946th day of the Tens

Bowiefest

UK’s first film festival dedicated to the work on screen of legend David Bowie

Legendary rock star David Bowie’s involvement in films spans a period that lasts as long as his music making career.  From Friday 31 August to Sunday 2 September, the Institute of Contemporary Arts will celebrate the best of his celluloid appearances with Bowiefest, 3 days of screenings,

talks, and Q&As.

Renowned for consistently remaking his image and assuming alter egos Bowie portrays a fantastically wide range of characters in film.  This phenomenon takes place over the last 40 years.

Bowiefest’s Opening Night will include a rare screening of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, D.A. Pennebaker’s epochal behind the scenes documentary and concert film of the last ever Ziggy Stardust concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973.  

One of the original Spiders from Mars, drummer Woody Woodmansey, will take part in conversations with the ICA’s Tom Wilcox as part of the Culture Now series of talks.

Another cult documentary, Cracked Actor, follows an alienated Bowie during the Diamond Dogs tour of America in 1974.  The director, Alan Yentob – former Chair of the ICA - will take part in conversations with leading UK artist Jeremy Deller about this influential film to close the festival.  After watching Cracked Actor, director Nic Roeg realised that he had found the leading man for his then forthcoming feature, The Man Who Fell to Earth, a film about a humanoid alien who comes to earth on a mission to take water back to his drought stricken planet.  A Q&A with Roeg will take place after the screening of his spectacular film.

Another chance to see Bowie performing in concert comes in the film Christiane F, about a young junkie prostitute in Berlin – here, the soundtrack for the film was provided by Bowie too, from his ‘Berlin era’ albums, Low, Heroes, and Lodger.

The decade of the 1980s kept David Bowie at his busiest film-wise, living up to his ‘chameleon’ nick-name, playing everything from a goblin king to a vampire lover to a London wide boy and WW2 army major.

Bowiefest gets the opportunity to show some of these films, including The Hunger, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (which Bowie himself called his ‘most credible performance’), Absolute Beginners and Labyrinth.

Bowiefest also features entertainment and DJs in a bar on the Friday and Saturday nights where fans can come dressed as their favourite era Bowie.  Bowiefest takes place from Friday 31 August - Sunday 2 September 2012.