THE ALCHEMY film festival in Hawick is to launch this week, with a programme of 130 film screenings. The annual festival includes 36 world premieres and 12 film installations and other events.
This year, the festival celebrates the work of Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer, a pioneer of surrealist cinema who has influenced
Terry Gilliam, Guillermo Del Toro and David Lynch. The festival will feature the premiere of UK of Insect, the film Švankmajer says will be his last, along with a programme of his early short films and panel discussions with the UK’s leading experts on his work.
The festival will also see the world premiere of Aftermath, a four-part biopic from Canadian filmmaker Mike Hoolboom, an exploration of the lives of four artists – Fats Waller, Jackson Pollock, Janieta Eyre and Frida Khalo. The festival also has the UK premiere of Turkish artist Didem Pekün’s Araf.
In celebration of Scotland’s Year of Young People 2018, the exhibition programme includes Fr@gile, which explores communication in the digital age. www.alchemyfilmfestival.org.uk.
THE SCOTTISH Album of the Year (SAY) Award has launched for 2018. The prize is open for entries, with artists, labels and music fans now able to submit eligible albums to The SAY Award website to be considered for this year’s award.
The SAY Award has no categories, and is open to all genres of music.
Eligible albums must have been released between 1 April last year and 31 March this year.
Once all eligible albums have been collated, 100 ‘Nominators’, chosen from sectors including journalism, broadcast and radio, music retail and venues that host live music, will consider the titles, nominating their five favourite albums and ranking them in order of preference. Nominators include specialists in a variety of genres, such as jazz, classical, electronic and folk. www.sayaward.com
THE GARSINGTON Opera company is to stage its first world premiere opera, replete with Scottish talent.
It is based on award-winning novel The Skating Rink by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. British composer David Sawer has composed the score, and noted Scottish director Stewart Laing directs and designs. Garry Walker is the conductor of the music.
Alan Oke, the tenor, plays the role of Rookie in The Skating Rink.
He trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and lives in Edinburgh. The show runs from July 5 to 16.
Performances are staged in the Opera Pavilion in the18th century Wormsley estate in Buckinhamshire, owned by the Getty family.
www.garsingtonopera.org
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here