Scotland Film Event Highlights – March 2016

Classic and contemporary cinema from Italy and Hong Kong, two of the great minds of film history (Hitchcock/Truffaut) have a chinwag, and a chance to hear from one of the world's greatest documentarians (Patricio Guzmán)

Feature by Jamie Dunn | 01 Mar 2016

Hong Kong crime cinema

Action fans rejoice! There’s a great programme of Hong Kong crime cinema happening across Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee this month with a pleasing mix of familiar and lesser-spotted efforts. If you’re looking for the latter, GFT and DCA are showing Wong Kar-wai’s rarely screened debut As Tears Go By (GFT, 27 Mar; DCA, 7 Apr) while Filmhouse have John Woo’s early feature The Pilferers’ Progress (23 Mar). If it’s bona fide modern classics you’re after, all three venues screen Johnnie To’s Election (Filmhouse, 27 Mar; GFT, 6 Apr; DCA, 12 Apr) and Infernal Affairs (GFT, 3 Apr; Filmhouse, 7 Apr; DCA, 19 Apr). There are also mint fresh flicks on show: Ringo Lam’s Wild City (GFT, 29 Mar) and Dante Lam’s That Demon Within (Filmhouse, 9 Mar). For the full line-ups, head to glasgowfilm.orgdca.org.uk and filmhousecinema.com

Read our Books editor's love letter to Hong Kong cinema

Italian Film Festival

The Italian Film Festival returns for its 23rd edition with a lively selection of contemporary and classic Italian movies. Don’t miss crime drama Don’t Be Bad (Filmhouse, 4 Mar; GFT, 11 Mar; DCA, 14 Mar), the swan song of veteran filmmaker Claudio Caligari. Also unmissable on the big screen is a film that heavily influenced Scorsese: Luchino Visconti’s towering Rocco and His Brothers (DCA, 12 Mar; GFT & Filmhouse, 13 Mar). For full progamme details, go to italianfilmfestival.org.uk

Hitchcock/Truffaut

To celebrate the UK release of Hitchcock/Truffaut, Kent Jones’ doc about the famous week-long sit-down between François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock, GFT are screening films by the eponymous directors: Hitch’s seminal horror Psycho (6 Mar) and the Frenchman’s sly love letter to the filmmaking process, Day for Night (5 Mar).

Kim Longinotto

To mark International Women’s Day, Filmhouse are showing two films by Kim Longinotto (6 Mar), the UK’s finest documentarian and one of the most compassionate and compelling voices for women’s rights around the world. The double-bill is of two of Longinotto’s best: Sisters in Law, following Vera Ngassa and Judge Beatrice Ntuba, two kickass lawyers in Cameroon who are standing up to the nation’s patriarchy, and Gaea Girls, a tough but compelling look at the culture of female wrestling in Japan.

Patricio Guzmán Q&A

Talking of great documentarians, Filmhouse welcomes Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán to Edinburgh on 13 Mar for a Q&A following a preview of his wonderful new film The Pearl Button. A companion-piece, of sorts, to his critically-acclaimed essay film Nostalgia for the Light, this lyrical and moving study sees Guzmán once again look into the dark heart of his country’s troubled history, this time through its people’s relationship to Chile’s endless coastline. Not to be missed.

HippFest

Silent movie-nuts will be keen to make it along to the Hippodrome in Bo'ness for the sixth HippFest (16-20 Mar). It all kicks off with Alexander Dovzhenko's epic Earth, paired with newly commissioned music by Jane Gardner and Hazel Morrison. We'd also urge you to make it to Mania: The History of a Cigarette Factory Worker (17 Mar), a rediscovered gem that's getting a live ‘ethno pop-rock’ score from Polish band Czerwie, who'll be making their live UK debut. Or just stick a pin in the programme and head to that, because any film-watching experience in the spectacular Hippodrome is going to be memorable.