We mentioned it yesterday, but London’s Raindance Film Festival is kicking off today (Tuesday) with Allan Moyle’s satanists-versus-stoners wheeze Weirdsville (click below to watch the trailer).
D+CFilm asked festival founder Elliot Grove how he came up with the whole Raindance thang. We were taking feverish notes, of course, in anticipation of D+CFree @ Two Short Nights.
What made you start Raindance?
Elliot Grove: I had worked as a scenic artist and set designer on over 68 feature films and 700 commercials, both at BBC’s Shepherd’s Bush 1974-77, and in my native Toronto in the early Eighties. When I moved to London in 1986 with my family, I entertained a fantasy of becoming a property magnate, and went bust in the 1990 recession. After a year of wallowing in self-pity, my neighbour, an elderly retired farmer said to me: ‘Elliot, as long as you are feeling sorry for yourself, no doctor in the world can help you’. He was right, of course, but I no longer had any film contacts here or back in Toronto. So I hatched a plan of imported so-called gurus from Hollywood to give seminars and workshops enabling me to learn, make contacts and survive until something concrete kicked in. After a few months, mates of mine started making films, and back then, in 92/93, there wasn’t really anywhere special to show British films. So I started the festival, in Leicester Square, to showcase the work of British filmmakers.
What was the reaction of British filmmakers, and the British film industry when you started Raindance?
Raindance was pretty much ignored by the Brits until about six years ago. It was the Japanese, French, German and American filmmakers who discovered Raindance well before the Brits.
So why did you chose the name Raindance? Surely it creates confusion with Sundance.
Because of the ‘dance’ you need to do to make your film, and because it rains a lot in London!
Is it harder or easier to get people interested in the Raindance Film Festival?
It’s actually a lot easier now to get people interested in Raindance for several reasons. Firstly, we have a reputation for showing really excellent films. And films often never seen before in Europe. Distributors regularly come to Raindance to find new films, especially the Asian films. Secondly, people are getting pretty tired of Hollywood fare, and thirdly, independent cinema, by its very nature, is about topics told by deeply passionate people. Generally, these topics and stories are stories so raw and visceral that Hollyood doesn’t dare touch them.
What makes Raindance different?
Raindance is unique because we rely on films submitted to us by filmmakers, we who work at Raindance are filmmakers, and most of our films are by debut filmmakers.
How would you describe a Raindance movie?
Off-Hollywood!
So there you go. Here’s the Weirdsville trailer – featuring the fantastic Peter Dinklage. Look out for more Raindance stuff on D+CFilm over the next few days.
Posted by Thin White Duke
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