40TH CAMBRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL HAS BEGUN
The Cambridge Film Festival is on : 40 years old but still as provocative as ever, it excels in choice this year.
15 Hours, a film that shows hidden violence in a relationship
The Cambridge Film Festival is an institution that needs little introduction other than to announce it is now open for all comers for a vast choice of one hundred films over eight days. This year it has the exceptional claim to have an entire half of its directors women. And they say nothing changes? International and viscerally questioning as ever, the film festival’s themes appear to be grouped around the concept of belonging , so many of them are framed and carefully written to show life from the angle of the dispossessed .. Blue Bayou stars Alicia Vikander is a deeply moving perspective of how life for a non-Caucasian can go horribly wrong on the turn of a sixty second event.In this work, American film takes a well worn theme, the welcome of the stranger, and makes it heartrendingly real in a twenty first century context, in the flash of a misstep moment a family is plunged into alienation.. In this year’s Festival there are so many films to open our eyes to the reality behind the statistics of migration.
It might be moving into its fifth decade but Cambridge Film Festival has all the fresh exuberance of a teenager . It is more accessible than ever, for example, you can view now through live streaming and there are one hundred glorious choices From November 21st right up to December 5th this digital option will extend the Festival magic beyond its ‘in person’ eight day time slot The Festival is BAFTA recognised , 44 countries contribute content to show a wide a spectrum of human filmic creativity as ever . This is amazingly progressive. Matthew Webb the Executive Director of the Festival, emphasises the threads of climate change and social justice that have become the bulwarks of the event as well, he adds ‘joy love and empathy to bring us together’.
The prospect is truly thrilling. As I looked through the programme again and again ( who doesn’t like clips ?) it became clearer that the scope of this year’s Festival has something deeply significant about it. There is the heading-for -glory production The Eyes of Tammy Faye chosen as the opening film but repeated in the week which recalls the stirring theme of Elmer Gantry for its Hallelujah evangelism as it crushes those who oppose it.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
And there are some amazing clusters of short films that provide a rare chance to look into the lives of people from Ireland to Iraq in short sharp bursts. Four separate categories offer contemplation, debate , in sharp bursts, many are only ten minutes long. But where else can these films be heard and seen but in the welcome enclave of Festival diversity.
Better known and already lauded by the film industry is Petite Maman, a title that belies its intriguing and totally original view of childhood. Do not read the trails for this surprising and brilliant work, it is so lucid and original you need the surprise, not shock I reassure, element.
Petite Mamam on Monday at 6
The list of films is inventive imaginative and wide. Just look at the line up for now and make sure to book yourself into at least one of these fresh and contemporary takes on life lived now and in the past.
Find the whole adventure for both in person and live streaming on cambridgefilmfestival.org
