Films for our Spring and Summer 2010
If you want to nominate a film for later in the year, please email dmrea@pontardawefilm.co.uk
Unless otherwise stated, we start our evening programme at 7:30pm, with the bar opening beforehand, at 7:00pm
Most films are also shown in the afternoon, starting at 2:00pm. Please check with the Arts Centre for afternoon timings. We frequently show a short film first, and our events are organised to allow for members to discuss our film programme and the film we’re showing.
Tuesday 9th
March - Die Welle (The Wave)
Tuesday 23rd March (evening only) - La Premier Jour du Reste de ta Vie (The First Day of the Rest of Your Life)
Tuesday 6th April - Welcome
Tuesday 20th April - Capitalism: a Love Story
Tuesday 4th May - Un Prophete (A Prophet)
Wednesday 19th May (evening only) Das Weiss Band (The White Ribbon)
Saturday 22nd May - we host the BFFS Welsh Group for their Spring Viewing Event and AGM
Tuesday 1st June (evening only) - Little White Lies
Wednesday 16th June (evening only) - Okuribito (Departures)
Tuesday 29th June - Salaam Bombay
Tuesday 23rd March (evening only) - La Premier Jour du Reste de ta Vie (The First Day of the Rest of Your Life)
Tuesday 6th April - Welcome
Tuesday 20th April - Capitalism: a Love Story
Tuesday 4th May - Un Prophete (A Prophet)
Wednesday 19th May (evening only) Das Weiss Band (The White Ribbon)
Saturday 22nd May - we host the BFFS Welsh Group for their Spring Viewing Event and AGM
Tuesday 1st June (evening only) - Little White Lies
Wednesday 16th June (evening only) - Okuribito (Departures)
Tuesday 29th June - Salaam Bombay
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When Rainer Wegner, a teacher, finds himself relegated to teaching
autocracy, he’s less than enthusiastic. So are his students, who
grumble at the prospect of studying fascism yet again. Struck by their
complacency and unwitting arrogance, Rainer devises an unorthodox
experiment. But his hastily conceived lesson in social orders and the
power of unity soon grows a life of its own. The Wave is an energetic, gripping drama that cuts through superficial ideological interrogatives. Director: Dennis Gansel (Before the Fall) |  |
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Tuesday 23rd
March (evening only)
A funny, deeply affecting and often painfully truthful movie about
families, parenthood, growing up, growing old and dying, devoid of
sentimentality. Structured around five days that shape the destiny of a
family living in the Paris suburbs between 1988 and 2000. La Premier Jour du Reste de ta Vie (The First Day of the Rest of Your Life) Director: Rémi Bezançon |
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Bilal (Firat Ayverdi), a 17-year-old Kurdish refugee, travels across
Europe to reunite with his girlfriend in England. His journey comes to
an abrupt halt in Northern France as local authorities, and the
immigration laws they are enforcing, prevent him from going any
further. Bilal plans to swim across the Channel, and heads to the local
swimming pool to commence training. Here he crosses paths with
Simon (Vincent Lindon), a middle-aged swimming instructor with a
dejected spirit, who is privately reeling in turmoil as he dreads an
imminent divorce from his wife (Audrey Dana). Despite their differing
ages, the two men discover that they have much in common, and their
friendship develops into a strong bond. A huge box office success in
France, writer-director Lioret (Dont Worry, I’m Fine)
has created an absorbing story that speaks not only of the social
issues of the day, but of the very nature of the human spirit. Director: Philippe Lioret |
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Director Michael Moore addresses the causes of the financial crisis
that stopped the world in 2008. Its a familiar theme for Moore - namely
the hypocrisies and injustices of the corporate and political
superstructure in the US. The formula is the same as before –
dips into history, a series of illustrative cases, the big stunt.
As compelling and as entertaining as many of his other films: but he’s
been criticised for being too idealistic about Obama’s presidency. |
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At age 18, Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) is just beginning a six-year
prison sentence. Though he cannot read or write, Malik soon figures out
the politics of the prison system, giving him a prime spot in the power
struggle between two battling groups of prisoners. An intensely
powerful role from Tahar Rahim. His loneliness is a factor of both his
shy demeanor and his identity as half-Corsican and half-Arab Muslim,
therefore not accepted by either faction at the prison. When
Cesar Luchiani (Niels Arestrup), the head of the jail’s Corsican gang,
recruits El Djebena, warning that the new prisoner must kill another
Arab, Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi) or be killed himself, Malik is at first
horrified by ultimately follows the law of survival. Director: Jacques Audiard (The Beat that Skipped my Heart) |
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Wednesday 19th
May (evening only)
Das Weiss Band (The White Ribbon) A teacher recalls how, in the
run-up to World War I, a small Lutheran village in northern Germany
came to be plagued by a series of mysterious and increasingly
disturbing incidents that began when the local doctor fell from his
horse. Though it poses as a thriller, The White Ribbon is nothing of
the sort. It’s a film about climates of violence, and by taking World
War I Germany as its primary location, it asks fascinating questions
about that very troubled country. Where was Nazism really born
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A Welsh family lives in fear of their country which seems to have more
mosques than McDonald's and terrorists lurking in every corner shop.
The only person in the family trying to hold it all together is the
mother, Karen. This funny and heartbreaking film deals with the
paranoia of racism, the politics of hate and how it effects this family. Director: Caradog James Cast: Helen Griffin, Brian Hibbard, Jonathan Lewis-Owen, Sara Gregory |
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Nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film, Departures
is a delightful journey into the heartland of Japan as well an
astonishingly beautiful look at a sacred part of Japan's cultural
heritage. Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and who is suddenly left without a job. He moves back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled Departures thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency only to discover that the job is actually for a "Nokanshi", a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the job, Daigo takes pride in his work and begins to perfect the art of “Nokanshi,” acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed. The film follows his profound and sometimes comical journey with death as he uncovers the wonder, joy and meaning of life and living. |
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Every now and then, we like to show an old(ish) classic. Salaam Bombay
is a long way from Slumdog Millionaire - it broke new ground when first
released for its depiction of life in the slums of Bombay. It’s also a
million miles from Bollywood! It deservedly won the 1988 Audience Award at Cannes and was India's 1989 Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. Mira Nair's first feature depicts the desperate lives of homeless children - Krishna is a 10-year-old country boy forced to live on his own in the streets of Bombay after his family tosses him out. While he hopes to earn 500 rupees for his mother and return home, the all-consuming job of staying alive quickly makes that dream an unreality. Surviving is a world of prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves, and other homeless children, the harrowing experience takes an extremely heavy emotional toll on him. Director: Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) Cast: Shafiz Syed, Hansa Vithal, Chanda Sharma, Nana Patekar |
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The Pontardawe Film Club is affiliated to the
British Federation of Film Societies and the Welsh Group of the BFFS
For comments about these webpages
please email David Rea at dmrea@pontardawefilm.co.uk
