Clara Bow in The Wild Party, from http://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk

The Birds Eye View Film Festival returns 6–14 March 2008. This is the UK’s festival of women filmmakers, and as was the case last year it includes a silent film strand.

This year the festival features ‘Clowning Glories’, a retrospective of women in film comedy before 1930, to be held at the BFI South Bank. The titles being shown are:

• 7 Mar – My Best Girl (USA 1927 d. Sam Taylor). With Mary Pickford
• 8 Mar – Ich möchte kein Mann sein (I Don’t Want to be a Man) (Germany 1918 d. Ernst Lubitsch). With Ossi Oswalda + The Danger Girl (USA 1916 d. Clarence G. Badger). With Gloria Swanson
• 10 Mar – The Vagabond Queen (UK 1929 d. Geza von Bolváry). With Betty Balfour
• 11 Mar – Show People (USA 1928 d. King Vidor). With Marion Davies + Mabel’s Dramatic Career (USA 1913 d. Mack Sennett). With Mabel Normand
• 12 Mar – The Love Expert (USA 1920 d. David Kirkland). With Constance Talmadge, Natalie Talmadge + Blue Bottles (UK 1928 d. Ivor Montagu). With Elsa Lanchester
• 13 Mar – The Wild Party (USA 1929 d. Dorothy Arzner). With Clara Bow + A House Divided (USA 1913 d. Alice Guy)

There’s a complementary season of screwball comediennes of the 1930s, the UK premiere of Cannes hit Expired starring Samantha Morton, LFF critics’ choice Unrelated, and documentaries from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Nepal. Plus mobile phone filmmaking, women in video games, music vids, fashion films, and “a one off Whitechapel Gallery Late Night event starring a high profile all girl line up of live artists, VJ’s and DJ’s”. More details from the festival website.