settima

1980s

Der siebente Kontinent [The Seventh Continent] (Michael Haneke, 1989)

Jun

18

Clean Your Aquarium Day

Der siebente Kontinent (1989)

Evi (Leni Tanzer) dedicated to her routine of feeding the aquarium fish before going to bed. DP: Anton Peschke.

A middle-class Austrian family – father, mother and their ten year old daughter – live a mundane, almost ritualised life. There's work, school, social obligations. Stuff to maintain and food to prepare. Patients to see and fish to feed. Constant repetition begets chaos.

“Okay, time to say your prayers.”

– Anna Schober

错位 [Cuo wei / Dislocation] (Huang Jianxin, 1986)

Jun

17

啤酒

错位 (1986)

The engineer (Zifeng Liu) drinking many many beers with his secretary (Hong Mu). DP: Xinsheng Wang.

Könnyű testi sértés [Tight Quarters] (György Szomjas, 1983)

Jun

15

freebie: Flatmates Day

Könnyű testi sértés (1983)

In a claustrophobically framed shot, two men and a woman – Csaba (Károly Eperjes), Miklós (Péter Andorai) and Éva (Mariann Erdőss) respectively – share a small kitchen. DP: Ferenc Grunwalsky.

Planeta krawiec [The Planet ‘Tailor’] (Jerzy Domaradzki, 1983)

June

7

National Tailors Day

Planeta krawiec (1983)

Lobby card. A fraction of the night sky with, where you would expect the Moon, a large button. DP: Stanisław Szymański.

During the tense hours of a solar #eclipse, the locals spend their time in a bar. One litre of vodka is the wager for he who can correctly guess a woman's dress size. Of course, tailor Józef Romanek (Kazimierz Kaczor) doesn't need to guess and that one litre later, finds himself walking through space. When he comes round from his coma, Józef builds an observatory in his house, where the tailor with his home-made telescope dreams of finding an unknown planet, and discovers the world around him.

 

Polish tailor Adam Giedrys is not only the subject of Planeta krawiec, but also served as the film's consultant. For his passion for and devotion to astronomy, Giedrys was the first Pole to receive Lunar soil from #NASA's 1969 Apollo 11 Moon mission.

Les trois couronnes du matelot [Three Crowns of the Sailor] (Raúl Ruiz, 1983)

Jun

5

Les trois couronnes du matelot (1983)

A woman at a table, writing in a notebook with a pencil. There's a Chinese newspaper, a lit candle and candle stump, and stacked tableware in the form of Chinese bowls and bamboo steamers. DP: Sacha Vierny.

Les trois couronnes du matelot [Three Crowns of the Sailor] (Raúl Ruiz, 1983)

Jun

4

National Week Of The Ocean

Les trois couronnes du matelot (1983)

The sailor (Jean-Bernard Guillard) on his ship. DP: Sacha Vierny.

A man murders another and meets a drunk sailor. The drunk then tells the murderer about his life on the sea. Les trois couronnes du matelot is of course never a straightforward crime film. It's Raúl Ruiz, it never is.

“I got nothing out of this crime except the ring he offered me many times; several hundred marks; a collection of old coins, of no value; and a long letter where he advised me to leave the country.”

– the student

The sailor drinks, celebrates and mourns the women and men of his past, we all get drunk on life while the dark water closes itself again above our heads.

আকালের সন্ধানে [Akaler Sandhane / In Search of Famine] (Mrinal Sen, 1981)

May

29

चाय

আকালের সন্ধানে (1981)

The Bollywood stars arrive at the temple. In the foreground one of the actresses, cupping a beaker with her hands. DP: K.K. Mahajan.

আকালের সন্ধানে [Akaler Sandhane / In Search of Famine] (Mrinal Sen, 1982)

May

28

World Hunger Day

আকালের সন্ধানে (1982)

A woman in sari looks up to the sky, her left hand shielding her eyes. DP: K.K. Mahajan.

A film crew from Calcutta arrives in a small Bengal town to make a film about the 1943 Bengal Famine. Initially, their arrival sparks joy and wonder but while filming, the participants – travelling back and forth between 1943 and 1980, Calcutta and rural Bengal, and reality and re-enactment – come to realise that #famine has many faces.

You the Better (Ericka Beckman, 1983)

May

8

VE-Day

You the Better (1983)

One of the players, an handsome young white man, celebrates a score. He wears blue pants with a yellow string, a blue shirt with a blue T-shirt underneath. On his head a red and white hat. The bill hides part of his face. He's got his right arm raised in victory. Behind him other players in identical kits. On the back of shirts a a symbol that looks like a surprised smiley, or a bowling ball.

They say, the house always wins. In You the Better, the House is an unseen character. The other character – a constantly changing team of athletes wearing blue uniforms and caps and coached by artist Ashley Bickerton – play a baffling hybrid of craps, dodgeball, and roulette while arcade game noises and Brooke Halpin's catchy chants accompany the players. While You the Better suggests repetitiveness, a theme of winning, losing, and competitiveness reveals itself.

“HANDS UP PUT YOUR HANDS UP GIMME MORE GIMME GIMME MORE BETTER GIMME MORE”

– recurring chant

You the Better is part of Beckman's The Super-8 Trilogy, a multimedia art project that explores play in Western society.

E la nave va [And the Ship Sails On] (Federico Fellini, 1983)

May

5

National Concert Day

E la nave va (1983)

The opera singers and their entourage performing on a platform high above the boilers and elated ships' crew. DP: Giuseppe Rotunno.

The opera world is in mourning. Edmea Tetua, the greatest singer of all time, has passed away. On a grande ocean liner, her friends, colleagues, admirers have come together to scatter Edmea's ashes near Erimo, the island where she was born.

“This is the funny thing abut sea voyages. After a few days, you feel as if you'd been sailing forever. You feel you've always known your fellow voyagers.”

During a tour of the ship, the passengers visit the boiler room where – urged on by the engine room crew – an impromptu operatic competition unfolds, all to the pulsating rhythm of the steamliner's bloated belly.