Top 3: Manchester Film Festival 2016 at HOME, AMC & more

Manchester Film Festival (formerly known as Manchester International Film Festival if we are not mistaken)  will be making a return in early March. This four-day event has a packed programme of narrative, documentary, and short movies. The festival opens with a gala event at HOME, and expands to several venues in the city centre. The Odeon at the Printworks will be host to Music Saturday – a programme of films relating to, you guess it, music, while Sunday will see a range of films on the topic of sport at the AMC Great Northern including the international premiere of a documentary about ‘Busby babe’ Dennis Viollet, directed by his daughter Rachel Viollet. Sunday also sees the Odeon showing a selection of films directed by and/or centred on inspiring women. Here are three films that we particularly like the look of:-

Big Bang in Pyongyang
The AMC will be hosting the Manchester premiere of Big Bang in Pyongyang. This documentary follows the eccentric American basketball player Dennis Rodman on his visit to North Korea. Here, he forms an unlikely friendship with supreme leader Kim Jong-un. These two very different men (if only in terms of height) aim to improve the relations between their two countries with a basketball game. Hounded by the press and denounced by The Whitehouse, can Rodman make the most controversial game in history happen? The film was directed by the Mancunian filmmaker, Colin Offland.
Sun 6 Mar, AMC, The Great Northern Warehouse, 235 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 4EN, 5pm, Price TBC, www.maniff.com

Despite the Falling Snow
Another standout is the UK premiere of Despite the Falling Snow. A spy thriller, the film centres on Katya, a young Russian Woman who is secretly a spy for the USA. She is given a huge spying assignment: stealing secrets from a rising government star, but her feelings for him complicate the mission. British filmmaker Shamim Sarif directs this adaptation of her own bestselling novel. The movie stars Rebecca Ferguson and Charles Dance and is part of Manchester’s Wonder Woman 2016 programme.
Fri 4 Mar and Sun 6 Mar, The Odeon, Printworks, 27 Withy Grove, Manchester, M4 2BS, 7.15pm (Fri) – 12pm (Sun), Price TBC, www.maniff.com

There Should Be Rules
The closing night gala will feature the international premiere of There Should Be Rules (Det borde finnas Regler). This Scandinavian coming-of-age drama was directed by Linda-Maria Birbeck. The film centres on Mia and Mirjam, two teenage best friends who are torn apart when Mirjam is seduced by an older, married man. Sun 6 Mar, The Odeon, Printworks, 27 Withy Grove, Manchester, M4 2BS, Time and price TBD, www.maniff.com