'LE FATE IGNORANTI' + SPECIAL THANKS

Set in the year in which the Jubilee and the World Pride 2000 split Rome, Özpetek's The Ignorant Fairies challenges gender and class categories within a melodramatic framework. Controversial, original, provocative, unconventional...

LE FATE IGNORANTI, by Ferzan Özpetek (2001)

December 16, 4pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

With this unusual Italian film we wave goodbye to the "grey brutal architectonical room" that has given us shelter for exactly three months now and to Denmark, the country that will always be BLACK&WHITE's home and heartland.

The Mundus Film Club continues in Amsterdam in February. Until then, special thanks to all of you who have contributed in some way or another to make possible this idea of getting to know each other's cultures better through the artistic expression of our national cinemas: Inger, Anna, Roman, Sofia, Jennifer, Rabea, Judy, Kresten, Carol, Vinicius, May, Namitha, Rashmi, Nasrin, Katica, Guia, our loyal and not-so-loyal followers and Torsten and the Chinese janitor, whose technical skills have helped us out of trouble so many times...

Remember our e-mail box stays open for suggestions, Christmas cards or secret love letters during holidays. Consumism isn't everything!

mundusfilmclub@gmail.com

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year & Viva El Amor!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqvid_BRUz8

'THE QUEER WORLD FROM A MIDDLE CLASS WOMAN POINT OF VIEW', by Guia Baggi

Death usually shocks people's lives but it might also push them to widen their knowledge of a person they loved and, through the discovery of his/her past, find a bit more about themselves.

This is the case of Antonia, the main character of the third film by the Turkish director Ferzan Özpetek, The Ignorant Fairies (Le Fate Ignoranti). Unexpectedly, Antonia finds herself alone by the accidental death of her partner. In the sorrow for the loss of her husband, Antonia discovers a second life she never imagined Massimo might have had.

Death and gender are again in The Ignorant Fairies the main motives in Özpetek's production, after The Turkish Bath - Hamam (1999) and before Facing Window (2003) and Saturn in Opposition (2007).

In her research of the truth, Antonia risks to take her husband's place in the strange family with whom he used to stay when for her he was at the stadium or at some conferences. It is a warm lively family very different from Antonia's normal middle-class life. To the point that she and her husband's lover, Michele, might fall in love with each other.

Unfortunately, looking more deeply into characters and their psychology, many stereotypes from which some sensibilities could take offense emerge: from Antonia's housemaid behaviour to Michele's infatuation for Antonia and, of course, his friends' features.

Özpetek's female characters are detached but determinate in struggling with their lives, while men are drawn complex, in crisis but strong at the same time. Sexuality is described in Özpetek's films especially from men's perspective but the main characters of his films are usually and sometimes involuntarily women.

Özpetek is some kind of Italian-Turkish Almodóvar. He was born in Turkey but studied at the Silvio D’Amico Drama Academy in Rome, and his works often combine his double culture. An emotional Margherita Buy plays Antonia's role, while Stefano Accorsi interprets Michele. The Ignorant Fairies was awarded with three Italian Silver Ribbons and with the prize as best feature at the New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

'HEAD ON' FLYER

After France and Spain, let's meet another strong woman from Germany. Head-On by Fatih Akin is a film which strikes hardly; a total electroshock led by a duo of brilliant actors with exceptional and effective music. The film heroine, Sibel, is rebellious, outspoken, and sexy.

Come along to enjoy a powerful movie, between suicide and sensuality: a contradictory love in the punk atmosphere of the streets of Hamburg!

GEGEN DIE WAND, by Fatih Akin (2004)

December 9, 4pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

'HARSH, STRONG, ALMOST PUNK: 'HEAD ON'', by Naouel Abbadi

The first German film to win a Golden Bear in Berlin in 2004, Fatih Akin's Head-On is a desperate fable about a wild love and a current romantic tragedy rocked by oriental chants. It is the story of two human beings, taken in the hurly-burly of life.

Alcoholic since the accidental disappearance of his wife, Cahit Tomruk (performed by the sensational Birol Ünel) tries to commit suicide during a drunkenness night. At the hospital, he meets Sibel, a young lady quite determined to do what she likes pretty freely. Oppressed by her very traditional family, she dreams to gain her independence. But to get it, it is necessary that she marries a Turk. Cahit should do the trick but the love is well sure to oppose their plans, inviting itself inconveniently in the fictitious wedding. Little by little, both flat-mates become more sociable, they learn to live side by side, even if the sex remains a taboo subject: "if we make love together, we shall be then a husband and a wife", murmurs Sibel. For a long time restrained, the passion eventually bursts in broad daylight and the trajectories of both lovers will be changed for ever.

Fatih Akin's remarkable film is many things: an exploration of Turkish culture in Germany, a comedy, a tragedy, and above all, a romance. The punk Cahit is a sad-eyed, worn-out soul who, as the film rages on, realizes that he wants to hang tenaciously onto life for as long as he can. Sibel Kekilli, in her feature film debut, gives a heart-breaking performance. Erratic, vibrant, extreme, occasionally out of her mind, Sibel is a woman who can change a man.

Not only is Head-On visually beautiful, but it also relies heavily on musicality. Without music, the film loses a certain emotional strike and Akin is the first to admit the importance of it: "Film is a two-dimensional thing, but when you add music it becomes three, four, even five-dimensional".

A tragedy of two lonely souls, the film opens with Cahit driving his car head-on into a brick wall: the first and most transparent realization of the threat stated in the title. But despite all the film's griminess and doom, bad behaviour and bad luck, it is hope that engines Head-On. These characters are intimately exposed; feelings of both genuine pleasure and pain bared wide open on the screen. Head-On is positively gripping.

'THE NEW POSTMODERN WOMAN IN 'MUJERES AL BORDE DE UN ATAQUE DE NERVIOS'', by Patricia López Villalón

The irruption of Pedro Almodóvar in the 80's brought an internationally accepted icon of the new democratic and liberated Spain. But many reviewers had accused him of being acritical and ahistorical. Until his emergence as a filmmaker and with the exceptions of Luis Buñuel and Carlos Saura, most of the Spanish directors were immersed in the ghosts of the Civil War.

With his new postmodern frivolous comedies, Almodóvar was establishing a new model of auteur, breaking with the French traditional perception set up in the former decades. 'In the 50's and 60's, Spain experienced a kind of neo-realism which was far less sentimental than the Italian brand and far more ferocious and amusing. I’m talking about the films El cochecito and El pisito. It is a pity that the line has not been continued', said Almodóvar in 1986. He tried to do just this, but converting it into an original way of experiencing Spanish life, never avoiding the past but unifying the old and the new, tradition and modernity, and building, as a result, a skilful portrait of the society of the time and, specially, of its women.

Madrid, and, in general, the big city is seen as the ideal development place for this new woman. Madrid itself represents the traces of time and history in its buildings, its streets and its people. So there is no need to talk about past anymore, since it is inherent to everyday stories.

Precisely, the Spanish director starts from a Francoist idea about relationships: the woman frustrated as a wife, lover or mother becomes a matriarch, harridan, or hysteric. So she is condemned to solitude, which is the price of liberty. However, we soon notice it is not a bitter solitude anymore: women can now look for a sense in their own. But first, Carmen Maura, as Pepa, has to get rid of the Francoist-style machismo (misogyny) that Iván (Fernando Guillén) shows in his relationships with women, which, this way, become battles of the sexes.

Like many other Spanish directors before him, Almodóvar writes his scripts and outlines his characters following the internalized tradition of Spanish black humour, esperpento, defined and developed by Spain's greatest modern author, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936). In his masterpiece Luces de Bohemia, his alter ego Max Estrella states 'The tragic sense of life can be rendered only through an aesthetic that is systematically deformed' because 'Spain is a grotesque deformation of European civilisation'.

Esperpento points out to the absurdly anomalous abyss between Spain’s magnificent tradition and its tough reality. Almodóvar, however, reinvents this sort of humour in a very postmodern style, turning it to an optimistic, humanized, way of living modern life. This is particularly remarkable in her female characters. While esperpento tradition regards people as mere human marionettes, exposed to misunderstandings and confusion, women in Mujeres al borde… still find a way out to that chaos, unlike the plain, simple male characters that remain incapable to evolve.

In Luces de Bohemia, nobody seems to care about anyone and everything, even death, looks insignificant. That is what Mujeres suggested at the beginning but, on the contrary, Almodóvar's women are the only ones having compassion and giving real support and understanding to the others, while men still think selfishly.

Even evil female characters are deeper, and the director portrays them as heroines out of a Spanish Golden Age picaresque novel: they do not deserve any compassion. Once more, the "Spanishness" behind Almodóvar’s depiction of the new liberated woman (but still suffering the consequences of the immediate previous period) makes misfortune look tragicomic. 'Spain is an absurd country', wrote Ganivet. 'Absurdity is its nerve and mainstay. Its turn to prudence will denote its end'.

'ALMODÓVAR AND WOMEN DURING FRANCOISM', by Patricia López Villalón

Spain is still a divided country. Not only directly because of the rupture the Civil War (1936-1939) produced in Spaniards' consciousness, but also because of the consequences it brought to every single aspect of their lives. The hegemony of the Catholic Church teaching model during the forty years of Franco's regime spread a distorted image about gender, positioning females as second class citizens and creating a sensation of guiltiness related to sexuality. Almodóvar will invert this Catholic ideological pattern through irony in his films to establish a harsh criticism.

Sexual ambiguity under Francoism was unthinkable and, therefore, fought. The clash between the then considered male attitudes and the figure of a woman, for instance, was solved underlining "feminine" qualities, and vice versa. The radical separation between sexes and the rarefying of social and sexual relationships (the popular dichotomy ‘a woman is a virgin or a whore’ – love separated from sex - is especially significant) led to the materialization of anxieties and complexes also illustrated in cinema. The "sexy Spanish comedy" of the 70’s depicted the typical Iberian macho, perpetually horny and agitated with the idea of having sex at any expense. Of course, he never succeeded, in line with the deep conservatism nature of these films.

From the early 50's on, progress and material development forced a moral and mental change in Spain, but all it provoked was a superficial modernization. Flamenco idol Manolo Escobar affirmed in the hit movie Pero… ¡en qué país vivimos! (1967): ‘If you ask me, a woman who doesn’t go into the kitchen, doesn’t sew and doesn’t even pray isn’t a woman… She’s a Civil Guard.’ According to the historians Carr and Fusi, ‘by the 70’s Spain had become a curious mixture of traditional – largely Catholic - values and the behaviour thought prosper for a consumer society.’ Despite economic achievements, Spaniards were still different.

By the death of the "Caudillo", in 1975, the "sleeping" Spain became noticeable, and dual dynamics begun to rule the country. The negotiated nature of the Spanish democratic transition resulted in politicians from the dictatorship overlying with those who started working in that lapse of time. Gender roles were renovated, but the old mentality died hard: transformations were more realistic in legislation that in ordinary life. And not to mention the power Catholic Church theoretically lost but actually maintains at least in the popular imaginary. This way, altogether with its historical economic sub-development, Spain is swallowed in a cultural and social set of incongruities from which, with his unique subversive vision, Pedro Almodóvar cannot (or do not wish to) escape.

'WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN' TRAILER

It's a romance, but it's not about love.

It's a comedy, but not everyone's laughing.

It's a place where the one you can expect is the unexpected.

WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

From internationally acclaimed filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar comes a deliriously deranged comedy that follows no rules.

MUJERES AL BORDE DE UN ATAQUE DE NERVIOS,
by Pedro Almodóvar (1988)

December 2, 4pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

'A PASSIONATE LOOK INTO THE HISTORY OF A LARGER-THAN-LIFE CHANTEUSE', by Naouel Abbadi

La Môme tells the life story of legendary French songstress Edith Piaf, how her youth influenced her reckless adulthood and how it all led to her place as one of France's most enduring symbols.

She was not an ordinary singer. She lived her life at a fever pitch, driven by demons from her horrific childhood, and cruel twists of fate that together drove her to an early grave.

No ordinary bio-pic would do to capture the essence of what Piaf was. One of the film's saving graces is the music of Piaf used whole or re-recorded to mold and propel the story.

The film stars Marion Cotillard who, as the 'Little Sparrow', delivers a vigorous performance. She plays Piaf from vibrant adolescence to her frail, but no less vivid, forties. The impudence, the pride, the wariness are all there. When she puts her hands on her hips and begins to lip-synch to Piaf's voice, she is channeling more than the gestures, she is living the entire life of the singer.

Olivier Dahan knows here his redemption by revealing the creative strength of a visionary which we did not suspect him. By his complex editing and in great delicacy, and his incredible sense of stage, he makes us attend the revival of a popular cinema which we considered lost.

Through a fate more incredible than a novel, discover the soul of an artist and the heart of a woman. Strict, intense, fragile and indestructible, devoted to her art until the sacrifice, Edith Piaf is the most immortal of singers.

'LA MôME' FLYER

A work. Personal and intimist. Tragic and romantic. Popular and universal. In a word: magnifique! Ne regretez rien and come to join us, come to meet a myth, a staggering star. Here is the most immortal of singers...

LA MôME, by Olivier Dahan (2007)

November 25, 4pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

NEW CYCLE: 'WOMEN' !!!

-Click to enlarge!!!

'MONSOON WEDDING' (2001). INVITE, by Rashmi Vasudeva

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This Wednesday evening you are invited to take part in a lush, colourful big bad fat Indian wedding. Hooting, cheering, dancing, and booing is most welcome. Like a typical Indian dish, Mira Nair's acclaimed 2001 movie Monsoon Wedding has several ingredients - family intrigue, sexual politics, wry humour and quirky characters - which all slosh into each other to make quite a palatable treat. What's more, there is just that right sprinkling of Bollywood masala over it, so that despite its serious undertones, it is a true-blue feel-good Bollywood movie at heart.

Decidedly a film made with Indian sensibilities for an international audience, Monsoon Wedding chronicles all the little banters, anxieties, loves, hatreds and jealousies that spring up when families get together to celebrate a grand wedding. It is an honest film that explores the grey side of Indian family life and its eccentricities while taking care to be true to the genuinely warm culture and undercurrents of strong bonding that is typical of such large Indian (specifically Punjabi - North-Western and some parts of North Indian -) families.

It is monsoon and rains, which are a symbol of rejuvenation and hope in India, only add atmosphere to Delhi's many crowded alleys and huge bungalows - the setting for the movie. Members of an extended Punjabi family from all over the globe arrive to take part in the arranged marriage. Amidst hectic preparations, family skeletons fall out of the cupboard, old rivalries resurface and new loves are discovered. All in the span of a week or so. The skillful director has managed to extract realistic performances from all the artists, especially veterans like Naseeruddin Shah, who plays the father of the bride, to the crude but adorable marigold-munching wedding contractor P. K. Dubey, played superbly by Vijay Raaz.

The vitality of Indian weddings and the live-life-kingsize philosophy associated with the Punjabi race is portrayed quite naturally and they are juxtaposed with some ugly secrets that indeed might be discovered in any family. And that really is the secret of this movie's success. It manages to draw in the audience right from the start and makes you feel part of the proceedings. Plus, the music is extremely hummable.

So come along to the wedding this Wednesday and be sure to do the Balle! Balle!

MONSOON WEDDING, by Mira Nair (2001)

November 18, 4pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

MAKING OF 'ALICE'. Marco Martins' comments

In Alice, I wanted to explore the idea of obsession and I wanted to change for once and for all the idea of Lisbon as an old-fashioned city. That is why I created Mario, someone who lost his daughter (the main character but, at the same time, absent from the whole movie) and who, feeling powerless to react in a world that seems to be giving up, designs a parallel way of living, apart from the society that surrounds him.

It is, therefore, between Mario and the city that most of the film dialogues are established, silent and mysterious dialogues. In the evening, once back home, we observe in his footage the anonymous crowd, in its slow and blurred pace, and we no longer know if those images are real or just a creation of Mario's fantasy - one face after another, one day after the other.

The city becomes a place of abstraction where Mario tries to hang on to the image of the missing child, the image of that blue dress that will haunt him forever.

'ALICE' (2005). REVIEW, by Sofia Cerqueira

Join the solitary journey of a father looking for a missing child. Alice's plot might be written in one line but no words would be enough to describe the twirled emotions one will share once we jump into the obsessive and heart-breaking journey of Mario, a normal guy from Lisbon, looking for his 4-year old girl.

Every day, Mario repeats the exact same routine he did the day he lost Alice. Then he collects the several tapes he has placed all over the city, which he scans methodically, in order to catch a glimpse of his missing daughter. Through his mechanical actions, we are dragged down into a spiral of grief, anxiety and despair, among a city that ignores the dramas of its individuals, absorbed by the pointless routine of modern lives.

Alice casts a grey and slow-paced perspective over Lisbon, filmed as it has never been filmed before. Few words, sublime acting, beautiful photography and heart-touching music (composed by the Portuguese pianist Bernardo Sassetti) complete this nostalgic and powerful portrait of a man shattered by the overwhelming feeling of loss.

The debut work of the young director Marco Martins clearly raised the bar in the Portuguese movie scene, with its perfection when it comes to film-making, conquering audiences in Cannes festival and several other contests. A must-see, that will certainly touch even the coldest hearts.

ALICE, by Marco Martins (2005)

November 11, 4pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

We're going on HOLIDAYS!

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BLACK&WHITE will be closed for holidays during this week. But we will be back with the skates on in November 11 to offer you the sublime portuguese drama Alice.

Thanks for being there week after week!! Vi ses!

CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN with BLACK&WHITE!

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Premonitory dreams, a creepy holiday resort, a group of four good-looking twentyish boys and girls looking for fun, ghostly child friendship bonds, strange incidents and unmentionable presences!! BLACK&WHITE has saved this explosive mix of the classic elements in horror films by the hand of the Filipino movie Villa Estrella to celebrate a special Halloween edition with you!

Bring your popcorn or sweets and we promise a goose-pimply evening that will make you jump on your seat!!

VILLA ESTRELLA, by Rico Maria Ilarde (2009)

October 28, 4pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

ABOUT VINICIUS de CARVALHO

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Dr. Vinicius de Carvalho was lieutenant of the Brazilian Army. He served for two years in the Mountain Infantry Brigade, doing technical services (teaching at the Military Academy, working with music and research on military subjects) beyond those inherent in military life. On two occassions he was on missions with troops and the Intelligence Service in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Nowadays, he is a Lector of Brazilian Studies at the University of Aarhus.

'ELITE SQUAD' (2007). SYNOPSIS, by Caroline d'Essen

One of the most notorious releases in the history of Brazilian cinema, Jose Padilha's Elite Squad exposes the rampant corruption plaguing Rio de Janeiro from a policeman's point of view. The only problem is that, in Rio, the police are as corrupt as the criminals themselves, creating a ferociously violent atmosphere. Even the BOPE squad, an elite police force called in when the regular units are out of their league, resort to tactics that border on fascist procedures.

Elite Squad follows the lives of a BOPE captain, Nascimento, and two potential BOPE officers and childhood friends, Neto Gouveia and André Matias, and their experiences revolving the visit of the Pope John Paul II to Rio de Janeiro. Based on the book Tropa de Elite by sociologist Luiz Eduardo Soares, André Batista, and co-screenwriter Rodrigo Pimentel, Padilha's controversial glimpse into Rio's nightmarish criminal world will challenge and disturb viewers. The film won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival.

NEW CYCLE 'CITIES' SETS OFF!!

BLACK&WHITE is proud to announce the titles of the films that will form its second cycle 'Cities'. This time we will be able to travel all around the world in a single-ticket trip, from the troubled favelas of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to a mysterious vacational villa in the Philippines, all the way up to a festive Dehli out of the Indian alternative movie scene and, to finish with, a desperate search through the 'bairros' of Lisbon in Portugal.

Everything in a whole new format: the starting time of the screenings will be 4pm instead of 5pm to make the access to the Danish School of Journalism easier for all (yay!) and allow a space for discussion after the screening, at request of many of you. This week session will include the inestimable contribution of Vinicius de Carvalho, a former member of the elite forces in Brazil, who will share his first hand experiences with us.

All told, 'Cities' calendar will look as follows:

TROPA DE ELITE, by José Padilha (2007)

October 21, 4pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

VILLA ESTRELLA, by Rico Maria Ilarde (2009)

October 28, 4pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

MONSOON WEDDING, by Mira Nair (2001)

ALICE, by Marco Martins (2005)

NOTICE: TIME CHANGE!!

The screening of the German film The Edukators has been rescheduled to 4.30pm instead of the original 5pm... Sorry for the inconvenience!!

DIE FETTEN JAHRE SIND VORBEI, by Hans Weingartner (2005)

October 14, 4.30pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

GOOD BYE, 'INEQUALITY IN SOCIETY'!

BLACK&WHITE wants to bid farewell to its cycle 'Inequality in society' in style. That is why we are so glad the revolutionary (in its broader sense!) German film The Edukators came in the way with the gorgeous and forever engagé Daniel Brühl in it...

DIE FETTEN JAHRE SIND VORBEI, by Hans Weingartner (2005)

October 14, 4.30pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

This is the end of one stage. But the next will be full of surprises and changes with your requests, suggestions and, of course, participation!! Drop us an e-mail at our new account (on the top right) and let us know your thoughts! The new cycle 'Cities' will be taking off next week NOT at the same time. Stay tuned, thanks and see you all at The Edukators!!

'THE EDUKATORS' – 'DIE FETTEN JAHRE SIND VORBEI' (2005). SYNOPSIS, by Rabea Ottenhues

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Young and full of antipathy to the system they live in, flatmates Jan and Peter have their own way of fighting social injustice.

At night, they break into mansions in Berlin's rich neighborhoods, not stealing or destroying things, but disarranging the furniture and leaving nothing but a mess and a note saying ‘You are too rich’ or ‘The years of plenty are gone’. Their aim: leaving the residents with a feeling of insecurity and giving them food for thought about their wealth.

After a car crash, Peter's girlfriend Jule has to pay off her debt to a wealthy manager, whose car she ran into. That exactly is where the very same manager and owner of a villa, Hardenberg, comes into play. While Peter is on holiday, Jule and Jan begin a romance and, in an unreasonable, carefree mood, decide to break into Hardenberg's mansion.

Moments later, you find the three of them, Peter, Jule and Jan, sitting at a table in an Alps hut, smoking a joint - with Hardenberg, who they kidnapped after being caught off guard in his house and who now reminisces about his time as a revolutionist, practicing free love and knowing people like the leader of the student revolt, Rudi Dutschke.

But this, for sure, is not the happy end of the story. Things get more and more complicated, with Hardenberg among the three of them.

In the end, The Edukators is more than a well-played movie (those of you who watched Inglorious Basterds will surely recognize Daniel Brühl) that is certainly deeply critical of society, but in a new, sometimes even funny way, that at least left me with the feeling of wanting to change the world.

'FRESA Y CHOCOLATE' (1994). SYNOPSIS, by Jennifer Roig

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Fresa y Chocolate is based on a short story by one of the most important Cuban screenwriters alive. The feature film tells the story of three ordinary people, Diego, David and Nancy. Despite their differences, they start a friendship that is going to demand sacrifices from all of them in the hard times of 'el quinquenio gris' ('the gray five years' period).

It is a story of friendship, loyalty, freedom, emigration and love.

Fresa y Chocolate is one of the most polemical Cuban films ever. Produced in 1994, in the hardest times of the economic crisis, it tells the story of a darker previous period in the history of Cuban Revolution. Since the late 60s, the impact of Soviet Union clashed with the different positions of many intellectuals, professionals and workers in the island. Most of those who disagree with the new status quo were sent to production camps in the countryside, and kept isolated from their families and friends. The nature of emigration changed. Those who were leaving Cuba were not looking for more properties or richness but for freedom of thought, expression and sexual identity.

The 90s were no easy times for Cubans either. The film was a hit but most of the people who went to the theaters thought it was about a current issue. The film brought to discussion homosexuality discrimination, a reality that was unexplainable in a country where everybody was supposed to be equal.

4TH SCREENING tomorrow: A TASTE OF CUBA!

BLACK&WHITE will be one month old tomorrow!! And to celebrate it, we invite you to a strawberry & chocolate ice-cream. Yes, it might be freezing outside, but we will keep it warm with Fresa y Chocolate, this week's Cuban film by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea & Juan Carlos Tabío.

It is a friendship story between a gay and a straight Communist in the 1970s. Among freedom and oppression, the right of being different and the right for artistic creation, the film stands as a clear-eyed critique of the revolution's treatment of gay Cubans. The tale's particular context adds freshness and political alertness, resulting in a charming piece of work with a quasi-hopeful message. Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry & Chocolate) is as refreshing as its title suggests. Come have a taste of it! Do not miss this funny colourful film, but above all, a call for tolerance, deftly executed by a director for whom the personal and the political were indivisible.

The experience will be, in sum, a thoughtful, sensual pleasure.

FRESA Y CHOCOLATE, by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea & Juan Carlos Tabío (1993)

October 7, 5pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

OLEKSANDR DOVZHENKO

A note about our Ukranian filmmaker in view of the second alternative screening...

Born in a peasant family as one of its 14 children, Dovzhenko however managed to get enough education to pursue his dream, a teacher’s career. Little is known about Dovzhenko’s life during perilous war and revolution times. We know, however, his vain and hectic attempts to obtain higher education, his participation in Ukrainian movement for which he was incarcerated in a concentration camp and faced several executions by firing squad, one done with blank-fire and several eventually cancelled, luckily. After Bolsheviks won the civil war, friends helped him to get a position in Soviet Ukrainian Embassies in Europe where he also got to know Western culture. He used his knowledge when back in Ukraine, as painter and cartoonist, but mainly as a one of the world’s first filmmakers. In late 20s he shot several films that became popular and respected abroad, especially his classical 'Ukraine trilogy' (Zvenyhora, Arsenal, Earth). They became the heights of Ukrainian Renaissance, subsequently called 'Executed Renaissance' (thousands artists shot; hundreds left art; the rest – dozens – became loyal to party and lost their artistic individuality), a modernist interbellum movement dominated by grotesque romanticism, obsessed by matters of life and death and formal experiments.

Dovzhenko was too well-known abroad to simply be shot. So he was the one who tried to be loyal and suffered from censorship. Several of his projects were suspended and never done. He himself had to move to Moscow; entering Ukraine was under the ban for him. However, he developed a kind of personal relationship with Stalin, having become a sort of confessor for the Soviet tyrant; he was often called in the night to the Kremlin when Stalin had insomnia. Homesickness and dreadful moral dubiousness of his position made Dovzhenko suffer, and that was mirrored in his brilliant and blood-chilling diary. This immensely gifted filmmaker lived in depression and made almost no films since the 1930s. He died relatively young a few years after Stalin, in the process of working on a new film.

FLYER

20th century European expressionism enters BLACK&WHITE with the striking war silent film Arsenal, by the Ukranian filmmaker Oleksandr Dovzhenko (add him in Facebook - yes, Facebook - here). This 'vintage' movie is a must-see of all times and momentarily breaks the Mundus Film Club trend of portraying contemporary society by taking us back to its roots. Power to the people!

ARSENAL, by Oleksandr Dovzhenko (1923)

September 30, 5pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

AND last but not least, BLACK&WHITE would like to make a call for arms to everyone wanting to contribute with a film for the next cycle we have in mind, 'Cities'. Start thinking! More about the subject VERY VERY soon...

'DOVZHENKO'S 'ARSENAL': AN ULTIMATE WAR MOVIE', by Roman Horbyk

Just for change after all complicated contemporary movies, let’s take a turn to the past when people did not pretend they were living, but truly lived, when everything – love, hate, life, death – was a bit more real. Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to inform you next time on our Mundus movies list we have Arsenal (1928) by Oleksandr Dovzhenko, one of the most powerful examples of absolute cinema ever – and an absolute must-see for all interested in war and conflict. This visually rich, striking and often shocking masterpiece influenced by German expressionism of the 1920s (Dovzhenko studied and worked in Berlin for several years) and preceeding later French existentialism, unfolds a grotesque and laughably tragic story of the Ukrainian revolution and civil war of 1917 – 1921.

Shortsighted Ukrainian officer in funny early 20th century glasses, apparently a recent bookworm, points out to a Bolshevist rebel with a gun barrel and says, “Turn yourself face to wall, so that I can execute you”. The Bolshevik in a stylish scarf obeys at first, but in a moment turns back and slowly, step by step comes closer, extends his hand and takes the pistol away. “Why can’t you do it looking into my face, bastard, but I can do this with you?”, he says a second before a shot.

This memorable scene is a perfect answer to questions about Ukrainian nationalism ninety years ago and its incapacity of gaining the upper hand in a struggle for independence. It’s simply 'if you’re too weak to kill, it’s you who’ll get killed'. And this is also a universal truth about any clash in a globalised world almost a century later, for the nature of conflict remains (and most probably will remain) unchanged despite all up-to-date trends.

Some history to quickly look through

After last Russian tsar abdicated in February 1917, Ukrainian community which was oppressed for centuries formed a national assembly and a government that first claimed autonomy and then complete independence. However, Lenin and his Bolshevist party considered even devastated by the WWI Ukraine to be an important human, agricultural and industrial base for future Soviet empire, and the war broke out again.

As a result, in 1918 – 1921 several armies fought on Ukrainian land committing extensive war crimes. However, despite massive initial support from rural population (90 per cent of overall population), Ukrainian government lost due to bad organization, lack of political experience and initiative, poor army supplies and, last but not least, indifference from the international community. Arsenal uprising was a minor episode of war when workers on military plant instigated by the Bolshevist propaganda revolted against Ukrainian government. The uprising was suppressed, but it forced the Ukrainian military to draw the best units back from the front; road to Kyiv was left defended by just 300 schoolboy volunteers and, finally, Ukrainian capital surrendered.

What makes it more difficult is the recently discovered fact that Dovzhenko himself enlisted for the army of Ukrainian liberal-nationalist government and served in the units which oppressed the pro-Bolshevist workers uprising on the Arsenal plant in Kyiv. Eleven years later, a well-established film-maker did a movie about those developments from politically relevant, that is now Bolshevist, point of view. Although it does not affect artistic and aesthetic brilliancy of this classical piece of leftist avant-garde cinema, we should keep in mind while watching the famous final scene of the execution that in real life Dovzhenko was probably one of the firing squad that executed rebellious workers. This adds another layer on the complicated and extravagant text of the film, where officially acclaimed pro-Communist appearance meets a bitter epilogue to Ukrainian national revolution and sarcastic anger towards national leaders who failed to win a war for freedom.

Soldier corpses with smiling faces, horses that can speak and bullet-proof naked bodies, nervous and disturbing macabre music which accompanies this silent movie… For those who watch Dovzhenko’s works for the first time they often become once-in-a-lifetime experience. His distinguishable, fractured story-telling manner when you see One Big Story in a dozen of small and non-repeating ones is something you’ll never forget. So, if you want to enjoy some vintage and still actual classical motion picture, if you are interested in war at a broad philosophic angle or you just want to discover Ukrainian culture, please do come at 5pm on Wednesday, September 30 to Lille Auditorium at the Danish School of Journalism. See you there!

+ Info about Dovzhenko

+ Info on Arsenal (or here)

+ Info on the war in Ukraine

MAKING OF TE DOY MIS OJOS. Icíar Bollaín's comments

"After Flores de otro mundo, I wanted to make a more concentrated movie, less choral, and probably because of it more straightforward and intense. The co-scriptwriter, Alicia Luna, and I had been thinking over the topic of domestic violence for a long time and saw that, though it is a constant theme in mass media, there were many questions that we could not answer.

Why a woman endures an average of ten years together with a man she's being thrashed by? Why doesn't she go away? Why not only she doesn't go away but even assure she is still in love as some of them do? Economic dependence reasons do not explain the fact that one of every four women in Europe and the United States affirm they have gone through some violent relationship in their life.

As we were doing research, we discovered that one of the basic reasons was that they keep hoping the man will change. So our character is a woman who keeps waiting at the door every day for the man with whom she fell in love... But who is this man? Why a profile of the batterer hardly exists? And why these men ill-treat for years who they claim to love with all their heart?

There are physically violent men, there are others that are violent also psychologically and these are probably the ones who cause more damage. Some are really cruel and there are some others who are also victims of themselves, cannot solve their conflicts if it is not by means of violence, need to control the person they love and are very scared... And that is the man in our film, someone who has the chance of seeing himself and change.

Te Doy Mis Ojos tells Pilar and Antonio's story but also that of whom surround them: a mother who consents, a sister who does not understand, a son who looks and keeps quiet, a few friends, a society and a city as Toledo, which, with its artistic brilliance and its historical and religious weight, adds one more dimension to this story of love, fear, control and power.

The actors

For the character of Pilar we tested many marvellous actresses. It was a long process. This character possesses the enormous difficulty of not knowing who she is. Pilar neither says what she thinks nor what she feels because she doesn't know it. She is a woman who is not herself. How do you tell an actress to play that? In addition, she is a woman who evolves, because she begins completely lost and ends re-composed and blooming.

Laia Marull can seem to be very fragile and be strong at the same time, can appear shattered or utmost beautiful, as if lightened from within, and is a very solid actress who can combine experience with emotion constantly on the surface.

Luis Tosar's character is also very difficult. He has given him many things. He goes from being very brutish and not understanding anything to establishing himself in another level. He can be tender and change in a second, growing dark and becoming unpredictable... Luis gives Antonio's character an infinity of shades. I believe that they are two very brave actors who really dove into the scenes.

Candela Peña brings her intensity and a great tenderness to a character that represents those who want to help but do not to know how, because deep down we don't understand. With all her good faith, Ana doesn't manage to help her sister because she doesn't understand her, because she tries to simplify something very complex. We are all a bit like Candela.

Rosa Maria Sardá carries out with generosity the ungrateful labour of giving life to a character who silences the problem and who therefore consents, as it has been done for so many years."

AFTERMATH

Reactions so far after La Haine...

-"It's like Guy Ritchie's films but more socially concerned", says Roman.

If you were there, post your own comments down below!!


If not, tick your reason for not coming:

1. "I have already seen it!".
2. "I have to cook/attend a dinner with friends/flatmates".
3. "The day has been very long and I'm too tired".
4. "I need to go home now but I'll be right there!".


Well, before Te Doy Mis Ojos (Take My Eyes) screening next week, a few possible solutions:

1. See it again!
2. Bring them along! Eating in front of the screen is totally OK.
3. Don't forget your pillow and you'll be ready for a real relaxing evening...
4. Hmmm, there's nothing we can say to beat that except for... Move your bum from the sofa to the seats!

Te Doy Mis Ojos, by Icíar Bollaín (2003)

September 23, 5pm

Lille Auditorium (Room 234)

Danish School of Journalism

Stay tuned for more info on this striking Spanish drama...

'LA HAINE*, A POWERFUL PUNCH IN THE STOMACH', a review by Naouel Abbadi

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So far, everything's fine... We are in the Cité, a HLM in the suburbs of Paris, France. It's just morning, but there's tension in the air already. The youngsters of the hood have spent all night rioting in the streets, burning down buildings and wrecking everything.

Set in 24 hours, La Haine follows three mates as they wander aimlessly through the city. Vinz (Cassel) is a Jewish Travis Bickle, boiling with anger. North African Saïd (Taghmaoui) is a personable loudmouth, keen to get himself laid. Black boxer Hubert (Koundé) is a more thoughtful presence and his frustration, the most deeply buried. During the course of a day and night, they meditate on the death of an Arabic friend at the hands of the police, and stumble across a cop's lost pistol.

Mathieu Kassovitz dissects a crisis situation of racism and social exclusion in modern Paris, with lucidity but also anger and brutality. Released to both controversy and acclaim in 1995, La Haine ranks among the most incendiary European films of the decade. Furious, funny, intelligent and tense, its treatment of racial violence, issues of the French-style system of integration, disenfranchisement and suburban poverty, introduced audiences to aspects of French life rarely seen on film - specifically police brutality and Le Pen's National Front.

In style and intent, the film occupies a position somewhere between Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing.

Atmospherically shot in black and white and infused with the sounds and style of French hip-hop, Kassovitz's direction has the urgent authenticity of documentary footage. He's also an effective stylist and uses Paris as a striking backdrop. With nowhere to go, the boys slope through deserted public spaces - empty streets, vacant trains, a shopping mall at four in the morning - locations that echo their own sense of estrangement. 'The world is yours' runs the slogan on an advertising billboard. Saïd gets his pen out and alters it to the bitterly ironic - or is it desperately hopeful? - 'The world is ours'.

Powerfully but naturally acted, La Haine's great strength is that it's so fully engaged with the world it depicts. Vital and visceral yet sympathetic to its flawed protagonists, it's Kassovitz's own writing from the start of the film that best conveys his characters' rage at their impotence and isolation, and La Haine's own grimly fatalistic tone. "Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper?" asks Hubert. "On his way down past each floor, he kept saying, to reassure himself, 'so far so good... so far so good... so far so good'. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land."

Writer-director Kassovitz's great triumph is the way he allies outright polemic with intensely powerful drama. In fact, so effective is his handling of the issues that the French Cabinet were reported to have watched the film in the hope that it would help their understanding of the country's ethnically diverse young poor.

*The Hate