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A pop-psychedelic Spanish musical, a film critic's how-to guide, job listings and much more...
Hello and welcome to Rep Cinema International. This news report focuses on significant events, job opportunities and other assorted links & ephemera related to repertory cinema around the world. I’m feeling very energized by the response to last week’s launch of this newsletter! Thanks for subscribing and please share with those who you think this might interest.
Just a note: I’ll be at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this week (Wednesday 22–Monday 27) and would be happy to chat repertory cinemas in person. Get in touch on Twitter or through email at repcinemainternational@gmail.com.
This week’s repertory cinema highlights
Un, dos, tres... al escondite inglés at Filmoteca Valencia and Cine Doré (Madrid)
I’ve long wished to see Un, dos, tres... al escondite inglés (One, Two, Three… English Hide-and-Seek, 1969, Spain), the early pop psychedelic feature of Iván Zulueta, titan of eccentric Spanish cinema. Zulueta is known to some for his short avant-garde films—for example Frank Stein (1972)—as an early influence on Pedro Almodovar or for his ravishing 1979 feature Arrebato, a meeting point between a narrative feature and an avant-garde fever dream.
Un, dos, tres… is centered on a group of hipsters who run a record shop. They’re offended by the state of popular music in Spain, in particular the song “Lie, Lie” which has been selected for the Festival de Mundocanal (a parody of Eurovision), and attack the musicians responsible to stop them from performing it. The film cribs notes from Richard Lester—the candy colored images of Help! (1965, UK) and the pop clip/narrative hybrid of It’s Trad, Dad! (1962, UK)—and includes performances by a number of Spanish beat groups like Formula V. Though it screens regularly in Spanish cinemas and on television, Un, dos, tres… has long been an obscurity internationally. The blu-ray released in 2015 has no English subtitles and I can’t find many signs of non-Spanish screenings.
The Filmoteca Valencia screening (35mm) is part of the series Melodías Excéntricas. El insólito cine musical Europeo (Eccentric Melodies: The Unusual European Musical Film), a beautifully programmed series which debuted last fall at the Festival de Cine de Sevilla. Javier H. Estrada writes, “Far from aspiring to establish a conclusive canon, this retrospective aims to point out some milestones of that European musical cinema made in the last 50 years that moved away from orthodoxy to open non-transitable paths.” At Cine Doré, a 35mm print screens as part of Musical español: caballo de Troya (The Spanish musical: Trojan Horse).Vampire Power at BFI Southbank (London)
As part of the always-evocative Experimenta series programmed monthly by William Fowler, Vampire Power is a double-bill of Pere Portabella’s Vampir-Cuadecuc (1972, Spain) and Mark of Lilith (Polly Gladwin, Isiling Mack-Nataf & Bruna Fionda, 1986, UK). An accompanying discussion between Roger Luckhurst, author of The Cambridge Companion to Dracula and artist Tanoa Sasraku-Ansah—will presumably unpick the films and their deconstruction of tropes inherent to vampire films, as well as audiences’ assumptions and expectations of them.
It’s worth noting that this series is one of many in the massive retrospective of Pere Portabella which has been unfurling in the UK since November. Curated by the seemingly indefatigable Stanley Schtinter, the project A Worm’s Tail View Is Often The True One: Films By Pere Portabella includes a vinyl pressing of Carles Santos’ score for Vampir-Cuadecuc and a symposium at the University of Cambridge.David Gulpilil season at NFSA (Canberra, Australia)
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia celebrates actor and Yolngu Elder David Gulpilil with a series of films he made with director Rolf de Heer: The Tracker (2002), Ten Canoes (2006) and Charlie’s Country (2013). A skilled hunter, tracker and tribal dancer from childhood, Gulpilil’s performance in Walkabout (Nicholas Roeg, 1971, UK/Australia) presaged a career as a memorable screen presence in films by Peter Weir, Wim Wenders, Baz Luhrmann and two Crocodile Dundee films. The series comes as it’s reported that the actor’s health is deteriorating, following his retirement last year and an ongoing battle with lung cancer.Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers at Bophana (Phnom Penh, Cambodia)
Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh has been celebrated for documentaries like The Missing Picture (2013) and S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003) which explore trauma, genocide and the country’s still-fresh history of the Khmer Rouge. Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers (2006) instead turns to contemporary Cambodia, documenting “the ruined life—and spiritual death—of young prostitutes in Phnom Penh whose futures were annihilated when their bodies were turned into items of sexual commerce.” Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center is the organization founded by Panh which “collects every archive image and sound on Cambodia,” trains young people in film production and invites the public at large to participate in their cultural heritage through media.
Catherine Breillat/Marco Ferreri at the Austrian Filmmuseum (Vienna)
What’s better than a retrospective of one controversial auteur? Two controversial auteurs, stuck together in some kind of unholy coupling. This hefty, 37-film double retrospective sees the Austrian Filmmuseum propose that “[Catherine] Breillat has a kind of antipodean nonconformist soulmate in the Milanese Marco Ferreri,” a juxtaposition that brings aspects of both filmmakers’ work into sharper relief. Since Breillat’s 1976 debut A Real Young Girl, she has continually produced profound explorations of feminine perspective, female interiority and female eroticism. Though Ferreri’s ultimate targets were capitalism and religion, his outlook and perspective was undeniably male, even if he was tempted to deflate his protagonists’ machismo considerably—as in Una storia moderna: L'ape regina (1963) in which “queen bee” Marina Vlady has sex with her husband (Ugo Tognazzi) so much that his health wastes away. All that said, both filmmakers shine when two characters come together in crazy, crazy love. Whether that means a fire of passion that burns hard but can’t sustain (as in Breillat’s Brief Crossing, 2001) or a crazed entrepreneur marrying an ape woman (The Ape Woman, 1964), this retrospective underlines the fact that both filmmakers have never been bound by decorum, convention or good taste.Mysterious Albania at Filmarchiv Austria (Vienna)
Staying in Vienna, just a few minutes away from the Filmmuseum is Filmarchiv Austria, which is hosting the retrospective Geheimnisvolles Albanien: Einblicke in Eine Unbekannte Filmgeschichte (Mysterious Albania: Insights into an Unknown Film History). And it is truly unknown. The 11-program series will screen short and feature films made between 1914–2009 and held in the collection of AQSHF, Albania’s Central State Film Archive. Perhaps most widely screened today are the two features of Xanfise Keko, Tomka and His Friends (1977) and Beni Walks on His Own (1975).Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles at Cine Lumiere (London)
The Institut Français UK screening of Jeanne Dielman… (Chantal Akerman, 1975, Belgium/France) is noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly, it will be introduced by Laura Mulvey—legendary feminist film theorist and filmmaker (with the recently-passed Peter Wollen) of Riddles of the Spinx (1977), Crystal Gazing (1982) and many more—who will certainly have some well-developed insights into the film. Secondly, it comes toward the end of a series devoted to Delphine Seyrig which has been illuminating. Initiated by the excellent 2019 documentary Delphine and Carole (Callisto McNulty), the series takes on Seyrig as actress, director and activist. Though many classics were screened, a special weekend of programs highlighted Seyrig’s work as a videomaker in collaboration with Carole Roussopoulos and Iona Wieder as Les Insomouses, and later as co-founders of the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir. The series concludes with a visit from Ulrike Ottinger, who will be in conversation following a screening of Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia (1989), Seyrig’s final role.
Short cuts
Speaking of Ulrike Ottinger, she’ll also be at Goethe-Institut London for a screening of The Image of Dorian Gray in the Yellow Press (1984, Germany) and her 1978 film Madame X: An Absolute Ruler will screen as part of the always-surprising series Underscan: Cult & Genre Reframed at the NW Film Center in Portland.
I’d never heard of The Taste of Tea (Katsuhito Ishii, 2004, Japan) but it looks insane. It screens at The Royal (Toronto) and I’ve added it to my watchlist.
Over the last months since reopening the museum in October, MoMA (New York) has been putting together some fantastic film programs. One which just ended, but I wanted to flag up, is Show Me Love: International Teen Cinema, bringing together films from their collection by Lino Brocka, Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, Claire Denis, Diane Kurys and more.
So You Want To Be A Film Writer…
Hannah Woodhead, Associate Editor of the UK magazine Little White Lies, posted an eight-page Google Doc on Saturday evening called “So You Want To Be A Film Writer…”, a guide “intended to help people just entering the industry with tips about starting out.” I’d hazard a guess that it would be useful—even to those not just starting out—to get lots of clear, practical, nuts and bolts advice from an accomplished and in-demand film journalist.
Over a couple times viewing the document, I noticed twenty-some Anonymous Lemurs, Dingos and Chameleons viewing it, so clearly it’s resonating. If it helps you make some £$€, perhaps toss some coin Hannah’s way.
The future looks grim…
Job listings
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Los Angeles): There are a number of positions for the upcoming Academy Museum.
Collections Curator, full time
Curator Exhibitions, full time
Curatorial Intern, part time
Research Assistant, full time
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive: Film Collection Supervisor, full time
BFI London Film Festival: Senior Film Programmer, full time
Eye Filmmuseum (Amsterdam): Coördinator Didactiek & Deskundigheidsbevordering filmeducatie
TIFF (Toronto): Film Circuit Intern, part time
Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, US): Director and Curator of Moving Image, full time
Endnotes
The featured image above this week’s listings is of Un, dos, tres... al escondite inglés (Iván Zulueta, 1969, Spain). The second image combines Brief Crossing (Catherine Breillat, 2001, France) and La donna scimmia (Marco Ferreri, 1964, Italy).
The Asian Film Archive in Singapore—and their ambitious, annual film and art exhibition/film series State of Motion 2020, on through February 2—is the subject of this week’s Rep Cinema International interview, published on Friday.
Next week’s interview (published Friday January 31) will be with Sahraa Karimi, Afghan filmmaker and director of the Afghan Film Organization, the country’s state-run film company and film archive.
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