UK Gold launches East End Film Festval

The film probes the complex and disturbing world of offshore tax avoidance and its screening was followed by a series of music performances and DJ sets.

The festival runs June 25 to July 10, with screenings and events staged at a variety of venues throughout the East End.

It will close with a screening of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Sundance hit, Lovelace.

The opening night, staged at the Troxy - formerly a grand cinema designed to seat an audience of 3,520 but more recently renovated as an events venue – was introduced by the EEFF’s executive director Alison Poltock.

The laid-back screening saw the audience sit at round tables with food and drink while the film played, in a bid to make the festival accessible and and inviting to younger cinemagoers.

After the screening there was a live musical and visual installation Gold/Mine Chorus, performed by Anthony Rossomando, followed by a performance by British band Public Service Broadcasting and DJ sets by Ben John Power and F**k Buttons.

Over the coming two weeks, festival highpoints include Grits’n’Gravy day, a cinematic celebration of America’s deep south (plus free Bloody Mary’s); a selection of films to be screened in the East End’s Masonic Temple; and a free outdoor screening in Spitalfield’s market of cult Argentinean black-and-white silent film La Antena with a new score by gothic soundscapers Esben and the Witch.