LIAF cont...

I didn't want to miss out on noting down some other favourites from the festival this year.. One was Silas Money's RCA film Self Service in which flashing frames of supermarket food stuffs create a narrative that doesn't quite travel a linear path, it was vital and intuitively made, no fuss. The whole of the British Showcase was strong this year, Tramdeutung, Matter Fisher, Txt Island, The Eagleman's Stag and Zbigniev's Cupboard were all especially impressive. It's exciting to think that there are so many new British filmmaker's setting sail.

The Direct to Film showcase was a little bit disappointing, the works often lacked structure and some really missed a trick by not screening a film print. Apart from the crazy Dialogues by Ulo Pikkov, I liked Judith Poirier's Dialogue, sound and image made with letraset, but it couldn't live up to the extraordinary Dresden Dynamo made by Lis Rhodes in 1971. Admittedly all the competition films were butted up against Steven Woloshen's mini retrospective and the historical classics, and this undoubtedly gave them a disadvantageous context.

















Steven's films are both masterful and playful, and really joyful to watch. He really works with his sound tracks, which are mostly grand or jazzy and suit projection in the cinema extremely well. Steven is also a generous filmmaker and spread's the word about cameraless film wherever he travels. His book Recipes for Reconstruction can be bought directly from him, and I would advise it if you're interested in doing some experiments with celluloid. Like me. It was brilliant to see the historical classics in the cinema, all 5 of them, but especially Caroline Leaf's Two Sisters from 1991. I think you could learn everything there is to know about animation from Caroline Leaf's wonderful body of work.
More later I hope.