In characteristic contrast to the ever-earlier Launch of the BFI London Film Festival, held (on 31st August 2017) in the terror-attack capital's largest cinema, which was awash with sponsor's mineral waters and organic chocolate bars as countless clips and trailers unreeled after breakfast, the Raindance Film Festival hosted a week of press previews in one of the tinest but toniest of screening rooms in the West End, in the lower floor of the Virgin lounge on the Haymarket, where there is a mini-cinema modelled on the First Class cabin of a Bransonian aircraft, complete with cute portholes along its right wall through which Virgina planes can be spied cruising through blue skies. The comfy armchairs afford good sight-lines even for sub-titled films and at the back is a hospitality bar stocked with hot and cold drinks and at Raindance's matinees healthy biscuits and fruit.Projection is fine as is the sound system-- and the focus is sharp as was evident for the preview of In Another Life,  world premiering and competing in the UK Feature section, with its eloquent, crisp black-and-white photography.I checked in for  four of the five pre-festival press screenings and couldn't have liked them more.

Not only throwing its nets far and wide for independently-produced features, shorts and documentaries, Raindance has succeeded in making itself one of the most audience-friendly of the host of festivals that crowd the calendar now...using central venues, with nearby social hubs (such as the excellent Century Club on Shaftesbury Avenue, and encouraging film-makers to host receptions in adjacent galleries, hotels and easily-accessible venues).While not obsessing with red carpet arrivals, Raindance is always graced by notable  cineastes from all sides of the camera (Joanna Lumley was a jolly juror in 2016).

Indeed unlike another extravaganza soon to unspool on the other side of the Thames, it announced its jury members a fortnight ago- to include Jack O'Connell, Sean Bean, Christopher Eccleston, Celia Imrie, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Ewen Bremner, and Rachael Portman  - not exactly the Usual Suspects, but a very interesting clutch of cinema talents.  Josh Hartnett has already participated in a conference ahead of the opening film in which he stars, OH LUCY! (made in Japan) and though the 12 days of screenings have been diverted from the VUE Piccadilly to its renovated  bigger brother at the further end of Leicester Square, it's chocks away for a stimulating event.

www.raindance.org

PHILLIP BERGSON