Jon Hamms Corner Office to Open 30th Edition of Raindance Film Festival

Joachim Back’s “Corner Office,” featuring “Mad Men” star John Hamm, will open the 30th edition of London’s Raindance Film Festival (Oct. 26-Nov. 5). Austin Bragg and Meredith Bragg’s “Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game” will close the festival.

To mark its 30th anniversary, Raindance will screen iconic independent films that had their U.K. premieres at the festival, including “Pulp Fiction,” “Memento,” “The Blair Witch Project” and “Oldboy.”

Special screenings of new films include the world premiere of Stephen Moyer’s “A Bit of Light” (U.K.), starring Anna Paquin and Ray Winstone; director Moshe Rosenthal will take part in a Raindance masterclass and present the U.K. premiere of “Karaoke” (Israel); and the world premiere of Dilshad Husain’s British Asian feature “Banglatown.”

The festival’s homegrown strand for U.K.-produced features include Pushan Kripalani’s “Goldfish,” Elisabeth Felson’s “Night Burns Like Cigarettes,” Finn Bruce and Brook Driver’s “Swede Caroline,” Maysoon Pachachi’s “Our River… Our Sky” and Hassan Nazer’s “Winners.”

Highlights of the festival’s LGBTQIA+ strand include Julianna Notten’s “Erin’s Guide to Kissing Girls” (Canada), Kat Mills Martin’s “Wake Up, Leonard” (U.S.), Marcelo Gomes’ “Paloma” (Brazil-Portugal) and Julián Robles’ “Iguana Like the Sun” (Mexico).

The festival also has horror, documentary, immersive and music strands, an Academy Award qualifying shorts strand and a celebration of Black History Month.

The festival has awards in eight categories: international film, U.K. film, director, performance, screenplay, cinematography, discovery and documentary.

Jurors include actors Damian Lewis, Tuppence Middleton, Phoebe Fox, Tom Bateman, Naomi Scott, Weruche Opia, Daniel Brühl, Holliday Grainger, Lydia West, Naomie Harris, Lucy Boynton, Colin Morgan, Lara Pulver, Liam Cunningham and Joseph Morgan and several industry figures.

Venues for 2022 are Curzon Soho, Genesis Cinema, Rio Cinema and The Garden Cinema. The film program will be available throughout the U.K. via new streaming partner Bohemia Euphoria.

Raindance founder Elliot Grove said: “Over the past 30 years, U.K. cinemagoers have come to Raindance and joined us in discovering some of the greatest independent films ever made. But it isn’t all about discovering now-famous films such as these: a champion of indie cinema in every guise and genre, equally important to us are the underrated, under-the-radar films that you might not see anywhere else but here.”

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