There are Greek waves aplenty lapping at the forlorn beachside setting of “Sea of Glass,” though they’re not especially weird ones. Amid a national cinema that has become internationally recognized for perverse plotting and deadpan absurdism, writer-director Alexis Alexiou‘s third feature stands out for its stark storytelling and earnest emotional intensity. There is more than
American author Jay Parini’s 2020 memoir “Borges and Me: An Encounter” read as a charming extension of an anecdote any writer would dine out on for the rest of their life: the tale of how Parini, as a college student in the 1970s, was somehow partnered on a winding road trip through the Scottish Highlands
The chaos, hard graft and — ultimately — privileged thrill of feature filmmaking were the central themes of conversation at the Variety Lounge at Edinburgh International Film Festival as the rising directors in official competition sat down to discuss their craft. Supported by VisitScotland and held in Edinburgh’s historic Caledonian Hotel, the Variety Lounge welcomed the 11
Back in 2013, actor George MacKay and director Paul Wright paired up for “For Those in Peril,” an atmospheric study of youthful alienation, trauma and psychological collapse in small-town Scotland that sealed both men’s place on the U.K. industry “ones to watch” list. Since then, MacKay’s career has gone from strength to strength, while Wright
For “Sacred Creatures” director Frieda Luk, belief can be comforting, ridiculous, exhilarating and hard to explain. “I’m really fascinated by when people believe in something,” she tells Variety. “One person believes in something, and then a group of people, and then it slowly becomes this massive phenomenon. It goes viral.” That fascination drives Luk’s debut
Would “Trainspotting” get financed today? Could Lynne Ramsay survive the jump from shorts to a first feature? And might “The Wicker Man,” once treated as a problem child, now look like exactly the kind of genre package buyers chase? That was the conceit of a lively session hosted by Wendy Mitchell, with Picturehouse’s creative director
