Apocalypse Archives: Simon Bateson
Take One Action Film Festival’s artistic director names the films he'd save at the end of the world
Blood in the Mobile
(Frank Poulsen, 2011)
‘Docs are vital in my world. Because dramas take longer to make, docs are often more current, so I know I can influence the story. And often the people involved are jaw-droppingly courageous. None more so, or more moving, than Frank Poulsen in Blood in the Mobile about the conflict minerals we all carry in our pockets, just out on DVD.’
Carla’s Song
(Ken Loach, 1996)
‘We’ve been chuffed to have Paul Laverty and Ken Loach as patrons these last five years. I’d want to save all their work, but perhaps the first film to switch me onto how western power has figured in other country’s sufferings was Carla’s Song, in which Robert Carlyle plays a Glaswegian bus driver drawn into the US-fuelled conflict in Nicaragua.’
Mary Poppins
(Robert Stevenson, 1964)
‘I’m very excited about our free screenings of Mary Poppins in Edinburgh and Glasgow next weekend for all ages, with indoor street theatre we’re dubbing “the battle of the bankers”. For all the stick we give it, Hollywood can be highly counter-cultural, and in none-more-timely a way for banker Britain than this “nanny” state vs. the free market mash-up.’
Morvern Callar
(Lynne Ramsay, 2002)
‘I just got hitched on Morvern, and am about to live on Uist, so I’m a bit doe-eyed about the West coast right now. But nothing eclipses the mind-altering pathos displayed in Lynne Ramsay’s second Scottish masterpiece in which the sublime Samantha Morton plays a grown-up foster child in search of home. Unforgettable: a Scottish Ulysses?’
Ulysses’ Gaze
(Theodoros Angelopoulos, 1995)
’Speaking of which: I couldn’t leave Ulysses’ Gaze behind, one of those divine ‘what’s on BBC2 at 1am’ discoveries that sent me down this road. Harvey Keitel stars in Theo Angelopoulos' lyrical masterpiece about love, memory and cinema in post-communist Eastern Europe. Sadly, Angelopoulos died earlier this year, but Artificial Eye has just released his complete works. Worth it for the 6 minute Lenin-floating-down-the-river scene alone.’
Take One Action Film Festival, which celebrates the people and movies that are changing the world, runs in Edinburgh and Glasgow from Fri 21 Sep to Sat 6 Oct.