Round-up

Got back from Edinburgh a week ago and somehow didn't quite get round to blogging the last three films I saw, on the Saturday. First up was "The New Ten Commandments", a series of short films by a number of Scottish directors about human rights, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. As you'd expect with ten different films by ten directors, they were a mixed bag, although all powerful in the own way. Hopefully it'll be shown on BBC in December.

Next up, "Encounters at the End of the World", a documentary by Werner Herzog about the people who live and work at Antarctica. It was funny, insightful, and moving. Well worth seeing.

Finally, "Faintheart", directed by Vito Rocco, a film made through Myspace, although the talk I went to the previous day by the Faintheart people showed that in fact there was minimal input from the Myspace community, and what input there was, was tightly controlled. The film itself was notable only for the "My Movie Mashup" thing really - it was a fairly traditional Britcom, predictable, funny in places, very funny in others, but ultimately nothing really new. Sweet, fun to watch, but no more.

So, it was an OK film day, but nothing knocked "Man on Wire" off my own personal topspot. It also won the Audience Award, and Somers Town won the Michael Powell Award. On the whole, EIFF turned out to be OK but no more than that - apparently the box office was as good, and the number of delegates registering was the same as previous years, but there just wasn't a festival feel about the place, and the selection of films was not as inspiring as it has been. The best bits, for me, were the readings and the panel at the Traverse - which wasn't actually film at all, really.

And in other news, B and I did Race for Life today - not exactly racing, but never mind, we finished and got one of these:

And it's not too late to sponsor me if you meant to and didn't quite get round to it - just click on the link in the box to the right. Thank you!!