Festivals

Five film watchers with two hats apiece go gold-panning at the mouth of the Rhine.

It’s trimmed back the luxury – a bit – but this Mexican fest retains its uniquely pleasing balance of the social and the cinephile, writes Nick James.

With a new calendar slot and head programmer, the UK’s biggest short-film festival bulged with retro and cutting-edge sci-fi, 3D Soviet dinosaurs, mock-Edwardian Londoners, tragi-comic stickmen and thousands of flies.