Phil Peel

At  the Awards ceremony at Thurrock International Film Festival,  Buon Giorno Sayonara won Best International Film, Best Director and Best In Show.

Thomas Kadman, Karen Hope and Junichi Kajioka celebrating.  Well done guys.

UPDATE:  now 11th Festival. Ruby Mountain Film Festival 2011, in Elko Nevada, USA.

Sorry if this is becoming a bit repetitive, but Karen Hope just emailed me to say that our film BGS has just been also accepted into DC Shorts Film Festival in Washington, apparently one of the best short film festivals in the USA!! (see website: http://www.dcshorts.com/)

Now it’s in the 13th Festival … Hyart Film Festival in Wyoming, from August 11th – 13th.

http://www.philpeel.com/2010/08/first-day-of-filming/

A beautifully paced film directed with great assurance by Ryan Redford, about a lonely war veteran,  who 7 years after the war arrives at the family home of a fellow soldier. He’s been brain damaged, still carries his bayonet, has the crude behaviour of the the squaddie   and has still not recovered from the experience of killing. The  juxtaposition of this with  the family home life and the innocence of the sleeping children and caring mother creates an almost unbearable tension as you expect the worst to happen.  The acting is superb.

Through I feared this would all turn into extreme violence, but this accomplished feature does not go where you expect.    One to watch

Early morning breakfast on the first day of the Edinburgh festival for Ken, Graham and myself was a croissant and a coffee, gulped down en route to the delegates centre in order to catch the first film at 9am. This was the delightful Borrower Arriety, which was a beautiful Japanese animation adaptation of the English classic The Borrowers. Though I thought the music was overpoweringly sentimental at times, it was beautifully crafted, with excellent sound design. One scene had a contrived conversation on endangered species which spoilt the otherwise tight narrative