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2 — TODAY’S PICKSWhat’s happening at GFF today

2 — FEATURE: CITY ON CELLULOID The CineSkinny reports on GFF’s home city as it is portrayed in cinema

3 — REVIEWSThe Mexican Suitcase ★★★★

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ★★

Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy★

4 — WHAT’S NEW ONLINEThe latest news, comments and pictures from the festival

4 — COMPETITIONWin tickets to see Time to Spare by answering one simple question

Produced by The Skinny magazine in association with the Glasgow Film Festival

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GFF 2012: THREE SIDES TO THE STORYShowing at GFF, DREILEBEN comprises of three films, each telling the same story from a different perspective, from three of Germany’s leading filmmakers. Words: CHRIS BUCKLE

IN 2006, filmmakers Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf and Christoph Hochhausler sent each other a series of frank emails analysing German cinema’s “completely atrophied discourse,” missives that were subsequently published in film journal Revolver. As well as proving intellectu-ally provocative, their tête-à-tête(-à-tête) planted the seeds of an ambitious collaboration: a trio of films jointly con-ceived but independently produced. The directors proposed “three stories, three films, from three authors who share a place, a crime, and a time” – a set of separate, yet discursive works, in which the filmmakers “wave from film to film, each as if on a ship moving away from the others.”

Dreileben’s core story involves an escaped criminal and an ensuing investigation, but each prepares its ingredients differently. Petzold’s Beats Being Dead is an unorthodox romance; Graf’s Don’t Follow Me Around takes the more expected police procedural

track; while Hochhausler’s One Minute of Darkness switches focus from pursuer to pursued, as the fugitive takes shelter in the town’s surrounding countryside. As three individual but intimately connected tales, Dreileben is a unorthodox viewing experience – though not a wholly unique one. The component films of Lucas Belvaux’s Trilogy, for instance, similarly shared the same cast and characters, while only a fortnight ago, rising stars Jessica Chas-tain and Joel Edgerton agreed to star in Ned Benson’s dual-film love story The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, which will purportedly split its narrative into ‘his’ and ‘hers’ viewpoints.

Dreileben differs from these examples, however, in its promise to present not only multiple character perspectives, but multiple directorial voices. That it originated on German television is suggestive of a multi-director precursor from closer to home: Channel 4’s Red Riding trilogy, which played in cinemas outside the UK. After

squeezing David Peace’s source novels into three screenplays, Julian Jarrold, James Marsh and Anand Tucker filmed a segment each, with overlaps and cross-references building into a richly textured whole. Another (partially) domestic example is the Advance Party project, a conceptual trilogy of Danish/Scottish co-productions that also uses shared characters in wildly divergent ways (Andrea Arnold’s Red Road and Morag McKinnon’s Donkeys still await their final piece).

Each of these examples challenges conventional cinematic parameters, presenting alternatives influenced in part by television’s serial structures, but with potential further parallels to, for instance, franchises filmed back-to-back. But such boundary-testing isn’t without its drawbacks: with all three Dreileben instalments screening in quick succession, you might want to bring a cushion.SHOWING 19 FEB AND 20 FEB AT CINEWORLD

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TODAY’SPICKSSATURDAY 18

IRVINE WELSH’S ECSTASY19.00 @ GFT

Irvine Welsh will be attending for a spe-cial Q&A session following this long-awaited adaptation of his short story The Undefeated, along with the film’s director, Rob Heydon, and lead actors Olivia Andrup and Adam Sinclair.

HUNKY DORY19.10 @ GFT

Glee fans will love this British film star-ring Minnie Driver as a drama teacher trying to inspire her students. Director Marc Evans and actor Jon Finn will be on hand to answer questions after the screening.

SILVER TONGUES21.00 @ GFT

Scottish filmmaker Simon Arthur will be at GFF to discuss his feature debut, a story of deception and deceit set in New York.

GLASGOW: SYMPHONYOF A GREAT CITY17.30 @ CCA

Accompanying the preceding film, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, this live film event has been specially constructed for GFF by sound design-ers Synchresis.

GLASGOW: CITY ON CELLULOIDThe CineSkinny examines how GLASGOW, an increasingly popular shooting location, has been portrayed over the years. Words: ALAN BETT

MANY CITIES have a cinematic identity. We can visualise a packed Hong Kong teahouse at the mere men-tion of John Woo, navigate New York holding Scorcese’s hand or feel Paris’s Gallic charm with any new wave bon viveur. What then of Glasgow, which not only hosts GFF but is projected onto its screens? This is a city with a strong constitution and a heady mix of art, violence, beauty and tragedy in its marrow. What more could a filmmaker want?

Much of the allure is visual. Soft light on a hard town, a magnificent contrast true to this city. Its harsh beauty is shown so clearly in Death Watch, a largely undiscovered gem showing at this year’s GFF (26 Feb). Brooding autumnal Glasgow acts as the perfect location to mirror a society on the edge of humanity. Harvey Keitel and Harry Dean Stanton star as TV company men conspiring to film a dying woman (Romy Schneider), a sacrifice to the god of ratings. It’s bizarre to see these international stars walking Glasgow’s streets, just as it was seeing the wonderful Jet Li tearing up the city in Unleashed. Both present a case that Glasgow is a film location of choice. The recent

George Square zombie encampment during filming of the upcoming World War Z suggests Hollywood heard Billy Connolly’s mischievous suggestion that “the great thing about Glasgow is that if there’s a nuclear attack it’ll look exactly the same afterwards.” An outdated sentiment, but one that must be forgiven from the city’s favourite son, paladin and on screen star of The Big Man and Just Another Saturday. The benefit of having a bit of character is proven by the revenue – over £20 million – brought to the city in 2011 from film and media projects.

Many tales born and raised here show the easily recognisable image of Glasgow, one that matches the tartanry of the Highlands. This is Clydesideism, a reflection of the working class community and post industrial masculinity so evident in locally made films such as Orphans and Small Faces. Yet there is a very different cinematic Glasgow to be found. Dr David Martin-Jones, author of Scotland: Global Cinema spoke with me and shed some light on a new real-ity: “Many recent films depict the city as a globally connected multicultural space, especially those which explore the aspirational lives of Glasgow’s

various diasporas, like American Cousins, Nina’s Heavenly Delights, and Ae Fond Kiss.” He went on to mention Glasgow-set Bollywood hits such as Pyaar Ishq aur Mohabba. These suc-cesses encourage film tourism while providing a connecting link between communities at home and abroad - cinema as global communicator.

Further evidence of Glasgow’s versatility comes again from the GFF programme. Night is Day (22 Feb) is a micro budget superhero flick showing in the Kapow! strand of the festival. Having made this comic book caper on Glasgow’s streets, director Fraser Coull told me, “it’s a great backdrop for crime dramas, drug and gangsters, but it’s also a romantic city, a beautiful city and mostly untapped.”

We have seen that Glasgow on film is an intricate reality. It recognises the diversity of modern life, where popula-tion flows meet and mingle, while also paying homage to a stereotype that acts as both curse and blessing. Most citizens truly desire to shed the legacy of No Mean City. True that this skin should no longer be worn but intelli-gent cinema such as NEDS shows that it can be maintained as a trophy, hope-fully avoiding self-fulfilling prophecy.

IRVINE WELSH’S ECSTASY

IRVINE WELSH’S ECSTASY

SILVER TONGUES

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THE MEXICAN SUITCASEDIRECTOR: TRISHA ZIFFSTARRING: N/ARELEASED: TBC CERTIFICATE: N/C 12+

★★★★

IRVINE WELSH’S ECSTASYDIRECTOR: ROB HEYDONSTARRING: ADAM SINCLAIR, KRISTIN KREUK, BILLY BOYD, CARLO ROTARELEASED: 20 APR CERTIFICATE: TBC

★

Rob Heydon’s adaptation of The Undefeated, one of three novellas in Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance, clearly has affection for the source material and the cinematic subgenre it reflects, which is probably why it’s so terrible. Crass, derivative and horribly dated, had this appeared among the slurry of late-90s club-culture flicks it would have been bad, but 13 years after Human Traffic it’s

unforgivable. Following partyboy Lloyd (Sinclair) as he smuggles MDMA from Amsterdam for mid-level gangster Solo (Rota) and falls for straight-laced Heather (Kreuk), Heydon’s film is so infused with visual and script-level clichés one starts to wonder whether it’s pastiche. Do you like speeded up, intercut establishing shots? Characters introduced in freeze-frame with names emblazoned on screen? Tin-pot philos-

ophising, pill-addled voiceover? You’re covered. This is a work comprised of bits of other films that weren’t very good in the first place, inconsistent in tone with some laughable attempts at depth, where nothing makes sense and any nostalgic fun is shattered by insin-cere dialogue, jarring performances and inept direction. [Chris Fyvie]

SCREENING 18 FEB AND 19 FEB AT GLASGOW FILM THEATRE & CINEWORLD

In the mid-nineties, three suitcases were unearthed in a closet in Mexico containing negatives long-assumed lost: snaps taken during the Spanish Civil War by Gerda Taro, David ‘Chim’ Seymour, and Robert Capa. While the trio’s iconic photography is front and centre of The Mexican Suitcase, documentarian Trisha Ziff frames this fortuitous discovery as a catalyst for wider analysis of the war’s legacy, mapping the journey made by the suit-cases to that of refugees who chose exile to Mexico over life under Franco. Interviews with historians and émigrés offer an array of insights (recollections

of French refugee camps are par-ticularly upsetting), while present-day Spanish youth air their frustration at the infrequency of such open national discussion. Capa’s oft-quoted dictum “if a photo doesn’t work then you’re not close enough” is invoked by one interviewee, but Ziff’s film impresses by adopting multiple distances, from the close-up excavation of mass graves to comparatively disassociated art exhibi-tions, all augmented by co-producer Michael Nyman’s evocative score. [Chris Buckle]

SHOWING 17 FEB AND 18 FEB AT GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL 2012

REVIEWS

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTELDIRECTOR: JOHN MADDENSTARRING: JUDI DENCH, MAGGIE SMITH, BILL NIGHY, TOM WILKINSON, PENELOPE WILTON

★★

TBEMH opens with a series of subversions. Half-a-dozen grey-haired archetypes (including Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy and Maggie Smith) stick two fingers up to the UK – its paltry pension, its NHS waiting list, and its general public that thinks anyone over the age of 50 requires one of those walk-in baths that Dame Thora Hird advertises – and head for a luxurious retirement in India.

Mainstream cinema has ignored the grey pound too, tending instead to cater for adolescent boys. What a pity, then, that TBEMH is as sche-matic as any summer event movie, with character arcs that could be plotted on a graph from the minute our ensemble arrives at the eponymous, dubiously named lodgings. The cast, who can make the ripest dialogue sound Shakespearean (see Smith’s eight film sentence as Professor McGonagall), help make it all rather frothy in a Carry on Pensioner kind of way. However, any good will is washed down with tabloid vinegar by a subplot involving Judie Dench schooling a broadband provider’s Indian telemarketing team in the ways of Blighty, which comes off as Daily Mail reader wish fulfillment. [Jamie Dunn]

SHOWED 17 FEB AT GLASGOW FILM THEATRE

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WIN TICKETSThe debut feature from casting director Job Gosschalk, Time to Spare is billed as “a fizzy, immensely likeable comedy drama with characters that easily win your heart.”

Since the death of their mother, forty-something music teacher Maarten has been a brother and a father to his sister Molly. She is twenty-one and has decided that the time is right to move in with her boyfriend. Maarten’s loyal pal Reina buys him a dog called Doodle to help him feather his empty nest. A chance encounter with the dashing, mixed-up Arthur might help to fill his empty bed but life has a way of taking everyone by surprise in this witty, warm-hearted romp.

We have a pairs of tickets to giveaway to the 3.15pm screening on Monday 20

Feb. To be in with a chance of winning simply go to theskinny.co.uk/competi-tions and tell us:

Q. Who is the director of Time to Spare?

Competition closes 10am Monday 20 Feb. Winners will be notified on Monday morning. For full terms and conditions, see theskinny.co.uk/about/terms

QUIZ TIMEWHAT’S NEW ONLINEPOETRY AND CINEMATo celebrate the start of the GFF, the Scottish Poetry Library have written a really interesting blog about the rela-tionship between poetry and cinema.http://bit.ly/PoetryandCinema

VENICE OF THE NORTHKamera.co.uk’s Steve Williams takes a closer look at the GFF’s Welcome to Germany strand and the Weimarvellous events.http://bit.ly/VeniceoftheNorth

THE SCOTS HIGHLIGHTS The Scotsman run down their top five films showing at GFF that are of the Scots persuasion. Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy tops the list with The Decoy Bride, starring David Tennant, in at number two. http://bit.ly/ScotsHighlights

EYEFORFILMEdinburgh based EyeforFilm.co.uk are back at the festival once again and are continuing to provide great coverage. Check out their break down of their reviews by strand by following the link below. http://bit.ly/EyeforFilm

You can find all our reviews, previews, and interviews online at theskinny.co.uk theskinny.co.uk/CineSkinny

@EMMARITCH About to watch 'Terri' at @glasgowfilm with @pktgp. First of 16. #glasgowfilmfest #fortnightinthedark

@NATHANAELSMITHJealous of all the Scots cur-rently enjoying Glasgow film festival. Don't have time to make it across there.

LYNSEY STEWART@LYNZSTEWARTWishing a swell opening night to the Glasgow Film Festival from my sick bed - http://www.glasgowfilm.org/ - it will be fun :)

JOHN CHIVALL @JOHNC_OUTDOORS Really enjoyed the @Butcher-BoyMusic show at #glasgow-filmfest tonight. Instrumental versions of their songs against 60s home cine films.

PETER BRADSHAW@PETERBRADSHAW1The excellent Arrugas, or Wrinkles, is showing at the Glasgow Film Festival next week: http://bit.ly/yDDkoe

@MEXICANSUITCASE#TheMexicanSuitcase is one of three films #nominated for the #Gaudis in Barcelona, for this year's best #documentary film.

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