Featured
22 August 2017: Ceddo
Banned in Senegal on an absurd technicality, Ceddo, Sembene’s most ambitious film, uses the story of a beautiful princess’s kidnapping to examine the confrontation between opposing cultural forces: Muslim expansion, Christianity, and the slave trade.
Showing This Week
23 August 2017: Black Girl + Borom Sarret
The first work by a sub-Saharan black director to have been seen outside the continent, Black Girl represents the essential first step in Sembene’s self-described project to counter the “neocolonialism [that] is passed on culturally through the cinema.”
24 August 2017: Faat-Kiné
Faat-Kiné, the manager of a sparkling new gas station, drives an elegant car, lunches with fashionably dressed friends, and worries about her children passing their high school finals. But Sembene contextualizes his heroine’s thoroughly modern triumphs and anxieties within the complex culture and politics of Dakar.
25 August 2017: Xala
Zeroing in on the myth of African independence and on the capitulation to white colonial policies by newly empowered black African leaders, this savage and funny satire deals with a self-satisfied, half-Westernized black businessman who is suddenly struck down by the xala: a curse that renders its victim impotent.
26 August 2017: Sembene!
Sembene!, tells the unbelievable true story of the “father of African cinema,” the self-taught novelist and filmmaker who fought, against enormous odds, a monumental, 50-year-long battle to give African stories to Africans. Sembene! is told through the experiences of the man who knew him best, colleague and biographer Samba Gadjigo.
27 August 2017: Moolaadé
Sembene’s last film delivers an open attack on the tradition of female circumcision still practiced in Muslim and Christian communities in East and West Africa. A wonderful testament to Sembene’s belief in the cinema as the most effective means of social change in Africa.
Showing Next Week
30 - 31 August 2017: Peter Hutton's Haikus
Close-Up and Rattis Books pay tribute to the visionary artist Peter Hutton, one year on from his passing. This two-night programme focuses on a cross-section the filmmaker’s intimate and lush portraits of urban, rural and marine environments. We’re pleased to welcome Ed Halter to introduce the programme.
3 - 24 September 2017: Close-Up on Ruth Beckermann
Close-Up presents the first UK retrospective on the films of Ruth Beckermann, curated and introduced by Colm McAuliffe. Born in Vienna in 1952, Beckermann has been creating essay films and documentaries for 40 years and is well known internationally as one of Austria’s most courageous and spirited filmmakers. This programme explores the work of a director equally suspicious of closed narrative forms and linear views of history and memory.
3 September 2017: Missing Images
Three films by Ruth Beckermann, who as a member of an independent video collective, took part in the highly symbolic struggle for the autonomous cultural centre Arena. Her first film, Arena Squatted is the document of a utopia and its end, but it is also an attempt to make the cinematic politically useful.
3 September 2017: East of War
White-tile rooms, neon lighting; on the walls black and white photographs from the exhibition entitled War of Extermination documenting the atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. Against this backdrop, Ruth Beckermann and cameraman Peter Roehsler have filmed former soldiers talking about their experiences beyond the bounds of "normal" warfare.
Coming Soon
5 September 2017: Non-linear: Magnets
Magnets addresses different identities in production specifically in relation to others around us. Many of the works take physical props and real-time situations as their points of focus; and we watch how these enhance dynamics of attraction, contradiction and confluence. Featuring works by Victoria Sin, Rachel Reupke, Charles Lofton and more. Curated by Shama Khanna for warehouse.
7 September - 26 October 2017: The Incredible Simultaneity Console
Gordon Shrigley presents a season of twenty-eight artists’ film and videos to celebrate ten years of the artists-run DVD publication project Filmarmalade.
30 September 2017: Narrativize
Unconscious Archives presents an evening of live film, digital art and performative actions exploring de/construction of narrative. Featuring Against Cinema by James Holcombe & Secluded Bronte, 30/09/2017 Close-Up Cinema, London by Esperanza Collado, Owed to Bussa by Foxy Moron, and abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz by Jörg Piringer. The artists will be present for Q&As following the screening.
Calendar
Wed 23 Aug 7:30pm
Black Girl + Borom Sarret
Black Girl + Borom Sarret
Thu 24 Aug 7:30pm
Faat-Kiné
Faat-Kiné
Fri 25 Aug 7:30pm
Xala
Xala
Sat 26 Aug 7:30pm
Sembene!
Sembene!
Sun 27 Aug 7:30pm
Moolaadé
Moolaadé
Wed 30 Aug 7:30pm
Time and Tide
Time and Tide
Thu 31 Aug 7:30pm
Skagafjordur
Skagafjordur
Sun 03 Sep 5:00pm
Missing Images
Missing Images
Sun 03 Sep 7:30pm
East of War
East of War
Tue 05 Sep 7:30pm
Non-Linear: Magnets
Non-Linear: Magnets
Thu 07 Sep 7:30pm
The Incredible Simultaneity Console I
The Incredible Simultaneity Console I
Sun 10 Sep 6:00pm
Return to Vienna
Return to Vienna
Sun 10 Sep 8:00pm
Paper Bridge
Paper Bridge
Mon 11 Sep 7:30pm
Towards Jerusalem
Towards Jerusalem
Thu 14 Sep 7:30pm
The Incredible Simultaneity Console II
The Incredible Simultaneity Console II
Sun 17 Sep 6:00pm
A Fleeting Passage to the Orient
A Fleeting Passage to the Orient
Sun 17 Sep 8:00pm
Homemad(e)
Homemad(e)
Mon 18 Sep 7:30pm
Zorro’s Bar Mitzwa
Zorro’s Bar Mitzwa
Tue 19 Sep 7:30pm
American Passages
American Passages
Thu 21 Sep 7:30pm
The Incredible Simultaneity Console III
The Incredible Simultaneity Console III
Sun 24 Sep 6:00pm
Those Who Go Those Who Stay
Those Who Go Those Who Stay
Sun 24 Sep 8:00pm
The Dreamed Ones
The Dreamed Ones
Thu 28 Sep 7:30pm
The Incredible Simultaneity Console IV
The Incredible Simultaneity Console IV
Sat 30 Sep 7:00pm
Narrativize
Narrativize
Thu 05 Oct 7:30pm
The Incredible Simultaneity Console V
The Incredible Simultaneity Console V
Thu 12 Oct 7:30pm
The Incredible Simultaneity Console VI
The Incredible Simultaneity Console VI
Thu 19 Oct 7:30pm
The Incredible Simultaneity Console VII
The Incredible Simultaneity Console VII
Thu 26 Oct 7:30pm
The Incredible Simultaneity Console VIII
The Incredible Simultaneity Console VIII
