Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Ecstasy of Angels (Kōji Wakamatsu, 1972)

By: börek - December 2nd, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday December 8, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Ecstasy of Angels * 1972 * (天使の恍惚, Tenshi no kōkotsu) * Directed by Kōji Wakamatsu * 89 minutes * In Japanese with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30.

Japanese director Kōji Wakamatsu was a wild cat, and was the primary director that fused together radical politics along with transgressive sexuality. He had made a link between these two things that was, in a way, revolutionary. He didn’t believe in breaking down barriers only on a single issue or theme, but through an explosion of freedom he sought to destabilize Japan’s colonized, regulated, conservative society that was imposed by America after World War II.

These were wild days in Japan, with student protests, occupations, psychedelic music and a lot of experimentation. This movie is a byproduct of that time, a snapshot of his zeitgeist, a call for freedom. It is a pink political flick, meaning it’s politically charged. The story is about a group of left-wing revolutionaries who break into a US military Depot to steal weapons and ammunition. As they make their getaway they come into a conflict with soldiers, leaving some Americans dead. The movie takes off from there.

Right around the time when Kōji Wakamatsu made this movie, he went to the Palestinian territories and filmed a radical left-wing group training there, he was instantly put on a blacklist by three major organizations – the Japanese government, Interpol, and the American government. In fact, he was banned from entering the United States for the rest of his life.

Wakamatsu is a great example of guerilla filmmaking, knocking out radical, imaginative films, and all budgets. In fact, Wakamatsu said the reason he became a film director in the first place was because “in movies, you can kill as many police officers as you want and not get caught.”

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Movie night: Famine 33 (Oles Yanchuk, 1991)

By: börek - November 27th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Saturday November 30, 2024, Movie night: Голод-33 * Famine-33 * 1991 * Directed by Oles Yanchuk * 115 minutes * In Ukrainian with English subtitles * doors opens at 18:30 film starts at 19:00.

This film looks at the artificial famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine through the eyes of a single family. The famine, which killed millions of people, was the result of a Soviet policy intended to punish Ukrainians for opposing the collectivization of their farms.

Pick up the Small Soviet Encyclopedia, 1940 edition, open it and under the letter “U” read what is written in the article “Ukrainian SSR”.
It is a document and there you will see in black and white, although in fine print, that Soviet Ukraine according to the census of 1927 had a population of 32 million and in 1939 (twelve years later) — 28 million.
Only 28 million? What happened to 4 million people after 1927? Where is the natural increase which in 12 years should have been at least 6-7 million? That means more than 10 million! What happened to those 10 million of the Ukrainian population? What happened to them in the “land of flourishing socialism?”

Made in 1991, deals with one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century, namely the forcible collectivization in the Soviet Union in the early 30s and the following hunger that affected above all Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It should be remembered that this topic was (and in some way still is) the greatest Communist taboo. The mere mentioning of this topic guaranteed brutal repressions for the one who dared raise it. The official propaganda made some works about it (the most important one was Virgin Soul Upturned (Podnyataya Zelina in Russian) by Mikhail Sholokhov and any other views of the subject were forbidden. It should also be mentioned that some Western leftists supported it and helped spreading Stalin’s lies about it all over the world.
I know that it is almost impossible to explain to a Westerner what life under Communism is, but this fact makes context all the more necessary.
The most important thing is that all these horrors and sadistic acts were man-made and not natural. They are the inevitable results of the non-human Communist ideology.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Cinema Italia: Many Years Ago (Francesco Rosi, 1970)

By: börek - November 17th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday November 17, 2024, Many Years Ago (1970) * Directed by Francesco Rosi * 101 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Set in the First World War for its pacifist and anti-militarist message, it was boycotted from cinemas on its release. The general’s orders ridicule the high command and show the inhumanity of the conflict, while soldiers represent the ideal types of conflicting political and social ideas such as monarchy and socialism, which have to coexist at the front. The film’s dramatic tone, which distances it from the book on which it was inspired, was harshly criticised at the time of its release. Looking at it through today’s lenses — more than 50 years later — it is more relevant than ever. In fact, over a century has passed since the events recounted, in the year 1916 on the Asiago Plateau; however, the contrast between the war of generals and the war of simple soldiers sweeps away the false myth of the war hero because the enemy is not the enemy soldiers but their own commanders.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: The Net – Unabomber, LSD & Internet. The hidden side of the Internet (Lutz Dammbeck, 2003)

By: börek - November 8th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday November 10, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: The Net – Unabomber, LSD & Internet. The hidden side of the Internet * 2003 * Directed by Lutz Dammbeck * 121 minutes * In English and German, with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30.

This is a wild documentary made by a German filmmaker who goes down a strange rabbit hole starting with American avant-garde artists of the 1960s like musician John Cage and experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas. The structure of the whole movie reflects our modern internet world, because while he is looking around collecting information about those artists, he comes across links that lead him in another unexpected direction. As things unfold, the movie shifts into several directions that seem to be linked. One thread involves cybernetics and the development of computer technology, another is the covert operations of the CIA and their use of LSD. All these things are tied together with the story of a man named Ted Kaczynski, otherwise known as the Una Bomber.

Ted Kaczynski had been a professor of mathematics who abandoned the university system and began living in a self-built cabin in the remote countryside. He felt the world was going in a totally dystopian direction, an increasingly technological world of mass surveillance, endless wars and the destruction of nature. He resorted to targeted violence in order to get his message across, and managed to have his manifesto printed on the front page of the New York Times before he was arrested in 1996.

Of course the documentary raises questions about the uncontrovertibly negative side of Ted’s actions, but it also shows something else that isn’t talked about often enough – the almost religious zeal of Silicon Valley and big tech executives, and how they turn a blind eye to the destructive sides of what they are doing and refuse to take any responsibility whatsoever. These megalomaniacs are uprooting society across-the-board, creating polarizing divisions, the scattering of people’s attention, rampant addiction and surveillance.

The Net has become a cult classic in the last several decades, revealing an untold history. Today we live in a world where memory is largely obliterated, and we tend to think of the internet as something that just happened ‘organically’ without a plan or history. This movie argues differently, and digs up the history of how Internet was sculpted punch by corporate punch. What it uncovers is pretty shocking in its relevance to the world we live in today. Along the way on this cinematic journey we also come across many 60s icons, such as Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary. This documentary opens up a world you might not have known even existed. Hell, it even features narration by legendary German actress Eva Mattes. An underground classic, marginalized for good reasons.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Palestine Cinema Days: Resistance, Why? (Christian Ghazi, 1971) and Naila and the Uprising (Julia Bacha, 2017)

By: börek - November 1st, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Saturday, November 2nd, 2024, Palestine Cinema Days: Resistance, Why? (Christian Ghazi, 1971) and Naila and the Uprising (Julia Bacha, 2017). Doors open at 19:30, free entrance.

Join us for a screening of Palestine Cinema Days in Amsterdam. On the somber anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, observed on November 2nd, and in an effort to amplify Palestinian voices, we are screening Resistance, Why? (Christian Ghazi, 1971) and Naila and the Uprising (Julia Bacha, 2017) at 19:30 p.m. at Joe’s Garage. The screening is free of charge.

Resistance, Why? (56 mins): In 1970, with the initiative of Soraya Antonius (Fifth of June Society), Christian Ghazi and Noureddine Chatti went to meet Arab political figures, and in particular Palestinians living in Lebanon. Ghassan Kanafani, Sadiq Jalal El-Azm, Nabil Shaath, and others offer their visions of the Palestinian revolution, anchoring it in its history since the early 20th century.

Naila and the Uprising (76 minutes): Chronicling the remarkable journey of Naila Ayesh and a fierce community of women at the frontlines, whose stories weave through the most vibrant, nonviolent mobilization in Palestinian history – the First Intifada in the late 1980s.

19:30 Doors open
20:00 Introduction and Resistance, Why?
21:30 Naila and the Uprising
*Screening with English subtitles

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Inkubo (Leslie Stevens, 1966)

By: börek - October 13th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday October 13, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: INCUBUS (Inkubo) * Directed by Leslie Stevens * 1966 * 78 minutes * In Esperanto with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30.

Once there was a guy named Zamenhof who lived in Russia. In 1887 he decided to make a second language that could be spoken by everyone. His aim was to make it easier for international communication, by avoiding division which led to war. The language he invented was simple to learn, and it was called Esperanto. It’s High Point perhaps with the 1960s, an era when people wanted to end war and misunderstandings, unlike today. There is only one movie in the history of cinema that was spoken totally in Esperanto, and it’s this one.Holy cow, what planet was this movie made on? Not only is the language exceptional, but the whole mood, story and orientation is so otherworldly and oddly mysterious. We are thrown into a world without a history, with people speaking this familiar but at the same time strangely unidentifiable language. The landscape where everything takes place seems out of context, and perhaps in that way it’s like an early Jodorowsky movie. The film is surreal, pagan and supernatural. In a way, we find ourselves thrown into a bizarre world, one that works by different laws, which pits the human soul against powerful forces of nature.
Another bizarre thing about it is that it has an actor who a year later would become totally famous in the original Star Trek TV series – William Shatner. Yep, it seems he actually spoke Esperanto. Shatner was a strangely committed actor who often did movies that he believed in.
The whole movie is an incredible trip, and even though it was obviously extremely low budget it has great cinematography, and some of the images are absolutely astounding. It was thought to be lost for decades, and only recently has there been a copy discovered in archives in France.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Cinema Italia: The Incredible Army of Brancaleone (Mario Monicelli, 1966)

By: börek - September 29th, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday September 29, 2024, The Incredible Army of Brancaleone (1966) * Directed by Mario Monicelli * 120 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

How can a group of underdogs, rejected from society, start an epic journey to rescue Jerusalem with an improbable crusade? Set in the Middle Age, spoken in a Italian mixed with vulgar Latin expressions, The Incredible Army of Brancaleone is a parody of knights’ quests in the Middle Age, putting as protagonists common people instead of nobility. The result is a series of sketches where paradox rules with comic effects. With an incredible cast of Italian actors who became famous in their career after this film – in particular Vittorio Gassman, Catherine Spaak, Gian Maria Volonté, and Enrico Maria Salerno – Monicelli succeeded in portraying the grotesque side of the Italian people in such an iconic way that his message becomes universal.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Nov Lituania

By: börek - September 3rd, 2024  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday September 8, 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Nov Lituania * 98 minutes * In Lithuanian with English subtitles, doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30.

This is a pretty unusual film for when it was made, and actually it’s a pretty unusual movie to be made in America at any time. It presents us with a situation that we are increasingly becoming familiar with – lack of housing, food prices rising like crazy, and not being able to afford anymore to live in big cities. The story takes place in the 1930s during the great depression, a time when the bankers went too far with their wheeling, dealing and money grubbing, causing a disaster.

Our main characters are a couple who have no place to live anymore but are offered a worthless piece of land in the countryside. Their idea is to create their own Eden, but when faced with difficulties they realize that they are city people and have no idea how to do things like farming. The solution to the problem is by inviting other unemployed people to join them, and thereby creating a cooperative.

A film about collectivism and community and alternative societies, I think we are sadly missing these days. It’s been called an anti-cynical film and no matter what you think of it, its enthusiasm whips up a semi-socialist alternative that includes exchange of labor, sharing food, bartering and solidarity. All of this is presented as an alternative to the dog eat dog capitalism and monopolization that was tearing apart the country. Some viewers have even aptly compared it to the early Russian-Ukrainian movies Alexander Dovzhenko.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

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