Found Footage Festival

When I was a student at Glasgow University, I found an abandoned box on the pavement near my flat on West Princes Street. The box contained notebooks, gig and cinema tickets, and lots of photographs. I was of course  immediately fascinated my with my new treasure and tried to join dots and build a story around those discarded fragments. Who were those people? Why had the box been chucked?

Although a bit less dreamy, the spirit behind the Found Footage Festival is in a similar vein. Founded in 2004 by Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher, the festival is essentially a comedy event that features VHS tapes gathered at second-hand shops, flea markets and jumble sales. The videos are often comical (a highlight of the current tour is a 1996 tape that teaches viewers how to care for their ferret), and sometimes very weird (I am personally intrigued by The Sexy Treadmill Workout).

http://www.foundfootagefest.com A small sampling of some of the weird and wonderful found footage on display in the brand-new Found Footage Festival touring show, coming to your city in 2012.

The FFF has been growing steadily for the past 9 years, and it easy to see where its charm lies. It is a celebration of how bizarre the everyday lives of ordinary people can be. Those VHS tapes are, in the words of organiser Nick Prueher, "A more truthful representation of who we are as a people than the greatest films of the last 75 years".

The festival is currently touring the UK, so catch it at  Edinburgh's Cameo Cinema at 9pm on Wednesday 20 March or at Glasgow's Grosvenor Cinema at 9pm on Thursday 21 March.

Follow @FoundFootage on Twitter and YouTube.

Feature: Roman Polanski's 'The Tenant' →

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Unpopular on release in 1976, Roman Polanski's The Tenant​ is the final film in his 'Apartment Trilogy', explorations of madness fostered in enclosed spaces. As Erika Sella finds out, claustrophobia isn't just caused by bricks and mortar - outside forces have their part to play too...

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Freitags #7

Time's a funny thing isn't it? it seems like hardly any time at all since the last brace of Freitags, and here we are again. It certainly doesn't seem like six years since the last album from (Aidan Moffat's pseudonymous electronica project) L. Pierre was released (Dip), but it's most cheering to see that the follow upThe Island Come True will be released on Monday through Melodic. The Quietus has a glut of articles related to its release, including an interview with the bearded bard, a stream of the album and an outstanding piece of writing from editor John Doran.

Lucky Pierre , From Album Touchpool

Stills and the CCA are co-hosting ECONOMY, a group exhibition focusing on the impact of global capitalist on our daily life. We are particularly interested in Stills' Film Lounge programme, showcasing work by Michael Glawogger (Austria), Francesco Jodice (Italy) and Maria Ruido (Spain).

Speaking of film,  we are very excited about The Glasgow Film Festival. The festival only started in 2005 and had been growing steadily ever since. The full programme was announced yesterday - we have a staggering 368 events, 57 UK premieres and 6 world premieres to keep us entertained  this February.  The highlight for us could be Souvenirs of Serge, a documentary charting the relationship between Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. The film will be followed by a performance from Jane, who will be interpreting  a few classics penned by the Gallic genius/provocateur. We are also attending a screening of Carl Dreyer’s stark and extremely powerful The Passion of Joan of Arc. A classic that deserves to be seen in a good cinema, and that cinema happens to be Glasgow Cathedral, a rather perfect setting. The GFF opens on 14th February with French comedy Populaire: we will be keeping an eye on it on a daily basis and report anything we find of interest. Watch this space.

Uploaded by None on 2009-05-04.

Song: Fratres - Arvo Part

Last year's Counterflows was a multi-venue event dedicated to underground music and art that occurred in Berlin, London and Glasgow simultaneously. The 2013 line-up for the Glasgow edition has just been announced for April and it's looking pretty special already. Particularly noteworthy are appearances by Peter Brötzmann and Loren Connors, but the most exciting announcement may well be that the ever-enigmatic Jandek will be playing with the superlative Richard Youngs and Alex Neilson at Stereo (Youngs and Neilson having backed Jandek at his first ever gig in 2004). See you down the front.

Music video by Christopher Zorker for Jandek's "You Standing There" off the 1998 album New Town.

Review: 'Tabu' →

A cinephile’s paradise, from Lisbon to Mozambique: Erika Sella revels in Miguel Gomes’ sublime story of love, memory and loss.

Review: 'Amour' →

Austrian director Michael Haneke is notorious for an unflinching and uncompromising approach to the violent and the taboo. As Erika Sella finds, Haneke's eye is no less unyielding in his new film as he tackles inescapably universal themes: ageing and Amour...

Review: Berberian Sound Studio →

Erika Sella delves into the murky world of 1970s Italian horror cinema, as seen through the eyes of a shy and retiring British Foley artist, in her review of Berberian Sound Studio.

Image courtesy of Artificial Eye.