Famous for its innovative use of flashbacks and directed by genius French filmmaker Alain Resnais, it is based on a screenplay by French writer Marguerite Duras. Highly acclaimed, it is considered as the first film of the French New Wave.

One of Resnais’ protagonists is French from Nevers, staying at the New Hiroshima Hotel in Hiroshima whilst working as an actress making a movie about peace; the other is an architect from Hiroshima having an affair with her whilst his wife is away. There is no story as such - only a strip of action. Two people come together in this town 13 years after it was blasted by the atomic bomb.

The concern of director A. Resnais is to probe into the mechanisms of deterritorialised memory. The first section of the film probes how memory when detached from its locus in the personal becomes the basis of new kinds of activities or even industries. The Auschwitz industry, the Hiroshima industry, industries based on the endless mechanical replay of atrocity footage, industries based on a certain assumptions about the nature of memory.

The film won a special award at the 1959 prestigious Cannes International Film Festival. Jean-Luc Godard described its inventiveness as "Faulkner plus Stravinsky", and it inspired a song to Ultravox! What else do you need? This is a rare chance to see this excellent film on the big screen on a 35 mm projector. Do not miss it.

This film is also shown on Thu 22 Nov at 7.30 pm.