Bradford International Film Festival 2014 - Highlights

(Originally published for Champion Up North)

For the last two weeks I’ve been at the Bradford International Film Festival. It occurred to me before my final screening, Rushmore, how important comfort is to the cinema experience. How all distraction and discomfort inhibit immersion in the film’s narrative. I wonder how often black-tie impedes a member of Hollywood royalty fully enjoying a feature’s premier: picture Tarantino losing concentration during the ear-scene - his collar too tight; Scar Jo missing that ending - a pin sticking into her back; Heston fidgeting during the chariot race - he needs to readjust his underwear. Just think what could only be solved were tracksuits socially acceptable. Maybe the Oscars, Cannes etc. should take the BIFF’s lead, focus less on the ceremony and more on the films.On that note, here are my BIFF 2014 highlights:

Coal Miners Day

Our perception of coal mining is shaped by the 80s - deindustrialisation, strikes, Thatcher. Directed by French filmmaker Gael Mocaer, this documentary provides a human-centric view of the life of Ukrainian coal miners. The life is hard - a minute’s silence during the opening reminding the viewer of the mine’s dangers. But the film shines through the humour of its subjects, at its best when the miners bicker amongst one-another or joke with Gael and his crew.

Thriller

With Sally Potter collecting the BIFF Fellowship award, a selection of her early short films were shown. Unfamiliar with her early work, I expected to find hints of the filmmaker who later won critical acclaim with Rage and The Last Tango Dance. Instead I found Thriller.

Thriller is Sally’s 1979 deconstruction of the opera La Boheme - rewritten from the perspective of seamstress Mimi. The film explores the question of why Mimi must die at the opera’s conclusion. The film is considered a seminal work of feminist film criticism, and watching the piece made me question why film isn’t employed as a critical medium more frequently. The criticism was never dry, appropriating the music from Psycho to both dramatic and comedic effect - eventually reaching the conclusion that Mimi is murdered by her creator so she may remain her creator’s ideal woman.

A Fountain, A Festival, A Future

(Originally published for Champion Up North)

In northern England water fountains are synonymous with regeneration.  Where other EU countries used taxation from the late-90s/early-2000s boom to improve infrastructure (build high-speed rail-links, motorways, etc.) the UK chose to build fountains and Ferris wheels. Bradford’s fountains are the largest public fountains in the UK. 

Whilst the fountains are impressive, their story encapsulates the recent history of the city. Where Manchester opened its fountains in 2002, Bradford’s were delayed- opened over a decade later, by which time the bubble of optimism that began the century had all but burst.

I’m in Bradford for a screening of Sally Potter’s Thriller, part of the 20th Anniversary edition of the Bradford International Film Festival. The festival is one of the city’s largest cultural events. Film has played a big part in Bradford’s cultural history, and the National Media Museum is one of the city’s greatest assets. In the years where there seemed to be no regeneration, where the city was perpetually on the cusp of being revitalised but never was, the pulse of the Media Museum beat on.

Pudsey, my hometown, is situated a few miles away from the centre of both Bradford and Leeds. Every time I want to go shopping - for a drink, to visit a museum, a gallery - I’m presented with a choice between two cities an equal distance away. For the previous two years my choice has been the same. Leeds.

Image courtesy of James Longhorn

It has not always been this way. When I was younger Bradford was the city I was taken shopping to - dragged to buy school uniform, pencil cases, rulers, that sort of thing - the train fare was cheaper. Spending time there as I grew up, I’ve adopted the same attitude towards the city as Bradfordians: habitually slagging the place off, but defending it ferociously from anybody I judge as an outsider, the same attitude the bully at school has towards their geeky kid-brother.