Welcome to Close-Up!
Close-Up makes film culture and history accessible through its film programmes and mediatheque.
Located in the heart of Shoreditch, Close-Up is the ideal venue for all your screening needs, whether you wish to host a press screening, corporate event, presentation, conference, Christmas or birthday party. Our adjoined cafe and bar is fully licensed and offers a convivial atmosphere for drinks receptions, networking or informal post-screening discussion.
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Showing This Week
Wednesday 20 March: Ashik Kerib
Based on an orientially inspired poem by Russian romantic poet Mikhail Lermontov, Parajanov’s last film is a visual circular dance shot in the area around Baku (Azerbaijan) in various languages that resembles 1001 Nights, rich in ornaments, metaphors and symbols, in meticulously mounted composition full of warmth and self-deprecation.
Thursday 21 March: Nostalghia
A film of stark symbols and mesmerizing long takes, Nostalghia’s nearly agonizing picture of personal loss is tempered by the painterly beauty of its compositions. Tarkovsky himself professed to be surprised at seeing how these images revealed "an exact reprint of my state of mind" during what was to be a permanent exile.
Friday 22 March: Stalker
Arguably Tarkovsky’s purest articulation of the film as spiritual quest, Stalker develops a radically different attitude to time than the jigsaw of his previous film, Mirror. "A perverse replay of Solaris’s cosmic voyage, a remake of Rublev in a secular world of postapocalyptic misery, a premonition of Chernobyl and Soviet disintegration." – J. Hoberman
Saturday 23 March: The Sacrifice
Tarkovsky’s final film is also one of his most overtly theatrical, a chamber drama drawn in characteristically virtuoso long takes. A philosopher celebrates his birthday by planting a tree with his young son on an otherwise barren landscape. Disgusted with modernity, he finds his calling after reports of an impending nuclear war, the reality of which remains occluded in dream.
Sunday 24 March: Solaris
Mindful that a space odyssey might find better favor with the Soviet film authorities following Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky reshaped Stanisław Lem’s metaphysical science-fiction novel to his own preoccupations with memory and sacrifice. A psychologist travels to a space station orbiting Solaris to explore rumors that the planet’s ocean may be a "thinking substance," materializing the astronauts’ memories.
Showing Next Week
Monday 25 March: The Liberated Film Club III
"Because you're sick of knowing exactly what you're going to get and you're sick when you get it." The Liberated Film Club continues its monthly fixture, featuring a special guest introducing an unknown short and feature. We're thrilled to welcome New York-based cinematographer Sean Price Williams as our special guest for the third instalment.
Wednesday 27 March: Mirror
While Mirror, like all Tarkovsky’s films, pays homage to painting, music, and poetry, it also makes plain that the Russian director understood Mnemosyne to be the mother of the muses. Being a poet, he sought not only to retrieve the past but to reveal its essence – and in so doing to redeem an inherently flawed present.
Thursday 28 March: The Colour of Pomegranates
A breath-taking fusion of poetry, ethnography, and cinema, Sergei Parajanov’s masterwork overflows with unforgettable images and sounds. In a series of tableaux that blend the tactile with the abstract, The Colour of Pomegranates revives the splendours of Armenian culture through the story of the eighteenth-century troubadour Sayat-Nova, charting his intellectual, artistic, and spiritual growth through iconographic compositions rather than traditional narrative.
Friday 29 March: Solaris
Mindful that a space odyssey might find better favor with the Soviet film authorities following Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky reshaped Stanisław Lem’s metaphysical science-fiction novel to his own preoccupations with memory and sacrifice. A psychologist travels to a space station orbiting Solaris to explore rumors that the planet’s ocean may be a "thinking substance," materializing the astronauts’ memories.
Saturday 30 March: Sayat-Nova Outtakes
We're thrilled to welcome film restoration specialist Daniel Bird to present a unique screening and discussion of the restored camera negatives of hours of outtakes from Parajanov's masterpiece The Colour of Pomegranates (Sayat-Nova).
Saturday 30 March: The Colour of Pomegranates
A breath-taking fusion of poetry, ethnography, and cinema, Sergei Parajanov’s masterwork overflows with unforgettable images and sounds. In a series of tableaux that blend the tactile with the abstract, The Colour of Pomegranates revives the splendours of Armenian culture through the story of the eighteenth-century troubadour Sayat-Nova, charting his intellectual, artistic, and spiritual growth through iconographic compositions rather than traditional narrative.
Saturday 30 March: Andrei Rublev
Originally titled The Passion According to Andrei, Tarkovsky’s second feature remains a wholly original epic, a life of the medieval icon painter encompassing the full horror of history. The culminating vision of Rublev’s Trinity only emerges from the yoke of Tartar occupation, mystic rites, excommunications, and nearly unrelieved suffering.
Sunday 31 March: Stalker
Arguably Tarkovsky’s purest articulation of the film as spiritual quest, Stalker develops a radically different attitude to time than the jigsaw of his previous film, Mirror. "A perverse replay of Solaris’s cosmic voyage, a remake of Rublev in a secular world of postapocalyptic misery, a premonition of Chernobyl and Soviet disintegration." – J. Hoberman
Coming Soon
6 April 2019: Film Poems
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his first Film Poems touring programme, Peter Todd presents a programme framed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid's Meshes of the Afternoon and Guy Sherwin's Messages.
8 - 14 April 2019: Kinoteka: Witold Sobociński
Cinema is nothing without its cinematographers, those women and men who work at the magical intersection of art and technology. Late last year, Poland sadly lost one of its early, influential cinematographers, Witold Sobociński. In partnership with Kinoteka, we celebrate his life and legacy with a selection of screenings from some of his most iconic films.
25 April 2019: Filmarmalade: Doozy
Part creative documentary, part essay film, Richard Squires' debut uses animated antihero "Clovis" as a means to explore the 1960s voice casting of actor Paul Lynde as a series of Hanna-Barbera villains. Through the lens of one of Hollywood’s hidden queer histories, Doozy contemplates cartoon villainy and hysterical masculinity; the use of voice to signify "otherness" and the frequently uneasy relationship between character and actor.
Calendar
Wed 20 Mar 8:30pm
Ashik Kerib
Ashik Kerib
Thu 21 Mar 8:15pm
Nostalghia
Nostalghia
Fri 22 Mar 7:30pm
Stalker
Stalker
Sat 23 Mar 7:30pm
The Sacrifice
The Sacrifice
Sun 24 Mar 7:30pm
Solaris
Solaris
Mon 25 Mar 8:15pm
The Liberated Film Club III
The Liberated Film Club III
Wed 27 Mar 8:15pm
Mirror
Mirror
Thu 28 Mar 8:15pm
The Colour of Pomegranates + Hakob Hovnatanyan
The Colour of Pomegranates + Hakob Hovnatanyan
Fri 29 Mar 7:30pm
Solaris
Solaris
Sat 30 Mar 4:00pm
Sayat-Nova Outtakes
Sayat-Nova Outtakes
Sat 30 Mar 5:30pm
The Colour of Pomegranates
The Colour of Pomegranates
Sat 30 Mar 7:00pm
Andrei Rublev
Andrei Rublev
Sun 31 Mar 7:30pm
Stalker
Stalker
Tue 02 Apr 8:15pm
Mirror
Mirror
Wed 03 Apr 8:15pm
Nostalghia
Nostalghia
Thu 04 Apr 8:15pm
The Sacrifice
The Sacrifice
Fri 05 Apr 7:30pm
Solaris
Solaris
Sat 06 Apr 6:00pm
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Sat 06 Apr 8:00pm
Film Poems
Film Poems
Mon 08 Apr 8:15pm
Family Life
Family Life
Tue 09 Apr 8:15pm
The Colour of Pomegranates
The Colour of Pomegranates
Wed 10 Apr 8:15pm
Solaris
Solaris
