g7uk » films

Get Bent Film Festival showreel (video)

GS — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:10:02 +0000

Get Bent! Short Films

Date: Friday, August 31, 2007 20.00 – 00.00

Location: Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester.

Description: The cutting-edge of underground queer film-making from across the country and beyond comes to the Contact Theatre. Get Bent! has selected ten cinematic gems that explore the darkest and most humorous recesses of contemporary life. The evening rounds off with a special performance by instrumental four-piece, 7 Hertz accompanying a black and white queer cult classic. Followed by DJs and late bar.

Warning: Contains explicit material.

This event is wheelchair accessible. Please contact filmfest (at) get-bent-manchester.com for any further information.

Get Bent! Documentaries: Life in Motion

Date: Saturday 1st September 13.00 – 19.00

Location: Council Chambers, Manchester University Students Union, Oxford Rd.

‘Life in Motion’ is a wheelchair accessible event. Please contact filmfest (at) get-bent-manchester.com for any further information.

Photographer loses image library in fire — how safe is your audio and visual data?

GS — Wed, 16 May 2007 09:59:53 +0000

As a photographer myself, I broke out into a cold sweat reading how this poor man lost most of his image library in the Lever Street fire. Equipment can be replaced but unique transparencies, negatives and digital images can’t be.

How submitting your video content to the BBC could cost you money

GS — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:57:42 +0000

Quality content and creativity are valuable things. If you need proof, just look at the millions of pounds that businesses earn from back catalogues of music, films, TV shows and news footage.

Here Come the Double Deckers

GS — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:02:43 +0000

One of my favourite TV programmes as a kid.

As far as I can make out, this series has never been released on video or DVD in the UK (and probably not in the US either). The last time I remember it being on terrestrial TV here was in the Granada ITV region in 1990.

This is one of a vast number of British television programmes and films that remain unseen, languishing in a vault somewhere. There are British films that I’ve never been able to watch and there is no way to see them because they are not available anywhere.

As a content producer myself I understand the need for copyright. But, is it right that companies can deny us access to our cultural heritage and prevent us from viewing these for decades? Simply because they can’t be bothered, or can’t make a profit by releasing them.

There should be some way for people to see these. Either require the companies to make a copy available that people can borrow from a local library. Or make it legal to share non-profit copies of commercially unavailable material.

Singin’ In A Puddle

GS — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 22:53:03 +0000

In this video Peter tries to cheer me up as I wait for an engineer to come and fix my central heating, which is dribbling hot water onto the walkway…

After we had the genuine spur-of-the-moment shots of him dancing, we wondered what else could we add…

WATCH THE VIDEO: ‘Singin’ In A Puddle’

Or download: right-click here and save

I like it when we brainstorm and videos develop in this way. There’s a funny behind-the-scenes out-take too, which I’ll put up in the next few days.

TRIVIA

‘Jollywood’ was the nickname of Mancunian Films, which had its studios on Dickinson Road in Rusholme in the 1940′s.

Mere Jeevan Saathi

GS — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 23:55:05 +0000

Unexpectedly I was invited out to the pictures. Yes I was taken on a date — can you believe it? We went to the Odeon at The Trafford Centre where we saw Mere Jeevan Saathi.

It was in Hindi but had subtitles (luckily, as my Hindi is a bit rusty). But, after a while, I forget that I’m reading the dialogue.

This certainly held my attention to the end, even though it was more than two hours long. Loved the musical numbers and scenery. It was a tragic, melodramatic story. But also very camp.

Karisma Kapoor plays a rather scary woman who has an obsessive love for a pop star. The phrase ‘tragedy queen’ was invented for this character. She urgently needs help. But you can’t help feeling a little bit sorry for her. We’ve all been there… Though personally I drew the line at explosives.

Karisma Kapoor looks like Valerie Leon I think.

Jack Wild

GS — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 21:16:44 +0000

Sad to hear that Jack Wild has died aged 53. Star of my favourite Musical: Oliver!

Carry On Screaming with The Sun

GS — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:26:17 +0000

In terms of sheer hypocrisy no other British newspaper can match The Sun. Take Tuesday’s issue…

On the bottom half of the front page: relatives of the victims of the ‘Moors Murderers’ condemn Granada Television for merely filming an episode of Coronation Street on Saddleworth Moor.

On the top half of The Sun’s front page: ‘Free today! Carry On Screaming DVD’. Which is especially appalling when you consider that Brady and Hindley recorded one of their victims as they abused her.

Presumably it is OK for Rupert Murdoch to use the murders along with a comedy DVD to sell his rag of a ‘newspaper’?

As far as the Coronation Street issue is concerned… I have sympathy with the relatives, but I don’t think you can ban all filming at a certain location because of something that happened forty years ago. Any drama that is based in Manchester, and which needs a desolate location, is going to turn to the moors.

Actually I’ve always wondered if the 1959 film Hell Is A City gave Brady ideas in the first place. There is a scene in that where a woman who works in a bookmakers is abducted by the robbers, murdered in the car and her body thrown out on the moors.

Very few films were made in Manchester, so Hell Is A City would have been a big event. It had its premiere at the Apollo Theatre, Ardwick, in April 1960. Brady and Hindley began killing and burying the bodies on Saddleworth Moor just over three years later…