Welcome to Close-Up!
Close-Up makes film culture and history accessible through its cinema, film library & online archive.
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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Coming Soon
1 May 2018: Jaap Pieters: The Long Gaze
Jaap Pieters, the “eye of Amsterdam,” began shooting films in Super8 in 1985. Much of his work concentrates on urban subjects – trams, crossroads, city dwellers and drifters – to which Pieters directs his voyeuristic gaze to capture their everyday existence. This hour-long, spontaneously selected, programme will include Stringless, Taksimtree and Clear Views and will be followed by a Q&A with Pieters.
3 - 29 May 2018: Close-Up on Pier Paolo Pasolini
Celebrated as one of the central figures of the postwar Italian cinema, Pasolini is recognized in his native land as arguably the most important Italian artist and intellectual of the twentieth century. An outspoken but unorthodox leftist, Pasolini attracted controversy from all sides of the political spectrum, with his often sexually explicit and willingly perverse films drawing the frequent ire of Italian censors.
4 - 25 May 2018: Close-Up on Jean-Luc Godard
A pioneer of the French new wave, Jean-Luc Godard has had an incalculable effect on modern cinema that refuses to wane. Before directing, Godard was an ethnology student and a critic for Cahiers du cinéma, and his approach to filmmaking reflects his interest in how cinematic form intertwines with social reality.
6 May 2018: Take Two: Mouchette / Blood
21 May 2018: Sex, Politics, Art and Revolution: French Cinema in 1968
1968 was a year of revolutionary turmoil all over the world, from anti-Vietnam war, feminist activism and civil rights protests in the USA to student protests and a general workers’ strike in France. Marking the 50th anniversary of the events of May 68, this talk will survey the major French films released that year and look at their contrasting visions.
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ARTICLE
Pier Paolo Pasolini
By John Berger
If I say he was like an angel, I can’t imagine anything more stupid being said about him. An angel painted by Coso Tura? No. There’s a St. George by Tura which is his speaking likeness! He abhorred official saints and beatific angels. So why say it?
ESSAY
It's Not Blood, It's Red: Colour(s) of Jean-Luc Godard
By Robert Barry
In the midst of a 1980 interview with Jean-Luc Godard, Colin MacCabe suddenly finds himself struck dumb: "Although colour's very important in your work, I couldn't find any way to talk about it. It's like a difficulty that I have with Joyce's Finnegan's Wake."
ARTICLE
Jean-Luc Godard: Vivre sa Vie
By Frieda Grafe
"I know what I want to say, I think before I say it, to be quite sure that it is what I must say – phtt – suddenly I can’t say it anymore", Nana explains to the philosopher with whom she started a conversation in a café.
ESSAY
"Tensional Differences": The Anxiety of Re-Mediation in Jean-Luc Godard’s New Wave Films
By Ágnes Pethő
This essay discusses the way in which Godard, in his films made during the period of the Nouvelle Vague, addresses the issues regarding the rivalry between the emerging modern cinema and the other arts and media.
