Programme 2009

Open Wednesday - Sunday 11:00 – 17:00

Angus Boulton
Architecture of Cinema and Sport – Kino & The Russian Palette
Germany & Russia / 1998 / Film Installation

Kino questions our notions of state ‘education’ through newsreels and the role cinema played as a Soviet propaganda tool. For most conscripts, military service constituted their basic education, and cinema necessarily played its part in this. While film is commonly a source of entertainment, here it often constituted a form of indoctrination, despite its apparent morale-boosting properties. The viewer experiences a series of empty and abandoned theatres in which these teachings were implemented. Exploring our sense of space and place, Kino plays out as a forgotten slideshow from the Brezhnev era.

The Russian Palette presents the photographic series 41 Gymnasia presented as a film installation. Using photographs of the many abandoned Soviet military installations that surrounded Berlin, it unfolds as a formal study of colour, architectural style and the art of mural painting. Although familiar, these military gymnasia stand out as curious oases of colour amongst the routine grey and camouflage, and these militaristic reds, dirty creams and sour greens that epitomise a peculiarly ‘Russian palette’.

Saturday 19 September
14:30 – 17:00 Public Reception

In partnership with the Film Festival, the Gymnasium Gallery hosts a public reception to celebrate the opening of Architecture of Cinema and Sport. Artist Angus Boulton will be in attendance and all are welcome.

Friday 18 12:00 – 17:00
Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 11:00 – 17:00

A film by Sophy Rickett with music by Ed Hughes
Auditorium
2 Screen Film Installation
UK / 2007 / 20mins 40 secs / DVD

Auditorium is a direct response to Glyndebourne Opera House. The film goes to the heart of this vast production house, bringing together its artistic values and interest in modernist forms, and strongly echoing Sophy Rickett's photographic work. The film strips the operatic space back to its architectural and theatrical core – a simple, slow movement that transforms the interior of the building. Ed Hughes' musical score overlays the film's formal, grid-like structures with its own rhythmic lines, adding further dimensions of musical space and colour.

Friday 18 12:00 – 17:00
Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 11:00 – 17:00

Structures and Perspectives

Mark Lewis
North Circular
UK / 2000 / 4min / 35mm cinemascope transferred to HD

In this silent, single shot film, the camera dramatically tracks across an empty car park towards a derelict office block. Gliding through the broken windows of the building we see three boys playing inside, one of whom becomes the subject of the final close-up. As in much of Lewis’s work, North Circular crosses the boundaries between choreography, performance, installation and cinema.

Showing courtesy of Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver, Clark & Faria, Toronto, and Galerie Serge le Borgne, Paris.

Eva Weber
The Solitary Life of Cranes
UK / 2008 / 27min  / HD Transfer on DVD

Part city symphony, part visual poem, The Solitary Life of Cranes by Eva Weber (who’s Steel Homes is screening in the shorts programme ‘A Short Space In Time’ on Sunday 20) explores the invisible life of a city, its patterns and hidden secrets, seen through the eyes of crane drivers working high above its streets. A lyrical meditation about how our existence is shaped through the environment we inhabit, both for the drivers high above us in the sky and the people on the ground.

Ursula Mayer
Interiors
UK / 2006 / 3min 10 Sec / 16mm transfer on DVD

The relationship between architecture and its social implications is at the heart of Ursula Mayer’s film Interiors. Set in the Hampstead home of architect Erno Goldfinger (Capturing Space,’ screening in the shorts programme ‘A Short Space in Time on Sunday 20), it provides a unique setting and dramatic element against the backdrop of Goldfinger's 1930’s avant-garde art collection. The film depicts an imagined meeting between a young and an elderly woman for whom a replica of a sculpture by artist Barbara Hepworth, represents different perceptions of time and reality. Beautifully shot in both colour and black & white photography, Interiors contrasts the traditional and the modern through an evocative encounter.

 

Jem Cohen
Lost Book Found
USA /1996 / 37 min / 16mm / Super 8 transfer on DVD

Jem Cohen’s critically acclaimed film is a poetical meditation on his native New York. Inspired by the work of Chris Marker and Peter Greenaway, Lost Book Found interweaves fragments of documentary reality into a lyrical comment on city life. Five year’s worth of collected images, inspired by Cohen’s first job as an ice cream seller on Canal Street, are used to evoke a mysterious notebook filled with obsessive listings of places, objects and incidents - the key to a hidden city.

Screening on the hour from 12:00 noon.

The films of Jem Cohen and Ursula Mayer are presented in collaboration with LUX.

19:00 Opening Gala: Ballast
Regional Premiere
Lance Hammer / USA / 2008 / 96min / Sugg. Cert 15

A stunning drama set in Mississippi, from first-time director
Lance Hammer and North East-based cinematographer Lol Crawley.

In the cold winter light of a rural Mississippi Delta township, one act of violence radically transforms the lives of three characters: a struggling single mother, her 12-year-old embattled son and an emotionally devastated store owner. Ballast finds beauty in simplicity, in its understated performances from a cast of first-time actors, its economic execution and in its barren landscapes. The film’s raw realism and emotional veracity are bolstered by an assured sense of cinematic space, which owes as much to first-time director Lance Hammer’s ability to capture the rhythms of everyday life as to his director of photography, North East’s own Lol Crawley (see Kings of London screening on Saturday 19), who picked up a best cinematography award at Sundance. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to catch this poignant, powerful independent film.

Director of Photography Lol Crawley will be present to introduce the screening.

21:00 Opening Gala Party
The bar at the Henry Travers Studio in the Maltings will be open until late following the screening for drinking, dancing and general merriment.

14:00 The Red Balloon and Other Stories
Shorts Programme
Various / Europe / 75min / Sugg. Cert PG

Wee films for the wee ones

In the beautifully animated short Varmints, a small creature struggles to preserve a remnant of the peace he once knew In the face of overwhelming urbanisation, indifference and recklessness. In the part animated Home Away From Home, the young Oona has to travel a long and lonely train ride between her divorced parents’ respective homes in two different towns. Finally, a Red Balloon with a life of its own follows a little boy walking on the streets of Paris, in this classic children’s film, which deservedly won the Palme d’Or at Cannes back in 1956.

Varmints / Marc Craste / UK / 2008 / 24min

Home Away From Home / Marika Väisänen / Finland / 2008 / 15min

The Red Balloon / Albert Lamorisse / France / 1956 / 34min

14:30 – 17:00 Public Reception

In partnership with the Film Festival, the Gymnasium Gallery hosts a public reception to celebrate the opening of Architecture of Cinema and Sport. Artist Angus Boulton will be in attendance and all are welcome.

18:00 Silent Film Classics: Sherlock Jr.
Special Event
Buster Keaton / USA / 1924 / 47min / Cert U

Classic comedy from Buster Keaton, with live musical accompaniment.

In Sherlock Jr., Buster plays a film projectionist whose daydreams catapult him straight into the hearts of the movies he is showing. While fantasising about his heroics, Buster snoops out brilliant discoveries as Conan Doyle’s master detective. This special event will present Sherlock Jr. with live accompaniment by Edinburgh-based quartet Jane Gardner and Friends, who will be performing their especially composed, original score for the first time in England.

Showing with:
Laurel and Hardy: Liberty
Leo McCarey / US / 1929 / 20 min / Sugg. Cert U

While on the run, the incorrigible duo attempt to swap trousers on a high-rise construction girder. One of Ollie and Stan's last silents - and it's a cracker.

This performance is being co-hosted by Berwick Film Society, whose next season of screenings starts at the Maltings Theatre & Arts Centre on Wednesday 30 September.

Liberty courtesy of CCA/KF15 GmbH & Co. KG (Munich)

20:00 Tokyo is Dreaming
World Premiere
Peter I. Chang / Japan & USA / 2008 / 68min / Sugg. Cert 15

A rich and evocative tableau of life in the Japanese capital, set to a beguiling score by Calexico’s John Convertino.

Taiwanese-born artist filmmaker Peter Chang’s portrait of the bustling metropolis offers a modern-day take on the City Symphonies that flourished in early 20th Century cinema with films such as Man with a Movie Camera. Like those earlier opuses, Tokyo is Dreaming uses the camera to observe the beating heart(s) of urban life – work, travel, leisure but also alienation and homelessness – subtly drawing a map of the city in which quiet contemplation and frenetic activity overlap. The absence of dialogue, subtitles or voice-over narration encourages a total submersion in this life of the city – a bewildering and fascinating journey.

Showing with:
A Propos de Nice
Jean Vigo / France / 1930 / 25min / Sugg. Cert 12

Jean Vigo’s celebrated collaboration with Russian émigré Boris Kaufman. Influenced by surrealism and Russian formalism, this caustic, boisterous portrait of the French seaside resort contrasts the idle bourgeois’ leisure pursuits with the struggle for survival of Nice’s underclass.

22:00 Down and Out in London
Shorts Programme
Various / UK / 2008 / 75min / Sugg. Cert 18

Berwick goes to London for a late night programme of cutting edge dramas from three of the UK’s hottest directors.

In Kingsland #1, the directorial debut by the esteemed screenwriter of Red Riding, a young Kurdish man arrives in the city looking for work, love and respect. We travel with him, treading a tragically inevitable road back to the beginning. North East based writer-director Sean Conway and cinematographer Lol Crawley (see opening film Ballast) give us an outsider’s view of the capital in Kings of London, a tale of two teenage brothers, both named Aristotle, and the Ghetto Riders, a group of urban cowboys. Finally, in Jesse Lawrence’s Much Ado About a Minor Ting, 18-year-old Rene returns to West London in search of an old flame. But why is there a bounty on his head?

Kingsland #1 The Dreamer / Tony Grisoni / 21min

Kings of London / Sean Conway / 25min

Much Ado About a Minor Ting / Jesse Lawrence / 27min

14:00 Sleeper
Family Film
Woody Allen / USA / 1973 / 87min / Cert PG

A love story about two people who hate each other. 200 years in the future.

Woody Allen stars as Miles Munroe, a clarinet-playing health food store owner who is cryogenically frozen in 1973. Underground radicals bring him back to life in 2173, hoping he will assist them in their attempts to overthrow an oppressive government. In this dystopian society, as frigid as its architecture, Allen’s archetypal neuroses lead to increasingly outlandish romps, which pay more than passing homage to Buster Keaton’s choreographed slapstick (see Sherlock Jr., screening on Saturday 19). Allen’s science fiction is ripe for comedy: a brave new world in which Orgasmatron booths replace sex, strawberries aren’t good for you and robots fight with killer puddings.

Sponsored by Mace Convenience Store, 22 Bridge Street, Berwick upon Tweed

16:00 Sighthill Stories
Regional Premiere
Darren Hercher / UK / 2009 / 59min / Sugg. Cert PG

Intimate portrait of an urban landscape in decline, and of the children who live there.

Sighthill Primary School sits in the shadows of the huge high-rise towers of the Sighthill housing estate in Glasgow. The film starts as the housing estate is being cleared out for demolition, with many families having already moved out. Focussing on the children who face uncertainty about when they'll be displaced from their homes, this documentary allows them to reveal their fears of being uprooted, their sense of belonging to this environment earmarked for annihilation, and their hopes for the future.

Screening with:
Lift
Marc Isaacs / UK / 2001 / 25min / Sugg. Cert 12

Standing for hours with his camera in the lift of a Margate tower block, Isaacs (Calais, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival 2005) elicits touching revelations from the diverse inhabitants whom he accompanies on their short ascents and descents.

18:00 A Short Space in Time
Shorts Programme
Various / Europe / 2008/9 / 70min / Sugg. Cert 12

Journey through Europe, and through fictional, animated and documentary worlds in this selection of new award-winning short films.

Journey on a Train / Fjodor Donderer / Germany / 17min
A meditative montage of the filmmakers’ travels, Berlin – Köln – Bruxelles – London, in November 2008, as documented in Super8.

Capturing Space / Erik Bostedt / UK / 12min
A contemplation of the character of Trellick Tower, a high-rise council building in West London, and of its architect Erno Goldfinger (See Ursula Mayer’s Interiors, screening at the Prison Cells, Town Hall).

LX Forty / Marc Forster / Switzerland / 3min
Forster (director of Quantum of Solace and The Kite Runner) takes us on a journey through his ‘headspace,’ in which he creates a visually unique world.

Birthday / Andrzej Krol / Germany & Poland / 16min
A father experiences flashbacks of a fateful incident that took place exactly a year earlier, on the night of his five-year-old son’s birthday.

Steel Homes / Eva Weber / UK / 10min
A poetic portrait of life at a self-storage warehouse, Steel Homes offers a cinematic exploration of memory and loss, set in the starkly beautiful aesthetic of our modern industrial world (see Weber’s The Solitary Life of Cranes, screening at the Prison Cells, Town Hall).

Time is Running Out / Marc Reisbig / UK / 7min
This award winning animation foresees the end of the world and explores its inhabitants’ reaction to the impending doom.

20:00 Wonderful Town
Regional Premiere
Aditya Assarat / Thailand / 2007 / 92min / Cert 12

Sensuous, award-winning drama revisiting the aftermath of the Tsunami

Ton arrives in a peaceful seaside town to supervise the construction of a beach resort. He checks into a small hotel owned by Na, whose gentle manner soon charms him. Ton is also charmed by the beauty of this lush valley, which betrays little of the terrible destruction wrought by the tsunami only a few years earlier. Hardly any reference to the “incident” is ever made, yet a pervading sense of loss shrouds and scars the land. Ton, the city architect, embodies a potential for regeneration but also the urban outsider attempting to re-order tumult and erase the remnants of chaos. As his courtship of Na slowly blossoms into a tender romance, their happiness leads to growing resentment amongst the locals… A meditative exploration of the eerie quiet after a devastating storm.