Brit film launches east end film festival

By John Hill on April 4, 2008 9:00 AM |

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A ROMANTIC drama delving into the lives of love-struck Londoners will launch the seventh East End Film Festival.

The week-long event will kick off on April 17 with the London premiere of The Waiting Room, a British drama starring Royle Family star Ralf Little, Anne-Marie Duff of Shameless fame and Rupert Graves.

The Waiting Room will be screened first at the Rich Mix Centre in Bethnal Green, before hitting the Cineworld West India Quay on April 18 at 7pm.

The Wharf cinema will again be playing a key role in the festival. On April 19 it will show the tale of a 12-year-old and her fairy godmother in Mahek, while Ellen Page of Oscar-nominated hit Juno will star in road trip movie Mouth to Mouth at 6.30pm on April 21.

All White in Barking will explore racial tensions between long-time residents and their Nigerian neighbours on April 22 at 6.30pm, while the cinema will simultaneously host the UK premiere of Manila gang war flick Tribu that evening.

This year’s festival will feature 26 feature films and 84 shorts, ranging from Eastern European movies to Bollywood screenings.

It Always Rains on a Sunday will offer an intriguing glimpse into East End life following the Second World War.

The 1947 film stars Googie Withers as a Bethnal Green housewife whose old flame re-appears in her life while fleeing the police. It will be shown at the Rio in Dalston on April 20 from 3.45pm.

The “East End ghetto” of Whitechapel, Stepney and Bethnal Green between 1880 and 1940 will also be explored in Elliott Tucker’s Children of the Ghetto at Mile End’s Genesis on April 22.

Limehouse resident Steven Berkoff and hairstylist Vidal Sassoon will be among those interviewed for this look at the Eastern European community which emerged in London over 100 years ago.

The Stratford Picture House will be showing a British documentary on the assassination of Bobby Kennedy on April 23, while Poland’s Lejdis, a hit comedy about independent women, will be arriving at the Genesis on April 19.

Many of the directors will be participating in question and answer sessions after the screenings.

The event is supported by Tower Hamlets Council in partnership with Hackney and Newham Councils and Lee Valley Regional Park Authority and runs until April 24.