Minghella Film Festival
The Minghella Film Festival was once again a blast to attend. This time my friend Marie joined me from Paris. The opening night gala involved drinks at William Coppin, then a viewing of The Eagle with Duncan Kenworthy, then a party and dance back at William Coppin afterwards. At the party afterwards, there was a live band, which was a lot of fun. I got to hang out with Duncan Kenworthy for a while, and managed to use my worst Die Hard!BillClay accent while speaking to him. The real treat for me was hanging out with Bruce Webb. You don’t know who Bruce Webb is yet, but you will. He directed a small film in 2009 called The Be All and End All, and it was a fantastic film. It comes out on DVD in the UK in April, and will actually get some showings in the US sometime this spring or summer. The film was made for £120,000, which is about $190,000. It makes me wonder why so many films cost millions of dollars when this one was so well made for less than $200,000. If you have a chance, you absolutely must see it. Another treat was meeting Dominic Minghella in person. Normally he and I just lob outrageous accusations at each other on Twitter, so it was nice to be able to do that to his face.
On Saturday, there were viewings of the film shorts that were entered in the competition, and then a Q&A with Ralph Fiennes. Ralph Fiennes is known for being very shy and very quiet. After a somewhat stilted start, though, he warmed up to both Edana and the crowd and was wonderful. That night we had dinner with him at the Quay Arts café and then he introduced The Reader. Michael Maloney also joined us at dinner; it’s always good to see him.
Ralph returned for brunch the next morning, and Dominic, Marie and I took turns taking silly pictures (awful, at least of me) of each other. William Shatner karaoke was the highlight of the morning, with Dominic and Georgie doing a brilliant rendition of Elton John’s Your Song. Considering Georgie just learned to read, it was pretty awesome for him to just jump in and do it. After realizing how far away Freshwater is from Newport, Marie and I ditched it and headed over to my friend Shasta’s house for tea and to chat. We then went to a pub that Shasta recommended and had dinner.
This review doesn’t do the festival justice, really. You should really just make a point to go and experience it for yourself.