CINECITY are delighted to announce that they have been awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to co-ordinate the celebration of Brighton’s Duke of York’s Picturehouse 100th Birthday. The Duke of York’s opened its doors for business on September 22nd 1910, making it the UK’s oldest purpose built cinema that has continually operated, as recognised by the Cinema Theatres Association.
The award is to support community led activities, including the gathering of a complete archive of historical documents and pictures relating to the Duke of York’s to be housed in Brighton & Hove Museum and to form the basis of an interactive website about the cinema’s history. The project will also include a special centenary programme of films and special events for local schools.
The centenary is a unique opportunity for local people to explore their heritage and engage with the significant role Brighton played in the development of film culture in the UK.
CINECITY are keen to hear from anyone who has memories of going to the Duke of York’s, or who has worked there and has a story to tell.
DIVE IN MOVIE screenings this weekend at Price Regent Swimming Pool for the WHITE NIGHT was a huge success! With moments from classic movie scenes and archived footage of swimming pools on film. 500 people getting to enjoy the films from the pool itself and 1500 viewing from dry land on the balcony.
We have already had two FORTUNE POPCORN winners for films during the Festival itself. If you were a lucky viewer who found a ticket in your popcorn email info@cine-city.co.uk
Image by: www.steveglashier.com
Thank you to all who were involved and helped to make it happen, including QED, Duke of York Picture House, Prince Regent Swimming Pool Staff and lifeguards and our wonderful CINECITY usherettes !
Thu 19 Nov 6.30pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Jean-Piere Jeunet. STARRING : Dany Boon, Andre Dusolier, Jean-Piere Mariele. France 2009. 102 mins. French with English subtitles.
The latest unforgettable slice of impossibly quirky life from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (AMELIE), is as charming and as visually dazzling as ever. MICMACS is a thrilling comedy centred around a group of misfits’ plan to bring down two big arms manufacturers. The group is led by Bazil, a man down on his luck following an accident that has left a bullet lodged in his brain and a good chance that he will die at any moment. The story of Bazil’s revenge is populated by Jeunet’s trade-mark characters with their unique foibles and abilities, including the young Calculette who can immediately estimate weights, distances and speeds; and an inventor whose junk yard creations are put to bizarre use in the plan. Jeunet continues to beendlessly inventive in his story telling, and MICMACS is a perfect balance of visual feast, edge-of-the-seat plot and witty wordplay.
Sun 6 Dec 6.30pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Jacques Audiard. STARRING : Tahar Rahim, Neils Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Hichem Yacoubi, Reda Kateb . France 2009. 150 mins.
Director of THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED, Jacques Audiard’s new feature film A PROPHET captivated audiences at Cannes and seized the Grand Prize with its raw and poetic aesthetic. Ferocious and compassionate, A PROPHET follows the descent of a young man into the hierarchies of the criminal underworld. Sentenced to 6 years in prison, nineteen-yearold French-Arab Malik El Djebena (Tarik Rahim) is approached by a Corsican gang and subsequently forced to adapt to the vicious rules of the clashing power factions within the prison. The violence, choreographed with the cooperation of ex-convicts, crashes to life with sharp authenticity. Initially a lamb tothe slaughter in this warren of crime, newcomer Rahim is outstanding as Malik, bringing a vulnerability to the rough social realism he faces and his need to survive in the system.
Fri 20 Nov 11.15pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Jim Jarmusch. STARRING: Isaach De Bankole, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, John Hurt, Gael Garcia Bernal. USA. 116 mins.
Jim Jarmusch’s (STRANGER THAN PARADISE, BROKEN FLOWERS) THE LIMITS OF CONTROL is a mesmerizing and typically idiosyncratic crime thriller. Isaach De Bankolé is the archetypal Lone Man on a mysterious mission that commences with a meeting in the Charles de Gaulle airport. Over in Spain, he travels from Madrid to Seville, encountering a peculiar succession of contacts (including Tilda Swinton as the movie lover ‘Blonde’) and listens out for codes in their loaded words. He exchanges matchboxes with these eccentric individuals, consuming them after reading their cryptic content. He waits in museums, absorbing pieces of art that seem to re-emerge in different forms in later scenes.The powerful mood of Christopher Doyle’s (IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE) cinematography radiates from the hypnotic rhythm and vibrantly beautiful colours. Quite possibly Jarmusch’s most enigmatic film to date, THE LIMITS OF CONTROL is a feast of striking imagery and a philosophical rumination of art and its role in perception.
Sat 21 Nov 6.30pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Gerardo Naranjo. STARRING: Juan Pablo de Santiago, Maria Deschamps, Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Pedro Gonzalez, Martha Claudia Moreno, Rebecca Jones. Mexico 2009. 106 mins. Spanish with English Subtitles.
Winner of a host of awards, Gerardo Naranjo’s I’M GONNA EXPLODE erupts from the legacy of partner in crime films and the French New Wave. Bearing traces of Godard’s PIERROT LE FOU and crime classics BADLANDS and BONNIE AND CLYDE, I’M GONNA EXPLODE unfolds with the sensory cinematography that has emerged in Mexican cinema with directors such as Alejandro González Inarritu. The story follows Maru (Maria Deschamps) and Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), two disaffected teenagers who meet and fall in love after Roman is expelled from his privileged education and performs a fake suicide stunt in the assembly of his new school. Finding themselves in detention together, Maru and Roman hit it off and hatch a plan; Roman fakes the abduction of Maru and they hide out from society on the roof of his father’s house, while their parents combine efforts to find them. Naranjo’s visceral style is infused with the energy of recent Mexican cinema, as Roman’s fatalistic urges drive them closer to destruction.
Sun 22 Nov 6.30pm
The Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Michael Hofman. STARRING: Helen Miren, Christopher Plummer, James Mcavoy, Paul Giamatti , Anne-Marie Duff, Kery Condon. UK/Rusia/ Germany 2009. 110 mins.
THE LAST STATION is a love story set during the last year of the life and turbulent marriage of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) and his wife the Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren). Tolstoy, having rejected his title and embraced an ascetic life style, finds himself increasingly at odds with Sofya. As his devoted disciple Vladimir Chertkov urges him to sign a new will leaving the rights to his work to the Russian people rather than his family, the conflict between husband and wife grows to breaking point. The whole affair is witnessed by Tolstoy’s new secretary, Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), whose burgeoning love for the beautiful and feisty Masha is set against the waning love of Tolstoy and Sofya. The accomplished cast give weight to this sumptuously designed period drama from the director of RESTORATION.
Sun 22 Nov 7pm
Sallis Benney Theatre
DIRECTOR: Kirby Dick. WITH: Tony Kushner, Barney Frank, Lary Kramer. USA 2009. 90 mins.
Acclaimed documentary film-maker Kirby Dick (THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED) delves into the secret lives of America’s senators and governors, exposing the hypocrisy of closeted gay politicians. Beginning with Idaho’s senator Larry Craig, whose bathroom advances toward a policeman got him arrested in an airport, he builds up a file of instances; Virginia Congressman Ed Shrock’s resignation after the emergence of his gay-sex line calls; New Jersey Governor James McGreevey’s departure from office after he confessed to an affair with a male member of staff. Dick connects the corruption that seeps through politics with the damage of self-denial; what emerges is a bruised sense of disappointment that these men in such positions of power behave with such a lack of honesty, perpetuate notions of ‘shame’ and prevent progression for gay rights. No rock is left unturned in this rapidfire finger-pointing and outing as Dick investigates how the self-denial of a public representative can help to fuel the cycle of repression in a culture that, by now, should be at an age of equality.
Mon 23 Nov 6.30pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Lynn Shelton. STARRING: Mark Duplass. Joshua Leonard, Alycia Delmore, Lynn Shelton, Trina Willard. USA 2009. 94 mins.
Stumbling out of the ‘bromance’ humour of Judd Apatow into the more subtle and dry plains of mumblecore, HUMPDAY is the intelligent, very funny new feature written and directed by Lynn Shelton. Ben (Mark Duplass) has settled into a safe suburban life in Seattle with his wife when his old college friend Andrew (Joshua Leonard) shows up on his doorstep and rapidly leads him back into the high-fiving, one upmanship existence they once shared. Andrew takes him to a ‘Dionysian’ party where they hear about an amateur porn film festival. After racking their brains for the most radical, arty idea, they plan to film themselves having sex with one another, believing that as a reflection of their hetero sense of selves, it would be beyond gay. In the cold reality of the next day, they awkwardly face the challenge of upholding their revolutionary plan and the implications that it may pose for their friendship. Winner of the Special Jury Prize this year at Sundance, HUMPDAY is a wise, witty and empathetic film that explores the nature of life’s expectations and relationships.
Mon 23 Nov 8.00pm
Sallis Benney Theatre
DIRECTOR: Michael Whyte. UK 2009. 100 mins.
After 10 years of persistence and dedication, Michael Whyte was finally granted access to film in the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Notting Hill, home to Carmelite nuns. With echoes of INTO GREAT SILENCE, the lives of these women cut off from the chaos of the outside world, are not entirely serenely spiritual. Their work is practical and bustling with daily chores that maintain the Monastery; cooking, cleaning, gardening, making clothes and with a twist of modernity, they use the internet to order their weekly shop. Whyte’s choice to forgo voice over narration amplifies the film’s silences and background noise seems strangely loud. Aside from the hymns there is little talking, only one hour in the morning and another in the evening set aside for socializing and Whyte himself only speaks when he is spoken to and keeps a respectful distance. The film is balanced between the footage of the daily rituals and moments with individual nuns; while some admit the experience of isolation to be an immense personal challenge, there is also a great resource of humour and energy.
Q&A: Followed by Q&A with director Michael Whyte.
