A good day at the Film Festival yesterday; top marks to two out of four, less enthusiasm for the others.

In the closing years of the 19th century and the opening years of the 20th Frank Brinton and his wife Indiana from Washington Iowa toured their Entertainment Show.  For the small communities they visited it was a magical trip out of their everyday world through lantern slides and moving pictures.

The Brintons kept everything, not just the slides and films but projectors, playbills, press cuttings account books, the lot. Thousands of items that lurked in a number of basements until over thirty years ago they came into the hands of Michael Zahs a teacher in Washington sprung from generations of Iowa farming stock.

Saving Brinton is a fascinating documentary that as the directors said at the Q&A started out with its  focus on the film history material which Michael strove to rouse interest in over all those years but which became more the background to a story about Michael and the community of rural Iowa in which he is rooted.

It's a wonderful film and Michael's a wonderful chap but he seems to have only one tie, seen several times in the film and worn on his visit to the festival.  It features Grant Wood's painting American Gothic.  Not a pretty tie in my view.

On to a second excellent film.  This time it's a Scottish movie about a highland hunting trip that goes horribly wrong.  That's as much of the plot as it's fair to give away The trailer reveals too much in my opinion so don't look for it.  The film is either a thrilling drama or a dramatic thriller but either way it's intense, quite scary and undeniably dark.  Called Calibre you can see it on Netflix from Friday.

It features in quite large letters in the credits a girl I recruited to do costumes for a show I directed some years ago.  She was at art college at the time and it's lovely to see she's making her mark in an intensely precarious industry so a sixth star to the film for that. 

I was looking forward to seeing Ornette: Made in America.  Otherwise I wouldn't have a bought a ticket would I?  1959 is regarded as one of, if not the most creative year in jazz history.  Ornette Coleman's free jazz came onto the scene then and although it's definitely not my favourite flavour I was interested in learning more about the man and his work.  I don't think I did although the film features Coleman's work for jazz players and symphony orchestra, Skies of America, that I'd like to hear in its entirety.

It's not a new documentary by any means (1985) and was in the festival as part of their celebration of American women, the woman in question being the director, Shirley Clarke.  She's billed as an experimental filmmaker and this is not a straightforward talking heads documentary though it's more the technical treatment that at times got in the way of my enjoyment.  There are sections with very rapid cross-cutting and in particular a monologue by Coleman against a dark background bombarded by coloured lights going off and on that I found quite dizzying.  Indeed I was just a little unsteady on my legs as I left the cinema, rather like coming ashore after a few days at sea.

I have mixed feelings about Never Leave Me.  The film is about Syrian child refugees in Turkey.  That's potentially both a politically charged and a tearjerking subject but the director takes no political position whatsoever.  Politics is never mentioned.  Nor is it a polemic on how terrible their plight is and how something must be done with illustrations and soundtrack to match.


It shows the children behaving in what might be considered a "normal" way, playing, squabbling, forming friendships, bunking off school and so on against the ever present background of the loss of home and parents.  The one thing they don't lose is hope.

As the end credits tell us these are real children playing themselves and so far there are no happy endings.

Why are my feelings mixed?  I think the film for me falls unsteadily between drama and documentary.   There is not enough examination and analysis of the situation to be a satisfactory documentary but neither is there a strong enough rise and fall in the development of a storyline to make it a satisfactory drama.  Don't let me put you off seeing it though.