So here's the thing.
Last year I commented that, after three years of interrupted, delayed, shortened film festivals, we were finally out of that period, and hopefully back to enjoying the full film festival that I love so much. We all knew the COVID years must have taken a real financial blow, but it seemed as though the festival was back.
Sadly, it seems my optimism may have been misplaced. The first hint to its ongoing issues came earlier in the year when we learned that the festival was ending its nearly-20-year-long relationships with both the Square Eyes Film Foundation and with Ant Timpson (who programmed the Incredibly Strange strand). This was explained when it was reported that the festival is in worse condition that we may have realised. And so this year once again it's a stripped-back festival, running over just 11 days, with a smaller selection of movies (just 87 titles) and a smaller number of cinema venues. (The number of regions getting festival screenings also have reduced, from 17 down to 10 - unfortunate for film lovers in those areas affected.)
And so we just have to do what we can to support the festival as it seeks to rebuild back to the position of strength it once had. I'm trying to play my part - it's not quite as crammed as it might usually be, since the limited number of films and of venues mean that it's much harder to have the options to fill gaps, but I'm still seeing 22 films. So the films I'll be seeing this year will be:
* Peeping Tom
* In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon
* Evil Does Not Exist
* The Beast
* Days of Heaven
* Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
* The Seed of the Sacred Fig
* Sleep
* Good One
* Sons
* A Mistake
* Brief History of a Family
* Sasquatch Sunset
* The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
* Grafted
* Paris, Texas
* The Teachers' Lounge
* The Speedway Murders
* Janet Planet
* The Substance
* Heavenly Creatures
The first thing that strikes me about this year's schedule is just how great the retro screenings are. Days of Heaven, Heavenly Creatures, Peeping Tom, and Paris, Texas are all great films, and I am very excited to see them all - especially the first two, which I have never seen on the big screen before.
A couple of years ago, the festival screened two films by Ryusuke Hamaguchi - both films I was interested in seeing, but was unable to fit either into my schedule. But I got to see and love Drive My Car after it was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and then followed it up with the similarly great Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, so I'm definitely excited for his new work, Evil Does Not Exist.
I've been hearing how good The Teachers' Lounge is for close to a year at this point, and it was one of the first titles I looked for when the schedule came out, so I'm excited to finally see it. Similarly, in the past few months, I've been hearing raves about The Beast and Janet Planet, although I've managed to avoid knowing too much about those films, so I look forward to being able to engage with the conversation.
There's some good music documentaries here. I'm very excited about a 3 1/2 hour film about Paul Simon, since that should give enough time to get into some depth exploring his work. And while Ryuichi Sakamoto is a composer whose work I've never really sought out, whenever I'm watching a film he composed I tend to enjoy his work, so it will be interesting to see this documentary shot shortly before he passed away.
Sasquatch Sunset was a marginal call for me - it has built a reputation for being a challenging film to watch, and while some people love it, some people really hate it. Ultimately the thing that made my decision to see it was just timing - there was nothing else I could see at that time that held any interest to me. So I'll just hope to be in the "love it" camp.
And then there's just a bunch of films that sound intriguing and that will hopefully yield some real highlights.
The festival starts in a couple of days, and I am very excited.
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