Scottish Film Events: June 2022

June sees the return of The Folk Film Gathering, Sundance films tour Scotland and GFT begins their Scorsese of the month season

Feature by Jamie Dunn | 01 Jun 2022
  • Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

The Folk Film Gathering makes a welcome return to Filmhouse in Edinburgh this month with a programme focused on themes of community resilience and local engagement. It's apt, then, that the bulk of the programme is comprised of homegrown work, including Margaret Salmon’s Icarus (19 Jun), Alastair Cole’s Iorram (20 Jun) and a trio of shorts concerned with Scotland’s selkie folklore, which includes Hanna Tuulikki’s Seals’kin (23 Jun).

CinemaAttic's ADRIFT film festival kicked off in May but there’s still plenty to see this month too, including Chema García Ibarra’s The Sacred Spirit, a skew-whiff comedy centred on a group of UFO believers; seminal classics Un chien andalou and La Jetée screening in a 16mm double bill; and two programmes of experimental short films.

A trio of films from this year’s Sundance are touring Scotland this month, with screenings at Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen, Glasgow Film Theatre and the Cameo in Edinburgh. There’s doc Free Chol Soo Lee, which details a Korean immigrant’s wrongful conviction and doubles as a portrait of the brutality of incarceration; tender romantic drama A Love Song, which tells the story of two childhood sweethearts, now both widowed, reuniting after 40 years apart; and Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, which stars Emma Thompson as a retired school teacher who embarks on a late-in-life sexual awakening with a young sex worker.

Also make time for GFT’s season dedicated to Polly Platt, a brilliant art director and producer who worked with Peter Bogdanovich, James L Brooks, George Miller and Cameron Crowe. She managed to get the very best out of these directors but her own contributions to their films often went overlooked. What’s Up, Doc? (5&8 Jun), Terms of Endearment (12&14 Jun), The Witches of Eastwick (19&21 Jun) and Say Anything… (26&29 Jun) all screen.

A small plug too for GFT’s new Scorsese of the Month season, in which a local film critic introduces one of their favourite films by Martin Scorsese. The season kicks off on 20 June with a rare 35mm presentation of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. It's one of Scorsese’s zestiest, most humane and most under-appreciated films, but then I would say that because this bittersweet drama starring Ellen Burstyn was chosen by me. I'll be introducing the film on 20 June; come along, see a great film and also say hello! [Jamie Dunn]