Introduction to European Cinema - Filmhouse Cinema Edinburgh

4 New releases
SURVIVING LIFE THIS OUR STILL LIFE
NEWRELEASE NEWRELEASE
Surviving Life
Prezít svuj zivot (teorie a praxe)
Fri 6 to Wed 11 Jan
Jan Svankmajer • Czech Republic/Slovakia/Japan 2010
1h49m • Digital projection • Czech with English subtitles
15 – Contains infrequent strong sex, nudity and suicide references
Cast: Václav Helsus, Klára Issová, Zuzana Krónerová, Daniela
Bakerova, Emília Doseková.
After a five-year break from filmmaking following the
death of his wife, Eva, surrealist Jan Svankmajer ventures
into pseudo-autobiographical territory with this so-called
‘psychoanalytical comedy’.
Eugene falls in love with a woman from his dreams,
whose name – starting with ‘E’ – eludes him upon waking.
He approaches a therapist for help and together their
investigations begin to unpick what it is that’s locked deep
in Eugene’s subconscious.
Combining live-action backdrops with photo cut-outs of
the actors, Surviving Life delves into a world where reality
is as obscure as the dreams it presents.
This Our Still Life
Wed 11 & Thu 12 Jan
Andrew Kötting • UK • 2011 • 59m • Digital projection
U – Contains no material likely to offend or harm
Cast: Eden Kötting, Leila McMillan.
A new film by Andrew Kötting is always cause for celebration,
and his deliciously eccentric latest is a lovely portrait of the
artist’s daughter as a young woman in their tumbledown
Pyrenean farmhouse. Last seen in Gallivant (1996, also
screening) as a plucky kid touring the coastline of Britain with
her Big Granny, Eden, now 23, is here shown painting still lifes
and singing along to the radio as the seasons ebb and flow
around her. Reminiscent of Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man,
this lo-fi marvel features music by Scanner’s Robin Rimbaud.
PLUS SHORT
Hoi-Polloi Andrew Kötting • UK • 1990 • 10m • Digital projection • U
ALSOSCREENING
Gallivant
Mon 9 & Tue 10 Jan
Andrew Kötting • UK 1997 • 1h44m • 35mm • 15
Cast: Andrew Kötting, Eden Kötting, Gladys Morris.
A delightfully offbeat road movie in which director Andrew
Kötting, his grandmother Gladys, and his daughter Eden, who
has learning difficulties and communicates by sign language,
travel around the coast. A warm, enlightening and often very
funny look at Britain and what it means to be British.
SHAME
NEWRELEASE
Shame
Showing from Fri 13 Jan
Steve McQueen • UK 2011 • 1h41m • Digital projection
18 – Contains strong sex and sex references
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badger Dale,
Amy Hargreaves, Nicole Beharie.
Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan star in Steve
McQueen’s frank study of a man’s sexual compulsion.
Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is in his thirties, living and
working in New York. He’s single, smart, and attractive,
has his own flat and a job in a glossy corporate office. He
also has a compulsive sexual need that sees him caught
up in a repetitive cycle of pick-ups, prostitutes and online
encounters. Whether he’s managing his sex life or it’s
managing him is open to question, but his world seems
self-contained and ordered, free of any messy emotional
ties. However, when his wayward younger sister Sissy
(Carey Mulligan) arrives at his apartment begging to stay,
Brandon’s control starts to slip...
In Shame, director Steve McQueen (Hunger) has made a
confident and complex second feature about the nature
of need and desire. Michael Fassbender, working with
McQueen for a second time, is perfect as a man whose
near-obsessive behaviour hints at some hidden past; and
Carey Mulligan is a well-chosen sparring partner, bringing
emotional depth to the flaky and clearly damaged Sissy.
– Sandra Hebron, LFF programme
AUDIODESCRIPTION/SUBTITLES
See page two for details.