Green and Slow
The Ways
With Words Literature Festival 2008
The Ways With Words literature festival, started with a flurry of
excitement with the political commentator Martin Bell arriving in a
motorised tuktuk from Totnes railway station.
Celebrating its 17th year, Ways With Words features 200 writers and 150
events, which contrasts with the first festival that had around 50
events and 60 writers. Sponsored this year by the Daily Telegraph
newspaper, it is one of the biggest events of this type in the UK and
the only one that provides residential accommodation for writers and
book-lovers. One of its great features is that it is set in the
stunning grounds and estate of the medieval Dartington Hall in
Devon, England.
At the launch party festival organiser Kay Dunbar said that this year's
theme was to be green and slow. Festival goers would get the chance to
unwind and enjoy poetry and literature in the idylic surroundings of
the estate away from the stresses of the modern world.
On their website she, along with co-organiser Stephen Bristow, state:
'We started Ways With Words in 1991 and thought we would like to run a
one-off literature festival at Dartington Hall. One festival was
obviously not going to satisfy the large number of people who came to
the first festival and so Ways With Words became an annual event.
'Word about the festival spread quickly and we received invitations
from all over the place to run festivals in other parts of the country.
As you can see from our web site we now run a number of festivals of
different sizes as well as creative holidays abroad.
'Ways With Words has always existed to promote both the written and the
spoken word. We want to bring people together in beautiful surroundings
to make contact with writers, journalists and experts in various fields
- to talk, to argue, to listen, to engage and to learn.'
Speakers, at this year’s festival includes best selling author Kate
Mosse introducing her new book Sepulchre, Oona King discussing her role
in Tony Blair's government, Jonathan Dimbleby on Russia, Jonathan Fenby
on China, Lord David Owen on his book about sickness in heads of
government and Jon Snow on his views about the Iraq war. Other
highlights among many are Radio 4 presenter, Jenni Murray, talking
about her family secrets and Gervase Phinn taking a comic look at life
as a school inspector in the Yorkshire Dales.
Themed days will cover topics about the environment, women's lives,
psychology, science, travel, art and history.
The full programme for Ways With Words that runs from 11 to 20 July
2008 is available at: www.wayswithwords.co.uk.
===================================================================
Jamie
Garwood, reviews:
The Life of Jesus
(La Vie de
Jesus)
Without A Trace TV
series on DVD
The
Bucket List
Mad Detective
Appleseed
Ex Machina
Dan In Real Life
Killer of Sheep
Kung-Fu Panda
Water Lilies
(Naissance des pieuvres)
I Think I Love My Wife
The
Savages
Heights
Walk
Hard:The Dewey Cox Story
Looking
For Kitty
Juno
Howard
Schumann, our
incredible phantom of the cinema, reviews:
And When Did
You Last See Your Father?
Gone
Baby Gone
Saint
Clara (Clara Hakedosha)
The
Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher)
In
the Valley of Elah
American
Gangster
Caramel
(Sukkar Banat)
Before
the Devil Knows You’re Dead
One
Fine Spring Day (Bomnaleun ganda)
The
Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le papillon)
Juno
"The best DVD Rental comparison site in the UK", says WebUser magazine
and the BBC. All UK DVD and Games rental companies tested, rated and
reviewed. Search for the right package for your own viewing needs using
the web's most powerful rental search tool. Now includes the
world's first 'Switch' tool for DVD rental as well as a dedicated 'Free
Trial' zone where you can find the best and longest free trials.
Emma
Farley looks at:
Happy-Go-Lucky
Cinema's
Portrayal of World War One
Genre
and Stars in Notting Hill
Top
Ten Romantic Comedies
Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Alan
Pavelin contributes:
The
Art of Andrei Tarkovsky
Silent
Light
Obituary
for Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni
The
Tarkovsky Companion
Sunshine
Amazing
Grace
Into
Great Silence (Die Grosse Stille)
A
Winter’s Tale
Satantango
Virgin Media
launches new short film competition
Virgin
Media has just
announced the launch of Virgin Media Shorts, the first ever short film
competition to run across four screens – TV, cinema, mobile and
computer.
Each of
the short listed
films will be shown at cinemas across the UK, giving the budding film
directors
the chance to see their work exposed to hundreds of thousands of people
each week. The films will be featured before the main attraction at 211
independent cinema screens up and down the country for a year. The
short
listed films will also be available to 3.5 million Virgin Media TV
customers
to watch for free through the FilmFlex service in the Movies on Demand
section on their TV or through the Virgin Central channel. Virgin
Mobile
customers can download clips of the films through the Mobile Bites
site.
Meanwhile, all of the entries will be available to anyone to view and
review
online, giving any budding film critics the chance to rate and comment
on each short film.
The
soon-to-be-announced
expert judging panel, including well-known personalities from the
British
film industry, will evaluate the short listed films during the summer
months,
with the final winner to be announced at an awards ceremony in
September.
The winner will win up to £30,000, along with support from the UK
Film Council, to make their next short film.
For more
information about
Virgin Media Shorts and how to enter, visit: www.virginmediashorts.co.uk.
Foyle’s War
– The Complete
Fifth Series
The
hugely popular and
successful, long running ITV series created by renowned scriptwriter
and
novelist Anthony Horowitz (Midsomer Murders, Stormbreaker) comes to an
end with three exciting new adventures; Plan of Attack, Broken Souls
and
All Clear.
Set
towards the end of
World War II, Foyle’s War - The Complete Fifth Series stars the
fantastic
Michael Kitchen (Fallen, The World Is Not Enough) as the irrepressible
Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle investigating crimes on the South
Coast of
England. He
is aided
by Sergeant Paul Milner played by Anthony Howell and his determined
driver
Sam, played by Honeysuckle Weeks.
The
three disc box set
was released on 28 April 2008 and features Foyle investigating a
massive
fraud case which has cost the War Office thousands of pounds, brutal
murders
and the mystery of a missing telegraph boy, all the while preparing for
the end of a turbulent and difficult period in his personal and
professional
life.
Foyle’s
War became an
instant hit on its debut in 2002. The first series won the Lew Grade
Audience
Award at the 2003 BAFTA Television Awards, the second series was
nominated
for a BAFTA for best television series and Series Five looks to
set to
perplex and delight
audiences.
More
than a period whodunnit,
Foyle's War is redolent with rich human drama subtly revealed through
the
lives of these main characters who make up the heart of the series.
Extras
include an exclusively
filmed behind the scenes documentary, cast filmographies and a stunning
picture gallery.
Cat. No:
AV9644
Film director
Anthony Minghella's death today (18 March 2008) reminds us
of Jaap
Mees' extensive interview
with him several years ago. On the same day the science
fiction
writer Arthur
C. Clarke also died. He will be best remembered for anticipating the
use
of
communications
satellites,
and for his collaboration with Stanley Kubrick in the creation of
2001: A
Space Odyssey.
See Nigel Watson's article Two
Views of 2001 and his article about
Clarke's Minehead
home town.
Mickey
Machine Gun Is Back! Steven Gerard Farrell, M.A., assistant
professor
at Greenville Technical College
looks at
the return of
the Irish American gangster to the silver screen.
Peter
Tonks reviews:
Volver
Intimate
Strangers
A
Prairie Home Companion
Cul
de Sac
A
Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiancailles)
Hollywoodland
Nigel
Watson writes about:
Evening
The
Thing From Another World
Growing
Up and Keeping Safe a new CD-ROM for children
Film
Censorship - Some Notes which includes a few classroom activites
and
debating points
There
are a bewildering
variety of digital
cameras & camcorders on the market today, to help you select
the
right camera see our latest article:
Things
to Look For in a Digital Camcorder – Some Thoughts
Sharon
Casey reviews:
The
Magic Flute
Kayleigh
Lewis reviews:
American
Gangster
Roger
Burton examines
the reality and fiction used in:
Monster
Shaun
McDonald contributes:
A
Scanner Darkly
Dumplings
(Gaau Ji)
Panic
Room
Destricted
Louis
Bunuel - Religion, Sex and Politics
Sound
in the Films of David Lynch
Louise
Causon reviews:
Halloween
New
contributor to TP,
Jack Gibson, reviews:
Intolerable
Cruelty
Walking
Tall
Scarface
New
contributor Carina
Platt reviews:
The
Man Who Fell To Earth
Cody
Cagle adds to our Thomas
the Tank Engine debate
Gauche
Encounters Bad films and the UFO Mythos by Martin
Kottmeyer.
This is a classic and much quoted essay that has never been published
before.
I'll be adding some pictures to this soon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDIEPIX.NET
- UK LAUNCH
report by
Jamie Garwood
bfi
Monday 17th Septemeber
A new
company incorporating
Indiepix and NetworkedPlanet has been launched in the UK this morning,
Tuesday 18th September, with the target of re-organising the economic
distribution
and commercial transaction of films making productions more
profitable
for the film-maker and gaining greater access and visibility for the
audience
who want to see these films.
Bob
Alexander who has
previously worked in consultancy companies in New York City comes
across
as a passionate individual for independent film and he took the stand
first
explaining how it is an aim to connect the film-maker with his
audience,
the audience with more films and making it more cost effective for all
parties.
Mr.
Alexander explained
how the user would log onto the website and would pay to download a
film
that is on the extensive catalogue which is close to 3000 titles
currently
- another aim is to eventually reach 10,000 - pay $15 or equivalent to
buy or view the title, $10 of this goes directly back to the
film-maker,
so they get immediate results and continued support and purpose.
The program has the ability to download in a one button transaction,
download
a film legally.
‘Independent
cinema has
been relegated in the league of audience expectations’, to illustrate
this
point and blame Hollywood for sucking the room out of the competition
Bob
uses the examples of ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ and ‘The Lives of
Others’.
Bourne had a budget of $138m plus an ad spend of $50m and in the first
six weeks of release has gained approximately $500m worldwide.
The
Lives of Others had a budget of $2m and so far grossed $25m
worldwide.
In its 6th week in the US, ‘Lives’ took $800,000 its best week on
release,
‘Bourne’ took that in the first 36 minutes of release. So there
is
a necessity to combat the mainstream market which is seemingly aimed
towards
bigger Hollywood productions, but as Bob made the point it does not
seem
financially viable to be involved in Hollywood.
So which
films are put
onto the site? ‘There is no current criteria; if the film represents
the
world of independent film, has performed on the blossoming festival
network,
screened by an expert panel, examined by an expert jury and been
successful,
but generally we are open to all submissions. And we welcome short
films,
where there has never been a commercial opportunity for them and this
is
an alternative to the film being a calling card.’ He adds that
they
are in collaboration with NetFlix to create a short film compilation
DVD
in production with Ingrooves.com, based in San Francisco.
Kal
Ahmed, the founder
and co-creator of NetworkedPlanet (a 3 year old company from Oxford)
that
focuses on connecting concepts and content, talks to us about how the
search
engine works. Unlike tags used on search engines like YouTube, this
site
uses topics as its search engine giving content to the tag and becoming
bi-directional - for example, a film is directed by ... and he
directed...-
therefore hooking concepts of films together. So it was a big
process
using
all the metadata, mapping them into the network, analysing the network
before refining. It is a system that is not patronising towards
its
audience and does not seem to point you in a certain direction, the
system
wants the audience to find something new and different. 'This is
a system for an informed consumer', says Ahmed in reaction to an
audience
that is culturally relevant and prevelant. Ahmed is an ambitious
person and says that the turnover of going live with this website from
the actual greenlight was three months, extraordinary turnover for a
new
project of this scale.
Attempting
to create connections
Currently
the website
gains 120,000 hits a month, a growth of 30% a month. With
purchases
up 25-30% a month. Monetary objectives is to work towards a
target
of $5-7m within two to three years, they are now working at
$1m/year.
'And if 60% of that income goes back to the filmmaker, that is a
significant
source of income for the individual so this is a change of direction in
film-making and production in reflection of the filmmaker's voice',
explains
Alexander.
This was
the UK Launch,
in fact it was the worldwide launch of this collaboration with three
launches
occuring in the US in October in New York, Pacific-Northwest and San
Francisco.
The project is ambitious and i think will be capable to succeed, there
is a passion amongst the people involved for film and for the
film-makers
to get greater recognition for there films on a national, international
even global scale - which can only be good for filmmaking in
general.
All the
films are able
to view, research, explore or even purchase now at www.indiepix.net
++++++++++++++++============================================++++++++++
More
can be found on our Links
page.
