GURU IN SEVEN
GURU IN SEVEN
THE SCAR
THE SCAR
ANTHRAKITIS
URBAN GHOST STORY
DIVORCING JACK
MOJO
YELLOW
ROBINSON IN SPACE
ROBINSON IN SPACE
ROBINSON IN SPACE
GALLIVANT
SMART ALECK
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GURU IN SEVEN
(Shani Grewal, 1998; 107m)
Sanjay (Nitin Chandra Ganatra), a young artist on the dole, can't get past his father's disapproval and commit to his black girlfriend (Ernestina Quarcoo). When she leaves him, he tries to forget her by taking on a bet proposed by his partying friends: if he can sleep with seven different women in seven days, he'll become a "guru." What has the makings of a tactless sex comedy is actually a fresh blast of free-form energy with a poignant edge. Shani Grewal's restless camera prowls through suburban homes, art galleries and a gangster's lair, with brief stops in Paris and Bombay for flashbacks, and along the way touches on the drive and desperation that are part of life in the Asian diaspora. A lesson in low-budget ingenuity, GURU has more insight and variety of incident than most films made for 100 times its budget.
Shani Grewal is scheduled to appear at the evening shows.
Tues April 20: 4:15 pm and 8:15 pm;
Wed April 21: 2 pm
THE SCAR
(The Amber Collective, 1995; 95m)
The Amber Films Collective has been documenting British working-class life through fiction and documentary since 1969. THE SCAR, a uniquely powerful film, asks: What do you do after the event that has defined your own life and the life of your community has become a distant memory? May (Charlie Harwick) is a lost woman in her mid-40s, raising two disaffected teenage kids. A heroine of the 1984 miners' strike, both she and her town have had their hearts torn out by the pit closures and the subsequent environmental devastation of "open-cast" (strip) mining. When May falls in love with the new mining supervisor, she's cast adrift in a sea of confusion. Like all the best political filmmaking, THE SCAR is clear in its aims and imagery, but firmly rooted in individual experience. A passionate and guardedly optimistic work.
Two members of the Amber Collective are scheduled to appear at the evening show.
Thurs April 22: 2 pm and 9 pm;
Sun April 25: 6:45 pm
URBAN GHOST STORY
(Genevieve Jolliffe, 1998; 90m)
Glasgow teen Lizzie (Heather Ann Foster), who lives in a run-down housing project with her mother and younger brother, is terrorized by poltergeist manifestations perhaps unleashed by her recent near-death experience. With its ambiguities and intriguing connections between adolescent low self-esteem, inner city poverty, social breakdown and destructive paranormal forces, this low budget, creepily effective horror film suggests Poltergeist revisualized in Ken Loach's brand of documentary realism. Young indie filmmaker Genevieve Jolliffe shows a vigorous, pulpy, visual economy and fine feel for locale and atmosphere.
Ms. Jolliffe is scheduled to appear at the evening shows.
Preceded by Fridge (1995, Peter Mullan; 20m): two homeless people struggle to free a child trapped in a refrigerator in this turn-of-the-screw drama by the star of My Name is Joe.
Thurs April 22: 4 pm;
Sat April 24: 6:15 pm;
Tues April 27: 2 pm
DIVORCING JACK
(David Caffrey, 1998; 109m)
Belfast, 1999. Newly independent, Northen Ireland appears to be on the road to political harmony, with a charismatic candidate for prime minister (Robert Lindsay) poised to win the upcoming elections by a landslide. The only one who doesn't buy the common wisdom is Dan Starkey (David Thewlis), a wasted but lovable newspaper columnist on the outs with his wife (Laine Megaw). A fling with a beautiful art student (Laura Fraser) and ex-girlfriend of a notorious IRA hardman (Jason Isaacs) ends abruptly when Dan finds her dying from stab wounds, her final words a cryptic message: "Divorce Jack." From then on, Dan's disheveled life is blasted inside out. David Caffrey's daring political comedy keeps juggling its multiple emotional turnabouts, reversals of fortune, and shifting loyalties, until your nerve endings are as frayed as those of its hero (Dan--and Jack--are driven by the protean energies and raw physicality of the great David Thewlis).
Mr. Caffrey is scheduled to appear at the evening shows.
Preceded by Hello, Hello, Hello (David Thewlis, 1995; 11m): an unlikely encounter between a sardonic policeman and a woman artist scavenging for materials.
Fri April 23: 2 pm and 6:30 pm;
Sat April 24: 8:45 pm;
Sun April 25: 4 pm
MOJO
(Jez Butterworth, 1997; 90m)
The Atlantic Club is the place to be in 1958 Soho, and pop-idol Silver Johnny (Hans Matheson) is its rising star. He is carefully guarded by the club's owner (Riff Raff's Ricky Tomlinson) and his gang of henchmen and hangers-on led by Mickey (Ian Hart)--but underworld kingpin Sam Ross (Harold Pinter, in an unforgettable performance) wants a piece of the action. Gorgeously shot by Bruno de Keyzer, Jez Butterworth's stunningly assured adaptation of his own award-winning play is a vivid, emotionally charged piece of filmmaking: richly textured, evocative of its period but without an ounce of nostalgia, and masterful in its slow metamorphosis from cheerful exuberance to the ripest evil.
Preceded on April 23 and 24 by Small Deaths (Lynne Ramsay, 1995; 11m): three oblique yet indelible vignettes serve as milestones in a girl's journey from innocence to experience.
Preceded on April 25 by Anthrakitis (Sara Sugarman, 1998; 14m): An idiosyncratic portrait of an elderly Welsh eccentric (Liz Smith) living in a world of her own amidst ramshackle decay.
Fri April 23: 4:30 pm and 9 pm;
Sat April 24: 4 pm;
Sun April 25: 9:15 pm
ROBINSON IN SPACE
(Patrick Keiller, 1997; 82m)
In this follow-up to his idiosyncratic 1994 essay London, Patrick Keiller serves up a delightful free-associative tour of English landscapes and localities. Paul Scofield's anonymous narrator accompanies the unseen protagonist Robinson, who has been engaged to conduct "a peripatetic study of the problem of England." A droll commentary of esoteric observations and unlikely trivia connects each location to literature, politics, capitalism and history.
Preceded at 4:30 pm on April 27 and at both shows on April 29 by Yellow (Simon Beaufroy & Bille Eltringham, 1996; 12m): a sharply observed snapshot of the uneasy balance of power on a country roadtrip, by the writer of The Full Monty.
Preceded at 9:15 pm on April 27 by by Anthrakitis (Sara Sugarman, 1998; 14m): An idiosyncratic portrait of an elderly Welsh eccentric (Liz Smith) living in a world of her own amidst ramshackle decay.
Tues April 27: 4:30 pm and 9:15 pm
Thurs April 29: 2 pm and 6:15 pm
GALLIVANT
(Andrew Kötting, 1997; 100m)
"Gallivant": to roam about in search of pleasure or
amusement. In this unique travelogue/diary film, filmmaker Andrew Kötting undertakes a three-month, 6,000-mile
journey around the British coastline, accompanied by his 90-year-old grandmother and seven-year-old daughter, who suffers from the mobility and speech-hampering disorder Joubert's Syndrome. Bringing fragmented, accelerated
visuals and a playful yet genuine curiosity to the chance encounters and incidents along the way, GALLIVANT literally traces the outline of Englishness in all its regional diversity, renewing family ties and affections as it surveys the
contradictions of a nation.
Preceded by Smart Alek (Andrew Kötting, 1993; 20m): Radically disjunctive visuals stoke this story of a tense family holiday car trip that ends in
mayhem.
Mr. Kötting is scheduled to appear at the evening shows.
Tues April 27: 6:45 pm
Thurs April 29: 4 pm and 8:10 pm
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