Filmonik Open Screening #45 - Review

After a nail-biting week during which we were wondering if we’d have enough new work to show, we actually found ourselves faced with a Filmonik First - more films than we knew what to do with, thanks to our loyal crew of filmmaking fiends. So before we give you the run-down we’d like to apologise to Rich Howe, who went to all the trouble of shooting a forfeit film, only to have it not find a slot, and to the Greek couple who brought a film down on spec, just in case we could find a slot. We hope you’ll be back, folks.

For now, though, this is what did find its way on to Odder’s twin screens.

First up, two films from Tuce Zingenkenet, made for Kabarets in Hamburg and Berlin, and very different in tone. The first, CLOSER, a contemplative mood piece, with a blink and you’ll miss it cameo from Filmonik’s resident Jesus lookalike muso McDave Abbott, the second JACKPOT a violent chase movie with an unhinged lead turn from our own Rick Hollingworth.

Next up Mark Ashmore unleashed THIS IS NOT A RIOT! - an expose of the police’s increasingly heavy-handed treatment of political demonstrators, shot guerrilla-style at the G20 Climate Camp, and probably legally show-able nowhere else than Filmonik in the current political climate!

Finally laconic Filmonik veteran Mark Harris turned in an unnerving experimental micro-short dealing with animal cruelty and the sexualisation of violence. We think. As ever, Mark likes the work to speak for itself.

A short break, and then we had a star guest, albeit an unassuming one. Matt Greenhalgh, writer of Anton Corbejn’s Joy Division movie Control and the forthcoming Sam Taylor-Wood movie Nature Boy about John Lennon, wanted to test a rough cut of his directorial debut ACID BURN, starring Agyness Deyn. But he didn’t want to make a fuss about it. Just wanted some honest feedback. He found himself with a forfeit due to the lack of a logo, and has promised he will make it - and screen it along with the final cut of the film at a later date! We’re looking forward to it.

Steve of the mysterious Homocult was next up, with a forfeit film. We asked him to follow the lyrical ode to Hulme he screened at Filmonik #44 with a similar hymn to Didsbury, and Steve gamely obliged. Judging from the full-on, confrontational imagery he associates with the place, however, we suspect Didsbury is somewhere he doesn’t like very much! Finally in this section a film from a Filmonik Newbie, John Buckley, who just turned up on the night with his documentary WHAT MAKES LUKE TIC? This is what we like to see - new blood. Hope to see you again, John.

During the break, Col Warhurst texted us from across the road to tell us he was still editing a music video and would rush it across as soon as it was finished. Talk about cutting it fine. Made for a little tension in the final section. First up however, Kate Lyons, who runs Odder’s film night Mini Cine screened her latest film, which featured a monkey smoking and eating chips. In Blackpool. Next up Liam Shanagher gave us the evening’s longest film, GORDON BENNETT, a witty Alan Bennett-style Talking Head piece about a camp, prissy, mother-dominated middle aged man’s attempts to find companionship. And somewhere during all of this Col rushed in with his music video, which gave us a suitable conclusion to the evening’s cinematic activities.

So that’s it for another month. Next up, the KABARET at Salford (see below), then we’ll have some Big News about December. Watch This Space!