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 22 May: Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach
"The starting point for our Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach", wrote Straub, "was the idea to make a film where we used music not as accompaniment, nor as commentary, but as aesthetic matter…" The film was Straub and Huillet’s first project, conceived in the 1950s, and is the result of years of research about the music and biography of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Thursday 23 May: Valerie and her Week of Wonders
A girl on the verge of womanhood finds herself in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and other threats in this eerie and mystical movie daydream. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders serves up an endlessly looping, nonlinear fairy tale, set in a quasi-medieval landscape.
Friday 24 May: The Liberated Film Club V with Athina Tsangari
We're thrilled to welcome Athina Tsangari as our special guest for the fifth instalment of The Liberated Film Club, and an edition of 5 risograph printed posters signed by the guest will be available exclusively on the night. This event will be the first opportunity to purchase the new purge.xxx vinyl record release by Schtinter's longterm collaborator, Frans Zwartjes.
Saturday 25 May: Alt/Kino: Terror Nullius
ALT/KINO presents the London premiere of Soda_Jerk's sample-based political revenge fable TERROR NULLIUS, preceded by Lewis Klahr's Pony Glass and Eileen Maxson's Cinderella+++ – short films that explore notions of sampling and re-mixing traditional cultural narratives in different ways. Soda_Jerk will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening.
Saturday 25 May: Pola X
Leos Carax takes the ingredients of melodrama and scrambles them into an audacious postmodern opera of artistic angst. Like the novel that inspired it – Herman Melville’s controversial Pierre; or, The Ambiguities – this enigmatic, unrestrained film maudit was met with divisive skepticism upon its release, but today looks more and more like an essential work of blazingly personal vision.
Sunday 26 May: The Leopard
The Leopard is not an “objective” account of the Risorgimento; instead, it tells the story of Italy’s unification as seen by the putrefying aristocracy it rendered irrelevant. Visconti harnesses all his familiarity with the sentiments, architectures and experiences of Italian aristocracy to create a period piece that is cosmic in scale and damning to the last shot.
Showing Next Week
Monday 27 May: Chinese Roulette
Forever experimenting with form and tone, Fassbinder ventures into Edward-Albee-meets-Gothic-thriller territory with this account of the Christs (Alexander Allerson and Margit Carstensen), an affluent Munich couple whose polio-stricken daughter, Angela (Andrea Schober), brings them together at a country house with their respective lovers. Brilliantly shot by Michael Ballhaus with a constantly roving camera, the film keeps shifting the POV to establish the subjectivity of experience.
Tuesday 28 May: Drifting Clouds
One of Kaurismäki’s most acclaimed but least seen works, Drifting Clouds is an intimate portrait of a couple facing the emotionally enervating consequences of economic dislocation.
Wednesday 29 May: Not Reconciled
Not Reconciled is based on a novel by Heinrich Böll, Billiards at Half Past Nine, that chronicles three generations of a bourgeois German family of architects from the 1910s through the Nazi era to the economic "miracle" of postwar Germany. The filmmakers treat Böll’s narrative as a document, stripping it of any anecdotal or psychological elements.
Friday 31 May: Vox Lux
Glitter-spritzed spectacle and 21st-century trauma collide in this audacious art pop musical. Built around an electrifying performance from Natalie Portman, Vox Lux traces the meteoric rise of Celeste who, after she survives a school shooting, becomes a teenage pop superstar and emblem of national healing. Interweaving original songs by Sia with a score by Scott Walker, the sophomore feature from Brady Corbet (The Childhood of a Leader) is both a provocative dissection of celebrity culture and a delirious sensory explosion.
Coming Soon
1 - 30 June 2019: Taipei Stories
Close-Up is thrilled to present a programme of fourteen films, by three masters of Twaiwanese New Cinema, set in and around Taipei throughout the 20th and 21st Century.
5 - 8 June 2019: Aperture: Asia & Pacific Film Festival
Aperture is dedicated to screening some of the boldest, most challenging and striking films from the Asian and Pacific regions, exploring issues around diversity and cultural identity, as well as the inherent links between and blurred boundaries within Asia and the Pacific. Presented by Day for Night in partnership with the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster.
9 June 2019: Nick Macdonald: Anarchist Films
In the early to mid 1970s, Nick Macdonald made several political essay films in and around his New York apartment. Influenced by anarchism, the films are unique, personal projects that eschew traditional documentary footage in favour of a sort of bricolage technique. We're thrilled to welcome Nick to present and discuss a slection of his work.
22 June 2019: Kelly Gallagher, I am the mace
We're thrilled to present the first European solo screening for the US artist Kelly Gallagher, comprising ten years of her moving image work across animation, live action and avant-garde collage. These two programmes offer an overview of a brilliant young artist who has demonstrated a mastery of technique, matched with a strong historical and political consciousness. Kelly will be in conversation following the screenings.
Calendar
Fri 24 May 8:15pm
The Liberated Film Club V
The Liberated Film Club V
Sat 25 May 3:00pm
Terror Nullius
Terror Nullius
Sat 25 May 6:00pm
Terror Nullius
Terror Nullius
Sat 25 May 8:15pm
Pola X
Pola X
Sun 26 May 6:30pm
The Leopard
The Leopard
Mon 27 May 8:15pm
Chinese Roulette
Chinese Roulette
Tue 28 May 8:15pm
Drifting Clouds
Drifting Clouds
Wed 29 May 8:15pm
Not Reconciled
Not Reconciled
Fri 31 May 8:15pm
Vox Lux
Vox Lux
Sun 09 Jun 6:30pm
Nick Macdonald: Anarchist Films
Nick Macdonald: Anarchist Films
Mon 10 Jun 8:15pm
Eternity and a Day: A Tribute to Bruno Ganz
Eternity and a Day: A Tribute to Bruno Ganz
