Cambridge Film Festival unveils line-up

The 33^rd Cambridge Film Festival (Sept 19-29) has unveiled its 2013 line-up, comprising 150 titles from 40 countries.

As previously announced, Professor Stephen Hawking will attend the opening night gala of documentary Hawking, which will be broadcast live to more than 60 screens across the UK.

The festival will close with Kevin Macdonald’s How I Live Now, an Orwellian vision of a post-apocalyptic future starring Saoirse Ronan and George MacKay.

Alongside Hawking, other special guests to the festival will include directors Lucy Walker (The Crash Reel), Roland Klick (Deadlock), Mark Levinson (Particle Fever), Julien Temple (Oil City Confidential), Ramon Zürcher (The Strange Little Cat), Małgośka Szumowska (In The Name Of), Marzin Malaszczak (Sieniawka), Matt Hulse (Dummy Jim) and Andrew Mudge (The Forgotten Kingdom), Bob Stanley, John Pearse and actress Stephanie Stremler (Dust On Our Heart).

Strands include Young Americans, aimed at showcasing innovative film-makers from the US who have emerged in recent years. Titles, of which the latter three are UK premieres, include:

• Prince Avalanche David Gordon Green
• George Washington David Gordon Green
• All the Light in the Sky Joe Swanberg
• I Used To Be Darker Matt Porterfield
• Upstream Color Shane Carruth

The 33^rd edition of the festival will screen several music documentaries in its 33 1/3 strand, which includes:

• The Stone Roses: Made of Stone Shane Meadows
• The Great Hip Hop Hoax Jeanie Finlay
• The Blue Black Hussar Jack Bond
• Muscle Shoals Greg Camalier
• Oil City Confidential Julien Temple
• The Invisible Lighthouse Thomas Dolby
• The Wrecking Crew Denny Tedesco

Temple and Dolby will introduce their films while Saint Etienne musician Bob Stanley will introduce The Wrecking Crew, about an elite group of US songwriters and musicians who recorded some of the biggest hits of the 1960s.

Thatcher’s Britain will explore the films of the 1980s that reflected the era and includes:

• Life Is Sweet Mike Leigh
• My Beautiful Laundrette Stephen Frears
• The Ploughman’s Lunch Richard Eyre
• No Surrender Peter Smith
• Absolute Beginners Julien Temple
• A Room With a View James Ivory
• Local Hero Bill Forsyth

The festival has teamed with the Goethe-Institut London and Filmgalerie 451 to offer the first comprehensive season of cult director Roland Klick in the UK.

As well as the UK premiere of Sandra Pretchel’s documentary, Roland Klick: The Heart Is a Hungry Hunter, it will screen all the German director’s shorts and his three biggest features: Deadlock, Supermarkt and White Star.

The Goethe-Institut (and German Films) will also support a Contemporary German Cinema strand with titles such as:

• Hannah Arendt Margarethe von Trotta
• Ludwig II Peter Sehr
• The Strange Little Cat Ramon Zurcher
• Dust On Our Hearts Hanna Doose (UK premiere)

Camera Catalonia will focus on Catalan cinema and pay homage to Jamon Jamon director Bigas Luna, who died earlier this year, with his comic 1987 horror Anguish, which was never released in the UK. Other films in the strand include Eyes on the Sky, The Forest andThe Redemption of the Fish.

Eastern View will centre on Eastern European filmmakers with titles including:

• Of Snails and Men (Romania) Tudor Giurgiu
• The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear (Georgia) Tinatin Gurchiani
• In The Name Of… (Poland) Malgorzata Szumowska
• Sieniawka (Poland) Marcin Malaszczak
• Sofia’s Last Ambulance (Bulgaria) Ilian Metev
• Mushrooming (Estonia) Toomas Hussar

Taking highlights from this year’s Film4 Frightfest and the upcoming BFI Gothic season, Cambridge will screen new and classic titles including:

• Big Bad Wolves Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
• Machete Kills Robert Rodriguez
• Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman Ernesto Díaz Espinoza
• We Are What We Are Jim Mickle
• Don’t Look Now Nic Roeg
• The Shining Stanley Kubrick
• The Wicker Man Robin Hardy
• Night of the Demon Jacques Tourneur

Eccentric Britain, a mini retrospective to director-distributor Antony Balch, documentary filmmakers Roger Sampson and Mike Wallington, and “tailor to the stars” John Pearse, includes:

• Witchcraft Through the Ages Antony Balch
• Haxan Antony Balch
• Horror Hospital Antony Balch
• Dressing For Pleasure Roger Sampson, Mike Wallington
• Arrows Roger Sampson, Mike Wallington
• Champions Roger Sampson, Mike Wallington
• Moviemakers John Pearse

In a new collaboration with Eye On Films, which promotes the distribution of first features, Cambridge will present:

• Acrid Kiarash Asadizadeh
• Noor Çağla Zencirci, Guillaume Giovanett
• House With A Turret Eva Neymann
• If We Were Catching A Cobra Haia Alabdalla

Other documentary titles in the festival include:

• Dirty Wars Rick Rowley
• Google and the World Brain Ben Lewis
• The Man Whose Mind Exploded Toby Amies
• Particle Fever Mark Levinson
• The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology Sophie Fiennes, Slavoj Zizek
• The Lebanese Rocket Society Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige
• The Crash Reel Lucy Walker
• Leviathan Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel
• In the Shadow of Man Hanan Abdalla
• A Story of Children and Film Mark Cousins
• Project Wild Thing David Bond

Feature highlights include:

• Wakolda Lucia Puenzo (UK premiere)
• The Sea Stephen Brown
• Prisoners Denis Villeneuve
• Marius Daniel Auteuil
• Fanny Daniel Auteuil
• My Sweet Pepperland Hiner Saleem

Short fusion, a programme of award-winning shorts, includes the UK premiere of the Clermont Ferrand Short Film Festival’s Grand Jury Winner, Just Before You Lose Everything. There will also be a series of films from Project Trident, a group of local independent filmmakers from the South East of England.

Cambridge will also continue its ‘pre-Festival’ Summer of Cinema season including double bills of classics Singing In The Rain and Jungle Book at the Grantchester Meadows by the river, Finding Nemo at Jesus Green Lido and Edward Scissorhands in the gardens of Childerley Hall in West Cambridgeshire.

The festival is presented by the Cambridge Film Trust and funded by BFI Film Forever. For more details, visit CFF’s website: http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/