London Film Festival
With Carey Mulligan’s Suffragette leading the way, this is “the year of the strong woman”, declares festival director Clare Stewart, and the higher-profile titles at least go some way to correcting cinema’s big gender problem. At one end of the age spectrum you’ve got Saoirse Ronan in US-Irish immigrant drama Brooklyn, and a new documentary on Malala Yousafzai; at the other there’s Maggie Smith as Alan Bennett’s The Lady In The Van. Those good intentions can’t quite carry throughout the huge programme: 238 films from everywhere from Albania to Vanuatu, with still 80% male-directed. Among the British selection, you’ve got Danny Boyle (Michael Fassbender plays Steve Jobs), Ben Wheatley (High-Rise with Tom Hiddleston), Stephen Frears and Terence Davies; while the international programme includes heavy hitters such as Todd Haynes (Cate Blanchett in Carol), Paolo Sorrentino, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Hou Hsiao-hsien. For the next generation of auteurs, look out for Hungary’s László Nemes, who won at Cannes with Holocaust drama Son Of Saul. Or Portugal’s Miguel Gomes, here with a six-hour Arabian Nights. Among the women are Greece’s Athina Rachel Tsangari (The Chevalier), Lucile Hadzihalilovic (Evolution), and Ondi Timoner, who’s been following Russell Brand again.
Iris Prize, Cardiff
“Watch films. Party nightly. Repeat.” That’s the rallying cry of this festival, which claims to be “the only LGBT short film prize in the world where the the winner is allowed to make a new film”. As well as a £30,000 prize for best short film (out of seven programmes), there are awards for acting and features, so plenty of new stuff, starting with well-timed doc Scrum which follows a misfit team to the gay rugby world cup. There’s more rugby, with a Maori women’s team, in the delightfully named short Tits On A Bull; while among the other new features you’ll find gay teenage muslims in post-9/11 Brooklyn (Naz And Maalik); lesbian aviation enthusiasts (The Summer Of Sangaile): a trans Irish woman in the Ireland Country Focus offering (Breakfast On Pluto); Argentinian road-trippers (Jess & James); and jaded Parisian skater hustlers (Larry Clark’s The Smell Of Us).
Cineworld & Chapter, Wed to 11 Oct
Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival
There have been French and Italian film festivals in Edinburgh for decades, so it’s about time there was a Spanish one. This boasts the highest-grossing Spanish-made film in domestic history: A Spanish Affair, whose Andalucían boy-meets-Basque girl romcom set-up clearly struck a chord back home. Perhaps in separatist solidarity there’s plenty of Basque, Galician and Catalonian film. Gastronomes, get a screening of food documentary Snack, Bocados De Una Revolución, with a Q&A from the director and accompanying wines and tapas. Familiar faces include Argentinian star Ricardo Darín, who leads disappearance thriller 7th Floor, and Almodóvar regular Javier Cámara - seeking John Lennon in 1960s comedy Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed, and seeking stardom in New York in The Unexpected Life.
