Inside the festival
Festival
Contenuto
Focus
"Punks & Patriots", or Rebels and Countrymen. This is the Great Britain chosen by this Focus 2011, which means to investigate this country's traditional and subversive soul. Recent chronicles see British tradition stealing the headlines, with its Royal Wedding, the 60 years reign of Queen Elizabeth and the London Olympics of 2012. Yet along with all this there would also seem to be echoes of a Thatcherite resurgence and instances of urban guerilla warfare.
Hanif Kureishi, Tilda Swinton and Michael Nyman, major figures of the British film, literary and musical tradition, have personally selected the 12 films to be screened in the Focus retrospective.
The showcase on the other hand will present 7 films, three by major directorial figures and four by up and coming new directors.
Trishna by Michael Winterbottom provides a contemporary interpretation of the novel “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy. David Hare presents a sophisticated thriller titled Page eight with an incomparable Bill Nighy, while Terence Davies has relied on the text of the work by Terence Rattigan and Rachel Weisz’s performance in his last film The Deep Blu Sea. The English actors Paddy Considine and Dexter Fletcher become the directors of two début works Tyrannosaur and Wild Bill, while Andrew Haigh, with his second film, Weekend, presents audiences with a homosexual love affair, an instant movie, very intimate and fearless. And finally the documentary by Jes Benstock The British Guide to Showing Off provides a humorous account of the more anarchic and eccentric side of British culture.
Two meetings with audiences have also been scheduled. Director Terence Davies and musician Michael Nyman will take part in the first, while director/playwriter David Hare and writer Hanif Kureishi in the second. In these meetings the guests will provide background and reasons for the selection of some of the films in the retrospective.
On the red carpet there will be a floral installation by Simon J. Lycett, who has collaborated for many years with the British Royal Family. The work that will escort the starts along the catwalk is a Union Jack Flag revisited in a rebellious vein. Among those taking part in the Focus we would like to single out two very British actors: Bill Nighy and Peter Mullan.
A world star of video-art installations, Douglas Gordon, is the author of the exhibition “Raise the dead”.
In harmony with the rebellious and traditional soul of this Festival are two of the Festival's jurors: Sir David Puttnam (Official Selection Juror), a historic producer of traditional British films and director James Marsh (Extra section juror) who presents rather controversial and irreverent stories and characters.
But it is the great actress Tilda Swinton who put her finger on what this Focus UK is all about
..." Perhaps the punk and the romantic Englishman are the same person who plays the honourable and priceless role of the "outsider", which William Blake first represented, and on which, very wisely, our national identity will always feed"....
Gaia Morrione
Curator of “Focus”
