LIDF 2012
With Fidel Whatever Happens
The London International Documentary Festival (LIDF) provides a platform for ground-breaking output from around the globe. The 2012 festival, which takes place from 24 May to 2 June will screen more than 150 films from 49 countries..
The diverse programme ranges from hard-hitting, grass roots reports, to investigative reporting on topical issues such as the present financial crisis, press ethics and independence, to more light-hearted offerings. An inspiring line-up of award-winning documentaries from emerging and established talent around the globe, the festival offers up a feast of film and debate - a truly international programme, and a London-wide celebration of the constantly invigorating world of documentary film.
For tickets and further information please see: www.lidf.co.uk
Thursday 24th May
18.00
Maurice Patrick Kack-Brice | France | 2011 | 19 min | World Premiere
A short documentary portrait of Maurice Laroche, owner and projectionist of the 'Beverley', the last Porno Cinema in Paris (possibly Europe, maybe the entire world) still playing 35mm films. The film depicts a technician holding on to his dying Art, even if it is against his own better judgement.
Crulic – the Path to Beyond (Crulic - Drumul spre dincolo) Anca Damian | Romania | 2011 | 73 min
This animated documentary tells the life story of Crulic, a 33 years old Romanian who died in a Polish prison while on a hunger strike. The acclaimed Romanian actor, Vlad Ivanov, gives Crulic his voice.
20.00
IBIZA Occident Gunter Schwaiger | Austria/ Spain | 2011 | 85 min | UK Premiere
In the Hollywood of electronic music, musicians, DJs, gogo dancers and promoters are working on a sophisticated entertainment machine to satisfy stressed-out Westerner's desire for fun, sex and freedom. 'Ibiza Occident: 9 1/2 Music Stories' takes a diverting peek behind the inebriated surface dazzle of the island of Ibiza, Europe's long time party capital, offering different takes on paradise as occupation, lifestyle, creative passion and big business.
Friday 1st June
18.00
Difficult Loves (Los Amores Dificiles) Lucina Gil | Spain | 2011 | 64 min | UK Premiere
Jury prize: Best Documentary at ALCANCES 2011 Jury prize “Madrid Community”: ALCINE 2011
“In my heart, I had a thorn of passion. One day I managed to rip it out. Now I don´t feel my heart anymore”. It is summer, a town in Spain, loves unfulfilled, loves blossoming, loves dormant. A universal tale. Summer, full of hope, comes and goes.
19.30
Derailments (Deragliamenti) Chelsea McMullan | Italy | 2011 | 11 min | World Premiere
Originally written by Federico Fellini as a film, 'Il Viaggio di Mastorna detto Fernet' was coined, ‘the most famous film never made’. Mystery surrounds Fellini’s decision to abandon the project immediately before production. At seventy-two Fellini began collaborating with celebrated illustrator Milo Manara, and together they started to draw Fellini’s vision of the afterlife as a comic. In this short meditative documentary, Milo Manara remembers their journey together into the hereafter.
Atelier Colla Pietro De Tilla, Guglielmo Trupia, Elvio Manuzzi | Italy | 2011 | 49 min | UK Premiere
The sheer daily hard work of the company Carlo Colla & Figli is filmed on the quiet, in front of and behind the scenes, with empathy and respect, in the Atelier laboratory. It reveals how this art is subject to strict discipline. A group of students at the Scuola Civica in Milan are the creators of the film, who choose a perspective of shadowing and coaching, and never passive spectatorship and returns, reliving in its own way, the harmony of collective effort which for more than 200 years has been the real strength of the Atelier.
21.00
Radici Carlo Luglio | Italy | 2011 | 60 min | UK Premiere
With Enzo Gragnaniello
68.Mostra di Venezia 'Venice Days' The film is a musical journey with Enzo Gragnaniello through the magic, mythology and history of the Neapolitan underworld. Gragnaniello, together with the Sud Express, mixes his own music with other Neapolitan artists. A light “musicarello” of the past and present. An evocative musical and visual narrative revealing the local beauty and vitality too often obscured by images of corruption and decline.
Saturday 2nd June
18.00
Solo, Piano - NYC Anthony Sherin | USA | 2011 | 5 min | European Premiere
On a cold winter morning, a lone piano stands curbside in New York City. All day long, passersby stop to play. They collect and disperse, measure and push. Who abandons a piano? Plinking slightly out-of-tune over the white noise of Broadway's cars, buses, trucks, and sirens, the piano awaits its fate. Solo, Piano - NYC is a 5-minute film of the last 24 hours of a once-wanted piano.
The Man Who Got Away Trevor Anderson | Canada | 2012 | 25 min | UK Premiere
A musical documentary that tells the true life story of Trevor's great-uncle Jimmy in six original songs. Jimmy joins the Navy, discovers gay sex, treads the boards on Broadway, meets Judy Garland before his tragic demise.
Metro Guilherme Hoffmann | Brazil | 2011 | 50 min | World Premiere
The underground wanderings of a not-so-young Brazilian student who, without knowing what to look for in life, goes to the Paris subway to meet those he values most ... the strangers. Over two years, always with a camera on him, he observed and interacted with all kinds of metro 'inhabitants': passengers, bill posters, homeless persons, musicians, metro drivers, frequently conversing about life expectations. The result is a film that reveals this eclectic underground world from an unusual, irreverent and personal point of view.
19.30
Grandma Neyde`s House (A Casa da Vó Neyde) Caio Cavechini | Brazil | 2010 | 20 min | European Premiere
It had once been a full house, full of family, food, laughter. Now Grandma Neyde lives alone except for her crack addict son, whom she protects and cares for even though he is violent, keeping others from the house, shaming her and tiring her out. Finally, things must change. The last chance is to seek help and leave the house. Still Grandma Neyde sticks by her son, waiting for the time he might return.
Tamam Gol Payam Zinalabedini | Iran | 2011 | 30 min | World Premiere
Tamam Gol has lived for more than seven decades. She’s an old woman living in a western village of Iran called Yaromjeh Bagh like all her ancestors before her. The villagers believe that only a son can keep the name of his family alive. A man who has no son is regarded as sterile. When she was a child Tamam Gol was asked by her father to wear boy's clothing, and help him run the farm. Tamam Gol does so and takes care of her parents and her three sisters as if she were the young man of the family. Her parents die. She helps her sisters get married. Tamam Gol still wears men's clothes and people have forgotten that she ever was a woman.
Crossed Out (Los Tachados) Roberto Duarte | Sweden | 2011 | 28 min | European Premiere
Roberto left Mexico when he was 17. Now he comes back with his 4 year old daughter. Growing up in Mexico City, Roberto had seen haunting photographs at his grandmothers house: children, who's faces had been erased, cut out, taped over – images about which no-one will speak openly. They are simply referred to as 'the erased ones' and Roberto has only heard their real names mentioned in hushed conversation - and never in front of his grandmother.
Nobody in the family dares to talk to his grandmother about these pictures. But Roberto always had a special relationship with her and if there ever was a perfect occasion to raise the forbidden subject - it would be her 90th birthday party, when his entire family will be assembled. Not wanting his daughter to grow up in a family full of secrets he decides to confront his family over their dark and secret story.
With Fidel Whatever Happens (Con Fidel pase lo que pase) Goran Radovanovic | Serbia, Montenegro | 2011 | 47 min | World Premiere
Sierra Maestra, Cuba, 850 km east of Havana. The day before the celebration of the 52nd anniversary of the Revolution. An old man is repair a motorcycle a few decades old. A young dentist is trying to find some transport to a clinic in a remote mountain, where - among other patients - he is to treat a patient called Vladimir Ilich Rodriguez. A middle-aged married couple has a public telephone booth in their modest house for villagers who have no phone. The fate of these people and many other inhabitants of Sierra Maestra, are depicted on a day of ideological ecstasy, the day of the celebration of the 52nd anniversary of the Revolution ... And the following day? The next day, they all return to the rhythm of everyday life and it's lack of promise. Even the speakers that constantly blast out 52 years old ideological slogans..
But the revolution continues... Con Fidel, pase lo que pase. 'With Fidel, come what may'.