Film: Secrets of the alchemists

Happy 700th issue! I would like to say you should celebrate by watching 700 films, but I realise you are no doubt an awfully busy person with a job that doesn’t revolve around watching films for a living, and that asking you to do so may take you beyond our 800th issue, at which time I’ll probably be saying the same thing all over again and … well … then we’ll be in a bit of a muddle, won’t we? Regardless, should you be so inclined as to take me up on that challenge, pray do so! Tweet me with your results and I shall be forever impressed.

Aside from my arithmaniac delight with the issue, I am also very excited for this Sunday’s FilmFest on 8,
where we will be showing All The Gold You Can Eat from Jump Start Productions and director Joe De Kadt.

The documentary follows De Kadt’s remarkable road trip across America on a quest to discover whether a miraculous substance called ‘ormus’ can reveal the secrets of the alchemists.

Alchemy is, of course, the infamous philosophical tradition whose practitioners have sought the ability to transmute base metals into the noble metals (eg. iron into gold). Without giving anything away about the film, I shall merely say that you may be surprised by the outcome!

Jump Start Productions are Brighton’s only dedicated independent feature film production company, and we at FilmFest will be bringing you more of their fascinating films in the months to come. This includes Home for Christmas; adapted from the book of the same name it has an excellent cast, including True Blood’s Lucy Griffiths and April Pearson from the first Skins generation.

Speaking of Skins, this week’s main film on PostFeature also stars an alumna from the series, Kaya
Scodelario. The Maze Runner, based on a Young Adult book by James Dashner, follows protagonist Thomas as he is deposited in a community of boys trapped in a maze that they spend each day exploring in an attempt to escape, but must return to their ‘safe’ compound each night or else be eaten by the half-machine/half-spider monsters that roam the maze.

But why only one girl? In an interview, Dashner said: “The Maze Runner series was always about variables. Having a society of boys and then having it disrupted by a girl suddenly appearing just seemed like a really cool dynamic for them.” Hmm … or else this is just a male author who has trouble writing female characters?!

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