Leeds Film Festival 2009

It's here! *dances*

The peeps at the festival have now launched the main site, which lists about 180 film events over November, which has me slavering at the prospect.

The first film I looked for was Ponyo which to my delight has been included this year. Seeing a new Miyazaki epic is always a pleasure, especially as this one has been drawn completely by hand, with no computer effects used at all. Apparently it's as smooth and gorgeous as any they've done before, but I don't want to look too much into it so I don't spoil my enjoyment. (Did that with Howl and Earthsea and regretted it.)

Although Oshii's Sky Crawlers has again been left out (AGAIN) of a screening, we do get one of his oldest but most beautiful films, Angel's Egg, which despite being 20+ years old, is only now getting it's European premiere.

There's a lot more besides (the anime is very much in a minority), including the new Coen Brothers film A Serious Man gets its premiere, plus Paul Giamatti (as himself) selling his soul in Cold Souls. Opening film The Men who Stare at Goats must also be up there as a possible future great. Get yourself a brochure or check the website to see just how much is up there.

I have put together a Plan-ET- readable events file, so anyone with Plan-ET can create a schedule for themselves against it. The LIFF brochure has a really useful timetable in the back that you can scrawl over, but will quickly fall apart and get messy with scribbles over it. Plan-ET will enable you to set priorities and work out the best order of films to watch, which even if you're going for just a few films, is pretty handy to have. If you are getting one of their film passes, I would definitely recommend using Plan-ET to help make up your film-going schedule.

If you want a free copy of Plan-ET, the latest version can be got if you send a request to planet.fancysoft@googlemail.com. (yes, I promised I would host it somewhere, I just haven't got round to it yet) I will send you a copy of the runnable JAR file (requires Java 1.6) and the LIFF 2009 event file. I would also send out updated jars to those who have already sent me requests in the past.

Oh yes, and as usual I'll be telling you all about the lovely films I see as I go.

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