CINEMA REBORN 2023 - APRIL NEWSLETTER #1 - FOUR WOMEN FILM-MAKERS

 AN UPDATE ON CINEMA REBORN 2023

 

Key Image for 2023 - Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant,
Mauvais Sang (Leos Crax, France, 1986)

Our CINEMA REBORN WEBSITE is now live and a number of titles include long program notes. Within a short time the complete notes will be uploaded so bookmark the site and keep checking back. We expect our printed catalogue which will include all program notes and some additional specially written material will be completed over Easter and the pages will be available for download shortly. A limited number of printed copies of the catalogue will be available for sale ($5 cash only) at the Cinema Reborn Information Desk in the Ritz foyer. If you want to reserve a copy for collection at the Desk send an email to foleykaren11@gmail.com

 

WHAT’S HOT

 

We have been very pleased with the response to LA PISCINE  THE TRIAL THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE and THE LAST EMPEROR. Click on the film titles to see the trailers for those films. Session times and bookings for all 16 programmes IF YOU CLICK HERE

 

FOUR WOMEN FILM-MAKERS 

Kira Muratova

 

First we must note the Ukrainian pioneer film-maker KIRA MURATOVA. Her 1971 film THE LONG FAREWELL may be adjudged a film from the 80s because immediately it was completed it was banned. It was not until the Perestroika period that the film was released. Adrian Martin has written the catalogue and website notes which will be published shortly but to give you a taste here are his opening sentences:

“The Ukrainian Kira Muratova (1934-2018) was entirely absent from the shake-out of Sight and Sound’s 2022 ‘Best Films of All Time’ canon poll. That is a crime. But is it really so surprising? Muratova, intransigent and uncompromising to the end of her days, never fit into anyone’s categorisation of her, and never tried to flatter the sedimented perceptions of even her most devoted fans and champions. Intellectualising her cinema on the festival circuit left her cold; she just wanted to be left alone to create. And create she did: from Brief Encounters in 1967 to Eternal Return in 2012, her work was one, giant blast of energy, by turns lyrical and rude, absorbing and alienating.” 

 

THE LONG FAREWELL screens twice. On Saturday 29 April at 10.45 am the screening will include an introduction by film-maker Margot Nash. The repeat screening is on Tuesday 2 May at 6.15pm.

BOOKINGS, CREDITS AND CLASSIFICATION AT IF YOU CLICK HERE

 

Then there are three remarkable women film-makers from the early 80s. HELEN GRACE from Australia, CLAUDIA VON ALEMANN from West Germany and BETTE GORDON from the USA. Each made films that have continued to resonate and each of their films has been restored and the restorations will be having their Australian premiere at Cinema Reborn. 

 

Bette Gordon

VARIETY (BETTE GORDON, USA, 1983) is often described as a “proto-feminist film noir” and as a “psycho-sexual thriller”, Gordon’s 1983 film is set in the sex shops around Times Square. Christine takes a job as a ticket-seller in a porn cinema known as “Variety” and becomes fascinated by the sleazy attendees and the Wall Street walk-ins. Her challenge to be in the same space men occupy in the sexual world leads her to obsessively stalk an older businessman whom she believes controls the rackets in New York’s fish markets. Joe Brennan called Christine “a curious boundary-pushing heroine” while claiming the film “transformed the neo-noir genre”. 

A 2K restoration with a music score from the NYC jazz icon John Lurie.

 

Helen Grace

SERIOUS UNDERTAKINGS (HELEN GRACE, AUSTRALIA, 1983) is a fascinating film about the construction of history, culture and politics. Divided into five segments the film explores how dominant ideas of Australian history, national character and sexual difference are determined by who is telling the story and how it is told. 

“Serious Undertakings breaks new ground in understanding the construction of meaning itself and was a landmark Australian film when it was made in 1983…. Helen Grace’s brilliance lies in using the language of cinema to deconstruct and ridicule dominant cultural and political ideas.”

- Susan Lambert, Australian film-maker

SERIOUS UNDERTAKINGS screens as part of a double bill with BLIND SPOT

 

Claudia von Alemann during the shooting of Blind Spot

BLIND SPOT (Claudia von Alemann, West Germany, 1980) focuses on Elizabeth, a young historian who leaves her husband and child in Germany and travels to Lyon to reconstruct the final months in the life of Flora Tristan (1803-1844). A women’s rights activist, Tristan travelled throughout industrial regions of France fighting for women’s emancipation, the ‘proletarian of the proletarian.’ Well over a century later, Elizabeth, with a tape recorder, wanders the streets of Lyon alone, reconstructing a sense memory of Tristan’s life. 2K restoration. 

BOOKINGS, SESSION TIMES, CLASSIFICATIONS FOR ALL CINEMA REBORN PROGRAMS IF YOU CLICK HERE

Tax Deductible Charitable Donations

Cinema Reborn is an organisation devoted exclusively to exploring the Cinema's heritage. It is managed and organised by a group of dedicated film professionals here working solely on a voluntary basis to assemble an annual selection of cinema classics from around the world.

Cinema Reborn has relied, since its inception, on the generosity of donors who support our aims and are committed to the annual project of bringing cinema classics back to a big screen in perfect new digital copies. Without such support the event could not be presented.

 

To make a large or small tax deductible donation to support our work CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE AUSTRALIAN CULTURAL FUND