STAGE / FILM
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If the name doesn’t give it away, I can tell you that The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams is not your average film festival. It takes place in a 150-seat former ballroom in the beautiful town of Nairn, in Northern Scotland. Seating choices include bean bags on the floor down front and deck chairs further back. Admission is $6.00 a film—or a tray of cup-cakes. And on any given day you might even get in free if you’re wearing perhaps pajamas or a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap.
The festival was started on a whim by Tilda Swinton, but she and co-organizer Mark Cousins take their whimsy seriously. Beneath (or beside) the holiday-camp fun and ramshackle approach is a strong belief in the personal and political power of film. They invite us to enter “The state of cinema, a state of mind without borders or policies of exclusion... We hope that our festival acts as an indispensible reminder that cinema exists outside the multiplex... That going to the pictures is more than just a question of checking into the latest oversold commodity, that having a favorite film, like discovering a new one, is one of life’s true riches, at whatever age you discover it, for whatever reason.”
A great manifesto, but one that the festival wears lightly, letting the experience and the films speak for themselves. There is not a whiff of pretension in the proceedings, just an honest passion for the shared experience. Experimental short films rub shoulders with gems of world cinema and with Bugs Bunny. Unless you had seen them all before, it would be hard not to pick up a few new favourites. I did.
Despite its being chosen as the the number one Scottish film of all time, I had never heard of the Bill Douglas Trilogy. An autobiographical story of growing up poor in Scotland in the 1930s and 40s, it made the deprivations of Angela’s Ashes look like light comedy. Knowing that Douglas had survived to bear witness to his own story made it possible to watch, but the genius and craft of his film-making took it to another level altogether.
A somewhat happier story of boyhood was Yasujiro Ozu’s I Was Born, But..., a silent Japanese film from 1932 about two young brothers moving to a new neighbourhood, dealing with school, bullies, and family matters. Startlingly naturalistic for a silent-era comedy, it was a funny, moving slice of life with great performances, all wonderfully enhanced by Simon Fisher Turner’s live performance of his aptly understated score.
I also loved the closely controlled compositions of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and High and Low, the backstage passes of Singin' in the Rain and All About Eve, the mythic, fabulous dimensions of Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors and Hyenas, the Scotlands of I Know Where I’m Going and Boswell and Johnson’s Tour of the Western Isles. I loved the total absence of corporate logos. I loved being at a festival where I could leave the business of cinema aside for a time, and just be in the audience.