Engagement, challenge - and entertainment at the East End festival

Concerning Violence

Image by Concerning Violence

With about 100 feature films (one-third of them documentaries) and 100 shorts, it’s hard to find your way around the bulging East End Film Festival. So here’s a few pointers from Andrew Simpson, the head of programming.

·         Concerning Violence – “One of the best docs of the year” and in the running for the festival’s Best Documentary prize. Drawn from the archives of Swedish documentary film-makers and TV journalists between 1966 and 1984, it takes a look back at Africa’s independence   movements and uprisings.

·         Casbalanca Calling -  “a really fantastic film”, it focuses on a controversy in Morocco, where 60 per cent of women have never been to school but a new generation of women have started work as official Muslim leaders in poor communities.

·         Mass E Bhat – “About 85 per cent of the films are premieres of some sort and this one’s a world premiere”.  It’s an exploration of childhood in Bangladesh, as social worker Nasir looks for children in a Dhaka shanty town to enrol in his school, while musing about his own youth.

·         Angels in Exile – “very powerful, very moving”, it offers a different approach to the usual narratives homeless kids. It chronicles the adolescence of two Durban youngsters caught in a cycle of violence, rape and murder.

·         White Shadow – “It’s phenomenal . One of the best films in the festival.” A Tanzanian albino flees to the city after witnessing a murder but finds that protection is difficult.

And here are two from me:  The Golden Dream, a bold, exciting feature that follows some Guatemalan youngsters heading for the US. It’s a gripping adventure, all the more shocking when you see Who Is Dayani Cristal?, a superb documentary in which Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal and British director Mac Silver take up the story of the discovery of the body of an unidentified  migrant in the US. Dream is shocking not just because of the dramas it portrays but because when see the documentary you realise the truth that is contained in the feature.

This is just a fraction of what’s on offer. So what makes an East End Festival film? “A real engagement and challenge. The films are not just good, but are culturally significant,” says Simpson.

That’s why, he says, while some people pick films in which they have a specific interest, “others are prepared to take a chance on a film they know little or nothing about.”

To help you pick your way through what’s on offer, the festival programme splits the film into several categories: World, Palestine on Film, Cutting East (“a film festival for young people by young people”), British, European, Grits ‘n’ Gravy, Magic and the Macabre at the Masonic Temple, Shorts.

About half the screenings have Q&As.

“This will be your only chance to see some of these films,” says the ever-enthusiastic Simpson. It’s your one shot.”

* East End Film Festival, 13-25 June. Info: http://www.eastendfilmfestival.com/