Josephine Decker, Nationwide
It has been widely agreed that New York film-maker Josephine Decker has “got something”. The New Yorker described her as “the most original independent film-maker to surface in the past few years”, and her first two features, Butter On The Latch and Thou Wast Mild And Lovely are both sensual, impressionistic, elliptical stories, teetering on the edge of strangeness. These films are probably too experimental for mainstream distribution: as an alternative, Decker is touring them as a double bill in seven UK cities this month, and holding Q&As after each event.
BFI Southbank, SE1, Sat; various venues, to 17 Aug, independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/films
Close-Up Cinema, London
These days, London’s so-called “independent” cinemas are pretty much all owned by the Picturehouse and Curzon chains, but Close-Up is an entity swimming against the monopolist tide. Last month, it moved to new premises in Shoreditch, east London, and the new home includes a lending library of both books about film and more than 19,000 arthouse and specialist titles on DVD (the sort of stuff you won’t find on the internet), plus a 40-seat cinema. It’s a bastion of cinephilia and a purist’s haven, and being truly independent, they can programme whatever they like. This month is given over to pioneering, black-and-white British works of cinema, including A Taste Of Honey, Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, Look Back In Anger and The Servant, plus, in a similar spirit, the Terence Davies Trilogy – projected in 35mm, of course.
Tue to 30 Aug, Sclater Street, E1, closeupfilmcentre.com
An Evening With Fenella Fielding, Newcastle upon Tyne & Darlington
Fielding is best known for her husky voice and her services to Britain’s distinguished double-entendre tradition, most notably in Carry On Screaming!, in which she played the vampish seductress Valeria. But her career has myriad sides to it and is still going after 70-odd years. She performed with Kenneth Williams pre-Carry On in a stage sketch show written by Harold Pinter and Peter Cook, no less. She’s also crossed paths with everyone from Tony Curtis to Federico Fellini, to, er, Dick and Dom. A veteran raconteur with a well-maintained stage persona, she graces audiences after a showing of Carry On Screaming! at these two events.
Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sun; The Forum, Darlington, Mon
Film 4 Summer Screen, London
More like a festival than a mere outdoor-cinema event, Summer Screen now includes talks, DJ sets, activities and even premieres. Those include opener Gemma Bovery, with Gemma Arterton as Posy Simmonds’s heroine (Thu), Guy Ritchie’s revamped The Man From UNCLE (Fri), and Sundance-approved teen drama Me And Earl And The Dying Girl (director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon is also among the guest speakers, both 19 Aug). The rest of the programme is largely trusted modern classics – a True Romance/The Warriors double bill, (15 Aug), Do The Right Thing (14 Aug), West Side Story (18 Aug) and more, with family films and workshops in the afternoons.
Somerset House, WC2, Thu to 19 Aug
