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Half Year Dunedin Film Society Memberships Now On Sale

04 Jul 2014
Focal dystonia of the hand, also known as ‘musician’s cramp’, has been the subject of almost a decade of study for pianist Rae de Lisle from the University of Auckland. The Senior Lecturer and Head of

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Dunedin Film Society
Jul 4, 2014

HALF YEAR DUNEDIN FILM SOCIETY MEMBERSHIPS ARE NOW ON SALE FOR ALMOST HALF PRICE!

Half year Dunedin Film Society memberships are now on sale for almost half price. A half year waged Dunedin Film Society membership  will cost just $35 to purchase (either at the main reception desk at OUSA or at the door of the Red Lecture Theatre before any of our screenings), while a half year student/unwaged Dunedin Film Society membership costs $30. A half year waged or student/unwaged membership will enable you to see all 12 remaining Dunedin Film Society screenings for free as well as to receive a significant discount off of the regular evening and weekend ticket price at all NZ International Film Festival screenings (31 July-August 17) and all Italian Film Festival screenings. Half year waged and student/unwaged Dunedin Film Society members also receive discounted ticket prices at Rialto Cinemas from Monday to Friday. Three movie passes will continue to be available for $30.


The remaining highlights of the Dunedin Film Society's 2014 programme include two celebrated British films from the 1960s about youth in revolt, French New Wave director Chris Marker's remarkable documentary about the failure of the New Lefta haunting sci-fi movie starring David Bowie, a fascinating African drama that offers a scathing critique of the World Bank, Walter Ruttmann's classic city symphony from the 1920s and many other extraordinary films from France, Germany and around the world. Please see our website for further details: http://www.dunedinfilmsociety.arts.net.nz/
We would like to acknowledge the generous assistance of the Embassy of France and the Institut Français, the Goethe-Institut, Pub Charity and the University of Otago.

All Remaining 2014 Dunedin Film Society Screenings

Every screening will take place in the University of Otagos Red Lecture Theatre, located near the side entrance of the Scott building, across the road from the emergency entrance of the Dunedin Public Hospital on Great King Street not far from the corner of Hanover Street. With the exception of the 24 September screening (which will begin one half hour earlier than usual), all of this year's film showings will begin at 7:30 pm.

Due to the non-commercial screening rights, most screenings are for members or 3-Movie Pass holders only. Casual admission will only be possible at those screenings that are marked with an asterisk (*).

We reluctantly reserve the right to change the scheduled program if a film does not arrive.

Privilege Wednesday 9 July at 7:30
PRIVILEGE 
Peter Watkins?UK?1967?103 mins?HD? PG
After directing several extraordinary documentaries for the BBC, including the award-winning Culloden, Peter Watkins made his first dramatic feature with this flawed but striking film about Steven Shorter, a pop singer in a future society whose music and image are used to channel the impulses of rebellious youth in a society where entertainment is controlled by a totalitarian government…When Shorter's handlers decide to revamp his image into that of an obedient, religious boy, he rebels, to his peril…Privilege later became something of a cult film; one of the film's admirers was rock poet Patti Smith, who recorded one of 'Steven Shorter''s songs, 'Set Me Free,' on her 1978 album Easter. - Mark Deming, Rovi
If... Wednesday 16 July at 7:30 pm
IF... 
Lindsay Anderson?UK?1968?111 mins?Digital
Lindsay Anderson's If…is a daringly anarchic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell made a hell of an impression as the insouciant Mick Travis, who, along with his school chums, trumps authority at every turn, finally emerging as a violent savior in the vicious games of one-upmanship played by both students and masters. Mixing color and black and white as audaciously as it mixes fantasy and reality, If…remains one of cinema’s most unforgettable rebel yells. - Criterion
 the passionate eye Wednesday 23 July at 7:30 pm *
NOTES FOR A COASTLINE
Zoe Roland?NZ?2004?26 mins?Digital
Notes for a Coastline is an essayist documentary about cultural memory with regard to place; in this instance, Gore Bay, a beach settlement in the South Island of New Zealand.

 

Followed by:
MARTI: THE PASSIONATE EYE 
Shirley Horrocks?NZ?2004?73 mins?Digital
Marti: the passionate eye traces the dramatic history of Marti Friedlander, one of New Zealand’s leading photographers, alongside the major social changes she recorded. She has photographed New Zealand’s best-known artists, collaborated with Michael King on a famous series of Maori portraits, and documented many protest activities including the Springbok Tour and the Women’s Movement. Marti talks frankly about the art of photography, her life, and the fascinating people and events she has portrayed.

* Casual admission will be possible, in exchange for a small donation.

New Zealand International Film Festival, Dunedin, 31 July - 17 August 2014

5 Broken Cameras Wednesday 20 August at 7:30 pm
5 BROKEN CAMERAS 
E. Burnat & G. Davidi?Palestine/Israel/France/Netherlands?2011?94mins?Digital?M
An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat's cameras, the filmmakers' collaboration follows one family's evolution over five years of village turmoil. - Kino Lorber
O'Horten Wednesday 27 August at 7:30 pm
O’HORTEN 
Bent Hamer?Norway/Germany/France/Denmark?2007?90 mins?Digital?M
Scrupulously observed and crisply shot, this entrancing, eccentric comedy paints a wistful picture of Odd Horten (Baard Owe), a routine-bound train engineer whose retirement after 40 years sends him a little off track. After a farewell party where his colleagues give him the railroad salute (they stand and imitate the sound of a locomotive) and play Norwegian train trivia, his life turns surreal. He meets a child who mimics the sound of a train on the drums, goes to a restaurant where the cook is arrested, and befriends a cheery inventor genius who drives his car around town by memory with his eyes closed. - NOW
Colour of the Ocean Wednesday 3 September at 7:30 pm *
COLOUR OF THE OCEAN 
Die Farbe des Ozeans 
Maggie Peren?Germany/Spain?2011?95 mins?Digital
A small boat washes ashore on an island off the coast of Spain. The African refugees aboard are dehydrated and close to death, including a man desperately seeking a better life for his son. A vacationing German woman provides the little water that she has and rushes off to get more. While she’s gone, the authorities arrive, including a young officer with a troubled personal life. These three characters and their intertwined stories make up Maggie Peren’s The Colour of the Ocean, a hard-hitting drama that uses this structure to explore the inherent virtues and dangers of compassion. - Toronto International Film Festival

* Casual admission will be possible, in exchange for a small donation.

Bamako Wednesday 10 September at 7:30 pm
BAMAKO 
Abderrahmane Sissako?Mali/USA/France?2006?115 mins?Digital?PG
BamakoAbderrahmane Sissako’s seething, complicated and disarmingly beautiful investigation of Africa’s social, economic and human crises, is a work of cool intelligence and profound anger, a long, dense, argument that is also a haunting visual poem…His central conceit is at once simple and daring…In a courtyard in a poor section of Bamako, Mali’s capital, magistrates in robes sit at a table, taking notes and shuffling through files as they listen to testimony from witnesses and advocates. On trial is not a person but the World Bank — which is to say, global capitalism — itself. - New York Times
Berlin, Symphony of a Metropolis Wednesday 17 September at 7:30 pm *
BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A METROPOLIS 
Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt
Walter Ruttmann?Germany?1927?65 mins?Digital
The great ‘city symphonies’ of the silent era celebrated the pulsating life of the streets. Berlin was the joint effort of Carl Mayer, the expressionist scenarist; Karl Freund, the great cameraman; and Walther Ruttmann, at the time an abstract filmmaker. For all its basis in reality - capturing a late spring day in the German capital, from dawn to midnight - it was conceived as an abstract artwork, rigorously organized according to musical principles. The filmmakers wandered the city for over a year, filming from high buildings, in tunnels and sewers. They popularized the Russian Dziga Vertov’s kino-eye technique in a film that was shown around the world and still stands as a great  achievement of urban cinematic art.  - Pacific Film Archive

 

Please note that there will be a brief intermission between films.
Followed by:
MELODY OF THE WORLD
Melodie der Welt
Walter Ruttmann?Germany?1929?49 mins?Digital
This 'documentary' about the ocean liner Resolute’s around-the-world cruise may very well be Germany’s first sound film. Although he was not on the voyage himself, Ruttmann “organized” the visuals shot by his cameraman, adding ambient sounds and music to create a compelling visual and aural tour of the globe. - MOMA

* Casual admission will be possible, in exchange for a small donation.

Grin without a Cat Wednesday 24 September at 7:00 pm
GRIN WITHOUT A CAT 
Le fond de l'air est rouge 
Chris Marker?France?1977/1993?177 mins?Digital?G
Chris Marker's remarkable documentary about the rise and fall of the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s was originally released in 1977, but was reworked in 1993 in the wake of the Cold War's end and the collapse of the Soviet Union. A Grin Without a Cat is divided into two parts. The first part, called "Fragile Hands,' focuses on the emergence of leftist movements circa 1967, the Vietnam War serving as the lightning rod for radicals of all stripes to come together to agitate for their utopian dreams. The second part, entitled 'Severed Hands,' details the slow demise of the invigorated left, from forces within (the discord between different factions) and without (the role of the  U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in keeping the countries in their backyards in line). - Elbert Ventura, Rovi  

Please note the earlier starting time.

The Crucified Lovers Wednesday 1 October at 7:30 pm
THE CRUCIFIED LOVERS 
Chikamatsu manogatari
Mizoguchi Kenji?Japan?1954?102 mins?HD?PG 
Set in feudal Japan, ‘Chikamatsu Monogatari’ is an adaptation of a famous kabuki play by the sixteenth-century master Chikamatsu Monzaemon, about a merchant's wife and an employee of her husband's who become compromised by circumstances and are forced to flee after being accused of adultery. Only then do they become lovers. Their illicit passion not only questions the rigid hierarchic codes that govern the society through which they move, but sweeps aside the relevance of that hierarchy. It's a film marked by breathtaking refinement on every level, with tantalising echoes of ‘Empire of the Senses’. - Time Out
Chinese Takeaway Wednesday 8 October at 7:30 pm
CHINESE TAKEAWAY 
Un cuento chino 
S. Borensztein?Argentina?2011?93 mins?Digital?M 
Roberto, the misanthropic owner of a hardware store, spends his time counting screws to make sure the supplier hasn’t shortchanged him, and clipping stories of weird deaths out of the newspaper. Eventually he encounters Jun, a Chinese man who speaks no Spanish and has been dumped by a taxi on the streets of Buenos Aires in search of an uncle who has left no forwarding address…Though Roberto tries to fob Jun off, no one, from the police to the Chinese consulate, will accept responsibility. And so Roberto’s hidden humanity is revealed as he grudgingly opens his home to Jun and builds a tentative friendship.  - Time Out
The Man who fell to earth Wednesday 15 October at 7:30 pm
THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH 
Nicolas Roeg?UK?1976?139 mins?HD? R18
'Thomas Newton' falls like an apple to earth. His diaphanous being has taken the form of David Bowie, androgynous earthling of the orange hair, pale skin, sad eyes. With a business partner, the alien establishes World  Enterprises, an empire of images, in order to finance his journey home. The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane wrote of the re-release, 'Time has done nothing to reduce its cool, confounding strangeness. Here is a sci-fi movie dedicated to the notion that no planet, anywhere else in the galaxy, would look half as freakish as our own would to the inquiring visitor.' - Brooklyn Art Museum