Best film screenings in the North (12-19 Aug)
The best film events happening in the North this week, including the annual POUTFest at HOME and Wim Wender's The American Friend at Hyde Park Picture House
POUTFest
POUTfest returns to HOME this month with a wide-ranging series of queer features and shorts. The highlight is surely Stephen Dunn’s stylish and tender Closet Monster (23 Aug), if only for the fact it features a talking hamster played by Isabella Rossellini. We also love the sound of Girls Lost (12 Aug), which looks like a Swedish twist on the 80s body-switch movie craze, given it follows three teen girls who get a chance to experience the world as teen boys after drinking the nectar of a magic plant.
Less whimsical is Theo & Hugo (19 Aug), a gay love story that begins with two strangers hooking up at a sex club – more meet brute than meet cute. It’s been described as Weekend meets Shortbus, which sounds pretty good to us. Also make sure to catch the return of queer shorts series Boys on Film (15 Aug), and read more about the season here
Performance
Worlds and identities collide in a tale of a tough guy gangster (James Fox) holed up with a kinky rock star (Mick Jagger, who’s hardly stretching himself) in the darkest bohemia of Notting Hill at the fag end of the swinging 60s. This heady thriller comes from the combined talents of Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell, who between them created an elliptical editing style that blew the minds of audiences back in 1970, and it still feels stunningly avant-garde today.
The American Friend
Wim Wenders’ very loose take on Ripley’s Game, Patricia Highsmith's third book featuring con artist Tom Ripley, is quietly thrilling. Dennis Hopper plays Ripley, who’s now living it up as an international art smuggler in Germany. His latest scheme involves embroiling a terminally ill picture framer (Wenders regular Bruno Ganz) in an assassination, but, as is his way, Ripley gets quite attached to his latest mark. The film is swimming in atmosphere and peppered with the kind of tense set-pieces Hitchcock would be proud of. Look out too for cameos from legendary filmmakers Jean Eustache, Sam Fuller and Nicholas Ray.
14 Aug, Hype Park Picture House, Leeds, 3pm
Hope, Beats and Dreams
Kicking off this week is HOME’s season of three films highlighting pertinent and contemporary issues facing Africa. First up is Hope (14 Aug), a touching migrant story following a young Nigerian woman and a Cameroonian man battling brutal odds to reach the shores of Spain. That’s followed by Beats of the Antonov (16 Aug), a doc about the people of the Blue Nile’s inspiring response to Sudan's civil war. The season comes to an end with The Dream of Shahrazad (24 Aug), a beautiful doc examining the Arab Spring through epic fairytale collection One Thousand and One Nights. Read more about the season here.
The Confession
Moazzam Begg has never been convicted of a single crime but found himself a detainee at Guantanamo Bay anyway. This gripping documentary simply lets Begg tell the story of the lead-up to his detention, his three years' incarceration and the torture and abuse he endured. Still considered an Islamic radical by the British state, Begg lucidly chronicles the rise of modern jihad, its descent into terror and the disastrous reaction of the West. Following a screening of the film there will be a Q&A with Begg and director Ashish Ghadiali, hosted by writer and political activist Hilary Wainwright.
16 Aug, Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds, 6pm