2008 DUNEDIN FILM SOCIETY PROGRAMME
Casual admission is possible to those screenings marked with an asterix only. We hold more limited non-commercial screening rights for the rest of the programme, which means that entry must be restricted to Film Society members or pass holders.

Thursday, March 6th at 7:30 p.m.
THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT
Les demoiselles de Rochefort
Dir: Jacques Demy, France, 1967, 124 min. (35mm.)
French sophistication, glamour and delicacy meets Hollywood style vivacity and panache in a musical that stars both the exquisite Catherine Deneuve (along with her real sister, François Dorléac) and the iconic American actor,dancer and choreographer, Gene Kelly. The citizens of the sleepy town of Rochefort are energized by the arrival of a travelling fair, which a pair of beautiful twins (played by Deneuve and Dorléac) long to join.

Thursday, March 13th at 7:30 p.m.
BAY OF ANGELS
La baie des anges
Dir: Jacques Demy, France, 1962, 85 min. (35mm-B+W)
The most worldly darling of the French New Wave, Jeanne Moreau, plays a compulsive gambler whose erotic gaze draws a hapless bank clerk into her moneymaking schemes. Assisted by Jean Rabier's truly ravishing black and white cinematography, Demy captures all of the drama, tawdriness and allure of the beaches and casinos of Nice and Monte Carlo.

Thursday, March 20th at 7:30 p.m.
LOLA
Dir: Jacques Demy, France, 1961, 91 min. (35mm.-B+W)
In Demy's utterly charming first feature, Anouk Amée plays a jaunty singer who still dreams that the father of her young son will return. As she waits for him in the bustling coastal city of Nantes, Lola is wooed by several other suitors, including a white suited American sailor who appears to have just stepped off of a Hollywood sound stage.

Thursday, March 27th at 7:30 p.m.
JACQUOT DE NANTES
Dir: Agnés Varda, France, 1991, 118 min. (Digital-B+W/colour)
Agnès Varda creates an illuminating portrait of the artist as a young boy by exploring her late husband's highly poetic cinematic works within the everyday context of his Nantes upbringing. Since much of this documentary tribute to Jacques Demy was filmed in the places that were associated his youth, it skillfully evokes French life during the 1940s.

Thursday, April 3rd at 7:30 p.m.
SEDUCING DOCTOR LEWIS
La Grande seduction
Dir: Jean-François Pouilot, Canada, 2003, 108 min. (Digital)
In Pouilot's genial comedy, the isolated inhabitants of a picturesque Québec fishing village try to trick a visiting doctor from Montréal into signing on as their resident medic. In order to anticipate his every whim, they tap his phone. Then, with hilarious ineptitude, they attempt to satisfy his inexplicable cravings for international cuisine, fusion jazz and cricket.

Thursday, April 10th at 7:30 p.m.*
POOL OF PRINCESSES
Dir: Bettoma Blumner, Germany, 2007, 90 min. (35mm.)
This intimate portrait of three friends growing up in contemporary Berlin also offers a rich snapshot of one of the city's most culturally diverse neighbourhoods (Kreuzberg). While these fifteen year old girls may brag about the superiority of the immigrant men that they have dated, even in this district many of the problems that they encounter are universal.
*Casual admission is possible in exchange for a small donation.

Thursday, April 17th at 7:30 p.m.*
LONGING
Sehnsucht
Dir: Valeska Grisebach, Germany, 2005, 88 min. (35mm.)
Griseback's subtle but beautifully direct stylistic naturalism imbues this simple, but very affecting story with a sense of complete authenticity. It is the tragic tale of an ordinary man who falls deeply in love with two women, his wife and the waitress that he meets during the voluteer firemen's training week that he spends in another town.
*Casual admission is possible in exchange for a small donation.

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WORLD CINEMA SHOWCASE: April 24th-May 5th
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Thursday, May 8th at 7:30 p.m.
ZABRISKIE POINT
Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni, U.S.A., 1970, 112 min. (35mm.)
Antonioni's outsider's view of the United States locates any potential hope of redemption not in the student revolts of the 1960s but in the wide open spaces of the desert landscape. Yet even these remote sites are now being threatened by rampant American capitalism, which can only be averted by blowing up the headquarters of a powerful developer.

Thursday, May 15th at 7:30 p.m.*
REQUIEM
Dir: Hans-Christian Schmid, Germany, 2006, 93 min. (35mm.)
Sandra Hüller won a Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival for her performance as Michaela, a profoundly troubled young woman who comes to believe that her epilectic fits are a sign of demonic possession. Schmid's film was modeled on the Klingenberg case, in which a German university student died at the end of an exhausting series of exorcisms.
*Casual admission is possible in exchange for a small donation.

Thursday, May 22nd at 7:30 p.m.
EVERYTHING FOR SALE
Wszystko Na Sprzedaz
Dir: Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1968, 105 min. (16mm.)-Cert.-GA
Wadja's complex transformation of his personal recollections into public art represents one of Poland's most important modern films. Inspired by the death of Zbigniew Cybulski in a terrible train accident, Everything for Sale is at once a testament to the dead actor and a meditation on the increasing convergence of illusion and reality in both life and art.

Thursday, May 29th at 7:30 p.m.
CONTROL ROOM
Dir: Jehane Joujaim, U.S.A./Egypt, 2003, 86 min. (Digital)
The Qatar-based news network Al Jezeera has become the most important source of information in the Arab world. Its frankness has infuriated not only Islamic nations but also the administration of George Bush. In this film, Joujaim reveals the most glaring omissions in the American coverage of 'fall of Baghdad' by following some of Al Jezeera's reporters.

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UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO'S INTER-SEMESTER BREAK
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Thursday, July 10th at 7:30 p.m.
KILLER OF SHEEP
Dir: Charles Burnett, U.S.A, 1977, 80 min. (35mm.-B+W)
Made while Burnett was a graduate student at UCLA, Killer of Sheep exposes the moral and spiritual paralysis that continued to grip South Central Los Angeles more than ten years after the failure of the Watts insurrection. It follows an abbatoir worker through an episodic series of scenes, which are in turn sweet, sardonic, deeply sad, and very funny.

Thursday, July 17th at 7:30 p.m.
THE GLASS SHIELD
Dir: Charles Burnett, U.S.A, 1995, 108 min. (35mm.)
This scathing indictment of the Los Angeles police force's pervasive racism and corruption highlights the institutional pressures that almost destroy the integrity of a rookie cop. In the end, the first black officer to serve in an all white precinct discovers that he cannot stand idly by as his colleagues attempt to frame an innocent African-American man with murder.

Thursday, July 24th at 7:30 p.m.
MY BROTHER'S WEDDING
Dir: Charles Burnett, U.S.A., 1983/2007, 85 min. (Digital)
Long unavailable (and completed only recently), Burnett's second film is a tragicomic chronicle of the aimless existence of a young man from the ghetto. Its protagonist divides his time between his family's dry cleaning business, the pending nuptials of his upwardly mobile brother, and the more dangerous haunts of a recently paroled criminal friend.
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CHARLES BURNETT SHORT FILM PROGRAMME (Digital)
Several Friends (U.S.A., 1969, 21 min.)-This early short work offers a rare glimpse into working class life in South Central Los Angeles.
The Horse (U.S.A., 1973, 13 min.)-A festival prize winner that observes the exchanges that take place between a boy and several men waiting to put down a horse.
When it Rains (U.S.A., 1995, 13 min.)-Set in Watts during the 1960s,the main character attempts to prevent a mother and her children from being evicted.

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INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: July 25th-August 10th
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Thurday, August 14th at 7:30 p.m.
KIWI JOKERS: CLASSIC NEW ZEALAND SHORT FILMS (35mm.)
The Lounge Bar (Don Mcglashan & Harry Sinclair, 1988, 12 min.)-Classic Front Lawn piece in which a man and a woman meet in a seedy waterfront bar, or do they?
Lemming Aid (Grant Lahood, 1994, 12 min.)-A Cannes prize winner, in which a party of NZ ecologists try to stop suicidal lemmings from throwing themselves off a cliff.
Playing Possum (Peter Salmon, 1998, 7 min.)-The tale of Redman and Bluewoman-two bush critters who engage in a road-kill race around New Zealand.
Valley of the Stereos (George Port, 1992, 15 min.)-A hippie who would kill for peace and quiet versus a heavy metaller who won't turn turn down the volume.
Signing Off (Robert Sarkies, 1996, 15 min.)-Dunedin's own Robert Sarkies' quirky short about a radio host and the things that he is prepared to do for his only fan
Permanent Wave (Jonathan Brough, 1996, 12 min.)-Satirical look at a group of expatriate Kiwis hanging out at a party in London in 1983.
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A SENSE OF HISTORY
Dir: Mike Leigh, U.K., 1992, 28 min. (35mm.)
A slyly parodic mockumentary that was written by its star, Jim Broadbent, who plays the fictitious 23rd Earl of an ancient English family conducting a tour of his country estate.

Thursday, August 21st at 7:30 p.m.
FOOTSTEP MAN
Dir: Leon Narbey, New Zealand, 1992, 89 min. (35mm.)
In Narbey's visually sumptuous second feature, a sound effects technician begins to project himself into the low budget production that he is working on. Since the plot of this film within a film revolves around the relationship between Toulous-Lautrec and a prostitute who loves him, the director recreates some of the artist's most famous paintings.

Thursday, August 28th at 7:30 p.m.
WAY DOWN EAST
Dir: D.W. Griffith, U.S.A, 1920, 123 min. (16 mm.-B+W/silent)
Lillian Gish plays a vulnerable rural girl who moves to the city where she is seduced by a dissolute cad. The result is an illegitimate child, which she tries to disguise by returning to the country and posing as a widow. Her lie is discovered, and the poor woman's flight from shame is staged as a spectacular race across real ice floes swirling in a frigid river.

Thursday, September 4th at 7:30 p.m.
CHARLEEN/BACK YARD
Dir: Ross McElwee, U.S.A, 1978 & 1984,59 & 40 min. (16mm.)
McElwee's idiosyncratic first person documentaries often revolve around his own thoughts and experiences, or those of his immediate friends and family. Charleen is a fascinating study of a former high school teacher who is a born raconteur. Back Yard depicts southern white society in microcosm by showing us how the director's own father (a respected surgeon) and brother (an aspiring medical student) treat their African-American help.

Thursday, September 11th at 7:30 p.m.
SHERMAN'S MARCH
Dir: Ross McElwee, U.S.A., 1986, 155 min. (16mm.)
Starting out as a record of a journey in which the director retraces the path taken by General Sherman and his Union soldiers in their devastating sweep across the secessionist South, McElwee's wry film becomes a highly amusing account of a very badly conducted search for Ms. Right. Its cast of real life eccentrics includes the indominable Charleen.

Thursday, September 18th at 7:30 p.m.
TIME INDEFINITE
Dir: Ross McElwee, U.S.A, 1993, 114 min. (35mm.)
The death of a father and grandmother, marriage and the birth of a son, "Everything begins and ends with family." In this film, as in the life of a family, seemingly inconsquential moments turn out to be the most important ones. Filled with humour, pathos, and many other fleeting emotions, Time Indefinite is a magisterial chronicle of place and character.

Thursday, September 25th at 7:30 p.m.*
OTAGO CINE CLUB ANIMATED FILM PROGRAMME (Digital)
Dir: Fred O'Neill, Arthur Richardson, N.Z., 1960s, Approx. 90 min.
Some of the most marvellous experimental works ever made in New Zealand were created by self-taught film artists such as Fred O'Neill and Arthur Richardson. Both were members of the Otago Cine Club during the 1960s, and both produced charming animated narratives that won prizes for amateur filmmaking at the Cannes Festival. In honour of the Dunedin Film Society's 60th anniversary, we will be screening a selection of their best shorts.
*Casual admission is possible in exchange for a small donation.

Thursday, October 2nd at 7:30 p.m.*
A LONG FAREWELL
Dolgie Provody
Dir: Kira Muratova, U.S.S.R, 1987, 95 min. (35mm.)-B+W-Cert. GA
A Long Farewell was the second film that Muratova directed on her own, and the second to be banned by Soviet censors, presumably because it illustrated the difficulties faced by working women in the U.S.S.R. Yevgenia struggles to hold down a job (as an interpreter) and to hold on to her restless son, who idealises a father living far away in Siberia.
*Casual admission is possible in exchange for a small donation.

Thursday, October 9th at 7:30 p.m.
THE KING AND THE CLOWN
Wangui namja
Dir: Lee Jun-ik, South Korea, 2005, 119 min. (35mm.)
A bawdy and boisterous smash hit in Korea, The King and the Clown is a historical fable that focuses on the gay love triangle that develops between a sixteenth century monarch and his court jesters, two former travelling minstrels that were arrested for crtiticising their king. It combines a smart and witty script with first-rate design and terrific performances.

Thursday, October 16th at 7:30 p.m.
DRIVING WITH MY WIFE'S LOVER
Aneeui aeineul mannada
Dir: Kim Tai-sik, South Korea, 2007, 92 min. (35mm.)
Initially driven by a straightforward revenge plot in which a cuckholded husband leaves a small seaside town to track down his wife's lover, this finely nuanced film becomes a voyage into self-discovery. Without revealing his identity, Tae-han hires his Seoul based taxi driver rival to take him home. On the road an unlikely bond develops between them.

Thursday, October 23rd at 7:30 p.m.
FORBIDDEN QUEST
Eumranseosaeng
Dir: Kim Dai-woo, South Korea, 2006, 140 min. (35mm.)
Forbidden Quest is a lush evocation of the political and sexual intrigues that took place during Korea's 18th century Chosun Dynasty. A high ranking court official stumbles across an erotic novel that first shocks and later obsesses him. He decides to write his own pornographic stories, based upon a torrid affair with the King's favourite concubine.

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FILM ARCHIVE AND THE NEW ZEALAND FILM COMMISSION FOR SUPPORTING THIS YEAR'S PROGRAMME.