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- Oct 2009 (.PDF, 2.7MB)
- July 2009 (.PDF, 771kb)
- July 2008
- April 2008
- November 2007
- July 2007
- April 2007
Full details will be coming very soon, once everything is totally confirmed. But we couldn't wait to post what films we'll have:
“A leading pioneer in animation and experimental filmmaking, Norman McLaren is the most honoured, innovative and influential filmmaker in the history of Canadian cinema and one of the leading film artists of the twentieth century. In a career spanning five decades, his playfully cerebral, stylistically adventurous and politically conscious films embraced a fusion of cinema, painting, music, dance, folk art and graphic design, while exploring the possibilities of film as art and art as film… Famous for experimenting with both the visual and aural possibilities of the moving image, McLaren's films are marked by an internationalist social conscience, an insistence on exploring the malleability of the film form and a playful sense of humour. No matter how abstract they may at first appear, his films boast an engaging narrative structure that contributes to their timelessness and accessibility.” – Toronto International Film Festival
“Norman McLaren was an animator in the purest sense – he brought things to life. Those ‘things' might be objects, like a chair, or colours, lines, shapes… and also, always, celluloid… In an oeuvre which encompasses experiments in stop-frame, scratched film, paper cut-outs, freehand and pixillation effects, metamorphosis is the only constant.” – Tom Charity, Sight & Sound
Programme courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada. Selections and notes by Terence Dobson.
Norman McLaren believed movies were about movement. Music was also the foundation of many of his films. This programme shows some of the amazing ways McLaren developed filmic movement and how he achieved an astonishing musical expression. McLaren's strong political beliefs are also on display. Rarely screened earlier, darker works as well as more exuberant films emphasise the breadth of his achievements. Titles include Spheres (1969), Narcissus (1983, Canon (1964), Hell Unlimited (1936), Keep Your Mouth Shut (1944), V for Victory (1941).
Exploring and discovering new and powerful film techniques was a way of working for Norman McLaren. In completed films, tests and unfinished pieces, McLaren almost always works frame-by-frame, but sometimes paints and scratches directly on the film stock, or manipulates live-action – in-camera or in the processing laboratory. Programme includes Mail Early (1941), Fiddle-de-dee (1947), La poulette grise (1947), Rythmetic (1956), Lines Vertical (1960), Mosaic (1965).
This selection of Norman McLaren's most famous and spectacular work starts with the whimsical Opening Speech (1960), followed by four direct films, each using a different technique – Stars and Stripes (1939), Hen Hop (1942), Begone Dull Care (1949), Blinkety Blank (1955). Chairy Tale (1957) and Pas de deux (1968) reveal an optimistic view of humanity. Finally, McLaren's ultimate expression of music/movement – Synchromy (1971), and his Oscar-winning, anti-war classic – Neighbours (1952).
Fellow animator Norman McLaren said of the work of Len Lye, the great New Zealand-born film-maker: “Len Lye has shown the way, and shown it in a masterly and brilliant fashion.”
Our programme opens with a film directed by Roger Horrocks about Lye as a teenager in New Zealand, having his “Eureka!” discovery of “the art that moves”. Then there are 14 of Lye's best films to illustrate his rich visual imagination, sense of humour, and love of music. They include films recently restored such as Prime Time and Life's Musical Minute . A surprise extra is Atomic Power , one of the famous March of Time programmes Lye directed as his day job.
Four films from the flourishing Iranian cinema of the 1990s, a time of reform and greater freedoms in the Islamic Republic.
Close-Up (Nema-ye nazdik)
Abbas Kiarostami | Iran | 1990 | G
“Abbas Kiarostami, in semi-documentary mode, re-creates the true story of an unemployed dreamer – an ardent cinephile – who passes himself off as the director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a fraudulent act that becomes both an homage and a fresh work of art.” – New Yorker
The White Balloon (Badkonake sefid)
Jafar Panahi | Iran | 1995 | G
A delightful, suspenseful, and insightful comedy written by Abbas Kiarostami. The plot – suitable for all ages and full of unexpected twists and developments – follows the urban adventures of a seven-year-old girl who loses her money to purchase a goldfish for the New Year.
The Colour of Paradise (Rang-e khoda)
Majid Majidi | Iran | 1999 | M
Majid Majidi's majestic film follows the story of Mohammad, a young blind boy whose inability to see the world only enhances his ability to feel its powerful forces. “Enthralling… artfully simple and beautifully observant of man and nature.” – Time
A Time for Drunken Horses (Zamani barayé masti asbha)
Bahman Ghobadi | Iran | 2000 | M
Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi's first feature is a devastatingly powerful and unflinching portrait of the hardships faced by a family of orphans living on the Iran/Iraq border. “A film of simplicity and power, beautifully shot and effortlessly acted by non-professionals.” – LA Times
My Winnipeg
Guy Maddin | Canada | 2007 | M nudity
Guy Maddin's documentary portrait of his native city is intensely idiosyncratic and hilariously unreliable. “Dazzlingly imaginative, flagrantly absurd and yet clearly very heartfelt.” – Sight and Sound
The Five Obstructions ( De fem benspænd)
Jørgen Leth, Lars von Trier | Denmark | 2005 | PG low level offensive language
Ever the provocateur, Lars von Trier challenges his mentor Jørgen Leth to remake his classic short film The Perfect Human five times under increasingly bizarre conditions. “A spellbinding mind-teaser, the ultimate game for movie buffs.” – Rolling Stone
Comrades in Dreams
Uli Gaulke | Germany | 2006
A documentary valentine to the pleasures of cinema that looks at four independent theatre owners in very different parts of the world who dedicate their lives to showing films. This affectionate ode to independent cinema owners the world over demonstrates the universal and unifying power of movies. “A delight.” – Variety
Life Is a Miracle (Zivot je cudo)
Emir Kusturica | Serbia-Montenegro/France | 2004 | M sex scenes, offensive language, drug use
Serbian maestro Emir Kusturica offers his absurdist, boisterous vision of the outbreak of war in Bosnia in 1992. A brilliantly choreographed three-ring circus, complete with lovesick donkey and home-invading bear.
No Man's Land
Danis Tanovic | Bosnia-Herzegovina | 2001 | R13 violence, offensive language
At the height of the Bosnian war, two soldiers from opposing sides find themselves stranded in no man's land in this Oscar-winning black comedy. “A deeply serious and seriously hilarious fable of the lunacy of war.” – Wall Street Journal
The Witnesses (Les témoins)
André Téchiné | France | 2007 | R16 sex scenes
“A fast-moving, engrossing multiple-character drama that brings the AIDS crisis of the 1980s into laser focus… Despite its grim subject, the powerful storytelling projects the strongly affirmative message that it's a miracle to be alive and bear witness to those who did not survive.” – Variety
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (OSS 117: Le Caire, nid d'espions)
Michel Hazanavicius | France | 2006 | M offensive language, sexual references
Fabled French special agent OSS 117 aka Bonisseur de la Bath, introduces his unique mix of espionage and incompetence in this hilariously straight-faced spy movie spoof which plays less like an Austin Powers farce than a lost relic from a sadly deluded time.
Swing Time
George Stevens | USA | 1936 | G
“ One of the best of the Astaire-Rogers musicals… Fred Astaire is a Depression dandy hopping a freight train, and Ginger Rogers gets serenaded with soapsuds in her hair. Arlene Croce has called it a movie about the myth of Astaire and Rogers and the world they lived in, and that's about as good a description as any .” – Chicago Reader
To Have and Have Not
Howard Hawks | USA | 1945 | G
“You know how to whistle, don't you…” Bogart and Bacall together for the first time in a war movie that plays like a romantic comedy. Bogart is a cynical privateer who decides to help the French Resistance on Martinique after falling for Bacall. “An unassuming masterpiece.” – Time Out
Some Like It Hot
Billy Wilder | USA | 1959 | PG sexual references | 35mm
Billy Wilder thumbs his nose at all the rules, mixing slapstick and screwball, gangster film and musical into a racy cross-dressing farce. Starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. “Wilder's greatest comedy.” - Village Voice
Presented by MGM Channel NZ
Meet Asta, the gender-bending silent-era Danish actress of whom Garbo said, “She taught me everything I know.” – Bright Lights Film Journal
Asta Nielsen made only a few films in her native Denmark before finding international fame in Germany, where she starred in over 70 films between 1911 and 1932. Titles include her first film, the taboo-breaking Abyss , with its erotically-charged dance sequence restored.
The Abyss (Afgrunden)/The Ballet Dancer (Balletdanserinden)
Urban Gad, August Blom | Denmark | 1910/1911
Beyond the Dark Side
A collection of recent short films that continue the tradition of New Zealand's Cinema of Unease.
Apron Strings
Sima Urale, New Zealand 2008
In her first feature Samoan-born Aucklander Sima Urale brings an ebullient light touch to a script by Shuchi Kothari and Dianne Taylor which traces parallel, richly loaded domestic dramas in two families of cooks: one Sikh, the other dyed-in-the-wool Anglo.
Dancer in the Dark
Lars von Trier, Denmark 2000
In rural America, Czech single mother Björk keeps quiet about her rapidly deteriorating sight so that she can retain her factory job and pay for an op to prevent her son from going blind. After she accidentally kills her neighbour (Morse), who has stolen her savings, her continuing refusal to keep the truth from her child makes for 'tragedy' (or so the director would define it). What makes the film a little unusual is that every so often it jolts into dance-musical sequences, illustrating the optimistic fantasies into which our brave heroine escapes.
Nine Queens
Fabian Bielinsky, Argentina 2001
David Mamet might kill for a script as good as the one that fuels Nine Queens . A seductively structured and superbly acted suspenser that breathtakingly piles swindle upon scam without giving away the game until the very end, Fabien Bielinsky's debut feature has been the biggest smash in its native Argentina in at least a decade…
Old Boy
Chan Wook Park | Korea | 2003
An average man is kidnapped and imprisoned in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. He then is released, equipped with money, a cellphone and expensive clothes. As he strives to explain his imprisonment and get his revenge, he soon finds out that not only his kidnapper has still plans for him, but that those plans will serve as the even worse finale to 15 years of imprisonment.
The Blues (Feel Like Going Home)
Martin Scorsese | Germany / UK | 2003
Under the guiding vision of Executive Producer Martin Scorsese, seven directors (including Wim Wenders, Mike Figgis, Clint Eastwood & Charles Burnett) explored the blues through their own personal styles and perspectives. The films in the series are motivated by a central theme: how the blues evolved from parochial folk tunes to a universal language. This is the first film of the seven, directed by Scorsese himself.
Scorsese ( The Last Waltz , Raging Bull , Gangs of New York ) pays homage to the Delta blues. Musician Corey Harris travels through Mississippi and on to West Africa, exploring the roots of the music. The film celebrates the early Delta bluesmen through original performances (including Willie King, Taj Mahal, Otha Turner, and Ali Farka Toure) and rare archival footage (featuring Son House, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker).
Our main order of business is to show interesting films - on the big screen - that wouldn't otherwise be shown in Christchurch cinemas. So we screen a huge range of stuff, from old silent films, to the classic Hollywood era, to whole seasons of films by world-renowned directors, to rare documentaries, animated films, and much much more. Have a look at the schedule on the right to see what we've got programmed for 2009. Full info will be coming soon. Screenings are almost always on Monday nights at 6:30pm at Rialto Cinemas (Moorhouse Ave).
Our second order of business is to keep things inexpensive. Rather than pay exorbitant commercial screening rates and charge you $13 or more per ticket, we typically pay much cheaper private screening rates. This means that our films are generally open to members only - but it works out to less than $4 per film if you join. Check out the Membership Info page for all the details. You can even join via online banking.
Our third order of business is to support and enhance local film culture. The main way we've been doing this is by screening local short films before many of our features. If you or someone you know has a film you'd like us to screen, visit our Shorts page for info on how to submit it. And we're always open to new ideas, so if you think of any ways we can enhance film culture in Canterbury, let us know!