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.

29th of April "Water" (2005 India)

"Water" is a very different movie from India, based on real and historical events by Deepa Mehta. It is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year at Oscar 2007 and won many other prizes.
Plot: The year is 1938, India is ruled by the British, and it is around this time that Mohandas K. Gandhi has arrived from Africa to begin his tryst with the British, as well as battle the traditions that bind the Hindus. Not yet in her teens, Chuyia is married to a much older and sickly male, who shortly after the marriage, passes away. Chuyia is returned unceremoniously to her parents' house, and from there she is taken to the holy city of Banaras and left in the care of a wide assortment of widows who live at "the widows' house," shunned by the rest of the community. Chuyia believes that her mother will come to take her home. Here she meets several elderly women, including the head of the house, Madhumati; a quiet, confident woman named Shakuntala; and a gorgeous young woman named Kalyani -- all widows. Chuyia does not know that according to Holy Hindu Scriptures she has been destined to live here for the rest of her life, for when a woman's husband dies', she has three options: One, to marry her husband's younger brother, if his family permits; two, to kill herself on his funeral pyre; three, to live a life of celibacy, discipline, and solitude amongst her own kind. A new law in India which permits a widow to re-marry is not popular, and it is these customs and openly welcoming the lower castes that will pit Gandhiji against his very own people, apart from struggling with the British to leave India. Kalyani meets and falls in love with young Narayan, a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, who wants to marry her, despite his mother's protests. For more click here.

22nd of April "Land and Freedom" (Britain, 1995)

The film's narrative unfolds in a long flashback. David Carr has died at an old age and his granddaughter discovers old letters, newspapers and other documents in his room: what we see in the film is what he had lived.

Plot: Spring 1936, a young unemployed communist, David, leaves his hometown Liverpool to join the fight against fascism in Spain. He joins an international group of Militia-men and women, the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista). After being wounded he goes to Barcelona, where he decides to join another group of fighters. They remain in Barcelona and end up fighting other anti-fascist groups. David is disappointed and decides to go back to his old band. For more click here.

The movie won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.

Thursday 15th of April: Tokyo Sonata [Japan, 2008]

This film was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa in 2008 and won un certain regard jury award in Cannes International Film Festival and also grand jury prize at Chicago International Film Festival. Mr Kurosawa seems to have become popular internationally by his 1997 film 'Cure', a psychological thriller and had been well known as a director in the horror genre.

In this film, however, he moved away from the horror genre and described an ordinally family trapped by difficulties. Yet, this film has been considered as the best film directed by him. The story starts with the father of a family losing a senior post of a prestigious firm. The film is in some way comical even though depicting dipressing situations the family went through. For more about the plot press here.

This night will be jointly hosted by the International
Cinema Club and the Film Group which was organised
by Atsuko Betchaku who is hoping to set up the
Japanese Institute of Scotland (see the website:
http://japaneseinstitute.jimdo.com/).

8th of April: "The Edukators" Germany 2004

Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei or The Edukators (2004)
Advertisement Berlin student Jule is hoplessly indebted due to an accident she caused, uninsuredly hitting a rich businessman's limousine. Evicted from her flat she moves in with her boyfriend Peter and soon learns that Peter and his flatmate, Jan, are breaking into luxurious mansions at night. Instead of stealing or vandalizing, though, they carefully and ornately rearrange furniture and valulables and leave obscure messages. Jule convinces Jan, who has a crush on her, to pay a visit to the villa of her creditor. Written by Armin Ortmann