Reel Change: Take One Action Film Festival

For those of us still recovering from the heady heights of August’s Fringe, Take One Action Film Festival 2010 brings a fresh programme of films with a globally conscientious perspective to help bring us back down to earth. Sobering and positive in equal measure, the Festival returns in its third year to once again raise audience awareness and advocacy within an extensive range of pressing humanitarian issues, from environmentalism and economic justice to conflict and poverty. Its patrons are none other than the illustrious Cannes Palme d’Or winners, director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty (Looking For Eric, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Sweet Sixteen), who describe the festival’s emphasis on audience empowerment as “very, very important.”

“Take One Action is about reclaiming aspects of the cinema, both space and content, for transformative exchanges which run beyond the screen,” explains Festival director, Simon Bateson, “When people come together and are inspired, which is what cinema does all the time, they have the opportunity to become powerful actors in the story themselves.” It’s this focus on activism which makes the Take One Action Festival unique, engaging with spectators long after the credits have rolled. With audience discussions, calls for creative engagement and links to local organisations for those who want to get their hands dirty, the festival could prove a vital source for positive change in the future.

However, hardcore cinephiles need not fret, all this activism does not come at the price of aesthetics. This is best demonstrated by the Festival’s UK premiere of an original score by the Hidden Orchestra to accompany Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation, an arresting patchwork of imagery that focuses on the conflict between industrialisation and traditional life in the developing world (25 Sep, Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 27 Sept, Glasgow Film Theatre). 

Having previously screened such socio-political gems as Charlie Chaplin’s labour focused Modern Times, Take One Action will offer this year’s festival goers the rare chance to see a 70mm print of Richard Attenborough’s classic biopic Ghandi (2 Oct, Filmhouse). The cinematic rendering of Ghandi’s teaching of pacifist resistance in the face of violence is just one of the festival’s contemporary films on war and conflict. Another to look out for is Budrus (23 Sept, GFT, 24 Sep, Filmhouse), a gut wrenching film that documents the struggle of unarmed Palestinian and Israeli protesters against the building of an Israeli Separation Fence. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the award winning director, Julia Bacha. Another special Q&A will follow the UK premiere of Persona Non Grata, with the film’s subject, protesting Belgian priest Frans Wuytack, and his son, the film’s director, Fabio Wuytack, (27 Sept, Filmhouse, 28 Sept, GFT). Don't miss it! [Rachel Bowles]