CALLING ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS – DOCUMENT LONDON!

Do you have a great photograph of London? Do you want it to be seen in print and on-line to a global audience? Do you want to provide the poster image or programme cover for the UK’s largest documentary film festival, and win yourself a great Canon camera?

The winning entry will be an outstanding photograph of London. All subject matter is suitable. Your photograph may be a cityscape, a crowd scene, a portrait of an individual, a building, a detail. The brief is open. Your eye and your imagination are what count.

Prizes

1st Prize: Your image to be the poster of the LIDF 2012. Plus, a Canon EOS 1100D (or cash equivalent).

1st Prize (Student Category 16-26 years) Your image to be the programme cover of the LIDF 2012. Plus, a Canon EOS 1100D (or cash equivalent).

2nd Prize: To be one of 3 holding images used on-screen before and after every screening at the LIDF and included in the festival programme. Plus, a Canon Powershot SX150 IS.

10 Runners-up will have their photographs published on the festival website

All winning entries will be published on the LIDF website with full credits, each winning entrant will receive a LIDF2012 festival pass, and invitations to the Festival Opening and Closing Galas.

The judging panel includes:
Kate Edwards (Picture Editor, Guardian Weekend Magazine)
Nick Cunard (Owner at Nick Cunard: Stills Moving, partner at CHI-photo, and contributor at Eyevine.
Frede Spencer (Founder of the Twenty Twenty Agency)

How to Enter

The LIDF Photography competition is open to anyone and to all ages and consists of two categories: general and student (16-26 years).
The competition is open to all nationalities.
Your photographs may have been taken at anytime between 31st January 2007 and 31st January 2012.
Complete the on-line entry form, pay the £7.00 entry fee, and submit up to 10 photos.
Deadline for entry is 31st January 2012

Official Entry Form

Frequently Asked Questions

Entry Regulations

Many thanks to all who have taken part in this year’s festival. From the filmmakers, panel contributors, venues, sponsors and of course the audience of whom we have seen record numbers this year.

The 2011 programme has been of an exceptionally high standard, truly reflecting the great work being done in the documentary field across the globe. After long deliberation the awards have gone to:

Audience Award – to be announced on Friday 3rd June

Best Campaign Film
Our Generation; director, Sinem Saban; Australia

Best Short Film
Special Mention
One Day in Smara; director, Fany de la Chica; Spain
Martin the Ghost; director, Aslak Danbolt; Norway
Vertical City; director, Avijit Mukul Kishore; India

Winner
Undertow Eyes; director, Petra Costa; Brazil

Best Film
Special Mention
I was Worth 50 Sheep; director, Nima Sarvestani; Sweden
In the Garden of Sounds; director, Nicola Bellucci; Italy

Winner
Grandma, A Thousand Times; director, Mahmoud Kaabour; UAE, Qatar, Lebanon

LIDF has partnered with Ricker Restaurants to make sure your conversation about film does not end in the cinema. 

Great Eastern Dining Rooms and Cicada will give LIDF ticket-holders offers on cocktails, dinners and group bookings during the festival*. All you have to do is show a valid ticket for any of the events during the two week festival and you are eligible for a discount. So after seeing a film, make sure to head over to one of these restaurants to discuss, debate and enjoy a nice drink or two. 

GREAT EASTERN DINING ROOMS

Great Eastern Dining Room is one of London’s trendiest restaurants and bars situated in the highly fashionable area of Hoxton. It is a fabulous looking venue with a modern, minimalist style, serving top notch pan-Asian food. 

54 – 56 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3QR 
Tel. +44 20 7613 4545

CICADA 

Cicada, the first of the Ricker restaurants, which has been open since 1996, is near to Smithfields Market in Clerkenwell. The restaurant, bar and private dining room have all been recently refurbished. The mix of strong design, fun and consistently inexpensive pan-Asian food make it a winner all round.
 
132 – 136 St. John Street, London, EC1V 4JT 
Tel. +44 20 7608 1550 

*Offer valid for LIDF ticket holders/ members.offer refers to house cocktail only and is subject to availability & change.

Last night saw the World Premier of BENEATH THE SKY at Europe House with the director and the presence Bosnian Ambassador, while we screened the UK Premiere of Elisa Mantin’s IN THE SHADOWS OF DEATH at the Courthouse cinema to an appreciative audience. The top-notch panel following the film about Roberto Saviano resulted in a long debate that when on for many hours after leaving the cinema.

Today, there is a second chance to see both films.

BENEATH THE SKY is playing in a double-bill with FULL DISCLOSURE at the Frontline Club. Both director’s will be present.

IN THE SHADOWS OF DEATH is again at the Courthouse Hotel Cinema followed by another fascinating panel line-up.
Annalisa Piras (Chair) Media Strategy Advisor. Writer, broadcaster, freelance commentator on 
EU and Italian Current Affairs. TV producer with 20 years experience 
in International Journalism, print and broadcast, and President of the Foreign Press Association in London.
Federico Ippoliti. 
Expert on organized crime from Circolo Radio Londra of the London 
group of the Italian party Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà (Left Ecology
and Freedom, SEL). Christopher Duggan
. Professor of Italian History, University of Reading. Director of 
Centre for Modern Italian History. He has written and researched 
extensively on many aspects of modern Italian history.
Gaia Servadio. 
Expert on the mafia. Author of “A Profile of a Mafia Boss”, “Mafioso: A
 History of the Mafia as a social phenomenon”. 
Vice-President Foreign Press Association, London from 1989 to 1994. As a journalist has worked as the London correspondent for La Stampa, 
l’Espresso, l’Europeo, Art correspondent for Il Corriere della sera; 
in the UK, amongst others, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Times, 
The Independent, The Telegraph group. TV documentaries: On the Mafia
 (Murder by Neglect BBC1) and Alcamo, the Mafia mentality BBC 2.

Book early and on-line for either event.

‘Poets’ opens with two mysterious men sporting interesting moustaches, clad in long black coats and Panama hats, hovering over Gregory Corso’s grave while reciting his poetry. ‘Excellent,’ I think, ‘right up my street’.

This film is a dream-like, sepia-tinted, nostalgic homage to the Beat Generation in both America and Italy, where poetry festivals sprung up on beaches and hundreds cheered (or jeered) the vibrant performance poets as they feverishly screamed into microphones, tore off their clothes and exclaimed things like “Philosophers! The title of this poem is Fuck Off!”.
It is also a film that seeks to find out what has changed since that frequently romanticised period, and what purpose poetry can serve now.

‘Things have become more organised,’ explains one contemporary Roman poet, ‘they’re not so spontaneous.’ He laughs, ‘what we need is a sex and poetry rave party!’

Through interviews with modern poets, recitations, much graveyard wondering and beautiful old footage, our two poetic protagonists show us that poetry is still flourishing under the surface of popular culture in Italy, even if it is being written on mobile phones or MacBooks. And it asks how we can bring poetry to what it once was, out in the open and reaching vast audiences worldwide.

Nostalgic, hopeful, poignant, prospective and inspiring, ‘Poets’ is a wonderful film, filled with exerts from fantastic poems whose authors and words will forever remain within a certain arena of public consciousness, contrary to Keats’ famous grave inscription.

Today’s film, shown in association with Brightwide, whose slogan ‘Watch Think Link Act’ echos LIDF’s commitment to filmmaking for social change, is a paradigm  for both party’s belief that film, through bringing about awareness, has the power to alter society.

Human Organ Traffic asks a number of questions for which there are no simple answers: ‘If it was a question of life or death for you or a loved one, would you be willing to pay to attain an organ illegally?’, ‘should organ donation in living donors be made legal everywhere, even if the donors are most likely doing it as a result of extreme poverty and desperation?’

In an attempt to shed more light on these questions the director of H.O.T sought to document the experiences of the donors, from Brazil to Nepal, all of whom are deeply impoverished.
We also meet the middle agents who take a cash cut from the operation by putting the potential patients in touch with the right people.
The experiences were as varied as they were fascinating. From donors who felt it was worth doing on account of the large sum of money they received, to others who were conned out of any money at all, to the truly shocking disclosure that 95% of all organ donations in China are from executed prisoners, of which the money paid for them goes to the government.
Organ trafficking, it seems, is big business, and the only ones who appear to loose out in this global trade are the donors.

The enlightening panel after the film gave us an insight into the mind of a surgeon, who performs hundreds of transplants a year, and the director of the National Kidney Foundation, both of whom tackled the debates surrounding the ‘Opt- Out’ donation scheme being proposed by the government, and the severe complications, including the death of the donors, that these illegal operations can cause.

H.O.T is a call to arms for all those who get to watch this great documentary, but I’m yet still unsure what side is best to join.

1. How did you meet Dan Perjovschi and what did you aim to capture in your film about him?

I met Dan in Paris while he was at the Récollets and I was attending the Ateliers Varan. I wanted to make a film about the relationship between the contemporary art scene and society, and I felt Dan and his art to be a paradigm of the critical sense applied to these systems.

When I first began to discover his creative process I thought we could collaborate on two different “rough materials”. He was working on the level of information (press, internet etc), and I would develop the narration through his actions, and at the same time I could work upon the level of the common reality that surrounds us, with some intersections that interrupted the narration.

In the space of the film we could somehow return the man to the centre of things, at least in the imaginary axis of the sight. I think that this was our central point of contact.

2. I love the way you mirror Dan’s interest in the little things that often get over looked, the beauty in the tiny details, through your patient way of filming. For example, lingering on the way a person walks or drinks, that captures their character beautifully. Did you find on being with Dan, that you were looking at things around you in a different way?

Dan’s interest is beyond the things themselves. For example when you see him looking around, you could never know what he is really looking at. That’s why when you compose the frame around what he sees, this frame should be introducing a question. Because the amazing thing happening there, is not in front of his eyes but behind them.

We each see the reality around us in different ways. Dan revels the inner paradox of human systems. Regarding this film, I desired to practice a gesture of empathy.

3. How does Dan see your film? As an extension of his art, the creation of an entirely new piece of art, or as something very different altogether?

Dan really accepted my film happening, without any control and I deeply appreciated this.

4. If you could pick anyone, what other artist would you most like to make a film about?

I would never make a film ‘about’ anyone, it would be impossible. I would make a film ‘with’ someone.

It was refreshing to sit in the reclaimed Horse Hospital building in Bloomsbury last night and enjoy some UK shorts. As Festival Director Patrick Hazard explained, there sadly haven’t been enough UK features to dominate at our venues, but there are an abundance of exciting short pieces. The films were all between five and twenty minutes long, meaning the evening was fantastically varied and stimulating.

Part 1 of this evening started with the unlisted, quirky and timely ‘Credit Crunch’, which featured individuals giving sound bytes about their most personal possession, their purse, with stories entertaining and touching forming along the way, despite the owners of the purses not being pictured. James Newton’s ‘The Space You Leave’ (2009) was even more affecting, telling the personal stories of mothers and fathers and their families left in a limbo of unknowing when their children, in this case their sons, disappear without trace.  Neither of the mothers, expressing their feelings of loss, could bear to look at the camera, although Tim Reilly, whose son has been missing for far longer, and whom was featured in another documentary last year, could look at us directly and imploringly and enquire about his son. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight’s film and Q+A at the Tate Modern was the result of a wonderful collaboration between creative disciplines.

I found the film, and Perjovschi, to be insightful, funny and clever, and it encouraged me to ponder what the relationship between filmmaker and artist was in such a context. Does the film grow from the artist and their perspective? Or was the representation of the artist more a product of the filmmaker?

Luckily for me, Dan and his interviewer, Tate curator Maeve Polkinhorn, executed an extremely eloquent and interesting Q+A after the screening.

We learnt that Perjovschi, originally a classically trained painter from Romania, finished his degree at what he refers to as ‘the worst time during the communist regime’, subsequently feeling that just when he wanted to express himself most, he was unable to. He told us how he was forced ‘underground’, at one time covering the entire inside of his house in white paper in order to have a secret canvas.

His new simplistic graffiti-style drawings grew out of the enormous excitement he felt when the regime finally fell: “It is a celebration of the ability to express myself freely,” he explains, “It’s a speedy and mobile response to the outside world. And I like to talk, to communicate, and finally every wall had it’s possibilities”.

He came across as  modest and intelligent, showing a deep love for what he does, “ I feel as though I power the white walls to make them active, most walls in galleries and museums are dead, they do not embrace change”.

On his relationship to the film’s director, Anna Marziano, who unfortunately couldn’t join us due to being in Saudi Arabia filming, he was tender and appreciative, explaining how she had helped him to look at himself in the context of the wider world: “I’m selfish in what I take from the world” he said,  ”taking things just for my art, Anna takes in more of the details”.

A real 25 minute gem of a movie, and an intriguing meeting of minds.

Tonight’s film, at the Rich Mix in East London, was certainly provocative.

We Don’t Care About Music Anyway is a weird, beautiful, interesting and LOUD film documenting a movement of young people in Japan who are ‘fighting against the social norms’ and trying to express themselves through the language of noise.

Their ‘instruments’ are the everyday sounds of the city; bits of junk, their own bodies, broken record players, electrical static. They take sanders to cellos, causing orange sparks to fly hypnotically into the audience, and continue until the screeching sound becomes too overwhelming. They record traffic, electronic frequencies, rubbish trucks crunching metal, anything that buzzes, hums or shrieks unpleasantly is moulded into a explosive cacophony of noise.

“Japan has a poor notion of happiness,” one ‘musician’ explains, “it is ‘happiness in a box’- as if you can buy it in a shop”.

This is what advocates of this burgeoning underground scene are railing against; the control, uniformity and restriction they feel has come to define modern day Japan.

The images of Tokyo certainly are reminiscent of Blade Runner, in contrast the musical interludes were shattering, bizarre and at times quite horrifically unpleasant on the eardrums, but somehow fascinating and beautiful in their truthfulness.

“We are trying to take our surroundings, and make something new out of them…to deny Modernism, while living in modernity”.

I found the film to be highly thought-provoking and original, and much of the audience seemed to agree with me, “I feel a bit like my ears have been assaulted, but in a good way” one man, grinning, tells me after the film finishes.

However, about one third of the audience seemed to disagree, and left during the screening. “That was horrible, so loud! Awful music, didn’t like it at all” I overheard one girl say to her friend as they left.

We Don’t Care about Music Anyway is definitely a bizarre, fascinating, unique, horrific and funny film that is about as far away from mainstream cinema as you can get, much too far, it seems, for some.