Cinema Italia: Comrade Don Camillo (Luigi Comencini, 1965)

By: börek - April 1st, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 2nd april 2023, Il compagno Don Camillo (1965), Comrade Don Camillo * Directed by Luigi Comencini * 109 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage and share comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Also known in English as ‘Don Camillo in Moscow’, this feature film was originally released in Italian, French and Russian. Based on the novels of Giovannino Guareschi, the priest Don Camillo iconically represents the point of view of the popular classes supporting the Democrazia Cristiana party in the aftermath of WW2, while his opponent, Peppone, the mayor of a small town in the Northern part of the country, is the champion of the Partito Comunista Italiano. If Pier Paolo Pasolini incarnates the tragic, Dionysian approach to Catholicism in Italy, Guareschi represents its comic, lightweight approach. The archival documentary film La Rabbia (The Anger, 1963) directed in the first half by Pasolini and in the second half by Guareschi, immortalizes this reading, and the respect that the one tributes to the other.

There are five feature films, released between 1952 and 1965 as French-Italian co-productions, inspired by the novels and drawings by Guareschi. The two actors, Fernandel (Don Camillo) and Gino Cervi (Peppone) resemble the drawings in an astonishing way. This feature film is the last of the series, and it’s directed — unlike the previous ones — by Luigi Comencini, one of the most relevant director of Italian neorealism: in particular, he directed Vittorio De Sica and Gina Lollobrigida (Pane, amore e fantasia, 1953), Alberto Sordi (Tutti a casa, 1960), and in the almost forgotten jewel Italian Secret Service (original title in English, 1968), starring Nino Manfredi and Françoise Prévost.

Comrade Don Camillo brings the stereotypical division of post-WW2 Italy into a surrealistic perception. The film goes even beyond that, as it narrates a story of hetero cis male friendship, nonetheless not without ambiguities, and the complex relation of the Italian communists with Russia, after the death of his most important leader, Palmiro Togliatti who passed away in Yalta, the 21st of August 1964.

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: The Official Story (Luis Puenzo, 1985)

By: börek - March 15th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 26 March 2023, Movie night: The Official Story / La historia oficial (Luis Puenzo, 1985) * 112 minutes * In Spanish, subtitles in English. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

A classic of outspokenly political cinema, The Official Story is so ‘classic’ in its form that it even won the oscar for best foreign language film at the academy awards. It was the first time that the yankees ever deigned to acknowledge the existence of cinema, really strong cinema, in their Latin American backyard.

How could this happen at the height of Reaganism? Perhaps because this film put a bourgeois family at the centre of the (official) story, so it was easy for American audiences to relate to them. It also kind of presents an easy badie: the evil military junta (1976-1983) obscuring the business interests that supported it from way up north. Spectators with a bit more historical perspective could read this between the lines, others could just cringe-watch what these banana republic folks got up to, from the airheadedness of their candied popcorn.

Personally I think Argentinean cinema has been great at stealing 1940s Hollywood form (arguably a German invention) and packing powerful stories inside it. It’s been doing this ever since Puenzo’s feat at the oscars, persistently beating Americans at their own game. If you ask me what my favourite Hollywood movie is, I’d probably say this one.

What else does it do apart from denounce political crimes? It shifts our Che Guevara image of the guerrillero to include women. Pregnant young women were targeted very specifically because there was a market for babies in the ranks of the military junta and among middle class supporters of the regime. Why that was is a matter of some speculation that we hope to discuss before and after the movie. Maybe we’ll also read a poem or two by Juan Gelman, who became the poster boy for grandparents in search of the lost children of the desaparecidos.

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: Fight with Care (Bhargay & Ourratul Ain, 2023)

By: börek - March 13th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond, Infoavond

Sunday 19 March 2023, Other indias Watch Party #3. Movie night: Fight with Care (Bhargay & Ourratul Ain, 2023). Documentary film (30 mins) + discussion. This film is in Tamil with English subtitles. Doors open at 8:00 pm, film and presentation start at 8:30 pm. Films followed by discussion with one of the film maker.

Fight with Care brings unheard voices of fisherwomen from the coast of South India, who maintain their delicate ecosystems through everyday acts of care. As expanding ports and industries threaten wetland environments along the coasts of India, artisanal fishing communities are organising protests to bring attention to these ecologies, critical for climate change adaptation and local livelihoods. This film presents the anti-port actions of indigenous fisherwomen, raising their voices against one of the richest men in the world – Adani.

This watch party will be hosted by other indias – a space for discussion, reflection and (cultural, political) action relating to contemporary India. The watch parties constitute our monthly activities that are geared towards building and sustaining a community in the Netherlands which reflects the plurality and complexity of India, which respects differences and upholds a coalitional approach to overcoming inequalities.

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: Billy Liar (John Schlesinger, 1963)

By: börek - March 8th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 12 February 2023, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Billy Liar * 1963 * directed by John Schlesinger * 98 minutes * In English with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, intro & film start at 20:30.

Based on a novel by Keith Waterhouse, this dark comedy is fundamentally about a young bloke who doesn’t want to give up his dreams, causing mayhem in the Manchester community where he lives. The entire film is a breath of fresh air, since its concept hasn’t been repeated a thousand times in Hollywood. This film is too quirky, too satirical, and its message too relevant. It follows the path of a young desk clerk called Billy Fischer who lies endlessly, and therefore throws chaos into the real world. Billy has a wild imagination, and his fantasies blur his sense of reality. But that also makes sense…. it’s a natural defense against a world that is way too boring, and that tries to kill him spiritually.

This is an early work directed by John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy), made in England during the first half of the 60s. It stars an energetic Tom Courtenay and a very young Julie Christie. Its fluid style is influenced by the French New Wave, and it also taps into the rebellious spirit of that movement. It has a sense of irony and black humor that kicks back against the conservative landscape of post-war England, just on the edge of being transformed into the swinging sixties. In a world like today when everything is so heavily templated, it’s a wonder to see a movie like this unfold, where the sharpness of the dialogue matches perfectly the playful wit of the visuals. In a way it has a punky attitude that was picked up later in the 80s by the indie Manchester band The Smiths… who even lifted sentences from this film and turned them into song lyrics.

This will be a high-definition screening.

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 Seduction of Mimi (Lina Wertmüller, 1972)

By: börek - March 3rd, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 5th March 2023, The Seduction of Mimi [Mimì metallurgico ferito nell’onore] * Directed by Lina Wertmüller * 125 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage and share comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Mimì (Giancarlo Giannini) is a man raised in Sicily, where you have to compromise with the mafia to have a job. Far from being a classic hero, he expresses almost hyper-realistically the prototype of toxic masculinity from the South. He moves to Turin so to stay loyal to his principles, vaguely revolutionary.
Fiore (Mariangela Melato) is a working class woman from Milan who is hoping to find her way in life. The meeting-contrast between the two comrades is iconically depicting the differences between North and South, the contradictions of the Left, the role of the Partito Comunista Italiano. In the background, an Italy under siege of violence by terrorism in the streets of industrial and university cities like Milan or Turin.
Lina Wertmüller was the first female director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director ever. Her gentle touch, expressed by the colours and music of the soundtrack, results in a unique dreamy palette that became her cinematic signature.
This film screens as the female protagonist a fascinating Mariangela Melato, who passed ten years ago. She incarnated a new model of Italian female beauty, in contrast with Sofia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. Fiore is one of her most famous interpretation.

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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Proxy Cafe, movie screening: The Internet’s Own Boy – The Story of Aaron Swartz (Brian Knappenberger, 2014)

By: börek - February 5th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Wednesday 22 February 2023, Proxy Cafe, movie screening: The Internet’s Own Boy – The Story of Aaron Swartz (Brian Knappenberger, 2014), 1h 45m. Door is opening at 19:00, film starts at 20:30.

Ten years ago, Aaron Swartz, a young internet activist was found dead in an apparent suicide. The Internet’s Own Boy depicts the life of American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz. It features interviews with his family and friends as well as the internet luminaries who worked with him. The film tells his story up to his eventual suicide after a legal battle, and explores the questions of access to information and civil liberties that drove his work.

Proxy Cafe: free software workshops. Discussing tech and politics, GNU/Linux, fixing computers and revive old laptops, free and opensource software workshops. Zapatista coffee. https://squ.at/r/8i60
https://proxycafe.puscii.nl/

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Lebanese movie night: The Ugly One (Eric Baudelaire, 2013)

By: börek - February 5th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 19 February 2023, Lebanese movie night: The Ugly One by Eric Baudelaire (and Adachi Masao) * 2013 * 100 minutes * In multiple languages * subtitles in English. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30
Set in the Beirut of the 2010s, this movie follows two fictional paths to arrive at an intimately personal documentary. Baudelaire’s characters, or rather his ensembles of characters, are people whose history is intimately entangled with revolutionary movements. In this film, with the help of Adachi Masao he sketches a kind of brotherhood between two countries with intense political histories: Japan and Lebanon. It’s an entanglement that might seem unlikely. But that only makes it more poetic, it doesn’t make it any less real.

The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years Without Images was in 2012 the first UK solo exhibition by French artist Eric Baudelaire whose work looks at the complexities of recounting the history of the Japanese Red Army (JRA), a radical group that emerged from the 1968 Tokyo student movement, settled in Beirut in the early 1970s, and engaged in sophisticated terrorist activities in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. As a filmmaker, Adachi devoted his life to images. During his years in Lebanon, he sought to advance his radical film practice by trading the camera for the rifle.

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: Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970)

By: börek - February 5th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 12 February 2023, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Zabriskie Point * 1970 * Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni * 107 minutes * In English. Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30.

An epic portrait of late-sixties America as seen through the lives of two of its children: anthropology student Daria (who’s helping a property developer build a village in the Los Angeles desert) and dropout Mark (who’s wanted by the authorities because he is suspected of killing a policeman during a student riot). They meet and end up on a journey to the end of the American dream.

This film got a lot of critical flack when it came out, but many now consider it a cult classic. But then again most of the negative reviews for this movie came from Americans, and not Europeans. Most people I talked to about it in America thought it was shit. I guess that’s natural, since the entire movie goes against the grain of the American way of life. But if you talk to a guy in a shop in Brussels about it, he says “wow, it’s such a beeeaauutiful movie!” And indeed the ending is nothing short of monumental, a poetic ballet of destruction unmatched anywhere else in cinema history. It’s a love it or hate it kind of film for sure, but those who have seen it have never forgotten it and it has stayed alive in the hearts of film lovers across the world…. it’s visually stunning. It’s a film that didn’t play according to the rules, and today it is an amazing postcard from a bygone era, ending with one of the most dazzling climaxes in cinema history.

WARNING: If you ever were going to watch this film on your goddamn laptop or flat screen the film wouldn’t make any sense. This film is a moving painting designed to be shown in a theatre where images can dominate the story! You have to soak in these images. With music by Pink Floyd and other 60s counter-culture icons that helps to psych-out the desert landscape.

P.S. We will be screening the ultra-rare version with the original soundmix, that includes in a Pink Floyd psychedelic burst at the very end (instead of a Roy Orbison love song).

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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