East End Film Festival 2014

Unlucky for some but certainly not for East End Film Festival,  one of the UK’s largest independent film festivals saw itself swinging back into action after last year’s funding cuts thanks to its passionate battalion of supporters and fans to propel it into its thirteenth edition. Plus kicking off on the 13 June for 13 days, these guys clearly aren’t ones to subscribe to superstition.

With another programme of shorts, features, documentaries, pop-up screenings, talks and events, East End Film Festival is here with vengeance.

In typical film festival preview style, EEFF in stats boasts 15 world premieres, eight European premieres, 25 UK premieres and 15 London premieres but with so many screenings to choose from, we pick out some of our highlights.

Bookended with gala screenings, the festival opens with a world premiere of Demaphoria, London filmmaker, DJ and co-founder of Lovebox, Ross Clarke presents his directorial feature debut following an experimental chemist who finds himself in a New Orleans jail accused of arson and drug charges. Closing night sees Clive Owen, Marion Cotillard and Mila Kunis star in the UK premiere of Guillaume Canet’s Blood Ties, as two brothers face off over organised crime in 1970s Brooklyn in addition to The Blueblack Hussar, Jack Bond’s documentary of Adam Ant’s 2011 comeback. Oh, and Adam Ant will also be performing.

With football on everyone’s minds, it’s understandable it would make it into the EEFF programme. See the UK premiere of Yann Gonzalez’ You and The Night starring Eric Cantona, who will be in attendance, and The Second Game which sees the Romanian filmmaker and his father re-watch a classic match from 1988 in which his father was referee.

Closer to home, we follow the exploits of a British writer in Bucharest in A Very Unsettled Summer, watch as Afghan teenagers make the move to the UK as refugees in Leave to Remain and opportunist criminals during the Olympics in 2012’s EEFF Audience Award winner Mitch Panayis’ Hot Wings. Even closer to home, take a monochrome tour of Soho and its inhabitants in Soho Cigarette or join a cops-and-drug-dealers face off in riotous comedy thriller, Hackney’s Finest.

Ragnar Bragason introduces us to the world of heavy metal fanatics in Metalhead while Alejandro Jodorowsky presents the London premiere of The Dance of Reality, charting his own life. Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams gets chance to show us some smiles for a change with James Nesbitt in Niall Heery’s Gold. Modern-day renaissance man James Franco’s story Palo Alto receives its London premiere as the class virgin begins an illicit affair with her high school soccer coach – James Franco…

Following his Best Feature Award win last year, Mexican director Sebastian Hoffman returns as Director-in-Residence to co-curate EEFF’s Mexican focus including a world premiere of Summum Bonum, thriller Potosi and Gael Garcia Bernal’s Who is Dayani Cristal?

Headline documentaries this year look set to be Stop at Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story, One Rogue Reporter which sees ex-Daily Star journo and Leveson Inquiry witness Rich Peppiatt get up to mischief with former employees in a searing expose while there will be sex-tinged environmental activism (a sentence we never thought we’d read) in Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story.

Add this to more film, industry events, sonic screenings and even some free improvised jazz thrown in there for good measure, thirteen days is certainly not unlucky and more likely not enough.

East End Film Festival takes place at various venues across London from 13-25 June.

Browse the full East End Film Festival programme here.