Your choice

We’d like to invite you to vote for what you would like to see at the forthcoming festival. After all, it’s there for you to enjoy. We’ll screen the most popular film requested, so get your memory working and submit your requests to:

info@holmfirthfilmfestival.co.uk

To get you thinking, here are some of our favorite films:

Stephen’s top 10

  1. Badlands (US: Terence Malik, 1973)
  2. Come and See (USSR: Elem Klimov, 1985)
  3. My Darling Clementine (US: John Ford, 1946)
  4. The Return (Russia: Andrei Zvyagintov, 2003)
  5. The Long Goodbye (US: Robert Altman, 1973)
  6. Ugetsu Monogatari (Japan: Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
  7. Build My Gallows High (Out of the Past) (US: Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
  8. Mirror (USSR: Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
  9. Chimes at Midnight (US: Orson Welles, 1965)
  10. The Colour of Pomegranates (Georgia/Armenia: Serge Paradjanov, 1968)

Stephen Dorril
Chair: Holmfirth Film Festival
Course Leader: Film Journalism, Huddersfield University

Catrin’s top 10

  1. Wool, 100%
  2. Anything (apart from Happiness) with Phillip Seymour Hoffman. -  Love Liza or Punch Drunk Love
  3. How to be – showing in festivals now
  4. Anything by Michel Gondry, maybe his collection of music videos. Here’s a little ditty…
  5. The Three Colours trilogy
  6. Anything with Gael Garcia Bernal in! Ahhh. Hee hee! Amores Perros.
  7. City of God
  8. Coffee and Cigarettes
  9. A Scanner Darkly
  10. Dogville – bit of a trek through, but interesting – all filmed on a stage.
  11. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg? Apparently it’s good.
  12. Apparently a lot of people like The Straight Story, but I hated it.

 

Owen’s top 10

  1. Lawrence of Arabia
    (David Lean, 1962)
    In terms of cinematographic spectacle, I can think of little that comes close to this epic. A stunningly shot film that everyone should see at least once, depicting the life of TE Lawrence, and particularly his role liaising between the British and the Arabs during the Arab Revolt shortly after WW1.
  2. Dr Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
    Possibly the most gleefully horrific piece of satire committed to film, Dr. Strangelove is Kubrick’s suberb lampoon of the Cold War MAD philosophy, thoroughly brought to life with the genius of Peter Sellers acting three major roles.
  3. Withnail and I
    (Bruce Robinson, 1987)
    George Harrison acted as Executive Producer for this infinitely quotable comedy of two failed actors in 1960s London who “go on holiday by mistake”. After a lukewarm box office reception, the film gained cult status in subsequent years.
  4. Easy Rider
    (Dennis Hopper, 1969)
    Another cult satire, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper attempt to cross the US on Harley Davidson motorcycles in a doomed effort to discover America, the alleged land of the free. Largely improvised and unscripted, it’s the stunning soundtrack of late sixties psychedelia that gives this film its roots.
  5. The Last Waltz
    (Martin Scorsese, 1979)
    Scorsese’s record of the last ever concert by The Band is a truly phenomenal experience for fans of blues/country/folk/rock circa 1967-79. Collected on the same stage, together with The Band, are the likes of Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Niel Young, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, The Staple Singers, Van Morrison, Paul Butterfield, and Ronnie Hawkins.
  6. Full Metal Jacket
    (Stanley Kubrick, 1987)
    Kubrick’s take on the Vietnam War film genre highlights the usual paradoxes and exploitation of the human mind-turned-into-machine by rigorous military brainwashing – on this occasion by the US Army Marine Corps. Despite the familiar territory, the film is not without its amusing touches and Kubrick manages to give it his own oddball uniqueness without resorting to his talent of creating something unwatchable.
  7. Scott of the Antarctic
    (Charles Frend, 1948)
    As far as I can remember, this is the only film to have ever made me cry. I was about 8 or 9 years old, and the tale of Capt. Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed attempt to lead the first expedition to the South Pole using a combined force of ignorance, blind stupidity and good old British pluck was enough to overwhelm me. It still amazes me the national talent we have to create the “Dunkirk Effect” – teasing an heroic victory from what is in reality an abject failure.
  8. Quadrophenia
    (Frank Roddam, 1979)
    Noisy, brash, gritty and featuring a subject matter everyone who has been a teenager can relate to. Combine this with a stunning soundtrack, and surprising appearances from Sting and Toyah Wilcox, and the result is pure Rock ‘n’ Roll in film. The Who’s film depicts the brutal clashes between Mods and Rockers that plagued English seaside towns in the late sixties, and the pressure of youth to conform.
  9. Alice’s Restaurant
    (Arthur Penn, 1969)
    The quirky tale of Woody Guthrie’s son, Arlo (who plays himself) as he attempts to avoid the Vietnam draft. A mixture of comedy and tragedy, the film explores the recurring themes of the era, free love, drugs, segregation and social acceptance, as well as friendship and loss, and of course the controversial Vietnam War.
  10. Band of Brothers
    (2001)
    Not strictly a film, but a 10 part series featuring an all star cast and a number of reputed directors. Band of Brothers catalogues the role of the 101st Airborne Division in the battle for Normandy from D-day, and onwards across Europe towards the end of WW2. The series is both harrowing and heartwarming in equal measures – depicting the grit and realism of battle, the suffering and loss of the protagonists, together with their heroism, comradeship and compassion. Each hour-long episode is flanked by interviews with veterans. Thoroughly powerful stuff.

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