Film / News
Event Cinema for October 2016
It’s one of the busiest months of the year for film. In addition to all the one-off events listed below, we have the biennial Wildscreen festival, the fifth annual Bristol Radical Film Festival, the start of BFI Black Star and Bristol Film Festival’s Horror in the Caves Halloween weekend of spooky screenings in Redcliffe Caves. As ever, full details of all screenings can be found in our comprehensive daily film listings, starting here.
Should you be yearning for the ’90s Britpop era, this is the documentary for you. Mat Whitecross, whose credits include Spike Island and the Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, raids the archives for plenty of previously unseen material to tell the story of Oasis, with particular reference to its feuding, gobby Gallagher siblings. This one-off satellite screening prior to the DVD/blu-ray release includes a live satellite Q&A.
Screening Oct 2: Curzon, Showcase Avonmeads, Showcase Cinema De Lux, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green, Cineworld Hengrove, Cineworld Yate, Everyman
Emmy-winning filmmaker Mani Benchelah spent a year chronicling the hardship faced by child refugees from Syria as they adjust to a new life in Lebanon. This Is Exile bagged the Amnesty International Award at the 18th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and the International Jury Prize at DOCUMENT Festival, Glasgow. The Cube’s screening is presented by Save the Children and will be followed by a Q&A session.
Screening Oct 4: Cube
Australian Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty
The world cinema premiere of David McAllister’s new production, which is billed as taking the venerable ballet into the modern age with lavish sets and costumes by Gabriela Tylesova. This is the first of three pre-recorded fairytale ballets from down under that are due to reach British cinema screens over the next few months. Coming up are Cinderella (Nov 23) and Coppelia (April 19, 2017).
Screening Oct 4: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Orpheus, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green
A one-off screening of the C4 documentary about 20-year-old Jonny Benjamin’s mission to track down the man who saved his life. Having been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, he stood on London’s Waterloo Bridge in 2008 intending to end his life. Jonny was talked down by a stranger and subsequently set out to locate and thank him personally. Jonny will be present for a Q&A after this screening, which is part of the Freedom of Mind Festival – a series of events focusing on mental health and emotional wellbeing taking place in Bristol between 30 Sept and 10 Oct.
Screening Oct 5: Watershed
Director Silvia Chiogna was briefly a boy called Mirco after a mix up by her grandmother with a blue towel. Since then, Silvia often wondered what life would have been like had she stayed Mirco, the same person but a different gender. In this film, she sets out to “challenge and break binary gender rules in society on the streets and in public places of Berlin.” This Queer Vision screening is followed by a panel discussion and will be preceded by the 15-minute short Wotever World, which “looks at what makes legendary queer cabaret Wotever special, needed and loved”.
Screening Oct 8: Cube
The Metropolitan Opera: Tristan und Isolde
The Met’s 2016/17 season kicks off with a new production by Mariusz Trelinski (the director responsible for last season’s double bill of Iolanta and Bluebeard’s Castle) of Wagner’s epic meditation on love and death. There’s a strong cast of Wagnerians: Nina Stemme as Isolde, Stuart Skelton as Tristan, Ekaterina Gubanova as Brangäne, and René Pape as King Marke. The conductor is Sir Simon Rattle, making a rare appearance with the Met.
Screening Oct 8: Showcase Cinema De Lux
For a while, it looked as though Louis Theroux’s film about the Church of Scientology would never get a cinema release. It was premiered to much acclaim at the 2015 London Film Festival but then seemed to disappear. Theroux’s USP is that he sets out to avoid the usual negotiations over access and subsequent confrontations by using actors to stage dramatic reconstructions of alleged incidents at the church’s secretive Gold Base and its punishment facility The Hole in California, as reported by whistleblowers such as former senior official Mark Rathbun. Needless to say, as soon as the Scientologists get wind of the film they respond in their usual fashion by resorting to legal threats and sending out their own film crews to follow Theroux, leading to many an amusing Mexican stand-off with cameras in place of guns. The critical consensus is that it all adds up to Python-esque comedy gold. This one-off screening is followed by a satellite Q&A with Louis Theroux from the Royal Festival Hall. Note that this event is already sold out at many venues, so you’d be well advised to grab tickets in advance and keep ’em peeled for additional cinemas added at the last minute. If this happens, you’ll find full details in our listings.
Screening Oct 10: Watershed, Curzon, Everyman, Showcase Cinema De Lux
Encore screening Oct 11: Watershed
Rarely has the over-used phrase “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry!” seemed more appropriate. You’ll howl with laughter at the antics of, and serial misfortunes afflicting, hapless Canadian heavy metal band Anvil. Then even heavily-tattooed men in leather jackets will struggle to hold back the tears as Sacha Gervasi’s expertly crafted documentary mutates into something altogether more wonderful: a genuinely inspirational paean to lifelong male friendship, perseverance and refusal to let go of teenage dreams as two fiftysomethings continue to rock out in defiance of John Lennon’s dictum that “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. The Bierkeller’s free screening is something of a scene-setter for Anvil’s performance at the venue on Oct 28. Doors are at 7.30pm and the movie starts at 8pm. Go here for tickets for Anvil’s show.
Screening Oct 12: Bierkeller
Knackered old King Lear decides to carve up his realm between his three daughters so he doesn’t have to bother with all that monarchical bollocks. Bad idea. Is that tragedy on the horizon? Gregory Doran directs this production, which is broadcast live from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and sees Antony Sher return to the title role.
Screening Oct 12: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Curzon, Orpheus, Everyman, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green, Cineworld Hengrove, Cineworld Yate
Perhaps in response to all that well-deserved cynicism about ‘farewell’ tours, Motley Crue made a big public show of signing a “cessation of touring agreement” which prevents them from touring under the name beyond the end of 2015. No doubt there are loopholes, but they’ve stuck to it so far. This is a recording of the sleaze metallers’ very last show at the Staples Centre in their home town of LA on New Year’s Eve 2015. So it really could be your last chance to see Nikki Sixx, the increasingly portly Vince Neil, the increasingly scary-looking Mick Mars, and Tommy Lee and his legendary performing penis – er, I mean rollercoaster drum kit – together on stage. Expect all the classics (Kickstart My Heart, Girls Girls Girls, Dr. Feelgood, etc), plus, regrettably, lame power ballad Home Sweet Home.
Screening Oct 13: Vue Cribbs Causeway
Werner Herzog turns his attention to the internet for ten chapters of philosophical musings about our increased reliance upon the online world, presented in the hushed style of his Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Although his film is funded by cybersecurity firm NetScout and has plenty of light-hearted guff about creating a robot football team, Herzog isn’t afraid to poke about in the darker reaches of the web and our relationship to it, from the family of a car crash victim whose demise went viral to the South Korean couple who were so addicted to online gaming that they carried on playing while their child starved to death. He also explores our immense vulnerability should the internet be brought done by any one of a number of potential catastrophes. This preview screening is followed by a satellite Q&A with irascible old Werner himself.
Screening Oct 13: Watershed
Bristol Bad Film Club: Parole Violators
Patrick G. Donohue directs this 1994 vehicle for his stuntman son Sean, who certainly throws himself into the action. Alas, along with the rest of the cast, he cannot act his way out of a paper bag. It doesn’t help that the dialogue is unintentionally hilarious throughout. Donohue plays former cop-turned-TV host Miles Long, who sidelines as a vigilante, videotaping low-life parole violators. Things get personal when dastardly, scenery-schewing child molester Chino gets out of the slammer and promptly kidnaps our hero’s daughter. All profits from this Bristol Bad Film Club screening go to Unchosen. Tickets, price £5, are available here.
Screening Oct 13: Bierkeller
Bristol Sunset Cinema: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
On the downside, it put Bryan Adams’ lachrymose lament at the top of the charts for what seemed like decades and the sight of Kevin Costner’s generous girth in the bathing scene is as unedifying as they come, but Kev was on a roll after Dances With Wolves and even considered himself worthy of stepping into Errol Flynn’s tights. Unfortunately, no one was in a position to argue with him. Like most of its predecessors, the Costner Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is an entertaining romp with scant regard for historical accuracy or, indeed, English geography. Kev’s performance is pure Sherwood oak, but mercifully the rest of the cast fare a little better whenever they can muscle their way onscreen. All, however, are upstaged by the late, great Alan Rickman as the sneery, scenery-chewing Sheriff of Nottingham, who’s not above cancelling Christmas if it’ll contribute to the sum of human misery. Every time he’s offscreen, the film visibly deflates. This is the fifth of six Ashton Court screenings put on by Bristol Sunset Cinema, which is the brainchild of the folks behind the Bristol Bad Film Club. Tickets cost £12.50 for adults and £8 for under 12s. Under-fives get in free, the lucky little buggers. See our feature here for more information.
Screening Oct 14: Ashton Court
Inspired by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s acclaimed book The Spirit Level, this new documentary explores the ever-expanding gap between rich and poor through the individual stories of seven people in the US and UK, where the top 0.1% cling on to the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90%. Equality Bristol presents three screenings of the film across the city, along with discussions, as part of Healthy City Week. Admission is free, but you do need to register to attend.
Screening Oct 15: Avon Community Centre
Screening Oct 17: Knowle West Media Centre
Screening Oct 20: Easton Community Centre
Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present + Q&A
Few people can claim to have heard of musician and filmmaker Tony Conrad – “the Bill Murray of the avant garde”, if you will – but he was an early member of the Velvet Underground and toured with Sonic Youth and Faust in the ’90s. Director Tyler Hubby and producers Paul Williams and Christine Beebe will be present for a Q&A after this screening of their new documentary about Conrad’s life and art (he died in April, aged 76).
Screening Oct 16: Cube
Bolshoi Ballet: The Golden Age
It’s 1923 and the joint is jumping at a lively coastal Soviet cabaret club called The Golden Age, where gangsters and their molls hang out. Horny young fisherman Boris falls for hot dancer Rita, who is, alas, the arm candy of a local wrong ‘un… Shostakovich’s satirical jazz age ballet fell out of favour for 50 years for political reasons, but was revived in 1982 by Yuri Grigorovich, the Bolshoi’s artistic director, and has remained a Bolshoi staple ever since. It kicks off the company’s 2016/17 season.
Screening Oct 16: Orpheus
Miss Saigon 25th anniversary performance
A recording of the 2014 25th anniversary gala performance of the hugely popular stage musical. This special performance features appearances by the original cast, including Jonathan Pryce and Lea Salonga.
Screening Oct 16: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Curzon, Orpheus, Odeon, Everyman, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green, Cineworld Hengrove, Cineworld Yate
Bristol Sunset Cinema: The Goonies
Shrieking, rather sentimental ’80s kids’ adventure flick, based on a story by Steven Spielberg. It’s an Indiana Jones-style romp that sees its pint-sized heroes (including future Lord of the Rings star Sean Astin) tussling with pirates while on the trail of lost treasure. Bristol Sunset Cinema‘s Sept 2 show of The Goonies sold in a couple of weeks. So they’ve now added this second screening on Oct 16. It replaces the previously announced screening of The Matrix, which proved mysteriously less popular. If you’ve already bought tickets for that, you can swap them for any other screening or get a full refund. Goonies tickets cost £12.50 for adults and £8 for under 12s. Under-fives get in free, the lucky little buggers. You can bag them here. See our feature here for more information about the season.
Screening Oct 16: Ashton Court
Royal Opera House Live: Cosi fan tutte
Cynical Don Alfonso (Johannes Martin Kranzle) wagers that he can prove all women will be unfaithful if put to the test. Idealistic young soldiers Ferrando (Daniel Behle) and Guglielmo (Alessio Arduini) accept the bet. Pretending they’ve been sent to war, they disguise themselves. Each then sets out to cop off with the other’s fiancee – Dorabella (Angela Brower) and Fiordiligi (Corinne Winters) respectively. For the Royal Opera’s new production of Mozart’s romantic opera, director Jan Philipp Gloger recasts Don Alfonso as a theatre director so he can use a variety of sets and props to test the lovers’ fidelity.
Screening Oct 17: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Orpheus, Odeon, Everyman, Vue Longwell Green, Vue Cribbs Causeway
Screening Oct 23: Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green
This Changes Everything + panel discussion
Filmed in nine countries and five continents over four years, this documentary sets out to ‘re-imagine’ the vast challenge of climate change in support of Naomi Klein’s thesis that it represents an opportunity to build a better economic system. The Curzon’s screening will be followed by a panel discussion.
Screening Oct 19: Curzon
Her Majesty’s Secret Cinema: Ghostbusters
Unemployed parapsychologists Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis set up shop as spook removers, but meet their match when a giant marshmallow threatens the Big Apple. The recent all-female remake wasn’t as bad as we feared, but the 1984 original remains the definitive version as well as being officially the most commercially successful comedy of the 1980s. This screening marks the first collaboration between Bristol Film Festival and Bristol Cocktail Week. Billed as “on location at the Station”, it uses the backdrop of the historic fire station to bring the film to life. Needless to say, themed cocktails will be served. Advance tickets, price £20 (plus inevitable booking fee), are available here.
Screening Oct 20: The Station
After the sell-out first fest at The Cube last year, the Shextreme Film Festival moves to the Arnolfini. There are two UK premieres this time – Way East and Full Moon – plus panel discussions, pop-up shops and a film school on Oct 20. See our news story here for more about the festival. Advance tickets are available here.
Screening Oct 21: Arnolfini
Mozart’s Don Giovanni is the story of the eponymous promiscuous nobleman who shags his way across Europe. But when the incorrigible nobbing nob goes too far and commits murder, he unleashes ‘orrible vengeance from beyond the grave. Simon Keenlyside makes his Met role debut as Mr. Legover in Tony Award winner Michael Grandage’s staging of the opera.
Screening Oct 22: Showcase Cinema De Lux
Branagh Theatre Live: The Entertainer
John Osborne’s follow up to Look Back in Anger was this play about sad, middle-aged, washed-up music hall star Archie Rice, set against the backdrop of post-colonial decline and personal tragedy. For the third production in his ambitious year-long residency at the Garrick Theatre, Ken Branagh takes the title role – which was, of course, originally played by Laurence Olivier. Rob Ashford directs.
Screening Oct 27: Showcase Cinema De Lux, Curzon, Orpheus, Odeon, Everyman, Vue Cribbs Causeway, Vue Longwell Green
Bristol Film Festival: The Medusa Touch
In this pleasingly misanthropic British supernatural thriller, Richard Burton plays a telekinetic catastrophe magnet whose party tricks include crashing a passenger plane into a tower block more than two decades before 9/11. His piece de resistance, however, is a plan to take revenge on the hypocrisy of god-botherers by causing ‘Minster Cathedral’ to collapse from the comfort of his hospital bed, where he lies in a coma after being bashed about the head by his own shrink (Lee Remick). His target is none other than Her Maj and sundry bigwigs who are due to attend a service. No amount of Routemaster buses shipped in to drive up and down past the building can disguise the fact that Minster Cathedral is actually Bristol Cathedral (back in the days when you could drive anything past it). The Council House and lower end of Park Street are clearly visible in the background and the filmmakers seem to have enjoyed remarkable access to the Cathedral, which crumbles to the ground in an entertaining shower of bouncing rubber bricks. One can only presume that the Cathedral authorities were reassured that Burton’s supernatural abilities were not depicted as being in any way Satanic. This Bristol Film Festival screening marks the first time that The Medusa Touch has been shown at the Cathedral and is part of the Fest’s Halloween weekend. The Cathedral will be bathed in candlelight for the occasion, with live music before the show, a wine reception and self-guided tours. The screening itself is preceded by a short documentary, specially produced by Bristol Film Festival, featuring local extras who share their memories of working on the movie. Advance tickets, price £12-£10, are available here.
Screening Oct 29: Bristol Cathedral
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