The Raindance Film Festival Gets Underway - page 2

02-10-2008 11:29

The Arctic Monkeys will attend the London Premiere of their new film Arctic Monkeys At The Apollo with director Richard Ayoade (The Mighty Boosh, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace).

Adam Yauch from old school hip-hop megagroup the Beastie Boys features on this year’s Raindance jury with the European Premiere of his basketball directed documentary Gunnin For That #1 Spot.

Les Claypool (Primus, Fearless Frog Brigade) will also be doing a guest Q&A at the screening of Electric Apricot: Quest For Festeroo, a mockumentary film he directed. 

Strongly anticipated UK features for this year’s festival include Matthew Thompson’s directorial debut Dummy, David Howard’s Flick starring Faye Dunaway, Michelle Ryan, Liz Smith and Mark Benton, as well as Peter Greenaway’s Nightwatching, starring Martin Freeman, Emily Holmes and Eva Birthistle.

Acclaimed director and Raindance patron, Mike Figgis will be in attendance presenting a new short film for Sony Ericsson entitled 'Life Captured'.

The international competition gives participants the chance to take part in the creation of this pioneering new film made entirely out of still mobile phone images. Mike will nominate five Outstanding Achievers who will win a VIP trip for them and a friend to attend the film’s red carpet premiere at the Raindance Film Festival in London on Thursday, 2nd October 2008. 

Feature films, documentaries and shorts from around the globe will transport cinema-goers to: Australia, Canada, Palestine, USA, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Brazil, Italy, Serbia, Japan, Kenya, France, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Sovenia, Czech Republic, Austria, Mexico, Columbia, Uraguay, Spain and Argentina.

New to this year’s Festival Awards is the Audience Award, which will be given to the best feature film at the 16th Raindance Film Festival as selected by you. Also new is the Dailymotion Short Circuit Award created with Raindance.tv to search for budding new talent.

60 second short films will be considered by a judging panel led by director Michael Winterbottom. Visit www.dailymotion.com for more details. In addition is the Best UK Short Film Award sponsored by Delta Airlines with a prize of 2 return tickets to anywhere in the US and designed to give UK filmmakers the opportunity to attend screenings of their film in US festivals.

All award winners will be announced before the screening of the Closing Night Film Hush at the Cineworld Trocadero on Sunday 12 October at 7:30PM.

Festival patron Ken Loach commented on The 16th Raindance Film Festival line-up: 'It’s good news that Raindance looks set for another lovely festival.  Let’s hope you make some mischief.'

Elliot Grove, Director of The Raindance Film Festival said: 'We are especially pleased to welcome Ken Loach as festival patron for our 16th Anniversary of The Raindance Film Festival. We are excited to present a fantastic line-up of international films which represent the true nature of the festival and excellence within independent filmmaking.'

Raindance runs between 1-12 October