LIFF27 Day Summary - 12th November - Three Films, No Food

Sorry food fans; the closest I got to sampling the delicacies of various Leeds eateries today was a pasty from Gregg's and a pizza in the Everyman. High class indeed.

It was the final of my four days at Leeds yesterday; Ben takes up the Film Intel mantle for three days from Friday and there's full coverage of the films I've seen so far coming over the next few weeks.

Included in that will be today's films, which started with noted Jules Dassin Film Noir, Rififi. Rififi has been on my 'to see' list for a long time now, so it was great to finally tick it off and it was one of those films that the surroundings of Leeds Town Hall helped; gunshots echoing round incredibly and the silent heist segment leaving a very large space full of only fantastic black and white imagery. It was tense and tight and a great start to the day.

Straight after, also in the Town Hall was Expedition To The End Of The World, which should have been great and did look fantastic but somehow went off to the frozen wastes of Greenland's North in search of everything and actually found nothing. It's listed as a documentary and I'm pretty sure that that's what it is but an elongated section where some very clever people get obsessed with seeing a polar bear and an early scene where a member of the expedition trips over and accidentally discharges a gun did have me thinking of This Is Spinal Tap.

But if that was the intention, or at least the intention of the way the footage was edited, then there's not enough of it and some extremely dubiously thought-through, slightly pretentious philosophy didn't help matters.

To the Everyman, for the final film of the day, The Retrieval, which had some great feedback from it's earlier showing. The director, Chris Eska, was there again, which is dedication to the cause; as if writing, directing and editing the thing didn't do enough to prove that.

For an hour, The Retrieval is a moody, well-played tale but around the start of the third act it does feel like it runs out of steam a little. Still, well worth seeing, and you don't get a great deal of period Indies where the period looks this convincing.

And so, that was it, LIFF over for another year and, again, fantastically programmed, well managed and plentifully staffed with helpful volunteers. The audience award looks likely to go to Gravity, but After Lucia gets my vote without question.

I enjoyed every second of it. Apart from the bit where I nearly passed out watching Soulmate. If there's to be one change, lets not do that next year, hey LIFF?

The 27th Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) takes place from the 6th-21st November at cinemas around the city, including Hyde Park Picture House and Leeds Town Hall. Tickets and more information are available via the official LIFF website.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.