EAST END FILM FESTIVAL: April 27th - 2nd May

The East End Film Festival is on next week and will be competing for attention with those holding street parties for the Royal Wedding. If you manage to break yourself away from  watching the TV or sitting outside in the glorious sun why not lock yourself in another East End dark room and watch some films! My selections for the festival are below:

  Visionare: Dirty Old Town - 28 April - Subcultures of Downtown New York. Featuring misfits, freaks and renegades taking us deep into the NYC underground scene, from drag to hardcore, heroin, homelessness, political chaos and ultimately to gentrification, all leading into an all night DJ set from NYC mainstay Rub n’ Tug.

 Break My Fall - 29 April - A provocative ode to the 24 hour party culture of London’s East End, with music from some of the best underground artists London has to offer. Set across three days, we follow the lives of four friends. Doomed relationships, working nights and rent boys.

 Who is Harry Nisson (and why is everybody talking about him? - 30 April -  Exploring the enigmatic life and music of Harry Nilsson. The film includes interviews with Robin Williams, Yoko Ono, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Ray Cooper, the Smothers Brothers, and Micky Dolenz. Screening as part of Sonic Film with Saint Etienne. 
 East End True-Life Stories - 1 May- East London is an area of London overflowing with personal stories and social issues, therefore offering plenty of scope for documentary filmmakers to tell essential stories in interesting ways.

 Camden Crawl - Upside Down the Creation Records Story - 1 May - The definitive documentary of the highs and lows of Creation Records. From beginnings in Glasgow, over 25 years we follow the Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Primal Screen and Oasis etc, via drink and drugs, to being wined and dined at No. 10 by Tony Blair. 

 Dark Days - 2 May - This documentary leads you into the dark underground near Penn Station in New York, where squatters have been living for years. The director Marc Singer goes underground to live alongside them and film this “family”. They scavenge, living in self-made sturdy one-room shacks with a bucket for a toilet, using leaky overhead pipes as a source of water for showers. A dozen or so men and one woman talk about the horror of their childhood, jail time, losing children and their battles with addiction. Mid-way through filming they are giving a 30-day eviction notice. Experience a secret community living on the brick of society, where the rest us never pass. 

Tickets available via East End Film Festival

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