggach, for example, is here talking about both sides of the equation, having adapted (Pride And Prejudice in 2005 – she hosts a workshop on it) and been adapted (The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel). Other guests include Emily Watson, talking about playing Stephen Hawking’s mother-in-law in The Theory Of Everything, and Harriet Walter, on her part in the recent Suite Française adaptation. For the kids, there’s Paddington plus a teddy bears’ picnic.
Various venues, Wed to 12 Apr
This Made Me Laugh
London
What makes comedians laugh? It sounds like a trick question, but you get some real answers here. Eight have been asked to choose their funniest film, and even if not all of them accompany their choices, it sounds like a laugh. Humorist David Sedaris won’t introduce his opening choice, the Coens’ True Grit, in person though he will provide a recorded message. Amelia Bullmore will introduce hers: Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway, as will Mitch Benn (This Is Spinal Tap), John Lloyd (The Naked Gun) and sitcom producer Caryn Mandabach (To Be Or Not To Be). Other selectors include Lenny Henry (Blazing Saddles), Miranda Hart (Clockwise) and Jon Ronson (The Graduate), who appears via Skype.
Barbican, EC2, Fri to 16 Apr
