Benefit for We Are Here with documentary screening

By: börek - May 2nd, 2015  Filed under: Benefiet, Filmavond, Infoavond, Volkseten/Voku

Wij_Zijn_hierMonday May 25th 2015, Benefit for We Are Here with the screening of Wij Zijn Hier, a documentary by Alexandra Jansse (Xela Films, 2015, 65’, in English with Dutch subtitles). Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm.

A new documentary narrating the story of one of the most vibrant movements in the Netherlands.
Wij Zijn Hier, a self-organised refugee group in Amsterdam. Screening will take place after the people’s kitchen, with the presence of director Alexandra Jansse and an activist of We Are Here.
Trailer of the film: https://vimeo.com/124522574

De worsteling van 220 vluchtelingen die maar één wens hebben: een menswaardig bestaan opbouwen in een land waar vrede heerst.

Het is September 2013 als het lopen door de binnenstad van Amsterdam begint voor 220 vluchtelingen die zich in het zogenaamde ‘asielgat’ bevinden in Nederland. Zij protesteren tegen het feit dat hun asielverzoeken werden afgewezen. In een aantal gevallen zijn ze naar de rechter gegaan en hebben hun beroep verloren. In andere gevallen loopt er nog een beroepsprocedure. Voor vrijwel allemaal is er een onaantastbaar besluit van de Nederlandse overheid, dat inhoudt dat ze geen asiel krijgen en dus Nederland moeten verlaten.

Omdat het de overheid in de praktijk echter niet lukt om ze uit te zetten worden ze op straat gezet. Al jaren worden deze mensen achtervolgt door een voortdurend knagende onzekerheid over hun recht op bestaan. Het beklemmende gevoel als ratten in de val te zitten is een vorm van zekerheid geworden die zich kenmerkt door een stuitend bestaan. Kans op terugkeer naar hun vaak zo geliefde familie is voor hen geen optie omdat daar marteling, gevangenisstraf of soms zelfs de dood wacht.

Alexandra, gedreven om een inkijk te geven in de schrijnende situatie waarin deze mensen zich bevinden, wil met deze film de denkbeeldige muren slechten en hun persoonlijke situatie in alle openheid belichten. De politiek lijkt onvermurwbaar. In ‘WIJ ZIJN HIER!’ schetst Jansse de worsteling en rauwe werkelijkheid van deze groep asielzoekers die maar een wens heeft namelijk: een menswaardig bestaan op te bouwen in een land waar vrede heerst. […Lees verder]

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989)

By: börek - May 1st, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond

How_to_Get_Ahead_in_AdvertisingSunday May 10th 2015, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989). Directed by Bruce Robinson, 95 minutes. In English with English subtitles. Free admission. Door opens at 20:00, Film starts at 21:00.

Radical cult film by the wild British director Bruce Robinson (Withnail & I)…. a Kafkaesque black comedy which is a scathing attack on the commercialization and trivialization of our lives. This movie is an all-out assault on both the mind and senses (along with the advertising world), as it follows the story of pent-up advertising executive Dennis Bagley, whose life becomes so stressful that his body starts to react in a surreal way. This aspect makes it almost like a Cronenberg film, with Bagley’s repressed inner demon bursting to the surface. Director Bruce Robinson is a sort of cinematic equivalent to a rampaging Hunter S. Thompson, and in his gonzo rage he decries a world of cheap tricks, gimmicks, misrepresentation and hidden marketing agendas. And like Hunter, Robinson does so with scathing absurdism and humor.

Richard E. Grant (Withnail & I) stars in this mad, out-of-control Grand-Guignol that lampoons rampant capitalism and the modern business world. And although this film is certainly skeptical of that advertising industry, director Robinson said it was a mistake to think that was the main message… what this film is about for him is about selling fear, and using fear to promote everything. “The real fear I have is that our whole political system is evolving into an optical illusion whose currency is fear.” The expansion of both the commercialization of our lives, and the use of fear tactics to manipulate us, makes this film even more relevant than ever before. […Lees verder]

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Iranian movie night: The Song of Sparrows (2008)

By: börek - May 1st, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond

The_Song_of_SparrowsSunday May 3rd 2015, Iranian Movie night: Avaze Gonjeshk-ha, آواز گنجشک‌ها , The Song of Sparrows by Majid Majidi (2008). In Farsi with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

When an ostrich-rancher focuses on replacing his daughter’s hearing aid, which breaks right before crucial exams, everything changes for a struggling rural family in Iran. Karim motorbikes into a world alien to him – incredibly hectic Tehran, where sudden opportunities for independence, thrill and challenge him. But his honor and honesty, plus traditional authority over his inventive clan, are tested, as he stumbles among vast cultural and economic gaps between his village nestled in the desert, and a throbbing metropolis.
More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_Sparrows […Lees verder]

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Kes (1969)

By: börek - April 1st, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond

150419 Kes smSunday April 19th 2015, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Kes (1969). Directed by Ken Loach, 111 minutes. In English with English subtitles. Free admission. Door opens at 20:00, Film starts at 21:00.

This is an early film directed by Ken Loach, and it is a poetically beautiful portrait of a 14-year-old boy growing up in the northern working-class Yorkshire area of England. It is photographed in an austere, almost documentary style. The non-actor David Bradley is stunningly as the young boy Billy, whose dreary future seems to be pretty much destined for the local coal mines. One day his life suddenly resonates when he discovers a small kestrel falcon, which he trains daily. This is a film about being suffocated by your environment, and the deep longing for something else.

Whereas the Hollywood approach to life is to escape through entertainment, European cinema (and Kes is a wonderful example) instead zeros in on aspects of our lives and asks us to pause and think about them. In Kes, this is done through sublime acting and a profound ability to capture a mood. There is so much trash in the cinemas today, why not try out something that may pierce your heart and change your idea of cinema forever? This movie is still etched deeply in my memory after I saw it last 35 years ago.. it’s one of the most moving films of all time, and it achieves this without any cheap sentimentality.

For many people it is the best film ever made. And it was also voted by the British Film Institute as being one of the 10 best British films of the last century. This will be a high-definition screening. […Lees verder]

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Iranian Movie night: Women Without Men (2009)

By: börek - April 1st, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond

Women_Without_MenSunday April 12th 2015, Iranian Movie night: Women Without Men by Shirin Neshat (2009, 95 minutes). In Persian with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

Neshat offers an exquisitely crafted view of women rights today in Iran as compared to Iran in 1953, when a British- and American-backed coup removed the democratically elected government. The Women Without Men movie was adapted from the novel by Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur, the film weaves together the stories of four individual women during that time, whose experiences are shaped by their faith and the social structures in place. The film grants audiences the opportunity to explore the lives of four women and the beautiful countryside of Iran, where Neshat explores the social, political, and psychological dimensions of her characters as they meet in a metaphorical garden, where they can exist and reflect while the complex intellectual and religious forces shaping their world linger in the air around them. […Lees verder]

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Movie Night: Punishment Park (1971)

By: börek - April 1st, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond

Punishment_ParkSunday April 5th 2015, Movie Night: Punishment Park (Peter Watkins, 1971, 88 min.). In English with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Punishment Park is a pseudo-documentary, purporting to be a film crews’s news coverage of the team of soldiers escorting a group of hippies, draft dodgers, and anti-establishment types across the desert in a type of capture the flag game.
Although the film itself is fictional, many of the elements found within are metaphors of social and political events of the time, such as the trial of the Chicago Seven, the Kent State shootings, police brutality, and political polarisation.

The soldiers vow not to interfere with the rebels’ progress and merely shepherd them along to their destination. At that point, having obtained their goal, they will be released. The film crew’s coverage is meant to insure that the military’s intentions are honorable. As the representatives of the 60’s counter-culture get nearer to passing this arbitrary test, the soldiers become increasingly hostile, attempting to force the hippies out of their pacifist behavior. A lot of this film appears improvised and in several scene real tempers seem to flare as some of the “acting” got overaggressive. This is a interesting exercise in situational ethics. The cinema-veritie style, hand-held camera, and ambiguous demands of the director – would the actors be able to maintain their roles given the hazing they were taking – pushed some to the brink. The cast’s emotions are clearly on the surface. Unfortunately this film has gone completely underground and is next to impossible to find. It would offer a captivating document of the distrust that existed between soldiers willfully serving in the military and those persons who opposed the war peacefully. […Lees verder]

Movie Night: Trafic (1971)

By: börek - March 1st, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond

Trafic_TatiSunday March 29th 2015. Movie Night: Trafic by Jacques Tati, 1971, 96 minutes. In French with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

Trafic (Traffic) is a 1971 Italian-French comedy film directed by Jacques Tati.Trafic was the last film to feature Tati’s famous character of Monsieur Hulot, and followed the vein of earlier Tati films that lampooned modern society.

In Trafic, Hulot is a bumbling automobile designer who works for Altra, a Paris auto plant. He, along with a truck driver and a publicity agent, Maria, takes a new camper-car (designed by Hulot) to an auto show in Amsterdam. On the way there, they encounter various obstacles on the road. Some of the obstacles that Hulot and his companions encounter are getting impounded by Dutch customs guards, a car accident (meticulously choreographed by the filmmakers), and an inefficient mechanic. In the film, “Tati leaves no element of the auto scene unexplored, whether it is the after-battle recovery moments of a traffic-circle chain-reaction accident, whether it a study of drivers in repose or garage-attendants in slow-motion, the gas-station give-away (where the busts of historical figures seem to find their appropriate owners) or the police station bureaucracy. […Lees verder]

Info/filmavond over West Papua

By: börek - March 1st, 2015  Filed under: Benefiet, Filmavond, Infoavond, Volkseten/Voku

20150326_Free_West_Papua_Benefit_Joes_GarageThursday March 26th 2015, Info/filmavond over West Papua, Benefit for the Free West Papua Campaign, Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm.

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE IN WEST PAPUA
For decades West Papua’s tribal people have been killed, raped, arrested and tortured by Indonesian soldiers and police. The international community has done nothing to stop them. Indonesian president Joko Widodo (Jokowi), so-called Indonesian Obama, will not bring positive changes to Papuans, but death and destruction. Free West Papua Campaign is raising awareness about what is really happening in West Papua. Papuans are fighting for their survival as a people.

Film documentary: Strange Birds in Paradise
Speaker: Oridek Ap, Coordinator Free West Papua Campaign (NL) […Lees verder]

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