Season 9 films

“This biopic of Belfast’s godfather of punk is terrific, particularly in its scenes of noisy, pogoing epiphany.” – Guardian

“Go early. Go often. Bring the family.” – Irish Times

A happy, high-spirited movie set against the misery of The Troubles in the 1970s, when Terri Hooley, Belfast’s madcap godfather of punk, opened a record shop on ‘the most bombed half-mile’ in Europe. Stars Richard Dormer of ‘The Fall’.

Directors:  Glenn Leyburn & Lisa Barros D’Sa.  UK, Ireland, 2012. 102 minutes.  Cert: 15A

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Terri Hooley is a radical, rebel and music-lover in 1970s Belfast when the bloody conflict known as the Troubles shuts down his city. As all his friends take sides and take up arms, Terri opens a record shop on the most bombed half-mile in Europe and calls it Good Vibrations. Through it he discovers a compelling voice of resistance in the city¹s nascent underground punk scene. Galvanising the young musicians into action, he becomes the unlikely leader of a motley band of kids and punks who join him in his mission to create a new community, an alternative Ulster, to bring his city back to life. – Belfast Film Festival 2012

Starring: Richard Dormer, Jodie Whittaker, Karl Johnson, Liam Cunningham, Adrian Dunbar, Dylan Moran

Click here to read The Irish Times review (4 stars).

Click here to read The Guardian review (4 stars).

 

“Michael Haneke’s effortlessly graceful picture will come to be seen as one of the greatest films about the confrontation of death and ageing.” – Observer

“This is Michael Haneke’s second Palme d’Or winner and shows the director as a film-maker of incomparable seriousness and weight, and this is a passionate, painful, intimate drama to be compared with Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage.” – Guardian

” intelligent film-making of the highest order” – Guardian, 5 Stars

A masterpiece from the director of Hidden and The White Ribbon. An elderly Parisian couple, both retired music teachers, face their final act together as Anna descends into illness.

Director: Michael Haneke. France, Germany, Austria, 2012. 127 minutes. Cert: 12A. Language: French

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From the director of Hidden and The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke’s extraordinary new drama Amour is announced as the Closing Gala of the Official Selection.  Amour is the Austrian writer/director’s second Palme d’Or winner at Cannes where the film was hailed as a masterpiece after its world premiere.  Georges (Jean- Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emanuelle Riva) are a couple in their eighties who have been in a close loving relationship for most of their lives. They are both retired from teaching music and live in a spacious Paris apartment, with a daughter (Isabelle Huppert) in England.  One day Anna suffers a loss of memory, the first sign of her emerging illness, and Georges faces the end of their final act together. – Leeds International Film Festival 2012

Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Alexandre Tharaud, William Shimell

 

Click here to read Philip French’s review in The Observer.

Click here to read Peter Bradshaw’s 5 star review in The Guardian.

 

After her Nazi parents are imprisoned, Lore leads her siblings across war-torn Germany in 1945. Amidst the chaos, she encounters a mysterious Jewish refugee who shatters her fragile reality. To survive, she must trust someone she was taught to hate.

Director: Cate Shortland. Germany, 2012. 109 minutes. Cert: 15A. Language: German

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Cate Shortland (Somersault) offers a unique perspective on the nature of collusion with this story of a young German girl who, at the end of WWII, leads her siblings through a devastated and defeated nation. Shortland’s attention to detail and the beauty of the imagery she creates in her account of a national psyche brainwashed to believe in their own supremacy, only to confront the horror that resulted, is filled with brilliance and surprise in equal measure. – Dingle Film Festival 2012

Starring: Saskia Rosendahl, Kai Malina, Ursina Lardi, Nele Trebs

An intensely serious and accomplished study of errant teenagers and their preoccupied mothers. Finely-acted by a large cast, five intertwined stories are played out on the mean streets of Melbourne. “a missile of raw emotion” – Variety

Director: Ana Kokkinos. Australia, 2009. 111 minutes. Cert: 18. Language: English

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Blessed is a dark, relentless and intensely serious study of errant teenagers and their preoccupied mothers. Finely acted by a large cast led by a jagged, desperate Frances O¹Connor, four thematically linked stories are played out on the mean streets of western Melbourne: unhappy mothers mistrust their children, drifting children mistrust their mothers. Director Kokkinos, known for her sexy, stylised Head On (1998) and The Book
of Revelation (2006), works close to documentary realism here, with much hand-held camerawork and a street-weary look.

Starring: Frances O¹Connor, Miranda Otto, Deborra-Lee Furness, Victoria Haralabidou, William McInnes, Sophie Lowe

In an unprecedented series of interviews, six former heads of Israel’s secret service speak about Israel’s war on Palestinian terrorism, candidly discussing their decisions, rationalisations and regrets. “riveting from beginning to end” – LA Times

Director: Dror Moreh. Israel, 2012. 95 minutes. Cert: Club. Language: Hebrew

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In an unprecedented and candid series of interviews, six former heads of the Shin Bet‹Israel’s intelligence and security agency‹speak about their role in Israel’s decades-long counterterrorism campaign. Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers is a rare glimpse into the untold history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the point of view of the Shin Bet. In this series of one-on-one interviews, combined with never-before-seen archival footage, Moreh gives us unfettered access to the decisions, rationalisations, and regrets of Israel’s most powerful homeland security officials. As these veteran intelligence chiefs speak with detachment about their participation in some of Israel’s most controversial counterterrorist initiatives, their steely singularity of purpose‹to maintain the state’s security‹remains constant. But hard questions arise. What constitutes acceptable ‘collateral damage’? What is the virtue of a ‘proportional’ response? The Gatekeepers offers many explanations, but no apologies. – Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2012

An innocent teenager is tricked into marriage as a second wife to an older man. Wife number one has cancer and hopes to train the girl as her replacement. This gripping tragedy explores marital arrangements endured in quiet claustrophobia.

Director: Umut Dag. Austria, 2012. 93 minutes. Cert: Club. Language: German, Turkish

The challenge of retaining faith and hope in the face of poverty and injustice is at the core of this brilliant, hard-hitting film. Two dedicated priests try, and often fail, to make a difference in a grim Buenos Aires shanty town. Score by Michael Nyman.

Director: Pablo Trapero . Argentina, 2012. 110 minutes. Cert: 15A. Language: Spanish

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The challenge of retaining your faith in the face of everyday poverty, suffering and injustice provides a compelling core to this latest from brilliant Argentinian director Pablo Trapero. In  Lion’s Den and Carancho, he displayed his skill at fusing social issues with gripping thriller narratives, and here adapts to the daunting environs of a real-life shantytown in Buenos Aires, surrounding the massive empty shell of an unfinished hospital – a monument to failed good intentions.

Ricardo Darín, South America’s great screen icon, exudes troubled decency as the embattled priest caught between church officialdom and his hardscrabble flock, while the arrival of Jérémie Renier’s big-hearted but impetuous Belgian missionary only escalates the temperature of the neighbourhood drugs war.

Examining the gnarly realities of compassion, the film is resolutely fair-minded towards the local residents who took part in its production, and adamantly eschews easy answers in pondering the conundrum of making a difference. The brooding Michael Nyman score is used with sparing effectiveness. –  Trevor Johnston / Irish Film Institute Programme

Starring: Riccardo Darin, Jérémie Renier, Martina Gusman

Master sushi chef Jiro Ono owns a renowned ten-seat, €250 a plate, three-Michelin starred Tokyo restaurant. From bidding at a tuna auction to the proper way to massage an octopus, his arcane craft is profiled in mouth-watering detail. But is Jiro’s son a worthy heir to his legacy?

Director: David Gelb. Japan, 2012. 83 minutes. Cert: G. Language: Japanese

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An appetizing documentary in every sense, Jiro Dreams of Sushi follows 85-year old master sushi chef Jiro Ono, owner of the esteemed 10 seat, $300 a ­ plate Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant in Tokyo. From the ins and outs of the tuna auction to the proper way to massage an octopus director David Gelb dynamically profiles all aspects of the craft in mouth watering style and detail, paying lushly photographed homages to the process of preparing the artisan sushi that earned Jiro and elite three Michelin stars. – Tribeca Film Festival 2012

A superb romp about three young men keen to lose their virginity. There’s a twist: paraplegic Philip, blind Jozef and wheelchair-bound Lars have very different relationships with their own bodies. Unsentimental and brimming with good-natured humour.

Director: Geoffrey Enthoven. Belgium, 2011. 115 minutes. Cert: 15A. Language: Dutch, French

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Known in its native Belgium as Hasta La Vista, Come As You Are has nothing to do with Nirvana or The Terminator, and everything to do with friendship and humanity. Bearing similarities with The Sessions, it’s the loosely true story of three disabled men who embark on a trip to Spain in order to lose their virginity at a “specialist” brothel. The subject matter is ripe for crass gags or patronising sentimentality but succumbs to neither.  Director Geoffrey Enthoven treats his characters as people, with a three-dimensional sense of empathy and good-natured humour. – Total Film

Starring: Robrecht Vanden Thoren, Gilles de Schrijver,Tom Audenaert, Isabelle de Hertogh

A flawless film. Political refugee Babette throws a dinner party for the entire village in austere 19th-century Denmark, giving a gift for both body and soul. Oscar, Best Foreign Language Film. Introduction by Catherine Murray, Head of Filmmaking/Video Production, St. John’s College.

Director: Gabriel Axel. Denmark, 1987. 102 minutes. Cert: G. Language: Danish

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Based on Isak Dinesen’s novel, this is a literary adaptation that makes the transition to screen with grace and dignity, matching every word of the book with a moment, an image or a sound.  The story is a simple one, uncomplicated and unfussed. Babette has worked for her sisters all her life. When she wins the lottery, she decides to celebrate by throwing a huge dinner party for all the entire village. Starting from that simple premise the story of Babette, her employers, and the residents of the village are told.

Starring: Stephanie Audran, Bodil Kjer and Brigitte Federspiel