28/01/2010

The Isle of Wight will celebrate the work of its favourite son, the late Anthony Minghella, again at the second edition of the Minghella Film Festival (12-14 March) in Newport.

Last year’s event featured the award-winning director’s feature films with introductions by members of his family and interviews with friends and colleagues including Jude Law, Alan Rickman, Martin Freeman and Lord David Puttnam.

The festival will open with the UK premiere of the Monte Carlo Comedy Film Festival’s Best First Feature Film winner, The Be All and End All [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], produced and directed by Isle of Wight resident Bruce Webb. The film will be shown in a double-bill with Love You More, the short film debut of Sam Taylor-Wood (Nowhere Boy [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) produced by Anthony Minghella.

This year’s event will also look at Minghella’s television and radio career. Highlights of the event will include a live performance of the award-winning radio play Cigarettes and Chocolate and a concert by composer Barrington Pheloung.

The Minghella family in association with the British Film Institute and the Isle of Wight Young Chamber is hosting the festival.

Festival founder Gioia Minghella said, “We are delighted to present another unique tribute to my brother’s extraordinary artistic legacy. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and we hope it will also raise considerable funds for some really worthwhile causes close to Anthony’s heart. Of course, Anthony was famously as interested in helping and encouraging others as he was in art for art’s sake, and I know he would have been deeply moved that so many of his closest friends and colleagues are once more joining with his family – and, indeed, the wider family of the Isle of Wight – to make this project a reality.