Let the Mayhem Begin...

Let me begin with this statement: there’s no business like the movies.

You see people put their hard earned money down to invest in something someone else has created and you hope to get something back. That’s the position shared by investors and moviegoers alike. A name you recognise or a promotional presentation may sway your decision to part with the money but at the end of the day it’s your money putting someone else’s vision up on screen.

In recent times, independent filmmakers have found it more difficult to get funds for their projects unless they go low budget or promise big returns – one challenges them artistically and the other is a lie whichever way it’s sold. No film can guarantee big returns in today’s climate.

The star system has been realigned and A-list names don’t pull in the audiences like they used to, and popcorn flicks don’t sell any confectionary let alone seats. Big box office disasters are cited as bringing in the death of cinema while children’s films endure as financially stable franchises and big-screen adaptations even when not receiving the highest of ratings (Hugo, Top Cat). Harry Potter had succeeded in bringing children of a younger age once again to the darkened halls that sell dreams. And they wanted more. Even Tim Burton has moved from the gothic macabre to the ‘dark family’ comedy targeted at a younger audience (Dark Shadows, Frankenweenie).

The children who saw their first Harry Potter film when it came out evolved into teenagers who wanted superhero films with heart as well as explosions and a love story. The Avengers crossed the billion dollar mark as did Avatar, both screened in 3D and were considered by many reviews a triumph of style over substance. Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy broke new ground as a Batman for adults set in a very dark world that would give your children nightmares.

Horror films transitioned to torture porn to descents into darkness that were an allegory on a country’s political situation or flicks with kids who were either scary or scared. Genre boundaries have certainly been moved.

One of the best things about the movies is that they cater to everybody. Whoever you are, there’s a film for you. In the prime of your life and in love? They have something for you. Want to experience the horror of war without opening a newspaper? Covered. Reaching the golden age and want to inject some youth into your life and see people of the same age bracket behaving badly but come out good in the end? That’s a whole new profitable segment for the industry.

Films get pigeon-holed into genres and types, sometimes even by budget. Low budget thriller, big budget blockbuster and no budget horror are always films which have people ready to give them a chance. But a zero budget comedy? That’s not funny. So even the categories are a little twisted because films, like people, don’t fit neatly into boxes that represent them.

And there are always movies which are independent. Ones that stand out from the crowd, have got made outside the studio system and deserve our attention but you may miss them because they never get the benefit of the massive marketing machine that accompanies a cinema release. Nearly every cinema release is reviewed in national press but not every DVD/Bluray/Digital release. What of those that go straight to DVD? Well if the film has a name, a good distributor or something that screams news then it has a chance.

So we may not be getting the full picture where talent and films are concerned because we’re missing a whole pile of movies that get made and don’t get the release they deserve.

This is one of the reasons I love Raindance.

They often shout about having been the first to screen ‘Who’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’ in Europe or ‘The Blair Witch Project’ in the UK but it’s what they screen and don’t go onto cult status that have a more lasting impact.

I’ve been attending the Raindance Film Festival for a good number of years and increasingly meet people who recall obscure films they saw at the festival and are trying to hunt down. Some of them are features, others are shorts and documentaries, and these film fans will pay top dollar for a copy of the movie that had an impact on them at the festival. I’ve met someone who obsessed over Corey Feldman for years then near-collapsed when they met him at Raindance’s screening of ‘The Birthday’ a few years back – an unusual film which went on to gain its own cult following despite never crossing over to a mainstream release. I’ve seen Gareth Edwards (Raindance-trained and director of low budget hit ‘Monsters’) interview the director of Sundance hit Another Earth at the opening of the festival last year, only to overtake him this year in terms of frenzy through screening a teaser of his new Godzilla film at San Diego Comic Con and becoming tipped for great things once again after effectively being “taken off the shelf” for a while.

This year’s festival opens tonight with the fresh hit from Toronto ‘Here Comes the Devil’. The next ten days sees the best of the independent filmmaking community and beyond descend to the heart of London to walk into a darkened room in Piccadilly Circus to catch a film they may not ever get the chance to see again.

This year, as always, there are names attached to some projects – Jeremy Irons, Chuck Palahniuk, Jennifer Lopez, Daisy Lowe, Juliet Landau etc some of which have already stated they’ll be attending Raindance to see their work premiere to an audience that is open to cinema that’s reflects all that’s on offer rather than the choice menu served up that’s decided heavily by a marketing campaign.

Let the mayhem begin.

The 20^th Raindance Film Festival begins tonight at 6pm and runs til October 7.

For more information visit www.raindance.org and watch this space for updates on films we’re seeing.