CiFF June edition

Ciff Film Festival June

Redeeming features (Alex wilding, Oliver Halls)

I saw a mate play at the 12 bar about 15 years ago. It was a Tuesday. Two guys with no one there to see them were one. Angry, frustrated and borderline psychotic as we sat in chairs waiting for our friend. I hated my job and felt I was in a monkey suit half the time with a job in Knightsbridge. Those two guys reeked of mental health and class frustration. They were the sleaford mods, and frankly, looking back, my unease was not with them but with myself at the time; redeeming features throw light on the struggle for emotional connection and articulation that is often denied so many in the class barriers of the U.K and the level of conviction to find some fucking joy in a cost of living life. It’s simple, brutally effective, and no one can say anything different as we follow our lead and his journey with hints of where he was and how his art is in a better place for his and many others’ state of mind. It’s a slice of life away from the Povvo porn of mainstream broadcasts and deserves to be seen and heard for that alone.

Farmers (tim Carlier)

‘Antipodean comedy can often be hit and miss; it can be very parochial, which often veers into the lowest common denominator, or as a reflex action response and with sheer fantasy, Tom film takes on shades of ‘Wyrmwood’ and is a comical little brother to a staple of quirk and gruesome almost puns, to stereotype is to judge from outside but to do it from within one cant help the celebration of genre in this desert farmer flick.  It is worth a watch and has rooted for the future with the ‘invasion of the Ocka snatchers.’

Water week. Peter Kehoe

At the time of writing, we are days away from the election. With ecology being drowned in a wave of cost of living and immigration stories, one is relevant, and the other is not. The neglect of the Green Zone is ripe for address and satire. As we watch an aspiring political and comer Having Westman, brilliantly played by Ankhit Bhatt, run the gamut of self-preservation personally and politically in a fable for failing upwards with a carbonated zest

A wait, Clare Macdonald

There’s a term, latchkey kid. I wasn’t one of them. I was 13 before I came home after school. I was going from mates to somewhere else until recently. Dad went away. The pipes broke. I had a massive chest infection. And it was five weeks of myself and drips and telly. I was 47. And in London. Our protagonist here is a teen in the throes of discovering herself but soon realises that definition requires challenge. Otherwise, you’re just like jello. Watching the range of discovery with a backdrop that goes from enriching to the void in tone and turn of a branch is a mesmerising quality. Do not wait to see this short. 

Puffling (Jessica Bishopp)

It’s curious how much stigma the concern with the environment gets from your generation as a young person. We grew up on Captain Planet; we had the 80s and Greenpeace launch in our lifetimes. Yet when the people who will be here longer than us give a shit, we laugh at them, maybe thinking as if we are still here, it can’t be that bad. Following the leads of two young women trying to maintain a balance and what it means for their futures is an exciting window into culture and views we never see here. The documentary opens up more about sensibilities without sentiment, and one can’t help but be delighted to see the pufflings take flight, sensing it’s imminent for the leads, too.