Day Two of the Festival started with the UK premiere of EDMOND, directed by Stuart Gordon from a play by David Mamet. The film was shown as part of the Cine Excess Cult Film Conference that was running in conjunction with the Festival, at which Stuart Gordon was one of the guest speakers. Starring William H Macy in the titular role, it is like a more violent and intense version of FALLING DOWN. EDMOND will be on general release from Tartan Films later in the year.
For the academics who hadn’t had enough with the day’s talks and didn’t fancy seeing a film – and for sci-fi fans who wanted something to stimulate their little grey cells, The Douglas Adams Memorial Debate offered its intriguing panel discussion. For a full report on the debate click here. You can watch a video of the whole debate online at fora.tv
By eight o’clock there was a crowd gathering in the foyer for a chance to attend the official World Premiere of THINGS TO COME. We have already spoken at length about this film on this site, singing its praises for its prescience and innovative design, but when the crowd was seated it was well-known film critic, Kim Newman’s turn to wax lyrical. He spoke with passion about the movie but not everyone in the audience wanted to share in his enthusiasm, preferring to see the film rather than hear about, so with a bit of heckling Kim left the screen and the film rolled.
As the audience for THINGS TO COME settled into a retro look at the future another crowd was gathering for out second world premiere of the night, Laurens Postma’s EXITZ. This multi-layered thriller about love, deceit, illusions and virtual reality was written by Farrukh Dhondy (MANGAL PANDEY: THE RISING, RED MERCURY). Starring Malcolm McDowell (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, HEROES) as Percy, a billionaire computer games tycoon who develops a new game that creates a reality in which the player is the played, it mixes the glamour of beauty pageants with the harsher realities of the exploitation of London’s illegal immigrants. This multifaceted film also stars Bollywood actress Perizaad Zorabian, Christopher Simpson, Stephen Billington, Charity Wakefield and Beth Winslet, who all give strong, convincing performances.
The low-key premiere was attended by the director Laurens Postma along with writer Farrukh Dhondy, cast members Charity Wakefield, Beth Winslet, Tara Antonia, Sofia Hayat, producer Meenu Bachan and other crew members. Terry Jones (MONTY PYTHON) also attended. The screening was finished with a humorous Q&A to Postma and Dhondy from the enthusiastic audience.
The film does not currently have distribution. More details can be found on www.inspiredmovies.com/pages/exitz
 Farrukh Dhondy and Laurens Posma, writer and director of EXITZ |
 Laurens Postma and Terry Jones |
And even later into the night anime fans who either couldn’t get tickets for the All-Nighter or just didn’t have the stamina, gathered to see the first London cinema screening of Satoshi Kon’s stunning PAPRIKA.
All in all it was a relatively tranquil start to the Festival, apart from the odd heckle, with lots of positive feedback about the evening’s films from the punters and about the Festival in general from the guests.
For more Festival photos click here.