̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Centre for Film and Screen

‘ ̽��ֱ��greatest director in the world right now’ begins residency at Centre for Film and Screen

sjr81 — Fri, 04 May 2018 11:55:02 +0000

Lucrecia Martel comes to the Centre as this year’s Filmmaker in Residence from 5-20 May, following in the footsteps of Gianfranco Rosi (2017) and Joanna Hogg (2016).

A retrospective of her feature films — the first to be held in the UK—has been jointly organised between the Centre for Film and Screen and the Arts Picturehouse. Martel will be present following each screening for conversation and Q&A.

Martel, who lives and works in Argentina, is one of international cinema’s major stylists. Her provocative films treat questions of family, childhood, sexuality, belonging, nation, class, historical memory, and colonialism. In a cinema that is both sensually immersive and politically attuned, Martel looks at the world in a way that acknowledges mystery and prompts criticism.

Dr John David Rhodes, Director of the Centre for Film and Screen said: “ ̽��ֱ��residencies offer our students, staff and our community both inside and outside the ̽��ֱ�� the opportunity to engage with serious filmmakers of the highest order, all of them crucially important figures in the unfolding history of contemporary cinema.

“ ̽��ֱ��residencies also offer the filmmakers the opportunity to develop and reconsider their practices in the context of the vibrant scholarly and intellectual ecology that is unique to Cambridge.”

Described by Vogue as ‘the greatest director in the world right now’, Martel is the director of four acclaimed films and a number of award-winning shorts. After almost a decade after her last full-length feature film, Martel returned as director of the critically-lauded Zama in 2017.

Based on the 1956 novel by Antonio Di Benedetto, the film is a period drama relating the story of a 17th century Spanish officer, separated from his wife and family, and awaiting a transfer from a remote area of Paraguay to Buenos Aires.

Shining a light on colonialism and class dynamics, the film won almost universal acclaim from film critics in South America, and was chosen as Argentina’s nomination for Best Foreign Film at the 2018 Academy Awards.

Martel will be resident at the ̽��ֱ��’s Centre for Film and Screen for more than two weeks, during which she will be offering a sequence of seminars on her filmmaking practice.

Symposium

18 May, 10am-4pm, McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College.

Speakers: Lucy Bollington (Cambridge), Catherine Grant (Birkbeck), Rosalind Galt (KCL), Debbie Martin (UCL).

Full details - TBC

Screenings

̽��ֱ��screenings will all be held at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse

Tuesday 8 May at 6pm - ̽��ֱ��Swamp (La Ciénaga)

Thursday 10 May ay 6pm - ̽��ֱ��Holy Girl (La niña santa)

Tuesday 15 May at 6:30pm - ̽��ֱ��Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza)

Thursday 17 May at 6pm - Zama

One of Argentina’s and Latin America’s pre-eminent filmmakers begins a 16-day residency at Cambridge’s Centre for Film and Screen from tomorrow (May 5).

Lucrecia is a crucially important figure in the unfolding history of contemporary cinema.

John David Rhodes

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Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker comes to Cambridge

sjr81 — Tue, 09 May 2017 14:51:48 +0000

Rosi’s most recent documentary, 2016’s Fire at Sea, was an uncompromising look at the everyday life of six locals on the Italian island of Lampedusa, the first port of call for the hundreds of thousands of African migrants crossing the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe.

Fire at Sea won the Golden Bear award for best film at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy awards in February.

During Rosi’s two-week residency (May 14-28), the Arts Picturehouse will screen the entirety of his work to date, with each screening followed by a Q&A with the director. Rosi will also connect directly with staff and students in the Centre for Film and Screen by delivering masterclasses and participating in a public symposium, Lands, Seas, Bodies: On the cinema of Gianfranco Rosi, on Wednesday, May 24.

International recognition of Rosi soared after Meryl Streep, the jury chair of the Berlin film festival, publically endorsed Fire at Sea as “a daring hybrid of captured footage and deliberate storytelling that allows us to consider what documentary can do. It is urgent, imaginative and necessary filmmaking.”

Dr John David Rhodes, Director of the Centre for Film and Screen and a specialist in Italian cinema, calls Rosi’s work “indisputably among the most important in the world.”

Audience numbers for documentaries have grown considerably in the last ten years, largely driven by audiences going in search of authenticity in the lived experience.

“It’s a rich moment for documentaries because they provide the ability to respond powerfully and flexibly to geo-political crises,” said Rhodes. “People are starved for contact with the real and with reality. People are trying to find ways to make contact with the world – documentary filmmaking is one way of doing that. It can produce knowledge and experiences that are otherwise closed to us.

“Rosi’s residency offers our students and the wider ̽��ֱ�� the opportunity to engage at close range a working filmmaker of the highest calibre. As was the case last year when we hosted Joanna Hogg (our first filmmaker-in-residence), Rosi’s residency brings to our community of film scholars and students of cinema the opportunity to think about film from the point of view of the film artist. It offers a vital opportunity to test practice and theory against each other, while getting to hang out with one of the most interesting people working in world cinema.”

More information about the screenings and public symposium is available on the Centre for Film and Screen’s website.

Tickets for the screenings including a post-film Q&A can be purchased from the Arts Picturehouse website.

Hailed as “one of the most important artists in any medium”, the award-winning and Oscar-nominated Italian documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi is coming to Cambridge this month as filmmaker-in-residence at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Centre for Film and Screen.

Rosi's work is indisputably among the most important in the world.

John David Rhodes

Still from Fire at Sea, the Oscar-nominated documentary by Gianfranco Rosi

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Grand designs: the role of the house in American film

amb206 — Fri, 27 May 2016 13:51:41 +0000

̽��ֱ��Lonely Villa tells the story of four women subjected to a terrifying break-in by intruders. A woman barricades herself and her daughters into the house as her absent husband, alerted by a phone call, hastens to their rescue. In the opening shot, the villains are seen lurking in the shrubbery of the handsome all-American home that stands in splendid isolation, an icon of the property-owning dream.

Rhodes’ exploration of the house in American cinema has taken him deep into the history and theory of both film and architecture, and will result in a book due for publication in 2017. He is Director of the newly launched Centre for Film and Screen, which brings together researchers from subjects as diverse as English, philosophy, history of art, architecture and languages, and continues a tradition of teaching and research on the subject of film since the 1960s.

“Houses are built to be lived in but also to be looked at – and you only have to switch on your television to see how much they fascinate us,” he says. “In watching cinema, too, we are forever looking at and into people’s houses. Cinema’s preoccupation with the house stems from cinema’s strong relation to realism and to the representation of human lives, a large portion of which plays out in domestic interiors.”

Central to Rhodes’ research into films that range from Meet Me in St Louis and Gone with the Wind to Psycho and Citizen Kane is the idea of property and possession as well as their opposites – alienation and dispossession. It’s a theme that flows through the cinematic experience right to the temporary possession of the seat in which the viewer watches a film and enters the intimate spaces of other people’s lives. “Property reigns in many aspects of the cinema experience,” he says. “Not just in the drama unfolding on the screen itself but also in the process of film-making, practices of production, distribution and exhibition.”

Rhodes suggests that the pleasure we take in immersing ourselves in the visual and sensual experiences of entering other people’s worlds has an antecedent in country house tours and, most specifically, the collections known as ‘cabinets of curiosities’. Objects acquired to display and impress, these museum-like collections are examples of belonging and, by the same token, of not belonging. “At the heart of visual pleasure is a constant negotiation of property boundaries,” says Rhodes. “It’s a question of mine but not yours – of inviting in yet keeping out.”

Revealed to a chosen few guests, cabinets of curiosities and their modern equivalents speak powerfully of their owner’s taste. A short film titled House: After Five Years of Living (1955) perfectly encapsulates the house as an object of desire and as a container for carefully curated possessions. Directed by designers Charles and Ray Eames, it shows their modernist house – one they designed themselves – in a series of stills that venerate this landmark building and its collection of modern and folk art, textiles and design objects. Neither of its owners appears yet their presence is palpable through the framing, shot by shot, of the house they created to work so beautifully in its Californian context.

Ownership is not confined to buildings but extends to those who live and work in them. Rhodes says that his thesis is implicitly feminist. His forthcoming book will draw attention to the ways in which, in film and in real life, women are forced into uncomfortably close relationships with the home, becoming part of the same parcel of ownership.

An even more tightly binding relationship is played out between servant and home, particularly in the representation of African American slavery in the American South following the Civil War. Two thirds of the way into Gone with the Wind, the servant girl Prissy looks up at her employers’ newly constructed mansion and exclaims: “We sure is rich now!” ̽��ֱ��viewer is apparently invited to laugh both at her delight and at her naivety, and in a manner that only repeats the film’s explicit racism. Yet the spectator is also the butt of this joke.

“This shot is a kind of ‘hall of mirrors’ of property relations,” says Rhodes. “ ̽��ֱ��cinema audience looks at the image which was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s property. Inside the image, the servants gaze up at the property of the house. But if we look carefully we see that there is no house there: what they are really looking at is either a painted background or else a matt painting inserted in the post-production process. Whether or not the image was there when the scene was shot, what they are looking at is a ‘prop’.”

̽��ֱ��word prop is, of course, an abbreviation for property. ̽��ֱ��house, as the ultimate prop, takes many forms, its physical form acting as a powerful pointer. ̽��ֱ��mansion and the bungalow, the rambling shingle and stick-style residence, the modernist home with its picture windows: all convey messages (about status, class, race, politics) and shape the action that takes place within them.

“In much of the US, the possession of land, even if it’s a tiny strip of grass separating one house from another, is fundamental to a feeling of ownership. ̽��ֱ��bungalow was initially seen as a space for easeful, convenient living – but this modest home quickly came to spell failure,” says Rhodes. “If you think about entrances and exits, a suburban home with a hallway allows for a gradual transition from outside to inside while a bungalow offers none of that dignity. ̽��ֱ��cramped space of the bungalow leads to too much intimacy and to uncomfortable confrontations.”

Dwelling places are objects of desire – especially so in the affluent Western world. Our homes absorb our money and eat into our time: perhaps, in the process of acquisition, they own us just as much as we own them. As backdrops to our lives, they tell stories about the kind of people we are and would like to be. In film, and on the screen, houses convey multiple meanings – not just about class and status but also about childhood and our relationship with history.

When a house is broken into, a dream is shattered. In Griffith’s ̽��ֱ��Lonely Villa, the ruffians are hampered by the solidity of the house’s doors and the weight of the furniture pushed up against them. All ends well when the mother and daughters are rescued, just in time, by the man of the house. But property is fragile and, in the final reckoning, all ownership is a question of controlling impermanent and shifting borders.

Inset image: Credit, ̽��ֱ��District.

It’s black and white, silent and just short of ten minutes in length. But D.W. Griffith’s 1909 classic ̽��ֱ��Lonely Villa inspired Dr John David Rhodes, Director of Cambridge’s new Centre for Film and Screen, to look at the role and meaning of the house in American cinema.

Houses are built to be lived in but also to be looked at – you only have to switch on your television to see how much they fascinate us.

John David Rhodes

Biograph Company Production

Screenshots from D.W. Griffith’s ̽��ֱ��Lonely Villa (1909)

Centre for Film and Screen

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has fostered teaching and research on the subject of film since the 1960s, with pioneering work undertaken in the 1970s-80s by influential figures such as Stephen Heath and Colin MacCabe. Over time, film studies rose in prominence across the ̽��ֱ��’s faculties. In 2008, Cambridge’s strengths in this subject were consolidated with the launch of the ̽��ֱ��’s first MPhil in Screen and Media Cultures.

From this heritage of Cambridge’s thoughtful consideration of the art of the moving image, the new Centre for Film and Screen has been developed. Although based mainly in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, the Centre is truly interdisciplinary, featuring researchers from across subjects as diverse as English, Philosophy, History of Art, Architecture and Languages.

This year, the Centre is launching the ̽��ֱ��’s first ever PhD programme in Film and Screen Studies, to complement the existing MPhil course and to enable doctoral students to join the active and varied film and screen studies research culture at Cambridge and participate in the Centre’s teaching, research and seminars.

Cambridge itself is a cinematic city. Its architectural beauty and history have, over the years, made it a very attractive location for film production. ̽��ֱ��city is home to a thriving art cinema and numerous film and arts festivals, including the annual Cambridge Film Festival. Many of the Colleges of the ̽��ֱ�� have film screening programmes and host visiting filmmakers.

̽��ֱ��broader culture of the ̽��ֱ�� has long been associated with creativity and dynamism in the arts and humanities, and continues to produce some of the most noteworthy names in the film and television industry, such as actors Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston and director Sam Mendes. Cambridge’s postgraduate degrees in Film and Screen Studies combine the wealth of the ̽��ֱ��’s humanistic traditions with innovative inquiry into the contemporary culture of the moving image.

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Joanna Hogg becomes Cambridge's first Filmmaker in Residence

rcc40 — Tue, 10 May 2016 09:44:53 +0000

Noted filmmaker, screenwriter and director Joanna Hogg is set to bring the silver screen to Cambridge this month, as the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s first ever Filmmaker in Residence.

Joanna Hogg, who is one of the world’s leading contemporary filmmakers working in the tradition of “narrative art cinema”, will hold a sequence of film masterclasses for students at the ̽��ֱ��, together with public screenings and discussions of her works. There will also be a symposium on Joanna Hogg’s career in cinema held on 18 May.

Joanna’s residency is being hosted by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Centre for Film and Screen, which provides a home for the ̽��ֱ��’s teaching and research in Film and Screen Studies, and which holds an array of seminars, screenings, discussions and events for students and the public throughout the year.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Arts Picturehouse cinema is collaborating with the Centre for Film and Screen to showcase a complete retrospective featuring Joanna Hogg’s three feature films, Unrelated (2007), Archipelago (2010) and Exhibition (2013), as well as a special screening of her first film, Caprice (1986), which stars a then little-known Tilda Swinton.

John David Rhodes, Director of the Centre for Film and Screen, said:

“Joanna Hogg is one of the leading contemporary international filmmakers working in the tradition of the stylised and stylish European art cinema. We wanted to invite Joanna to Cambridge to support new initiatives in Film and Screen Studies at the ̽��ֱ��. Many of us at the Centre work on European auteur cinema, and Joanna is importantly carrying on that tradition, but in a distinctively British context. Her work, while profoundly visual, also extends from an immersion in the literary. Although her cinema pays debts to the work of filmmakers like Chantal Akerman and Michelangelo Antonioni, she draws on British and European literature for much of her inspiration when writing.”

Joanna Hogg is currently working on a new screenplay, scheduled to go into production in summer this year.

Joanna said: “I am thrilled and honoured to be the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s first Filmmaker in Residence. I’m looking forward to bringing my ideas and approach to the ̽��ֱ�� and talking with students about my new film – a project which is very much under construction. I am anticipating a stimulating two-way conversation that I hope will inspire and give insight into my creative process. I know it will embolden and enrich my own filmmaking.”

Full details of all screenings and events held as part of Joanna Hogg’s residency at Cambridge can be found on the Centre for Film and Screen website at: https://www.mmll.cam.ac.uk/news/filmmaker-residence-joanna-hogg.

Tickets for screenings can be booked via the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. ̽��ֱ��symposium, ̽��ֱ��Work of Joanna Hogg, is free and open to the public. It will be held at Trinity College, Cambridge on 18 May.

Leading contemporary director and screenwriter Joanna Hogg is to become the first Filmmaker in Residence at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, where she is to present a series of talks and screenings this month.

I am thrilled and honoured to be the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s first Filmmaker in Residence. I’m looking forward to bringing my ideas and approach to the ̽��ֱ��

Joanna Hogg

Joanna Hogg behind the lens as a student filmmaker

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