Wild Nights with Emily - Edinburgh International Film Festival

 

Last year we had A Quiet Passion, director Terence Davies' version of Emily Dickinson's life, this year it is the turn of feminist director Madeline Olnek. In Wild Nights with Emily Olnek focuses on Dickinson (Molly Shannon)'s romantic friendship / lesbian affair with her childhood friend Susan (Susan Ziegler) who later married Emily's brother Austin (Kevin Seal) so the two women could be close for the whole of their lives.

The film is a reimagining of Dickinson's life, rather than a journalistic telling of known facts, but the truthfulness of it is underpinned by passionate letters written from Emily to Susan. In the hands of Mabel Todd (Amy Seimetz) Dickinson's first publisher (and Austin's mistress) all mention of Susan was erased from the letters but recent infra red studies have revealed Susan's name. In the film Mabel is shown giving a lecture after Dickinson's death in which she presents the poet as a spinster recluse, the stereotype that most people have had of her ever since. Other scenes show that Mabel did know about the relationship between Emily and Susan, but wanted to hide it. It was Susan's daughter who was the first to speak about the nature of the relationship between her mother and Emily but she wasn't such a self publicist as Mabel and wasn't able to counteract the latter's misrepresentation of Dickinson. 

Another misconception we have always been lead to believe is that Dickinson actively chose not to be published. This film however shows her arguing with a male publisher who won't publish her because not only is she a woman but she doesn't write about stereotypically female concerns and even worse her poetry doesn't rhyme!

Ultimately this is an entertaining film with plenty to say about the difficulties of being a female writer in the nineteenth century and offering insights into the hidden passionate private life of one of the world's most famous poets.

Wild Nights with Emily is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival at 1800, Thursday 28 June at Odeon and 1555 Saturday 30 June at Cineworld. You can book tickets here.

You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:

Patrick - endearing romcom featuring an adorable and very naughty pug.

Postacards from the 48% - documentary about Brexit

We the Animals - growing up in a rural idyll doesn't guarantee a happy childhood

Island of the Hungry Ghosts - meditation on migration and detention on Christmas Island 

Kayak to Klemtu - a young First Nations woman kayaks to her home town to protest against a pipeline

Supa Modo - a super-hero film with a difference 

Becoming Animal - meditative documentary about the human relationship with nature

Science Fair - documentary about brilliant young scientists attending the International Science and Engineering Fair

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.

Patrick - Edinburgh International Film Festival

 

I'm normally quite a serious film viewer and generally avoid romcoms, but Patrick the pug's face has been staring at me from film posters for over a week now and I felt drawn to go and see this film about a young woman who inherits a pug.

Sarah (Beattie Edmondson) has just split up with her boyfriend and is about to start a new job. So she is less than delighted to inherit her grandmother's most treasured possession - Patrick a cute, lively and very naughty pug. Sarah doesn't even like dogs and her flat is supposed to be pet free which means Patrick causes problems from the start and he soon starts misbehaving once Sarah leaves him unattended during the day.

Sarah initially finds her new school very challenging, trying to engage bored teenagers in appreciating Jane Eyre while the deputy head teacher makes disparaging comments at every opportunity.

 Sarah's life changes for the better as she finds a new home, takes part in a fun run and makes friends among the staff, finds ways of kindling her students' interest and finds that Patrick not only is surprisingly endearing but also helps her to meet new men.

The acting is consistently good, but it is Patrick who steals the show with his clever tricks and antics. He has a wonderfully expressive face and total screen presence. I found it odd that when the credits rolled his name wasn't included (I was curious to know how many pugs had been used as actors in the role).  

Sometimes silly, sometimes predictable but always entertaining this is definitely a romcom for the pug lover. 

Patrick is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival at 1800 on Thursday 28 June at Filmhouse. You can book tickets here.

You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:







Postacards from the 48% - documentary about Brexit
 
We the Animals - growing up in a rural idyll doesn't guarantee a happy childhood

Island of the Hungry Ghosts - meditation on migration and detention on Christmas Island 

Kayak to Klemtu - a young First Nations woman kayaks to her home town to protest against a pipeline

Supa Modo - a super-hero film with a difference 

Becoming Animal - meditative documentary about the human relationship with nature

Science Fair - documentary about brilliant young scientists attending the International Science and Engineering Fair

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.

We the Animals - Edinburgh International Film Festival

 

It's somehow easy to get the idea of growing up in a beautiful rural place and as a result having an idyllic childhood and developing strong bonds with nature. We The Animals is one of those films that proves that that isn't necessarily the case.

Against the backdrop of a beautiful lakeshore, Manny, Joel and Jonah tear their way through the countryside and watch without fully understanding the dysfunctional relationship between their parents who argue, fight, split up, get back together. They both work nights, which can't help the family dynamics.

Nine year old Jonah knows he is different from his brothers, for a start he can't swim while they play around in the lake with confidence and he has nightmares of drowning. He hides under the bed and draws, pictures that are increasingly angry as the arguments between his parents become more intense and as he spends more time with a local teenager. These drawings take on a life of their own as animated components in the film, which add another layer to the film.

It's a beautifully made melancholy coming of age film and the viewer somehow has the sense that the young boys are going to grow up only to repeat the mistakes and failures of their parents.

We the Animals is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival at  1800 Sunday 24 June at Cineworld and 2050 Wednesday 27 June at Vue Omni.

 You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:

Island of the Hungry Ghosts - meditation on migration and detention on Christmas Island 

Kayak to Klemtu - a young First Nations woman kayaks to her home town to protest against a pipeline

Supa Modo - a super-hero film with a difference 

Becoming Animal - meditative documentary about the human relationship with nature

Science Fair - documentary about brilliant young scientists attending the International Science and Engineering Fair

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.

Island of the Hungry Ghosts - Edinburgh International Film Festival

Christmas Island is famous to naturalists for the red crabs that live there in huge numbers and make an annual migration across the island. It is also home to a detention centre for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants seeking a new life in Australia.

Island of the Hungry Ghosts follows Poh Lin Lee a trauma counsellor in a community hospital who works with the asylum seekers as she tries to help them come to terms with their situation. She tries to help people come to terms with escaping from war, surviving shipwreck and being forcibly seperated from their families. It's a difficult job and she is often in tears in frustration knowing that however much she works her clients are going to return to the detention centre for the rest of the week and almost always their mental state is constantly deteriorating because of the conditions there.

The situation for the asylum seekers is contrasted with Poh Lin's happy family life with her French husband and their children.

As a parallel strand to the film, we are shown the efforts made to look after the red crabs on their migrations. One of the rangers says 'we need to help them migrate to help them get where they're going and do what they want to do'. Roads are closed when they are being used by migrating crabs, logs are laid over ditches so that crabs can navigate their way over them. The contrast with the lack of respect shown to the asylum seekers by the detention centre is clear.

The first immigrants to Christmas Island were Chinese and to this day the Chinese community on the island holds ceremonies to help their dead cross over to the spirit realm, helping them to migrate from one state of being to another. Again the contrast with the lack of care given to the asylum seekers by officialdom is clear.

It's a beautifully made film with wonderful cinematography and takes a lyrical, metaphor-rich approach to documentary film making without ever losing track of the important story it is telling.

Island of the Hungry Ghosts is screening as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival at 1810, Sunday 24 June at Odeon and at 2035 Tuesday 26 at Filmhouse. You can book tickets here.


You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:


Kayak to Klemtu - a young First Nations woman kayaks to her home town to protest against a pipeline

Supa Modo - a super-hero film with a difference 

Becoming Animal - meditative documentary about the human relationship with nature

Science Fair - documentary about brilliant young scientists attending the International Science and Engineering Fair

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.

Kayak to Klemtu - Edinburgh International Film Festival

 

After her Uncle Dave's death, 14-year-old Ella (Ta'kaiya Blaney) is determined to travel to Klemtu, their native home, to testify in his stead against a proposed pipeline that would see oil tanker traffic through their beloved homeland waters. To do this she decides to kayak along the length of the Inside Passage, along the shores of the Great Bear Rainforest and scatter her Uncle's ashes along the way. She is accompanied by her grumpy Uncle Don (Dave's brother), her step cousin Alex (Dave's son) and his nervous mother Corey. Along the way they encounter bad weather, food poisoning and family disagreements which slow down their journey as well as the magnificent landscapes and wildlife (including orcas and Stella's sea lions) that remind them what they are fighting for. At the end Ella delivers a stunning speech about how her Uncle is now buried all along the water body and as burial grounds are sacred and cannot be built on then the pipeline cannot be built and tankers cannot be allowed along this stretch of water.


It's a road trip along the waters and a meditation on the connections between peoples of the First Nations and their lands. It's also a moving family drama with themes of grief, estrangement and reconciliation. Some of the dialogue is irritating and I wanted to know more specifics about why most of the family had left Klemtu, but overall it's a beautiful film with an important message.

In reality tankers have been banned from these waters though smaller boats do carry fuel here and soon after completing this film in fact there was an oil spill here.

Kayak to Klemtu is screening as part of the Edinburgh Internaitonal Film Festival at  1540, 24 June at Cineworld and at 1810, 25 June at Vue Omni. Find out more and book here.

You can read my other reviews from this year's film festival by following the links below:

Supa Modo - a super-hero film with a difference 

Becoming Animal - meditative documentary about the human relationship with nature

Science Fair - documentary about brilliant young scientists attending the International Science and Engineering Fair

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.

Supa Modo - Edinburgh International Film Festival

 

Supa Modo is a superhero film with a difference.

Nine year old Jo (Stycie Waweru) is a terminally ill Kenyan girl who loves superhero films and sharing superhero stories with her friends in hospital. In her dreams she dons a super hero cape and flies through the forests. She has a wonderful little superhero doll (that looks to be handmade from fabrics) which she uses to act out superhero stories.

When her mother Kathryn takes her out of hospital to spend the rest of her days at home, Jo becomes closer to her older sister Mwix. The two girls spend time away from their overprotective Mum with Mwix persuading Jo to believe that she has superpowers. 

What ensues is a wonderfully engaging adventure with the whole village joining in to help make Jo's last days happy. It's a vibrant film full of colour and laughter as well as being moving and heartbreaking. The beautiful landscapes of Kenya, the bright colours of the Kenyan fabrics worn by the women and decorating the houses.

I love how the ending of the film brings everything together and shows how the legacy of a child's death can have positive elements within the tragedy.

It really is a wonderful film, see it if you can.

Supa Modo is showing at Edinburgh International Film Festival at 1820 on Friday 22 June at Vue Omni and at 1310 on Sunday 24 June at Odeon.

To read my reviews of earlier films in this year's film festival please follow the links below:

Becoming Animal - meditative documentary about the human relationship with nature

Science Fair - documentary about brilliant young scientists attending the International Science and Engineering Fair 

Disclaimer: I have a press pass for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and attended a free press screening of this film.

Science Fair - Film Review (Edinburgh International Film Festival)

We've just got back from a wonderful holiday in Shetland and I will in due course blog about the highlights of that but in the meantime it's Edinburgh International Film Festival and once again I have a press pass and films to review.

First up was today's press screening of  Science Fair, a documentary that follows brilliant young high school scientists across the world as they prepare their research projects for the International Science and Engineering Fair. There is a real mix of young people taking part. One US school had nine teams get through the regional and national competition to finally have seven winners at the fair, lead by their charismatic (and frankly sometimes scary) teacher Dr Serena McCalla. Kashfia Rahman meanwhile, a young Muslim attending a sports oriented school in the USA, has no research labs to work in and no science teacher prepared to oversee her work so she ends up being mentored by the school sports coach and even after she wins a prize at the fair her school does nothing to acknowledge her achievements. Robbie a US student failing in his maths class takes a project based on number theory to the fair and on the back of that is offered a paid internship to work on driverless cars. Anjali Chadha, a student in a strongly science oriented school in the US, researches new ways to test for and remove arsenic from drinking water while Myella and Gabriel two students from Brazil are working on the Zika virus - a project that they are now continuing at University level.

My only disappointment was that there were no featured projects that specifically dealt with the scientific challenges posed by climate change or biodiversity loss. However the implication is still there, the scientific challenges of our time will be met by brilliant people like those featured in this film.

Science Fair is screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival at The Vue Omni at 2040 Thursday 21 June and at 1300 on Saturday 23 June. You can find out more and book here.