#WeAreQFT Jeanie Finlay
06 April 2020
Today we talk to filmmaker Jeanie Finlay, director of Game of Thrones: The Last Watch, Seahorse and Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, a QFT fan from her Belfast days, about her film loves and loathes for #WeAreQFT.
You are stuck at home and your favourite cinema is closed. What five films do you watch?
Black Narcissus (1947)
American Movie (1999)
Booksmart (2019)
I’m dying to watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) again
And Cats (2019), for the psychedelic lols
What three words would you use to describe QFT?
Welcoming, easy, haven.
What is your earliest cinema-going memory?
My Scottish Grandad; George Finlay, took me to see Annie (1982) at the Cameo in Edinburgh. I was very enamoured of the spectacle of it all - the spot-lit figures and the red velvet curtains.
What film do you dislike that everyone else loves?
Whiplash (2014)
What is your guilty pleasure film?
Life is too short to feel guilty around pleasure. A much-maligned film which I LOVE is the Barbra Streisand A Star Is Born (1976) – all those back-lit bubble perm shots giving me life!
What is your favourite film soundtrack?
Boogie Nights (1997) is a banger.
What film character would you love to meet?
Margo Channing.
What is the best thing about going to the cinema?
Crying in the dark surrounded by strangers.
Do you have a special place in the cinema where you always sit?
Just far away from talkers or noisy eaters – I want to be lost in the world on screen, not in your bag of popcorn.
Who is your favourite film villain?
Baby Jane Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1991).
What one thing would you change about your favourite film?
I like that films are one person’s vision at that time, flaws and all.
What film do you think justifies a remake?
I was terrified as a young girl by the Joan Collins horror I Don’t Want to be Born (1975). Could it be remade now?
Have you ever changed your opinion on a film?
All the time, I love that films are fixed in time but we change around them.
What is your favourite movie quote?
“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night” - All About Eve (1950).
“I’m wild at heart and weird on top” - Wild at Heart (1990).
Who would play you in a film of your life?
An amalgam of Bette Davis, Peter Falk and Molly Ringwald.