Dunoon film festival launches programme
The sixth Dunoon Film Festival will launch on November 9 with the biggest programme to date, bringing international and local gems to Scotland’s west coast.
The packed weekend line-up includes a variety of films, live music and workshops, taking place in the newly refurbished Dunoon Burgh Hall, as well as the Studio Cinema and iconic Pier Building.
On the opening night, Dunoon Burgh Hall will host a screening of rare silent Italian drama, Assunta Spina, starring one of Italian cinemas greatest divas, Francesca Bertini, and featuring an irresistible new live soundtrack by six-piece Edinburgh band The Badwills.
After the film, guests can enjoy more of The Badwills’ lively music and even try their hand at the wildest tambourine fueled pizzica and tammurriata dances from the South of Italy.
Felipe Bustos Sierra’s heartfelt documentary Nae Pasaran, will close the festival on Sunday November 11 – this is the incredible true story of the East Kilbride factory workers who managed to ground half of Chile’s Air Force, from the other side of the world.
Over three days the festival celebrates some of Scotland’s finest filmmaking talent, past and present. Where I Am is Here: Margaret Tait 100 is a free event playing tribute to one of Scotland’s most innovative and stridently independent filmmakers, including a selection of her works, a short documentary by Marissa Keating and an introduction by Laura Dolan from Glasgow Woman’s Library.
Director Douglas King and actor Darren Osborne will be in town for a screening of Super November, a mumblecore-style romantic comedy and Orwellian dystopia starring Josie Long as a Clydebank librarian.
Finlay Pretsell invites everyone into the world of professional cycling in his immersive documentary Time Trial, a portrait of Scottish road-race champ David Millar.
Dunoon will welcome a number of other exciting guests, including Glaswegian director John McPhail who will attend a sure-to-be fascinating Q&A following a screening of his Scottish BAFTA-nominated unique zombie musical mash-up, Anna and the Apocalypse.
Other guests include Connor Heaney from the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, who will introduce a 60th anniversary celebration of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Trevor Griffiths, who will present a free talk on Scottish comedy legend Billie Ritchie: The Man Who Made the World Laugh.
Budding filmmakers are in for a treat as Jim Parkyn, one of Aardman Animation’s senior model makers (who has worked on The Shaun the Sheep Movie, Chicken Run and The Pirates!, to name a few) will run an animation workshop. Plus, bring a little bit of imagination to the Mobile Phone Filmmaking Workshop and learn how to take those important first steps.
The freshest international cinema will be also arriving on Scotland’s west coast, with a screening of effervescent comedy C’est La Vie, from the directors of 2011’s Frenchlanguage hit Untouchable. Cannes award-winning
Cold War, an epic romance set against the backdrop of Europe after the Second World War and Summer 1993, a moving and life-affirming Spanish drama looking at loss from a young person’s perspective.
Other highlights across the three-day festivities include the critically acclaimed swan song from the late great Harry Dean Stanton, Lucky, a meditation on morality, loneliness, spirituality and human connection, plus, see another side to Parks and Recreations’ Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson) with the lively Hearts Beat Loud, which debuted to rave reviews at Sundance earlier this year.
The festival will be celebrating the history of Dunoon and beyond with a number of free events, which includes a selection of archive footage to mark the centenary of the First World War in World War 1 Archive.
The programme offers something for all ages, even the very youngest cinema-goers, with Shorts for Wee Ones, a free screening of magical tales to delight anyone over the age of three, and a unique ‘scratch and sniff’ screening of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
For full details of the programme visit dunoonfilmfestival.org.