Bird's Eye View

Fabulous fashionistas and Sound & Silents begins! Day 2 at BEV 2011

Fashion Loves Film

Packed crowds greeted us for the second day of the 2011 Birds Eye View film festival, from fashionistas dressed to the nines for the spectacular Fashion Loves Film to toe-tapping jazz fiends at our first Sound & Silents gig with pianist Lola Perrin. Also on hand throughout a packed second night were Bridget Jones and Harry Potter actress Shirley Henderson, photographer and BEV Festival Party headliner Wendy Bevan, and Vogue Art Director Jaime Perlman – plus we star-spotted Dominic Cooper of Phyllida Lloyd’s Mamma Mia in the BFI bar!

At Festival favourite Fashion Loves Film, a fabulously dressed crowd provided as much to look at off-screen as on. Check out the glorious get-up in our gallery here. Once the event got going, with films featuring the likes of Kristin Scott-Thomas, Tilda Swinton and Kylie, this sleep-deprived BEV staffer could only crawl into the corner and hide my disgracefully ordinary attire… Thankfully I’m off duty for tonight’s Music Loves Video, promising another dose of glamour with BRIT Award-winner Kate Nash introducing the programme.

At the same time, Lola Perrin launched this year’s Sound & Silents commissions with a bang, premiering her new score to silent classic The Wind, starring ‘first lady of the silent screen’ Lillian Gish. Excitement is now rapidly building for Friday’s headline Sound & Silents gig at Southbank Centre with Grammy Award-winning superstar Imogen Heap.

Louise Chunn & Shirley Henderson

And at BFI Southbank we rounded things off with another powerful American drama: indie darling Kelly Reichardt’s devastating western and London Film Festival hit Meek’s Cutoff, with Oscar winner Michelle Williams alongside Scottish star Shirley Henderson. Known for her work in the Bridget Jones and Harry Potter films as well as roles in Marie Antoinette and Trainspotting, Shirley joined us at the event for a Q&A hosted by Psychologies editor Louise Chunn, where she talked about the punishing – and frequently disorienting – location shoot in Oregon’s vast desert, and about preparing for the experience with a week-long course in pioneering.

So, pondering that more training in survival skills would be an excellent idea for anyone taking work on a major Film Festival, we move to day 3, with some gorgeous music videos, a pioneering vampire flick and a few 12th century Benedictine nuns. See you soon!