British Films

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16891767

Gwledd/The Feast (2021) got the number one slot in the best folk horror movies of the 2020s listicle but there isn't a post on it, so here is one from 2022.

Where did the inspiration for this project come from?

I’ve worked with screenwriter Roger Williams quite a bit on a number of television projects, and we’re both passionate about horror. We were also passionate about creating a piece of horror cinema in the Welsh language, with the ambition of having it travel the world. We decided to delve into the long history of Welsh literature, which is inherently horrific in many ways, and use that as a springboard to tell a story about contemporary Wales, weaving in the global theme of climate crisis.

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Now that the film is about to be unleashed on the world, what are your hopes for it and the Welsh industry at large?

I have big hopes for our little film. I would love it if it were to kickstart some kind of industry in the Welsh language. There’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t have a thriving film industry. But it seems to me that we need to be pragmatic in establishing the kind of brand that we sell to the world, and it’s about identifying what we do really well. Our culture, our literary heritage is full of these brilliant, fantastical stories. I think that’s a really good base for us to start from. There is no reason why Wales can’t be as renowned for horror as somewhere like South Korea.

For it's reception see:

• Gwledd (The Feast) on track to become most successful Welsh language film of all time
• The Feast’ review: A keen-edged, slow-burn Welsh-language horror that takes no prisoners
• The Feast is a chilling Welsh-language eco-horror
• The Feast—folklore meets gore in this environmental horror film

Trailer

IMDb

The BBC has unveiled a first look at the upcoming Wallace and Gromit adventure that will air on the BBC in 2024.

In Vengeance Most Fowl, Gromit worries that Wallace has become unduly reliant on his creations, and his worries are validated when Wallace creates a "smart gnome" that appears to have an independent mind.

The League of Gentlemen and Inside No. 9's Reece Shearsmith is the voice for Norbot, who can be heard in the new teaser.

In terms of other cast members, Ben Whitehead stars as Wallace, who previously worked alongside the late Peter Sallis (the original voice of Wallace) on other Wallace and Gromit brand projects.

The cast also includes Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Diane Morgan, Adjoa Andoh, Lenny Henry, and Buzz Khan.

The BBC confirmed earlier this year that the renowned supervillain Feathers McGraw will make a comeback in the new 79-minute film.

Directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, the film will make its UK premiere on BBC iPlayer and BBC One this Christmas. Later in the winter, it will be accessible on Netflix worldwide.

A silent Sherlock Holmes film starring Arthur Conan Doyle’s favourite impersonator of the famous sleuth, Eille Norwood, is to be screened for the first time since its release in 1922, following its extensive restoration by the BFI national archive.

Titled The Golden Pince-Nez, it is a classic case of Holmes detection, based on a Conan Doyle short story that was first published in the Strand magazine in 1904.

It was among many screen adaptations in which Norwood portrayed the master detective who deduces the truth from the slightest of clues.

Conan Doyle said of him: “His wonderful impersonation of Holmes has amazed me. Norwood had that rare quality which can only be described as glamour, which compels you to watch an actor eagerly even when he is doing nothing. He has a quite unrivalled power of disguise.”

The restoration world premiere will be held on 16 October as part of the BFI London film festival.

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The Golden Pince-Nez was among 45 episodes – each lasting up to 30 minutes – that Norwood made between 1921 and 1923, as well as two features.

Its premiere will be screened with two other restored episodes – A Scandal in Bohemia, in which Holmes uncharacteristically falls for a woman, and The Final Problem, in which Holmes meets his arch-enemy, Moriarty.

These are the first titles in the BFI’s “mammoth multi-year restoration project”, Dixon said, noting that Norwood’s films were well-received in their day by audiences who flocked to the cinema back then in their millions. “This was culturally more like us watching TV,” she said.

The BFI national archive boasts the world’s largest film and television holdings. It acquired the original negatives for the Holmes series in 1938, and in the early 1950s it duplicated the two-reel camera negative of The Golden Pince-Nez on to safety stock before the original decomposed.

“The quality is pretty much as good as it gets,” Dixon said of the restoration, adding that it was close to the way the original audiences saw it.

Despite the relative obscurity of its source material, the Rogue Trooper voice cast boasts an impressive ensemble of A-list talent. Take a look at the actors lending their voices to the out-of-this-world adventure, all of whom have currently undisclosed roles except for the one portraying the title hero.

Duncan Jones’ Rogue Trooper is being voiced by Aneurin Barnard, who has previously faced combat as a member of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk cast in 2017, as well as otherworldly phenomena as part of Netflix’s 1899 cast and in a couple of episodes of Doctor Who.

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Also lending her voice to the Rogue Trooper voice cast is Hayley Atwell, who is no stranger to dealing with otherworldly phenomena, having played Peggy Carter in the Marvel movies, starred in AMC’s remake of the classic sci-fi TV series, The Prisoner, and led one of the best Black Mirror episodes, “Be Right Back.” The English actor also, more recently, joined the Mission: Impossible movies as Grace in Dead Reckoning.

Barnard’s Dunkirk and War & Peace co-star Jack Lowden can also say he has starred opposite Tom Hardy in a crime biopic, namely Capone, and an adaptation of David Copperfield for Audible. The Scottish actor has also played a spy in the Apple TV+ original TV show, Slow Horses, for which he received a nomination at the 76th Emmys.

We cannot help but feel that Sean Bean’s Rogue Trooper character might be doomed to suffer a bitter fate, given how many of his most famous roles — such as Boromir in the Lord of the Rings movies and Ned Stark from the Game of Thrones cast — do not survive for very long. Then again, he lived through his last few space movies, Jupiter Ascending and The Martian, and he also made it to the Possessor ending, despite being the main assassin’s target in Brandon Cronenberg’s 2020 thriller.

Irish actor Daryl McCormack is yet another cast member who has a credit in common with Barnard, namely Netflix’s Peaky Blinders, on which he recurred as Isaiah Jesus. He is better known for playing the title role of one of the best movies on Hulu, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, and more recently appeared in Twisters (which experienced a real tornado on set) in a brief, but memorable part.

Two-time BAFTA winner Reece Shearsmith has also been on Doctor Who, but has encountered extra-terrestrials on many other occasions — such as on Apple TV+’s Foundation, on Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, and in 2005’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy alongside his fellow members of surreal British comedy troupe, The League of Gentlemen. Some audiences may also recognize him for his brief appearance in horror comedy classic Shaun of the Dead and as Professor Ware in Saltburn.

Best known as one-half of New Zealand-based folk parody duo, Flight of the Conchords, Jemaine Clement has shared the screen with aliens (in Avatar: The Way of Water) and also played one of the Men in Black movies’ scariest aliens, Boris the Animal. He is also known for his many collaborations with Taika Waititi, such as the hilarious, mockumentary-style vampire movie, What We Do in the Shadows.

Speaking of What We Do in the Shadows, one of the stars of FX’s hilarious spin-off (and one of the best horror TV shows on Hulu), Matt Berry, is also part of the Rogue Trooper cast. The IT Crowd actor has previously lent his instantly recognizable voice to sci-fi titles like Disney+’s Star Wars Universe TV show The Book of Boba Fett and Amazon Prime’s Fallout, and also has a role in The Wild Robot — an animated sci-fi film coming out in September 2024.

British comedian Diane Morgan is probably best known as Philomena Cunk — a TV reporter she has played in various titles, such as Netflix’s Cunk on Earth. She also voiced Gryphon in Netflix’s The Sandman cast and plays another British TV character named Mandy on her self-titled sitcom.

One of Alice’s Lowe’s earliest acting gigs was alongside Matt Berry on the sci-fi horror parody, Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace, before she went on to work with the likes of Edgar Wright on Hot Fuzz and The World’s End, and Ben Wheatley on films like Sightseers and Kill List, to name a few. She was also in Netflix’s interactive movie, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, and the platform’s short-lived sci-fi TV show, Lockwood & Co.

One of Asa Butterfield’s earliest leading roles (following 2008’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and 2011’s Hugo), saw him go to space in the titular role of 2013’s Ender’s Game and later saw him visit Earth for the first time in 2016’s The Space Between Us. The English actor has also starred in many recent horror titles, like Netflix’s Choose or Die, but one of his most popular gigs with the platform is leading the Sex Education cast as Otis.

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Duncan Jones is serving as both the writer and director of Rogue Trooper. The son of late rock star David Bowie made his feature film debut with the aforementioned Moon (one of the best movies of the 2000s), which he followed with Source Code, Warcraft, and a Netflix movie called Mute from 2018.

Jones is also producing the film alongside Stuart Fenegan and Jason and Chris Kingsley. This will actually mark the second attempt at making Rogue Trooper, following when, according to Daily Record, acclaimed comic book writer Grant Morrison was set to pen the adaptation that never came to fruition after the disappointing box office returns of what is now considered one of the best non-Marvel or DC comic book movies, Dredd.

While a live-action Rogue Trooper movie sounds like a pretty remarkable idea, as we established at the top, this feature will be animated. The film is being developed with the use of the Unreal 5 Engine, which is a virtual reality tool that is used by many game developers and animators to create realistic 3D simulations. So, that being said, anyone disappointed that they won’t be seeing a live-action adaptation might be thinking twice when the film comes out.

National Cinema Day is returning for its third year next weekend with £4 cinema tickets across the UK.

Developed by Cinema First, with the support of the Film Distributors' Association and the UK Cinema Association, National Cinema Day will take place on Saturday, August 31 at more than 630 venues across the UK.

Tickets will be available from only £4 on all formats – including 3D, IMAX and 4DX – at all of the major UK cinema chains and a wide range of smaller cinema operators and venues.

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For the full list of participating UK cinemas in this year's National Cinema Day, check out the official website.

National Cinema Day was launched in 2022 and saw 1.46 million admissions in one day, which climbed to 1.56 million admissions in 2023. This year has seen new brands join the initiative, including Coca-Cola and Millie's Cookies.

"National Cinema Day is fast becoming a Great British cultural event, sharing the joy and sociability of cinema across the nation," said Iain Jacob, Chair of Cinema First.

Glasgow Cathedral is being used as the latest backdrop for Guillermo Del Toro's adaptation of Frankenstein.

We reported earlier this week that the 12th-century structure was closed for filming, and on Saturday, our photographer Gordon Terris captured more of the action.

Actors were seen dressed in Victorian garments and the famous director was pictured on the set.

Star Wars actor Oscar Isaac will play the doctor, while Euphoria and Saltburn star Jacob Elordi is set to star as 'the Monster'.

Also joining the cast are Mia Goth, David Bradley, Christoph Waltz and Charles Dance.

Kneecap is so confident and single-minded in its telling of the semi-fictionalised origins of its titular west Belfast hip-hop trio, that it may make anyone who’s never heard of them feel like a bit of a loser. It’s a film that not only signals a major musical arrival, but ends up feeling a lot bigger than the conventional (and often confining) boundaries of the “music biopic”. Kneecap is the story of Belfast and of the “ceasefire generation” – the ones who were told that all is well, that they live in “the moment after the moment”, even when their nation’s traumas are still writ into their bones. It’s a story, too, crucially, about language deployed as an act of liberation and defiance.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16425987

28 Years Later and its planned sequels get a surprising update from producer Andrew Macdonald. Released in 2002, Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later follows Cillian Murphy's Jim as he attempts to survive after the "Rage Virus" turns British citizens into zombie-like monsters. After a mixed-reviewed sequel from director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo in 2007, Boyle is set to re-team with Murphy and original movie writer Alex Garland for the upcoming 28 Years Later, which is intended to serve as the first installment in a new trilogy.

Now, Macdonald reveals to THR that 28 Years Later has just wrapped filming. According to the producer, work on 28 Years Later Part II is also set to get underway imminently. The planned fifth film in the franchise, however, seems less concrete at this stage, though Macdonald seems hopeful. Check out his comment below:

“We’re making, hopefully, three more 28 films with the first one called 28 Years Later that Alex has written, and Danny has directed, and has finished shooting. Then we’re just about to start, tomorrow morning, actually, part two. And then we hope there’s gonna be a third part and it’s a trilogy.”

Seven years ago, Alice Lowe released her debut movie Prevenge, which she filmed while pregnant. It followed a pregnant widow who was convinced her unborn child was compelling her to go on a killing spree.

It was every bit as brilliant as that unique concept promised (it's available to watch on Prime Video if you haven't seen it), leaving us desperate to see what Lowe would do next. We've had to wait a while, but fortunately, Timestalker has been worth it.

The historical sci-fi rom-com – which held its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival – is another inventive and unique offering from Lowe, confirming her as one of the UK's most exciting filmmakers.

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If you're familiar with Lowe's previous written work, Timestalker's dark vein of humour won't surprise you, but otherwise, be prepared. It might be romantic and also a comedy, but a fluffy rom-com it isn't. There's a winning blend of deadpan humour, very silly (and very British) gags and pitch-black, gory laughs.

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Timestalker is the most unique British movie of the year, and it's also among the best British movies of 2024 to date. Let's hope Alice Lowe doesn't leave us waiting seven years again for her next movie.

As you can tell, Scorsese is a tremendous fan of the Stones, using their songs at any chance he can get. Naturally, then, he has watched Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell’s 1970 film Performance, which starred Mick Jagger. The movie is one of many British films that Scorsese loves, although he once claimed that he “never quite understood it”.

Performance follows James Fox’s Chas, a gangster who, in a rage, shoots an old friend and subsequently flees the scene. Looking for somewhere to stay, he pretends to be a performer and manages to blag his way into an apartment where Jagger’s rock star character, Turner, is living with two women, including Anita Pallenberg’s Pherber.

There’s plenty of crime, a topic often explored by Scorsese, although Performance is also defined by its sex and drugs, making it a quintessential British ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ era movie. For Scorsese, he “didn’t understand any of the drug culture at that time.”

Still, he “liked the picture,” and found inspiration in one of the songs used in the film. The same version of ‘Memo From Turner’, a Stones song that Jagger re-recorded for Performance, is used by Scorsese in Goodfellas. Scorsese explained: “I love the music and I love Jagger in it and James Fox — terrific. That’s one of the reasons I used the Ry Cooder [song] ‘Memo to Turner’.

This, though, is a very British journey into the macabre. The original title was “Tea Time of the Dead” (a spin on Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Dawn, and Day of the Dead). It was easy to understand the wariness among industry observers in April 2003 when they heard that the project was finally going into production. The director had sold his film to nonplussed trade journalists as “a naturalistic comedy about the zombified existence of late twentysomethings, crossbred with a full-scale zombie invasion”.

That was a lot to devour. The director later elaborated on the Reel Feedback podcast that Shaun had been conceived in the manner of Mike Leigh’s Life is Sweet (1990). Its heroes Shaun and Ed (Nick Frost) aren’t trying to save the world. They’re ordinary Londoners who, when clear and present danger looms, immediately look for refuge in their favourite pub, the Winchester, where they can have a “nice cold pint and wait for all this to blow over”.

“Mostly in the American films, and even in 28 Days Later, it revolves around the military, or scientists, or people who can do something,” the director said. “What if it’s the least important people? What if it is two guys on the couch who are hungover and missed the news?”

Wright’s admirers were ready to cut him some slack. He already had a fervent following in the UK thanks to cult TV sitcom Spaced, which also starred Pegg alongside Jessica Hynes. Nonetheless, that was no guarantee that he could make a successful movie. His debut feature A Fistful of Fingers (1995), a spoof western made in Somerset when he was barely 20, had received one or two encouraging reviews without making any impact at all at the box office. One critic summed up its ingredients as being “budget £10,000, cardboard horses and a handful of sixth-formers”.

To certain foreign distributors, Shaun of the Dead didn’t seem a commercial proposition at all. It was far too quirky and sardonic. Senior managers at UIP, the company handling its international rollout, refused even to release it in some territories.

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A few weeks later, though, FilmFour went bust, and the funding for Shaun promptly vanished. There were many reasons why other industry executives were initially reluctant to bite on Shaun of the Dead. As Wright himself acknowledged in You’ve Got Red on You (2021), Clark Collis’s exhaustively researched book about the making of the film, British horror movies “died out” in the 1990s. The glory years of Hammer were a long way in the past.

There had never really been a tradition of British zombie films anyway – and Wright himself was doubtful that the market was big enough for two of them at once. When he and Pegg were working on the first draft of the Shaun of the Dead screenplay, they were utterly dismayed to discover that Trainspotting director Danny Boyle and author Alex Garland were already hard at work on their own London-set story about the undead, 28 Days Later. “I was like, “Argh, no! Oh, we’re f***ed!” Wright admitted to Collis.

Omens on the comedy front weren’t any brighter. In February 2004, only two months before Shaun of the Dead was due to hit cinemas, The Sex Lives of the Potato Men, about the amorous misadventures of a group of vegetable delivery guys, had been fried to a crisp by indignant critics. “Nauseous”, “inept”, “smut for morons”, “witless and repulsive”, “useless”, and “one of the worst films of all time” were some of the nicer remarks reviewers made about the ill-fated film, which, like Shaun, starred several popular TV comedians.

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There used to be something almost apologetic or at least self-deprecating about British road movies, as if the makers were well aware how poky and circumscribed they risked looking compared with the thousand-mile journeys essayed in American films. But in this new British road movie, a tale of two troubled teenage boys driving from London to Scotland over a couple of days, it’s as if the film thinks its every cliche is as newly minted and revelatory as the latest dashboard software update. There’s a singing-in-the-car moment of bonding, an accidental discovery of a beautiful seaside landscape, and even that old chestnut, a backstory reveal involving the ashes of a dead loved one. The only thing missing is a high-speed escape from a traffic cop, but maybe the ubiquity of speed cameras on British roads means that doesn’t happen much any more.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has issued a statement after lowering the age rating of horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The organisation, which handles the censorship and classification of films released in the UK, had previously given the 1984 movie an “18” rating, forbidding anyone under the age of 18 from seeing it in cinemas or purchasing it on DVD.

However, on 1 August, the film was reclassified with the more lenient age rating of “15”, ahead of a re-issue of the film this September.

Speaking to The Guardian, a BBFC spokesperson said that there was “strong support” among audiences for older films to be re-classified to better reflect modern sensibilities.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/15945465

A Scottish horror film has finally been released - 17 years after filming first got under way.

The Bench is a grisly slasher where a group of friends take a trip to a remote cabin in Renfrewshire, only to disappear one by one.

However, the production was struck by a host of difficulties, from badly misjudging the Scottish weather's suitability for filming to money running out half way through.

Writer and director Sean Wilkie told BBC Scotland News that he was a mixture of being "pleased, nervous and relieved" now that The Bench can be seen by the public.

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Filming began in Lochwinnoch in 2007, using a cabin owned by friends of the film's director of photography.

For indoor filming, the Caves venue in Edinburgh was used, with Drumpellier Country Park used for occasional outdoor shots.

The film has a cast that includes Two Doors Down star Joy McAvoy and Matt McClure from American horror show Penny Dreadful.

"The first two weeks on location were fine but we couldn’t keep that up," reflects Sean.

"I wish we’d have someone following us all the way though, as it would have made some documentary. Due to the weather and other things we couldn’t finish filming as planned, so we were coming back on odd weekends here and there to complete it."

That was only the start of the film's issues. Initial financing had fallen through at an early stage, but Sean decided to "charge ahead" anyway, something he admits now was "probably a mistake."

The film's original editor departed, so Sean took on that role as well, and by the time reshoots were needed many of the cast and crew were working on other projects.

Kenneth Branagh’s The Last Disturbance Of Madeline Hynde starring Jodie Comer has begun filming in the UK.

Branagh has written the screenplay for the film, which is described by the production as a “contemporary psychological thriller” with the plot still under wraps.

The film is independently financed and produced by Branagh who reunites with Belfast producers Tamar Thomas, Laura Berwick and Becca Kovacik. Other producers include Matthew Jenkins, who produced Branagh’s Death On The Nile and Murder On The Orient Express, and Maximum Effort’s Ashley Fox and Johnny Pariseau.

Fond amusement is mostly the point (I think) of this clear-eyed look at a short-lived British phenomenon. Sexploitation films emerged from the burgeoning sexual revolution of the 1960s. Depending on who you ask, this revolution came about as a result of sex between men being decriminalised, or the liberating arrival of the pill for women. All the subsequent shagging coincided with a dip in British-made films, owing to the explosion in popularity of television, which provided audiences with entertainment they could watch in their own homes. But what they couldn’t watch at home – not easily anyway – was pornography, which was still illegal.

A handful of canny film-makers sensed something in the air, combined a furtive nude short-film industry with slapstick comedy, and invented a new and wildly popular genre.

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The documentary is as gregarious and cheeky as the subject matter demands, but it takes a sensitive, contemporary view on it, too, and allows the people involved to explore every side of the story. Among the big questions addressed is whether the female actors were exploited. Some of them say they went willingly and happily; others say there weren’t many other parts for women. Some paint a grimly familiar picture of casting couches and jobs for “favours”, in a heavily male-dominated business. In a fascinating segment, we learn about the one woman who held a position of real power: Hazel Adair, writer of Virgin Witch, Sex Clinic and Keep It Up Downstairs. She also co-created Crossroads.

Its other main query is why the British seem compelled to mix their sex with comedy. In Europe, sex films were sensual, soft-focus and at least aimed to be classy. In Britain, it was ooh-er-missus innuendo, door-to-door salesmen being ravished by housewives and female characters called Busty. There are various theories put forward as to why, from traditional seaside-postcard humour to the stiff upper lip to the fact that “nobody took their clothes off in those days”. I like the producer who blames it on the inherent conservatism of the nation and the old aristocracy. But it never quite settles on a convincing answer. Nevertheless, this is highly entertaining, eye-opening stuff, and it’s only the first part of two. Next week: Joan Collins and The Stud. If those five words don’t reel you in, this probably isn’t for you.

Amazon Prime Video is acquiring Bray Film Studios, the U.K. studio complex where The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power shot its second season.

The vast production site is located in Water Oakley, Berkshire, 26 miles from central London, and is set to become the U.K. “creative home” for Amazon MGM Studios. Other productions that have been shot at Bray include the likes of Rocketman, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Angel Has Fallen, The King’s Man, Amazon series Citadel, BBC show Dracula, and BBC series Bodyguard.

“The acquisition includes approximately 53,600 square feet of soundstage space across five stages, 77,400 square feet of workshops, 39,400 square feet of office, 182,900 square feet of backlot, and 156,000 square feet of parking space,” Amazon said on Monday. “Bray has previously supported Amazon MGM Studios productions with sound stages, offices, and production facilities, starting in January 2022, when it became the production home for the second season of the global hit Prime Video series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/15050502

Back in February, when Netflix announced its 2024 slate, Gareth Evans’ “Havoc,” shot in 2021, was notably absent. What is going on with this film?

There’s been a lot of speculation about the reasons for the delays. Whatever the case may be, Evans has announced that reshoots have been completed and that the film is now set for “5-6 months” of post-production work. A release during the first quarter of 2025 is being eyed (via Instagram).

That’s a wrap on additional photography for Havoc. Massive thanks to cast and crew for their support and hard work over the past 2 weeks. Next up…. 5-6 months of post (editing, VFX, color, sound) so we can make everything nice and shiny and loud ready for what will hopefully be a Q1 release next year. No trailer, promo materials will be released before the film is finalised and mastered so in a bid to temper expectations - don’t expect anything before the new year. Until then, excuse me while I crack on with work, posting about other people’s movies (do go see Longlegs!) and the occasional snap of my Labrador.

“Havoc,” which wrapped production in October 2021, stars Tom Hardy, Forest Whitaker, Luis Guzman, and Timothy Olyphant. Evans is the filmmaker behind both ‘Raid’ films, 2018’s “Apostle” and the 2020 series “Gangs of London.” He’s well-known for his visceral and blood-soaked style of filmmaking.

There’s also been barely any details about the plot of “Havoc,” just a synopsis that was released before production began in July 2021.

After a drug deal goes awry, a detective must fight his way through a criminal underworld to rescue a politician's estranged son, while untangling his city's dark web of conspiracy and corruption.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/14512010

We've got something to sink your teeth into as the first-look images from The Radleys has landed.

Adapted from Matt Haig's novel of the same name, the movie stars Kelly Macdonald and Damian Lewis as parents Helen and Peter. They might seem normal on the surface, but they're hiding a dark secret from their children: they're vampires.

They're abstaining vampires who don't drink blood, but when their vegan daughter Clara (Bo Bragason) is attacked at school, it unlocks her bloodthirsty true self leading Clara and her brother Rowan (Harry Baxendale) to question their identity.

And when Peter's twin brother Will (also played by Lewis) arrives on the scene, showing off his proud, practicing vampire lifestyle, the entire family face a battle to hold back their hidden bloodlust.

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The Radleys will receive its world premiere at the upcoming Edinburgh International Film Festival on Tuesday, August 20.

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When filming started in June 2023, it was reported that The Radleys would be released on Sky Cinema in 2024 in the UK and Ireland. We don't yet have a confirmed release date for the movie though.

Kneecap is set in West Belfast in 2019. Fate brings together disillusioned music teacher JJ with self-confessed 'low life scum' Naoise and Liam Og, changing the sound of Irish music forever," the description continues. "Under the name Kneecap, their band begins moulding the language to fit their tough, anarchic, hedonistic lives. A language encumbered with forty words for stone now has one for stoned. But to get their voices heard the trio must overcome police, paramilitaries and politicians as the future of the Irish language erupts into the public arena - with them at the centre. Yet their worst enemies are often themselves, as family and relationship pressures threaten their dreams, and their illegal exploits draw condemnation from all sides.

IMDb

The first Irish-language film to premiere at Sundance.

Shah’s stature (he is just under 4ft 2in, or 126cm, according to Guinness World Records), combined with his fearlessness, have helped him find a niche in cinema that has led to an absurdly storied career, not to mention an MBE last month for his services to the film industry.

His favourite experience was working on Superman in 1977. He and his friend Milton Reid (a former wrestler) decided to visit Pinewood Studios one day, looking for work. The director, Richard Donner, showed them on to the Superman set and introduced them to Marlon Brando. “Marlon immediately picked me up and started dancing,” says Shah. “I don’t know why he did that. And I’m going: ‘Marlon, please put me down, I don’t like being picked up.’ He finally put me down and then in walked Reeve, and Donner went: ‘Christopher, I’ve found a stunt double for you!’ and pointed at me. The entire crew were bursting with laughter.”

Donner wasn’t joking, though. For the movie’s flying scenes, the effects team used an array of stunt doubles of different sizes, down to Shah, so they could realistically portray Superman flying through the back-projected cityscape at all distances. Thus, Shah found himself in the iconic Superman costume (and a Christopher Reeve mask), winched up high in the air on wires and swung around for several days with his fist extended in front of him. “It was really brilliant,” says Shah, smiling. “I felt like: ‘I am Superman now!’” He and Reeve got along well, he says. “I used to smoke cigarettes back then, and Christopher was not allowed to smoke. He would come to me and go,” he lowers his voice, “‘Kiran, have you got a cigarette? Let’s go and find a corner.’” It must have been quite a sight: 6ft 4in Reeve and Shah, both in their Superman costumes, sneaking a smoke like naughty schoolboys. “The tall one and the small one! Nobody took a photograph, luckily.”

The industry is used to stories about UK cinema­going being in decline since the pandemic and younger viewers finding other ways to spend their leisure time. But a number of independent exhibitors counter that narrative based on their own experiences. While none downplay the struggles that arthouse cinema releases still face at the UK box office, many also highlight reasons for optimism.

“We are seeing a flourishing of young cinephile audiences,” says Jake Garriock, director of publicity at leading UK arthouse distributor/exhibitor Curzon.

David Sin, head of cinemas at the Independent Cinema Office (ICO), echoes that view. “A number of the highest-grossing films in that [arthouse] space in the post-­pandemic era have been films that are aimed at a younger audience than traditional arthouse cinema,” he says, citing titles such as Decision To Leave, Triangle Of Sadness and “a slew of British independent films like Scrapper and Saint Maud, aimed primarily at millennial and Gen Z audiences”.

Sin believes UK arthouse distributors have been slanting their slates toward younger spectators, realising older audiences were initially reluctant post-Covid to come back to cinemas. Over the last two years, independent releases including Anatomy Of A Fall, La Chimera, Aftersun and The Zone Of Interest have played well with a younger demographic. More mainstream indie titles such as Saltburn and Challengers have played extremely well in university towns.

“This younger audience has replaced the more traditional arthouse audience as the core supporter of independent and arthouse cinemas in the UK,” Sin suggests.

This time last summer, British cinemas were holding their collective breath, looking forward to the biggest box office weekend of the year. “Barbenheimer” came to the rescue, with the doubleheader of blockbusters jointly chalking up an initial total of £30m when released in mid-July.

This summer is a different story. There may be no lucrative Barbie or Oppenheimer at hand, but the holiday months at the cinema look potentially more interesting, if not downright weird – at least when it comes to Sasquatch Sunset, this weekend’s new, grunting, wordless tale of mythical Bigfoot folk, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough.

As the impact of last year’s Hollywood talent strikes combines with streaming habits formed during Covid lockdowns, a window of opportunity has been created for film-makers’ wilder imaginings; for smaller-scale, arthouse fare. The franchise machine has slowed down and more original, risky features have slipped in. “I feel quite positive about the moment we’re in,” said Isabel Stevens, managing editor of the film magazine Sight and Sound, “although I do appreciate it’s still a very difficult for cinemas.”

So far, 2024 has seen a box office slump, but is being brightened by breakthrough independent productions that dodge commercial templates and are often in foreign languages (that aren’t Sasquatch). Prominent among them is Italian film La Chimera starring British actor Josh O’Connor. Out for over a month now, it is still drawing audiences and has taken over £700,000 at the British and Irish box office. Director Alice Rohrwacher’s film is pulling off a trick that big-budget title The Fall Guy could not manage: it has become a hit beyond its own ambitions. It must also be quite a surprise to Rohrwacher herself, since her last film, Happy as Lazzaro, brought in just a fifth of that.

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Phil Clapp, head of the UK Cinema Association, recently told Screen International that a “slightly thinner slate of the familiar franchises” had created an intriguing opportunity. “Stories that are something the audience hasn’t seen before, and makes them want to go back to the cinema, are vital for us,” he said.

In the relatively quiet period before the next action juggernauts trundle in, British cinephiles can celebrate the joys of a film such as Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days, the tale of a Tokyo toilet cleaner that has taken more than £1.3m in receipts. Or The Taste of Things, a quiet, kitchen-based French love story with Juliette Binoche, which took just under £700,000. And now there is the sentimental appeal of There’s Still Tomorrow, a black-and-white melo­drama that trounced Barbie at the box office in its native Italy and is distributed here by Vue Cinemas. It has taken more than £300,000.

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An early sign of a fresh thirst for originality came with the foreign-language hits of the latest award season, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, the latter made in German by British director Jonathan Glazer.

Charles Gant, box office editor at Screen International, points out that these apparently niche films are attracting a wide audience. Glazer’s film took £3.4m – a healthy figure in comparison with his 2013 cult horror film Under the Skin, despite that film’s A-list star, Scarlett Johansson. “When I watched the premiere of Zone of Interest in Cannes, I thought it was going to be a hard sell, but it went on to take quite a lot of money,” he said. “And you really have to see it in the cinema.”

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Still more heartening for Britain is the success of the homegrown films Aftersun, How to Have Sex, Rye Lane and All of Us Strangers, especially in the face of reports that UK independent production has been falling off a cliff. Only in February, Mike Goodridge, producer of the recent Palme d’Or-winning satire Triangle of Sadness, told BBC’s Today programme that it was “essentially on its knees”, with skilled actors and crews all working for big American companies.

Since then, the impact of enhanced tax reliefs for British productions has been felt. That is a measure that might encourage the kind of shake-up spelled out for the Oscar crowd in March by the award-winning screenwriter Cord Jefferson, when he pointedly called on film backers to think smaller. “Instead of making one $200m movie, try making 20 $10m movies. Or 50 $4m movies,” he urged.

As far as Gant can tell, there is no big shift in Hollywood as yet, where franchises still rule the roost. “But studios do now understand they need a mix. Just look at a surprise, smaller-scale hit like the romcom Anyone But You, which has cut through.”

British schoolchildren are taught that the last full-scale military engagement on their soil was the battle of Culloden in 1746. But this should change: on 18 June 1984 the battle of Orgreave, the subject of Daniel Gordon’s documentary, was the bitterest moment of the miners’ strike of 1984-85. It was the last stand for both sides, a brutal and chaotic confrontation of about 5,000 pickets determined not to let trucks get through to pick up coke for the Scunthorpe steelworks, versus about 6,000 police officers, some mounted, and armed with new shields and batons.

The police were effectively directed by Downing Street, which was determined that the force should not be overwhelmed by force of numbers as they had been during a comparable situation in the 1972 miners’ strike. A paramilitary strategy developed to suppress colonial disorder was deployed, laid out in a strategy document never shown to parliament.

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Gordon speaks to pickets who are still clearly traumatised by the events of Orgreave and by the strike in general. Perhaps therapy has never been on the cards for men of that generation and it could actually be that this film has been the first time that they have ever really spoken or thought deeply about the strike and its long term emotional effects. What emerges is the enduring bitterness that some felt towards those who returned to work; I flinched when one miner tells Gordon that his union-stalwart dad never forgave him for going back. When a reporter at the time asked whether he wouldn’t mind his son going to his funeral, he replies: “I’d rather go to his.”

Police officers recount being instructed by their seniors to fabricate witness statements. BBC reporter Nick Jones is interviewed, rueful about the way things went down. No Tories appear on camera, though, Sir John Redwood, who was director of No 10’s policy unit during the strike, is thanked in the credits.

This is a tough, valuable, forthright film about one of the nastiest, ugliest moments in postwar British history. Since 1985, the debate about fossil fuels has, of course, changed. But it is still staggering that a government planned wholesale mine closures with no thought for and no interest in what would happen to the communities affected.

• Strike: An Uncivil War screened at the Sheffield documentary festival on 16 June, and is in UK and Irish cinemas from 21 June.

Hollywood bigwigs have been called on to look north to stage their latest box office hits after the UK film industry was dealt another major blow recently as £750m plans for a new film studio in Buckinghamshire were quashed.

Already home to Pinewood and Shepperton studios, planners at Buckinghamshire Council rejected proposals for a 36-hectare production site despite being backed by the likes of Avatar director James Cameron and actor and filmmaker Andy Serkis.

In the aftermath of the decision West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin took to X (formerly Twitter) to call on film supremos to consider investing in Yorkshire instead of always defaulting to the South East.

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But while it appears the South might be falling out of love with Hollywood, the North is poised and ready to capitalise.

Last December work started on a film studio on the site of the former Littlewoods pools business in Liverpool, which when finished will create 40,000 sq ft of production space.

The recently approved Crown Works Studios in Sunderland, part-funded by the production company behind The Kardashians, will pave the way to create thousands of jobs across the north of England.

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The vast majority of the UK’s large-scale film studios – categorised by the British Film Commission as having at least one stage over 15,000 sq ft – are clustered around London, with production facilities in the south outnumbering the rest of the country 25 to five.

The financial implications of this are huge.

Every 100,000 sq ft of stage space contributes between £60m and £80m to the surrounding economy, according to a 2024 study commissioned by Hounslow Borough Council.

The sector has already added £2bn to West Yorkshire’s economy alone, and employs 50,000 local people.