Branchage: More pews and a Kamikaze

We're now three day's into this four day festival of arts, film, music and culture and it feels like things are only just getting started.

In the first two days I watched Tamara Drewe and saw Roger Allam perform as Falstaff for a few minutes during the Q&A on the first day.

Then on the second day I watched a Japanese krautecore band in All Saints Church perform to a Japanese black comedy animation and watched a film about the late, great, Bill Hicks.

So it's now Saturday and, apart from a couple of hours chasing my seven year old son around town, it's been a language fest.

My first Branchage event involved entering another church and sitting on yet another pew - if churches really wanted to get more people in they could start by doing something about those seats.

Anyway, back to the point - the film I saw was Lourdes, a French language film about a group of pilgrims by director Jessica Hausner.

The first thing that surprised me was the amount of access the filmmakers had been given to Lourdes itself, the second was how brilliantly Jessica Hausner had managed to walk along the line between critical and reverential.

The film centres on Christine, a woman in a wheelchair with Multiple Sclerosis who is a veteran of pilgrimages as, in her own words "it's the only way I get out".

The film seems to be unusually slow, even for a French film, although it could just be the pews making me think it was slower than it actually was.

Throughout you follow Christine and over pilgrims as they visit the baths, the grotto and of course - the souvenir shop.

It is a tale of miracle and faith but through the diverse cast you also get the sense of exploitation, curiousness and scepticism.

There is also a lot of humour in the film. In one scene a priest, a nurse and a guide are talking and the priest shares a joke.

In the joke Christ, the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary are talking about places on Earth they would like to visit.

Eventually the Holy Ghost suggests Lourdes. The Virgin Mary then says "Great, I've never been there before."

The Town Church was a beautiful setting for the film, like many films at Branchage, it was the perfect backdrop for the subject.

So, after a couple of hours away from Branchaging it was time to get to the Arts Centre for my second 'non-English' film of the day.

However, this wasn't a French, Italian or Spanish film - it was a Welsh one.

Gruff Rhys, he of Super Furry Animals decided to head to Argentina to discover the Welsh colony in Patagonia.

The film, Separado, is a sci-fi, comedy, history documentary, road-movie musical.

Gruff spends the film playing small gigs to people not expecting the music he plays, discovering more about himself, his family and the Welsh and in search of Rene Griffiths, a Welsh speaking Argentinean Gaucho he is related to.

It's interesting to see just how many people still speak Welsh in what has now been Argentinean for several generations and how much they still admire their roots and traditional heritage.

A large portion of the film is in Welsh but there are also segments in Spanish, Portuguese and English.

The Portuguese mainly comes from a guy in Brazil who invented his own instrument the "Guitaro".

During a Q&A afterwards, where subjects as diverse as the French invasion of Les Ecrehous and making experimental music, Gruff tells us you can now buy a Guitaro by e-mailing the guy.

I have a lot of instruments but I'm not sure an electronic percussion instrument in the shape of a scythe is something I'll rush out to buy.

So, on to the Live Lounge for the Club Kamikaze, Stars in your Face party.

It took a while to get started, nobody turned up until about 22:30, but then it was a Saturday night in St Helier and it had some pretty stiff competition - there was a LOT going on around town.

Eventually things got going with Brobot II performing an electro interpretation of the music of the films of Spielberg - the Star Wars mix was a bit of a stretch for Spielberg - but brilliant all the same.

Although slim in numbers at the start it wasn't short of faces - I saw Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals and former Gorky's members Richard James and Euros Childs in the crowd watching the brobotic one.

Next up was the brilliant post-punk Pirate Video Company, performing a mix of their own songs and the music of John Hughes.

This is where the crowd started to swell and the music of PVC seemed to hit something.

Three men in bunny suits, a couple of sailors and other costumes I couldn't completely placed danced among the appreciative audience for this young Jersey three piece.

Then it was something completely different, a long serving member of the Jersey music scene and a two piece (bass and rums), it was sludge-metal duo, Falenizza Horsepower.

They performed music from the films of Quentin Tarantino - heavy, thrashy, a glorious mosh fuelling frenzy.

Finally DJ Men in Masks, AKA comedian Jeff Leach comes to the decks - this is the moment I realised I was falling asleep despite the smoke machine, music, man in mask at the decks and insane lights.

I went home so I could be fresh for the final day where I watch three films at the Jersey Opera House and one on a tug boat.

So my third day involved a French language film about pilgrims, a Welsh language film about the Argentinians and three Jersey bands playing music from movies.

Tomorrow: Gilbert O'Sullivan, The Doors, the Afghanistan Cricket Team and Battleship Potempkin.