2024 Autumn term programme
Goldsmiths Film Group is hosting free, twice-weekly film screenings in the second half of the autumn term. Everyone at Goldsmiths is welcome. Our normal term-long programme has had to be compressed into the second half of term owing to some problems booking rooms. Screenings this term will be taking place across three locations: the Richard Hoggart Building Cinema, LG02 in the Professor Stuart Hall Building and Room 05 (Screen 1) in the Media Research Building.
Screenings will be on Mondays and Wednesdays from 5pm, starting 15 minutes after the advertised time (when doors open). Full details on screening times and run times is at the bottom of this post, along with a poster to print out. There is a WhatsApp group, which you can join at one of the screenings, to discuss films, be reminded about upcoming screenings and hear about other screenings in London. If you’re interested in getting involved in running the film group, including helping choose our future screenings, come and speak to one of our committee members at a screening.
Our regular programme this term is our usual mix of feature films and documentaries, the majority not in the English language. Relatively well-known works include Hollywood auteur Howard Hawks’s Red River (1949), Elaine May’s New Hollywood gem Mikey and Nicky (1976) starring John Cassavetes and Peter Falk, Humberto Solás’s classic work of Cuban revolutionary cinema Lucia (1968) and Soviet director Larisa Shepitko’s masterpiece The Ascent (1977). Less well-known than his contemporary Satyajit Ray, whose Mahanagar [The Big City] and Charulata [The Lonely Wife] we screend last year, the key Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak is represented by his fundamental film The Cloud-Capped Star (1960). Meanwhile, History Lessons (1972), by the French Marxist filmmaking duo Straub-Huillet, is a typically radical interpretation of Brecht’s unfinished experimental novel The Business Affairs of Mr. Julius Caesar. Finally, Landscape in the Mist (1988), by the Greek auteur Theo Angelopoulos, is regarded as his greatest masterpiece and one of the greatest Greek films of all time.
Documentary is represented by three key works. First, Kazuo Hara’s ethically complex examination of Japanese war crimes, The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987). Second, the important and award-winning Talking About Trees (2019) by Sudanese filmmaker Suhaib Gasmelbari, who uses the state of cinema in his country as a lens through which to examine its politics. Third, a special Saturday screening on the 9th of November of Joshua Oppenheimer’s landmark The Act of Killing (2012), together with its companion piece The Look of Silence (2014), excavating the 1965-66 Indonesian mass killings of Communist Party members and alleged sympathisers.
Following last year’s special screening of all four episodes of Ken Loach’s masterpiece of British television drama, Days of Hope (1975), we are showing more essential TV dramas. First, a double bill of more British TV dramas from the 1970s – a uniquely radical and experimental decade for the medium in the UK. We begin with Penda’s Fen (1974), an uncategorisably odd and surprising drama, directed by the often-overlooked television auteur Alan Clarke. That is followed by Brimstone and Treacle (1976), a bold, funny and highly controversial TV play by the outstanding British screenwriter of the postwar era, Dennis Potter, that for over ten years the BBC deemed too obscene to broadcast.
To conclude the term, on Saturday 14th December we are showing all five parts of the full, five-hour, television version of Ingmar Bergman’s career-summarising masterpiece Fanny and Alexander (1982). Rarely shown on the big screen (the last time in London was at the BFI’s Bergman centenary retrospective in 2018), this is an event not to be missed. Full details of all screenings are below, along with a poster to print out.
Regular programme
The Ascent (1977, Larisa Shepitko, 111 minutes), Monday 11th November, LG02 PSHB
Mikey and Nicky (1976, Elaine May, 119 minutes), Wednesday 13th November, RHB Cinema
Talking About Trees (2019, Suhaib Gasmelbari, 93 minutes), Monday 18th November, MRB 05 (Screen 1)
British 70s TV double bill: Penda’s Fen (1974, Alan Clarke, 90 minutes) + 15 minute break + Brimstone and Treacle (1976, Barry Davis, 72 minutes), Wednesday 20th November, MRB 05 (Screen 1)
Red River (1949, Howard Hawks, 133 minutes), Monday 25th November, LG02 PSHB
Lucia (1968, Humberto Solas, 160 minutes), Wednesday 27th November, MRB 05 (Screen 1)
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987, Kazuo Hara, 122 minutes), Monday 2nd December, MRB 05 (Screen 1)
The Cloud-Capped Star (1960, Ritwik Ghatak, 134 minutes), Wednesday 4th December, RHB Cinema
Landscape in the Mist (1988, Theo Angelopoulos, 127 minutes), Monday 9th December, LG02 PSHB
History Lessons (1972, Straub-Huillet, 88 minutes), Wednesday 11th December, LG02 PSHB
Special weekend screenings
Joshua Oppenheimer double bill: The Act of Killing (2012, 169 minutes) + 1 hour break + The Look of Silence (2014, 103 minutes), Saturday 9th November, 12:45pm-6:30pm (RHB Cinema)
Fanny and Alexander [full TV version] (1982, Ingmar Bergman, 312 minutes): Parts 1-3 + 1 hour 10 minute break + Parts 4 & 5, Saturday 14th December, 12:45pm-7:30pm (RHB Cinema)
