Category Archives: Peccadillo

Do-root? The 6 weirdest aphrodisiacs from around the world

Has a chubby man in a forest ever offered you a strange mandrake like plant and called it ‘do-root’? Did you take it only to find it was some sort of natural Viagra? Did the whole town you grew up in then take it, and then collectively decide they fancy the pants off you, chasing you out of town in a Bacchic frenzy of flailing limbs and other members?

Armand and Curly: fools in love?

Well – exactly this happens in KING OF ESCAPE – the feature film from STRANGER BY THE LAKE director Alain Guiraudie. It’s hilarious. And terrifying. But mainly hilarious. As an ode to this weird natural aphrodisiac, we thought we’d run down some of the weirdest aphrodisiacs around the world: would any of these get you going?

1. Cobra Blood

Yup. It’s a thing.

According to some men in China – and other parts of Asia – drinking Cobra blood is the equivalent of switching on a sexy lava lamp and the latest XX album.

2. Wine-soaked water lilies

Remind you of anything?

Ok – admittedly this one stems from Ancient Egypt and so I don’t think you’re going to walk into a Tinder-date’s flat to find him/her soaking their lilies anytime soon. But, that doesn’t mean it’s not a neat reflection of some of our modern dating techniques, how different is it from a bouquet of Co-op flowers and some Blossom Hill?

3. Eels

This makes me uncomfortable.

These are large wiggly things that emit a gross slimy substance when touched. Enough said.

4. Sea cucumbers

Irrefutably terrifying.

These are disgusting aliens which crawl along the sea floor in the far east and consume food with their anus. But hey – who am I to judge? Kahloon (one of the director’s at Peccadillo) assures me these are delicious and ‘very good for your knees’. I have my suspicions.

5. Ambergris

Nom nom nom.

Doesn’t Ambergris sound like a delicious, nectar like drink you might find in the South of France, being supped from chalices by beautiful, frisky socialites? Well, it’s not. It’s actually a hard, faecal-smelling substance scraped from the intestines of sperm whales and then bottled into expensive perfumes. That’s right; we live in a world where sperm whale poo is sexy.

6. Asses’ Milk

This guy likes it.

Shut your mind, this is the milk of a donkey, and nothing else. In ancient Arabia and Rome women would rub asses milk onto their genitals as a stimulus, and, if you’ve ever heard that myth of Roman Emporer Nero’s wife taking baths in milk, it was in asses milk, for sexy reasons.

I think finishing on Asses’ Milk is always a good call. So there we have it – my top 6 picks of weird aphrodisiacs from around the world. Just FYI, I have a really weird thing about fresh orange juice. If I’m ever drinking it around you, you don’t want to know what I’m thinking.

KING OF ESCAPE is released on DVD on March 23.

Sex and Politics with EASTERN BOYS director Robin Campillo

When he was in the UK for his promotional tour of EASTERN BOYS, we asked director and writer Robin Campillo to pen a few words on the complexities of his home-invasion-thriller-come-love-story. This is what he wrote:

“Far from casting judgment on the situation of illegal immigrants, or from being a reflection on paternity, this film first and foremost follows the logic of its fictional narrative. It portrays characters living clandestinely that represent both a danger and a promise for one another. Much like Daniel who, when faced with these young men from the East, oscillates between fear and desire, the film threads its way through ambiguous feelings, borderline, indeed marginal situations, but also, I do hope, through moments of pure jubilation.”

ROBIN CAMPILLO – BIOGRAPHY

Robin Campillo was born in Morocco on August 16th 1962. Because his father was in the army, he and his family moved around a great deal during his childhood and part of his adolescence. During this period, movies became a main theme of his existence. In Madagascar, at the age of 9, he discovered Godard’s ALPHAVILLE in a military theatre where the film was booed. Following this experience he developed a passionate interest for cinema and an array of filmmakers ranging from Jacques Demy to Mario Bava. In 1983 he enrolled in the IDHEC film school (Institute for Advanced Cinema Studies). After graduating, however, he took a break from his film career to dedicate his time to the fight against AIDS. Finally, in the mid-nineties he began a long and fruitful collaboration with Laurent Cantet as co-screenwriter and editor. In 2004 Robin Campillo directed his first feature film THEY CAME BACK, which later became Channel 4’s THE RETURNED.

We need more selfish female protagonists – Desiree Akhavan and International Women’s Day

Belle du jour Desiree Akhavan has taken the UK press by storm this week – popping up in The Times, The Guardian and The Evening Standard. Her film APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR has garnered a smattering of rave reviews, but today we want to celebrate the woman herself. If you didn’t know, 8 March is International Women’s Day , the theme of which for 2015 is Make It Happen.

This couldn’t ring more apt for Desiree, or her producer Cecilia Frugiuele, who together raised the finance, produced, wrote, directed and starred in this fantastic film. APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR refuses to be a lecture, in interviews Desiree has frequently vented her frustrations at politically edged movies that feel like ‘taking your medicine’. If this film is medicine, it’s Calpol when you’re 12 years old and you simply cannot get enough.

But enough for me, here are some fantastic words from Desiree herself on female characters and filmmakers in the contemporary scene:

Over the years in films we’ve had so many men be flawed, multi-dimensional characters who can be mature in some venues and fall apart in others, and the women are just there rolling their eyes and supporting them.

But when I look around at the films that are coming out now by female directors we’re seeing women characters go through a stunted adolescence where they’re able to fuck up just as much as any dude would.

I hear about this “new wave” of slacker female films and I think it’s just women getting the opportunity to tell stories. I’m not ashamed to talk openly about my flaws like what, only Wood Allen gets to do that?

– Desiree Akhavan

Why We Are Doing This: APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR – From Peccadillo MD

Peccadillo MD – Tom Abell

Out of the hundreds of American independent films that are made each year, how do you take just one and make it a box office success in the UK and the ROI? It’s much harder than it sounds.

Cecilia Frugiuele the producer of APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR approached us four years ago with a project (it had a different title then – we’re forbidden to mention the old name!) which was loosely based on a web series made by and starring Desiree Akhavan called THE SLOPE, where Desiree played one half of a superficial, homophobic lesbian couple. The web series is extremely funny, Desiree was simply fabulous and so was the film script, Peccadillo Pictures was definitely on board.

APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR premiered in Sundance January 2014 and we finally saw it during the Berlin Film Festival in February 2014, the film was simply a breath of fresh air that blew away the winter cobwebs along with all the competition. We were in love. But how do we bring our love of the film to the UK and Republic of Ireland and make all of you love it too?

After meeting Desiree during last year’s London Film Festival the answer was clear, the only way to market the film effectively was to show the rest of you how amazing Desiree is. We needed to make all of the British Isles love her too. And how do we do that when nobody knows who she is?

When you don’t have millions of pounds to spend on a marketing and publicity campaign it comes down to good old determination and perseverance from our team mixed with Desiree’s natural charm. Very early on there were publicity references to Lena Dunham and GIRLS and comparisons to FRANCIS HA and to a smaller degree ANNIE HALL. We had to play to all of these in order to get initial press interest; it is so difficult to get the establishment to embrace something new, but if it sounds like something they already like they’re more likely to take a look.

Once we had their attention the next step was to take Desiree and the film beyond the comparisons and allow the press to “discover” something new. And in the months following the LFF that’s what started to happen. The realisation struck that Desiree and the film were none of the above, that they were very much their own entities and there was a brand new talent here with a unique, subtle voice that demanded to be heard.

Ladies and gentlemen, a star is born.

Some Notes On the American Female Comedian

Is it just me or is all comedy in the UK a bit pale, male and stale? Whilst Americans have a plethora of hilarious and intelligent female comedians making movies, writing sketches, hosting awards shows and doing stand up, on the greyer side of the pond we’re lumbered with a bunch of belligerent blokes making only each other guffaw on tired panel show after tired panel show.

You can often find the British sneering at American culture, calling it vulgar, brash, loud or annoying, but, as an experiment, compare Obvious Child, Frances Ha or The Skeleton Twins with any episode of any UK panel show. In the former, you’ll find compelling, strong-willed and sympathetic female characters (who’ve often written the films themselves, or at least another female has): the latter will feature 5 braying men and 1 woman and she’ll often just spend the entire 30 minutes rolling her eyes at the boys’ barrel-scraping UKIP-joke twaddle.

Parks and Recreation finished in America the other night. As I’m here in the UK, I obviously haven’t yet had a chance to see it, but for the love of god I love that show. Leslie Knope and her small-town box of misfits have made me laugh and cry simultaneously in most episodes, and Amy Poehler single-handedly carried the show from its small beginnings to its end. The debate isn’t, as it seems to be in the UK, are women funny?, but rather just how funny/brilliant/heart-warming/moving are women on screen – small or silver – when compared to men. A hell of a lot more.

Recent massive US comedies: Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, Lena Dunham’s Girls, Parks and Recreation, SNL. All female led, all acerbically demonstrating that ‘female-led’ doesn’t have to mean anything at all, except perhaps ‘much, much better’. Recent massive UK comedies: … Derek? I genuinely can’t think of anything else, and Derek, compared to The Office or Extras, was pretty poor.

Next week we have the absolute pleasure of releasing Desiree Akhavan’s APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR in the UK. Without wanting to shout about how this is yet more proof of the US’s gargantuan outstripping of the UK when it comes to funny women on screen, I will say this: as writer, director and star of the film, at a time when making a film is becoming more and more difficult, let alone making it brilliant, and not one of this year’s director nominations at the Oscars went to a woman, this film is a staggering achievement. Akhavan is an Iranian female making movies in a sea of white men: that in itself is to be commended.

I’m writing this as she’s about to hit the UK tomorrow to start her Q&A cinema tour (not to mention a silly amount of press), and I’m hoping, hoping, that some of that wonderful female funny will rub off on our pale, male, stale comedy culture.

Will C-H, 27th Feb 2015.

The Times’ ★★★★★ Review for EASTERN BOYS

On 6th December 2014, the day we released EASTERN BOYS in the UK, the wonderful Wendy Ide from THE TIMES published the following ★★★★★ review of our ‘nail-biting’ film. Have a read below:

Some films take a while to engage their audience. Others, like EASTERN BOYS, grip you from the first frame. This constantly surprising picture by Robin Campillo (writer of THE CLASS) opens enigmatically. The camera hovers high above the Gare du Nord in Paris; it might have been shot by a surveillance drone. We pick out a group of young men, eastern European immigrants, looking for the opportunities that a crowded station offers. Daniel, an older man, moneyed and suited, gazes at Marek, one of the younger men, with something between hunger and longing. They arrange a meeting at his apartment the next day.

Then the tone of the film changes dramatically – the whole gang turns up. He watches as they drink his booze and empty his home of everything they can carry. It’s a brilliant sequence – sexually charged; fluid; dangerous. The camera gets in close, weaving through the dancing bodies at a party that the host has no choice but to join. It’s a credit to Campillo’s confident writing that despite this trauma a persuasive relationship grows between Daniel and Marek. And that, in a meticulously structured, nail-biting final act, Daniel will do anything to secure a new life for Marek.

– Wendy Ide, The Times

Oo-la-la! C’est Paris on Film

Ever since the Lumiere brothers screened their 46 seconds of footage of Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory in December 1895, Paris and film have been romantically (what else) entwined. It’s both the city of lights and the city of love – so let’s raise a big class of Bordeaux to Paris.

1. Les Chansons D’Amour (2007)

A real favourite of mine when it came out – an intimate film from Christophe Honore which depicts the fallout of a menage-a-trois – this film could not be more French. Everyone’s sexuality is totally fluid, everyone reads books between threesomes, everyone smokes and everyone’s hot. Plus – in a flamboyant nod to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – it’s a musical.

2. Angel A (2005)

This little known gem from LEON director Luc Besson – Angel A is pure cinema. Oddly enough, Paris looks most vital when in black and white; this film literally looks like a moving a picture, as in, a photograph that moves. It’s magical, serene, very, very funny and will have you grabbing your beret and blonde bob wig and rushing to St Pancras Intl as fast as you can.

3. Man At Bath (2010)

In this film, another from Parisian Christophe Honore, Paris’s beauty is arguably eclipsed by porn-star Francois Sagat’s bum. A film about accepting that a relationship is over, however painful that may be, but also very much about a hot naked guy in a flat, Man at Bath reinvigorates Gay Paris as something relentlessly hard-core. And I’m ok with that.

4. Ratatouille (2007)

No film captures the magic of Paris better than – ironically – this animation. The scene where Remi the Rat chases that little bit of paper around with the chef that looks like Ronnie Corbett is unforgettable, and I really feel sorry for anyone who watches this film and goes to Paris expecting to get what they watched in Ratatouille. As much as I love Paris, Ratatoiulle quite rightfully omits the stampede of tourists, the drunk men who try and beat you up with a baguette (literally once happened to me) and the pigeons.

5. Eastern Boys (2014)

Political. Sexy. Edge-of-your seat thrilling. The story of Eastern Boys is pure Paris, taking in all the complications that come with this world capital. Dealing with the clash between the middle class, homosexuality, and immigrants from the banlieue, this is an unforgettable cinematic experiences that captures Paris with all its problems, sex and brutality.

Since the days of the French Revolution, Paris has always been a city of extremes. The first and best exposure we had to this in English was unquestionably through Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, where Dickens added the necessary final clause to the englightened French dictum: ‘Liberty, equality, fraternity – or death.’ Vive la Paris.

– by Will C-H

LGBT History Month Part 2: ACTIVISM!

‘Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.’ – Harvey Milk.

One of the strange things about the numinous idea of ‘human rights’ is that you can’t recognise one until you see that it has been violated. LGBT rights are, by definition, then, about protection from violence rather than prosecution, following that, they’re about acceptance, love, and the ubiquity of both.

Here at Peccadillo we’re very pleased to have released three documentaries about some of the great LGBT rights battles of our time. And, seeing as it’s LGBT History Month here in the UK, we thought we’d write a small piece about our three testaments to those battles:

BEFORE STONEWALL (1984)

Last year this film celebrated its 30^th anniversary, and its power remains unshaken. BEFORE STONEWALL exposes the fascinating and unforgettable decade-by-decade history of homosexuality in America, from 1920’s Harlem through to World War II and the witch hunt trials of the McCarthy era, before, of course, winding up at the Stonewall Inn one summer night… A truly brilliant, award-winning documentary that still packs a lot of punch.

WE WERE HERE (2011)

Attitude magazine sort of summed this one up better than I could, writing that the film was ‘devastatingly, astonishingly powerful. This is a film that needs to be seen today more than ever.’ Exploring how San Francisco dealt with the AIDS epidemic, WE WERE HERE is an edifying must-see that received accolades at film festivals the world over. It’s a film Harvey Milk (quoted above), would be proud of – speaking to our capacity as individuals to rise to the occasion, and to the incredible power of a community coming together with love, compassion and determination.

VITO: The Life of Gay Rights Activist VITO RUSSO

One of the ultimate gay activists, a man who changed the face of queer film theory forever, Vito Russo found his voice as a critic of LGBT representation in the media. This is a documentary as much about his life as an academic and cinephile as it is about his activism, but, if he’s unknown to you, you really must take the time to acquaint yourself with Vito – you won’t forget him.

So – if you’re feeling proud of who you are this month, whatever your sexual orientation – take a look at some of these documentaries about the brave pioneers who paved the way for so many of the freedoms we take for granted today!

Coming-of-Age! Peccadillo’s Top-10

Now – I’m not in any way claiming this is the top-10 coming-of-age movie listicle. Such a thing could never be written, this is a contentious (and probably slightly annoying) list of the Peccadillo office’s favourite coming-of-age movies.

Two films, however, have been excluded. The first is ‘Boyhood’, a film which both inhabits, examines and exults its genre, and is so ‘coming-of-age’ it would just occupy a place on this list which – although it more than deserves – could go to a smaller film which needs some love and care. The second that’s missing is our new DVD and Blu-ray release ‘THE WAY HE LOOKS’, an ‘impossibly charming’ (DAZED AND CONFUSED) love story about a blind teenager looking for his first kiss, and is the film which inspired us to write this list. So – let’s go:

1. Stand By Me (1986)

Obviously. This was Rob’s choice. Rob is generally a great source of wisdom on everything from Japan to sausage rolls, and so we trust him on this one. Anyone who’s seen the film will never forget the scene where one of the boys gets a leech stuck to his balls, nor the classic, wonderful, timeless theme song which you already have stuck in your head. Mehehe.

2. The Lion King (1994)

“Remember me, Simba!” Is this a coming-of-age film or a brilliant re-hashing of Shakespeare’s Hamlet? It’s both, and so much more. Everyone on earth loves this movie and I personally think it’s a fantastic choice from Jude – our graphic designer – as a coming-of-age movie. Jude says it’s the movie that everyone can relate to, and who can’t relate to being raised by a warthog and a lemur in rural Africa?

3. Heavenly Creatures (1994)

This is an odd coming-of-age movie. Not because it’s directed by LORD OF THE RINGS behemoth Peter Jackson, nor because the two protagonists live in an intense fantasy realm inside their own heads, or because it’s got Kate Winslet or that one off-of Two and a Half Men in it. Heavenly Creatures is odd because it’s about women. Sadly, most ‘coming-of-age’ movies are told, unapologetically, from a male perspective, but this one spectacularly and triumphantly bucks the trend.

4. American Beauty (1999)

Olivier went with American Beauty. It’s weird, subversive, funny, dangerous, with one of the most memorable dream sequences in cinema history. It’s coming-of-age but not how you know it, as Kevin Spacey’s character, stuck in arrested development, seemingly comes of age at the same time as his teenage daughter, and dismantles his life – and the American dream – in the process.

5. Submarine (2010)

Really randomly directed by the squeaky one from The IT Crowd, this movie is my choice. It’s funny and weird, and set in ugly, lovely Wales (my homeland). I’ve always thought South Wales is cinematic in its own, clunky way, and this film definitely gave it the camera angles and colour-grading it deserved. A real gem, plus my nan auditioned for the role of ‘Dinner Lady 3’.

6. North Sea Texas (2011)

Although it might sound like an epic American oil-guns-and-corruption drama, this is in fact a ‘delicate little heart-warmer of a film’ (The Express) about two teenage boys falling in love in northern Flanders, Belgium. Intimate and tender, this is coming-of-age at its most raw and, with the protagonists being 14, youngest. A very brave film made by Bavo Defurne, a very brave filmmaker.

7. XXY (2007)

Brash, sugar-rush-inducing American coming-of-age movies are obsessed with gender, but for all the wrong, labell-y reasons. Lucia Puenzo’s 2007 feature, then, is a tonic drama about an intersex teenager’s turbulent relationship with her father and the teenage boys around her. A ‘wonderful’ film (The Guardian), XXY forces us to reconsider the binaries that so often restrict our films: a big, welcome middle-finger up to the genre.

8. An Education (2009)

“This was the first time I got to see Carey Mulligan’s face.” Ollie our head of press yet again cuts through anything superfluous and gets to the heart of what makes this film fantastic. Beautifully shot and fiercely intelligent, this film about a young girl applying to Oxford whilst incidentally falling in love with a much older man, was nominated for THREE Academy Awards (which I only found out in writing this article), including Best Picture and Best Actress.

9. The Last Picture Show (1971)

Effortlessly cool Nicky (in the production department) naturally chose this 1971 comedy about a small town in 50s Texas; starring a young (and staggeringly handsome) Jeff Bridges, as well as the beautiful Cybill Shepherd. A particularly apt choice from cineaste Nicky, the film laments the closure of the town’s last cinema; and therefore this movie is not only a classic of the genre but a poignant and important film about the close links between culture and economics.

10. Boys (2013)

Straightforward and sweet, BOYS is the coming-of-age genre distilled. A tale about two boys in an athletics club who initially resist their burgeoning feelings, but then, they kiss. This film is unadulterated understatement, and really captures the fact that, more often than not, the moments we ‘come-of-age’ are not momentous, tectonic events, but rather fleeting moments that last for mere seconds.

11. Bonus Film: The Leather Boys (1964)

Tom asked me to add this in at the last minute as a very special entry, and, after reading about it, I think it should actually be at the top of the list. I’ve not seen it – but it sounds incredible: a 60s, British-made movie about a biker gang, with Americana sweeping in, and featuring one of mainstream cinemas first openly gay characters! Do as I did (and, as always, as I say) and click the image to buy a DVD and watch ASAP!

As I said, this is not an exhaustive list. If anything this post has probably angered you because we’ve left off you’re favourite coming-of-age film, if, indeed, you think it even counts as a genre (lots don’t.) Let us know on Twitter or Facebook exactly where we’ve gone wrong. Film arguments are fun.

Get ready for DEPARTURE

We know that you like to know more about our films from their early stages. Well, we’re very proud to announce a brand new film that we’ll be bringing you at the end of this year.

DEPARTURE by Andrew Steggall is currently in post-production and stars Alex Lawther (who gave an award winning performance as the young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game), French brooding heartthrob Phénix Brossard (La Lisière) and everyone’s favourite mum and oracle Juliet Stevenson.

Here’s an early publicity still of Alex Lawther who plays young Elliot in the film. Look interesting?

Keep fully up to date by joining the Departure Film Facebook page:
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