Star and Shadow: Av Festival 12: Whole Evening Of Films (Slow Cinema Wkend): 6pm

Av Festival 12: Whole Evening Of Films (Slow Cinema Wkend): 6pm - 11pm + Directors Q&A

Dir. Lav Diaz and Fred Kelemen, Unknown

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Fri 9 March 2012 // 18:00 / Cinema

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6pm-8.30pm: Nightfall (Dir. Fred Keleman)

9.30pm-11pm: Heremias Book II (Dir. Lav Diaz) (instead of the originally programmed Elegy to the Revolution - sorry for any inconvenience caused)

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FILM 1: 6pm:
Nightfall (Dir. Fred Keleman, 1999, format: 35mm, length: 140min, Germany) + Q&A with the director

Kelemen’s third feature is a devastating, tender and sublime masterpiece. Expanding the location to Portugal integrates the Fado tradition of love and death ballads into this depiction of a single night in the lives of an estranged couple. Combining 35mm long-takes with video close-ups, the black depravity of the night surrounds them like a long sad song.

One of the boldest German filmmakers of the last 20-years, critic Susan Sontag compared Kelemen’s “urgently relevant” work to Sokurov and collaborator Tarr. He garnered attention for his 1990s trilogy – Fate, Frost and Nightfall. Believing in “time and not in speed”, meditations on human dissolution, cruelty and loneliness unfold at somnambulant pace. Set amongst Europe’s late-capitalist underclass of the unemployed and dispossessed, he captures nocturnal urban low-life with beauty.

Kelemen will present to introduce and discuss his work, in conversation with film critic Jonathan Romney (from the magazine Sight & Sound).

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FILM 2: 9.30pm:
LAST MINUTE CHANGE OF PROGRAMME: Heremias Book II (Dir. Lav Diaz, 2008, Philipines) + Q&A with the director

INSTEAD OF ELEGY TO THE REVOLUTION (sorry for any inconvenience caused)
This striking film introduces one of Lav's principle characters, the timid yet resolute craftsman and vendor Heremias. The film cuts between the story of the boy Heremias growing up in isolation in a leprosy colony and the adult Heremias who return to the island of his childhood. As critic May Adadol Ingawanij has argued "Nowhere more powerfully than the closing minutes of Heremias Book II does cinema show how much it can do, with so little."

Internationally celebrated as “the ideological father of the New Philippine Cinema”. Diaz has created one of the most compelling bodies of work in contemporary cinema. Peopled by outsiders – failed revolutionaries, filmmakers, artists, criminals and cult members – his work explores society from the margins and the traumatic post-colonial history of South-East Asia. Using extreme duration, it offers a deeply rewarding, immersive and unique experience. This UK debut focuses on recent work.

Diaz will be present for discussion with curator George Clark and critic May Adadol Ingawanij.

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+ CINEMA OPEN AT 5PM + PIZZA!

The cinema will be open from 5pm, and we will be serving pizza from then and for the whole night, so come and have a drink and a pizza with us before the screenings!

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Part of AV Festival 12: As Slow As Possible, www.avfestival.co.uk

AV Festival Film Loyalty Card - Collect 4 stamps and the 5th film is FREE