Northern Lights Film Festival 2010 » Films

No One Knows About Persian Cats

NLFF — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:37:23 +0000

Film screening: Tuesday 23rd March, 6pm @ Gala
Special event: Wednesday 24th March, 6pm-11pm @ Side Cinema

Director Bahman Ghobadi / Iran 2009 / 106 min
Certificate 15 / In Persian with English Subtitles

President Mahmud Ahmadinejad imposed a ban on ‘Western and decadent music’ in Iran soon after taking power, yet No One Knows About Persian Cats portrays Tehran as a city with a vibrant underground indie rock scene, and features a number of bands who sound and look good enough to be gaining coverage in NME. Made in secret, and in fear for the crew’s safety this is a remarkable film that cannot be broadcast in the country it was made.

After the screening there will be a skype interview with director Bahman Ghobadi and some of the young people in the film to find out about the frightening reality of rule breaking in Iran.

Side Cinema: Plus live gig by the stars of the movie, Take It Easy Hospital.
Tickets £10 / £8 call 0191 232 2208 or buy Online

Gala Cinema: £6 / £5.25 call 0191 332 4041 or buy Online

Star Suckers with guest Chris Atkins

NLFF — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:45:08 +0000

Venue: Tyneside Cinema
Dates: Thursday 25th March
Time: 8.00pm

Director Chris Atkins / UK 2009 / 103 mins
Certificate 12 A / In English

A furiously entertaining documentary in which Chris Atkins toys with tabloid newspapers by creating fake celebrity news stories and watching them spread like wild fire amongst rival publications. Made in secret over 2 years, the film journeys through the dark underbelly of the modern media, using a combination of undercover reporting and stunts to reveal the toxic effect the media is having on all of us. It’s thought-provoking, chaotic and absolutely hilarious and after the screening you can get the inside gossip from the man himself.

Tickets: £7 / £6, call 0845 217 9909
Buy Online

The Room

NLFF — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:41:52 +0000

Venue: Tyneside Cinema
Date: Monday 22nd March
Time: 8pm

Director Tommy Wiseau / USA 2003 /99 min
Certificate 15 TBC / In English

Dubbed ‘The Citizen Kane of Bad movies’, debate rages over whether Tommy Wiseau’s film ‘The Room’ is actually supposed to be funny.

He says yes. Without any studio support, Wiseau spent over $7 million on production and marketing for the film. It’s a melodramatic love triangle between a man, his future wife and his best friend and after a run at an LA cinema it has grown into a cult of Rocky Horror Picture Show proportions in the US in which audience members dress up as their favourite characters, toss footballs to each other, wave spoons (you’ll see) and yell abuse about the film at the screen. So now is your chance to experience the phenomenon first hand and decide for yourself.

“A mix of Tennessee Williams, Ed Wood and R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet.” The Guardian

Tickets: £7 / £6, call 0845 217 9909

Night and Fog in Japan (Nihon no yoru to kiri)

NLFF — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:11:51 +0000

Venue: Star And Shadow Cinema
Dates: Friday 26th March
Time: 7:30pm

Director Ôshima Nagisa / Japan 1960 / 107 mins
Certificate 15 / In Japanese with English Subtitles

Night & Fog in Japan openly displays the director’s disappointment with the left wing movement in the light of the US-Japan security Treaty talks. Using avant-garde techniques of clashing archival material with stylized drama, this is Oshima’s most explicitly political film in both form and content.

Tickets are £4/£3 and can be bought on Skiddle

London Short Film Festival Programme

NLFF — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:46:42 +0000

Venue: Tyneside Cinema
Dates: Friday 26th March
Time: 4pm-6pm

World class programmer Philip Ilson (LSFF) selected some great films for you that tease out the themes of this festival. Philip will introduce the screening and tell you what he looks for in short films.

Crossing Boundaries’

Censorship, memory and crossing boundaries are all linked in some way, such as the crossing of personal and physical borders in stories of people trafficking where both physical (country) borders and personal borders are crossed. In these cases, it is the borders of how humans treat each other that are crossed, with people going to extreme lengths to survive. But also in stories of ‘outcasts’ in societies, similar personal borders are breached, with individuals stepping outside of what is acceptable in their society. This programme of short films crosses boundaries in these different ways; do we find the portrayal of cadavers acceptable in the stunningly visual DANSE MACABRE, made in collaboration with radical Canadian theatre designer Robert Lepage, or are we happy with the terrorist persona of the mid-west American pro-wrester in TEAM TALIBAN? All these films challenge our boundaries in multiple ways.

Films screening (listed here in alphabetical order):

CARGO (Leo Woodhead, New Zealand / Czech Republic, 12 mins)

While trafficking people across a border, the driver makes an unlikely friend and ally.

DANCE MACABRE (Pedro Pires, Canada, 9 min)

Based on a concept by Robert Lepage, Pedro Pires’s exquisitely photographed morbid ballet pushes the traditional dance film to new cinematic heights. In haunting deserted spaces, the choreographed erratic motions of a corpse evoke the final spasms of life and a last struggle with the emotional turns of the past.

HO! TERRIBLE EXTERIORS (Lior Shamriz, Israel, 28 min)

An attempt to combine two different types of movies. One is the poetic and erotic journey of an urban couple trying to reconnect with nature. The other is a shallow comedy about a love triangle in Tel Aviv.

TEAM TALIBAN (Benjamin Kegan, US, 12 min)

A documentary about Adeel Alam, an Arab-American trying to carve out a place in the semi-pro wrestling world. He does so by adopting a terrorist persona in the ring.

YOU’RE THE STRANGER HERE (Tom Geens, UK, 16 min)

You’re the Stranger Here is a story about a middle-aged woman with a crazy leg. She lives in a fascist regime where people with her condition get shot on the spot. Inspired by the courageous death of one of her fellow sufferers, she goes on an all or nothing quest to change the world, falling in love with her executor in the process.

Ticketed but free

The First Movie with guest Mark Cousins

NLFF — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:09:47 +0000

Venue: Gala
Date: Sunday 21st March
Time: 3pm

Director Mark Cousins / UK / Iraq 2009/ 76 min
Certificate 15 / In English

We are delighted to welcome director Mark Cousins who will be introducing the film and then will host a short Q&A session.

Northern Irish cineaste Mark Cousins is a passionate advocate of the power of film to transform our  understanding of the world. In The First Movie he visits a small village in the Kurdish North of Iraq armed with a projector, a selection of great movies and three small cameras to allow the children there to express their inner imaginations.

Tickets £10 / £8, call 0191 332 4041 or Buy Online