Preview: This week's alternative films

Simon ParkinHENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO Dir: Serge Bromberg, Ruxandra Medrea (2009)With: Romy Schneider, Serge Reggiani, Berenice BejoThis revealing film tells how France's great directors nearly made a visionary masterpiece, but ended up with one of the most legendary catastrophes of French cinema.Simon Parkin

HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO

Dir: Serge Bromberg, Ruxandra Medrea (2009)

With: Romy Schneider, Serge Reggiani, Berenice Bejo

This revealing film tells how France's great directors nearly made a visionary masterpiece, but ended up with one of the most legendary catastrophes of French cinema.

In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot started work on a much-cherished project, Inferno. A study of jealousy, it was to star Romy Schneider and Serge Reggiani, and Clouzot intended to take the visual and psychological language of film in unprecedented new directions. However all the planning that the perfectionist director had put into his Kubrick-like project started to unravel on set, with catastrophic results.

Pieced together are the remains of Clouzot's material with actors Bejo and Gamblin reading key scenes. For anyone interested in French cinema this is fascinating.

t Screens at Cinema City on January 19 (8.20pm), details as above

NO DISTANCE LEFT TO RUN - A FILM ABOUT BLUR

Dir: Dylan Southern, Will Lovelace (2009)

Filmed throughout the band's rehearsals and acclaimed summer tour, this film follows all four members of Blur together for the first time in nine years.

With previously unseen archive material alongside new interviews and reportage, the film recounts the highs and lows of a very British band from the late 1980s to their triumphant return at Glastonbury and Hyde Park.

With previously unseen archive material alongside revealing new interviews and reportage, the film recounts the band's highs and lows, from their origins as baggy-wannabes from Colchester and Goldsmiths, to their Brit-pop heights of fame.

Its a documentary not only about this particular band and their personal history, but about what happens when you achieve enormous success with your friends and the fallout when that goes wrong.

t Screens at Odeon Riverside on January 19 (8pm), 0871 2244007, www.odeon.co.uk

BURLESQUE UNDRESSED

Dir: Immodesty Blaize (2009)

Feathers and fans, corsets and costumes, glitter and rhinestones...The glitz and spectacle of burlesque comes to the cinema in this feature-length film starring Europe's queen of burlesque Immodesty Blaize.

Ms Blaize peels back the curtain to reveal her world of high-octane glamour, and gives an exclusive peep behind-the-scenes to expose the work involved in the art of the tease to produce a signature act of perfection.

From the elaborate spectacular costume designs to the impressive on-stage gimmicks, Immodesty and her pals showcase the best of burlesque in a dazzling explosion of seductive live performance, including footage from her very own sell-out Tease Show.

Veteran burlesque legends reveal hilarious anecdotes from the original Golden Era, including running foul of the censors and getting jailed for shaking their behind even when covered up!

Its a lavish and dazzling journey right into the heart of the art-form, featuring a compelling mix of live performance, interviews from burlesque stars past and present, and show-stopping entertainment.

t Screens at Odeon Riverside on January 21 (9pm), details as above