York film preview: Last Night in Soho and Aesthetica Short Film Festival

Edgar Wright makes the kind of films that are lethal to the late-night channel-hopper.

You know how it goes – it’s half past ten, you’re tired, you really should go to bed, but then you stumble across Hot Fuzz on ITV2 again, and well, maybe you’ll just watch it until the ad break…well, maybe just the next ad break too…and then, two hours and one gloriously over-the-top finale later, you finally manage to turn the telly off.

He’s back this week with his dark and twisted new tale Last Night in Soho – don’t go expecting any runaway swans in this one – while more scares are on offer in folkloric horror Antlers, and a complex friendship is put under the spotlight in Passing.

Plus, York’s very own film festival is back – and this time, it’s hybrid…

New releases

Last Night in Soho

This psychological thriller from director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver) takes us on a journey to the dark and disturbing underworld lurking just beneath the glamorous surface of swinging sixties London.

The story sees wide-eyed, sixties-obsessed fashion student Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie, Jojo Rabbit) mysteriously transported back in time to 1966, where she becomes inextricably tied up with the fate of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy, The Queen’s Gambit), a singer who has arrived in the capital with dreams of stardom.

Matt Smith (no stranger to time travel himself) co-stars as a charming but possibly dangerous club promoter into whose orbit Sandie is drawn, while the supporting cast also boasts a host of sixties icons, from Terence Stamp to the late Dame Diana Rigg, in her final film performance.

Antlers

A school teacher reaches out to her troubled pupil, only to discover that he has a terrifying secret, in this supernatural chiller.

When quietly-spoken youngster Lucas (Jeremy J. Thomas) tells a disturbing version of the Goldilocks story in class, teacher Julia (Keri Russell, The Americans) suspects he has problems at home – but as she delves deeper, she learns to her shock that the boy’s domestic horrors may have their roots in a local myth about a murderous horned beast.

It’s no surprise to see Guillermo del Toro on hand as exec producer here, though reviews indicate that this is not the all-out creature feature its trailer would suggest, with director Scott Cooper (whose last film was the 2017 western Hostiles) grounding the tale’s fantastical elements in a bleakly realistic small town setting.

Passing

This black-and-white drama set in 1920s New York marks the directorial debut of actress Rebecca Hall (The Prestige, Godzilla vs. Kong).

Tessa Thompson (Creed) and Ruth Negga (Loving) star as two mixed race childhood friends who meet again as adults, when Irene (Thompson) discovers that Clare (Negga) has been ‘passing’ as white, and living a well-off life as the wife of a boorish, racist businessman (Alexander Skarsgård, True Blood).

As the two become reacquainted, their involvement in each other’s lives starts to cause mutual discomfort in this adaptation of the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen.

It’s showing on Netflix from November 10th, but you can catch it at Everyman throughout this week.

Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2021

This week sees the return of the Aesthetica Short Film Festival for its 11th year – and for the first time, the festival is taking place in hybrid format, meaning you can enjoy it out and about in York or online via their digital platform.

Following a Covid-enforced move to an online-only edition in 2020, ASFF’s wide-ranging programme of shorts, features and live events will be back in venues across the city this year, with an expanded six-day festival running from Tuesday 2nd to Sunday 7th November.

In response to the changes of the last 18 months, however, the festival will also be available to experience online – live events such as Masterclasses and Panels included – from 2nd to 30th November, meaning you’ve got a whole month to catch up with everything you want to see.

As ever, the programme boasts a huge array of short films over 12 genres, including comedy, drama, thriller, animation and documentary – not to mention the intriguing world of virtual reality.

This year the films have been grouped into six conceptual strands: How it was, How it is, How it will be?, Humanity on the Edge, When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade, Pleased to Meet You, Mirror, Mirror and Nobody’s Free Until Everybody is Free.

Flip open the festival’s programme and you’re sure to find something that intrigues you, whether it’s a comedy about cleaning up dog poo (The Foul), a Cardi B-inspired mockumentary (The Wapidemic) or the excellently-titled thriller The Thing That Ate The Birds (I’m guessing it wasn’t just a fox).

Running alongside the films is the usual exciting programme of live events featuring leading figures in the film industry, such as TV and film star Maxine Peake (Shameless, Peterloo) and directors including Asif Kapadia (Amy, Diego Maradona) and Prano Bailey-Bond, who made a splash this year with her feature debut Censor.

Tickets are offered in Virtual, In Venue and Hybrid formats. In Venue tickets start from £7.50 for a single screening in person and £25 for a one day pass, while Virtual tickets start from £25 for 24-hour access and Hybrid tickets (offering access to the fest both in-person and virtually) start from £50 for a day pass plus unlimited virtual access from 2-30 November. The full selection of ticket options is available to book on ASFF’s website.