Best Film Screenings in the North (30 Sep-7 Oct)
The best film events happening in Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds this week, including HOME's Artist Film Weekender and screenings of classic Highsmith adaptations Strangers on a Train and The American Friend
Artist Film Weekender
HOME’s lively festival dedicated to artists’ film returns for its second year. Highlights include Birdsong: Stories from Pripyat (30 Sep), a collaboration between filmmaker Clara Casian and Dutch Uncles’ Robin Richards that captures the haunting atmosphere of a never-opened amusement park near Chernobyl; loopy heist movie La Distancia (1 Oct); and three programmes dedicated to underground filmmaker Luther Price. Full details at homemcr.org.
HOME, Manchester, 30 Sep-2 Oct
Akira
Katsuhiro Otomo’s berserk anime is still stunning 28 years on from blowing the minds of movie fans back in the late 80s. Set in the metropolis of Neo-Tokyo three decades after an atomic bomb has been dropped on the Japanese capital, it follows a gang of cyberpunk biker teens who get embroiled with a group of telekinetic sages. File with Blade Runner, Terminator and The Thing as one of the sci-fi classics of its era.
HOME, Manchester, 2, 4 & 5 Oct
Strangers on a Train
A chance encounter on a train between a tennis player (Farley Granger) and a rich ne'er-do-well (Robert Walker) sets off a horrible chain of events when a hypothetical proposal to murder the people in each other's lives who are causing them trouble is taken literally. It’s a delicious premise, based on Patricia Highsmith's 1950 novel of the same name, and Hitchcock wrings out every ounce of suspense from it, all the way to its dizzying fairground finale.
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.
HOME, Manchester, 3 Oct, 5.50pm
Nothing More
Liverpool Biennial’s wonderful Another Version of Events series continues with Nothing More, Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti’s romantic farce about a bored Cuban postal worker who writes unsolicited replies to random letters while she waits for a visa to the United States. The delicious irony at the heart of Malberti’s film is clear: Cubans yearn for better lives in the 'Land of the Free', but also have a strong desire to help solve the problems in their homeland.
FACT, Liverpool, 6 Oct, 6.30pm
Grimmfest
The North's premier horror fest is back this week to splash lashings of gore on the Printworks' screens. The cinematic bloodbath kicks off with Southern gothic crime drama Let Me Make You A Martyr, which reportedly features a fascinating turn from Marilyn Manson. In among the low-rent horror you'll find gems like breakneck Korean zombie-flick Train to Busan and the return of Sean Young in Polanski-like thriller Darling. Full details at grimmfest.com
Printworks Odeon, Manchester, 6-9 Oct
If you've a film event you'd like us to know about, send details to jamie@theskinny.co.uk