Thursday 22 Jan: The Man Who Fell to Earth

The Man Who Fell to Earth
a film by Nicolas Roeg, 1976 UK

The Man Who Fell to Earth is a cult science fiction film directed by
Nicolas Roeg, about an extraterrestrial, David Bowie, who crash lands
on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering
from a severe drought. The film is based on the 1963 novel of the same
name by Walter Tevis.

Wednesday 26 Nov / We feed the world

We feed the world (2005)
a documentary by Erwin Wagenhofer

In WE FEED THE WORLD, Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer traces the origins of the food we eat.
His journey takes him to France, Spain, Romania, Switzerland, Brazil and back to Austria.
Leading us through the film is an interview with Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

WE FEED THE WORLD is a film about food and globalisation, fishermen and farmers, long-distance lorry drivers and high-powered corporate executives, the flow of goods and cash flow–a film about scarcity amid plenty.With its unforgettable images, the film provides insight into the production of our food and answers the question what world hunger has to do with us.

15th October / Masculin, Féminin

Masculin, Féminin (France 1966)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Godard offers '15 precise facts' about the children of Marx and Coca-Cola: a series of scattershot observations of young people in Paris in 1965. This is pre-political Godard, which means that it attacks on all cylinders without having any strong line of its own. But its parodies and satires are recklessly inventive, and its fundamental pessimism isn't as flip as it may at first seem.(From Time Out Film Guide)

25th Sept / Manufactured Landscapes

Manufactured Landscapes (Canada 2006)
A documentary by Jennifer Baichwal


Jennifer Baichwal's cameras followed canadian artist Edward Burtynsky on a tour of Asia as he took large-scale photographs of giant industrial landscapes.
While the film clearly serves as a commentary on the impact of large scale industrialization on our natural world, Burtynsky and the film makers were careful neither to criticize, nor praise these developments.

5th June / Sympathy for the Devil*

*on 5th June,
movienights & the pulling a dead horse evening
will be part of the program of the cross-disciplinary workshop:
Moving in Free Zones (Mfz)
31th May - 10th June 2007
organized by iStrike foundation in collaboration with Spacelab/Urban Body TU-Delft
venue: c/o foundation B.a.d, Talingstraat 5, Charlois, Rotterdam.
info: www.istrike.net
www.foundationbad.nl

5th June / Sympathy for the devil (1968)

a film by Jean-Luc Godard



Godard's documentation of late 1960's western counter-culture, examining the Black Panthers, referring to works by LeRoi Jones and Eldridge Cleaver. Other notable subjects are the role of the media, the mediated image, A growing technocratic society, Womens Liberation, the May revolt in France and the power of language. Cutting between 3 major scenes, including the Rolling Stones in the studio, the film is visually intercut with Eve Democracy (Wiazemsky) using graffiti which amalgamates organisations, corporations and ideologies. Godard also examines the role of the revolutionary within western culture. Although he believes western culture needs to be destroyed, it can only be done so by the rejection of intellectualisation. "There is only one way to be an intellectual revolutionary, and that is to give up being an intellectual"
Written by {gary.elshaw@vuw.ac.nz}

PLAYTIME (1967, France)

Playtime is French director Jacques Tati's fourth major film.

In Playtime, Tati's character, Monsieur Hulot, and a group of American tourists lose themselves in a futuristic glass and steel Paris, where only human nature and a few hints of old Paris briefly breathe life into the city. New technologies, billed as conveniences, are represented as merely complicating life and an interference to natural human interaction.

The film is famous for its enormous, specially constructed set and background stage, known as 'Tativille', which cost enormous sums to build and maintain. The set required 100 construction workers to build it, and its very own power plant to function. Storms, budget crises, and other disasters stretched the shooting schedule to three years. Budget overruns forced Tati to take out large loans and personal overdrafts to cover ever-increasing production costs.