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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 13 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 (30 July-August 16) 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. There is no doubt that this represents one of the greatest entertainment deals in town!

Every screening will take place in the University of Otago's 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 16 September screening (which will begin one 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.

Wednesday 8 July at 7:30 pm

BILLY LIAR

John Schlesinger | UK | 1963 |93 mins | HD | B+W | PG

"The problem child of the British New Wave, Billy Liar has always had an attitude issue, preferring to daydream, mock, and tell lies while others raged and drank. No dreary realism for this study of an outsider imagining a better world outside of his boring northern town; instead, director John Schlesinger concentrates on fantasy and satiric lunacy, exchanging the era's typical kitchen-sink brutalities for a comic edge worthy of the best British satire. Tom Courtenay is Billy, a bored young undertaker's assistant who takes refuge from his nagging family and dullard boss by daydreaming of success and happiness. He may even find happiness in reality, once a certain beautiful young beatnik arrives (Julie Christie, in a star-making performance). A favorite of British writers and musicians, Billy Liar is easily recognizable by anyone who's grown up nowhere at all, with only dreams to live on.”-Pacific Film Archive

THE SERVANT

Joseph Losey ?UK ? 1963 ? 115 mins ?HD ? B+W ? M

"When Hugo Barrett is taken on as ‘gentleman’s gentleman’ in the Chelsea home of indolent aristocrat Tony, all seems to go well until the playboy’s girlfriend Susan takes a dislike to the perfectly efficient employee. Then Barrett persuades Tony to hire his sister Vera as a live-in maid, and matters take another turn for the worse... Skilfully adapting a postwar novelette by Robin Maugham, Pinter and Losey created one of the definitive depictions of the English class system in all its fading, decadent glory, observing the shifts in power between moneyed master and scheming servant with beady glee. Losey’s baroque direction makes eloquent use of cinematographer Douglas Slocombe’s subtle lighting, Richard MacDonald’s meticulously designed interiors and John Dankworth’s score, while the cast is uniformly fine, Bogarde’s performance [as Barrett] transformed his career.”-British Film Institute 

I WISH

Kiseki

Kore-eda Hirokazu?Japan?2011?123 mins?HD?PG

“Twelve-year-old Koichi lives with his mother and retired grandparents in Kagoshima, in the southern region of Kyushu, Japan. His younger brother Ryunosuke lives with their father in Hakata, northern Kyushu. The brothers have been separated by their parents' divorce and Koichi's only wish is for his family to be reunited. When he learns that a new bullet train line will soon open, linking the two towns, he starts to believe that a miracle will take place the moment these new trains first pass each other at top speed. With help from the adults around him, Koichi sets out on a journey with a group of friends, each hoping to witness a miracle that will improve their difficult lives.”-Magnolia Pictures 

BLEAT

Liz Stearn?NZ?2014?14 mins?DVD

"When an elderly gentleman moves in next door to a lonely young woman, a sequence of events is set in motion which changes all their lives.”-Short Film Otago 

Followed by: 

THE DEADLY PONIES GANG

Zoe McIntosh?NZ?2013?74 mins?Digital?R13

“All hail Clint and Dwayne, awesome pony-riding gang of two. Best friends who hang out on the rural fringes of West Auckland, they deal tinnies to pony club mums and bling out their own brave steeds with pearls, sunglasses and glitter. Their M?ori friend Kody is busting to join the white-boy gang, but he’s only 12 so they’re holding him off for the time being. Community-spirited in the best gang tradition, they stage their own Christmas parade and hand out toys like money’s no object. ‘Let’s just say these presents come from people who can afford more presents,’ explains Clint. Never short of a suave move himself when the ladies come to pat the ponies, he worries that Dwayne’s not pulling the way he once did. Maybe he can turn that around by getting young Dwayne a new set of teeth…McIntosh and her stellar gang have composed the funniest movie valentine to stoned mateship and recreational innovation in New Zealand’s backblocks since Kaikohe Demolition.”-New Zealand International Film Festival 

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

Wednesday 19 August at 7:30 pm

CAMILLE REWINDS

Camille redouble

Noemie Lvovsky?France?2012?115 mins?Digital?M

“While on her way to a friend’s home on a snowy New Year’s Eve in 2008, Camille Vaillant, whose husband, Eric, left her for a younger woman, stops into a jewelry store. She decides to take the opportunity to get the watch she’s had since adolescence repaired. The jeweler performs the repair, but delays the watch’s second hand. Later at her girlfriend’s, Camille, who likes the bottle a little too much, faints just before the stroke of midnight. When she wakes up the next morning, it’s 1985 again and she’s back in high school. Camille meets Eric, but this time she tries to resist his attentions, knowing the unfortunate outcome of their union."-Tribute.ca 

INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION

Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto

Elio Petri?Italy?1970?113 mins?HD?R18

"The provocative Italian filmmaker Elio Petri’s most internationally acclaimed work is this remarkable, visceral, Oscar-winning thriller. Petri maintains a tricky balance between absurdity and realism in telling the Kafkaesque tale of a Roman police inspector (a commanding Gian Maria Volonté) investigating a heinous crime—which he himself committed. Both a compelling character study and a disturbing commentary on the draconian government crackdowns in Italy in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Petri’s kinetic portrait of surreal bureaucracy is a perversely pleasurable rendering of controlled chaos.”-Criterion 

KADDISH FOR A FRIEND

Kaddisch für einen freund

Leo Khasin?Germany?2010?93 mins?HD

"A warm tale about an unlikely friendship between two lonely, displaced characters. Alexander is an 84-year-old Jewish war veteran who is desperate to remain living independently in his Berlin flat. Palestinian teenager Ali’s family arrive from a refugee camp in Lebanon, and to gain acceptance from his new peers, Ali agrees to break-in to his next-door neighbour’s flat. When Alexander comes back to his ransacked home, he recognises Ali, and to avoid being deported, Ali’s family send him back to repair the damage. As they work side by side, the relationship between the feisty pair flits between mutual dislike, understanding and finally friendship, when they realise that the fragile existence of each depends in a large part on the other. Inspired by a true story, Moscow-born, German director Leo Khasin’s debut is a stirring, coming-of-age story that shows just how hard unlearning prejudice can be.”-Goethe-Institut

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

VAN GOGH

Maurice Pialat?France?1991?159 mins?HD?M

"This stunningly photographed and skilfully acted film uses an accretion of naturalistic detail to present an emotionally restrained but utterly compelling account of the last three months of Van Gogh's life. Living in Auvers-sur-Oise with his sensitive and knowledgeable patron Gachet, Van Gogh works quietly and steadily, meanwhile flirting with Gachet's precocious daughter Marguerite. However, his ill health, a brief return to the debauchery of brothels and drink, and his irrational resentment of his brother Theo's failure to sell his work, provoke erratic swings from brooding introspection to frustrated anger. Since Pialat has no desire to canonise the artist, there is no attempt to trace the origins and development of his 'creative genius'; nor, avoiding the hazards of biopic cliché, does he seek to illuminate these dark corners of his subject's troubled soul. In the leading role, Dutronc has exactly the right quality of physical frailty and stooped sadness to complement Pialat's beautiful, poignant images.”-Time Out 

HOME FROM HOME: CHRONICLE OF A VISION

Die andere Heimat: Chronik einer Sehnsucht

Edgar Reitz?Germany?2013?Part 1-98 mins, Part 2-124 mins?HD?B+W?M

"Home From Home focuses with utmost authenticity on the story of ordinary people and their lives. Against the background of rural Germany in the middle of the 19th century when whole villages suffering from famine and poverty emigrated to faraway South America - Edgar Reitz tells a dramatic family and love story in his new feature film Home From Home. The story centers on two brothers who one day are forced to make a final decision: leaving or staying? Edgar Reitz is mostly known for his internationally acclaimed Heimat trilogy, which was set in the same fictitious German village during several later historical periods.”-Toronto International Film Festival Please note the early starting time and that there will be a brief intermission between Part 1 and Part 2. 

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

EYES WITHOUT A FACE

Les yeux sans visage

Georges Franju?France?1960?90 mins?HD?B+W?M

"At his secluded chateau in the French countryside, a brilliant, obsessive doctor attempts a radical plastic surgery to restore the beauty of his daughter’s disfigured countenance—at a horrifying price. Eyes Without a Face, directed by the supremely talented Georges Franju, is rare in horror cinema for its odd mixture of the ghastly and the lyrical, and it has been a major influence on the genre in the decades since its release. There are images here—of terror, of gore, of inexplicable beauty—that once seen are never forgotten.”-Criterion 

THE GREAT BEAUTY

La grande bellazza

Paolo Sorrentino?France/Italy?2013?140 mins?HD?M

"For decades, journalist Jep Gambardella has charmed and seduced his way through the glittering nightlife of Rome. Since the legendary success of his only novel, he has been a permanent fixture in the city’s literary and elite social circles. But on his sixty-fifth birthday, Jep unexpectedly finds himself taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the lavish nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome itself, in all its monumental glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty. Featuring sensuous cinematography, a lush score, and an award-winning central performance by the great Toni Servillo, this transporting experience by the brilliant Italian director Paolo Sorrentino is a breathtaking Felliniesque tale of decadence and lost love.”-Criterion 

THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE…

Madame de…

Max Ophüls?France?1953?100 mins?HD?B+W?G

"The most cherished work from French master Max Ophuls, The Earrings of Madame de . . .is a profoundly emotional, cinematographically adventurous tale of deceptive opulence and tragic romance. When an aristocratic woman known only as Madame de .. . sells a pair of earrings given to her by her husband in order to pay some debts, she sets off a chain reaction of financial and carnal consequences that can end only in despair. Ophüls’s adaptation of Louise de Vilmorin’s incisive fin de siècle novel employs to ravishing effect the elegant and precise camera work for which the director is so justly renowned."-Criterion 

THE MOO MAN

Andy Heathcote and Heike Bachelier?UK/Germany?2013?98 mins?Digital?G

"This thoughtful, unassuming documentary spends much time with Stephen Hook, a small-scale dairy farmer in East Sussex who harbours an unusual amount of compassion for his cows and customers. For the latter, he produces raw, organic milk (his cows are tested for TB once a year), which he struggles to make money from. And on his animals he lavishes love and attention (the national average is 150 cows per stockman, Hook keeps just 55). There is a special place in his heart for elderly Ida, who we see promoting their milk on the seafront. ‘She’s the only cow that’s been to Eastbourne,’ he muses later, when age and illness threaten Ida and he’s inspired to give a moving speech about the cycles of life and death.”-Time Out