Iranian Movie night: The Circle (2000)

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

jafar_panahi_the_circleSunday March 8th 2015, Iranian Movie night: The Circle by Jafar Panahi (2000, 90 minutes). In Persian with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

The Circle (Farsi: دایره‎) is a 2000 drama film by Iranian independent filmmaker Jafar Panahi that criticizes the treatment of women in Iran. The film has won several awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2000, but it is banned in Iran.

The Circle offers a look at the world of seven women in Iran, searching for themselves while struggling with everyday oppression. The film does not have a central protagonist: instead, it is constructed around a sequence of short interconnecting stories that illustrate the everyday challenges women face in Iran. Each story intersects, but none is complete, leaving the viewer to imagine both the background and the ending. All the actors are amateurs, except Fereshteh Sadre Orafaee who plays Pari, and Fatemeh Naghavi, who plays the mother abandoning her daughter.[2] Throughout the movie, Panahi focuses on the little rules symbolizing difficulties of life for Iranian women, such as the need to wear a chador under certain circumstances, or not being allowed to travel alone. He frequently uses contrast to illustrate both happiness and misery in contemporary Tehran […Lees verder]

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Documentary: Children of the Revolution (2010)

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

children_of_the_revolutionSunday March 1st 2015. Documentary: Children of the Revolution (2010) by Shane O’Sullivan (Ireland, England, Germany, 2010, 92 minutes). In English. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

Shane O’Sullivan’s documentary about Ulrike Meinhof and Fusako Shigenobu, leaders of the German Red Army Faction and the Japanese Red Army weaves their lives together through the testomy of their daughters authors and journalists Bettina Röhl and Mei Shigenobu. A portrait of late-60s radicalism told from an unusual perspective. With capitalism once more in crisis, they reflect on their mother’s actions as the film asks: what were they fighting for and what have we learned?
http://www.childrenoftherevolution.co.uk/

[…Lees verder]

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Film & Info Night: ‘SÍ SE PUEDE. Seven Days at PAH Barcelona’ by Comando Video

By: börek - February 1st, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond, Infoavond

20150222_Joes_Garage_Film_Info_Night_Si_se_puede_Seven_Days_at_BarcelonaSunday February 22nd 2015, Film & Info Night -‘SÍ SE PUEDE. Seven Days at PAH Barcelona’ by Comando Video (52 minutes, 2014, in Spanish with English Subtitles). Doors open at 8pm. Free admission.

The PAH -The Platform for People Affected by Mortgages– is a citizen’s movement for the right to housing. It emerged in 2009 in Barcelona (Spain) and today has more than 200 nodes across Spain. The PAH offers an alternative outlook on housing policies to the one offered by local and national governments making this social movement a key opponent of their housing policies, which have only impoverished people while continuing to commodify houses.

The documentary ‘SÍ SE PUEDE. Seven days at PAH Barcelona’ is an account of the day to day of Barcelona‘s Platform for People Affected by Mortgages. Following various participants it illustrates what a usual week looks like and its tireless activities. This documentary places cameras at the heart of the PAH to visualize, not only the post-housing bubble drama, but also the huge and often invisible work behind this social movement. It shows the process of transformation and empowerment of those who join its ranks.

We will see the documentary first and our comrades from the PAH Barcelona will give us information. Then there will be a discussion about housing crisis and struggle in Spain and beyond.

PAH Barcelona (Plataforma d’Afectats per la Hipoteca) http://pahbarcelona.org/

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Kurdish movie night: The Songs of My Mothers Land – Marooned in Iraq (Bahman Ghobadi, 2002)

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

Sunday February 15th 2015, Kurdish Iranian new wave cinema: The Songs of My Mothers Land – Marooned in Iraq. آوازهای سرزمین مادری‌ام‎ (گم‌گشتگی در عراق) by Bahman Ghobadi, 2002, 108 minutes. In Kurdish and Persian with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

Synopsis: In Iran and Iraq’s postwar years, when Iraq bombs its Kurdistan, an old Iranian Kurd singer, accompanied by his musician sons, start searching for his ex-wife Hanareh. Hanareh, a women singer, has gone to Kurdistan in Iraq. The film is the story of the band’s journey, joined with their music. It is the story of a nation that has always been wandering. Being so used to war, they take it as a game and with their music they celebrate life.

Many years ago before our memories were clouded by the moments of heroic bravery at the hangman’s alter which will, for many Arabs, go on to posthumously defining Saddam Hussein, there were innumerable mass graves, gassed victims, orphaned children and menacing jet fighters roaring in the Kurd skies that reminded people of what Saddam stood for.

Bahman Ghobadi’s “Songs of my motherland” (also known as ‘Marooned in Iraq’) is not just a tale of Mirza the legendary Kurd singer but an epic of his people. As Mirza sets out to seek his rebellious ex-wife, Henareh, a belle who has captured the hearts of the people through her voice and her songs, we are introduced to the nuances and shades of the people of the region.

The Kurds are as rugged as their inhospitable landscape locked between the Arab, Turkish and Iranian nationalists who are willing to forcefully suppress anyone that questions their territorial integrity with calls for a Kurdistan. Yet through the eccentric tribal mannerisms of the Kurdish people and their scant regard for authority the movie reveals the trait of natural defiance comfortably adjusted to a cruel fate that the Kurds have had. […Lees verder]

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Documentary: Black Box BRD (2001)

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

Black_Box_BRD Sunday February 8th 2015: Black Box BRD, documentary by Andres Veiel, 2001, 102 minutes. In German with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

This documentary by German filmmaker Andres Veiel takes a look back at German politics of the ’70s and ’80s, a troubled era when the government was engaged in a war against the leftist movement known as the Red Army Fraction. The conflict is addressed by focusing on the lives and deaths of two men whose fates became tragically intertwined in 1989. Alfred Herrenhausen was a high-ranking member of the Deutsche Bank who was killed by a Red Army Fraction bomb attack. Wolfgang Grams, a radical activist, was a major suspect in the attack. Four years later, he was tracked down by police and killed. Through interviews with relatives, friends, and colleagues of both men, a clear picture of the times emerges. While the film makes no attempts to place blame or assign guilt, it does raise many questions about German politics today. […Lees verder]

Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Touch of Evil (1958)

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

20150201_Touch_of_EvilSunday February 1st 2015, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema by Jeffrey Babcock: Touch of Evil (1958). Directed by Orson Welles, 111 minutes. In English with English subtitles. This will be a high-definition screening. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm. Free admission.

Many consider this movie to be the true masterpiece of Orson Welles’ career. Taken away from him and sliced to ribbons by the studios, the history of this movie has always been a sad tale. In recent years there has been an attempt to reconstruct this gem to its original vision, and the result of these efforts is the version we will be screening.

This is Welles’ riveting film noir, a crime thriller about a creepy and corrupt police chief named Hank Quinlan (played by Wells himself) working on the Mexican border. When a narcotics investigator (Charlton Heston) arrives to investigate a crime, instead of things becoming clearer they only become murkier. The 3 minute opening shot alone is legendary in film history, and after that the film continues to shoot off and plunge the viewer into a wild, mysterious, unknown world. Also starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, Marlene Dietrich and Janet Leigh. The black and white cinematography is piercing, complimented by a haunting musical score by Henry Mancini. […Lees verder]

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Movie Night: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)

By: börek - January 15th, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond

The_Cook_the_Thief_His_Wife_and_Her_LoverSunday January 25th 2015, Movie Night: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover by Peter Greenaway, 1989, 124 minutes. In English. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

The Plot: The wife (Helen Mirren) of a brutish oaf (Michael Gambon) begins an affair with a bookshop owner (Alan Howard) after her husband acquires a high-class restaurant formerly run by a French chef (Richard Bohringer).

What It’s REALLY About: An attack on Margaret Thatcher and her conservative government

Wait, What? One can easily be forgiven for failing to notice the pervasive symbolism in this one. To understand it, one must have a familiarity with both the target of the criticism (in this case, Thatcherism), and the intentions of the director, who explicitly stated that his film “started as a kind of diatribe against Thatcherite Britain.” Okay, so what exactly is going on here? In a nutshell, the “thief” of the title represents the greed and vulgar arrogance with which the director charges Thatcher, and the abused wife stands for the common Briton. Her secret lover is the intellectual but powerless opposition, and the cook is the obedient but resentful common civil servant.

How is one supposed to glean all this? Well, political symbolism isn’t the only metaphor hidden here – the different rooms of the restaurant, including the bathroom, are meant to symbolize the journey food takes as it enters and eventually leaves the body. The rather disgusting opening scene, in which the thief smears excrement all over the cook, establishes the extreme and unsubtle nature of the film, while also communicating to us that much of what literally happens will be but a visual symbol for something else. […Lees verder]

Generation Alpha Rebel Cinema: Global Divestment Day edition – Hambi benefit

By: börek - January 2nd, 2015  Filed under: Filmavond, Infoavond

Generation Alpha Rebel Cinema: Global Divestment Day edition – Hambi benefit
Date: Wednesday 21 of January
Time: 7PM doors open, 8PM start program

This edition of the People’s Kitchen (Sunday January 11 in MKZ) Rebel Cinema (Wednesday 21 in Joe’s Garage) is dedicated to the upcoming Global Divestment Day actions in the Netherlands and the subject of climate activism more broadly.

During the Rebel Cinema we will screen the inspiring documentary “Bidder 70” (2012, 73 min), about Tim DeChristopher, a Utah University economics student who disrupted an illegal oil and gas auction in the U.S. in an extraordinary, ingenious and effective act of civil disobedience. Bidder 70 is a personal story surrounded by a wider context of citizen action, our history of peaceful civil disobedience, and grass roots movements demanding climate justice . […Lees verder]