Bird's Eye View

A ten year old Bruce Lee fanatic attached to her Adidas trainers and determined to become a future prophet is not your average leading lady. Meet Marjane, of Marjane Satrapi's Oscar-nominated film Persepolis, adapted from her autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. At a packed ICA screening in London this week, part of the Bird's Eye View festival, much of the audience fell in love.

Speakers rightly fear misleading introductions, and so too should films. As an audience of scruffy aesthetes sucked on their complimentary ActionAid rock candy, a staffer of the Birds Eye View Film Festival rose to introduce Sabiha Sumar's "Dinner with the President". This was, she promised, a timely and relevant film, delving into Pakistan's abiding political crisis as the country remains in the glow of the global spotlight. But for any observer of Pakistan, the subsequent film was less timely than it was out of touch. Such is the speed of events in Pakistan that a documentary released in late 2007 can already feel sepia-toned and out-dated by early 2008.