15th of July: "Spirited away" (2001, Japan)

Spirited Away (Sento Chihirono Kamikakushi) Japanese film in 2001. This film was made by the Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki in 2001 and won in 2002 the Academy Award for the Best Animated Feature and one of the two Golden Bear awards in the Berlin International Film Festival.

The film is about a ten years old girl’s experience in a wonderland. It depicts relationships between human beings and nature, cultural decay in excessive economy and to be grown up. This has been the best sold film in Japan so far.
This session is jointly hosted by the Welcoming International Cinema Club and the Film Group which Atsuko Betchaku has organised (see ‘Film Group’ in http://japaneseinstitute.jimdo.com/)

8th of July: "Amores Perros" [Love’s a bithch] (2000, Mexico)

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Three interconnected stories about the different strata of life in Mexico City all resolve with a fatal car accident. Octavio is trying to raise enough money to run away with his sister-in-law, and decides to enter his dog Cofi into the world of dogfighting. After a dogfight goes bad, Octavio flees in his car, running a red light and causing the accident. Daniel and Valeria's new-found bliss is prematurely ended when she loses her leg in the accident. El Chivo is a homeless man who cares for stray dogs and is there to witness the collision.

Will be Hosted by Kathleen

1st of July "Blame it on Fidel" (original French title: La Faute à Fidel) 2006, France &Italy

Blame it on Fidel (original French title: La Faute à Fidel) is a 2006 French drama film directed by Julie Gavras
This movie will be introduced and hosted by Regis on 1st of July in the Welcoming Cinema Club.

Hello, my name is Anna and I am nine years old. I wish you had known me before - I mean before my aunt Marga and my cousin Pilar came to my parents'house -, I was such a happy little girl. Before their coming life was a bed of roses. Of course my little brother could be a pain in the neck - little brothers always are, aren't they? - but there was that wonderful big house, there was my Cuban-born nanny who cooked so well, there was the bath before dinner, not to mention this wonderful catechism class at the catholic school. But they did come, those Spanish intruders. And now never heard before names like "Franco", "Allende", "Women's Lib", "abortion", the lot, have got into my life. Daddy and Mummy have suddenly become "communists", although this a term that Bon Papa and Bonne Maman (my grandparents from Bordeaux, in fact) just hate. Because of the intruders not only did we move to a tiny apartment but the place is invaded day and night by "barbudos" (bearded men). No more bath before dinner and no more catechism class. How long will I be able to tolerate such a scandal? for more click here.

24th of June, international short movies

We had a short meeting on planning next season programme. we have watched some short movies from Spain, New Zealand, France, etc.
and shared food and drink followed by informal chats.

17th of June "In This World" (2003) UK

Jamal and Enayatullah are Afghan refugees in a camp in Peshawar, Pakistan. They travel to Quetta, and thence to Taftan on the Iranian border. They pay people smugglers to assist them over the border; on their first attempt they are stopped by Iranian police and returned to Pakistan, but their second attempt is successful. They travel to Tehran and then to Maku, in the Kurdish part of Iran, from where they cross a mountain range on foot to Turkey. In Istanbul they meet a group of other migrants, and they are taken to Italy inside a shipping container. The container is not ventilated, and most of the refugees, including Enayatullah, are suffocated to death. Jamal survives and lives in Italy for a time. He then steals a woman's purse and buys a rail ticket to Paris. From there, he goes to the Sangatte asylum seekers camp and with a new friend, Yusef, he crosses the channel by stowing away on a lorry. Finally, he arrives in London, where he calls his uncle to say he has arrived but that Enyatullah is "not in this world". The film ends with images of the Peshawar refugees.

For more information click here.

Thursday 10th of June: Brazil [UK, 1985]

Directed by Terry Gilliam. The film centers on Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), a young man trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living a life in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil's bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, except that it has a buffoonish, slap-stick quality and lacks a 'Big Brother' figure.

Thursday 3th of June:‘Beynelmilel’ in English“The International” [Turkey, 2006]

"The International" Directed by Muharrem Gulmez and Sirri Sureyya Onder, Written by Sirri Sureyaa Onder (Screenplay)

The movie is one of the example of a genre recently began to be seen more and more in Turkish cinema telling the traumatic events of 12 september 1980 military coup, in a tragi-comic way.
The story takes place in a small town in Turkey in 1982, under the influence of the oppressive regime of the coup, where the local military head made a local musical band, a gevende, to play for the arrival of their chief.
The band supposed to prepare a repertoire of military, nationalist marches for the performance at the event day which will give them the permission to open a pavilion (a low key pub-club thing). The events begin to unfold along this axis.

The genre that Beynelmilel fits into is, another BKM (a film production company) production, that isssues the coup d'etat that has not been shown, talked, represented till recently. The genre has been criticisized heavily by some, of being too reductionist and caricaturising the traumatic events of the time and appreciated by others as an attempt to make those times accessible to younger generations.
This session is hosted by Esra Oslay.

27th of May: "Dekalog" (1989)

This is a series of ten shorts created for Polish Television, with plots loosely based upon the Ten Commandments, directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Two of these, Dekalog 5 and 6, are shorter cuts from the feature-length films--Krotki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film About Killing) and Krotki film o milosci (A Short Film About Love), respectively. They deal with the emotional turmoil suffered by humanity, when instinctual acts and societal morality conflict. Written by Tad Dibbern
This week we are going to watch two episodes of these series.

20th of May: "Son of the Bride" (Spanish: El hijo de la novia) (2001)

The film tells of Rafael Belvedere (Ricardo Darín), a 42-year-old divorced restaurateur, with a young daughter named Vicki (Gimena Nóbile) he has joint custody of. Rafael lives a very hectic lifestyle.

His mother Norma (Norma Aleandro) suffers from Alzheimer's disease and he has not seen her in a year. Rafael sees his father Nino (Héctor Alterio) frequently but his friends rarely. He's fielding offers to sell the restaurant he runs in Buenos Aires, but changes his mind because it was started by his mother and father and has been in the family for years.
His childhood friend Juan Carlos (Eduardo Blanco), who he has not seen for twenty years, drops by the restaurant and renews their old friendship, demonstrating the fact that he has become an actor.
One day, Rafael suddenly suffers a heart attack and, as he recovers in the intensive care unit, he is forced to reevaluate his life and decide his priorities. He now wants to sell the restaurant and move to southern Mexico and raise horses. At the same time his father wants to remarry his wife because they were never married in the Catholic Church. Rafael is opposed to the renewal of vows because his ailing mother will not be much of a participant.
As part of his new life, he tells his much-younger girlfriend Nati that he wants some space and some freedom. At first she is hurt and tells him that he is no Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, or even Dick Watson. (Rafael is puzzled about the identity of Dick Watson and we find out at the middle of the end credits that it refers to a character in a porno film.) Although Rafael tries to get her to understand his perspective, she ultimately breaks off their relationship. Rafael tries to deal with his struggles with this relationships and the fact that the Church is unsupportive, and ends up selling the restaurant and having Juan Carlos act the role of a priest at his parents' second wedding.

The film ends after the wedding, with Rafael opening a new restaurant and apologizing to Nati; she joyously forgives him and there are strong hints that their relationship will revive.

13th of May: Delta [Hungary, 2008]

A quiet young man returns to the wild, isolated landscape of the Delta. It is a labyrinth of waterways, small islands and over-grown vegetation, where the villagers are cut off from the outside world. The young man, who has been away since early childhood, is introduced to a sister he never knew he had. She is frail and timid, but resolute when she decides to join him in his run-down hut on the shore. They eventually become lovers, with rejection by the family and ridicule from the coarse villagers leading to tragedy.

Together they build a house on stilts in the middle of the river, far away from everyone else. One day, they invite the villagers over to share a meal together, but it becomes apparent that the coarse locals do not accept their “unnatural” relationship.