Raindance 2013 Submissions Open

It seems like only a couple of days ago that this year’s Raindance Festival closed but already the team has opened submissions for next year’s festival. This year over 138 short films were featured and films from over 35 countries featured. In my coverage over the past couple of years I’ve tended to focus on the feature films but I’ve been contacted by some short film-makers and have been reassessing my thoughts on short films…

Raindance Award Winners Announced

This entry is part 8 of 8 in the series Raindance 2012

As the 20th Raindance Film Festival comes to a close prizes have been awarded to films across a number of categories. Jury members included Sarah Radclyffe – producer and co-founder of Working Title; Oli Harbottle of Dogwoof Distribution; cinematographer Philip Bloom and William C. Martell, writer of 20 produced feature films. The winners were:

Love Tomorrow

This entry is part 7 of 8 in the series Raindance 2012

When flicking through the schedule for this year’s Raindance Festival there was one film that really did jump out at me as being possibly the most innovative on the programme and that was Love Tomorrow, a romance set in London which saw Ballet Boyz Michael Nunn and William Trevitt act as Associate Producers and choreographers…

Body Complete

This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series Raindance 2012

In the past few years I’ve studied the Holocaust and later genocides and I’ve always wondered how those countries which have seen genocide take place on their soil have been able to move on. Not just legally by ensuring that perpetrators are brought to justice….

Banaz: A Love Story

This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series Raindance 2012

Have you heard of a girl called Banaz Mahmod? I hadn’t until I saw the documentary Banaz: A Love Story screening at this year’s Raindance Film Festival. Now I want to tell everyone I meet about Banaz…

Top Ten:Raindance Festival Facts

This entry is part 4 of 8 in the series Raindance 2012

The 20th Raindance Film Festival is now well underway and films this weekend to look out for include Banaz: A Love Story, Trashed and Zero Killed. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of this brilliant festival, here are the top ten things you may not know about Raindance…

Bad Hair Friday

This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Raindance 2012

A couple of years ago my husband and I embarked upon a crazy journey round Europe with a couple of friends. Our aim was to visit all 50 countries of Europe in one year. We didn’t quite make it (although I do still want to finish the tour) and we did manage to visit quite a good number of countries…

20th Raindance Film Festival Launches

This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Raindance 2012

The 20th Raindance Film Festival was launched this morning with details of 104 feature films being announced including a fascinating Mexican thread, the best of independent British film making and a number of thought-provoking documentaries on the schedule…

Top Ten: Books To Read This Summer

One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to read at least 75 books, that works out at about one and a half a week and it seemed perfectly achievable. But unfortunately I’m not quite keeping up to speed…

Four

Since attending the Raindance Film Festival I’ve started to become a lot more interested in independent, low-budget British film-making. Much as I love the Colin Firth/Hugh Grant movies that seem to make up much of the successful UK output I’m looking forward to getting to know more of the kind of smaller British output …