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IN LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS, Fini Straubinger makes her first ever journey on a plane, a birthday gift from Werner Herzog, who’s making a documentary about her life. She’s deaf and blind and the unfamiliar motion of flight causes her to break out smiling, a rare moment of genuine euphoria captured on camera. This might be what Herzog means when he says he’s searching in cinema for an ecstatic truth, something mysterious and elusive that can only be reached by an exacting mixture of imagination and technique.

Herzog was fourteen when he de-cided he was going to be a filmmaker. At nineteen, he travelled from Egypt to Sudan on foot, getting sick with fever and narrowly escaping death. A few years later he worked smuggling goods across the Mexican border

after having to leave the US for visa violation. Herzog’s fifty-plus films seem to have a dissatisfaction with western civilisation at their centre, something mirrored in his life story. He’s filmed all over the world. The Saharan desert is the backdrop for his psychedelic images of mirages in Fata Morgana. In Wings of Hope, he brought Juliane Koepcke back to the Peruvian jungle where she’d survived a plane crash as a child. Rescue Dawn, based on a true story about a pilot shot down during the Vietnam War, saw Christian Bale tramping through Thai forests and eat-ing raw snakes for authenticity.

Back home in Germany, the director’s work has focused on the marginalised, the outsider. He lifted Bruno S. off the streets to play Kaspar Hauser, a man who’s grown up devoid of human contact. In Stroszek, the ill-fated actor

returned as himself, a street performer who’s spent his life in and out of insti-tutions, bullied and abused. Herzog’s remake of Nosferatu is eerily amoral, with vampire and victims equally sad and hopeless, culture and progress rolling over as soon as the monster bares his fangs.

It makes sense that the Bavarian should end up making films in America, probing the surfaces of western gran-deur from the inside. Into the Abyss includes interviews with two men convicted of homicide in Texas. One of them, Michael Perry, is on death row. The film doesn’t focus on his guilt or in-nocence but simply allows him to talk. Just like when he recorded Straubinger, Herzog wants to show us people at the edges of society and find out what they can tell us about its core.SCREENING 24 FEB AT GFT

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WHAT’S INSIDE?2 — TODAY’S PICKS

What’s happening at GFF today

2 — FEATURE: FRIGHTFESTWe take a special look at this fest within a fest

3 — REVIEWSBill Cunningham New York ★★★★

The Somnambulists ★★

Jeff Who Lives at Home ★★★★

4 — WHAT’S NEW ONLINEThe latest news, comments and pictures from the festival

4 — COMPETITIONWin tickets to see Mesnak by answering one simple question

GFF BOX OFFICE

Order tickets from the box office atglasgowfilm.org/festivalor call0141 332 6535or visitGlasgow Film Theatre12 Rose Street, Glasgow, G3 6RB

Produced by The Skinny magazine in association with the Glasgow Film Festival

EditorDesignerSubeditors

Jamie DunnSean AndersonBecky BartlettDavid McGinty

The CineSkinny profiles filmmaking genius WERNER HERZOG, whose new documentary INTO THE ABYSS plays at the festival

GFF’S BEST FIEND

WORDS: HELEN WRIGHT

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NATURAL SELECTION22.30 @ GFTThis debut feature from writer/director Robbie Pickering is an offbeat combi-nation of road movie and comedy that won Best Narrative Feature and the Audience Award at SXSW.

THE OTHER F WORD18.45 @ CCAPunk fans will enjoy this alternative look at some of the genre’s finest frontmen, including Fat Mike (NOFX) and Jim Lindberg (Pennywise), as they embrace parental responsibility.

Be the star in your own movie

Let Stow College play a supporting role T: 0844 249 8585

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CREATIVE INDUSTRIESSCIENCE, HEALTH & CAREENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGYBUSINESS & CONTINUING EDUCATION

TODAY’SPICKSFRIDAY 24 THE HORROR

The CineSkinny pays tribute to GFF’s annual crimson splattered crescendo, the mighty FRIGHTFEST, and its much maligned gorehounds who make the Scottish horror scene so special

UP THERE

THE OTHER F WORD

DREILEBEN

WORDS: JAMES KLODA

NATURAL SELECTION

CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL13.30 @ GFTThis documentary is a must-see for fans of Roger Corman, the hugely prolific low-budget director best known for his 50s sci-fi, Poe adaptations and counter-culture films.

UP THERE20.15 @ GFTDirector Zam Salim will be attending this screening of his feature debut set in the afterlife. Producer Annalise Davis will also be in attendance.

BE AFRAID. It’s that time of year again. Where the proverbial gorehound is let loose – maw thirsty for blood – upon the plasma-drenched offerings hanging in the delicious abattoir that constitutes FrightFest. Now in its seventh year, nestled in the bosom of the Glasgow Film Festival programme, it provides a climax of subversion to the main affair: as most festivals begin to wind down save for a final gala screening, here a whole new audience descend upon the GFT, packing out its largest cinema to be treated to ten UK premieres and a host of ghoulish guests over two blood soaked days.

The scale of FrightFest in Scotland may be inevitably smaller than its primary summer event held in Leicester Square, but it is no less essential to the horror fan, offering a certain intimacy where the movies take precedence, debates always abounding over which are pure magic and which were utter pish.

FrightFest’s main success has been recognising that the nationwide demand for horror needs to be further sated by hosting prestigious premiere screenings away from London. While the programme tempts many English terror pilgrims to cross the border, this is often over-shadowed by the enthu-siasm of the home-grown audience, their appetite for the gruesome and wayward having become particularly ravenous over the last few years. Sam

Massey, a life-long evangelist of the macabre who has instigated a monthly discussion group at the GFT called Glasgore, believes FrightFest to be important to the city because it “in-troduces a captive audience to a wide range of genre films and has paved the way for other horror-related events.”

Key to the development of this has been a number of special screenings sprinkled across Scotland’s horror calendar of classics from the golden age of European exploitation cinema. Organised by Edinburgh-based journal-ist Calum Waddell and supported by Arrow Video, the first event (held in Glasgow, May 2009) brought two legendary masters of Italian splatter, Lamberto ‘Demons’ Bava and Ruggero ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ Deodato, into the GFT to, erm, chew the fat. As Waddell recalls, “not only did we sell out but, contrary to the sort of perceptions that the genre once attracted, we achieved a considerable female contingent and a crowd of young people who were knowledgeable about this type of cinema’s past.”

With this initial outing part of a mini-tour that included Dublin and Edinburgh, further events were made unique to Glasgow because of the passion and perversity that manifested itself in the lively Q&A sessions: the late, great David Hess from Last House on the Left demonstrating how best to axe a Glaswegian upon audience

request; Day of the Dead’s Joe Pilato ambiguously downing a bottle of red when asked how his psychotic Captain Rhodes would fare in Afghanistan. This ‘anything goes’ attitude has meant that filmmakers relish the chance to screen their work in the city. Indeed, last year, not to be outdone by the reputation of the local crowd, Hobo with a Shotgun director Jason Eisener conducted his FrightFest Q&A in his underpants, inviting the room to follow suit.

With rabid bloodhounds across the UK making the journey to commingle with the gleeful unpredictability of the region’s horror buffs, FrightFest Glasgow is becoming a distinct per-sonality in itself. As Waddell has noted, “back in the 90s when horror was considered some kind of ‘underground’ world of video nasties, I never would have dreamed the genre would attract such a diverse following, with smart, social and, dare I say, sexy being the rule rather than the exception.” And with tickets selling more rapidly than ever, the promised line-up of mutant cannibals, Chinese-speaking aliens and Pinocchio-obsessed psychos is return-ing to the sassy, shrewd family that love them dearly. But be afraid – they might not keep their trousers on…FRIGHTFEST TAKES PLACE 24-26 FEB AT THE GLASGOW FILM THEATRE

JAMES KLODA IS DVD REVIEWER FOR THE DARK SIDE MAGAZINE (WWW.THEDARK-SIDEMAGAZINE.COM)

WAR OF THE DEAD

CRAWL

CORMAN’S WORLD

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JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOMEDIRECTOR: JAY DUPLASS, MARK DUPLASS STARRING: JASON SEGEL, ED HELMS, JUDY GREER, SUSAN SARANDON

★★★★

BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORKDIRECTOR: RICHARD PRESSSTARRING: BILL CUNNINGHAM, ANNA WINTOUR, TOM WOLFE, BROOKE ASTOR, DAVID ROCKEFELLER

★★★★

For four decades New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham has cruised the Big Apple on his Schwinn bicycle like a fashionista superhero. His batcave is a studio in Carnegie Hall that even Manhattan’s most scurrilous realtor would describe as cramped. His arch-nemesis? Bland cookie cutter apparel. Watching Cunningham snap his subjects, who range from haute couture clad It girls to peacocking

drag queens, is joyous.On a crowded crosswalk, through

the teaming masses, the wiry octogenarian will spot his target – an exquisite hemline, a pair of funky heels, a modernist sculpture disguised as a hat – and spring into action like a be-nevolent cheetah, chasing his elegant prey through downtown. Celebrity does not curry favour – he has no time for a drearily attired Catherine

Deneuve. In fact, he has little time for anything beyond his work. During this quick-footed profile director Richard Press asks Cunningham only two questions: one about love, the other God. Both cut deep. The price of this lifelong quest to document beauty is a heavy one.

[Jamie Dunn]SCREENING 24 FEB AT GFT AND CINEWORLD

REVIEWS

THE SOMNAMBULISTSDIRECTOR: RICHARD JOBSONSTARRING: JACK O’CONNELL, STEVEN ROBERTSON, MICHAEL NARDONE

★★

Inspired emotionally by his anger over the Iraq war, and stylistically by Joanna Kane’s photography exhibition of the same name, Richard Jobson’s The Somnambulists is a sparse, polemi-cal work. In a series of monologues, soldiers step out of darkness to recount their experiences at war, and Jobson strives to imbue each with a distinct voice: the scared squaddie comparing his tour to Call of Duty; the new father struggling to articulate his emotions over a satellite phone; the young medic aspiring to be a doctor. Impressive sound design augments each tale, with battlefield noise and omnipresent hums keeping the audi-ence discomforted – as we should be, when faced with intense suffering in which we are complicit by default. But other directorial embellishments prove distracting, particularly the fractured editing and close-ups of fire-filled eyes; posttraumatic stress disorder is one of conflict’s dark legacies, but to univer-salise it with clumsy symbolism risks stigmatising the very people Jobson seeks to speak on behalf of.

[Chris Buckle]SCREENED 21 FEB AT GFT

Through a haze of smoke drifting up from a bong we’re introduced to Jason Segel’s Jeff, a 30-year-old galumphing lump who makes the actor’s earlier man-child characters from Knocked Up and I Love You, Man look like ambitious go-getters. Jeff is depressed – unsurprising, really, given that he spends his days in a basement watching M. Night Shyamalan mov-ies – so his mother (a foxy widower played by Susan Sarandon) sends him to Home Depot on public transport, a surefire way to brighten anyone’s mood. But something’s in the air today – something cosmic – and Jeff’s

experiencing a sensation he’s not felt in a long time: purpose. Directors Jay and Mark Duplass (Cyrus, Baghead) bring the same loosey-goosey style of their previous films to this gentle comedy that is pebbled with grace notes and compassion. The support-ing cast, which includes Ed Helms as Jeff’s crass brother Pat and Judy Greer as Pat’s put-upon wife Linda, charm despite their underwritten roles and there’s a real lyricism in the way the characters’ paths criss cross and intertwine. [Jamie Dunn]SCREENED ON 22 FEB AT GFT AS THE GFF SURPRISE MOVIE

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Win Tickets to Mesnak A cryptic message brings Dave, a young Innu man living in Montreal, back to his reserve for the first time since his adoption. Instead of a joyful family reunion, he unearths a painful past scarred by se-crets and lies. Despite his ancestral ties to the First Nation, Dave experiences an identity crisis and struggles to understand his family, his commu-nity and his feelings for Osalic, a young woman destined for tragedy. Yves Sioui Durand’s remarkable debut feature is a bold ad-aptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet set on an Innu community in Quebec, and a courageous portray-al of one man’s journey to understanding. Director Yves Sioui Durand will introduce the film and take part in a Q&A following the screening. We have a pair of tickets to giveaway to the 14.15 screening on Saturday 25 Feb at CCA. To enter, head to theskinny.co.uk/competitions and answer the following question: Q. What is the largest francophone city outside of Paris? Competition closes: 10am Saturday 25 Feb Winners will be notified on Thursday morning. For full terms and conditions, see theskinny.co.uk/about/terms

QUIZ TIME

WHAT’S NEW ONLINE

CHRIS FYVIE@CKFYVIEExciting, if a little grim, #GFF12 doublebill of Into the Abyss and Livid for me this evening. Levity, shmevity.

JOHN MURPHY@BONGOMURPHYSkinnyFilm @htdiomovie @Glasgowfilmfest @Dexfletch 'Press Gang- The Movie'? You must be joking!

JOHNNY HERBIN@J_IS_FOR_JOHNNY@SkinnyFilm Harry Potter and the Midlife Crisis pic.twitter.com/eXxIjcIb

AMBER WILKINSON@NINJAWORRIERToday's @glasgowfilmfest rec-ommendation. The wonderful Bill Cunningham New York (@BCNYthemovie), a love letter to the man and the city. #GFF

RPATTZGIRL@RPATTZGIRLHey anyone seeing #BelAmi can you snap a pic if his little tush? Please for us po folks in the US? k, thnx

SHIONA@MSSHIONAGWish me luck ladies, I'm going in! #BelAmi

WHAT DIDYOU THINK?

SIX OF THE BEST FROM TWITTERTWEET US @SKINNYFILM❝

❞

NO ONE BUT ME’S ANNIE ROSS PHOTO BY STUART CRAWFORD

MITSUKO DELIVERS AT GFFThe GFF’s own Harriet Warman uncovers Japa-nese comedy Mitsuko Delivers. A relief from some of the fest’s heavier offerings, the film “blends slapstick comedy with a lesson in humanity, the intentions of which are to make you laugh, not cry.”http://bit.ly/MitsukoDeliversGFF WEEKLY ROUNDUPOver at The Scotsman, Alistair Harkness reviews the highs and lows of the GFF week 2. The Raid and Bob and the Monster are big hits with Alistair, one or two others don’t fare quite as well.http://bit.ly/HarknessRoundup IN DARKNESS: WELL DESERVEDSTV’s Greig Gallagher praises Agnieszka Hol-land's Academy Award nominated holocaust film In Darkness for its nu-anced performances and dynamic characterisation. We agree, well deserved.http://bit.ly/DarknessDeserved

CINESKINNYYou can find all our reviews, previews, and interviews online attheskinny.co.uk