Plenty to look forward to at the 54th Edinburgh International Film Festival
(13-27 August, 2000)

12th July 2000

This year's Edinburgh Film Festival doesn't have a theme. It has a collection of enticing products, which is what we have come to expect from artistic director Lizzie Francke, the lady who makes the choices.

Lars Von Trier's controversial Palme D'Or winning film Dancer in the Dark will open this year's EIFF. The bizarre musical, which stars Icelandic rock singer Bjork, was greeted with equal amounts of derision and high praise when it was shown at Cannes. EIFF director Lizzie Francke described the film, which was shot on digital video, as "one of the first true films of the Twenty First Century".

This year's festival has attracted a total of ten world premieres, 18 International premieres, 3 European premieres, and over 100 UK premieres.

While Francke is keen to emphasise experimentation in the millennium programme, if anything it is more mainstream. The popular horror/adrenalin strand of films, Late Night Romps, continues and the 2000 programme also introduces a new strand aimed at younger audiences (three to 18-year-olds) introducing international animation and filmmaking for children.

Among the films screening is the big-budget Scottish-German The Little Vampire, starring Richard E Grant. Before little Jimmy gets too excited you should check whether there are subtitles for foreign films - this is a festival that receives its core funding from the Education and Recreation department of the local Council after all!

That said, there's no danger of the proceedings becoming overly arty-farty when Paul Verhoeven, iconoclastic director of shoot-em-up sci-fis like Robocop, Total Recall (and controversial strip-flick, Show Girls), is around. He brings his latest sci-fi, The Hollow Man to Edinburgh, and will be sharing insights into his career and fielding questions from the festival audience in the Reel Life strand.

For those who have not been to the film festival before, Reel Life (formerly Scene by Scene) is one of the most compelling sections. It offers a unique opportunity to see how directors, actors and others craft their work. For example, last year, Hollywood producer Art Linson previewed short clips from his latest, then unreleased project. It was Fight Club.

This year's Reel Life programme includes talks from Carter Burwell, composer of music for films such as Velvet Goldmine and Rob Roy; Darius Khondji, cinematographer on Seven and Stealing Beauty; actor and director Liv Ullmann; and director Wong Kar-Wai whose film In The Mood For Love closes the festival. Festival director Lizzie Francke describes Wong Kar-Wai's latest opus as, "an exquisitely controlled tale of unrequited love that boasts an extraordinary, abstract beauty - the kind of film you want to hang on your wall".

Among the ten world premieres is Beautiful Creatures, a UK-set Thelma-and-Louise-style thriller starring Rachel Weisz and Susan Lynch. Even closer to home, Edinburgh filmmaker Bernard Rudden makes his debut with Daybreak, a drama shot and set in Edinburgh clubland it sounds not dissimilar to Human Traffic, but darker. The question is: will it be as cult as Human Traffic?

Agent Scully fans can find Gillian Anderson in period garb playing a Manhatten socialite in the The House of Mirth. Eric Stoltz and Dan Ackroyd join her with Terence Davies a director of exquisite sensitivity, at the helm.

Edinburgh film festival regular Robert Carlyle, teams up with Gina McKee and Ray Winstone for There's Only One Jimmy Grimble a "heart warming" comedy about a character, Jimmy, coming to terms with family life and his lack of footballing skill.

Also, on the theme of football it will be interesting to see if former England captain - Alan Shearer - will be able to surpass his wooden performances in a recent television advertising campaign for a hamburger chain, in football comedy Purely Belter. Mark Herman who directed the enjoyable Brassed Off directs here.

Other films worth looking out for are the Coen brothers' latest film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? with George Clooney in a comic role - a definite must-see; Devils on the Doorstep, an epic about the effect of Japanese occupation of a small Chinese occupation; Girlfight, a women boxing flick, which won an audience award at Cannes; Mike Figgis experimental Time Code 2000 (which had mixed reviews in the States); and Some Voices, the debut film from the director of the acclaimed television drama series, Our Friends in the North, Simon Cellan Jones (Daniel Craig and Kelly Macdonald star; for smutty comedy there is the lewd-and-crude Road Trip (see pic above) - apparently it puts American Pie in the shade.

The EIFF will also premiere the Brazilian comedy Eu Tu Eles (Me, You, Them) with Regina Case as a woman with three husbands. And Women are on top again in another Gala, Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her - with Holly Hunter, Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz and Calista Flockhart.

A mention should also go to Edward Norton (Primal Fear, Fight Club) who directs Keeping The Faith, with Ben Stiller and himself in the lead. Knowing his attitude to acting, this should be electrifying, even if it is a romantic comedy.

The retrospective at this year's festival will focus on the work of Max Ophuls (right), the celebrated visual stylist who was forced into exile from his native Germany during the Nazi persecution in the Thirties. After living in France, Italy and Holland he finally settled in Hollywood. Among the collection of Ophuls work being shown will be a new print of The Exile (US, 1947), a film that unusually has two endings - both of which will be screened. Other works being screened will include be La Signora di Tutti (Italy, 1934) and La Ronde (France, 1950).

Documentaries have always been strong and this year looks like no exception. Oscar-winning Kevin Macdonald has a biographical piece on cult filmmaker Errol Morris and Sarah Price, who made last year's doc hit, American Movie is back with Caesar's Park, in which she checks out her Milwaukee neighbourhood.

The Eyes Of Tammy Faye follows up the story of TV evangelist Jim Bakker's wife after the fraud scandal that put Jim behind bars and a film called Legacy, which investigates life in a Chicago housing project, sounds illuminating if nothing else.

George Washington, winner of the Golden Gate award in San Francisco, is a deeply personal account of Frank Cole's crossing of the Sahara by camel, while the makers of the absorbing Divorce Iranian Style (Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams) are bringing their latest, Caea Girls, a study of female wrestling in Japan.

Naturally, there will be film stars aplenty. A special celebration will be held for Sir Sean Connery, who celebrates his 70th birthday in August and, of course, here on insideout.co.uk you'll get all the latest goss on the stars and what's happening at the festival.

The team at insideout.co.uk