2010
Sept 8 Four Minutes
Sept 22 *Honeydripper * 7:15 start
Oct 6 Frozen River
Oct 20 A Serious Man
Nov 3 Welcome
Nov 17 Lourdes
Dec 1 Tulpan
Dec 15 Rumba
2011
Jan 5 Me And Orson Welles
Jan 19 *Departures * 7:15 start
Feb 2 Conversations With My Gardener
Feb 16 24 City
Mar 2 Les Diaboliques
Mar 16 The Time That Remains
Mar 30 AGM + Shorts + Quiz
Chris Krauss does not pull punches in his second film which was top feature at ICO's London viewing in 2008. Criminality and musical brilliance (remember THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED ?) are the poles in this tense psychodrama set in a women's prison. Builds to an exciting "four minute" climax !
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The physical location of John Sayles's movie set in the Deep South during segregation is The Honeydripper , a black music lounge which its owner (played by Danny Glover) is fighting to keep open. Glover's masterful portrayal of a resourceful entrepreneur is matched by an impressive cast.
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Melissa Leo was Oscar-nominated for her role but her counterpart , Native American Misty Upham, is equally splendid. The setting is the spectacular but dangerous landscape of the border between New York State and Quebec where poor whites and Mohawks transport illegal immigrants across the frozen St Lawrence.
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Middle America --- more specifically a middle class Jewish community in the 1960s Midwest. The Coen brothers' film traces the middle-aged tribulations of a modern day Job, a comfortable physics professor whose life unravels in irresistible fashion. Bright suburban colours give way to shadows. A veritable tour de force.
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Like Michael Winterbottom's In This World (2002) but set in Calais rather than Asia, WELCOME focusses on the theme of illegal immigration. The narrative involves two mismatched characters (one a French swimming coach, the other a teenage Kurd), roles performed superbly against a grim landscape of docks and melancholy beaches.
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A comedy of manners offering a sardonic commentary on the French miracle-town where the Order of Malta oversees and keeps a tight rein on visitors. Jessica Hausner's movie is carefully balanced appealing to all religious (or non-religious !) stances. Look out for the visual jokes often in the background.
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Life's tough for a would-be shepherd on the steppes of Kazakh: you need a bride before you can acquire your own flock. A strong documentary element confers authenticity on this affectionate and humorous tale which has echoes of THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL.
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A unique film about two rumba -fixated school teachers. Returning from a championship they swerve to avoid an intended suicide. This funny, quirky, touching movie traces the consequences of that swerve, becoming along the way a colourful homage to Jacques Tati !
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Me, in this case, is Richard (played by TV heartthrob Zac Efron) a would- be actor arrived in the Big Apple. But at the centre here is Christian McKay utterly riveting as Welles. The context in this engaging, feel-good movie is Welles's 1930s anti-fascist theatre production of JULIUS CAESAR.
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Oscar-winning Japanese comedy-drama, the directorial style marked by modest classicism and delight in nature. This is an enjoyable and moving film about the ritual of 'dressing corpses' in which the protagonist, by enthusiastically taking up the profession, learns about life, death (of course) and love.
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Daniel Auteuil is a successful painter who employs an old school friend to tend the garden of his childhood home in Southern France. Excellent, understated performances and entertaining dialogue and set pieces in a notable addition to the cinema of humanism.
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The removal of the past through change and a fascination with documentary are constants in Jia Zhang-ke's work. 24 CITY mixes real workers and fictional characters to examining the removal of a factory on whose site a luxury residence complex will be built, a symbol of China's own modernisation and its human costs.
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Susan Hayward (the prof not the film star) called this "the French film noir to end all French film noirs". It's a classic, scary thriller beloved by Hitchcock and set in a gloomy provincial school where one of the plotters is played by the resplendent Simone Signoret.
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Nazareth -- 1948 to the present . The director draws upon his own family records to present a man growing up during the protracted Middle East conflict. Elia Suleiman's distinctive cinematic style and deadpan humour have produced a minor masterpiece.
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The film season brochure is available here.
Please Note: The AGM on the 30th of March starts at 7:30.
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