Now a permanent part of the south coast city's cultural calender, Brighton's Cinecity Film Festival returns this week to celebrate it's 10th anniversary edition. Under the patronage of Nick Cave, Paddy Considine, Henry Normal, John Hillcoat, Steve Coogan and Barry Adamson, and run as a partnership between the Duke of York's Picturehouse, Screen Archive South East and The University of Brighton, the festival provides just the sort of eclectic programme designed to appeal to the city's bohemian population.
Spread across 12 venues, including the cinema, Brighton Museum and The Nightingale Theatre, this year's festival - running from November 15 to December 2 - features nine separate strands that encompass major upcoming releases, artists' films, queer cinema and live performance. One strand is a series of events dedicated to Brighton-based, avant-garde filmmaker Jeff Keen, who sadly passed away earlier this year, taking in talks, a study day, displays and screenings of some of Keen's favourite films.
One of the major attractions of Cinecity is that it's not purely about feature length films for cinephiles; short films, art installations, events for children and even a pop-up bookshop all add to the broad spectrum on offer. Considering the festival is tiny, both in terms of budget and reach, in comparison to, say, the London Film Festival or Sundance, it's ambitious scope is never less than impressive. Curated with a passion for all forms of the moving image and overseen by enthusiastic staff and volunteers, Cinecity always feels like an inclusive event, offering as it does something for everyone.
As for the films on show over the 18-day festival, screenings of Seven Psychopaths (Martin McDonagh), Pablo Larrain's No, local boy Ben Wheatley's Sightseers, the eco-documentary Chasing Ice (Jeff Orlowski), Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut Quartet and the hand-drawn animated feature Ernest and Celine (Benjamin Renner, Vincent Patar & Stéphane Aubier) offer an indication as to the eclecticism Cinecity thrives on. A late-night schedule offers something for those of us who like our movies to inhabit the dark side, with Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral, the Kim Henkel written Boneboys (Duane Graves & Justin Meeks) and V/H/S/ (various) promising to satisfy those desires.
With the Duke of York's about to open a second venue, times are looking good for Brighton's film-goers and the 10th Cinecity should rightly feel like a celebration of both the previous editions and those to come in the future.
We'll be bringing you coverage from Brighton and you can read the story so far, here.
