Scottish Film Event Highlights – August 2016
The month offers up films based on work by the talented Miss Highsmith, a trio of multi-sensory film screenings at Edinburgh Festival's newest addition and the first UK screening of Mark Cousins’ Atomic, with Mogwai playing their score live
Adapting Miss Highsmith
Plein Soleil
Patricia Highsmith was the creator of claustrophobic tales filled with psychological intrigue and commonplace deviancy. It’s no wonder filmmakers have been so drawn to her work, and many of the best adaptations are showcased in Adapting Miss Highsmith, a touring film season heading to GFT this month. Some are classics you’ll be familiar with (a trio of Ripley films: Plein Soleil, 14 Aug; The American Friend, 21 Aug; and The Talented Mr Ripley, 28 Aug). Some are little-known and rarely-screened (Enough Rope, 10 Aug; This Sweet Sickness, 17 Aug; The Glass Ceiling, 24 Aug; Deep Water, 31 Aug). Best of the lot might be Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (7 Aug), screening from 35mm.
Edinburgh Digital Entertainment Festival
Edinburgh Digital Entertainment Festival is a very welcome new addition to this year’s Edinburgh Festival. Taking over Assembly Rooms throughout August, the wide-ranging programme is concerned with the intersection between entertainment and technology. We’re particularly intrigued by its Atmosphere series, which re-imagines the concept of atmospheric movie theaters from the 1920s and 30s. With a special focus on analogue, electronic and digital sound, these screenings invite a team of artists to create a multi-sensory interactive element to screenings using technology new and old. They have three visionary films to work from: Berberian Sound Studio (5 Aug), Dune (12 Aug) and La Jetée (19 Aug).
The Wizard of Speed and Time
Following on from last month’s screening of Long Shot, Matchbox Cinemaclub have another rarely-screened meta-movie about the filmmaking process: The Wizard of Speed and Time (CCA, 18 Aug). The wizard of the title is a special effects genius who makes lo-fi movies in his garage, but gets a chance of a life time when Hollywood comes calling. Matchbox calls it “a lost classic and a tour-de-force of outsider filmmaking.” The rarity of this screening already makes it unmissable, but as an added bonus it’ll be preceded by a practical special effects demonstration from SFX supervisor Mike Kelt (Hot Fuzz, Four Lions, Macbeth).
Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise
A cinematic highlight of the International Festival looks to be its screening of Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise (Edinburgh Playhouse, 27&28 Aug), Mark Cousins’ bracing cine-essay on the history of the nuclear age, made to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Cousins eschews his trademark voiceover, and instead a brooding score by Mogwai, who’ll be performing live on the night, provides a nightmarish soundscape to the impressionistic collage of archive clips.
Nicolas Winding Refn Presents at Cameo
Body Double
Finally, Cameo in Edinburgh continues its delicious Nicolas Winding Refn Presents season. Coming up are three dreamy and cinematic masterpieces: Brian De Palma’s insane study in voyeurism Body Double (8 Aug); David Lynch’s curdled Hollywood dream Mulholland Dr (12 Aug, in 35mm) and Dario Argento’s hallucinatory horror Suspiria (22 Aug).
If you've a film event you'd like us to know about, send details to jamie@theskinny.co.uk