This week at SFC: Local Noir + Bresson's The Devil, Probably

Building 7
Fernandes Industrial Centre
Eastern Main Road
Laventille
Port of Spain

Thursday November 26th

Free for all!

first film 8:15pm, doors open 7:30pm

Robert Bresson's penultimate feature The Devil,Probably preceded by a new short film by the Trinidadian
director Ryan C. Khan; the noir fantasy Minutes to MidNite

"For myself, there is something which makes suicide possible-not even possible but absolutely necessary: it is the vision of the void, the feeling of void which is impossible to bear."
Robert Bresson

SFC have previously screened the following Bresson films: L'Argent,A Man Escapes,Pickpocket,Au Hasard Balthazur


Minutes to MidNite (Ryan C. Khan/Trinidad/2009/21')

actors: Wendell Manwarren, Keron Miguel Yan, Tenielle Newallo
A noir, fantasy crime drama unfolds when ruthless Trinidadian gang member, Snake, kills his leader, Mr. Tiger. Shortly afterwards, Snake receives a message that someone named Anansi Spider is going to "take care of him." Following a near-death experience at the hands of a wicked woman, Snake receives a call from Anansi Spider, warning him that his life is in danger. Snake grapples with whether or not to trust this mysterious man, and, ultimately, makes a deadly decision.

The Devil,Probably (Robert Bresson/France/1977/93')

Charles (Antoine Monnier) tells us straight off that he means to kill himself because the world is too foul a place. He can't change it, and can't find happiness in it, so, why be a part of the cesspool most people call iving? Beautiful, grim-faced, thin, Charles is a contemporary-looking guy, but he has the soul of a deep reader of Robert Burton's seventeenth century classic, "The Anatomy of Melancholy." In his 12th feature film, the then seventy year old director, Robert Bresson, tells a tale of the ennui and horror that faced Europe's post-'68 youth, many of whom felt they had nothing to fight for without the drama of the barricades. In charting Charles' interest in death through his past and by using a brilliant cinematographic palette to do so- check out Bresson's book, the fascinating "Notes on Cinemtography"; in it, he refers to the camera as his pen, and making movies as a way of writing--the director not only sketches a portrait of the bourgeois world that created Charles, but the children of apathetic rebellion. "The Devil, Probably," is a movie about the
rock n' roll spirit that can't find a stage. Using non-actors as "models," Bresson, the master of mise en scene, shows us the truth in every day behaviour, dashed dreams, and children who leave home in search of something like parenting, if not hope. Hilton Als,2009

This week at SFC: Ai No Corrida

studiofilmclub
Building 7
Fernandes Industrial Centre
Eastern Main Road
Laventille
Port of Spain

Thursday November 19th

doors open 7:30
First film starts at 8:00pm

Free! for all

Oshima's AI NO CORRIDA (In the Realm of the Senses)in a staggering new blu ray edition...
+ Jorgen Leth on Haiti's great painters


Dreamers (Jorgen Leth/Haiti/2002/58')

A celebration of Haitian painters reflecting inexhaustible creativity and optimism. Dreamers, mystics, and storytellers where spiritual forces play an active role in every day life.
The film features the artists of Haiti, exploring their talent, creativity, motivation, imagination and optimism. Andre Pierre, Rigaud Benoit, Wilson Bigaud, Felipe August Salnave, Preffet Duffault, Fortune Gerard, Prosper, Antilhomme, Philome Obin, Jasmin Joseph, and Louise St. Fleurant are interviewed. These artists speak of that which motivates them. Leth presents them as dreamers, mystics and storytellers who live in a country where spiritual forces play an active role in their everyday lives.
Andre Pierre is moved by his strong belief in Voodoo. He relates everything to the Voodo loas which inspire him and which rule his world. For Jasmin Joseph it is his imagination and the "friends" in his mind. Gerard speaks of nights when he cannot sleep and then Jesus speaks to him and encourages him to paint. Leth captures the essence of these famous artists as they relate their personal stories in their own surroundings.

Ai No Corrida (Nagisa Oshima/Japan/1976/108')

Fleshy, voluptuous horror and intrigue are just two of the sensations
that go into making the carnal-themed "Ai No Corrida" (released in the
US as "In the Realm of the Senses") a great and seminal post-war
Japanese film. First screened in 1976, the masterful director, Nagisa
Oshima, avoided having his masterwork completely banned in his native
country by partially bankrolling it through a French production
company. So doing, the Kyoto-born artist gave himself the freedom to
explore the self-reflexive nature of all desire, and the deep rivers
of narcissism that flood us when we let sexuality and power define us,
utterly. Based on the real-life story of Sade Abe (brilliantly
portrayed by Eiko Matsuda), a former prostitute who falls in love with
with Kichizo Ishida (the strong Tatsuya Fuji), the owner of a hotel
were Abe works as a cleaner, the actors go further than most other
performers---including Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider in Bernardo
Bertolluci's 1973 classic, "Last Tango in Paris"--in telling us
something about the nature of being observed while revealing and not
revealing the self through largely improvised sexual acts. Combining
art and pornography, Oshima also provides us with a bird's eye view
into the beauty and hypocrisy of pre-World War II Japan, where Fascism
was slowly becoming ingrained into a very regimented way of life.
Hilton Als 2009