Out Now – 31st October 2014

Multiple films worth seeing this week. I do love autumn and the overall improvement in film quality it brings.

Horns
Daniel Radcliffe plays a young man who starts to turn into the devil shortly after his girlfriend (Juno Temple) is found murdered. Reviews might be mixed but both Radcliffe and Temple make interesting film choices so I am still interested.

Nightcrawler
Jake Gyllenhaal had performed the dramatic weight loss now standard for an actor tackled something a little different to what they are known for. Here he is a hands on crime journalist; a professional rubbernecker with no moral compass. This looks fantastic.

Ouija
Young people play a board game and it all goes horribly wrong. The last time I played a board game and it went wrong we were playing Coronation Street Monopoly and I was drunkenly using a Northern accent throughout. Spooky stuff.

Extraterrestrial
Canadian horror in which friends in a cabin in the woods find themselves attacked by aliens. Gore, violence, and swears abound.

The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman
Shia LaBeouf stars. I’m not sure I can handle that.

Mr. Turner
Everyone with an opinion is agreed that Mike Leigh’s biopic starring Timothy Spall as the great painter is absolutely tops. This will be going in my eyes and ears this week.

The Overnighters
Documentary about workers in North Dakota oil fields. Migrants swarm into a small town during a small oil boom and are forced to sleep in the local church to the disapproval of nearby residents.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Not the 1978 version I know and love starring Sutherland, Goldblum, and Nimoy but the 1956 original. A more black and white PG affair but still involving aliens replacing humans with identical copies.

The Guarantee
“On the night of September 29, 2008, the Irish government decided to guarantee the entire domestic banking system. The Guarantee tells the story of that night, and what led to it.”

Freddy vs. Jason vs. Michael: Quantifying Cinematic Killers

As Halloween rolls around and you dig out some horror films to watch I imagine you debating with yourself and loved ones; just who is the greatest cinematic serial killer? Is it A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger, Friday the 13th‘s Jason Voorhees or Halloween‘s Michael Myers? To help you settle the debate in the only way I know how, with data to back you up, I have built a dashboard collecting some statistics on the three murderers and their franchises.

To gauge each killer’s critical appeal I have collected critic and audience scores from Rotten Tomatoes. To compare the monetary value of each film I have taken budget and box office figures from The Numbers, adjusted for inflation, and calculated profitability as the box office as a proportion of the budget. Finally I have collated the most important metric of all; how many kills our three supernatural psychopaths racked up per film.

As the more astute horror fans will know already the homicidal trio don’t actually appear in all of the films in their respective franchises, Jason first kills in the second Friday the 13th, so I have given you the option of filtering out those anomalies. You can also see the charts for just one killer by selecting their face or filter by year if you want to snub the modern remakes in favour of only considering the classic films.

So with all the preamble done who is the best cinematic serial killer?

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If you ask my opinion I’d have to say that from a popularity standpoint Freddy Krueger comes out on top with the best average audience and critic scores whereas if you want quantity rather than quality then Jason Voorhees wins with the most money rolling in and the most bodies piling up. As for Michael Myers? The original Halloween film not only came first but has not yet been beaten for pleasing fans and critics alike while raking in serious money.

Who is the best of these three? I think I’d like to see them fight it out…

Madame Bovary – LFF Review

Growing up in a convent Emma (Mia Wasikowska) was always a little different from the other girls. Whatever she was supposed to be doing Emma would be doing her own way and dreaming of the day she could leave. Madame Bovary starts with Emma getting her wish and marrying country doctor Charles Bovary (Henry Lloyd-Hughes). In theory by becoming Madame Bovary Emma is setting off to live her dream life of luxury and excitement but the reality is much less glamorous. Charles turns out to live a simple life in a modest house with a single servant. He is a kind man but dull and unambitious. While Emma yearns for the bustle of the city Charles is quite content to live out his quiet life in the countryside. Left alone in the house for most of the day Emma soon finds herself becoming less the grateful wife and succumbing to the dual temptations of material goods and extramarital romance.

Emma’s life is lived through the visitors she receives at her house and one of the more frequent faces she sees is Monsieur Lheureux (Rhys Ifans). Lheureux is a merchant who offers to sell Emma her every heart’s desire. From furniture to clothes and from jewellery to silverware there is nothing that Lheureux will not supply the Bovary couple and he happily allows Emma to rack up a mountain of debt. Another face who regularly pops by is Leon Dupuis (Ezra Miller) a young aspiring adventurer. Leon takes a shine to Emma and though she rejects his romantic advances he reawakens her sense of adventure and before the story is told Emma has taken her fair share of lovers. From a humble upbringing Emma learns to live a life of decadence and self-indulgence at the expense of her mild-mannered husband. Naturally Emma can only spend money she doesn’t have, and toy with the hearts of many, for so long before her life starts to unravel around her.

Much like the titular character Madame Bovary is beautifully presented but mostly empty on the inside. The costume and set designs are sumptuous, detailed, and presumably accurate and the film as a whole is greatly aesthetically pleasing. The acting, led by the always impressive Mia Wasikowska, is top-notch and everyone involved throws themselves into their roles with gusto. The ingredients are all there but the end result is somehow unsatisfying. While being a relatively enjoyable film Madame Bovary never quite manages to find its stride and events seem to plod on rather than move forward. Even when the situation becomes dire for our protagonist it is hard to sympathise because not one of the characters are especially sympathetic.

Emma is a selfish young woman who comes across as spoiled and ungrateful, Lheureux is a greedy, manipulative, and selfish man, and Emma’s various lovers are heartless and weak in equal measure. The only character who might stir up sympathy in the audience is poor Charles Bovary but the wet small town doctor is portrayed as pathetic enough to not really warrant our support. With nobody to root for the stakes never rise and the outcome of the film is difficult to care about. Despite the best efforts from a quality cast the script from Felipe Marino and director Sophie Barthes doesn’t put enough meat on the bones of the story. Though enjoyable enough I just didn’t care about what was going down on-screen.

Madame Bovary is a lack-lustre period drama that is less than the sum of its parts. While I must admit to being unfamiliar with the source text this adaptation leaves solid performances lost in a bland melodrama.

Madame Bovary has no UK release date yet.

Out Now – 24th October 2014

Fury
“Fury certainly passes the time and provides plenty of spectacle though not on a scale we haven’t already seen before. It’s hard to know what the film is trying to say and what it has to offer that is not just treading old ground. If we can all agree that war is unpleasant then you can probably give this one a miss.” So says I.

Love, Rosie
Can a pair who have been best friends since they were five fall in love? Probably. Romantic comedy with enough swear to warrant a 15 certificate.

The Book of Life
Gorgeous looking family animated film about the Mexican Day of the Dead. Call me crazy but this looks absolutely charming.

This Is Where I Leave You
Here at the cinema. Moderately OK looking adult comedy drama with an ensemble cast including Bateman, Fonda, Fey, Driver, and Byrne. Expect to chuckle and then feel emotions.

The Babadook
“The Babadook is a well crafted, lovingly designed, and properly acted horror film that will have you checking out the shadows on your way home. With Hollywood failing to bring much to the horror table it took an Australian film to remind everyone why they are scared of the dark again.” So says I.

Serena
Period drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper more likely to win Razzies than Oscars. Dare you go to see how bad it really is? I’m not sure I will.

Jimi: All Is By My Side
André Benjamin (née 3000) stars as Jimi Hendrix in a biopic covering his time in London. FUN FACT: The film failed to get the music rights to any of Hendrix’s songs.

Night Train to Lisbon
Jeremy Irons goes on a night train to Lisbon.

Time Is Illmatic
If you have heard of the artist Nas and his album Illmatic then you are far better suited to see this film than me.

The Way He Looks
Brazilian drama about a gay blind teenager falling in love. Prepare to swoon.

The Knife That Killed Me
“For something completely different and to support a pioneering piece of British filmmaking then The Knife That Killed Me is worth checking out. Directors (and co-writers) Kit Monkman and Marcus Romer have made a carefully crafted film with a fresh approach. It might take you as little while to get settled in but your effort will be rewarded.” So says I.

Zabriskie Point
Sexy 70s drama about America in the 60s.

Bogowie
“The biopic focuses on the early career of cardio surgeon Zbigniew Religa”. Since you asked.

The Babadook – Film Review

Samuel (Noah Wiseman) is a socially awkward young boy who is quite content playing with himself, building weapons, and living in a fantasy world. His mother Amelia (Essie Davis) is struggling to cope with looking after an eccentric young boy on her own. While she has a close sister who tries to help out Samuel’s odd behaviour means that her patience and generosity is slowly wearing thin. One night when Amelia asks Samuel to pick a book from the shelf for her to read he returns with Mister Babadook. Inside the blood-red cover is a beautifully hand drawn pop-up book about a creature called the Babadook. What starts as reading like a children’s book soon turns sinister and Amelia swiftly abandons the creepy tale.

Soon Samuel’s games involve the invisible figure of the Babadook and he continually insists that he is not imagining the creature. As Samuel’s delusions grow Amelia struggles to keep control of her son amid violent outbursts and spooky goings on. Before too long Amelia has to admit that the Babadook is not just a fictional creature residing within a children’s book but a very real force that is living in her house and one that means to do her harm. As Amelia battles against something she can hardly believe is real Samuel finds himself at risk, not just from the monsters he has long feared but from his emotionally exhausted and once-loving mother.

If it’s in a word. Or it’s in a look. You can’t get rid of… the Babadook. So what can you do?

The modern method for producing a horror film is to make your feature a found footage horror and to rely on jump scares to get your scare quotient. If you want an audience to scream you just need a long period of quiet followed by a loud band and someone rushing towards, past, or away from the camera. Thankfully writer & director Jennifer Kent has decided to buck the contemporary trend in favour of more traditional and deep-seated frights. The Babadook is genuinely terrifying and the scares don’t always come from sudden noises but from the slow and sustained building of tension and the unrelenting anticipation of something absolutely horrendous happening.

The story of Amelia and Samuel is tough enough before the Babadook comes on the scene. Their relationship is one clearly filled with love but Samuel’s allegedly bad behaviour is clearly putting a strain on his mother who is finding solo parenting to be too much work. In the film’s opening Davis excellently plays the role of overworked mother and brilliantly portrays a woman’s descent into mania as she tries to protect the one person she cares about from a supernatural force. As the film progresses and her mental state deteriorates Davis paints a woman at her weakest, one who is susceptible to possession, and then one possibly of danger to her son. Meanwhile young Mr Wiseman puts in an impressive show as the excitable young boy who has trouble relating to other children but no problem befriending the monster who lives in his wardrobe. The two leads give the film its heart and a reason for the audience to worry. A horror is all the more scary when you care about the lives at stake.

Throughout most of The Babadook I was incredibly tense. Since he first appeared as a drawing in pop-up form I was dreading the appearance of the Babadook for real. Obviously the eventual appearance could never live up to the fear that not seeing a monster can bring but in his own unique way Mister Babadook was frightening to behold and to imagine beholding. In fact as I searched for images to put in this review, while alone at home at night, I successfully managed to give myself the creeps all over again.

The Babadook is a well crafted, lovingly designed, and properly acted horror film that will have you checking out the shadows on your way home. With Hollywood failing to bring much to the horror table it took an Australian film to remind everyone why they are scared of the dark again.

The Babadook is in UK cinemas from 24th October 2014.

The Drop – LFF Review

Tom Hardy loves a good accent and in The Drop he wraps his mouth around Brooklyn as he tackles the role of bartender Bob. Bob works at a bar previously owned by his cousin Marv (James Gandolfini) straightforwardly named Cousin Marv’s. Life is mostly quiet apart from when the bar’s new owners, Chechen gangsters, stop by and use it as a money drop. One winter Bob finds life getting a little more complicated than the norm after Marv’s is held up, the Chechen’s demand their stolen money be found and the culprits brought to justice, and Bob finds himself adopting a dog found in the bins of the mysterious Nadia (Noomi Rapace) for plot advancing reasons.

Unfortunately for Bob Nadia’s ex-boyfriend, and the dog’s former owner, turns out to be an infamous tough guy and possible murderer Eric Deeds (Matthias Schoenaerts). Making Bob’s life a little more complicated, and this synopsis more convoluted than I’d like, he attends the same daily mass as Detective Torres (John Ortiz) who just so happens to be investigating the bar’s robbery and various other seedy goings on.

As is typical for a thriller nobody’s motives or allegiances can be trusted. Bob is a strong-looking but sweet guy surrounded by suspicious folk. The bar he works at is run by gangsters, his cousin Marv appears to be involved in something sketchy, his new girlfriend has a dark past, a member of his church is suspicious of him, and finally Deeds is actually making unambiguous threats against Bob and his suspicious network. With all this we have a tricky plot set in motion. As various nefarious types scheme against one another it remains to be seen who will end up on top and who was really playing who.

At the centre of The Drop is another fine performance from Tom Hardy. Despite at first glance looking like just another leading man Hardy has continuously proved himself to be one of the more diverse character actors working today. Rather than repeat a performance in multiple films Hardy prefers to change his physicality and voice to suit each role he takes on. In The Drop he has successfully mastered the Brooklyn accent, to these British ears at least, and adopted a slow and strong style of movement that reflects the gentle giant that is Bob. As cousin Marv James Gandolfini makes his final appearance on-screen. While his performance is solid we aren’t treated to anything we haven’t already seen as his swan song requires a simple Sopranos-lite presentation. Noomi Rapace meanwhile is surprisingly American and sufficiently ambiguous in her mostly thankless role of love interest turned damsel in distress.

Director Michaël R. Roskam has put together an attractive film and brought out assured interpretations from his cast but the script offers nothing too spectacular. Dennis Lehane has adapted his own short story into the screenplay and the result is a perfectly fine if unremarkable thriller. There is tension and confusion for the majority of the film followed by a twist and resolution at its conclusion. There is absolutely nothing wrong with The Drop and its classic thriller style but it offers nothing new and as such fails to stand out.

The Drop is a perfectly enjoyable crime drama set in the murkier neighbourhoods of Brooklyn. Should you choose to see it I have no doubt that you will have a good time but you are unlikely to be chatting about the film for long after leaving the cinema and a rewatch simply feels unnecessary. Good but not great, and certainly not bad.

The Drop has a UK release date of 14th November 2014.

Men, Women & Children – LFF Review

Jason Reitman’s directorial career was going so well. His first four films from Thank You for Smoking to Young Adult were each remarkable in their own way and it seemed that he could not put a foot wrong. And then he did. Earlier this year saw the release of Labor Day; an out of character romantic drama that showed Reitman trying something a little different and failing in the process. This year he returned to the London Film Festival with a new contemporary family drama Men, Women & Children. The question this film had to answer was, has Jason Reitman got his groove back?

In Men, Women & Children men, women, and children (I’m for the Oxford comma) find their personal relationships sabotaged by an over reliance on technology. Jennifer Garner* is a neurotic mother who monitors her daughter’s every move online, even going so far as to delete messages before they reach her. Her daughter Kaitlyn Dever feels oppressed and uses a secret Tumblr account as her only outlet while starting a sweet offline romance with Ansel Elgort. Ansel has abandoned the school football team in favour of playing online computer games after his mother abandoned him and his dad, Dean Norris, and became more a Facebook friend than a parent. When not worrying about his son Dean is flirting with Judy Greer who manages a questionable modelling website for her celebrity-in-waiting daughter, Olivia Crocicchia. Olivia meanwhile is sexting high school jock Travis Tope who is struggling to find real sex appealing having become addicted to a particular strand of porn. Travis’ parents Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt are failing to connect and so are contemplating exploring online escorts and extramarital affair sites respectively. If that weren’t nearly enough we also have Elena Kampouris who visits thinspiration websites and suffers from anorexia and low self-esteem but she doesn’t fit as neatly into the chain of relationships as everyone else.

As you can tell from the above there is a lot going on in Men, Women & Children and every storyline involves someone’s life being worse off thanks to the internet. An ensemble drama can work but only when dealt with carefully. In this case the fact that a small group of interlinked individuals are all experiencing some form of cyber woe makes the whole exercise feel inauthentic and implausible. Now might well be the prime time for a film exploring the internet’s effects on human relationships but this heavy-handed attempt at highlighting the possible dangers online is not that film. Jason Reitman wants you to reflect on how you are damaging your own relationships and he will beat you round the head with an iPad until you do. Few films are this preachy and condescending which, having now sat through this public service announcement of a film, is a great relief.

There are moments of charm and humour but they are lost in amongst the endless scenes of characters making bad choices because their modems made them do it. Men, Women & Children is not about the real world or real people. It is Reefer Madness for the internet age and is every bit as overblown and undercooked. In an attempt to add levity to proceedings Reitman has added narration courtesy of Emma Thompson in the hopes that her accent describing sex acts will be enough to soften the rough edges of this melodramatic catastrophe. Sadly even Thompson’s authoritative voice can’t distract from the mess Reitman has made.

No character is given enough screen time to become fully rounded and nearly everyone involved at some point does something so utterly stupid and unrelatable that the audience is left floundering looking for someone to relate to. The minute you think you have found your cypher to guide you through Men, Women & Children they will do something unforgivable or seemingly without motive. The film is unlikely to stop anyone from going online but may well turn people away from going to the cinema again.

Men, Women & Children is misogynist, paranoid, and pretentious. Jason Reitman can do so much better.

*There are too many characters for me to have remembered any names.

Men, Women & Children has a UK release date of 28th November 2014.

Fury – LFF Review

It is April 1945 and allied troops are slowly making their way across Germany. The crew of one tank find themselves one man down and rookie soldier Norman (Logan Lerman) joins as assistant driver. Norman is a former office clerk and wholly unprepared for battle. Reluctantly taking on new blood into their tank Fury are Wardaddy (Brad Pitt), Bible (Shia LeBeouf), and the unpleasant duo consisting of Coon-Ass (Jon Bernthal) and Gordo (Michael Peña). The job of Fury and its occupants are to move in convoy from village to village evacuating Germans who surrender and killing those that fight back.

Initially Norman is not accepted by his fellow soldiers. His reluctance to kill and desire to surrender or die make him a liability but through the toughest of love his team attempt to turn Norman into a real soldier. Each soldier treats Norman with utter contempt but as they are bonded together through the horrors of war mutual respect is found. As Fury and company moves from village to village the tanks come under attack as our band of brothers is truly put to the test and Norman is given a baptism of fire.

As war films go Fury is perfectly acceptable but little more. The action scenes are suitable bloody, muddy, and violent as heads, limbs, and other extremities are shot off and numerous soldiers set on fire. Capturing the brutality of war is Fury‘s strongpoint and it does so with gusto, loud noises, and nerve-shredding frenzy. What threatens to weaken the action is the fact that our lead cast are always inside the tank during battles; while explosions and carnage rage outside the five main characters are mostly sitting and shouting. The final battle aside the inside of Fury always felt relatively safe, particularly in comparison to the war zone in the fields outside.

Writer/director David Ayers may have done well at making war seem like a bad thing but he does less well when it comes to making the characters feel like real people. Each of the five is a different caricature and yet their personalities still struggle to maintain consistency. In what seems to be an attempt to add layers of complexity to the characters they all have occasional flashes where they change their attitude completely. This normally takes the form of an unpleasant type suddenly being nice to Norman as if keen to let the audience know that they aren’t all bad really. The dialogue is riddled with clichés, patriotism, and variations on the “war is hell” theme. Despite solid performances, even from Shia LaBeouf, the script lack enough authenticity for the actors to come across as anything but actors.

Fury certainly passes the time and provides plenty of spectacle though not on a scale we haven’t already seen before. It’s hard to know what the film is trying to say and what it has to offer that is not just treading old ground. If we can all agree that war is unpleasant then you can probably give this one a miss.

Fury has a UK release date of 22nd October 2014.

Night Bus – LFF Review

Welcome to the night bus: a place where tired people returning from alcohol-fuelled nights out inflict their heightened emotions on their fellow passengers. Mild Concern is no stranger to this form of London public transport and I was intrigued to see what kind of film could be spun out from it. Turns out that it’s one that is very like its inspiration: bleak, a bit uncomfortable and filled with annoying characters.

All the action occurs on a bus taking the (fictional*) N39 route towards Leytonstone late on a rainy Friday night. As someone with more than a passing knowledge of east London, the complete disregard for its geography was very distracting. The bus essentially appeared to be circling Stratford and it definitely wasn’t going south, as the driver once claimed.

The film takes the form of dropping in and out on the various passengers and their conversations, and the timeline is fractured and jumbled up. All the typical passengers are there, from arguing couples, to singing drunks, to youths playing music through their mobile phones, to those who just want-to-get-home-with-the-minimum-of-fuss-thank-you-very-much. While occasionally clunky, the dialogue is structured well enough to give a solid sense of what’s going on in so many characters’ lives. Almost all of the performances are pitch perfect – realistic in both dialogue and tone. Unfortunately, as virtually everyone you’re forced to share a real night bus is very irritating, this means so is almost every character in Night Bus.

There is no plot to speak of, just prevailing themes, and after a while only seeing snippets of the lives of these (mostly unhappy) people feels a bit pointless and sad. There are funny moments, particularly the many ways people who don’t have the bus fare try to get a free ride, but my overriding emotion by the end was sympathy for the bus driver.

Night Bus is a very London-centric film and as such it’s hard to imagine anyone without the same experience having much patience with these characters. As a Londoner myself, it served mostly as a reminder of how good nights out can end in a dispiriting manner; while bad nights out are capped off with almost unbearable journeys. I admire how well the film has represented the reality but this is also its downfall – it’s hard to think of a reason why anyone would want to spend more time on the night bus than they have to.

*The 39 actually shuttles between Putney Bridge and Clapham Junction in the south west and it doesn’t operate a night route.

Night Bus has no UK release date yet.

No/Gloss Film Festival 2014 – Festival Debrief

This weekend saw the third annual No/Gloss Film Festival, and for the second year in a row I went along as Mild Concern’s Northern Correspondent. No/Gloss is very much a festival about the whole experience rather than just the films; while the selected features and shorts are obviously what ultimately drives whether or not the weekend is a success, the choice of venue, artists and food vendors all play a big part in that.

This year’s festival had a very different feel to last October. Where last year’s Canal Mills venue kept the whole thing contained under one roof (plus an outdoor area for food), this year at Templeworks things were split up a little, making the festival feel more epic and giving us more to explore.

The introduction in the programme guide reveals that the festival directors felt “a distinct dark theme” throughout the 700 titles submitted for consideration. Reading that at the start of play on Saturday and knowing there were two full days ahead of me, I’ll admit I was a little concerned that it might be a bit hard work. I needn’t have worried. While naturally some of the selections were definitely just dark, dark, dark, many of them made great use of black humour to keep up the energy across both days. There were even one or two happy endings!

Like last year there were two different screens to consider and I know I made some tough choices when deciding where to go and when. I managed to catch a little over half of the selections – 31 out of 58 – and there are certainly things I missed that I’ll be keeping an eye out for in the future.

By lunchtime on day one I was starting to notice the dark themes I’d heard so much about – zombie apocalypse, schizophrenia, social anxiety, OCD – and they continued into the afternoon, evident in my day one highlights.

Pictures of Superheroes is a completely absurd and totally enjoyable seventy minute comedy that’s essentially based on the main character’s life falling apart. When Marie is dumped and fired on the same day, she’s quickly employed by overworked businessman Eric to take care of the house he can’t seem to keep clean on his own. Marie discovers that’s mostly down to Joe, the room-mate that Eric has forgotten ever existed, and she quickly becomes completely entangled in their ridiculous lives.

My second highlight from Saturday was Triangles of Happiness, which I’m fairly confident is the funniest comedy about the financial crisis you’re likely to see. This one is a Danish production and I loved the extremes that Hanne and Carsten are willing to go to in order to keep up the appearances of their happy, wealthy, suburban lives.

I mentioned before that No/Gloss is about the whole experience and not just the films. Another memorable choice from day one was the chicken and chorizo paella from Las Paelleras who were sadly only in attendance on Saturday. Then on Sunday I sampled the delights of a Streatza woodfired pizza. I opted for the meat feast (one-third American ham, one-third pepperoni, one-third Napoli salami), and my only regret is not having the chance to buy one of their Shakshuka festival breakfasts. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for Streatza at future events!

Back to the films. For day two I’d planned my schedule around Reception, as I was keen to see the story of hotel night receptionist Victor and his unpredictable foreign guest. As a former night duty receptionist myself I was drawn to it, and I’m glad I managed to catch it – a lot of it was very familiar!

There were two wonderfully quirky animations vying to steal the crown from last year’s top pick Frau Schwein Geht In Die Scheissedisko, On Loop and The Missing Scarf. I particularly enjoyed the way the fragmented animation (and a little live action) of On Loop made it easy to see through the eyes of the insomniac protagonist. The Missing Scarf was narrated by the delightful George Takei and his soothing tones were perfect for the black comedy that played out while Albert the squirrel looked for his missing scarf.

Another favourite from Sunday was 5 Ways 2 Die – in which Makis explores different ways to commit suicide. Despite the worrying synopsis, this is a black comedy that looks great and will keep you chuckling right up until the surprising ending. And finally, I couldn’t end without a mention for Pebble Moon, a successful Kickstarter project and final year dissertation project for six students from the University of Leeds. Pebble Moon is a story told through the eyes of Lily, a young girl who is happy to tell anyone who asks that she has no mummy, just two daddies. There’s a bittersweet contrast between the world as Lily sees it and the things that we see as adults looking through a window into her life.

I could go on – each of the thirty-one films I saw had clearly earned their place at the festival and I’ve got good things to say about all of them, even those that weren’t to my taste. It was great to hear that No/Gloss received so many submissions and I can’t wait to see what 2015 brings!