London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts is a must-visit destination for any film fan. Tucked away on the Mall, this unassuming venue is a gem for those seeking more interesting fare than can otherwise be found in the mainstream chains dominating the city. Now there’s even more of a reason to pop in, as the ICA is hosting its inaugural New British Cinema season. From June 4-30, it will be screening eight works from some of the country’s hottest new filmmaking talent, which promises to be an exciting introduction to a new generation of UK cinema.
One of the highlights should be the film opening the festival, The Hide, particularly as debut director Mark Losey comes from solid filmmaking stock; his father is producer Gavrik Losey, and his grandfather Joseph was an American film director blacklisted during the infamous communist witchhunt during the 1950s. Losey Jr’s film is set in a claustrophobic bird-hide on the Suffolk mud flats, in which two strangers are pushed to breaking point in the pressure-cooker atmosphere.
Elsewhere, Julian Richard’s Summer Scars follows in the same vein, being a fraught, claustrophobic thriller about a group of teens terrorised by a drifter they meet in the woods. Richards has coaxed excellent performances from his young cast to produce a short sharp shock of a film. Another one not to miss is Thomas Clay’s Soi Cowboy. Clay’s dark comedy about a Danish man and a Thai woman living awkwardly together in Bangkok has won fans on the festival circuit, with critics praising the increase in maturity of the 30-year-old director since his brutal 2005 debut The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael. The film is named after Bangkok’s seedy Soi Cowboy red light district, and this neon locale plays an important role in both Clay’s story and his aesthetic.
Crack Willow is an altogether different prospect, however; less ‘bright lights, big city’ more ‘dark dreams, harsh reality’. Splitting his work into individual parts, director Martin Radich examines everyday emotions, including grief, rage and fear, in an experimental style which should push the viewer to their limits.
Filmmaker Maeve Murphy scooped Best Feature at this year’s London Independent Cinema Awards for Beyond the Fire, the moving story of a former Irish priest who falls in love, only to be haunted by the past. Smita Bhide’s The Blue Tower also concerns itself with the intricacies of relationships; set in Southall, it sees the married Mohan (Abhin Galeya) resort to desperate lengths to continue his affair with his aunt’s white care worker. It too is an award-winner, taking home the Jury Prize at the 2008 Raindance Film Festival.
In Matthew Thompson’s Dummy, the theme is not love but death. As a teenage boy and his brother struggle to cope with the loss of their mother, so the film explores grief and adolescence in a well-observed way that’s winning over audiences and critics alike. Siblings are also at the centre of Johnny Kervorkian’s The Disappeared, a thriller about a lad attempting to escape the ghost of his missing younger brother starring Control’s Harry Treadaway and Harry Potter’s Tom Felton.
The New British Cinema season promises everything from urban horror to rural drama, relationship tales to experimenta and, as seven of the eight films are yet to secure distribution deals, it might be your best chance to discover some great wors. To find out more, and for screening details, visit the official site.
