Screenings at the Blue Sky Cafe at 7.30pm, food is served from 6.00pm.
As always this is a provisional list - We would welcome any film suggestions (positive or negative) to info@occasionalcinema.org.
Glimpse into passionate world of Romany musicians on tour
Director: Jasmine Dellal. USA 110mins. Cert PG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lIMu2QMLtQ
Showcasing the talents of five Romany bands from four countries on a tour across America in 2001. Exuberant live performances are interspersed with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews in the musician's home countries: India, Romania, Macedonia and Spain. The glorious Esma Redzepova sings mournfully with a black veil covering her face, as dreamlike and intense as the Spanish singer in Lynch's Mulholland Drive. Esma is the clear star here, famous in her native Macedonia, not least for campaigning against racism.
An exquisite, gently comic and elegiac animated homage to Jacques Tati
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6l3BdVwv9k&feature=search
Director:Chomet. 2010. France. Animation. Cert: PG
Based loosely on Jaques Tati’s life, L’Illusioniste tells the story of a dying breed of stage entertainer whose thunder is being stolen by emerging rock stars. Forced to accept increasingly obscure assignments in fringe theatres, garden parties and bars, he meets a young fan who changes his life forever.
Sharply written, darkly funny – a work of genuine originality
Director: Nick Whitfield. UK. 2010. 93mins Cert: tbc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDZr2zeQIOU
Intensely and pungently British, eccentric, strangely heartfelt, and dry as a bone humour. Newcomers Ed Gaughan and Andrew Buckley play two hassled functionaries in ill-fitting black suits. They are the representatives of a shadowy company that specialises in exhuming difficult and painful memories, inaccessible to every other kind of therapy, lancing existential boils and dragging out metaphorical skeletons, by pointing their strange bleeping equipment at bedroom closets - this being, predictably, the place where occult energies are at their strongest. Balancing oddity and fantasy with real emotions and pain is a difficult trick to pull off. Whitfield has managed it nicely.
Space is a cold and lonely place, pitiless and indifferent …
Director: Duncan Jones UK 2009. 97m. Cert:15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twuScTcDP_Q
David Bowie’s son directs his sci-fi debut feature: With only a few weeks left in his three year contract, Sam Bell is getting anxious to finally return to Earth. He is the only occupant of a Moon-based manufacturing facility along with his computer and assistant, Gerty. The long period of time alone has resulted in him talking to himself for the most part, or to his plants. When he has an accident however, he wakens to find that he is not alone. He also comes to realize that his world is not what he thought it was.
8 years ago, Alex's wife was murdered: today - she e-mailed him…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryMVzQsTmZY
Director: Guillaume Canet 2006 France Cert: 15 131m
Eight years after his wife was brutally murdered, Alexandre Beck receives an e-mail with images of a woman who, although older, is obviously his wife. At the time of her murder, Beck was with her but he too was severely beaten and remained unconscious for several days after the incident. He approaches his father-in-law, a retired senior police officer, for more details about his wife's murder but can get little additional information. It soon becomes apparent to him that he is being followed and when he is framed for murdering a friend, he goes on the run, now fighting to save his own life.
Set in the vast, featureless steppe of Kazakhstan, this is a quiet little gem
Director: Sergei Dvortsevoy. 2009. Kazakhstan Cert 12A 100mins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naT9O8X13Ko&feature=search
An idealistic young guy called Asa, who has just been demobbed from the navy, earnestly wishes to go into the family shepherding business. To do this, he needs to get married, and he has in mind a young woman called Tulpan, whom he has never seen. Despite lavish dowry offers from his family, Tulpan declines. The reason? Asa's ears are too big. It's a refusal that triggers an agony and a dilemma. Should Asa simply head for the city and try to make his fortune?
An offbeat charmer: a well-crafted tale with plenty of heart and a poignant social message
Director: Cesar Charlone & Enrique Fernandez. Uruguay. 2007. 90mins. Cert 15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgfHIVvHH0A&feature=search
A small-time smuggler in a poor Uruguay town plans to strike it rich by building a lavatory for the use of the thousands of Brazilians expected to cross the border when the Pope makes a brief visit in 1988. Everyone else in the town is going into debt to set up food stalls to exploit this expected bonanza and the hopes that unite them and the greed that divides them are well observed. The dreaming hero's wife and daughter, reluctantly co-operate with his scheme and we know from the start that no one will get richer and few will get wiser.
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Occasional Cinema is a film society run by volunteers. Films are shown at the Caban, Brynrefail on the second Wednesday of the month and at the Blue Sky Cafe, Bangor on the fourth Wednesday and unless stated otherwise start sometime after 7.30pm.
You must become a member to attend a screening. Membership is available on the door on film nights for a cost of £5 per lifetime: the first film is free, after this film entrance is £3.00. Member's guests may watch a film for £4.
Food is usually available from 6.00pm and a sophisticated
clientele enjoy the wholesome food, reasonable price (about £8.50 for two courses) and
excellent atmosphere. Reservations for a meal are recommended and often
essential (several recent films have been fully booked) - Caban 01286 685500,
Blue Sky 01248 355444. You can't book for the film only, which is on a first
come first served basis.
Details of films are available on the website
www.occasionalcinema.org and we send out regular electronic mailings -
please provide an up-to-date email address to
info@occasionacinema.org.
www.occasionalcinema.org Matrix10 web hosting.
