CINECITY ROUND UP – 2024
The 22nd Cinecity Brighton Film Festival saw 27 previews, a world and a UK premiere, five screenings of classics and restorations, two live cinema experiences, six short film programmes, five Q&As, a special programme of early 16mm films and Brighton Screendance Festival, all across eight venues in 10 days.
We opened this year’s festival at Duke of York’s with a sold-out preview of Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain and closed with a full-house for Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch. During the festival, special one-off previews included Cannes Grand Prix winning All We Imagine as Light, the unique 3-D animation Flow, Mike Leigh’s return to contemporary Britain with Hard Truths and the star-studded papal thriller Conclave.
We were able to show more previews than ever before thanks to the new projection kit at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, including our 2024 Audience Award winner Devo.
True to our promise, we took audiences on adventures in world cinema, with feature films from countries including Argentina, Brazil, India, Iran, Laos, Algeria, Belarus, Latvia, Iceland, Denmark and Canada.
It is always such an honour to hear from filmmakers about their work, and this year we were pleased to have post screening Q&As with directors Ben Rivers, Alys Tomlinson, Chan Tze-woon and Joshua Trigg. We were also joined by actor James Wilby after the screening of Merchant Ivory.
For 2024, we were very pleased to join forces with Leeds International Film Festival and Cornwall Film Festival to celebrate Ukrainian cinema past and present, and to express solidarity with the country at this critical time. Highlights included a sold-out UK premiere of the 2024 documentary Flowers of Ukraine and a new live soundtrack to Dovzhenko’s silent classic Earth (Zemlya), performed by Ukrainian musicians Misha Kalinin and Roksana Smirnova.
To mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, we celebrated the enduring legacy of visionary director Sergei Parajanov. We were delighted to bring the UK premiere of Temple of Cinema #1: Sayat Nova Outtakes to Brighton. The free, 10-day exhibition at Fabrica curated by Daniel Bird, repurposed over three hours of newly scanned, unseen film footage and camera tests from Parajanov’s masterpiece The Colour of Pomegranates (1969).
The exhibition was complemented by a brand-new restoration of Parajanov’s classic Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors screened with Kyiv Frescoes, a series of screen tests collaged together after the feature production was terminated by the Russian authorities. We also closed out the festival with a sold-out screening of The Colour of Pomegranates.
We had a bumper year for short film programmes this year, with sold out screenings of our Open Drama, Open Documentary and New Voices programmes. It was with great pleasure the film Dead Body directed by J Taylor-Jones was announced as our 2024 New Voices Winner. We were also delighted to present two programmes of recent short films made by Ukrainian directors curated by Kyiv International Short Film Festival.
We would like to thank all our funders and sponsors, film-makers and distributors, venues and volunteers who made our 22nd festival such a special one.