Venue: The British Council, Jalan Bukit Aman, KL
Time: 8 pm
Please note that because of administrative reasons, screening days have been changed to
Mon 12 July
The Fly
Kurt Neumann; US, 1958, 94 min., col
A sci-fi classic, written by James Clavell, the inspiration for David Cronenberg's popular 1986 film starring Jeff Goldblum. It's about a mad scientist experimenting with a disintegration machine who has his atomic pattern mingled with that of a fly, with macabre consequences. Banned on first release, this film was a big bit with audiences and over the years its critical reputation has improved. The special effects, gruesome and shocking in their day, now look faintly ludicrous, but the narrative is gripping, with feminist overtones thrown in for good measure. With David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Herbert Marshall, Vincent Price.
Mon 19 July
Beyond the Borders
1995, 58 min.
Images Under the Shadows
1996, 52 min.
Two revealing documentaries by the talented Bangladeshi activist documentarian Zakir Hossain Raju. The first is about Bangladeshi workers in Japan, focusing on the social consequences (social and cultural integration, inter-racial marriage), and the second uses the story of a young aspiring actress as a platform to interrogate the role of women in modern Bangladesh. These two films arrived too late, for inclusion in last year's Commonwealth Film Festival, so here's your chance to see them.
Sat 31 July
Close-Up (Namay-c Nadzik)
Abbas Kiarostami; Iran, 1990, 93 min., col
Kiarostami's masterpiece is a rich, rnulti-layered film in which a movie fanatic pretends to a middle-class family likewise interested in cinema that he is film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf (the internationally-acclaimed Iranian director, here appearing as himself). The impostor is later tried for fraud. Kiarostami constructs a complex series of interwoven narratives to interrogate notions of fiction and documentary, appearance and reality, truth and falsehood. "It's enormously intelligent stuff ... and (it) ends with one of the sharpest, funniest deconstructions of film form ever shot. Absolutely wonderful" (Time Out).
