PerverT CinemA presents: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, usually shortened to Marat/Sade (1967)

Sunday January 12. 2014, Movie night, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade,  Door opens at 20:00, film begins at 21:00

Director: Peter Brook. Writers: Peter Weiss (play), Geoffrey Skelton (English translation). Stars: Patrick Magee, Clifford Rose, Glenda Jackson. The film is in English language. Duration: 116 min.

Set in the historical Charenton Asylum, Marat/Sade is almost entirely a “play within a play”. The main story takes place on July 13, 1808, after the French Revolution; the play directed by Marquis de Sade within the story takes place during the Revolution, in the middle of 1793, culminating in the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat (which took place on July 13, 1793), then quickly brings the audience up to date (1808). The actors are the inmates of the asylum, and the nurses and supervisors occasionally step in to restore order. The bourgeois director of the hospital, Coulmier, supervises the performance, accompanied by his wife and daughter. He is a supporter of the post-revolutionary government led by Napoleon, in place at the time of the production, and believes the play he has organised to be an endorsement of his patriotic views. His patients, however, have other ideas, and they make a habit of speaking lines he had attempted to suppress, or deviating entirely into personal opinion. Suffice it to say that they, as people who came out of the revolution no better than they went in, are not entirely pleased with the course of events as they fell. […Lees verder]

Movie night: The Man from Earth

Sunday January 5th 2014, Movie night: The Man from Earth (Richard Schenkman, 2007, 89 minutes). In English. Door opens at 20:00, film begins at 21:00.

The Man from Earth is a science fiction film written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Richard Schenkman. The plot focuses on John Oldman, a departing university professor who claims to be a Cro-Magnon (or Magdalenian caveman) who has somehow survived for more than 14,000 years. The entire movie is set in and around Oldman’s house during his farewell party, and the plot advances through intellectual arguments between Oldman and his fellow faculty members. The movie is composed almost entirely of dialogue. […Lees verder]

Movie night: All My Compatriots (1969)

Sunday December 29th 2013, Movie night,  All My Compatriots directed by Vojtěch Jasný, 1968, Czechoslovakia, 114 minutes, with English subtitles. Door opens at 20:00, film begins at 21:00

Director: Vojtěch Jasný. Starring: Radoslav Brzobohatý, Věra Galatíková, Vlastimil Brodský, Eva Blažková, Waldemar Matuška, Marie Málková, Vladimír Menšík. Language: Czech with English subtitles. Duration: 114 min.

All My Good Countrymen, also known as All My Compatriots, is a film written and directed by Czech filmmaker Vojtech Jasný (who at 87, was recently honored with the President’s Award at the 2013 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival). The film premiered in competition at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival where it received the award for Best Director, and a Special Mention from the Luchino Visconti led jury. […Lees verder]

Movie night: Silent Sonata (Janez Burger, 2011)

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Sunday December 22nd 2013, Movie night, Silent Sonata (Circus Fantasticus) directed by Janez Burger, 2011, Slovenia, 75 minutes, with English subtitles. Door opens at 20:00, film begins at 21:00

Janez Berger’s Silent Sonata is an elegantly shot slice of magical realism set during wartime in an unnamed Balkan country, that employs the circus as a metaphor for the human spirit. After Stevo’s wife is shot and killed, he prepares to defend his two young children against further marauders. But the incoming invaders turn out to be nothing less than the amazing Circus Fantasticus, which sets up camp nearby and lives up to its name when the performers turn out to have supernatural powers. A film about courage and compassion in the face of harsh reality, Silent Sonata takes the calculated, but entirely successful, risk of telling its story entirely without words, using expressive gestures, glances, and music. […Lees verder]

Movie Night: Gomorrah (2008)

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Sunday December 1st 2013, Movie night, Gomorrah (Roberto Saviano, 2008). Door opens at 20:00, film begins at 21:00

Gomorrah is based on a non-fiction novel published in 2006 by now infamous Italian journalist Roberto Saviano. The film, remaining true to the book, depicts the way Neapolitan organized crime reaches into every facet of social life in the region, from families to government, due to its ironclad grip on lucrative licit and illicit commercial activities, both locally and globally. Matteo Garrone’s neorealist depiction veritably injects the viewer into the narratives of the characters that seek to navigate their way through this society: from young teenage boys trying to make it as mafia bosses by emulating Scarface, to an illegal tailor skirting the wrath of his Camorra superiors, to a semi-legitimate entrepreneur who offers illegal waste-removal services…and more. […Lees verder]

Movie Night: Ucho (1970)

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Who is afraid of Big Brother? – Sunday November 24th 2013, Movie night, Ucho (The Ear) from Karel Kachyna, Czechoslovakia, 1970, in Czech language with English subtitles. Writers: Karel Kachyna, Jan Procházka (screenplay), starring Jirina Bohdalová, Radoslav Brzobohatý, Gustav Opocenský. Door opens at 20:00, film begins at 21:00.

This highly-charged political satire from Czechoslovakia was banned for 20 years. It is the chronicle of a miserable marriage between a provincial bureaucrat and the boozy daughter of a pub-owner who find trouble when they learn through the grapevine that one of the husband’s superior’s has been arrested. Now the husband fears that a major purge is in the offing. Their fears are not allayed by the fact that their house keys have disappeared, nor can they shake the feeling that someone is watching them. Things don’t get any better when they finally get into the house and find signs that someone has been in there. […Lees verder]

Kritische Studenten Avond with Frank Lopez (subMedia.tv) & Naus Steves

Wednesday November 13th, Kritische Studenten Avond, 8pm. Speakers: Frank Lopez (subMedia.tv) & Naus Steves on students strikes in Montreal and fracking in New Brunswick (Canada).

Frank Lopez and Naus Steves will be in Amsterdam to take part in the Global Uprisings Conference [http://www.globaluprisings.org/]

Did you expect a more critical environment in your university? Are you disappointed with the lack of political engagement you’ve found there? Not feeling represented by the lobbyist student council groups? Tired of how education and knowledge are primarily in service of economic interests rather than societal? Are you against an educational system that mostly just reproduces class differences and do you want to fight for free and democratically organized education? Then come and join us in making plans on how to reclaim the university. Every second and fourth Wednesday of the month we have a open meeting where you can get to know like-minded individuals. […Lees verder]

Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: ‘Pastoral: To Die in the Country’ (1974)

Sunday November 10th 2013, Movie night, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema by Jeffrey Babcock. ‘Pastoral: To Die in the Country’ (田園に死す. aka, Denen ni shisu ), 1974, directed by Shugi Terayama, 104 minutes, in Japanese with English subtitles. Door opens at 20:00, film begins at 21:00

Pastoral: To Die in the Country is another dazzling piece of surreal film-making from Shuji Terayama (*Throw away your Books*). Terayama was Japan’s infant-terrible of the turbulent sixties, an artist whose work is basically unknown here in the West. He was a photographer, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, and poet… and in his time his work incited scandal and outrage, censorship and banning. Today in Japan he is considered a visionary cult hero. He is one of the favorite directors of the music group STEREOLAB and they called their 1996 album after his short film Emperor Tomato Ketchup. […Lees verder]