As befitting the dark theme of lunacy this years Compass Festival will be held in the old coroner’s court in Stokes Croft from 21 - 31 October 2010.
In 2010 Bristol-based cultural events organisation Compass Film steps through the looking glass, loses its head, sheds its sanity like an unwieldy fur coat and runs freely in the crisp October air. It’s time to say good-bye to your everyday self and slip out the door, out into the darkness to greet the witching hour. In a celebration of lunacy and all things strange, bizarre and out of the ordinary this years festival of cinema and arts presents films from around the globe as well as spoken word, burlesque, cabaret, silent cinema with live piano accompaniment, our ever popular short film competition as well as our VJ competition and a night of crazed, lunatic music to welcome in All Hallows Eve.
The (free) launch party kicks off at 7pm on Thursday 21 October with bands, art installations and booze at the old coroner’s court (behind Lakota). Come along and find out a little bit more about what we have on at the festival this year.
Highlights of the festival include a spoken word evening with some of the finest performers from Bristol and the South West as well as an open mic session afterwards for members of the public to come along and have a go.
We are showing The Hour of the Wolf, Ingmar Bergman’s only horror film and a chilling tale in which an artist, plagued by nightmares of his past confesses his darkest secrets to his wife during ‘the hour of the wolf’.
We also have a screening of Waking Life, a film wildly different from anything you will have seen before, in which live action footage has been drawn over to create a strange, sickening, dreamlike effect. A man stumbles through a dreamworld philosophising with the strange characters he meets along the way; but can he answer the questions he has about life, and will he ever wake up?
On Friday 29 enter a dark and nightmarish world where lunacy is just a misplaced step away; come and see classic black and white silent film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari in which a young man’s death is predicted by a psychic at a sinister fairground. With live piano accompaniment.
On Sunday 31 there will be a screening of Alice, the legendary Jan Svankmajer’s fantastically strange take on Alice in Wonderland; this dark and sinister mix of live action and stop motion animation is sure to obscure all thoughts of the cute little blonde you’re used to from Disney films.
Saturday 30th sees not only the competitors in our VJ competition doing their stuff for your visual delectation but also our fancy dress Halloween Howler party to see the last weekend of the festival off in style. Come and lose your head as Compass presents a Festival of Lunacy.
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Compass Film Festival Presents Festival of Lunacy Programme
