Showing posts in London Film Festival

Competition: Win Acclaimed Scandinavian Dramas On DVD With The Hunt

By Sam Bathe on 29 Nov 2012

To mark the release of the much anticipated drama The Hunt in cinemas tomorrow (November 30th), we’ve got some of the best Scandinavian drama from the small screen for you to win. Show the rest of this post…

The lucky winner will get their hands on Seasons 1 and 2 of The Killing, and the first seasons of both The Bridge, and Borgen – three Danish dramas that have all won acclaim on British screens. The Hunt continues this fine tradition on the silver screen, with Mads Mikkelsen (winner of best actor at Cannes in this role) starring as a teacher whose life is shattered by an innocent lie.

Following a tough divorce, 40-year-old Lucas is starting to pull his life back together again. He has a new girlfriend, a new job, and is in the process of re-establishing his relationship with his teenage son Marcus. However one passing remark threatens Lucas’s newfound stability. One of the children he looks after at the nursery where he works, a little girl with a vivid imagination, tells a random lie which is impossible to ignore. Her allegation spreads like a virus, quickly acquiring the veneer of truth the more it is told. As shock turns to mistrust and then malice, it doesn’t take long before this small community is in a collective state of hysteria, igniting a witch-hunt that threatens to destroy an innocent man’s life.

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg – co-founder of the Dogme movement alongside Lars von Trier, and director of the award-winning international hit FestenThe Hunt won the Best Actor prize (Mads Mikkelsen), as well as the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (Thomas Vinterberg) and the Vulcain Prize for Technical Artist (to Director of Photography Charlotte Bruus Christensen) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it screened to critical acclaim In Competition.

For your chance to win some Scandinavian drama to watch at home, simply answer this question:

With which fellow director did Thomas Vinterberg co-found the Dogme 95 movement?

A) Gus Van Sant
B) Lars von Trier
C) Peter Greenaway

To enter, simply follow us on Twitter here and @reply us the correct answer. Deadline 09/12/12.

The Hunt is in cinemas tomorrow (November 30th)

FTF x Metro: BFI London Film Festival 2010: Wk. 1 Highlights

By Nick Deigman on 22 Oct 2010

We’ve teamed up with Metro newspaper to spread the good word of the 54th BFI London Film Festival and after the first week is done and dusted, check out our highlights from 7 days of bustling entertainment.

FTF x Metro: BFI London Film Festival 2010: Top Picks Pt. 1

By Sam Bathe on 15 Oct 2010

Note. This post will be sticky for the weekend

We’ve teamed up with Metro newspaper to spread the good word of the 54th BFI London Film Festival. We’ve already previewed the festival, so now that it’s under way, check out our top picks so far.

FTF x Metro: 2010 BFI London Film Festival Preview

By Nick Deigman on 8 Oct 2010

We’ve teamed up with Metro newspaper to spread the good word of the 54th BFI London Film Festival. The London festival is the only major international film festival created specifically with the public in mind. For two weeks in October, a fascinating world of international cinema invades our autumn streets, providing a rare opportunity for you to stumble across films that will remain in your hearts and minds far longer than the summer’s blockbusters. But navigating this cluttered nest of cinematic gems is no easy task… so that’s where we come in! Take your pick of our top 5 recommendations for the festival. Whether you like heart-warming comedies, menacing thrillers, enticing documentaries, or emotional dramas, LFF 2010 has something for everybody…

More exciting new collaborations coming up soon too!

#27 – December 2009

By Sam Bathe on 25 Nov 2009

The December issue of Fan the Fire Magazine is out now featuring London Film Festival, The Box, 2012, The Girlfriend Experience, Sasha Grey interview, Dawes, Surfer Blood, Them Crooked Vultures, Francoise Nielly, Brandon Schaefer, Ruud Baan, Igor Termenon and much more.

You can read the issue above, or download it here.

London Film Festival Closing Gala Review: Nowhere Boy

By Nick Deigman on 6 Nov 2009

Nowhere Boy

It must be said that British cinema did not promote itself especially well at this year’s London Film Festival. Don’t Worry About Me and Kicks failed to make any positive mark on the critics and audiences that turned out to see them; and while 44 Inch Chest and The Disappearance of Alice Creed boasted fantastic casts and gritty aesthetics, they were poorly written and suffered a similar fate.
Show the rest of this post…

Fortunately, festival organiser Sandra Hebron had one more card up her sleeve for the closing gala… Nowhere Boy. The film explores the teen years of one of the nation’s most beloved yet mysterious musical figures… John Lennon. The project has been developed by Ecosse (perhaps the most British production company around after a host of period dramas and adaptations of English romantic novels) and written by Matt Greenhalgh, an experienced television writer who recently wrote the critically acclaimed ‘Control’ (about another one of the nation’s most beloved musical figures, Ian Curtis). Finally, the film is directed by Sam Taylor Wood, a member of the Young British Artists, who was inspired to take the position by her late friend (and perhaps the most universally beloved British filmmaker of the modern era) Anthony Minghella. The result is an unusually British film that proves our national cinema can still match any bastion of filmmaking (from Hollywood to Paris) for quality, integrity, and passion.

Nowhere Boy deals with Lennon’s childhood, from the reunion with his prodigal mother to the advent of The Beatles. Lennon (Johnson) was constantly in trouble at school for bullying, playing truant, and reading ‘illicit’ magazines. He subsequently had a very strained relationship with his strict, positively Victorian Aunt and legal guardian, Mimi (Scott Thomas). His only friend through these years was his loving and free-spirited Uncle George (Threlfall); so when George dies of a heart attack, John decides it is time to seek out his mother.

Julia (Marie Duff) turns out to be a wild, fun-loving young woman, so when John gets suspended from school he hides the fact from Mimi and spends his days listening to ‘rock and roll’ and learning the guitar with his mother. Julia’s husband, Bobby, and Mimi eventually stamp out this brief glimpse of hope and happiness; and what follows is a destructive and passionate story of confused love, and the difficulties of forgiving people for things you have already forgotten.

John blames Julia for leaving him again, and escapes into the exciting new world of ‘rock and roll’ by founding The Quarrymen with his school friends. He meets Paul McCartney, who joins the band, and they begin to find success. But John’s heart is poisoned by the unanswered questions about why his own mother couldn’t raise him, and it is clear he cannot be happy until he understands his past.

After a cathartic and explosive argument, Mimi, Julia, and John seem ready to repair their broken family. But then a tragic accident wipes out yet another chance for John to find respite from his emotional torment. This is not dealt with in a morbid light, however, as John’s reaction to the situation proves how much he has grown as a man over the course of this short but important episode of his life. He doesn’t hide away or become needlessly destructive; he is mature and hopeful, and he directs his anguish into his songs. By the end of the film, John has moved out of Mimi’s home and is leaving for Hamburg with his “new band”. He promises to call Mimi when he arrives there, which he does… and he calls her every week for the rest of his extraordinary life.

The performances are predictably excellent. Anne Marie Duff was spectacular in Shameless, and she brings the same rough, dazzling beauty to Julia. David Threlfall is one of the most wonderful acting talents in Britain, and it is just a shame that his character has so little screen time. The finest performance by some margin, however, is that of Kristin Scott Thomas. She is powerful and alluring and yet delicate and easily hurt; it is a really extraordinary performance. Aaron Johnson also holds his own amongst some of the finest actors in Britain. At first he struggles to find Lennon’s unique accent, but eventually he picks it up. However talented an actor he is, however, there is no getting away from the fact that Johnson’s physiology is far too boisterous to capture the character of one of music’s most geeky-looking icons. There is no doubt that John Lennon could be a tremendous bully and a self-centred, stubborn man (this was evident throughout his life), and he was, of course, ruthlessly anti-establishment; but he did this in a quiet, clever, and subversive way, and it is difficult to align this with the brash, Brando-esque strut that Johnson brings to the character.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is how traditional the structure and aesthetic of the film are. When Steve McQueen made ‘Hunger’, it was obvious we were dealing with a piece of art, or political portraiture, rendered through the medium of commercial cinema. Taylor Wood could have brought a similar branding to this project, but ‘Nowhere Boy’ is a traditional film that just happens to be made by a first-time director who makes video-installation art in her day job. There are flashbacks to early-childhood which employ some interesting editing devices and unusual lighting, reminiscent of the legendary dream sequence in Bunuel’s ‘Los Olvidados’, but aside from that the film looks more like ‘Diner’ than ‘Performance’.

The script is beautifully written. The relationships between Mimi, Julia, and John are so beautifully crafted and natural. Aside from one sudden jump (when Mimi and Julia suddenly become friends so that the domestic situation can be resolved and Julia’s death feels even more tragic) the script is unwaveringly realistic and perfectly paced. There is really no need to have any strong feelings for John Lennon or The Beatles whatsoever to enjoy this film. Indeed, you are never especially conscious of the fact that this is supposed to be John Lennon. It is only when we meet Paul and George that we are reminded, and even then it is short-lived. This is not a biopic in the mould of ‘Walk The Line’ or ‘Ray’; it is the story of a troubled childhood and a determined and strong-minded young man who uses his love of music to overcome a bitter and uncomfortable domestic past.

London Film Festival Review: Lebanon

By Nick Deigman on 28 Oct 2009

Lebanon tells the story of four young Israeli soldiers, barely out of their teens, who are forced together to operate a tank as the First Lebanon War begins. It is an incredibly ambitious and difficult project, and one that has allowed director Samuel Maoz to create a veritable cinematic masterpiece. Waltz With Bashir employed a vast range of techniques (animation, documentary, non-narrative interviews, etc) to deal with the emotions and psychological issues created by the same war; but Lebanon never leaves the damp, explosive confines of the tank, and uses this claustrophobic microcosm to explore the power-struggles, crippling moral torment, and emotional anguish that defined this horrific event in world history. Show the rest of this post…

Herzl (the headstrong loader), Shmulik (the timid gunner), Assi (the hesitant commander), and Yigal (the scared, ‘momma’s boy’ driver) make up the tank’s crew. They are clearly from different Israeli backgrounds (at least in terms of wealth and education) and there is some resentment between Herzl and Assi over who should be in charge. We join the story as the crew is ordered to cross the border into Lebanon and block a dusty road over night. The following morning, when a car approaches and refuses to stop, they are ordered to blow up the car. Shmulik refuses to do so, and as a result some troops in their battalion are killed. A few minutes later another truck appears, and Jamil (the battalion commander) doesn’t bother with a warning but simply orders Shmulik to shoot. Shmulik overcomes his anxiety and blows the truck up… and it turns out to be an innocent chicken farmer, who is left crawling across the dusty ground with his entrails hanging out. Thus the tone is set for a truly raw and unapologetic look at the horrors of modern warfare.

The battalion moves across villages and areas of countryside that have already been decimated by Israeli air strikes, but the rubble provides ample cover for the legions of Lebanese troops still trying to protect their land. Through Shmulik’s cross-haired peephole we see small gun battles breaking out, resulting in deaths on all sides (Israeli and Lebanese troops, and innocent civilians). And when we turn back into the tank and see the effects this brutality is having on it’s beleaguered and devastated crew, we realize that a soldier is just an innocent civilian in khaki uniform.

When the tank breaks down, the crew seems relieved at the prospect of being airlifted out of the warzone; but orders from above explain that they cannot be reached because they are too deep into enemy territory. The tank crew is then left completely alone, save for one maverick gangster and a captured enemy soldier, to find their way out of this hellish world.

There may be nothing especially surprising about the underlying message of this film. This is a cathartic exercise for Maos, who was forced to fight in the Lebanese war himself, and the film is unremittingly negative about the concept of war and the effect it has on those involved. But while criticism of war may be an obvious position to take, it is still an infinitely fascinating and complex one that even Sun Tzu and Wilfred Owen were unable to solve, and Maoz has found an original and ensnaring way of investigating his own feelings about war. The relationships between these four troops – the forced machismo, the unspoken dependency, the choking back of tears through angry tirades – are so real and engaging.

But what all of this really boils down to is the setting: this film would not have been possible without the inspired decision to set it entirely inside the tank; and it is this that elevates this film into the ranks of memorable, must-see cinema. Aesthetically, the claustrophobia and stuffy, menacing dankness of it are represented perfectly… it is exactly what you wish Das Boot had looked like. In terms of narrative, the relationships between the characters are perfectly conceived, performed, and captured. The naïveté, camaraderie, loneliness, and vulnerability are constantly written across the faces of the characters; and we can never turn away or take a step back… we are never more than a few inches away from this disturbing reality.

★★★★★

London Film Festival Review: Paper Heart

By Nick Deigman on 21 Oct 2009

People are calling Paper Heart a mockumentary; but that word doesn’t seem to do the film justice because it bears no resemblance or heritage whatsoever to Spinal Tap. Paper Heart is really an honest study on the nature of ‘love’; it is a quirky docu-drama that blends narrative sequences with documentary footage, and weaves the two together so that they inform and affect each other. And if that doesn’t grab you, there are also some fantastic Gondry-esque animated sequences and original music from the poster boy of geek-chic, Michael Cera. Show the rest of this post…

Charlyne Yi, a comedienne from California, has always wanted to make a documentary about real love (as opposed to the “Julia Roberts/ English Patient/ sobbing-in-the-rain stuff”); but it was not until she approached friend and director Nick Jasenovec that Paper Heart began to form as an idea. Jasenovec forced Yi to accept that the film would be better if she placed herself, and her staunchly anti-love mindset, in front of the camera. When she confessed to being nervous, Jasenovec suggested they incorporate a scripted narrative into the documentary so that she could feel like she was ‘acting’. And so this fascinating new medium of docu-drama was born.

Yi and Jasenovec have gone to great lengths to ensure that the whole film feels real. The documentary footage and the scripted scenes are shot in exactly the same style, so that we never feel a jarring effect when we cross from one to the other; and they decided to cast an actor to play Nick, as Jake Johnson is more realistic as Nick than Nick would have been!

The result is a mish-mash of genres that really draws the viewer into the heart and message of the story. This is a buddy/ road trip movie about two friends travelling across America trying to find the meaning of love. But it is also a heart-warming romance story looking at the courting process in all its awkward splendour. As Charlyne “falls in love” with Cera, her real-life character begins to change as her questions to complete strangers become more hopeful and romantic.

There are so many things about the film that could have been annoying: it is a “film-about-a-film” (often pretentious), it is created by quirky, American Apparel youngsters from East LA (often pretentious), and it has episodes of animation to help describe the interviews (which can often be… well you get the picture.) But the story is so refreshing and honest that it would be almost impossible to find anything annoying here.

In the end, Nick becomes hell-bent on finishing the film, and his intrusive camera nearly ruins Charlyne and Michael’s relationship. But whether or not their romance survives is irrelevant (it doesn’t even exist!), the important thing is that Charlyne has learned to accept the possibility of love, and the lack of control we have over it.

★★★★

London Film Festival Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

By Nick Deigman on 16 Oct 2009

After yesterday’s spectacular opening gala film, Wes Anderson’s ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’, the London Film Festival came crashing back down to earth today with a screening of the distinctly average ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’. There is nothing really wrong with the film (Ewan McGregor’s unfailingly awful American accent aside), but it lacks depth, beauty, or any of the artistic flourishes that would justify its position as a gala film. Show the rest of this post…

This year’s festival plays host to Werner Herzog, Wes Anderson, the Coen brothers, and extraordinary debut features from artist Sam Taylor-Wood and designer Tom Ford; so the BFI have really let themselves down by embracing this vacuous studio tripe while under publicising some of the wonderful auteurs and home-grown talent on offer.

The film follows Bob Wilton (McGregor) a cuckolded small-town American reporter, as he travels to the Middle East to prove himself as a journalist and a man. While there he runs into Lyn Cassady (Clooney) a former member of the New Earth Army – a covert faction of the US Army founded by Bill Django (Bridges), a sort of Timothy Leary for the military, who researched mysticism, parapsychology, and narcotics in the 70s in an attempt to build an army that diffused conflict rather than creating it. Lyn, it transpires, was the poster-boy for this operation, with uncanny psychic and paranormal abilities.

We learn this history of the New Earth Army in flashbacks while Bob and Lyn are travelling into Iraq. After crashing the car, the pair are kidnapped by terrorists, and this sets into motion a chain of hapless and almost screwball events that sees the unlikely duo escaping from terrorists and imbecilic US security forces before eventually ending up at a secret military base run by Lyn’s arch-nemesis, Larry Hooper (Spacey).

Hooper, who was always more interested in the dark potential of the New Earth Army, is now a private contractor to the US military. Bill works for Hooper at the base, but he is a shadow of his former self having lost his passion and found the booze. Lyn cannot stand to see his idol falling so far from grace, and he gives up all hope of succeeding in his mission and helping Bill. It therefore falls to the previously sceptical Bob to spur Bill into action and prove to Lyn that the Jedi spirit lives on. They lace the powdered eggs at the base with LSD, set free all the goats and Iraqi prisoners, and escape in a helicopter, leaving Bob to tell their story to the world.

Evidently, then, the story is not terrible, and there is plenty of room for raucous comedy and entertaining performances. The characters are funny, and the unquestionable talent of the American actors ensures that there are some unforgettable moments and well-delivered lines. It is certainly a fast and entertaining action comedy with almost faultless pace and a well-polished structure. But ‘polished’ is not a word that necessarily fits within the remit of a festival gala film. ‘Revolutionary’, ‘memorable’, ‘divisive’, ‘completely unwatchable’; these are all words that should be applicable to a festival headliner. ‘Polished’ just means it is an easy Hollywood money-spinner that stays well clear of any boundaries; and Hollywood does not need any help from the BFI in marketing their films.

There are other qualities of the film that make it unsuitable for a festival gala. McGregor is characteristically wet, dull and useless; and I was left once again wondering how he has managed to spin out one decent performance as a heroin addict into one of the most startlingly undeserved careers in Hollywood.

Perhaps the most indefensible element of the film is the credit sequence, which shows images of the US invasion of Iraq with cheesy, upbeat American pop music playing over it. These are still some of the most unsettling news images in existence, and those events constitute one of the most heinous and indefensible atrocities and acts of terror ever perpetrated by a nation state. At a time when more and more Americans are coming to terms with the paralysing guilt they feel over these atrocities, I would love to know why Grant Heslov feels he is in a position to poke fun at the whole affair. Nobody should be allowed to create such a thoughtless and idiotic comment on the Iraq conflict, least of all a two-bit actor from Pennsylvania.

David O. Russell proved in Three Kings that you can make a funny film about the Middle East that is still socially responsible, aesthetically original, and gives plenty of space for an ensemble cast (including George Clooney) to show off their considerable talents. Rookie director Heslov has not reached this level of filmmaking, not even close, and it is a great shame that the second gala screening of the festival was wasted on this irresponsible, predictable, multiplex movie.

London Film Festival Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

By Nick Deigman on 15 Oct 2009

Adapting a Roald Dahl story is not an easy task. Born in a rural Welsh village to Norwegian parents in 1916, Dahl struggled through the strict British boarding school system during the inter-war years before joining the RAF for World War 2. It was only after this action-packed and dynamic life, when he had settled in a rural village in Buckinghamshire, that he began to write his children’s books; and every story he has written is infected with his confusing and multi-faceted character. Show the rest of this post…

His Scandinavian heritage was the source of a zany passion for storytelling and the epic myths of Germanic folklore; but he was also a product of the British public school system, and his views on the world were precise and often caustic. He never lost his childlike love of sweets and creatures and discovering new words for the first time; and yet he lived through many tragic incidents that tempered his frivolous passion for life.

All of these things are cloaked behind Twits and Snozzcumbers in his books, but any artist wishing to adapt his work into a new medium must be willing to deal with the intricacy of his vision, or they will find themselves floundering under the criticism of the legions of Dahl lovers across the world. Quentin Blake had a unique understanding of his cherished friend’s work, and his illustrations are now as much a part of Dahl’s stories as the words are.

But when Wes Anderson first called Dahl’s wife to ask for permission to adapt Fantastic Mr. Fox into a film, it was the first time an artist with such a famous and recognisable visual style and auteur sensibility had tried to take on a Dahl story. Now, a decade after that first phone call, Anderson’s film is ready to burst out into the wider world.

This is Anderson’s first foray into animated filmmaking (aside from a few snippets in ‘The Life Aquatic’); and may also be his biggest budget too date, which means he had to answer to more powerful and involved studio executives. It has also come at a time when Anderson’s status as an infallible filmmaker is being questioned. After early works like Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, Anderson was the darling and the lynchpin of US indie cinema. But in recent years, after The Life Aquatic and Darjeeling Ltd., many critics have voiced their concern over his ability to maintain, never mind build upon, his early promise and vision.

An animated adaptation of an adored children’s story is certainly one way to silence those critics, but the potential for disaster is also frightening. There were negative reports leaking from Three Mills Studios in Hackney, where much of the film was created, that suggested Anderson was not cut out for animation. He was often unavailable through the gruelling months of stop-frame filming, choosing instead to direct the film via email from Paris and LA. And so there were many people who worried that the film would lack Anderson’s unique, complex and detailed style.

Well, as an adoring Anderson fan who owes his passion for cinema partly to those early films, it gives me great pleasure to report that Anderson has pulled it off with his usual understated panache and sly, hidden confidence.

For anyone who worried that the animation would cloak or unravel Anderson’s famous visual style, you needn’t worry at all. This is a Wes Anderson film right down to the carefully composed, symmetrical framing, the almost theatrical depth of field, and the colourful, choreographed movements. If anything, the stop-frame animation has allowed Anderson to rediscover his early inspiration for this unique style, and it feels as fresh as it did in Rushmore and Bottle Rocket all those years ago.

The animation is far from perfect, and takes a while to get used to., but it is fun and playful and I picture Quentin Blake (the eyes through which we all read Dahl’s stories) thoroughly enjoying it. Dahl and Blake never aspired to technical perfection, so why should this film?

For anyone who worried that directing a children’s film for a studio would cloak or unravel Anderson’s famous authorial themes and expressions, you needn’t have worried either. This is a Wes Anderson film right down to the deft comedic touch, the witty and caustic dialogue, and the obsession with domestic crises and troubled parental figures.

Anderson seeps through into the story, dialogue, and quirkiness of the project; and his unofficial troupe of actors (Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman specifically) ensure that his bitter but somehow earnest and hopeful comedic touch is stamped on every moment of the film. Without giving too much away, Mrs. Fox is now a dedicated landscape painter who can’t help painting the destructive forces of nature (lightning, tornadoes, etc) into her pieces. This is classic Wes Anderson: creating a dark and unusual character foible and then leaving it to fester in the subtext of the story world, without ever forcing its way into the narrative.

The real success, though, is that while the film is undeniably ‘Wes Anderson’ throughout, he has also stayed true to the real message and tone of Dahl’s vision. This is not so surprising because Anderson is an avowed Dahl fan and I imagine the two would have got along famously had they ever met; but it is nevertheless impressive. Anderson may have dispensed with the verse and rhyme of the original story, but a film adaptation should never simply be a carbon copy.

The world of the film is certainly less quaint and English; Mr Fox now has a sulking teenage son, Ash (Schwartzman), who attends high school and is green with envy at his more athletic cousin. Mr Fox is now a ‘newspaper man’ (a la Cary Grant) after packing in his spiv lifestyle, and the animal community has a much more clearly defined, twentieth century feel to it (estate agents, lawyers, sports coaches, etc.) But there is still that playful edge that was ever present in Dahl’s writing; that sense that he was enjoying a joke that he never quite revealed to his readers. That is something that Anderson excels at, and it works perfectly here.

I suppose it would be unseemly to ignore the leading man, and one of the most recognisable names on the planet, George Clooney. I went in to the film wishing that Anderson had used an established ‘Anderson troupe’ member (one of the Wilson brothers perhaps, or Adrian Brody) who could have brought an extra level of quirky pathos to the project. But I realise now that Clooney was the only man for this role. This is his first animated feature, and while it hardly an earth-shattering performance, he is technically faultless, and he constitutes a solid anchor around which the rest of the cast can deviate. While Brody or the Wilsons would have created a brooding and pathetic Mr. Fox, Clooney is the very embodiment of Cary Grant (Anderson’s inspiration for the role): quickwitted, confident to the point of being brash, but utterly charming and roguish.

This film may not silence Anderson’s critics; it is not perfect and there are plenty of weaknesses to tear away at. But nobody can deny that this was a Herculean task, and Anderson has succeeded where so many filmmakers would have failed. He has not sold out to those who wanted a children’s film, he has not retreated into the depths of art cinema, he has not sullied the great name of Roald Dahl, and he has not lost his authorial touch. For all of these things, I applaud the irreplaceable Wes Anderson.

★★★★★

FAN THE FIRE is a digital magazine about lifestyle and creative culture. Launching back in 2005 as a digital publication about Sony’s PSP handheld games console, we’ve grown and evolved now covering the arts and lifestyle, architecture, design and travel.