Autumn 06

Begins on Tuesday 5th September!

Nine Award-winning Films and Short Films this Season

(forthcoming films listed below)

All Screenings Commence at 8pm Sharp
All Films preceded by an Irish Short Film or Animation

All Screenings followed by a drink and conversation in Caroline's Bar (Whistle Stop Bar)

General enquiries please call 049 4378300 / 8547074
For membership info please call 049 8548834

Familia Rodante

Familia Rodante 8pm Tuesday 05.09.06

Dir: Pablo Trapero Argentina / Spain / Germany / Brazil / UK 2004 103 mins CLUB

Starring: Liliana Capurro, Graciana Chironi, Ruth Dobel, Federico Esquerro, Claudio Bernardo Forteza

Familia Rodante (Rolling Family), a moving road-movie about family relationships, is the latest film by the brilliant new Argentinian director Pablo Trapero, described recently in Le Monde as 'One of the revelations of the new century'.

Familia Rodante begins on the day of the 84th birthday celebration of Grandma Emilia, when her disparate family gathers to pay homage to their matriarch. They are unaware of the bomb-shell she’s about to drop: she’s been invited to be the matron of honour at her niece’s wedding in the remote village where she was brought up, over a thousand kilometres away from Buenos Aires, and expects them all to go with her. Unable to defend themselves against the heavy dose of emotional blackmail she lays on them, thirteen members of four generations of the same family cram into the back of an old camper van and set off.

In this confined space, as the days pass and the van hobbles its way towards its destination, emotions start to ride high and old grudges and jealousies start bubbling to the surface, along with well kept secrets and sexual tensions, new and past. Excruciating and hilarious in equal measure in its raw depiction of family politics, director Pablo Trapero’s own grandmother, a non-professional actress, plays the family matriarch lending the film reality, charm and sympathy.

Pablo Trapero (born Buenos Aires, 1971.) His previous feature films were Mundo Grúa (1999), (shown at the Venice Film Festival and which won the Critics Award) and El Bonaerense (2002), (shown in the Certain Regard at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival). Trapero also directed Naikor, a short film premiered in 2001, and Sarasa, a documentary for television (2002).

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days 8pm Tuesday 12.09.06

Dir: Marc Ruthermund Germany / France 2005 120 mins CLUB

Starring: Julia Jentsch, Alxander Held, Fabian Hinrichs, Johanna Gastdorf, Andre Hennicke, Florian Stetter, Johannes Suhm, Maximilian Bruckner, Jorg Hube, Petra Kelling, Franz Staber

Sophie Scholl was the name invoked by Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, when she said how ashamed she felt as an old woman on realising that not everyone her age in Germany went along with the evil craziness of nazism. Scholl was the 21-year-old student in Munich who in 1943 was executed as a member of the White Rose resistance group, engaged in distributing anti-Hitler leaflets on the university campus. This film portrays Scholl's last days before her death by guillotine; Percy Adlon's Five Last Days (1982) and Michael Verhoeven's The White Rose (1983) also addressed this subject, but Marc Rothemund's new movie is the first to use recently discovered Gestapo interrogation transcripts.
This is a fiercely sombre movie, taken up mostly with Scholl's questioning - but powerfully acted, particularly by Julia Jentsch as Scholl, whose courage and humanity are never more obvious than when she is hauled up before the grotesque bullies and buffoons of Nazi Germany's judiciary. As portrayed by Jentsch, Scholl is extraordinarily self-possessed, even in her darkest hour, and this does seem to have been borne out by the historical facts, although there is a terrible poignancy in her tiny, secret hope that the law's delay - she is hoping for a 99-day period of grace before execution - will allow the Allies to arrive and save her. A grim, but serious and worthwhile film. - Peter Bradshaw © The Guardian

German director Marc Rothemund was born in 1968. In 1990 he began working on commercials and TV productions as an assistant director. He was the assistant director for Gérard Corbiau's Oscar-nominated Farinelli and followed that with Helmut Dietl's Rossini.

Crossing The Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul

Crossing The Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul 8pm Tuesday 19.09.06

Dir: Fatih Akin Germany 2005 92 minutes CLUB

Alexander Hacke (of the German avant-garde band Einstürzende Neubauten) first came into contact with the city and its music while producing the score for the movie Head-On. A collector of musical styles and an experimenter with sound, Hacke roams the streets of Istanbul with his mobile recording studio and 'magic mike' to assemble an inspired portrait of Turkish music.

His aim is to expose western ears to the broadest possible spectrum of Turkish music, ranging from modern electronic sounds, rock and hip-hop, right down to classical 'Arabesque' music. Hacke wanders through an alien, contradictory, lively, and seductive world, collecting impressions and tracks, drifting along in the unstoppable stream of this mega city of myriad facets. But no hard drive or film can do justice to the diversity and overwhelming force of musical and visual impressions this city generates. With this experience he finally returns home, a musical treasure in his baggage, which now needs to be sifted and presented to the world. The city's Europe-meets-Asia cross-cultural polyphony is evidenced by its dynamic hip-hop, psych-rock and classical Turkish music scenes. The archive footage is great, clichés are destroyed, and Kurdish sounds - forbidden during the 1980s - are joyously saluted. © The Daily Telegraph

Fatih Akin was born in 1973 in Hamburg of Turkish parentage and began studying Visual Communications at Hamburg's College of Fine Arts in 1994. In 1995, he wrote and directed his first short feature, Sensin - You're The One! (Sensin - Du bist es!), followed by Weed (Getuerkt, 1996). His first full-length feature film, Short Sharp Shock (Kurz und schmerzlos, 1998), won the Bronze Leopard at Locarno and the Bavarian Film Award (Best Young Director) in 1998. His other films include: In July (Im Juli, 2000), Wir haben vergessen zurueckzukehren (2001), Solino (2002), and Head-On (Gegen die Wand, 2003), the Berlinale Golden Bear-winner and winner of the German and European Film Awards.

Don’t Move

Don’t Move [Non Ti Muovere] 8pm Tuesday 26.09.06

Dir: Sergio Castellitto Italy / Spain / UK 2004 117 mins 16

Starring: Penelope Cruz, Sergio Castellitto, Claudia Gerini, Angela Finocchiaro, Marco Giallini, Pietro De Silva, Vittoria Piancastelli, Elena Perino

A consummate performance as well as top direction by Italian actor Sergio Castellitto is at the centre of a controversial drama dealing with the tangled sexual relationship between a married surgeon and an Albanian cleaner woman, played by Penélope Cruz.
The tensely constructed narrative of lust and love unfolds as a surgeon (Castellitto) recounts the crucial moments of his life as his own teenage daughter lies hovering between life and death on the operating table after a serious accident.
Castellitto plays a middle-aged surgeon named Timoteo who recklessly (and violently) initiates a love affair with Italia, a destitute woman magnificently portrayed by a virtually unrecognizable Penélope Cruz.
In his second outing as a director, Sergio Castellitto takes the viewer on an emotional-filled ride and brings a violently masculine perspective to the story. Cruz’s performance as an ordinary, rather ugly Albanian girl who becomes the passion of the surgeon’s life is bound to surprise viewers in this unexpected and very touching role. - Jameson Dublin International Film Festival

The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada

The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada 8pm Tuesday 03.10.06

Dir: Tommy Lee Jones USA 2005 120 mins 15A

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cesar Cedillo, January Jones, Dwight Yoakam, Levon Helm

A lone quest for justice becomes an ode to friendship and the common ground between different cultures in The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, the directorial debut from Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones. Working from a screenplay by Amores Perros writer Guillermo Arriaga, he has created a thoughtful, carefully crafted drama.
When his Mexican friend Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo) is found in a shallow grave in the desert, Pete Perkins (Jones) is determined to discover who killed him. Local sheriff Belmont (Dwight Yoakam) shows little interest in pursuing the matter and arranges for the body to be buried again in a pauper’s grave.
The tenacious Perkins eventually identifies Border patrol guard Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) as the guilty party. He kidnaps him, forces him to dig up the body of Melquiades and the trio set off for Mexico to fulfil Pete’s promise to bury his friend in his home town.
Like Arriaga’s screenplay for 21 Grams, Three Burials juggles with time, breaking the linear narrative to double back on itself, revealing a fresh piece of information or offering a different perspective on the same events.
Veteran Oscar-winning cinematographer Chris Menges ensures that every image counts as the journey from Texas to Mexico proceeds through desert sands, rugged cliff-tops, blood orange skies and majestic mountain ranges. The film is rarely less than breathtaking.
Underpinning the story is the belief that every individual life has meaning and every death is a tragedy. It also begs us to understand that America and Mexico may be separated by the Rio Grande and a history of mistrust but on a human level there is no real difference. - Screen International

Strayed

Strayed [Les Égarés] 8pm Tuesday 10.10.06

Dir: André Téchiné France / UK 2003 95 mins CLUB
Starring: Emmanuelle Beart, Clemence Meyer, Gaspard Ulliel and Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet

Although it's set against the historical backdrop of the Fall of France in the summer of 1940, veteran writer/director Andre Techine's Strayed is very much an intimate film, exploring human relationships being redefined in exceptional circumstances. Emmanuelle Béart plays Odile, a widowed mother of two young children, who shelters with a itinerant teenager Yvan (Gaspar Ulliel) at an abandoned rural house. Lushly photographed by cinematographer Agnes Godard, and impressively acted, it's an assured work whose screenplay takes some unexpected paths.After a terrifyingly realistic early sequence, in which their refugee column is strafed by Stuka bombers - an attack which emphasises the randomness of survival in wartime - Odile and her family take refuge in a nearby forest, and Strayed begins to acquire a fairytale-like dimension. It's here they encounter Ulliel, the mysterious shaven-haired orphan, who has the skills to survive in the countryside. The quartet break into a secluded dwelling, where symbolically the clocks have stopped, and where during the following sun-drenched days the schoolteacher Odile's authority steadily weakens.
In the absence of a father figure, Techine examines how in such a period of upheaval, the lines between adults and children became blurred. Why should Odile's offspring obey her instructions, when it's the tearaway Yvan, who is putting food on all their plates through his poaching and looting? And how should she deal with the undeniable sexual tension that develops between her and this wild child figure? Skilfully incorporating period newsreel footage into his storytelling, Techine elicits from Béart one of her best performances for many years. She excels as a woman cut adrift from her familiar physical and emotional bearings and reveals a moving vulnerability. - Tom Dawson, bbc.co.uk

Walk On Water

Walk On Water 8pm Tuesday 17.10.06

Dir: Eytan Fox Isreal / Sweden 2004 104 minutes CLUB
Starring: Lior Ashkenazi, Carolina Peters, Knut Berger, Gideon Shemer

Eytan Fox's follow-up to his acclaimed Yossi & Jagger is a profound, multilayered drama hidden in the guise of a genre picture. Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi of Late Marriage) is a successful Mossad special agent whose heartlessness makes him an exceptional hit man. It also hinders his ability to connect with those closest to him. When his wife commits suicide, Eyal is thrown into a mental tailspin. His latest assignment finds him playing tour guide for two German siblings whose Nazi grandfather may or may not still be alive. Pia (Carolina Peters) has left her homeland and family out of shame for what her grandfather did, while Alex (Knut Berger) is an easygoing liberal whose open-mindedness bothers Eyal. Without realising it, Eyal finds himself forming a close bond with Pia and Alex, until he realises that Alex is gay. After a bitter farewell, Eyal manages to swallow his pride and visit Alex in Berlin, where he confronts his family's own awful past. In the process, the mystery surrounding Alex's criminal grandfather is revealed.Walk on Water is a difficult film to categorise, addressing several major issues at once (homophobia, guilt, reconciliation with the past, politics, and more). Despite its complexity, Gal Uchovsky's assured script and Fox's sure-handed direction keep it together. Ashkenazi, Peters, and Berger also add greatly to the film, effortlessly inhabiting their characters and making them heartbreakingly three-dimensional figures. Eytan Fox (born New York, 1964) moved to Israel as a child. He grew up in Jerusalem and after serving in the army studied in Tel Aviv University's School of Film and Television. His first film, Time Off, a 45-minute drama about sexual identity in the Israeli army, won the Movie of the Year Award at the Israeli Film Institute, and first prize in Munich's International Student Film Festival. His first feature film, Song of the Siren was Israel's biggest box office success in 1994. Fox created and directed a drama series for Israeli TV called Florentene, which won first prize at the Jerusalem International Film Festival in 1997. Yossi & Jagger, Fox's second feature film, has received both critical and box office success in Israel.

King’s Game

King’s Game [Kongekabale] 8pm Tuesday 24.10.06

Dir: Nikolaj Arcel Denmark / Sweden / Norway 2004 103 minutes 15A
Starring: Anders W. Berthelsen, Søren Pilmark, Nastja Arce,Nicolas Bro, Ulf Pilgaard

Shot in beautiful crisp tones of blue and silver, the corridors of power have never looked cooler or more aloof. In a time when politics has been spun into cynical zero-sum games of power- brokers and fourth estate, this Award winning thriller both exhilarates and dismays in equal measure.
Three weeks to go to a general election. The Centre Party's hopes of an easy win have quite literally shattered with the exploding windscreen of the car carrying their Party Chairman, leaving his life and the party's leadership uncertain: with machinations worthy of David Mamet, the key party figures set to angling, bluff and double bluff to gain the top spot. The pawn in this ‘king's game' is political reporter Ulrik Torp (Anders W. Berthelsen), new to the job and only too eager to follow a tip-off ousting the skeleton in the closet of one of the contenders, but their man is less malleable than he seems – determined to bring the truth to the voting public, Torp embarks on a desperate eleventh hour mission to prove foul play. This makes this smart picture outstanding, not an exercise in style or cynicism but a place where what happens truly matters. - Cambridge Film Festival

Nikolaj Arcel graduated from The National Film School of Denmark's directing course in 2001. His graduation film Woyzeck's Last Symphony won the Jury prize at the film festival in Munich (2001) and the Grand prize at Europe's leading short film festival Clermont Ferrand.

Romance & Cigarettes

Romance & Cigarettes 8 pm Tuesday 31.10.06

Dir: John Turturro USA 2005 105 minutes 16
Starring: James Gandolfini, Nick Cave, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet

Set in contemporary America, Romance & Cigarettes is a modern day musical, a dark and passionate comedy which tells the story of one man's journey into infidelity and redemption. It stars James Gandolfini as our hero Nick Murder and revolves around the repercussions of his adultery and doomed fascination with the flame haired seductress Tula (Kate Winslet). For Kitty (Susan Sarandon), Nick's long suffering wife, his treachery is the final straw. With faith in her husband shattered she surprises even herself with the ferocity of her anger as she struggles to cope with his betrayal. It is only through a tragic twist of fate that Nick finally understands the extent of the pain he has inflicted on his family. With time running out he discovers the essential value of Kitty's love and respect.
In Romance & Cigarettes Turturro has crafted a gritty, exhilarating and intense script. He describes the film as a savage musical. "When the characters can no longer express themselves in words, they break into song, lip-synching the tunes that are lodged in their subconscious. It is their way to escape the reality of their world: to dream, to remember, to connect to another human being" says Turturro. The film combines sharp snappy dialogue worthy of David Mamet at his most brilliant with the visual flare and exquisite originality of the Coen Brothers.
Employing a fabulously eclectic mix of contemporary and classic songs, and featuring such diverse artists as James Brown, Nick Cave and Bruce Springsteen, Romance & Cigarettes is a unique tale of sex and mortality that will mesmerise audiences.