Tue 24 Nov 6.30pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTORS: Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani. STARRING: Fouad Habash, Nisrine Rihan, Elias Saba, Youssef Sahwani, Shahir Kabaha, Abu George Shibli. Israel 2009. 120 mins. Hebrew/ Arabic with English Subtitles.
AJAMI is a fast paced and powerful slice of Middle Eastern life in the neigbourhood of Jaffa. The first time directors, one Arab and one Jewish, worked with local non-actors to lend a raw authenticity to the film as the narrative weaves through relationships bound up in a climate of desperate, brutal violence, poverty and hostile intolerance between communities, which progressively lock into a tragic knot. The stories overlap into one another, gathering force as the characters clamber for a way out of their oppressive and claustrophobic circumstances.
Tue 24 Nov 8.00pm
Sallis Benney Theatre
DIRECTOR: Olivier Bohler. WITH: Volker Schlöndorff, Bertrand Tavernier, Masahiro Kobayashi, Rémy Grumbach. France 2008. 76 mins. French with English subtitles.
Jean-Pierre Melville’s independent and original approach to film-making on titles such as Bob Le Flambeur, Le Doulos, and Le Samourai earned him the reputation of the father, or at least the precursor, of the French New Wave. However, what is less known is that Melville spent eight years of his life between 1937 and 1945 as a soldier in the French army and then the Free French Forces, which he joined after the French defeat the Germans. Having escaped through the South of France to Spain, he became a member of the Resistance and took on the code name of Melville (after Herman Melville, the writer he most admired). He used the name for the rest of his life. This fascinating documentary examines how Melville’s life experience impacted on his choice of projects, his aesthetics and his working methods in the world of film. Real insight is gained through interviews with surviving family members, and his work is examined by those who worked closely with him including Volker Schlondorff (TIN DRUM) and Bertrand Tavernier (ROUND MIDNIGHT).
Q&A: Followed by Q&A with director Olivier Bohler
Wed 25 Nov 6.15pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: John Hillcoat. STARRING: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce. USA 2009. 111mins
Director John Hillcoat’s (THE PROPOSITION) highly anticipated adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. A father and his son walk alone through a burned-out post-apocalyptic America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind and water. Grey snow falls and the sky is dark. They head for the coast though they do not know what will await them there. Stripped of possessions they just have a pistol with a single bullet to defend themselves against the lawless cannibalistic bands that stalk the road. Bonded together through a sense of familial love, the two are the last testament to humanity. Viggo Mortensen is excellent as the bedraggled father attempting to keep the notion of civilisation alive against almost hopeless odds, and the young Kodi Smit-Mcphee is a wonderful find as the boy. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis provide the soundtrack.
Q&A: Following the screening John Hillcoat and Nick Cave will take part in a Q&A.
Thu 26 Nov 6.45pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Juliette Garcias. STARRING: Anais Demoustier, Bruno Todeschini, Nade Dieu. France 2009. 90 mins. French with English subtitles.
Nominated for an award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Juliette Garcias’ debut directorial feature BE GOOD (SOIS SAGE) twists and tightens as it weaves through the tales and mystery that shroud the protagonist’s deeply hidden secret. Having recently moved to the countryside, young Nathalie (Anaïs Demoustier) takes a job delivering bread, and assumes a new identity calling herself Eve. She gives the locals snippets of her background which vary as she changes her story and spies on a musician living in a mansion with his wife and young child. Nathalie’s dark secret carefully unravels as the truth of her history trickles through in snatches of dialogue and symbolic, dangerous imagery. Garcia directs with steady confidence, setting the suspenseful measured pace for the mystery to unfold while Demoustier’s performance delicately controls the wealth of simmering tension that seeps out. As in the masterful works of Claude Chabrol, the lavish countryside provides relief with its mask of beautiful pastoral innocence; a contrast to the volatile darkness and horror that swells below and sometimes bubbles from beneath Nathalie’s surface.
Fri 27 Nov 6.30pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Jordan Scott. STARRING: Eva Green, Juno Temple, Maria Valverde, Imogen Poots, Ellie Nunn, Adele McCann, Zoe Carroll, Clemmie Dugdale, Sinaed Cusack. UK 2009. 104 mins.
This debut feature from Jordan Scott (Ridley’s daughter) is a tale of adolescent frustration and burgeoning sexulality at a grim 1930s boarding school for girls. At this institution, housed on a fictional island off the coast of Britain, a group of girls develop a deep admiration for their rebellious, sensual diving instructor Miss G (Eva Green) who indoctrinates them with her belief that desire is the most important thing in life. Inspired by her bohemian free-thinking and playfully reckless attitude, they grow close to her, but are upset with the arrival of a new girl; the beautiful, enigmatic Fiamma from Spain. Eva Green is seductively vampy Miss G in this story that possesses a touch of both THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE and LORD OF THE FLIES. With fierce tensions simmering beneath the surface, CRACKS is an explosive hotpot of insecurity and jealous battles for attention.
Fri 27 Nov 11.15pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Ben Wheatley. STARRING: Robin Hill, Julia Deakin, David Schaal. UK 89mins.
Winner of best UK feature at recent Raindance Film Festival. DOWN TERRACE is a wonderful blend of very dark humour and kitchen sink realism, and has been described as Mike Leigh directing an IN THE LOOP- esque comedy. Based around a family of petty criminals DOWN TERRACE is shot entirely in Brighton and is the directorial debut from Ben Wheatley, who co-wrote the script with long-time collaborator and star of the film, Robin Hill. Wheatley is known as a comedy writer for TV shows such as Armando Ianucci’s Time Trumpet and DOWN TERRACE features in the cast many recognisable through TV appearances in The Office and Spaced. The performances from the entire ensemble, professional and non-professional alike, are spot on. It probably helps that Karl’s (Robin Hill) father is played by his own real-life dad and his pregnant girlfriend by his real wife but the natural ease between them all adds effectively to the verite style.
Sat 28 Nov 1.30pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Hayao Miyazaki. VOICES: Cate Blanchette, Liam Neeson. Japan 2008. 103 mins.
Winner at the Asian Film Awards and the Venice Film Festival, PONYO is the latest creation from the highly revered Japanese animator, Hayao Miyazaki, director of HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE and SPIRITED AWAY. 5 year-old Sosuke lives in a cliff house by the sea with his mother. He discovers a beautiful goldfish trapped in a bottle and decides to care for her, naming her Ponyo. But Ponyo is in fact the daughter of a sea goddess and powerful wizard, Fujimoto, who practices his magic from a wrecked vessel at the bottom of the sea. Ponyo uses her father’s magic to transform herself into a human, but the magic causes an imbalance in the world and Ponyo’s father sends the waves of the ocean to find his daughter. A magical animation for children and adults alike.
Sat 28 Nov 6.15pm
Duke of York’s Picturehouse
DIRECTOR: Niels Arden Oplev. STARRING: Michael Nygvist, Naomi Rapace, Lena Endre, Peter Haber, Sven-Bertil Taube. Sweden 2009. 152 mins. Swedish with English Subtitles.
The first screen installment of the best-selling ‘Millenium’ trilogy of novels. Investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is hired by the elderly industrialist Henrik Vanger to reopen a 40-year-old cold case. At a family gathering on a private island in 1966 his 16-year-old niece mysteriously disappeared; her body was never recovered but Vanger is convinced it was murder and that a member of his family was responsible. Blomqvist is assisted by the feisty, tough computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander (Naomi Rapace), a young woman whose own life is riddled with corrupt figures and a murky past. Together they begin to connect a series of grotesque murders and unravel the appalling darkness that lurks in the Vanger family history. Naomi Rapace gives a powerful and intriguing performance as Salander, preserving the depth of the enigmatic, complex character. With the Hollywood slickness of fast-paced action thrillers, director Niels Arden has crafted an atmospheric, detective story with a distinctive Nordic core.
Sat 28 Nov 8.00pm
Sallis Benney Theatre
DIRECTOR: Esther Rots. STARRING: Rifka Lodeizen, Wim Opbrouck, Chris Borowski. Netherlands 2009. 94 mins. Dutch with English Subtitles.
Marieke (Rifka Lodeizan) impulsively buys a rundown cottage in the countryside and begins to piece her life back together after she is attacked by a stranger in her own home. Disorientating notions of reality and fantasy emerge as Marieke takes shelter in an online network of fellow victims and plans revenge with a mysterious confidante. As summer approaches, Marieke seems to be regaining her positivity, but internally things are spiraling out of control. Lodeizan’s performance is candid and powerful as the film ruminates over Marieke’s conflicting states of mind and bleak isolation. The seasons and locations provide a vital backdrop to the story as Rots endeavours to express the truth of experience; vividly capturing the sensory force of a hot bath or a blistering cold day with penetrative vision.
Sun 29 Nov 8.00pm
Sallis Benney Theatre
DIRECTOR: Yorgos Lanthimos. STARRING: Christos Stergioglou, Michelle Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis, Anna Kalaizidou. Greece 2009. 94 mins. Greek with English subtitles.
Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes, DOGTOOTH is an absurd, hilarious, discomforting and inventively provocative film from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. The film follows the lives of a family whose house on the edge of the city is enclosed by high walls and the only person allowed to leave is the father. While he goes out to work in a factory, the mother stays at home with the son and two daughters, keeping them inside and ‘safe’ from the evils of the outside world. For the children, in their late teens and early twenties, everything beyond the walls of their home is a threat and language has undergone a radical makeover in their years of home schooling (a rifle is a white bird, a zombie is a yellow flower, a highway is a strong wind, cats are the enemy…). Considering his son to have reached an age where his sexual needs should be met, the father brings home Christine, a security guard from his factory, but her interaction with the family soon threatens their insular world. Lanthimos’ film is a startlingly sharp piece of imaginative insanity, as the events instigated by the unhinged parents swing between the weirdly comical and the repulsive.
