Raindance Festival 2009: Line-up announced
Preview by Jack Foley
BREAKOUT American indie hit Humpday is to open the 17th Raindance Film Festival in London on Wednesday, September 30, to kick off a two week extravaganza of independent film.
A total of 75 features and over 150 shorts will be shown between September 30 and October 11, including a number of special live events, exclusive Q&As and masterclasses.
Humpday (pictured) stars Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project) and Mark Duplass (Hannah Takes the Stairs) in a film about two guys who, after a wild party, find themselves locked in a mutual dare: to enter an amateur porn contest together. Writer-director and actress Lynn Shelton will be in attendance at the opening night ceremony.
Closing the festival on Sunday, October 11, is a take on sex and the credit crunch as interpreted by Academy Award winning director Steven Soderbergh with the English Premiere of The Girlfriend Experience, starring Sasha Grey, Chris Santos and Peter Zizzo.
In between, the Raindance Film Festival’s line-up will play host to exciting music and film strand the Raindance Symphony Orchestra, which includes the World Premiere of The Mighty Boosh Tour Doc [working title], directed by the BIFA winning Oly Ralfe.
The Mighty Boosh’s Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt are anticipated to attend the premiere, which will be followed by a very special post-screening event.
Wayne Kramer of the anti-establishment American rock band MC5 will also be in attendance to promote The Narcotics Farm and play at a special Jail Guitar Doors gig at Proud Galleries.
Music documentary about cult ‘punk poet’ Patrik Fitzgerald All The Years Of Trying, directed by Dom Shaw, will also be world premiering.
The festival’s homegrown UK strand will showcase great British filmmaking talent, including the European Premiere of Down Terrace, attended by director Ben Wheatley and cast Julia Deakin and David Schaal.
Watch out, too, for the world premiere of Jamie Thraves’ The Cry Of The Owl, starring Julia Stiles and Paddy Considine, Stuart Hazeldine’s fraught Exam, starring Jimi Mistry, Luke Mably and Colin Salmon, and Colin a home-grown horror phenomenon that was made in Tooting for just £45 by former Raindance student Marc Price.
There will be a late-night screening at the Apollo proceeded by a ‘day of the dead’ meet the cast and crew with zombie makeovers and panel discussions.
Raindance is renowned for showcasing a strong Japanese Strand which this year focuses on Japanese women directors and will be welcoming director Momoko Ando with the World Premiere of her debut film Kakera. She will also be sitting on the festival jury.
Prolific Japanese director Sachi Hamano will feature at the festival as part of the strand to promote her award winning Lily Festival. Sachi, who has an underground following in Japan, started her career in 1968 as an assistant director in low budget Pink Film in Japan and has produced more than 300 theatrically successful films.
Other Japanese features include the awarding-winning Love Exposure (UK Premiere) by Shion Sono, Ain’t No Tomorrows by Yuki Tanada, Hotaru by Naomi Kawase, and Mime-Mime by Yukiko Sode.
Another keenly anticipated feature is My Suicide, which features David Carradine in one of his final performances. The screening will be hosted by director David Miller.
Maverick underground director Steve Balderson (nominated for Best International Feature last year for Watch Out) returns to the festival with the World Premiere of Stuck!, starring Karen Black, Mink Stole and Susan Traylor.
And Raindance will host the UK Premiere of Canadian Ryan Ward’s Son Of The Sunshine and the London Premiere of Zach Clark’s Modern Love Is Automatic, starring Melodie Sisk, Maggie Ross and Carlos Bustamante.
The outstanding Documentary Strand includes contentious films such as A Necessary Death (European Premiere) directed by Daniel Stamm, which takes the character-as-cameraman approach of Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead and applies it to a more intimate story of suicide.
Playing Columbine, by Danny Ledonne, raises moral questions surrounding the shoot to kill video games inspired by the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.
And My Big Break, directed by Tony Zierra and filmed over 10 years, is a controversial documentary that follows residents of the same house and their rise to fame and eventual breakdowns, including Brad Rowe, Wes Bentley and Chad Lindberg.
Finally, the World Premiere of They Call It Acid – the story of acid house culture – will be supported by director Gordon Mason which features interviews with Carl Cox, Pete Tong and Paul Oakenfold. There will also be a post-screening rave with DJs Evil Eddie Richards, Trevor Fung, Jazzy M and Noel Watson.
For the full Festival programme please visit www.raindance.co.uk
The Raindance Film Festival will take place from September 30 to October 11, 2009 and will be hosted by its exciting new exhibitor partner Apollo Cinemas with the festival celebrating a 40% increase in ticket sales last year.
Sitting on this year’s stellar jury is: Riz Ahmed (Shifty), writer/director Armando Iannucci (In The Loop), Peter Bradshaw (film critic, The Guardian); actress Kerry Fox (Bright Star), director Momoko Ando (Kakera), Billy Childish: artist, musician, poet, writer, filmmaker; Christine Langan, Creative Director, BBC Films; writer and documentary filmmaker Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare At Goats), Jamie Graham (deputy editor, Total Film); Julia Brown (commercial director, Apollo Cinemas), producer Andy Williams and legendary musician/actor Tom Waits.