Best Film Screenings in the North (9-16 Sep)
The best film events happening in Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds this week, including a tribute to Antonia Bird at HOME, Manchester and Kathryn Bigelow's first film, The Loveless, at Liverpool Small Cinema
Antonia Bird – Priest & From EastEnders to Hollywood
How many great filmmakers have we failed by not appreciating them in their lifetime? One such director is Antonia Bird, who made several great films in the 90s (Safe, Face, Ravenous), but getting financing always proved a Sisyphean struggle. When she died in 2013, aged only 62, many of her projects lay unrealised. There seems to have been a resurgence in her work of late, however, helped no doubt by celebratory doc Antonia Bird: From EastEnders to Hollywood.
HOME screens that film along with Bird’s second feature, Priest, this weekend. If you’re not familiar with Bird’s work we compel you to make it along.
Need more encouragement? Here’s some words from her friend and collaborator Mark Cousins: “There’s the ebullience of Hong Kong cinema about her best work, an Old Testament moral force, a grand gesture. I wish Antonia had directed Lawrence of Arabia (she would have made it much better than it is), and the recent French film Untouchable (ditto). She’s as significant to British cinema as, say, Alan Clarke.”
Priest, 10 Sep, HOME, Manchester, 6.10pm / From EastEnders to Hollywood, 11 Sep, HOME, 3.50pm
CageFest Vol. II
This is sure to be a riotous affair as the R.A.D. team show a quartet of Nic Cage’s most OTT performances, but the real reason to head along is to see the rarely-screened Vampire’s Kiss. As a New York literary agent who starts to believe he’s turning into a vampire, Cage gives his most unhinged performance in this underrated 1989 oddity. You’ve probably all seen the memes (Cage's character running through Manhattan yelling “I’m a vampire! I’m a vampire! I’m a vampire!” or schooling his secretary on the alphabet), but what’s so surprising is how even at his wildest, Cage can be deeply moving. It’s a hilarious – and achingly sad – movie. Let’s hope the audience are laughing with it, instead of at it.
CageFest line-up: Wild at Heart, The Rock, Bad Lieutenant and Vampire's Kiss
11 Sep, Gorilla, Manchester 12pm
The Loveless
The Skinny are psyched to be screening The Loveless, the first feature film from the mighty Kathryn Bigelow, as part of Scalarama’s #DirectedByWomen strand. It’s a sexy subversion of the biker movie genre, with Willem Dafoe (also making his debut) oozing charisma as a biker whose gang stop off in a small town causing ripples among the uptight townsfolk. Get down early to say hello to The Skinny team.
14 Sep, Liverpool Small Cinema, 6.30pm
Pecker
It can’t be Scalarama without a John Waters movie, can it? Pecker, from 1998, is surely one of the Pope of Trash's most personal efforts. After all, it’s about a kid (Edward Furlong) from Baltimore who becomes a celebrated artist by lovingly documenting the weirdo eccentrics from his neighbourhood, which basically reads like Waters’ one line bio. This is a witty and pretty savage attack on the New York art world and its phoney, rubbernecking liberal attitudes to the the working class, but don’t worry, though: this is still a John Waters film, and amidst the satire there’s a whole heap of trashy fun.
16 Sep, The Little Reliance Cinema, Leeds, 8pm
Losing Ground
A real lost – and hopefully now discovered – treasure. Kathleen Collins' low-budget 1982 indie – one of the first feature films directed by an African-American woman – begins like a Woody Allen relationship drama before spiraling into much more intense, Cassavetes-like territory as the marriage between a philosophy professor and her arrogant painter husband begins to turn toxic. This is daring, intelligent cinema that deserves to be celebrated. Sophie Mayer leads a discussion after the screening.
18 Sep, Liverpool Small Cinema, 5.30pm
If you've a film event you'd like us to know about, send details to jamie@theskinny.co.uk