Film Title: The British Guide to Showing Off

Director: Jes Benstock

Running Time: 92 mins 

Skip/ Watch/ Buy/ Devour: Buy

Reviewed By Alex Hutt

To be honest, beauty pageants are mostly an enormous bore, but Andrew Logan’s “Alternative Miss World” is exactly the opposite. Logan is an artist who, as this movie shows, has strong connections inside the London underground, art and queer scenes. In the “AMW”, women and men from around the world participate in the “competition” (Logan says himself in the film that it is pretty much just a big party) as extremely exaggerated versions of themselves. You never know who might win; one year a Russian lady in her 70s dubbed “Miss Pani Bronua” won, and in another a robot (Miss R.O.S.A.B.O.S.O.M) took the crown.

VIFF: Air (Short Program)

Skip/ Watch/ Buy/ Devour: Watch

Reviewed By Alex Hutt

As part of their Canadian Images series, VIFF put on four short programs titled Air, Fire, Water and Earth at this year’s festival. We have already looked at “Water” earlier and it was a passable collection of Canadian short films. “Air” fares much better, as each short had something to add.

 Film Title: Water (Short Film Program)

Reviewed By Alex Hutt

One part of a four part short program series (the companions are Air, Earth, and Fire), “Water” is a collection of short Canadian films that all have some sort of connection to water. Overall, the program was fairly good, but nothing to write home about. The most notable was “Wait For Rain” because of it’s charm and unique way of looking at monotonous office work.

Film Title: The Fairy (La Fee)

Director: Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel, Bruno Romy

Principle Cast: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy, Philippe Martz

Running Time: 94 Minutes

In French with English Subtitles

Skip/ Watch/ Buy/ Devour: Watch

Reviewed By Alex Hutt

One thing to note is that coming into the Belgian film The Fairy you have to dump cynicism and sarcasm, as the comedic romp begins. If you are looking for any sense to appear in the film and that bothers you, then you are looking at it in the wrong way, for it revels in its nonsense.

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Film Title: Sufferrosa

Director: Dawid Marcinkowski

Principle Cast: Ryszard Ronczewski, Beata Tyszkiewicz, John Edmonson, Ewa Szykulska, Maciej Kozlowski

Running Time: Varies (approx. 40 minutes)

Reviewed By Alex Hutt

This review isn’t going to be rated, since this is not your usual film and it will be experienced differently by each person, especially since you are controlling what happens in the film.

The backdrop behind Dawid Marcinkowski’s project Sufferrosa is a detective story in a neo-noir setting; Ivan Johnson is sent to find a missing woman who travelled to a clinic that offers controversial rejuvenations treatments. He must unravel the awful truth behind the surgeries and find the missing Rosa before he himself is consumed.

Film Title: When There’s Hope, There’s Fire (Short Program)

Reviewed By Alex Hutt

Apart from Jesus Was A Commie, this was a satisfying bunch of shorts that reminded us that even in bleak times there is always some bit of hope.