tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/uk-films-74263/articlesUK films – The Conversation2021-11-15T04:16:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1716042021-11-15T04:16:49Z2021-11-15T04:16:49ZShoPaapaa, a film about COVID lockdowns, is long and excruciatingly dull – but weren’t lockdowns, too?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431616/original/file-20211112-23-1ne6vvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3824%2C2147&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sydney Film Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: ShoPaapaa, written and directed by Molly Reynolds and Shekhar Bassi</em> </p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic threw the world into disarray, forcing many to reinvent processes, reimagine what it means to live in modernity. </p>
<p>Artists, actors, filmmakers and musicians had to adapt to cancellations of exhibitions, productions and gigs, and had to quickly (try to) transition to working in a digital space. </p>
<p>Despite the valiant efforts to make Zoom theatre productions interesting, for example, there was always a sense of desperation and making-do about these events. </p>
<p>ShoPaapaa, written and directed by Molly Reynolds and star of the film Shekhar Bassi, screening at this year’s Sydney Film Festival, responds to the lockdown in kind: how do you make a stultifying boring situation interesting?</p>
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<p>The film follows the day-to-day life of “ShoPaapaa”, a fictional (or is the film documentary?) character played by Bassi during the 2020 lockdown in the UK.</p>
<p>ShoPaapaa is in a “high risk” category and – unlike his niece, nephew and brother who visit him during the film and stay outside – he does not feel safe leaving the house at all, even for permitted exercise or shopping.</p>
<h2>Revelling in the uninteresting</h2>
<p>We watch him as he completes mundane tasks like boiling a kettle, making a cup of coffee, cleaning a table. Some tasks – like changing his bed – take longer than they would for the able-bodied, the film suggesting this character already lived in a world at times difficult to navigate. Everyone’s mobility was affected by COVID-19; ShoPaapaa’s mobility is always affected. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-minds-may-be-wandering-more-during-the-pandemic-and-this-can-be-a-good-thing-145764">Our minds may be wandering more during the pandemic — and this can be a good thing</a>
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<p>We hear his view on a variety of aspects of his life through straight to camera interviews and voice overs. Being disabled and Indian in the UK is the main topic, and the racism and bullying he has faced because of these facts.</p>
<p>His observations are delivered in a monotonous voice over an excruciating 95 minutes, indicating the depression of the character being stuck in this situation. The actual content of his discourse is thoroughly uninteresting, and nothing about the narrative or style (though its hints at a Zoom-esque aesthetic through split screen are worth noting) moves it beyond the banal. </p>
<p>The film seems to revel in this, and one assumes this was a strategy on the part of Reynolds and Bassi – it seems to be a monologue into the void delivered with the energy of the void.</p>
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<span class="caption">Everyone’s mobility was affected by COVID-19; ShoPaapaa’s mobility is always affected.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sydney Film Festival</span></span>
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<p>ShoPaapaa’s discourse sits firmly in the realm of the kind of trite self-help patois of the online age, including statements like “All you can do is move forward and try not to think about it” regarding his memories of being bullied, and “closure’s always about oneself.”</p>
<p>It’s an axiom of making narrative that you make it interesting: you may want to present a character’s boredom, but if the audience or reader are bored then it isn’t working as a narrative. Of course, various artists – like Andy Warhol with his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_(1964_film)">“anti-film” Sleep</a>, which runs for five hours and 20 minutes and features a person sleeping – have experimented with this in the past, and ShoPaapaa is up there with some of these experiments in audience tedium.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431618/original/file-20211112-27-1y07oiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Split screen: a man on zoom and a window to the outside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431618/original/file-20211112-27-1y07oiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431618/original/file-20211112-27-1y07oiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431618/original/file-20211112-27-1y07oiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431618/original/file-20211112-27-1y07oiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431618/original/file-20211112-27-1y07oiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431618/original/file-20211112-27-1y07oiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431618/original/file-20211112-27-1y07oiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The pleasure of film lies in its objectification of the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sydney Film Festival</span></span>
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<h2>Opposed to pleasure</h2>
<p>The pleasure of film lies in its objectification of the world. In turning the world into an image limited in space and time, film is able to briefly suspend time and space – to transcend the limitations of the world, and, in doing so, to formally say something about it. </p>
<p>Film turns live bodies into glistening and vital dead things, and endows objects with a mystery and enigmatic quality absent from reality. In doing so, it murders the world. This is both its glory and its curse.</p>
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<p>ShoPaapaa’s position is almost diametrically opposite to this pleasure. We watch a person mired in a bad situation and suffering for it – but it isn’t energetic or dramatic. It seems sincere, but sincerity does not necessarily make good art.</p>
<p>At the same time, ShoPaapaa does effectively capture the weird combination of boredom and self-loathing so many experienced (are still experiencing) during the pandemic lockdowns. Self-indulgent would be an understatement, but there weren’t exactly a lot of options for filmmakers and actors around, and one senses there is an authenticity and accuracy to the self-indulgence: who doesn’t become “self-indulgent” when they keep themselves company for months on end?</p>
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<span class="caption">Shopaapaa captures the monotony of boredom and loneliness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sydney Film Festival</span></span>
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<p>It is likely the film will endure as a record and testimony of the COVID-19 pandemic, and for this, the filmmakers deserve recognition. Does it work as a film, as a piece of cinema? No – it’s long and excruciatingly dull, the most colour coming from ShoPaapaa’s assortment of superhero t-shirts – but maybe this is its point. </p>
<p>Why should we be interested and entertained when the world has been so radically and negatively impacted by COVID-19 – why should we be given spectacular pleasure when the world is so rife with inequality and discrimination?</p>
<p><em>ShoPaapaa is available to stream at the Sydney Film Festival until November 21.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From Molly Reynolds and Shekhar Bassi, ShoPaapaa is a mundane and excruciating 95 minutes – but will become an enduring portrait of 2020.Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1309562020-01-31T16:02:24Z2020-01-31T16:02:24ZBrexit: research from Wales shows creative industry’s concern at leaving EU<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313061/original/file-20200131-41541-1kfpp0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4888%2C2741&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New research from Wales shows the level of concern at what might happen to creative industries after Brexit.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">jax10289 via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The creative industries are one of the UK’s most conspicuous <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/skills/2019/05/creative-industries-and-uk-economy-success-story">success stories</a>. Creativity is not just good for the soul, it is one of our best exports. The Creative Industries Federation calculates that the creative economy accounts for <a href="https://www.creativeengland.co.uk/creative-industries-federation-join-forces/">one in ten jobs</a> across the UK, employing 700,000 more people than the financial services sector.</p>
<p>Despite digital disruption, the creative industries are seen as a part of the economy most able to prosper in an age of automation. And <a href="https://www.creativeindustriesfederation.com/statistics">the figures bear this out</a>, with creativity a key growth area over the past ten years. Since 2011, the number of creative jobs in the UK has increased by 30.6% so that by 2018, more than 3.2 million people worked in the UK’s creative economy.</p>
<p>The UK government recognises the importance of the creative sector across the whole of the UK, and <a href="https://ahrc.ukri.org/innovation/creative-economy-research/the-creative-industries-clusters-programme/">has invested in</a> nine creative industries clusters across all four UK nations. Nesta’s <a href="https://www.nesta.org.uk/report/creative-nation/">Creative Nation report</a> demonstrates that the creative industries are key to local economies across the UK: between 2011-2016, the creative industries in the average local economy increased by 11%, twice as fast as in the rest of the economy. Their value, of course, is not just economic: they shape our cultural environment and tell the stories that help us understand the world.</p>
<h2>Creativity post-Brexit?</h2>
<p>With the UK leaving the EU on January 31, what impact will Brexit have on the creative industries? To find out, <a href="https://clwstwr.org.uk/what-clwstwr">we surveyed</a> 244 creative businesses in Wales. The Welsh Government <a href="https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2019-03/priority-sector-statistics-2016-new-gva-data-2014.pdf">has identified</a> the creative industries sector as a key priority sector, both because of their increasing importance to the Welsh economy and their role in promoting Welsh stories, talent and identity.</p>
<p>There is a lot to be optimistic about in the Welsh creative sector, now the home to <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-seeing-plenty-of-welsh-locations-in-bbc-dramas-one-day-they-may-be-shows-about-wales-92628">big drama productions</a> from Doctor Who and Sherlock to Discovery of Witches and His Dark Materials, as well as a raft of other popular TV titles from Hinterland and Keeping Faith to Casualty and Only Connect.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-seeing-plenty-of-welsh-locations-in-bbc-dramas-one-day-they-may-be-shows-about-wales-92628">We're seeing plenty of Welsh locations in BBC dramas – one day they may be shows about Wales</a>
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<p>Four out of five creative businesses, we found, are concerned about the impact of Brexit on their businesses. Of these, a quarter expressed very strong concerns, indicating that Brexit could potentially be a “disaster” for their business. Only 4% saw Brexit having any positive impact on their bottom line. And most of this group still have concerns, with less than 1% seeing Brexit as a generally positive development.</p>
<p>Concerns about Brexit are consistent across Wales, and were expressed regardless of company size. Among the different creative sectors, the highest level of concern was expressed in Wales’s two largest creative sectors: the thriving film/television sector (where 87% expressed concern) and the music and performing arts sector (where 83% expressed concern).</p>
<h2>Why the concern?</h2>
<p>Creative businesses have concerns that range from broad economic and structural changes to practical day to day problems that Brexit may create. These come under four broad headings.</p>
<p><strong>Business and economy</strong>: Businesses are worried that Brexit would lead to slower UK economic growth and lower consumer and client spending. Many businesses are also concerned at the prospect of price changes, higher costs and an increase in bureaucracy around trade, especially if the UK falls out of regulatory alignment with the EU. There is also apprehension about clients with strong European connections leaving the UK.</p>
<p><strong>Mobility:</strong> Creative businesses are worried that ending free movement will mean an increase in bureaucracy in travel arrangement between the UK and the EU (so, for example, making it harder to book artists, or increasing the burden on existing or future collaborations with EU partners).</p>
<p><strong>Labour market:</strong> Any limitations on labour movement will make it harder to attract EU talent, while placing burdens on future collaborations with partners in the EU.</p>
<p><strong>Reputation and access:</strong> Many businesses fear that Brexit will have a negative impact on their reputation for international cooperation with Europe, and that they will lose access to EU funding streams. </p>
<p>A smaller proportion of creative businesses – one in five – indicated that they had already been affected by Brexit. </p>
<p>These impacts include a decline in projects and orders since 2016 due to Brexit uncertainty. Some businesses have had to change business strategy to focus on non-European markets and to prepare for the unravelling of existing EU agreements and networks. Businesses have also been affected by the higher cost of materials, products and services (due to a drop in the value of the pound).</p>
<h2>Keeping the creative economy strong</h2>
<p>It is possible that the creative industries in Wales feel especially vulnerable. Wales is <a href="https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7851">particularly dependent on trade with the EU</a> – more so than any other UK nation or region. </p>
<p>But it seems more likely that their nervousness about Brexit will be widely felt across the UK’s creative industries. These concerns need to inform what kind of deal the UK strikes with the EU. They point to potential problems that are both real and tangible. Since the creative sectors are an increasingly strong and successful part of both the Welsh and wider UK economy, this level of concern needs to be taken seriously.</p>
<p>The Welsh government can try to mitigate the problems that may lie ahead, but many of the problems raised by the companies we surveyed are beyond their control. In this context, it is important that, in the months ahead, the UK government listens to these concerns and strikes a deal with the EU that does not hinder the growth of one of the UK’s most successful sectors.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marlen Komorowski is affiliated with Cardiff University, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and works currently on the Media Audit 2020 for the IWA. At Cardiff University she is funded by AHRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Lewis receives funding from the AHRC</span></em></p>A survey of creative businesses in Wales reveals concern over labour force, red tape and access to European markets and funding sources.Marlen Komorowski, Impact Analyst, School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff UniversityJustin Lewis, Professor of Communication, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1277582019-11-26T10:04:26Z2019-11-26T10:04:26ZWatching the whistleblowers: two new spy films tailor-made for an age of paranoia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303492/original/file-20191125-74603-1dx99fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C1098%2C615&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Whistle-blower: Keira Knightley as Katharine Gun. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Wall/IFC Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The revelations surrounding US president Donald Trump’s telephone conversation with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are raising serious questions about attempts to solicit outside interference in US domestic affairs. The erupting impeachment scandal <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/20/politics/whistleblower-timeline-ukraine-team-trump/index.html">has placed whistleblowers</a> firmly back on the international agenda.</p>
<p>In a scene from director Gavin Hood’s 2019 film Official Secrets, journalist Martin Bright (Matt Smith) meets a source in an underground car park. “Very Deep Throat,” he comments drily, referencing the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/19/watergate-deep-throat-dies">famous source in the 1970s Watergate conspiracy</a> that brought down then US president, Richard Nixon. His informant holds up her mobile phone: “No signal,” she replies, indicating the real reason for her choice of location. </p>
<p>In a single moment, the film – which is set in 2003 – both acknowledges its generic heritage and positions itself in the technological context of early 21st-century spycraft. The pervasive fear of surveillance has been updated for the digital age.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/movies/official-secrets-review.html">Official Secrets</a> is the first of two films released in the UK in autumn 2019 that reflect on the events that took place in the lead up to, and aftermath of, the 2003 Iraq War. It follows the decision of 27-year-old GCHQ translator Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley) to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/02/iraq.unitednations1">leak a memo</a> that her employer received from the US National Security Agency (NSA) in January 2003. </p>
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<p>The memo asked the British listening station for its cooperation in a US “surge” against selected members of the UN Security Council. The aim was to gather material designed to influence voting intentions and secure a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36702957">second resolution</a> (ultimately unsuccessfully) in support of the Iraq War.</p>
<p>The film dramatises Gun’s journey from loyal civil servant to whistle
blower and court defendant, charting the personal and professional fall out of her actions as she finds herself pitted against the might of the British establishment – and its judicial wrath. In parallel, the film follows the painstaking processes of the investigative journalists (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/09/usa.iraq">Martin Bright, Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy</a>) who broke the story.</p>
<p>Official Secrets offers a passionate and damning assessment of UK government collusion in a US dirty tricks campaign designed to sway international opinion in favour of the Iraq War. It champions the efforts of individuals who stand up for their moral principles, whether through whistleblowing, journalism, or legal activism. </p>
<p>While ostensibly commenting on these historical actions, the film also illuminates contemporary concerns about government secrecy, accountability, and factual manipulation.</p>
<p>In the UK, the alleged suppression of the Parliamentary Intelligence Security Committee (ISC) <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50366956">report into Russian covert activity</a> recently prompted suspicions about what (if anything) the British government is hiding about external meddling. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50482637">temporary brand switch</a> of the Conservative Party Press Office Twitter account to “FactCheckUK” during the a debate of party leaders in the run up to a December general election provoked complaints about an act of deliberate deception designed to muddy the (already murky) waters of online discourse. By fictionalising historical attempts by the British government to manipulate the court of public opinion, Official Secrets invites parallels to be drawn with the current erosion of trust in the political elite.</p>
<h2>Cover up</h2>
<p>The second film released in November to chronicle historical efforts to hold officialdom to account is Scott Burns’ <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/movies/the-report-review.html">The Report</a>. While also containing the near obligatory car park informant scene, The Report is an altogether darker, denser thriller. It follows US Senate assistant Dan Jones (Adam Driver) as he is assigned by the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate the CIA’s programme of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) during the post-9/11 War on Terror.</p>
<p>Enhanced interrogation, it is rapidly made clear, is a euphemism for torture. Waterboarding, sleep deprivation and cramped confinement (false burial) were among 16 techniques designed to break the resistance of terror suspects. With mounting intensity and moral purpose, Jones meticulously pieces together the stories of each of the 119 detainees, eventually producing a 6,700-page report (reduced to a 700-page executive summary).</p>
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<p>Interspersed with flashbacks of dehumanising violence, the film charts Jones’ increasingly obsessional pursuit of the truth. It is uncompromising in its denunciation of the CIA as perpetrators of torture, and of the US government for authorising its use and colluding in the cover up. </p>
<p>The criticism, however, is not restricted to the Bush-Cheney regime. Also in the firing line is the hypocrisy of the Obama presidency (represented in the film by John Hamm as the White House chief of staff) who, it is suggested, was only too happy to reap the benefits of CIA propaganda when it came to the 2012 re-election campaign.</p>
<h2>Real-life dramas</h2>
<p>In a similar way to Official Secrets, The Report both dramatises an historical event and offers an implicit commentary on the current political climate in the Anglo-American sphere. By showing a recording of the actual <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/John-Mccain-Speech-Senate-Republican-CIA-Torture-Report/383589/">speech given by the late John McCain</a> on publication of the report, the film drags the recent past firmly into the present. It provides a glaring contrast between the bipartisan values that motivated the Senate investigation and the wilful disinformation that continues to emerge from the Trump administration.</p>
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<p>In the present febrile political climate the tagline of The Report could be read as a clarion call to politicians on both sides of the pond: Truth Matters. If only they would listen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Edwards does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two new films feature the bravery and tenacity of government employees who risk everything to expose official wrongdoing.Catherine Edwards, Doctoral Researcher, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1218422019-08-13T14:43:14Z2019-08-13T14:43:14ZDinard: a very British film festival on the coast of France – so what happens after Brexit?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287870/original/file-20190813-9429-1j9qmxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=104%2C87%2C5637%2C6656&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Poster for the 2019 Dinard Film Festival.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dinard Film Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The French seaside town of Dinard, which sits on the Brittany coast in north-western France, is known as the “<a href="https://www.brittanytourism.com/destinations/the-10-destinations/cap-frehel-saint-malo-mont-saint-michel-bay/dinard-saint-briac-and-saint-lunaire/">most British</a>” of French resorts. Over the years it has attracted the likes of Winston Churchill, who holidayed there several times, as well as Oscar Wilde, who wrote of the town in De Profundis, his prison lament. Lawrence of Arabia lived there as a child. But, for the past 30 years, the town has also hosted an annual film festival devoted exclusively to British movies.</p>
<p>The remit of the <a href="https://www.dinardfilmfestival.fr/en/historical/">Dinard Film Festival</a> is simple: to celebrate British cinema past and present – and to provide a shop window for new films. </p>
<p>Recently, these have tended to be independent British films rarely seen in their country of origin. Even the most critically lauded of recent Dinard winners, 2017’s <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/gods-own-country-daphne-win-top-prizes-in-dinard-/5122876.article">God’s Own Country</a>, took no more than a million pounds at the UK box-office – and many films arrive in Dinard with no distribution deal at all. Dinard has therefore become a unique space of British cultural visibility and exchange – even if you have to go to the French coast to find it.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287860/original/file-20190813-9415-1v1bguw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C506%2C3188%2C4278&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287860/original/file-20190813-9415-1v1bguw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C506%2C3188%2C4278&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287860/original/file-20190813-9415-1v1bguw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287860/original/file-20190813-9415-1v1bguw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287860/original/file-20190813-9415-1v1bguw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287860/original/file-20190813-9415-1v1bguw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287860/original/file-20190813-9415-1v1bguw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287860/original/file-20190813-9415-1v1bguw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The master: statue of Alfred Hitchcock in Dinard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">jeanshoot / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>As founder Thierry de la Fournière explained to me during 2018’s festival, the event was created to form a “cinematic bridge” between the British industry and French producers. But Dinard is also testament to the way many French film-goers value cinema as a cultural good, and are also more receptive to foreign films. And with Brexit looming, Dinard has taken on a new dimension: a symbol of solidarity across the imposition of political barriers.</p>
<p>As a commercial product, of course, film will be hit by any economic and logistical impacts of Brexit. Dinard’s artistic director, Hussam Hindi, explained to me that a no-deal Brexit could mean “total war” for British cinema. Leaving the EU, he suggested, may mean losing film finance support systems <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/about-bfi/policy-strategy/policy-statements/brexit-answering-questions-screen-sectors">such as Creative Europe</a>, and reduce mobility of key personnel. It could also mean forgoing EU distribution networks, which fund cinemas across EU countries to screen non-national EU films. This could entail a prohibitive tax on UK films and DVDs distributed throughout the continent. </p>
<h2>Cross-border collaboration</h2>
<p>This is bad news for what remains a significant British export. As a recent <a href="https://rm.coe.int/brexit-in-context/16808b868c">Council of Europe report highlights</a>, the UK is, along with France, the main exporter of cinema across EU countries. This indicates the appeal of Britain’s films abroad, which are often more appreciated on the mainland than in the UK itself. Films by Ken Loach, for instance, such as I, Daniel Blake – which <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36355313">won the Palme D'Or at Cannes</a> in 2016 – are shown on more screens, and seen by more people, in France or Italy <a href="https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/319313/">than they are in the UK</a>.</p>
<p>The irony here, in the contexts of Brexit, is that films such as I, Daniel Blake are actually <a href="http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/101716/1/Author_accepted_manuscript.pdf">co-productions with other EU countries</a>. This isn’t just the case for “auteur” films. One of the most successful “British” movies of recent years, Paddington (2014), was <a href="http://www.studiocanal.com/en/news/latest-news/4900/studiocanal-and-nickelodeon-announce-global-deal-for-all-new-paddington-television-series">produced by StudioCanal</a> – a French company. British films benefit, economically as well as culturally, from cross-border collaboration.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287872/original/file-20190813-9415-etfdcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287872/original/file-20190813-9415-etfdcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287872/original/file-20190813-9415-etfdcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287872/original/file-20190813-9415-etfdcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287872/original/file-20190813-9415-etfdcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287872/original/file-20190813-9415-etfdcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287872/original/file-20190813-9415-etfdcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Crowning glory: the 2018 Dinard Film Fetival poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dinard Film Festival</span></span>
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<p>If the UK left the EU, a <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/365/365.pdf">2017 report on Brexit’s impact</a> predicted, British cinema would be likely to rely more on inward investment – meaning big money coming in from Hollywood studios. In fact, <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/announcements/highest-grossing-films-uk-box-office-2016">this is already the case.</a> And, as the same report suggested, reliance on such investment leaves the British industry <a href="https://deadline.com/2016/10/brexit-warning-british-indies-danny-perkins-studiocanal-vivendi-1201835141/">vulnerable to fluctuations</a> in economic markets and dependent on a weaker currency value to attract investors. Not to mention almost wholly dependent on US producers.</p>
<p>Any benefits could also be offset by economic and cultural drawbacks, especially for independent productions. As noted above, most successful British movies are transnational. Biopics such as <a href="http://www.focusfeatures.com/news/darkesthour_start_of_production">Darkest Hour</a> (2017) or <a href="https://www.universalpictures.co.uk/micro/mary-queen-of-scots">Mary Queen of Scots</a> (2018) might be British cinema’s current coin of the realm – yet these are all transatlantic ventures (between Working Title and its US parent company Universal). British films without these kinds of deals – and without obvious networks for distribution – struggle for production funds and audiences. A no-deal Brexit would probably make this worse.</p>
<h2>Springboard for success</h2>
<p>In this regard, Dinard is more than just a port in a storm. Most of the six films shown annually in competition have no distribution deal in either the UK or France. This is appealing to French companies who attend the festival to buy films, as well as to British producers using Dinard to push their films – both in Europe and back home. But the intimate, local and personal feel of many competition films also fulfils Dinard’s artistic agenda, valuing film as culture over commodity.</p>
<p>“We’re looking to make discoveries”, said Dinard’s head of programming, Fanny Popieul, in conversation at last year’s festival. “We can act as the springboard for these films.”</p>
<p>Last year’s winning film, Jellyfish, is a case in point. An unsettling yet affecting coming-of-age tale set in Margate, Jellyfish, as its young director James Gardner explained at a festival Q&A, was a challenge merely to complete. But after its win, the film secured <a href="https://www.filmoria.co.uk/jellyfish-will-be-released-in-cinemas-in-the-uk-on-15-february-previews-from-8-february-2019/">distribution back in the UK</a>.</p>
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<p>Selecting films without distribution deals is not just important cultural work. As Hindi told me, it may also have Brexit-era benefits – since the festival doesn’t have to pay for films that have not yet acquired a legal status. There’s a piratical aspect, then, to this otherwise genteel bit of Brittany.</p>
<p>“We’re like cinematic smugglers”, concludes Popieul. However it might do it, the cultural and economic lease of life provided by Dinard, and its emphasis on cross-Channel cooperation, offers a persuasive and optimistic message in our otherwise isolated times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil Archer receives funding from the British Academy </span></em></p>British cinema has close ties to European cinema, as festivals such as Dinard suggest. Brexit will put them under strain.Neil Archer, Lecturer in Film Studies, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1203012019-07-30T14:10:46Z2019-07-30T14:10:46ZCarry On film revival? Britain’s already got slapstick politics<p>There’s been some talk about a revival of the old Carry On film franchise, Britain’s most famous comedy film series. Unsurprisingly, the country’s most famous tabloid, <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/9401011/carry-on-films-set-for-a-comeback-after-27-years/">The Sun newspaper, was enthusiastic</a> at the prospect – although readers were concerned that modern versions might be too “politically correct”.</p>
<p>“Its like alcohol-free beer”, wrote one commenter, while another said that “as most of the original cast are dead it won’t feel like [a Carry On film] anyway”.</p>
<p>The Carry On series spanned 34 years from Carry On Sergeant in 1958 to the panned Carry on Columbus in 1992. In between, 29 films featuring the cream of UK comedy – featuring names such as Kenneth Williams, Sid James, Hattie Jacques and Barbara Windsor – became staples, known for risque double entendres and cheerful smuttiness.</p>
<p>Writing in The Guardian, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/02/carry-on-films-return">Stuart Heritage recently described</a> them as “dirt cheap films that highlight our collective national fear of sexual arousal”. I don’t disagree. Nor with his suggestion that their legacy provided those who use them as reference points with an imagined pre-EU Britain “that Leave voters see when they close their eyes”. They were sexist, racist, homophobic and xenophobic. </p>
<p>Yet, as Heritage’s Guardian colleague <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/04/carry-on-films-working-class-heyday">Fiona Sturges noted</a> in her more equivocal reading of their endurance, “they also highlight much of what we have lost”. She was referring to the way the films highlighted the erosion of traditional social barriers in post World War II Britain and provided critiques of authority and class divisions.</p>
<p>The earliest films: Carry on Sergeant (1958), Nurse (1959), Teacher (1959) and Constable (1960) are also noteworthy as commentaries on post-war British life as lived in relation to public service institutions: the army, the NHS, state schools and the police.</p>
<p>Like Sturges, I wouldn’t dismiss the Carry Ons from British cultural history, or histories of the British film industry. Profitably, they were even <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QEXpFWr_zgEC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=carry+on+nurse+success+in+America&source=bl&ots=IA6rNhbwcu&sig=ACfU3U032OiN4FNaNHLvJ-vTVcE5wYHAOw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiv__D8vNzjAhXcQUEAHR-DDmkQ6AEwG3oECDAQAQ#v=onepage&q=carry%20on%20nurse%20success%20in%20America&f=false">popular in America</a> – Carry On Nurse especially was a barnstorming success with gross profits in the multiple millions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286055/original/file-20190729-43122-1mtr2rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286055/original/file-20190729-43122-1mtr2rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286055/original/file-20190729-43122-1mtr2rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286055/original/file-20190729-43122-1mtr2rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286055/original/file-20190729-43122-1mtr2rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286055/original/file-20190729-43122-1mtr2rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286055/original/file-20190729-43122-1mtr2rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Susan Beaumont, Kenneth Connor, and Ann Firbank in a promotional poster for Carry on Nurse (1959).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Responding to a scathing review of Carry On Constable in The New Statesman in March 1960, its <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35531309">scriptwriter Norman Hudis</a> addressed the the economic stakes for industry of the financial success of the series (in a piece that is sadly not available online). He believed that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Money at the box-office … is what keeps cinemas open … I truly believe that it is films like this series which will enable the cinema, ultimately, to ‘Carry On’ – perhaps until the day when the standards of intellectual criticism become those of the general public.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hudis thus defended their populism in economic terms. Meanwhile, in her recent piece, Sturges argued that “in catering to a working-class audience, the Carry On films offered cinema goers a chance to see a version of themselves on screen”.</p>
<h2>Broad appeal</h2>
<p>My analysis of data contained in the <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/education-research/bfi-reuben-library">BFI Reuben Library</a> showed how the early films were received by critics. One of the things that leaps out of those reviews are how many of the comic situations in the films are points of identification for ordinary cinema goers, for example, the depiction of national service in Carry On Sergeant: “Every young sweat doing his service will revel in it.”</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286049/original/file-20190729-43145-j8kwx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286049/original/file-20190729-43145-j8kwx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286049/original/file-20190729-43145-j8kwx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286049/original/file-20190729-43145-j8kwx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286049/original/file-20190729-43145-j8kwx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286049/original/file-20190729-43145-j8kwx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286049/original/file-20190729-43145-j8kwx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Hugely popular in the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WP:NFCC#4</span></span>
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<p>Regarding the NHS, one reviewer wrote when the film came out: “If you’ve ever been in a hospital ward … Carry on Nurse will have you in stitches.” And regarding state schools a review read: “The staff-room discussions ring as nearly-true as they are meant to.”</p>
<p>A later turn towards parody of different film genres produced the best remembered and least derided films: Carry On Cleo (1964) – which was a send-up of big-budget ancient world historical epics – and Carry On Screaming (1966) – which lampooned horror, particularly the UK’s Hammer series.</p>
<h2>Carry on Changing</h2>
<p>Elsewhere the films continued to respond to UK social change. Carry on Abroad (1972) confronted the “Brits abroad” phenomenon emerging from spiking numbers of Britons taking international holidays in the 1970s, as this became affordable to those previously excluded from such travel by socio-economic circumstance.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286050/original/file-20190729-43104-1p44hfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286050/original/file-20190729-43104-1p44hfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286050/original/file-20190729-43104-1p44hfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286050/original/file-20190729-43104-1p44hfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286050/original/file-20190729-43104-1p44hfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286050/original/file-20190729-43104-1p44hfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286050/original/file-20190729-43104-1p44hfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Carry on Girls: like an old-fashioned seaside postcard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WP:NFCC#4</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Spanish coastal destinations such as the Costa Brava, Blanca and Del Sol became – and remain – hugely popular with British visitors and migrants (ironically, given the political turmoil that has since accompanied inflammatory British discourse about EU migration). Carry On Girls (1973) depicted the corresponding impact of the proliferation of overseas package deals on the economies of British seaside towns that lost their attractiveness as holiday destinations.</p>
<p>Heritage says the films don’t stand up to scrutiny. I disagree. For example, most who have seen one will likely remember the sexual objectification and harassment of female nurses in the hospital-based films. But does everyone remember the nurses collectivising and intervening to protest this treatment in the denouement of Carry On Nurse? Their pushback culminates in the film’s most enduring visual gag, when Wilfred Hyde-White’s nurse-ogling colonel undergoes rectal examination with a daffodil. </p>
<p>As sexual abuse revenge plots go it’s not exactly The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but it’s a moment of anti-patriarchy strike back that has been all too easily forgotten amid the lower-hanging fruit that some people have used to dismiss the film.</p>
<h2>Cultural capital</h2>
<p>A Carry On revival in these polarised times would be ill advised considering some of the sexist and racist attitudes with which the films are associated – some of which have been associated with the prime minister, <a href="https://theconversation.com/racist-jokes-return-but-freedom-of-speech-punchline-falls-flat-101613">Boris Johnson</a>, or his reputed slapstick “Carry On” style. But the place of these films in British film history remains. </p>
<p>In 1999, the <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/five-best-carry-ons-five-worst">British Film Institute</a> programmed “Carry on Chortling”, a season of Carry Ons at London’s National Film Theatre. This included a conference spearheaded by British cinema scholar <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/1794">Andy Medhurst</a> who did important work contextualising the significance of the films, and was accompanied by the successful “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/231561.stm">Ooh! What a Carry On</a>” exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image.</p>
<p>The Carry Ons remain significant for how they responded to topical social issues. As Medhurst said: “If you want to find out what a culture thinks about itself, look at what it laughs at.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Hamad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Carry On films have been compared to a Leave voter’s wet dream. But they were more thoughtful and honest than that.Hannah Hamad, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.