18 WHAT’S ON
CULTURE • LITERATURE • EVENTS • MUSIC • MUSEUMS...
Africa in
Motion
Short Film
Competition
AFRICA IN Motion Film Festival (AiM)
has announced the shortlist for the
annual Short Film Competition. Due to
ongoing circumstances after the
pandemic and the recent devastating
news about the Centre for Moving
Image, Edinburgh International Film
Festival and Filmhouse cinemas, this
year’s festival will be in a hybrid format.
AiM’s annual Short Film Competition
has been running successfully since
2008 and this year, the festival receivedmore than 600 entries of outstanding
quality and variety including animation
and hybrid documentary work.
Filmmakers from Africa and the
diaspora were invited to submit short
films made after 2020 with a running
time of no more than 30 minutes.
The winning film and director will be
announced at the festival’s closing
night film. Audience members will be
able to submit ratings after watching
the short films and an Audience ChoiceAward will be granted as a result.
Ranging in topic, theme and form, the
virtuosity of African film has shonethrough once again.
Director of Africa in Motion, Liz
Chege, said: “We are deeply humbled
to be in a position to support emerging
filmmakers from the African continent
and the Black diaspora once more, and
for the first time since 2019, offer an an
in-person edition. With the cultural
sector in Scotland experiencing such a
precarious time, we feel it more than
ever that our collective future rests on
supporting each other to flourish.”By LINSAY GIVEN BLACKSTEPH LUMSDEN is owner of beauty therapy
business AURA Edinburgh.
She set up her company last July and has
converted her garage to become “a peaceful little
sanctuary for treatments”.
She offers massage, facial treatments and nail
appointments. “I’ve been a spa therapist for
almost ten years now,” says Steph, who still
occasionally works in the spa at the Balmoral
Hotel “but it has taken me a while to find my
groove and decide how I want to apply
my training”.
She now feels comfortable and happy with the
treatments she offers clients. “I like to provide a
space for all to feel welcome, and love being able
to help and care for others,” she says. “The
pandemic highlighted the need for self care, and
I want to ensure everyone takes the time to look
after themselves as best as they can.”
Growing up, Steph’s mum would pick a
Disney film on a Friday night, and the family
(Steph, her brother, Mum and Dad, if he wasn’t
working) would have a ‘pizza party’, all cosy in
the lounge and munch on pizzas while sitting on
a tartan rug.
The family all loved it and Steph still has a love
for all things Disney. She was particularly
enthralled when the feisty Scottish princess,
Merida, appeared on the screen in ‘Brave’.An added bonus was her favourite comedian,
Billy Connolly, as the voice of King Fergus,
Merida’s father. A win, win.
Merida fights against the future set out for her
by parental expectations and tradition and wants
to forge her own destiny.
“As Merida says ‘our fate lives in us’. You only
have to be brave enough to see it.’ She learned
lessons from each mistake she made, approached
each opportunity with an open mind and had a
willingness to take risks,” says Steph.
“Her journey resonates with me, as I feel I’ve
challenged expectations and created my own
path which has led me to feel fulfilled and be in
a true state of happiness with my career.”
Steph started to make her own range of
products last year, aiming to guide her clients inpreparing their own eco-friendly products at
home and helping them to understand what
ingredients to choose for optimum results.
“I do feel we can complicate skin care and
it can be quite overwhelming to navigate
the best course of action for our skin and
bodies,” she says, “so I try to offer simple yet
effective solutions.”
Brave was a groundbreaking movie in several
ways: it is the first Pixar film with a female
central character and it is about her relationship
with her mother, not a male character. It is, of
course, set in Scotland but unusually uses almost
entirely British, not American voice actors.
There are NO talking animals (a first) and, the
heroine is fabulously ginger!
http://www.facebook.com/AURAedinburghAt the movies
Steph Lumsden talks about her business and her fave flick...
Vanity Fair at
Leitheatre
LEITHEATRE’S NEXT production is
William Makepeace Thackeray’s ‘Vanity
Fair’, adapted by Declan Donnellan, and
will be staged at the Church Hill Theatre
on Morningside Road.
The production depicts the story of the
scheming adventuress BeckySharp in
Regency England. From the drawing
rooms of the gentry to the battlefield of
Waterloo and beyond to India, we follow
the changing fortunes of Becky and her
acquaintances.It is fast-moving, funny
and tells the story about one of
literature's most unforgettable heroines
and her faithful friend, Amelia. The action
spans thirty years and a vast number of
different locations. Declan Donnellan
who adapted the novel for Cheek by Jowl
Theatre Company achieved a marvel in
condensing the vast panorama of Vanity
Fair into two hours, without losing any of
the flavour and narrative.
Donnellan brings Thackeray’s
masterpiece Vanity Fair to vivid and
glorious life. At breakneck speed and
with great ingenuity and wit, he presents
the massive thirty-year panorama of
Vanity Fair, where the only thing that
counts is worldly success. Becky Sharp,
one of literature’s most charming but
amoral heroines, schemes her way
through the snakes-and-ladders board of
Regency life. ‘I think I could become a
good woman, if I had £5,000 a year,’
reflects the ‘sharp little minx’, ruthlessly
seducing and clawing her way to the top,
at the expense of her foil, the faithful,
naive Amelia Sedley.Wednesday 16 to Friday 18 November 2022
at 19:30, Saturday 19 November at 14:30.
Tickets priced £15 full, £12 concession
(students, over 60), £5 (under 20) are on sale
now at http://www.leitheatre.com, or email
[email protected]Steph Lumsden Interior at AURA