Iranian Film Festival, Edinburgh
The city’s non-political, non-religious biennial Iranian festival brings music, art, food and other forms of cultural exchange, as well as a film selection that hints at the depth of a nation that’s still steadily producing world-class directors. There are potentially some of those here, such as Mohammad Ghorbankarimi, who presents his lyrical childhood fairytale The Desert Fish, or Majid Barzegar, whose Parviz – about a 50-year-old manchild – has picked up several festival awards. More surprising are the allegorical Taboor (in which a man wraps his body in tinfoil), Kami’s Party (on Tehran’s bourgeois party kids) or self-explanatory doc My Name Is Negahdar Jamali And I Make Westerns.
Filmhouse, Sun to 15 Feb
Dead Of Night, Derby
Things will be going bump in the night down the Guildhall Theatre on Wednesday, possibly accompanied by squeals of delight… or possibly terror. Local theatre group The Lost Boys are staging two immersive events in Derby landmarks this month, both based on classic British horror movies. First, it’s the unparalleled and still unnerving 1945 classic Dead Of Night of ventriloquist’s dummy notoriety. The organisers don’t want to give too much away, but expect a spooky tour of the building’s backstage and subterranean spaces, themed around the movie, before a screening in the main auditorium. It’s a similar mystery trip in a few weekends’ time at the National Trust’s Sudbury Hall, which doubles for the country estate at the heart of Jack Clayton’s gloomy Turn Of The Screw adaptation, The Innocents – culminating in a screening in the hall’s long gallery.
Guildhall Theatre, Wed; Sudbury Hall, 21 Feb, derbyquad.co.uk
