Richard Klein, a BBC
colleague, delivered a speech in which he says that we live in an age of
sentimentality. He wants films to be more truthful and redemptive.
These are brave words, and unusual ones. Film-makers usually rail
against the mass media because their own efforts are underprivileged.
Klein is right to say that the religious sensibility is underepresented
in contemporary British media. There is a sense of terror when it comes
to being serious. Also media entitlement appears in the perceived right
to be crass. This is behind the Ross/Brand affair, as it's called. But
does anyone, even at the Mail, believe media can be reformed?
This is why I like festivals. A film we commissioned about very, very old ladies in a home for the active elderly, all Jewish, authors, therapists, bluestockings, campaihers, walkers, is shown in a small, packed room. It is as good as I had hoped. The audience love it.
It's an original film because it deals with the feeling of being old – what you know about life and can tell, what you have to endure each day. The Time of their Lives will be shown soon on the BBC. But I also hope it will find audiences in the care industry.
I get involved in a discussion with the film-maker Sophie Fiennes who tells me that things have got so bad in the UK that we need cultural funds to encourage broadcasters such as the BBC to tackle demanding arts subjects.
Classy docs (the ones on display here) are indeed tragically underfunded. In order to make them you must either be well-heeled or display the temperament of a mendicant friar.
The jet lag adds to a bizarre mix of relief. I'm in In Sheffield after the overnight plane from Newark to Heathrow, the Heathrow Express, a tube, a shower, another tube, a two and a half hour rail journey through the midlands. Here I see people everywhere here who describe the same symptoms. Among the down-dressed documentary fraternity you won't meet anyone whose heart didn't stir on Tuesday night – they're all lefties.
I talk with two American brothers Mark and Paul Devlin, a film-maker and his astrophycisist brother with identical and beautiful cone heads. They've together made Blast! a film that is like a Tintin album with a mix of cutting edge science and theology.
I had work to do in New York, so I arranged to be here for the elections. Imagine a room full of New York sophisticates. Feel the odd silence, the reluctance to believe. And think of this - what's going on before our eyes isn't wholly comprehended, this is breaking all the rules - not just the race rules. We don't dare to address democracy in a context outside extreme scepticism. The older folk in this room, among whom I include myself, are failed cynics. And then someone comes along to tell us that we've got it all wrong.
By Hussain Currimbhoy, Sheffield Doc/Fest film programmer
At last, the Sheffield Doc/Fest is alive and kicking. You can check out the whole programme on our website.
The website is totally revamped from last year so you can do more detailed searches and bask in the slick blackness.
We had over 1500 submissions this year and including the festivals we all visited, I can honestly say that we could have filled this programme over 10 times. There is so much amazing documentary out there that we just could not fit into a five day programme. The digital revolution is starting to show that ideas are following the ease in which the world can start filming!
She was on Letterman last week, this week it's Regis and Kelly. And she's plastered across YouTube all day, every day. Right now, Tina Fey is the hottest comic in America, and it's all down to her Sarah Palin impression on Saturday Night Live. With perfect comic timing, 30 Rock, the television sitcom that she writes and stars in, is also returning for a third series on Thursday. But while everyone else is busy giving Fey well-deserved attention, I'd just like to quickly pay tribute to another television writer whose work has been vindicated this election season: Aaron Sorkin.
As Kathy Marks wrote last month, Baz Luhrmann's antipodean epic Australia is one of the most anticipated films of the year. The film is a love story starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, set in the outback- think The Thorn Birds meets Gone With The Wind. As Kathy's story also mentioned, the Australian tourism board has thrown its weight behind the release. Here is their latest, Luhrmann-directed advert to tie in with the release:
Some people may be tiring of Gervais' schtick, but with an American movie to shill he's managing to charm the US. When Gervais won his "best actor in a comedy" award for Extras last year, he wasn't able to attend the ceremony so his US Office counterpart Steve Carrell accepted the prize on his behalf. While presenting an award at last night's Emmys, Gervais picked a mocking fight with Carrell to get back his errant trophy. Luvvie hilarity ensued..
All fun and games for everyone involved. But if Radar magazine is to be believed, perhaps there's some truth in the comedy squabble.
I spent this morning at Odeon West End in Leicester Square, where the press launch for the 52nd London Film Festival (15-30 October 2008) was held. Two events frame the fest in 2008 - first, the BFI, which organises the event, is 75 years old; second, the festival's most high-profile champion, Anthony Minghella, died earlier this year. The mouthwatering international line-up of films is a fitting memorial to his enthusiasm, especially in a season when the world's other major film festivals are thought to have been disappointments.
This sort of thing always begins with a nice gentleman or, in this case, lady, reading out a yawnsome list of sponsors that she has to thank for funding the whole shebang. Next, the bit we all stayed for once we'd munched our mini pain au chocolats: festival director Sandra Hebron boasts about the 15 world premieres the festival will feature, before introducing a clip reel of some of the festival's highlights. As ever, it's a mix of big event movies and arthouse gems. The opening night gala is Ron Howard's film version of Peter Morgan's play, Frost/Nixon:
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