Film Festival Screenings for year 2013 - 2014 (Spring Term)

Inside Llewyn Davis (The Coen Brothers, USA, winner at the 2013 Cannes Festival) 26 March 2014

This new film from Joel and Ethan Coen is a perfectly pitched melancholic comedy set in the New York City folk music scene of 1961. It is ‘a hymn to squandered potential, missed opportunities and unsung genius’, asserts the critic Robbie Collins, who adds that the Coen Brothers’ film ‘strikes the near-impossible balance of being uproarious entertainment in the moment and a profound philosophical treatise in retrospect’.

Topical elements: 1950’s music scene in New York; a comedy in a melancholic key about the love of music and being true to oneself and one’s art.

Eve’s Bayou (Female director - Kasi Lemmons, USA, 1997) 29 January 2014

The large Batiste family is headed by charming doctor Louis. Though he is married to beautiful Roz, he has a weakness for

attractive female patients. One day Louis is flirting with married and sexy Metty Moreaux, not knowing that he is observed by his idealistic youngest daughter Eve, who is there by accident. Eve cannot forget the incident, which is traumatic for her, and the lies begin.

Topical elements: Louisiana and America in the 1960s; civil rights; race; adultery; coming of age; and family drama.

Yaaba (Idrissa Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso, France, Switzerland, 1989) 26 February 2014

Bila is a ten-year-old boy who makes friends with an old woman called Sana, who has been accused of witchcraft by her

village, and has become a social outcast.

Topical elements: Folk tales and superstition; African film industry; and African cinema.

The City of Lost Children (Mehdi Ben Attia, Tunisia, 2009) 12 February 2014

Somehow this visually intensive French sci-fi is successfully gene-splices sci-fi ‘cyberpunk’ with scraps of Jules Verne, fairy-tale innocence and carnivalesque surrealism. From an opening

nightmare sequence of bad Santas it piles on the wonder, weirdness and pathos, right until the eerie closing theme song.

Topical elements: Science fiction fantasy; steampunk; genre and subgenre; and visual style vs narrative style.

Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, Germany, 1987) 12 March 2014

Damiel and Cassiel are angels who watch over the city of Berlin. They do not have harps or wings and they prefer overcoats to gossamer gowns. But they can travel unseen through the city,

listening to people’s thoughts, watching their actions and studying their lives. While they can make their presence felt in small ways, only children and other angels can see them.

Topical elements: Post war Berlin (Berlin Wall); genre and style; romantic fantasy, and poetic and allegorical narrative. World Film Festival

Every other Wednesday, 6-9pm

For more information on the filmsdates and location go to:http://unihub.mdx.ac.uk/films

Students’ poll for choice of one Indian film from the following three:Wednesday 4 December 2013

Hugo (Martin Scorsese, USA, 2001) 9 October 2013 Location: Atrium, The Grove Building

Hugo is the astonishing adventure of a wily and resourceful boy whose quest to unlock a secret left to him by his father will transform

both himself and all those around him, and reveal a safe and loving place he can call home.

Topical elements: Invention, love and the magic of cinema through the Dickensian life of a young orphan.

In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, Hong Kong, 2000) 6 November 2013

Journalist, Chow Mo-Wan, and shipping company secretary Su Li-zhen rent a room in Hong Kong and become neighbours. Their spouse often leave them alone

for overtime shifts and so their lives continue to intersect in everyday situations.

Topical elements: Hong Kong’s relationship to mainland China and the UK. Desire, marriage and faithfulness.

The String (Mehdi Ben Attia, Tunisia, 2009) 23 October 2013

Malik has a lot on his plate when he returns home to Tunisia after living in France. He is coming to terms with his father’s death, he cannot come out to his mother, and his childhood anxieties have

resurfaced. But all of Malik’s problems seem to fade away when he falls for Bilal, the dreamy houseboy at his mother’s bourgeois estate.

Topical elements: Link between Tunisia and France (colony and independence, difference in culture and beliefs): gay rights; gay relationships, gender and family.

Black Cat, White Cat (Emir Kusturica, Yugoslavia, 1998) 20 November 2013

Matko is a small-time hustler, living by the river Danube with his 17-year-old son Zare. After a failed business deal he owes money to the much more

successful gangster Dadan. The latter has a sister, Afrodita, whom he desperately wants to see married so they strike a deal: Zare is to marry her.

Topical elements: Comedy about freedom, friendship, rural magic realism and gypsy music.

Film Festival Screenings for year 2013 - 2014 (Autumn Term) Time: Wednesday (fortnightly) 6 - 9pm

All fortnightly screenings are free of charge and are open primarily to Middlesex students in Languages and Translation; Film Studies; students for whom English is a second language; and students from other subject areas who can educationally benefit from the cultural representations and issues raised in the films. Staff are also welcome. Each film is presented in the original version with English subtitles. Films will be preceded by a short introduction and will be followed by a brief discussion.

For further details please contact Raynalle Udris, r.udris@mdx.ac.uk

1. Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, India & 4 other countries, 2001)

In Monsoon Wedding, Mira Nair has made her own version of a Bollywood movie and depicts romantic entanglements during a traditional Punjabi wedding in Delhi. A stressed father, a bride-to-be with a secret, a smitten event planner, and relatives from around the world create much ado about the preparations for an arranged marriage in India.

2. Salaam Bombay! (Mira Nair, India, 1988)

The boy Krishna is abandoned by his mother at the Apollo Circus and she tells him that he can only return home when he can afford 500 rupees to pay for his brother’s bicycle which has been destroyed. Krishna is left behind by the circus and takes a train to Bombay. He dreams of saving 500 rupees to return home, but life on the streets of Bombay is not easy. Even if the film is 25 years old, very similar problems continue to exist.

3. Bluffmaster! (Rohan Sippy, India, 2005)

Roy Kapoor is a conman who cons everybody, even his girlfriend Simi. On the day of their engagement, however, Roy’s true face is exposed and he loses Simi. As if that were not enough, Roy finds out that he has a tumour and is going to die in less than three months. On the verge of death, he resolves to do some good, by helping his apprentice Dittu hoodwink the mobster who destroyed his father.