Filmonik Open Screening #51 - Review

We hope you all had a very Merry Xmas or whatever other religious or non-denominational end of year blow-out you chose to indulge in. We certainly did. So much so, in fact that it’s taken us nearly a month to piece together what happened. There was certainly a screening on December 12th. Everything after that is a little… blurry.

So, Filmonik’s festive season began with a bang, as acclaimed animator Linda McCarthy made her Filmonik debut, offering our audience a troubling glimpse of A TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS AT SMALL BIRDS SINGING, and reminding us all that some festive traditions are unusual to say the least. Next up, Filmonik love god Tim Limon provided took us all to THE EDGE OF HEAVEN in his latest music video pastiche. Tim couldn’t be with us, due to illness, but we waived the rules because he’s so damn sexy. Around this point, Mat Johns offered us a vision of Ken Loach produced by George Lucas in the outrageous A PRESENT FORCEFULLY GIVEN, while Filmonik’s resident Scrooge Steve Balshaw offered a seasonal short for the suicidal in pitch-black comedy DEAR SANTA…

After a short break, there was a musical interlude, as Kate Mellors performed a stunning live accompaniment to her experimental piece FIFTEEN METRES APART which brought the house down. Still in experimental vein, Filmonik newcomers the Stanners Brothers took us on a musical voyage with SHIRES. Then it was down to James Twyman to bring us back to narrative filmmaking with a bang with the gritty THE BREAK-UP.

Christmas being a time for conspicuous food consumption, Ben Mottershead responded to our call for season movies with DINNER - a darkly comic exploration of the lengths hunger can drive us to. No hamsters were injured during the making of this film. Hopefully. This was followed by a film by our unexpected guest star, the ever-awesome Till Maria Schneider, who flew over specially from Hamburg to buy crumpets, and screen his film NUCLEAR WINTER, an essential guide to how to survive an invasion by the notorious alien entity Keith Landberger and his evil clone army. Clearly the German notion of a festive film is different to ours… No matter, at this point it was time for a song, or at least a music video, from Chris Lane, whose protagonist probably spoke for us all: I DON’T WANNA WAIT TILL CHRISTMAS!

To round off the evening, we ran a few highlights, low points and random bits of silliness from the recent Salford Film Festival Mini-Kabaret, after which, it was thank you and goodnight.

Until the next time, that is…