We’ve been hearing some rumblings about Torquay’s International Comedy Film Festival. Yes, you did read that correctly and no, we couldn’t quite believe it, either.

You’d think that, what with comedy being so subjective, the festival organisers would run into trouble quite quickly, but there do seem to be a few biggish names attached to the thing (at least in a ‘hmm, sounds good but I’ll have to, um, check my diary’ kinda way).

Oscar-nominated DP and Coen brothers’ regular, Roger Deakins (born in Torquay) is apparently interested in getting involved, which should be a boon considering he had a hand in the likes of The Big Lebowski and The Hudsucker Proxy.

Also interested is London To Brighton director Paul Andrew Williams, whose family live in Torquay.

Williams might not be the first name you’d associate with a comedy festival, but we assume the organisers have an eye on his upcoming comedy/horror wheeze, The Cottage.

Definitely on-board for the event is comedian and writer Peter Richardson, who lives near Totnes and has agreed to be the festival patron.

He’s famous for the Comic Strip Presents TV series, but was more recently responsible for the execrable Churchill: The Hollywood Years, starring Christian Slater.

But let’s not carp, eh viewers? After all, the organisers are promising a platform for national and international comedy filmmakers to showcase their new work, while also bigging-up comedy film classics which can’t be bad.

The event is set to run from September 24 to 28. The English Riviera Tourist Board has put in a bid for funding from the UK Film Council and will be seeking additional dosh from South West Screen.

Seeing as though we were talking about Paul Andrew Williams, let’s have a little look at the trailer for The Cottage, due out next month.

Posted by Thin White Duke

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Festivals/Events, Local, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.