Viva Brighton April 2015 Issue #26

cinema
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Yoram Allon takes a look at other film highlights
April sees lots of fantastic stuff happening at the
wonderful Emporium, most prominently their
‘Seaside Celluloid’ mini film festival celebrating
our city on screen, running 10th–12th April.
This includes a rare screening of Jigsaw (1962),
starring Jack Warner as a detective trying to
solve a murder, piecing together fragments of
her life from scenes across Brighton & Hove.
Also presented are Mona Lisa (1986), Neil
Jordan’s classic BAFTA-winning crime drama
starring Bob Hoskins and Michael Caine; Me
Without You (2001), a refreshingly different buddy
movie starring Michelle Williams and Anna
Friel; and, of course, Quadrophenia (1979), the
most famous of all ‘Mods and Rockers’ movies,
part-shot in Brighton and starring Phil Daniels,
Lesley Ash and Sting, based on The Who’s rock
opera. Most glorious of all is another chance
to see 20,000 Days on Earth (2014), a fictive
24-hours in the life of musician, songwriter,
author, screenwriter, composer, actor and Hove
resident Nick Cave; directed by experimental
filmmakers Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, this
fascinating and innovative film won the Directing
Award in World Cinema Documentary at
Sundance, as well as many other plaudits including
a BAFTA nomination, and simply has to be
seen and heard.
Elsewhere, the Sundance-winning documentary
Dark Horse: The Incredible True Story of Dream
Alliance comes to the Duke’s at Komedia cinema
from 17th April. This tells the extraordinary story
of Dream Alliance, a horse born and bred by a
syndicate in a depressed South Wales mining village
who, against all the odds, conquered the world
of horse racing. The film, which director Louise
Osmond describes as “Rocky … with a horse”,
follows the determination of Jan Vokes and her
husband Brian who, with the help of £10 a week
from 23 of their friends in the town of Cefn Fforest
to cover the horse’s food and training, ready our
equine hero for the Grand National at Aintree in
2010. Strange but true.
Lastly, Noah Baumbach (writer/director of The
Squid and the Whale (2005) and Frances Ha (2012),
amongst other indie successes) is back with a new
comedy drama, While We’re Young, starring Ben
Stiller, Naomi Watts and Amanda Seyfried. This
sharply-crafted and engaging movie focuses on a
middle-aged couple befriending a disarming young
couple, and discovering their inner twentysomethings,
to the consternation and condescension of
their supposed friends. In a time of ubiquitous 30-
year band reunions (The Wonder Stuff? Inspiral
Carpets?!), this film seems strangely attuned to the
current zeitgeist of needing to rewind in order to
move forward.
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