Brighton Rocks is a young festival with big ambition – to become the UK’s main festival for indie and underground cinema. Founding director, Dr James Rowlins, discusses Brighton Rocks’ aims and ambitions, and the pitfalls and potential of setting up a new film festival in the digital age. This is followed by a screening of Berlin: Alexanderplatz (Mark Nelson, 14 mins), “Best Short Film” of the 2018 Brighton Rocks Film Festival.
Berlin: Alexanderplatz
Berlin: Alexanderplatz is a tour de force art house film, at once mesmerising and sublime. Director Mark Nelson took inspiration from Hermann Hesse’s poem Stufen (Steps in English); the stages or steps we take in our interaction with the world. Alexanderplatz, in East Berlin, provides a filmic opportunity to present not only an interplay between Man and imposing structures weighed down by history, but also what might transcend both in Hesse’s vision – a Cosmic Spirit. This Spirit shines through in the play of families in Alexanderplatz and also people simply getting on with their lives, in defiance of terrors past and present. The Spirit's beacon of light breaks through and reconciles Man in the universe, a re-birth, a redemption.
Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.
