SCREAM PITCH

Posted October 29th, 2015 by Xenia

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SCREAM PITCH: Our annual round-up of the best horror projects in town.

Yes. They’re back.

And this time no one gets out alive.

It’s SCREAM PITCH!!!!

To read complete pitches and to contact any of the writers, please email andy@shootingpeople.org

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DRACULA IS OUT OF HIS BOX!
By NICHOLAS HORWARD

Genre: Comedy
Length: 90
Author: Nicholas Horwood

Logline:

London, 1889. A group of Victorian vampire hunters do battle with the evil Count Dracula and his disfunctional family.

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THE NIGHTSHIFT
By SEAN-PAUL THOMAS

Genre: Horror/Black comedy/Gore-fest.
Length: 90 Minutes
Author: Sean-Paul Thomas

Logline:

A group of Nightshift workers trapped inside their DIY superstore, must survive until sunrise as a powerful evil entity awakens and hunts them down one by one to feed on their souls.

Think Evil Dead/Nightmare on Elm Street meets Clerks set in your local hardware store.

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CROW FAIR
By ALAN FLEET

Genre: Horror
Length: 107mins

Logline:

To a young DPhil student researching pagan traditions, Cornwall, Punch and Judy and the dance of the crows was just too tempting.

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NIGHT SHIFT
By ELLIOTT MAGUIRE

Genre: Horror
Length: 85 pages
Author: Elliott Maguire

Logline:

A night shift security guard fears he is losing his sanity after making a terrifying discovery while watching over the cities CCTV.

lineFROM ANOTHER PLACE
By DARREN ROBERTS

Genre: Sci-Fi Horror Comedy
Length: 95 mins

Logline:

Whilst developing a teleporter three scientists discover the system has a few gremlins in it, real gremlins, with rabbit heads, and the ability to create the undead.

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PLAGUE OF THE APES
By DARREN ROBERTS

Genre: Horror Comedy
Length: 83 mins

Logline:

A group of friends wake up to find their town is over run with mutant zombie were-apes. They decide doing a runner to the countryside is probably a good idea. The key word being, probably.

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A NIGHTMARE AFTER CHRISTMAS
By ANNE-SOPHIE MARIE

Genre: Horror/Dark Comedy
Length: feature
Author: Anne-Sophie Marie

Logline:

Boxing Day: Three teenagers find themselves bored to death on Boxing Day. Clockwork Orange style.

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THE BAD PLACE
BY ELLIOTT MAGUIRE

Genre: Horror
Length: 95 pages

Logline:

A grieving widow and her rebellious teenage daughter go for a weekend away at an isolated holiday camp, where they are forced to fight for survival against a dangerous stranger with a sinister secret.

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THE DARK SAINT
By GERRY BYRON AND STUART WILSON

Genre: Supernatural Horror / Contemporary
Length: 106

Logline:

When a conflicted couple take shelter in an ancient stately home, they interrupt a ‘Ghost Hunt’ TV production unit. They must struggle with the TV crew as much as supernatural forces – to survive the night of horror that then engulfs them.

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LLANDFILL
BY NICHOLAS HORWOOD

Genre: Comedy, horror
Length: 110 pages

Logline:

A heavily pregnant ex-police woman moves to a small Welsh village and ends up doing battle with a seven foot mutant spawned by the local landfill.

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THE DEBT COLLECTOR
BY ELLIOTT MAGUIRE

Genre: Horror
Length: 93 pages

Logline:

An ex-con seeking redemption is hired to protect a wealthy family from a psychopath, but finds himself in a life or death situation when he discovers horrifying secrets hidden by the family.

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The Devil’s Out by Heather Hampson

Title: The Devil’s Out
Genre: Horror
Length: 9 pages
Author: Heather Hampson

Logline:

Two teenagers and a drug dealer encounter Lucifer himself as a strange ley line folk tale reveals itself to be true.

Jameson First Shot: The one film competition you must enter this year

Posted October 16th, 2015 by Anna Bogutskaya

Jameson First Shot

Dear Shooters and ALL writer/directors in the UK,

Jameson First Shot film competition for 2016 is now officially OPEN. We’ve been saying it for years and years… this is by far the best film competition out there and we’re determined to see UK­-based filmmakers triumph.

What to do?!

Send in a stonking short script.
Make it the very best you can.
Get selected as one of three winners.
Receive a phone call from Kevin Spacey!
Answer that phone call, ok?
Get your short film produced by Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti (Fifty Shades of Grey, The Social Network)
Yup, this really is what this competition offers..
Direct your short film in LA
oh but wait…
Direct it with Maggie Gyllenhaal as the star of your film.

YES. Maggie Gyllenhaal
YES. Maggie Gyllenhaal of The Dark Knight, Donnie Darko, Secretary and Sherrybaby, The Honourable Woman etcetera….
YES. Maggie Gyllenhaal who believes in giving upcoming filmmakers a shot, and a break, and who has agreed to star in three films by unknown filmmakers.

Maggie Gyllenhaal
We adore her and applaud her.

And we say to all of you ­ get writing/submitting as the competition has OPENED. This could be your First Shot at a serious break. And what a brilliant opportunity too to write for a female protagonist. Come on UK!

Tips:

Maggie has recommended herself that you put ‘a little bit of your actual self into what you’re doing ­ good art takes vulnerability.’

UK WINNER!

The competition is international folks. But this year, for the first time, a UK winner will be selected to go into the finals. So drop any fears you might have and embrace this competition folks. Get submitting. We want to see the UK triumph. As proud believers ourselves in the power of short film, we’re buzzed by the thinking behind it. Created by Spacey and Brunetti back in 2012, Jameson First Shot was created to give first­-time filmmakers a break –

“It’s not about where someone is, it’s about where they might get to in 10 years if they’re encouraged, nurtured and guided,”

Kevin Spacey.

Touche.

Writer/Directors of the UK — This is your calling — Give it your best shot!

GOOD LUCK. GO FOR IT.

Cath Le Couteur
Co-­founder & CEO
shootingpeople.org

BFI London Film Festival – Chevalier

Posted October 16th, 2015 by Thomas Grimshaw

Chevalier is the latest film from Attenberg director Athina Rachel Tsangari and like other films of the loosely collected Greek New Wave, this is not a film that deals in character arcs, personal stories or even clear-cut emotions, it is instead an experiment, or more explicitly in the case of Chevalier, a game. Herd a group of characters into a rarified situation and then examine the consequences. In this situation Chevalier monitors the petty, trivial competitiveness of six upper or middle class Greek men as they sail around the Greek Islands on a luxury yacht. Joseph and Christos own an estate agency, Yorgos and the enigmatically named The Doctor work at the same clinic, while Yannis an insurance salesman has arrived with his spectrum-baiting brother Dimitri. Nothing is mentioned as to what has brought these men together, other than a shared affluent status that allows men of this position to enjoy an ego driven conspicuous consumption. Ego is what ultimately drives the film, as the men enter into a game, the titular Chevalier or ‘who’s the best in general.’ There are no rules per se, except that everything that can be critiqued and judged will be and at the end of the trip the victor, the overall best in general, will receive a shiny Chevalier ring as there prize.

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There are no limits as to what is open for scrutiny, examples include, who’s the best at sleeping, Yannis for example is noted for his excellent choice of underwear, however his perfect posture is considered a little too try-hard, almost forced, so points are quickly removed. Others include cleaning, eating, choice of language, and their relationships with their own families. Tsangari has the most fun with this conceit when dealing with dumbly masculine considerations, as these cause the most harm to their already frayed egos. One competition has them seeing who can assemble flat-pack furniture the fastest, whilst another has them giving blood. As the film progresses, the men who were brash and confident at the outset, begin to crumble, wracked with nerves and paranoia. For Christos, the biggest blow is his impotency in the who’s got the best erection competition. Though later when he manages to regain his virility, his pride in sporting a self-proclaimed ‘beautiful erection’ (shown in full detail), is negated by the wide-eyed drooling mania in which he exposes himself.

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Chevalier is both well performed and frequently hilarious in its dissection of weak, immature male egos and although not a single woman appears in the film, the ridiculousness of their increasingly feeble one-up-man-ship creates a loose feminist critique of the competitive, ego-driven nature of male bonding. Further developments are made in the way men wilfully demonstrate skills without prompt, such as a delightfully deranged attempt to mime and breakdance along to Loving You by Millie Ripperton, implying that men will throw themselves into things on the assumption that their inherent brilliance will carry them through. Simultaneously though the film is essentially a one-joke film, with very little in terms of escalation. There’s a suggestion that the way the men try and curry favour with each other and form alliances to gain more points, can be viewed through the slippery prism of contemporary Greek politics specifically the manoeuvring of politicians in the aftermath of the economic crash. Yet this still feels too vague to have any genuine conviction. However thanks to a very game cast and a strong visual style, the film remains a riotous piece of entertainment, where the simplicity of it’s absurd screwball premise and distinct characterisation, can’t help but mean we’ll be subjected to a Hollywood remake within the next few years.

To buy tickets for Chevalier click here.

BFI London Film Festival 2015 – Green Room

Posted October 16th, 2015 by Thomas Grimshaw

Following on from last year’s Blue Ruin, Jeremy Saulnier returns with another grisly exercise in slow building tension. Green Room follows the misfortunes of small-fry punk band The Ain’t Rights as they chart there way on a tour of north-western America. Broke and weary they agree to a profitable gig out in the styx, but upon arrival discover the club is a focal point for local neo-nazis. After riling the crowd with an enthusiastic rendition of the Dead Kennedy’s ‘Nazi Punks Must Die’ and then accidentally witnessing a murder in the titular green room, the band find themselves in an increasingly perilous situation, as the local skinheads, let by the enigmatic Darcy (a game Patrick Stewart), attempt to dispose of all witnesses.

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At its heart Green Room is a trashy, scuzzy take on the John Carpenter model; a single vulnerable location, a group of average joes out of their depth, a brooding, foreboding soundtrack and a vicious glee when it comes to blood letting. In this sense Green Room builds on the promise of Blue Ruin; dog bites to the throat, hands hacked to the bone, razor-slit torsos and gunshots to the head. The film takes a sadistic pleasure in dispensing with its victims; characters that you’ve developed a genuine affection for are disposed of in five seconds flat, their corpses unceremoniously ditched.

As entertainment it’s a tense, immaculately crafted thrill ride, so why is it a lesser film to Saulnier’s debut? The problem lies in its inefficient storytelling. Blue Ruin was a masterpiece of economical narrative and visual storytelling, despite it’s other flaws, Dwight’s backstory, his journey and his mission were all carefully moderated. For the first thirty minutes of Blue Ruin, every shot propelled the story onto the next, offering up continuous tidbits of information. It was precise, efficient and it showed instead of told. With Green Room, Saulnier is already on the back foot with having to contend with five separate protagonists and although I hope this takes nothing away from the smart, empathetic work of the ensemble cast, that initial lack of focus carries with it a lack of emotional connection, especially as some of the band members tend to blur into each other. Additionally Saulnier stuffs the narrative with irrelevant backstory. A film that can essentially be boiled down to punks vs Nazis should be able to soar via its low-brow, high-concept trashiness alone. Yet we are invited to engage with the relationship history of the murdered girl and the illegal dealings of the Nazi group, neither of which feel fully formed nor have any bearing on our enjoyment of the central premise. It never tips the film into tedium, its pace is too nibble for that, but it’s superfluous detail that undoubtedly muddies the water.

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There’s been a recent resurgence in American independent filmmaking to readopt the cool, efficient and intelligent genre filmmaking of the 1970s and 80s and both Blue Ruin and Green Room demonstrate that Saulnier is riding the crest of that wave. Unlike Adam Wingard’s The Guest or David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows, which although undeniably entertaining, feel almost too referential to their b-movie forefathers. Saulnier on the other hand has crafted a world that in some ways feels relevant to the world today, a cinema of cynicism, brutality with subtle flecks of social consciousness weaved throughout, that lacks the increasingly insufferable post-modernity of other genre cinema.

BFI London Film Festival 2015 – Chemsex

Posted October 14th, 2015 by Thomas Grimshaw

Chemsex is the self-explanatory term used to describe the taking of drugs within a sexual context, an activity that has become increasingly prevalent within the gay community. In their film, William Fairman and Max Gogarty interview a number of men all involved in the chemsex world; from frequent ‘slammers’ of Crystal Meth, Mephedrone, GBL users, young guys new to the scene and health care practitioners.

Our guide to the world of chemsex is David Stuart, an affable, non-judgemental staff member at 56 Dean Street, currently the world’s leading authority on chemsex research and care. As he describes in the film chemsex is a result of what he calls a ‘perfect storm’ created by a variety of new drugs hitting the scene, the rise of hook-up apps such as Grindr and most importantly a distressed and persecuted community that’s trying to seek identity in opposition to hetronormativity.

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The testimony drawn from victims of this ‘perfect storm’ is both deeply sad and simultaneously horrifying. One man talks of taking too much GBL whilst in the company of two older men, only to pass out and not know what had happened to him in the intervening two hours. He later found out he had contracted HIV. Another young guy, a bondage aficionado from Watford explains how two men had him strapped down when the topic of ‘slamming’ or intravenous drug use came up. At this point he had never ‘slammed’ before and didn’t want to, but they injected him anyway telling him that because he was restrained, they could do whatever they wanted with him. The guy has been a frequent user ever since. As one user in the film points out, drugs loosen people’s moral perspective and in the context of S&M dynamics, this only increases people’s desire to abuse or be abused.

What proves to be most shocking though is the endemic denial that takes place within the chemsex community. Many interviewees don’t see there choices as a problem, despite having contracted HIV as a result or are deeply paranoid to the point of having to check their front door every few minutes to make sure they’re not under surveillance. This denial even drips down to a lexiconical level, as one guy describes, ‘“We’re not injecting, we’re slamming. We use ‘pins’, not needles.” The film’s singular heartening moment is seeing the caption cards at the end to show how nearly all the participants in the film have since given up the lifestyle, though for some there’s a definite air of uncertainty as to whether their restraint is sustainable.

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Chemsex is the latest documentary from Vice Magazine’s recently revamped film production wing and what it makes up for in compelling testimony, it sorely lacks in restraint and tact. As to be expected with a Vice production, the film is gluttonously stuffed with confrontational imagery: needles hitting veins, bubbles of blood, half naked men masturbating in squalor, a purely illustrative and degrading aesthetic which very rarely transcends a self-serving desire to be noticed for its own sake. What’s more contemptuous are the slow-motion montages that Fairman and Gogarty cook up, ‘edgy’ mood pieces; dimly lit dungeons, strobe lightning, grunting, leather, flayed flesh, nipple clamps. Not only do these images have very little to do with the chemsex world, other than being generically queer, but they seem to have sprung from the minds of two very hetronormative men with a queasy desire to show how much they ‘get it’. It’s the filmmaking equivalent of your middle-aged dad dancing at a wedding, except in this scenario your dad is a self confessed ‘sub pig’ and he’s being fisted by an angry bear in vulcanised rubber chaps.

Click the link to purchase tickets for Chemsex

BFI London Film Festival 2015 – High Rise

Posted October 12th, 2015 by Thomas Grimshaw

“Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.”

 And so, with one of the most calmly intriguing opening sentences in literature, begins J G Ballard’s 1975 novel High Rise, a dystopian/utopian dissection of life in an ultra-modern apartment block. Where the building’s new infantilising technology and amenities offers up a complete eradication of social order and the psychic liberation of its residents, allowing them to indulge their base sociopathic tendencies without restraint. Ballard stated that his sly brand of science fiction was based on peering into the ‘next five minutes’ imaging a future what was already breathing hungrily down our necks. Which is why 40 years after its publication, Ben Wheatley’s film comes across as far too little, far too late. Not only is it a politically and socially neutered dilution of the novel, Wheatley’s worst tendencies for BBC sitcom kitsch, push this in the direction of a monotonous League of Gentleman special populated with Abigail’s Party style grotesqueries.

When it was announced that Wheatley was to be taking on Ballard’s masterpiece, there was a collective sense that the tone of perpetual dread and unease he conjured up in Kill List was right to tackle the ecstatic chaos of Ballard’s prose. Instead we get the Sightseers version of Wheatley; curiously cosy yet cartoonishly violent.

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In both the novel and the film, we begin at the end, before snapping back to Dr Robert Laing’s (Tom Hiddleston) first day in the high-rise as he takes residence in one of the thousand apartments contained within the brutalist monstrosity. His flat is on the 25th floor, there are forty in total and his position near the middle denotes his aspirational middle class status. He is one of three central male characters, with the thuggish bottom dweller Richard Wilder (Luke Evans) and the buildings architect and top floor penthouse resident Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons) completing the trio. Each one a representative symbol of their class status, Wilder is loutish and Royal strides about in a Safari jacket. This works in the book, where the thinly sketched characterisation is integral to its entomologically sterile prose; but this doesn’t translate to screen with Hiddleston especially coming off like a particularly bland meat puppet. This wouldn’t have been an issue if Wheatley had truly invested time and care in rendering the high rise (the books central concern) with the care and attention it deserves, yet the film offers no sense of scale, space or makes any effort to map out the relationship between spaces. All the amenities, the supermarket, the roof terrace, the elevator shafts and the swimming pool are present and correct, yet there’s no connective tissue between them, no sense of the building as a functioning organism. Just a battery of isolated sets, filled with the crude emblems and totems of 1970s décor: a pummeled bleeding slop of Pyrex, Chinzano and cocktail onions.

Ballard was meticulous and exact in depicting the high rises’ descent into chaos. A light goes out, an elevator breaks down, a dog is found drowned in the pool. Incremental shifts in tension and estrangement that overtime build to a complete dismantling of class structure, the family unit and moral integrity. What Wheatley does instead is pump the film with free associative montages that although visually and sonically arresting, destroy any sense of rising tension or any sense of temporal cause and effect. The brilliance of the novel was its ability to make the most heinous destructive acts seem entirely logical within the escalating violence of the high-rise, utilizing a monstrous ‘Heath Robinson’ style chain of cause and effect to show how life was spinning out of control, whist also making the shift entirely palatable to the reader. By removing elements from within the chain of causality castrates the film of any real power, the audience is no longer complicate and the effect is far less disturbing.

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But it seems clear from the very beginning that Wheatley and Amy Jump, the films screenwriter, have very little interest in being disturbing or transgressive. There’s a small moment at the beginning of the film where Laing pins up a photo of his dead sister, except in the novel she isn’t dead, she lives in the high rise and eventually once conventional familial structure breaks down, incest is suggested. I can’t help but view that photo as an explicit statement of intent, a friendly pat on the shoulder, don’t worry this isn’t going to be THAT version of the book, here have Reese Shearsmith doing a silly voice instead.

BFI London Film Festival 2015 – Entertainment

Posted October 9th, 2015 by Thomas Grimshaw

For twenty years now Gregg Turkington has been performing under the guise of Neil Hamburger, the worlds most visible proponent of the anti-humour movement and a deliberate attempt to create the world’s worst stand up comedian at the same time. With a limply pasted comb-over, wheezy delivery and an ill-fitting tux, Hamburger is part Vegas sleaze and part misanthropic ghoul. His routine typically consists of a series increasingly bizarre and offensive one-liners:

Why does Britney Spears sell so many millions of albums? Because the public is horny and depressed.

Did you guys hear the one about the paparazzi with the heart of gold? He stole it from Princess Diana as she lay dying in her car.

Why did Sir Mick Jagger shove a carrot up his daughter’s ass? He mistook her for a fan.

Why did God create Domino’s Pizza? To punish humanity for their complacency at letting the Holocaust happen.

Delivered with a languid, phlegmy rasp until the audience begins hurling bottles at his head. Equally loved and reviled in equal measure, Hamburger’s act has been scarily consistent for the length of his twenty year career, which makes Entertainment, a demystification of the Hamburger persona, appear somewhat like a swan song. A final desperate and depressing howl made by an ugly person adrift in an ugly world. It is also one of the most grimly hilarious, unique and startling films to come out of America this year.

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The film is loosely structured around a series of sinister encounters and crowd-baiting gigs, so awful that if Hamburger weren’t so abjectly numbed to his environment they’d be humiliating. He moves from one anonymous deadbeat bar to another with such passivity that it’s credit to those involved how compelling a central figure he actually is. In one sequence, the comedian assists in the birth of a still-born baby and his face barely registers beyond his default expression of dulled exasperation and bemusement. There are a number of moments similar to this, that demonstrate that although Hamburgers act is one of shock and confrontation, it’s off stage where the true horror takes place. A full-throated suffocating claim that the comedian is prisoner to his creation: both his life-blood and his death rattle in equal measure. He has no life, no personality and most importantly no purpose beyond his role as the hatful and hated Hamburger. One recurring ‘gag’ that drums home this point takes the form of a series of increasingly pathetic and lonely voicemail messages he leaves for his anonymous off –screen daughter that comment on the increasing banality of his existence.

Entertainment is directed and co-written by Rick Alverson, who treaded similar anti-comedy territory in his previous film The Comedy. Whereas the former was a very specific skewing of post-millennial apathy amongst privileged Brooklynites, Entertainment lacks it’s predecessors social critique, though is in some ways a more formally ambitious work. There’s a real command of visual dislocation, that leaves the audience as disorientated as the comedian. Alternating between expansive washed out desert and claustrophobic sodium-lit interiors, the film purposely denies us both spatial and temporal consistency. Scenes often abruptly end before satisfactory resolution or extend into hypnotic monotony. This visual and temporal abstraction is geographically anchored in one cruelly funny gag; that the film is building towards a glitzy celeb-filled (Liza Minnelli!) gig in the Hollywood Hills. Though the reality is that he hyperventilates inside the giant cake he’s meant to jump out of before the show can even start.ENTERTAINMENT_rhinestones

Although it can be broadly viewed as comedy, Entertainment most closely resembles a horror film. Flavoured with Lynchian style interaction and a fever-dream logic, there’s a building tension created in whether the increasingly anaesthetized Hamburger is going to finally implode. One film that also uses the desert road trip as a location for existential horror was Bruno Dumont’s Twentynine Palms, but whereas that film explodes into a moment of extreme violence, the true abject misery of Entertainment is that Hamburger’s meaningless, pitiful existence will continue on and on in an endless stream of loneliness and hatred.

Click here to buy tickets for Entertainment

BFI London Film Festival 2015 – The Club

Posted October 8th, 2015 by Thomas Grimshaw

Released to a fanfare of critical accolades at Berlin this year, Pablo Larrain’s The Club is a welcome surprise for those who believed his next film was to be a long-gestating remake of the gangster classic Scarface. Instead of grinding against the Hollywood machine he’s u-turned back to his native Chile for another lacerating dissection of power and abuse, that sets its spittle-flecked moral outrage against a backdrop of blackest humour. Whereas in Tony Manero, Post-Mortem and No, Larrain’s crosshairs weretargeted at the heart of the Pinochet regime, here he’s realigned them at the insidious wranglings of the Catholic Church.

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Opaque in both image and content, The Club is set in the sleepy, salt-blasted coastal town of La Boca where four men live together in a life of somnambulistic routine, all officiously controlled by their pernickety housekeeper, herself an ex-nun. It soon transpires that these men are priests, excommunicated for a myriad of offences ranging from child abuse to the theft of babies from ‘undeserving’ homes. The house is a “centre of prayer and penance” a prison of sorts where the men can indefinitely ‘atone’ for their prior transgressions. As such, they are only allowed out during anti-social hours to limit their interaction with the town’s people, unable to handle money, plus additional rules that intend to inhibit the call of temptation. Their single pleasure is the care and training of their greyhound Rayo, who they race in local competitions, yet are forced to watch from afar with a pair of binoculars.

Their frugal, impenitent anonymity is threatened by the arrival of a fifth priest, Father Lazcano. Within minutes of arrival, his appearance in the small town peaks the interest of itinerant fisherman Sandokan who proceeds to spew out in graphic detail the list of sexual humiliations committed against him by their new arrival. Unable to stem the flow of bile, Lazcano commits an act of shocking violence that forces the house under investigation by Father Garcia, a member of the ‘new church.’ This distinction between the church of old and the church of new quickly evaporates as Father Garcia seeks confession from the four priests. What develops is a meticulously controlled series of transgressions and unrepentant revelations that force both sides into drastic action. As each party compromises themselves further the need to close ranks and silence the abused draws ever closer.

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What impresses most about Larrain’s masterpiece is how it sustains its all-encompassing pungent tone. From it’s bleached and smudged digital imagery to the blast of unlistenable crimes that pours from Sandokan’s mouth, the film is unapologetically ugly in both form and content. You’re in an undoubtedly bleak world where an Arvo Part soundtrack is used to lighten the mood. But ugly and bleak should not be confused with dour and for all its virulent anger, there are moments of dark inky humour that allow for brief respite.

The cast are uniformly excellent, though standouts include Antonia Zegers as Mother Monica the housekeeper whose desire to keep the status quo reveals a ruthlessness that belies her meek exterior, whilst Roberto Farlas’s Sandokan presents no easy representation of victimhood, a man profoundly damaged by the ecclesiastical love he equates with his abuse and is therefore damned to repeat the crimes committed upon him. His initial confrontation is born as much from anger as it is a disturbing attempt to seduce the priest back into his arms.

All too disturbingly real in it’s portrayal of institutional power, The Club offers no easy passage to salvation. At the end the priests are forced to endure a punishment of sorts, an ironic twist of the knife that presents itself to them as a bewildering inconvenience. Yet in doing so the abused is led back into the arms of the church, tethered to its care and sanctuary, but most importantly, so that he dare not bite the hand that feeds him ever again.

Click here for information on how to buy tickets for The Club

Film of the Month: Sarah Gavron

Posted October 1st, 2015 by Kelie Petterssen

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Having finished directing one of the biggest films of the year, Suffragette (2015), which will open this year’s BFI London Film Festival, Sarah Gavron is coming on board as Film of the Month judge this October.

Sarah is a versatile filmmaker, who has directed films from documentary to fiction, all of which have garnered her awards. This Little Life (2003) won a BAFTA; Brick Lane (2007) won both the Silver Hitchcock Award at the Dinard British Film Festival and C.I.C.A.E Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and her documentary Village At The End of The World (2012) was nominated for a Grierson Award at LFF.

It is a privilege to have someone of Sarah’s calibre joining the ranks of SP’s prestigious list of Film of the Month Judges – especially with the ongoing conversation around women in film this year and the Gender Equality Declaration that has just been adopted in Europe.

If you have a short of any genre that you would like her to see, head over to Film of the Month to submit before 14th October.

What’s On: The Rulebreakers: Innovations in the Doc Genre

Posted September 25th, 2015 by Kelie Petterssen

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A  weekly series of 10 films at Bertha DocHouse that have influenced and developed the art of documentary and which continue to inspire us today.

The Rule Breakers is a 10 week educational series that we’re incredibly excited about. The season is a journey through the ‘boundary pushing’ docs of the 20th and 21st century, from Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran in the 30s, to Peter Watkins’ controversial Punishment Park in the 70s, right up to the radically experimental and immersive Leviathan in 2012.  In short, it’s a celebration of the films that have made documentary the complex and exciting form it is today.

Not only are these films essential viewing for any doc lovers or makers, they will also be presented each week by the eminent Professor Ian Crisite, whose bank of film knowledgeable is unparalleled, and who sprinkles his introductions with such fascinating trivia that you are guaranteed to be kept on the edge of your seat!

The series will take place every Tuesday at 3.45pm, 29th September – 8th December (with a break 3rd November)

Tickets are just £5 per screening, or you can buy a season ticket to the whole series for just £40.

Programme

Man of Aran + Intro

Dir:  Robert J. Flaherty

Tuesday 29 September 2015 3:45pm

This epic film on the harsh lives of the Aran Islanders remains controversial. With dramatised scenes, expressionistic photography and innovative sound, it pushed the boundaries between art and documenting.

Listen to Britain and Fires Were Started + Intro

Dir: Humphrey Jennings

Tuesday 6 October 2015 3:45pm

In classic Jennings style these two intimate and moving poetic portraits of a besieged Britain go against the conventional mould of wartime propaganda.

We Are The Lambeth Boys + Intro

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Dir: Karel Reisz

Tuesday 13 October 2015 3:45pm

A classic from the ‘Free Cinema’ movement. Karol Reisz filmed a London boys’ club in the 1950’s, giving working-class teenagers a voice for the first time.

Salesman + Intro

Dir:  Albert Maysles & David Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin

Tuesday 20 October 2015 3:45pm

The Maysles capture, in intimate detail, the life and struggles of a group of  door-to-door bible salesmen, constructed through purely ‘observational’ sequences. 

Chronicle of a Summer + Intro

Dir: Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin

Tuesday 27 October 2015 3:45pm

Chronicle of a Summer captures the thoughts and opinions of 1960s Parisians, then asks them to reflect on the footage – creating a radical breakthrough in documentary.

Punishment Park + Intro

Dir: Peter Watkins

Tuesday 10 November 2015 3:45pm

In 1971 Watkins created a fictional arena where arrested Vietnam War protesters (non-actors) had to choose between prison sentences or three days in ‘Punishment Park’ run by ex-prison guards. The results were shocking.

Roger & Me + Intro

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Dir: Michael Moore

Tuesday 17 November 2015 3:45pm

Michael Moore embarks on the ultimate self-reflexive quest to solve his hometown’s economic troubles by door-stepping General Motors chairman Roger Smith, placing himself firmly in the frame.

One Day in September + Intro

Dir: Kevin Macdonald

Tuesday 24 November 2015 3:45pm

In 1972, athletes from around the globe gathered in Munich, Germany for the Olympic Games. However, the Olympic spirit of brotherhood and peaceful competition was shattered when eight Palestinian terrorists invaded the athletes’ quarters to take the Israeli team hostage while the world looked on, incredulous. 

The Gleaners and I + Intro

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Dir: Agnès Varda

Tuesday 1 December 2015 3:45pm

Agnes Varda’s essay is a self-reflexive diary/documentary of people who exist by re-using things others regard as useless in modern society. Part social critique, part art piece, the film reclaimed the genre for creative expression. 

Leviathan + Intro

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Dir: Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor

Tuesday 8 December 2015 3:45pm

Taking us deep into the dangerous world of commercial fishing via an immersive cinematic experience, Leviathan won wide acclaim for its innovative and unprecedented approach to documentary making.