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EEFF 2013: ‘Trois Exercises’ is an inessential experiment from one of Romania’s finest

Trois Exercises d’Interpretation Directed by Cristi Puiu France, 2013 Fans of Cristi Puiu will be disappointed to find that the director’s latest film is not, in fact, the third part of his Six Stories from the Outskirts of Bucharest series. Trois Exercises d’Interpretation is a brief (albeit lengthy) cinematic diversion based on Russian writer Vladimir …

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EEFF 2013: ‘Halley’ explicitly illustrates the idea of one’s own body as the enemy

Halley Directed by Sebastian Hofmann Mexico, 2012 Flies in a jar, basking in filth: grimy, unclean, and uncaring for the dirt – clamouring for it, even. The scurrying bugs constitute natural life at its base level, most negligent and sickly. Their movements form the opening and closing shots of Halley, forming an opening statement that …

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EEFF 2013: ‘Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer’ lays down its weaponry to reflect on an injustice

Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer Directed by Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin Russia/UK, 2013 During the infamous trial proceedings for their apparent ‘hooliganism’, the Pussy Riot girls make it abundantly clear that the entire world is watching; furthermore, the world is not stupid, and is aware of the extent to which the Russian judicial system …

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EEFF 2013: ‘Leones’ is a mystifying spiritual trek, led by a curious camera

Leones Directed by Jazmín López Argentina/France/Netherlands, 2012 An assured debut feature from Argentinian director Jazmin Lopez, Leones free-floats between complementary realms of the natural and supernatural. The entire movement, comprised of very few long, tracking shots within 80 minutes, chugs through the barely navigable forest of an unknown location, as six teenagers make their way …

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EEFF 2013: ‘The Outer Edges’ works best at a distance from its subjects

The Outer Edges Directed by Kieran Evans UK, 2013 “I’ve been known to be down here in a vest that looks like a woman’s dress,” says the first sign of human life in Kieran Evans’ documentary The Outer Edges, a hazy meditation on life beyond the busied density of Central London, focused on a parade …

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EEFF 2013: ‘Baby Blues’ colour-codes conflicting demands and temptations

Baby Blues Directed by Kasia Roslaniec Poland, 2013 Polish filmmaker Kasia Roslaniec returns to the East End Film Festival with another cynical tale of a youth spoiled by capitalist consumerism, following her turn at the event with 2010’s similarly themed Mall Girls. It’s probably disingenuous to make the blanket assumption that all Polish teenagers are …

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EEFF 2013: ‘Dummy Jim’ is a thankfully unsentimental paean to earthly wonders

Based on James Duthie’s “I Cycled into the Arctic Circle”, a first-person literary account by a man who accomplished a brave feat in spite of his disability – yet sadly ended his days in an unmarked grave – the quasi-adaptation Dummy Jim pays tribute to not just this mortal man, but also the natural world exalted by his words. The film tells the story of a deaf-mute cyclist with the same name, who travels along the Continent while a group of schoolchildren stage a retelling of his journey for a village fete.

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EEFF 2013: ‘The Heart of Bruno Wizard’ makes a strong case for ‘heart’, if not its subject

The lyric repeated with unintended irony over the end credits of The Heart of Bruno Wizard has the eponymous rock star sing, “What does it matter in the scheme of things?” The question is applicable to this debut feature by filmmaker Elisabeth Rasmussen; conceivably a learned fan of the 70s underground punk movement that fostered such acts as Mr. Wizard’s subversive The Homosexuals, Rasmussen has turned in an admiring tribute to an admittedly charismatic though hardly royal musical figure, without explicitly detailing any sound reason as to how his documenting is truly warranted.

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EEFF 2013: Starry-eyed ‘Satellite Boy’ limits its appeal to younger viewers

To anyone well aged and jaded, or fresh out of a Sundance screening, the term ‘coming-of-age’ drama is likely to engender a nervy shudder. There’s only so many varying ways to present a child’s realisation of who he/she is, or what he/she wants to be – at least, this belief has been instilled in us by many films within the genre; Jordan Vogt-Robert’s recent Kings of Summer is a prime example of a film that’s content to play things by the book, relying on a youthful humour to distract us from its thin, cautionary tale of humility. Other films, like the Palme D’or winner Blue is the Warmest Colour, apparently adopt a bolder approach in confronting true desires at the heart of a flowering emergence into adulthood (not that I’ve seen it yet, mind you).

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EEFF 2013: ‘99%’ brilliantly reflects its subject through a collectivist construction

In 2009, filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell presented Until the Light Takes Us, an enlightening – excuse the pun – exploration of Norway’s black metal movement, a scene that picked up steam in the 90s and became inundated with controversy surrounding church burnings, murders and satanic posturing.

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EEFF 2013: ‘Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic’ entertains, yet struggles to dig deeper

Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic Directed by Marina Zenovich Written by Marina Zenovich and Chris A. Peterson 2013, USA For fans of legendary comedian Richard Pryor, eight years removed from his death in 2005 is as ripe a time as any for a thorough cinematic retrospective. The task falls to Marina Zenovich, following up documentary Roman Polanski: …

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EEFF 2013: ‘The UK Gold’ is a flawed insight that nevertheless siezes the zeitgeist

Filmmaker Mark Donne took to the stage of the East End Film Festival Opening Gala to reassert an unabashed love for his country, inadvertently echoing author JK Rowling’s previous definition of a patriot as someone who gives back to their nation, invests in its potential and favours those less fortunate. The villains of his documentary and opening film The UK Gold do not abide by this compassionate idiom, nor do they care to defend or justify their actions. Rejected outright by the tax avoiders whom he deigned to document, Donne instead took his camera to the likes of Channel 4’s Jon Snow, Private Eye’s Richard Books and UK Uncut’s Danielle Paffard, to have them chronologically chart the spiralling calamity of tax avoidance and its far-reaching consequences.

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EEFF 2013: ‘The Man Whose Mind Exploded’ steadily implicates director and audience

Drako Oho Zahar Zahar is an enigma of sorts, having survived two comas, two nervous breakdowns and two suicide attempts, emerging on the other side with his life intact yet his mind forever shattered into uncollected fragments. This documentary’s ostensibly crude title, The Man Whose Mind Exploded, refers to the destructive effect Drako’s comas have had on his memory. Each day he awakens, vaguely aware of who he is, where he is, though uncertain of what may have come before.

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