A debate on how socialists should relate to mass politics? A new left party, or stick with Labour?

Sometimes in the past at this film festival, I have accidentally picked myself really grim selections of films, or really hard-going selections - whether that means lots of death and murder or lots of political heavy thinking films - but this year I appear to have picked myself a selection of really sad films. They’ve been generally excellent films but I have spent a disproportionate amount of time crying in La Scala this year.

I do enjoy the slightly scattershot nature of the retrospective strands at the Inverness film festival. In 2023 it was a couple of Powell and Pressburger films as part of a larger BFI re-release of all their films, a few years before that it was Iranian cinema - the Afternoons in Iran season. This year it was the documentarian Frank Wiseman, presumably prompted by screening his latest release…

On of my favourite things about the Inverness Film Festival is the commitment to showing all kinds of short films, and as many Scottish shorts as they can. Short films are of course a vital part of the independent film ecosystem, but outside of specialist nights, they tend not to get screened in actual cinemas. (Outside of the film festival, if I go to a screening of short films, it’s highly likely that a high percentage of the audience will be there because they know someone involved in making one of the films.) As a fan of short films, it’s always a delight when you show up for a film and there’s a surprise short film at the start.

The Inverness Film Festival is upon us once more! I’m planning to watch - and write about - twelve feature films and two sets of short films over the next week. In an exciting development, for me, the timetable for this year’s festival has worked out in such a way that it is in fact possible for me to see every last documentary that’s showing - short films included - so obviously I structured the entire rest of my film festival attendance around doing just that.