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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 13 March 2008

Pick of the Indies

THIS week it’s all about the sisters: the Birds Eye View festival at the BFI on the South Bank, organised by Islington-based film-maker Rachel Norwood, celebrates the achievements of women film-makers and for the third year in a row it’s been superb.
You still have the chance to catch the last two days of the festival, which is due to go out across the country.
On Friday, German Sonja Heiss’s Hotel Very Welcome completes the week-long event, and is worth a look.
It tells the story of five Europeans following the student/hippie trails across Asia. A character-driven film with laughs and heartbreak, we meet UK clubbers Josh and Adam hanging out in Thailand, the German yoga freak Marion wondering where it all went wrong, and Svenja, a girl who seems to be trapped in her Bangkok hotel room.
And as well as providing simply great films, there is a more serious aim of the festival. Rachel hopes it will help raise the issue of how film-making predominantly features blokes, from technicians and runners through to writers and directors.
She said: “Women make up only 7 per cent of film directors and 12 per cent of screenwriters. In a world so influenced by the medium of film, that’s a crazy and concerning imbalance.”
And here’s another tip of something to look out for, which has nowt to do with Birds Eye but happens to be made by a woman: doc-maker Nina Davenport has made a rather interesting film, Operation Filmmaker, about a young Iraqi who was given the chance to work as an intern for Hollywood director Liev Schreiber.
It was conceived as a heart-warming tale of cultural exchanges and offering opportunities to people in Iraq. But the results were pretty unexpected, as the intern and the director have very different ideas about what is expected from each other.
It was on at the ICA this week and I hear it will be shown at other indie film venues this summer. I’ll keep you posted.

DAN CARRIER

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