Posts Currently viewing the category: "Illegal_cinema"

Screening of several films by Peter Weiss, proposed by Andreas Wutz, followed by discussion. Peter Weiss, the Swedish-German writer best known for his The Aesthetics of Resistance novel and the play Marat/Sade, was a great admirer of the films of Luis Buñuel. Not only did Weiss dedicate the main chapter of his…(Read More)

Screening of a part of the only interview ever made with Amadeo Bordiga. Session proposed by Mattin and Blas Etxebarria, followed by discussion. In this interview, made just before his death, Amadeo Bordia discusses his discrepancies with Fascism. The session will be attended by Blas Etxebarria, who will introduce us to the figure of Bordiga…(Read More)

Screening of Traité de bave et d’éternité (Isidore Isou 1951, 123 min), proposed by Loty Negarti, followed by discussion.  “My friends told me, after seeing the recent American film on Rudolph Valentino, that they’d thought of me throughout the screening. Rudolph Valentino is a lower Isou of the tango age, just as Isou…(Read More)

L’Anticoncept (Gil J. Wolman, 1951, 60 min.). Screening proposed by Loty Negarti, followed by discussion. “On 11 February, 1952, Gil J. Wolman’s film L’Anticoncept was screened at Avant-Garde 52, Paris. A few months later, the censors declared the film illegal on the grounds that it was an assault on what was…(Read More)

Siddheshwari (Mani Kaul, 1989, 92 min.) Screening proposed by Héctor Rey, followed by discussion.  Mani Kaul (1944 – 2011) was an Indian film director and musician who strongly influenced the Paralleo Cinema movement, and a pioneer in the Indian New Wave. I first encountered his work in Berlin through a friend, the American composer Cat…(Read More)

The Garden [Derek Jarman, 1990, 1h 28min] Screening proposed by Komisario Berriak, followed by discussion.  The Garden is Jarman’s personal interpretation of the passion of Christ. Two lovers are humiliated, arrested and tortured in a non-linear collage that expresses the director’s deepest, most personal concerns: religious dogma, individual beliefs, and spiritual journeys…(Read More)

Le Jardin d’essai [Dania Reymond, 2015, 42 min] Screening proposed by Komisario Berriak, followed by discussion. Samir is an Algerian film-maker who wants to make a low-budget film on a besieged city with a group of young amateur actors and actresses. As the auditions, rehearsals and filming progress in a lovely, calm…(Read More)

Zhantai (Platform) [Jia Zhangke, 2000, 2h 34min] Screening proposed by Catherine Foulkrod, followed by dialogue. Languages: Mandarin and Shanxi dialects, with subtitles in Spanish This is a film I came across while researching uncanny fashion trends in post-Mao China. Set in the director’s hometown of Fenyang, Shanxi Province, Platform has been called “a…(Read More)

Gold Diggers of 1933 (Busby Berkeley, 1933) 1h 37min. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. “Gold diggers” were fortune-hunting chorus girls on Broadway. The term also became the title of a saga of Broadway musical shows in 1919 which were turned into films, first silent, then with soundtracks. Busby Berkeley worked in four of such films – Gold…(Read More)