Sophie and Ralph Fiennes Suffolk Screening

Fiennes Family Event

The Fiennes are a family of artists and filmmakers. Joseph and Ralph, are both acclaimed actors, while their mother, Martha, is a director and her father, Magnus, is a composer. Sophie is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and has been a Suffolk Shorts supporter since the early days. She is also on the Documentary Award Judging panel for 2020.

Sophie will be joined her brother Ralph at the Fiennes Family event at Aldeburgh Cinema on December 14th. The event rounds of a year of Centenary Celebration for the Suffolk Cinema one of our favourite cinemas in the county, home to the Aldeburgh DocFest. A handful of tickets was still available at time of posting, book here.

Bloodlight and Bami

Sophie will present her incredible documentary portrait Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami at 2pm on Saturday 14th. The award winning film took over a decade to make and doesn’t hark back to the 70’s Disco persona.  It focusses on Jones now.

Fiennes does not shy away from the trauma of Jones’s life – the abusive upbringing and the struggles are evident. But Fiennes brings us the strength of a woman in her late 60’s whose stage performance has only become more confident with age. A woman fed up with the patriarchy of the music industry, or ‘outstry’ as she calls it.

Fiennes points out that films about female stars tend toward mythologising, and focus on self-destruction and failed relationships. Even Asif Kapadia’s brilliant study of Amy Winehouse (Amy) mines that seam too deeply.

“They feed on the tragic carcass…There is so much fiction that circulates around dead women”

Fiennes will discuss the film after the screening.

Coup 53

In the evening Ralph Fiennes will introduce Coup 53 , a documentary directed by the Iranian-born filmmaker Taghi Amirani which Aldeburgh Cinema will be showing as a “Special Preview” at 7pm.

“As compelling as a John Le Carre novel” Screendaily

Fiennes reads the transcript of an interview with British agent, Norman Darbyshire. The film addresses the untold story of the 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran that toppled the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Following the film Ralph will be interviewed live on stage by Diana Quick, actress, and longest-serving Trustee of the cinema. The New Yorker has a great article about the film ‘Ralph Fiennes Channels a Real Spook’

It also reveals how he researched his role as Basil Brown, the archeologist who discovered Sutton Hoo. More on this production soon.