The 16^th Raindance Film Festival's programme is today announced by festival patron Ken Loach, with the full line-up which includes 75 features and over 100 shorts alongside a host of live events, exclusive Q&As and masterclasses. The Raindance Film Festival will take place from 1-12 October 2008 in London's West End with some of the film industry's most exciting filmmakers sitting on this year's jury including Oscar-winning Peter Capaldi (Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life), Beastie Boys' filmmaker Adam Yauch (Awesome I F***ing Shot That), Rebecca O'Brien (The Wind that Shakes the Barley) and Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout, Don't Look Now, Puffball).

 

Book-ending the fortnight long Festival, the UK premiere of breakout new writer-director Clark Gregg and maverick author Chuck Palahniuk's (Flight Club) CHOKE, starring Sam Rockwell (Jesse James, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), Anjelica Huston (The Darjeeling Limited, The Royal Tenenbaums) and Kelly MacDonald (No Country for Old Men, Trainspotting), opens the event on Wednesday 1^st October, and the Closing Gala on Sunday 12^th October brings the festival to an end with the World premiere of Mark Tonderai's directorial debut HUSH, starring William Ash, Christine Bottomley and Guy Burnet.

 

Anjelica Huston is expected to guest appear for the Opening Night Gala as well as screen goddess Faye Dunaway for her new film FLICK, directed by David Howard and with expected appearances from co-stars Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman), Liz Smith (The Royle Family) and Mark Benton (Murphy's Law).

 

80's superstar Corey Feldman (Stand By Me, The Goonies) will feature at the festival promoting his new film THE BIRTHDAY, and will participate in a special retrospective event. Cult director Jeremy Podeswa (Six Feet Under, Queer as Folk) will also be in attendance with his new film FUGITIVE PIECES.

 

Raindance has a strong reputation for it's interest of music in film and in the past has featured jurors such as Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Marky Ramone and Mick Jones (The Clash) and has previously programmed films such as: Billy Childish Is Dead, The Devil & Daniel Johnston, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, Neil Young: Heart of Gold and documentaries on The Ramones, Lambchop and Johnny Thunders. This year is no different with films dedicated to Patti Smith, The Beatles, The Arctic Monkeys and a documentary by Beastie Boys' hip-hop legend Adam Yauch.

For the full Festival programme please go to www.raindance.co.uk

 

The Raindance Film Festival runs from Wednesday 1^st October to Sunday 12^th October 2008.

You can also watch the festival trailer here!

The new from Jon Avnet - Righteous Kill - brings together two of the screens giants: Al Pacino and Robert De Niro - unfortunately to not much avail. Saddled with a pedestrian script that seems more obssesed with creating a twist than investigating the relatiosnhip between its' main characters , Righteous Kill never goes further than a straight-to-dvd thriller. On top of it, the plotline is also imbued with a strangely misogynistic tone - the pne female character in the film is built up as some sort of 'weirdo' and treated with great contempt!
The stars are wasted during hammy buddy-buddy scenes and the only veteran actor who manages to come out of this average mess with his head high is Brian Dennehy who plays the lieatunant of the district the two cops work in.
Perhaps Righteous Kill is something to kill time with during a dry period but right now, just as the release train is gearing up towards Festival season here in London, it can go no further than being a waste of anyone's time.

Tonight saw the UK premiere of 'Righteous Kill' and your obedient movie reviewer Evrim Ersoy is just back from the Premiere Party. Expect a full review on the film tomorrow - in the meantime enjoy the ticket given out for the Premiere and the knowledge that the most fascinating person at the party was Toby Jones. (Plus Al Pacino was tiny and this staff member got really close to him during the walk up the red carpet!)