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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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TJFF: Chasing Madoff

Chasing Madoff Directed by Jeff Prosserman 2011, USA/Canada, 90 mins. Here are three facts that, taken together, recommend this film. One: Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme bilked investors to the tune of billions. Two: in 1999, it took trader Harry Markopolos about five minutes to uncover the fraud and begin reporting Madoff to the Security and …

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Safe Bets at this Year’s Festival du Nouveau Cinéma

————– Montreal’s greatest arthouse and foreign-film fest, the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, is back, and this year’s selection is particularly dense, with a rich selection of international prestige pictures as well as freakish low-budget wonders for fringe-dwellers. For anyone who’s overwhelmed, here are a few picks to help make your scheduling a little easier. Enter …

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