ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies CINEMA has provided us with a powerful collection of films about the Holocaust, from the Oscar-winning Schindler’s List to the epic Shoah. There is always room for another drama that provides a personal insight into man’s inhumanity to man. The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is based on the bestseller […]

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies LADY GEORGIANA SPENCER was the kind of 18th century celebrity that the modern world might recognise. A fashion icon, beauty and prominent society figure, she was also a distant ancestor of Diana Spencer. The Duchess is a handsome account of her life and a marriage to the cold, distant Duke […]

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies FRANCOIS OZON is one of the finest French directors of his generation. His films show an acute understanding of human relationships, love, loss and longing. Angel sees him venturing far from his comfort zone with an English-language adaptation of a period romance from the pen of Elizabeth Taylor – the […]

Ballerina Ballroom, Nairn, 15-23 August 2008

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies DIRECTOR Shane Meadows is currently one of the finest directors working in British cinema. He won a BAFTA earlier this year for This Is England and now follows that triumph with Somers Town, a heartwarming little bundle of joy filmed in lyrical black and white. It is slight and short […]

Ballerina Ballroom, Nairn, 15-23 August 2008

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies GIVEN THE grim state of everything from the economy to the weather, it’s easy to understand why we all need cheering up. Mamma Mia! has been a massive Summer hit because it is guaranteed to raise your spirits. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day achieves a similar feat with an […]

ALLAN HUNTER sets the scene for a film festival where love of cinema is the only motivating factor

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies DEATH DEFYING ACTS is set in the Scotland of 1926, but that is no excuse for the fact that it is so old-fashioned and unconvincing. The relationship between famed escapologist Harry Houdini and a Scottish con artist should have provided the material for a grand love story in which mutual […]

ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies PHILIPPE PETIT is the man who committed what has become known as the artistic crime of the century. In 1974, the irrepressible Frenchman defied the laws of gravity to repeatedly traverse a high wire cable stretching between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. The story […]