changing the guard:
the festival of
new british cinema
april 16 - 30, 1999
photo: GALLIVANT
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about changing the guard: the festival of new british cinema april 16 - 30, 1999 photo: GALLIVANT |
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Changing the Guard is co-presented by Joy Pereths and John Tilley of ProActive, with major support from The British Council. The series is sponsored by Interview magazine, Hugo Boss and Bombay Sapphire Gin. British Airways, "The World's Favourite Airline," has provided festival transportation. Thanks to: Paul Howson and Satwant Gill, The British Council (UK); David Blagbrough, The British Council (Washington, DC); John Houlton, The British Film Office; Jeffrey Ling, British Consul General, New York; Shannon Reed, British Airways; Cherryl Brazier, The British Tourist Authority; Andrea Klein, BFI; Mary Davies, Lizzie Francke, New British Expo and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Elliot Schneider, Schneider Graphics . |
The Tichborne Claimant 
THE GIRL WITH BRAINS IN HER FEET 
GURU IN SEVEN 
MOJO 
ROBINSON IN SPACE |
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Kicked off in 1996 by Trainspotting and mainstreamed by the international success of Bean and The Full Monty the following year, New British Cinema emerged at the end of 18 years of Conservative government and the election of New Labour. In 1997, riding an unmistakable sense of national revival and confidence, a new generation of British filmmakers arrived centerstage, drawing energy and momentum from the pervasive cultural ferment of the mid-Nineties manifested in such diverse phenomena as Britpop, the Young British Artists scene, and New Lad culture. The key films in this new wave-- Under the Skin, Nil By Mouth and TwentyFourSeven-- are the stylistic and spiritual progeny of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, but though the docudrama-naturalist tradition (invariably termed "gritty") is New British Cinema's ground zero, reflected here in films like THE SCAR and THE GIRL WITH BRAINS IN HER FEET, that's not the whole story.
Some filmmakers have refracted this style through genre (FACE is a heist movie, Urban Ghost StoryURBAN GHOST STORY a horror film, DIVORCING JACK a comedic conspiracy thriller). Others, such as John Maybury's Love Is the Devil and Richard Kwietniowski (Love and Death on Long Island) have reacted against it in the idiosyncratic tradition of stylized personal vision diversely manifested by Jarman, Greenaway, Roeg, Russell and Powell. That strand is represented here by films like GALLIVANT, MOJO AND ROBINSON IN SPACE. Nineties British film has also advanced in several other respects: the emergence of distinctive regional voices like Shane Meadows in Nottingham, the Amber Collective in Tyneside, and Peter Mullan in Scotland, and of a strong cadre of women directors, including Antonia Bird (Priest), Carine Adler (Under the Skin), Sandra Goldbacher (The Governess) and upcoming talents Lynne Ramsay and Sara Sugarman. And the explosion of short filmmaking in Britain in the early Nineties has fueled the new talent boom, with the British Film Institute's annual New Directors shorts program the most notable springboard for a new generation of filmmakers. This series brings you a selection of some of the most vital and distinctive new cinema of the past few years, work that has been overlooked by American distributors looking for the next Four Weddings and a Funeral -- Gavin Smith, curator.
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