Preview: Chichester International Film Festival 2015

Get ready for a feast of films in Chichester as 120 films hit the south coast…

13 August 2015

By Sam Wigley

45 Years (2015)

Curtains go up on the Chichester International Film Festival on 13 August, kicking off an 18-day feast of film with an opening night gala screening of Andrew Haigh’s prize-winning drama 45 Years. Starring Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay as an ageing couple whose marriage suddenly hits the rocks, the BFI-backed film won a joint acting prize at Berlin this year and previews in Chichester a fortnight before its UK release on 28 August.

Taking place in five venues across the city, Chichester’s festival takes in 120 films this year, from open-air screenings of Pixar’s Inside Out (2015) and musical favourite The Sound of Music (1965) to expanded screenings of British classics Odd Man Out (1947) and The Fallen Idol (1948) featuring live concert performances of the music of film composer William Alwyn. Also on a film music bent, composer Carl Davis will be in town to talk about Charlie Chaplin’s early comedies for the Mutual studio.

The Legend of Barney Thomson (2015)

Prominent new titles on offer include Robert Carlyle’s directorial debut The Legend of Barney Thomson; Gemma Bovery, a modern French twist on Madame Bovary; David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn, starring Al Pacino and Holly Hunter; and a new version of Strindberg’s Miss Julie from director Liv Ullmann.

Brand new Russian cinema comes in for a special focus this year, incorporating a mini-strand of features by Andrey Zvyagintsev. Big screen outings for Zvyagintsev’s The Return (2003), Elena (2011) and Leviathan (2014) shouldn’t be passed up. Those who prefer Russian cinema of an earlier vintage can also catch Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Man with a Movie Camera (1929).

Leviathan (2014)

The spotlight also falls on Polish and Czech cinema, with a roundup of great Czech cinema new and old, together with a clutch of Martin Scorsese-sanctioned Polish masterpieces such as Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water (1962) and Krzysztof Kieslowski’s A Short Film about Killing (1987).

The festival dedicates a strand to Julianne Moore (including Far from Heaven, Maps to the Stars and her recent Oscar-winner Still Alice) and, in the year of his centenary, to Orson Welles. Smaller tributes are paid to lately departed greats Christopher Lee and Omar Sharif, with outings for Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969) and I Forgot to Tell You (2010) respectively.

Things wrap up on 30 August with the UK premiere of Two Women, a sumptuous new Russian period drama from director Vera Glagoleva. It is hoped that Glagoleva and star Ralph Fiennes will take to the stage.

For details of the full programme see the Chichester International Film Festival website.

 

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