This South African crime thriller, set in a notoriously dangerous area outside Cape Town, stars Irshaad Ally as Randal, a bitter paraplegic crook desperate to pay off a sadistic loan shark (Danny Ross).  A wonderful Monique Rockman is  Randal’s long-suffering girlfriend. Co-directed by first-time feature director Nosipho Dumisa, the film is cheerfully derivative of Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” emphasizing Randal’s immobility and use of binoculars.  Although focused on lives shaped by chronic poverty, “Number 37” avoids social commentary.  Cinematographer Zenn van Zyl draws richness from the grungy setting, resulting in a film the New York Times calls “crackling with its own lowlife energy.” 

South Africa 2018 (100 minutes)        

Maxine Peake (appearing in person at Mostly British) kills as they say in the comedy trade, playing the title character with unflinching boldness and grit that absolutely mesmerizes. As a female standup comic trying to make it in the northern working men’s clubs of the 70s, she confronts the unrelenting sexism and violence surrounding working class women in Northern England. Through a collage of flashbacks, we learn how resilience was knocked into her by an abusive father, husband, and broken alcoholic mother. Funny Cow stands a vibrant, firebrand dressed in red with corkscrew blonde hair and bright red lips, using comedy as her lifeline, amid a dreary, harsh, grimy cityscape. She has a fur coat and fancy sports car for comfort but they can’t erase the deep hurt in her soul. This film makes us uncomfortable. We may not laugh but we will think. Remember Archie Rice in The Entertainer – he was “dead behind the eyes”. Funny Cow calls herself “a monster behind the eyes”.  But no, she is just trying to survive and we applaud her for it. Miss Peake and board member Tony Broadbent will introduce the film and participate in a Q & A following the screening.  

2017 UK (92 mins)

GUEST OF HONOR:  MAXINE PEAKE
English actress Maxine Peake will join us at the festival with two of her new films, which she will introduce and participate in a Q & A following the screenings. She stars in “Peterloo,” as the mother of a young British conscript in this story of the infamous 1819 massacre at Peterloo. In “Funny Cow” she plays a female comic attempting in the 1970s to find a place in England’s comedy circuit. The Guardian wrote of her performance “Peake rises magnificently to the challenge of the role, her face flickering between a practical smile and a silent scream.” She is a regular on the Hulu show “The Bisexual” and is known in the UK for lead roles in the TV series “Dinnerladies” and “Shameless.” She has also appeared in “Black Mirror” and the movie “The Theory of Everything.” Her stage work includes the title characters in “Hamlet” and “Miss Julie” and as Blanche in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” a performance The Guardian described as “exquisite” and “breathtaking.”

Greatness is thrust upon Britain’s Prince Albert after his brother abdicates and he is forced to ascend the throne as King George VI. He is not a natural for the role being timid, low in self-confidence and suffering from a debilitating stammer. 1936 was a critical time in Europe, threatened by the ambitions of Hitler and Mussolini, and Britain needed a strong, clear voice. The Queen Mother astutely hired Lionel Logue, an Australian actor and speech therapist, to help the King overcome his stammer. The film is the moving story of the relationship between these two men, a deep and often hilarious friendship. It is a superb film, a winner of a best picture Oscar and best actor for an extraordinary Colin Firth as the King. Directed by Tom Hooper with Geoffrey Rush as the speech therapist and Helena Bonham Carter and Guy Pearce.  

UK 2010 (118 minutes)

“Elizabeth” and “Richard III” will be introduced by Peter Robinson, movie reviewer for KALW91 FM and editor of San Francisco’s Books & Travel.

Laurence Olivier’s “Richard III,” from 1955 is considered the best of his efforts behind the camera. Directing himself, he gives a much heralded if undeniably campy performance as the malformed title character who methodically plots and murders his way to the throne. Olivier delivers Richard’s famous soliloquies directly facing the audience. Given a lavish budget estimated at several millions, he shot the film in color and Vista Vision, a super-sharp widescreen process that enhanced his own visual concepts. The Mostly British festival will screen a new eye-boggling digital restoration. The film also is notable for starring four actors who ultimately are knighted: Cedric Hardwicke, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud and Olivier. UK 1955 (160 minutes)  

Directed by Shekar Kapur, this lush period extravaganza stars Cate Blanchett in the role that announced her as a star as Elizabeth 1 during the early years of her reign. She was a Protestant monarch in a Catholic country, reason enough for the instability surrounding her reign. Conspiracy and intrigue created her steely determination to survive and rule, with betrayal eventually causing her to relinquish the one man she loved, the dashing Joseph Fiennes as Sir Robert Dudley, and become “the Virgin Queen”. Fabulous sets and costumes combined with a stellar cast (including Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston and Richard Attenborough) led by Blanchett who enthralls as the passionate young princess adopting the merciless mantle of the Queen of England during a tumultuous period in British history. Rightly garnered 7 Oscar nominations.UK 1998 (124 minutes)

Breezing onto the big screen like a small-screen observational comedy, complete with a deadpan voiceover, longtime collaborators director Jamie Thraves and actor Aiden Gillen’s (“Game of Thrones,” “The Wire”) latest is a not-exactly-documentary-not-really-fiction film– a low-fi, freewheeling, meta-riff on fame with Gillen playing an iteration of himself, an actor named Aidan who lives alone with a dog, struggles to connect with his (real-life) teenage daughter, and has mixed feelings about fame. He has a bad back, can’t sleep, and is playing a serial killer – the element which eventually lifts this good-natured Dublin-set charmer into pure fiction. One hopes. With a dark underpinning that repeatedly bubbles to the surface, a solid sense of humor, and a rollicking lens on the absurd, this is a uniquely entertaining film. Ireland 2017 (75 minutes)

Due to technical difficulties at the Vogue Theater, Black ’47 will be played at the Balboa Theater (3630 Balboa Street, San Francisco) on Sunday, February 17 at 7:30 PM.

Irish filmmaker Lance Daly takes on the Great Famine and its worst year, 1847, resulting in a powerful revenge tale the Guardian calls “harrowingly effective.” Australian actor James Frecheville ( “Animal Kingdom”) gives a coldly terrifying performance as an Irishman who deserts from the British army and returns to his homeland to discover the truth about how his family has been tyrannized and allowed to die in squalor and misery. He is pursued by disgraced English soldier-turned-policeman (Hugo Weaving), a drawlingly arrogant officer (Freddie Fox), and a tracker-guide (Stephen Rea from “The Crying Game”). The superb cast is rounded out by Jim Broadbent as an evil absentee landlord. This viscerally tough, insightful film contains lively historical detail concerning the exploitation of Irish Catholics, including a riveting scene showing “Souperism,” wherein evangelical Protestants offered a meal to poor, starving Catholics in exchange for conversion. A huge hit in Ireland, the film benefits from the majesty of cinematographer Declan Quinn’s wide vistas. Irish 2018 (100 minutes)

Called Ireland’s “most maverick moviemaker” by The Irish Times, Director Liam O Mochain’s third feature is an omnibus film, comprising seven interconnecting tales, each inspired by a true story, with the director himself at the center as a likable loser working the Lost & Found at an Irish country rail station. An older man begs for train fare to Dublin. A cranky pub owner with wild ideas keeps refurbishing his unpopular pub. A marriage proposal at an airport goes hideously wrong. On her deathbed, an old woman recalls valuables left behind when fleeing the war, inspiring her grandson into an unlikely treasure hunt. One ambitious “bridezilla” is determined to keep her booking at a wedding venue, even though she no longer has a willing groom…or does she? The breezy vignettes weave these characters and others into and out of each other’s lives bringing deeper meaning and ingenuity to the movie’s title. A truly independent film filled with humor and humanity, this low-key charmer will leave your heart warmed and your spirit lifted. 

Ireland 2017 (92 minutes)

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