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Drama starring Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay takes best British film prize at Edinburgh, with Diary of a Teenage Girl nabbing best international feature

The top prize at the Edinburgh international film festival, the Michael Powell award for best British feature film, has gone to 45 Years, directed by Andrew Haigh.

Written by Haigh and David Constantine, 45 Years stars Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay as a married couple whose relationship is thrown into turmoil on the eve of their 45th wedding anniversary. Described by Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw as “a wonderfully acted minor-key study in anxiety and regret”, it is Haigh’s third feature. Previous winners include Penny Woolcock’s One Mile Away, Duncan Jones’ Moon and Anton Corbijn’s Control.

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Exclusive: Film and TV productions to get funding injection.

Film and high-end TV productions shooting in the West Midlands are to receive a cash boost of $4.7m (£3m) from Creative England in 2015.

The West Midlands Production Fund has recently revised its guidelines in a bid to attract more projects to the region, particularly high-end TV.

As well as increasing the maximum investment per project to £1m, the fund - administered by Creative England - will now offer a mixture of debt and equity and can accept matched co-investment from both private and other public sector sources including BFI, BBC, C4 and the Enterprise Investment Scheme (Eis) on terms to be agreed.

Creative England estimates that additional filming in the region can generate up to $50,000 (£32,000) a day for the local economy.

The £3m sum is an increase on the fund’s 2014 budget of £1.5m.

Projects previously backed by the fund include features Road to Guantanamo, the Nativity...

Exclusive: One Mile Away director Penny Woolcock is to make a documentary about illegal dog-fighting for UK broadcaster Channel 4.

Going To The Dogs (working title), which recently finished shooting and is now in edit, explores the underworld of contemporary dog-fighting in Birmingham.

It is being made through social enterprise Latimer Creative and will draw on interviews with dog-owners, historians, academics and criminologists.

Woolcock began shooting in late summer and aims to complete the edit by the end of January.

It is her third film for C4’s Cutting Edge strand and was ordered by C4 commissioning editor, documentaries, Emma Cooper, who said: “Penny is one our foremost filmmaking talents and once more she has secured the most exceptional access to a secretive, hidden world.”

Birmingham was also the setting for Woolcock’s previous documentary One Mile Away, about the city’s gangs. It won the Edinburgh Film Festival’s 2012 Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature...

Judi Dench, Scarlett Johansson: 2013 British Independent Film Awards nominations (photo: Judi Dench in ‘Philomena’) Since the likes of Judi Dench, Scarlett Johansson, James McAvoy, and Tom Hardy are in the running for the 2013 British Independent Film Awards, expect at least a little overlapping between the determinedly indie-oriented BIFAs and other awards season nominees and/or winners elsewhere. (See also: “Judi Dench Sole Bifa Nominee Surely to Get BAFTA, Oscar Nominations.”) Judi Dench and Scarlett Johansson are competing in the Best Actress category; Dench for Stephen Frears’ Philomena, Johansson for Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin. Tom Hardy and James McAvoy are in the running for the Best Actor British Independent Film Award; Hardy for Steven Knight’s Locke, McAvoy for Jon S. Baird’s Filth. The top Bifa 2013 movie, however, is David Mackenzie’s Starred Up, with a total of eight nominations including Best British Independent Film, Best Director,...

The question of quotas for diversified talent in the UK film industry was a hot topic at Screen International and Broadcast’s Diversify conference today; experts’ views were decidedly mixed.

Femi Oguns, founder of Identity Drama and Identity Agency Group, said emphatically, “We should force a quota.” Director Penny Woolcock agreed: “I actually think it’s worth a try…it could open the door to new kinds of stories. It’s the only way of changing it to force people.”

But writer/director Amma Asante said: “I’m nervous about quotas. I’ve heard too many times even today, ‘Oh she’s there because she’s black or she’s a woman’… it’s not the reality I’m worried about, it’s the perception.”

Jason Bradbury of Lgbt-friendly distribution company Peccadillo Pictures was also fearful of quotes: “I’m not sure quotas would work, it’s a dangerous route to go down.”

Writer/actor/director...

The documentary Project Wild Thing hopes to get kids off computers and embracing nature. But do protest films ever change anything – and who actually watches them?

What are you doing about global warming? Or fracking? Arab democracy? Diminishing bee populations? Nuclear energy? Gun control? Repression in Uganda? Russia? Burma? Increasingly, what we're doing about the world's problems seems to be watching documentaries on them – which does feel like doing something, while at the same time being very close to doing nothing. Now, at least, we can do nothing about more issues than ever before. The current cinema landscape is saturated with documentaries and fictionalised movies highlighting important political, humanitarian or environmental issues. That should be a good thing, but somehow, it doesn't always feel like it.

In the past month we've already had films on bees (More Than Honey), the internet and children (InRealLife), and climate change denial (Greedy Lying...

Before Midnight's stellar work for the Greek tourist board and Moby's mission to help indie film-makers

Get us to the Greeks

Director Richard Linklater was pretty smart about his filming locations for the low-budget Before Midnight . In fact, this latest production sets the bar high for product placement in indie movies, though the film's so light and charming you can forgive it any brazen advertising. But, make no mistake, you too can now stay in the Before Midnight suite at the luxury Costa Navarino resort, where the couple stay in the movie. Interestingly, Linklater was brave enough to use the location as the setting for a monumental argument between lovers Jesse and Celine, played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. But in general, the film is a great advertisement for the sunlit heaven of Messenia in the southern Peloponnese, an area of Greece the characters mention by name several times during the film.

In The House | Trance | Good Vibrations | 12 In A Box | The Host | GI Joe: Retaliation | One Mile Away | King Of The Travellers | We Went To War | Point Blank | Finding Nemo 3D

In The House (15)

(François Ozon, 2012, Fra) Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ernst Umhauer, Emmanuelle Seigner. 105 mins

A French teacher is instantly drawn in by a student's essay on infiltrating his friend's family, and so are we. Before we know it, we're swept off on a self-reflexive journey into storytelling, voyeurism and ethical boundaries. Both the boy's story and the movie struggle to find an ending, but it's another distinctly "Ozonian" comedy-thriller.

Trance (15)

(Danny Boyle, 2013, UK) James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel. 101 mins

Boyle chucks everything he can (maybe too much) at this twisty, visceral art-heist thriller, which hinges on McAvoy's hypnosis to reveal the whereabouts of a stolen Goya painting. The result is more of a Jackson Pollock.

Good Vibrations (15)

(Lisa Barros D'Sa,...

A documentary that helped spark a reconciliation between rival gangs in Birmingham is a little short on context, but inspiring none the less

Until recently, gang members from the Birmingham suburbs of Handsworth (Burger Bar Boys) and Aston (Johnson Crew) risked their life just by crossing postcodes. One Mile Away is a blow-by-blow account of their stuttering reconciliation, detailing the crossfire killings of Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare, and the surprising unifying effect of the 2011 riots. If signs look good, it's because of repentant gangsters such as Shabba (Johnsons) and Flash (Burgers), who were linked up by director Penny Woolcock, then made the peace process their own. The doc's short on context, and too forgiving of its poster boys, but as a study of their commitment to bettering themselves and the community, it's inspiring.

Rating: 4/5

DocumentaryHenry Barnes

guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Henry Barnes presents our weekly round-up of the big cinema releases. This week we're heading deep into the subconscious with Danny Boyle's Trance; gunning for glory via GI Joe: Retaliation; peering into the domestic life of an unsuspecting family with François Ozon's In The House, and watching two gangs come to an uneasy truce in Penny Woolcock's One Mile Away. With Peter Bradshaw and Andrew Pulver. This is the audio-only version of the Guardian Film Show

Henry BarnesPhil Maynard...

Stone age story bashes Jack the Giant Slayer and Oz the Great and Powerful to take the top spot ahead of Easter weekend

The winner

After the relative disappointment of Rise of the Guardians led to significant job losses at DreamWorks Animation, the outcome for the company's follow-up The Croods was always bound to receive extra attention. What's more, The Croods is the first film going out internationally through new distribution partner Twentieth Century Fox, following a long association with Paramount. The result – a £5.37m UK debut including £1.85m in previews – is a happy outcome for all parties, especially when you consider that snow and bitter cold over the weekend provided one less reason to leave the house, leading to significant drops for many films already on release.

For comparison, Rise of the Guardians debuted last November with £1.97m. Madagascar 3, which benefited from an inherited audience, kicked off with £6.03m including £2.39m in previews.

Post Tenebras Lux | Jack The Giant Slayer | Reality | Compliance | Identity Thief | The Croods | Neighbouring Sounds | Stolen | Reincarnated | Small Apartments | The Servant | I, Superbiker: Day Of Reckoning

Post Tenebras Lux (18)

(Carlos Reygadas, 2012, Mex/Fra/Neth/Ger) Adolfo Jiménez Castro, Nathalia Acevedo, Willebaldo Torres. 115 mins

Terence Malick gone a bit mainstream for you? Then try this latest litmus test, in which Mexican auteur Reygadas takes his penchant for striking imagery and disjointed narratives to commendably ambitious/infuriatingly inscrutable extremes. Centred on a troubled architect and his family, it's a shuffled jigsaw puzzle involving class tensions, rugby, swingers' parties and an animated Satan.

Jack The Giant Slayer (12A)

(Bryan Singer, 2013, Us) Nicholas Hoult, Ewan McGregor. 114 mins

Another souped-up fairytale offering commercially calibrated spectacle rather than genuine wonder. The promising cast and giant budget amount to a hill of beans.

Reality (15)

(Matteo Garrone, 2012, Ita/Fra) Aniello Arena, Loredana Simioli. 116 mins

TV's celebrity culture exuberantly satirised,...

★★★★☆ Penny Woolcock's One Mile Away (2012) was the first documentary ever to be awarded the Michael Powell Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival back in 2012 - and it's easy to see why. Woolcock hired a host of non-actors from Birmingham, including Burger gang member Dylan Duffus, for her 2009 fiction film 1 Day, and the pair remained friends after the film was completed. Aware of this friendship, a member of the opposing Johnsons gang, Shabba, called Woolcock and asked her to arrange a meeting with Dylan. One Mile Away follows the efforts of Dylan and Shabba as they attempt to bring about a truce in their community.

Read more »...

A brutal dispute between street gangs blighted Birmingham for 20 years, making national headlines in 2003 when two teenage girls were shot dead. But an uneasy truce reigns now, brokered by a former cabinet minister and a film-maker, who tells the story in an extraordinary documentary, One Mile Away

Ashley "Woody" Woodcock was 15 and hanging clothes on a washing line in his back garden when a bullet came whistling towards him. At first, he didn't understand what was happening but when he looked at his hand, he saw it was bleeding. The edge of his palm had been skimmed by the shot, a wound that would leave a burned-out blackened scar that is still visible now, 10 years later.

Matthias "Shabba" Thompson is 33. He was shot in the leg a few years back. He was in such a state of shock that he didn't even notice until he jumped in a car to...

London Iranian Film Festival | Food For Real Film Festival | Framed Film Festival | London Latin American Film Festival

London Iranian Film Festival

How can one of the world's most culturally repressive regimes produce such brilliant movies? The question still stands, in light of Asghar Farhadi, whose A Separation (which played at this festival last year) won the best foreign film Oscar, and whose About Elly enjoyed a warm reception here, even as its star, Golshifteh Farahani, was exiled for displaying nudity in a French ad. What will the contradictory country come up with next? There are more potential award-winners here, such as Here Without Me or family drama A Cube Of Sugar.

Various venues, Mon to 23 Nov

Food For Real Film Festival, Liverpool

If the words "food" and "film" only trigger the reaction, "Mmmm… popcorn!", you need something more nutritious. Such as this food-related film festival, which gives you thoroughly wholesome films,...

After the borderline-disastrous 2011 Festival, the 66th Edinburgh Film Festival seems to have found its feet again – to a degree. The awards were reinstated, the guests lent a touch of class, there were a broader range of venues and, in terms of the films I saw at least, the quality of the programme improved. These adjustments (last year, the phrase ‘This was always our intention’ was repeated like a mantra) gave the sense – absent last year – that a proper film festival was taking place.

That doesn’t mean the Festival was perfect; improving over last year wasn’t going to be terribly difficult, but generally things took a step in the right direction. I do not know to what extent this was down to the appointment of a new artistic director, Chris Fujiwara, but he brought to the Festival a depth of film knowledge coupled with a hands-on enthusiasm. There is,...

Scotland looks magnificent in Eiff closing night film Brave — lots of mountains, mystical spaces and torrential waterfalls. Strangely though, it doesn’t rain in the movie. Not once. This decision must have been overseen by the Scottish tourist board, for there are few places as rainy as Scotland. When it rained in Cannes this year, it was all the trades could talk about — but it’s just not news when it happens in Edinburgh. The last two weeks in Edinburgh we have all been dashing from cinema to cinema in raincoats, umbrellas up, wavy hair getting frizzier by the minute. The only thing to be said for the rain is that it’s great movie-watching weather.

And happily Eiff 2012 has been all about watching, and celebrating, movies. I think we can safely say the disaster of 2011 is well behind us thanks to Artistic Director Chris Fujiwara‘s intelligent, international, inclusive programming.

Penny Woolcock scoops best British feature for One Mile Away while international prize goes to Chinese film Here, Then

The 66th edition of the Edinburgh film festival wrapped up on the weekend with a high-profile screening of Pixar's Scots-themed animation Brave, and took the opportunity to dish out a handful of awards – a practice that had been abandoned for last year's controversy-mired event.

The Michael Powell award for best British feature film went to One Mile Away, Penny Woolcock's documentary about the attempt to forge a truce between two London gangs. This follows the Sheffield Doc/Fest's bestowal of its Inspiration award on Woolcock, best known for the opera film The Death of Klinghoffer and the urban musical 1 Day.

Winner of the award for best film in the international feature competition was Here, Then, a study of alienated youth in contemporary China from director Mao Mao, while special mention was given to documentary Papirosen,...

The Edinburgh International Film Festival has revealed the winners of this year's competition awards as the event draws to a close. The awards are the first to be given at Edinburgh for a number of years, after the competitive aspect of the festival was disbanded, only to be reinstated by new festival director Chris Fujiwara for 2012. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film was awarded to Penny Woolcock's One Mile Away, which made its world premiere at the festival. A jury headed by actor Jim Broadbent described the film, a documentary about warring street gangs in Birmingham, as "brave and honest", (more)...

Mao Mao's Here, Then drama about rootless youngsters in China won this year's best international film nod as this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival began to draw to a close. The international movie competition jury was presided over by Elliot Gould and was picked from a selection of movies from around the world that also included, for the first time, documentary films alongside narrative films. Gould's jury also gave a special mention to documentary Papirosen by Gastón Solnicki. Director Penny Woolcock was awarded the Michael Powell Award for best British feature film for One Mile Away which made its world

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Penny Woolcock has won Edinburgh Film Festival's Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film for One Mile Away. The documentary - which had its world premiere at this year's festival - looks at Birmingham gang culture and efforts to broker peace from within. It is the first time a documentary has won the Michael Powell, which widened the eligibility criteria this year and the award given out a ceremony hosted by Stv Moviejuice's Grant Lauchlan.

Woolcock's film beat off stiff competition from the critically well-received The Imposter and Shadow Dancer among others.

The citation from the Jury - headed by Jim Broadbent - read: “One Mile Away by Penny Woolcock is a brave and honest film tackling a huge problem with sensitivity and skill, not only charting the efforts to reconcile a community but also showing the great wealth of creativity that is part of that struggle. We are delighted.

Walking around Edinburgh today it almost felt like there was a Film Festival taking place – an improvement over last year, when even the city’s residents seemed oblivious to the whole thing. Between films today I spotted a group of journalists snapping Festival patrons Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins (whose film What Is This Film Called Love? I am seeing tomorrow). Elliott Gould could be seen hanging around the Cineworld in Fountainbridge. I was genuinely moved to look up from the DVDs in the Filmhouse foyer today and find that the sweet little lady smiling back at me was Thelma Schoonmaker, long-time collaborator of Martin Scorsese, widow of British film legend Michael Powell, and one of the finest editors in cinema history.

I kicked off today with a documentary about which I knew zip: One Mile Away. It explores gang culture in Birmingham, and the long-standing feud between the Burger...

She directed its opening film, From The Sea To The Land Beyond, and now veteran British director Penny Woolcock has won Sheffield DocFest's Inspiration Award. Receiving the prize at a ceremony this morning, she commented "My instinct is to walk towards things that most people would run away from." Given her pedigree, with films like Mischief Night and One Mile Away, it's hard to argue with that.

The award was one of seven announced today. Art documentary Marina Abramović The Artist Is Present took the Special Jury Prize, beating off tough competition from controversial Chinese story Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry and Call Me Kuchu, which tackles issues around homosexuality in Uganda.

Photographic Memory was the youth jury's choice, with spokesperson Rhys Holland commenting "We admired how this film's self-shot form illustrates to young filmmakers the ability for anyone to tell honest and heartfelt stories without the necessity for big...