Sci-Fi London 2014, weekend one
So SFL have decided to update their formula again and have spread film showings out over a week and a half. Which is a pity as some of the week night stuff I'd liked to have caught but can't get to the Stratford Picture House from Chiswick in time. They also have stuff at the BFI again but most films seemed booked out quickly; maybe the BFI advertised them before the official SFL programme was out?
So Vic and I are seeing films on the weekends, with this first one being busiest. We saw:
SF Shorts (programme 3) - Usually SFL shows a short film before each movie. But they also show them in anthology showings. I'm glad we caught one of the collections this year as none of the films we've seen have had a short this time! The mix was typically eclectic. My favourite were the humerus 'Tea Chronicles' and a moving animation about a woman using her imagination to visualise here brothers' mental illnesses.
Wake - The first film at the festival from Puerto Rico. A man has a near miss in his drive home, but his life soon starts to fall apart when he's told his wife has had a car accident at the same place. As he tries to track her down a conspiracy emerges, but it may no be as malevolent as first assumed...
This was all rather Philip K Dick. It was an okay film, with a great sense of place to it.
Suicide or Lulu and Me in a World Made for Two - clearly winning 'Best Title' of the festival is this low budget black and white film shot in Paris and Mid-West America. It tells of a street performer called Louise who wakes up in Oklahoma with no memory or voice. Scientist Jorge uses a device which can record memories to replay for her what has happened. She learns she lived in Paris and was a street performer who meets a scientist called Jorge who she has dreamed about. He reveals he is creating a camera that can create and actual, real copy of whatever it sees. A whirlwind, whimsical romance ensues. But then the film takes a dark turn when she gets the actual memories back rather than the ones Jorge wants her to see.
A film of two distinct parts the whimsical, quirky tone of the Paris sections are offset by the desperate, low fi American scenes. It had some good ideas, well executed and I really recommend it.
Desolate - a zero budget film made on a digital DSLR camera by a director who has shown at SFL before. A young man is descending into alcoholism over a failed relationship. But his falling apart is interrupted by an explosion in the city. What at first seems a man made incident is soon revealed as something alien and he begins a fight for survival in an apartment block stalked by an inhuman creature.
A great film using very small resources (production is attributed to "Everyone who helped out") it was a great little film which proved that anybody can make a full length feature film with the will to.
Bunker 6 - This Canadian film centers on the survivors of a nuclear war surviving in a bunker a decade after the bomb has dropped in an alternative 1960s. The story focuses on engineer Grace, a small child when war broke out. She is torn between the survors who want to leave the shelter and those who think the outside is still dangerous. But when people start to die she has to use her wits to work out what is really going on.
This was filmed in a real Cold War bunker and the setting really adds to the veracity of the movie. The low budget is well used to create a gripping story of paranoia and fear with a very satisfying ending which is well foreshadowed.
The last three films are great and well worth catching if they appear at an independent cinema near you!