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Welcome To The Cinema of Childhood | Film News

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Filmhouse, Edinburgh has announced a UK-wide film season, Cinema of Childhood, curated by filmmaker Mark Cousins and inspired by his latest feature documentary, A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM, released in cinemas April 4th (Dogwoof).

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The Cinema Of Childhood season will launch April 11th at Filmhouse, BFI Southbank, and other key venues across the UK. The season, which will tour the UK for a year, includes 17 brilliant films from 12 countries, spanning 7 decades. Most have rarely been seen in the UK – some are totally new to UK audiences.

“These are some of the best films you’ve never had a chance to see,” Cousins says. “Films about childhood take us on fantastic voyages. E.T.: THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL was a magical bike ride across the moon. THE JUNGLE BOOK showed us the bare necessities.  A boy in THE RED BALLOON stole our hearts.  But beyond these mainstream and arthouse classics, there’s a world of great cinema about kids which is hardly known, but just as brilliant.  Welcome to that world.  Jump into it.”

“Fly to the moon on gossamer wings with the little boy in Astrid Henning-Jensen’s PALLE ALONE IN THE WORLD from 1949.  Get close to the flame of life with Renko, in Shinji Somai’s 1993 masterpiece, MOVING.  Body-swerve the bullies in Karel Kachyna’s Czech cinematic wonder, LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC, from 1965. See LITTLE FUGITIVE, the American film from 1953 which helped inspire the French New Wave. Discover the work of one of the world’s greatest movie-makers,
Mohammad-Ali Talebi from Iran with three of his best films – THE BOOT, BAG OF RICE, and his poetic masterpiece WILLOW AND WIND.” Mohammad-Ali Talebi will visit the UK for the first time in April, as a guest of the British Council to launch the season with Mark Cousins at BFI Southbank, Filmhouse and other venues to be announced.

Most of the titles in the season are featured in Mark’s documentary A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year to 5-star reviews, and has since been acclaimed at many other major festivals worldwide, including Edinburgh, Karlovy Vary, Telluride, Toronto, Stockholm and Dubai.

The season opens up a world of wonder for audiences of all ages who are keen to explore beyond Hollywood’s idea of childhood. The films are both specific to their own time and culture, but also universal in their depiction of childhood emotions, hopes and fears. Children everywhere have so much in common – only the worlds they inhabit are different.

Emotionally engaging with audiences from 8 to 80, Cinema of Childhood invites filmgoers to go on a global adventure with Mark, to discover previously unknown movie masterpieces and to see the world anew through young eyes. Uplifting and exhilarating, these are films to brighten your day.

 

The season is managed by Filmhouse, which has licensed the films for a year, and is creating new digital materials where necessary to make the films available to the widest possible range of cinema venues.   Filmhouse has also licensed the VoD rights for many of the titles, enabling audiences to watch these titles at their own convenience from home or on the move via Filmhouse Player.

The project is backed by the BFI’s Programming Development Fund, awarding funds from the National Lottery. The producer of the season is Adam Dawtrey, who also produced (with Mary Bell) A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM.
Filmhouse (Edinburgh) and BFI Southbank (London) will programme the entire season from April to June. Other venues already confirmed to host Cinema of Childhood include Queen’s Theatre (Belfast), Chapter Arts Centre (Cardiff), Broadway (Nottingham), Dundee Contemporary Arts, Glasgow Film Theatre, Eden Court Theatre (Inverness), the Roses Theatre (Tewkesbury), Duke of York’s (Brighton), Watershed (Bristol), Cornerhouse (Manchester) and Showroom (Sheffield),along with selected Picturehouse and Curzon cinemas nationwide. Films from the season will also screen at special festival events, including the Glasgow Youth Film Festival screening ofThe White Balloon on 9th February, Zoom International Youth Film Festival and WoW Festival in March, and the Brighton Festival in May.
Further venues will be announced in due course.

In addition there are plans to screen films from Cinema of Childhood in partnership with several organisations concerned with child welfare. These screenings, which will be targeted at a mixed audience of childcare experts and the general public, will explore representations of childhood from a professional perspective, looking at issues from different cultural and global viewpoints.

 

The full list of titles screening in the Cinema of Childhood season are:
• “Willow and Wind” (Bid-o Baad). Iran, Japan, 1999. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 77 mins. A boy breaks a school window, and must mend it himself before he’s allowed back in class.

• “Bag of Rice” (Kiseye Berendje). Iran, Japan, 1998. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 80 mins. A little girl and an old blind lady decide to carry a sack of rice across Tehran.

• “The Boot” (Chakmeh). Iran 1993. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 60 mins. A little girl craves a new pair of red wellies – but then loses one.

• “The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun” (La petite vendeuse de soleil). Senegal, Switzerland, France, Germany 1999. D. Djibril Diop Mambety. 45 min. A feisty crippled girl tries to improve her life by selling newspapers on the streets of Dakar.

• “Hugo and Josephine” (Hugo och Josefin). Sweden, 1967. D. Kjell Grede. 82 mins. The lonely daughter of a rural pastor makes friends with a wild boy who lives in the woods.

• “The King of Masks” (Bian Lian) China, Hong Kong, 1997. D. Wu Tian-Ming. 91 mins. An old illusionist buys a young boy to become his apprentice – but the boy isn’t quite what he seems.

• “The White Balloon” (Badkonake sefid) Iran 1995. D. Jafar Panahi. 85 mins. A stubborn little girl wants a new goldfish, and won’t let anything get in her way.

• “Tomka and his Friends” (Tomka dhe shokët e tij) Albania, 1977. D. Xhanfise Keko. 78 mins. A gang of Albanian boys in WW2 become secret agents for the Resistance when German troops occupy their village.

• “Palle Alone in the World” (Palle alene i verden). Denmark 1949. D. Astrid Henning-Jensen. 25 min. A boy wakes up to find Copenhagen deserted, and it becomes his giant playground.

• “Ten Minutes Older”. (Par desmit minutem vecaks). Latvia 1978. D. Herz Frank. 10 mins. One close-up, 10 minutes long, of a small boy’s face as he watches a thrilling puppet show.

• “Long Live the Republic” (At’ zije republika) Czechoslovakia, 1965. D. Karel Kachyna, 134 mins. A bullied boy tries to survive in a Czech village as the Germans retreat and the Russians advance.

•  “Moving” (Ohikkoshi) Japan, 1993. D. Shinji Sômai. 124 mins. A girl struggles to come to terms with her parents’ divorce.

• “Forbidden Games” (Jeux interdits). France, 1952. D. René Clément. 86 mins. A boy and a girl retreat into a fantasy world to escape the horrors of WW2.

• “Crows” (Wrony). Poland, 1994. D. Dorota KÄdzierzawska. 63 mins. A neglected girl steals a younger girl to become her surrogate mother.

• “Little Fugitive”. USA 1953. Dir Morris Engel, Ray Ashley, Ruth Orkin. 80 mins. A 7-year-old boy runs away to Coney Island when he thinks he’s killed his older brother.

• “Children in the Wind” (Kaze no naka no kodomo) Japan, 1937. D. Hiroshi Shimizu. 88 mins. The idyllic village life of a Japanese boy falls apart when his father is falsely imprisoned.

• “The Unseen” (NespatÅené). Czech Republic, 1997. D. Miroslav Janek. 53 mins. Documentary about Czech blind kids with remarkable talents, including taking photos.

 

Jean Gabin: Working Class Hero to Godfather at BFI Southbank in May

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Jean Gabin (1904–1976) is one of the most renowned stars of French cinema. Throughout May BFI Southbank celebrates a career that spanned over four decades and which featured performances in both silent cinema and the talkies. Beginning with Jean Gabin: Anatomy of a Myth, on Wed 2 May, an introduction from season curator Ginette Vincendeau, Professor in Film Studies at King’s College London, the centrepiece of this season is the nationwide release and extended run of a newly restored classic of ‘poetic realism’ Le Quai des brumes (France 1939) from 4 May.

Between 1930 and 1976, magnetic French star Jean Gabin built an unparalleled screen image that encompassed the tragic working-class hero with a rugged charisma to underworld Godfather figures. He remains one of the great icons of cinema, and this season explores the appeal of his mythical vision of the ‘ordinary’ Frenchman.

Born Jean Alexis Moncorgé in 1904 to a family of performers, Gabin started out as a comic singer at the Moulin Rouge. His performances started getting noticed, and better stage roles came along that led to parts in two silent films in 1928. Two years later, he easily made the transition to the talkies, and soon switched to dramatic parts in cinema. From 1935 to 1939, he was the most popular French matinee idol of the pre-war period and gave performances in an extraordinary run of masterpieces Pépé le Moko (Dir, Julien Duvivier, 1937), La Bête humaine (Dir, Jean Renoir, 1938) and Le Jour se lève (Dir, Marcel Carné, 1939).

It was Renoir’s anti-war masterpiece La Grande Illusion (1937) (on extended run at BFI Southbank throughout April) that cemented Gabin’s international superstar status, and the film received universal critical acclaim. A certified classic of world cinema, the film has recently been re-released to celebrate its 75th anniversary.

Gabin’s fame was reinforced by a series of hits, including Marcel Carné’s marvellously moody crime thriller Le Quai des brumes (1939) playing one of his most memorably iconic roles as an army deserter on the run.

The war propelled Gabin to a brief stint in Hollywood, where he made Moontide (Dir, Archie Mayo, 1942) under contract with Fox. It was a fascinating attempt at ‘Americanising’ his image but Gabin felt uncomfortable speaking English. At Universal, he and Duvivier were reunited for The Impostor (1944). While working for RKO Pictures, Gabin’s difficult personality did serious damage to his Hollywood career. Scheduled to star in an RKO film The Temptress, he demanded Marlene Dietrich to be cast as his co-star (they were ensconced in a torrid, real-life affair throughout the early-to-mid 1940s). The studio refused. Gabin remained stubborn in his demand, yet he was fired and the project was shelved. RKO issued the warning that he would never work in Hollywood again; Gabin shrugged off the threat and proceeded to rejoin the French troops in North Africa.

However by the early 1950s it looked as if Gabin’s era had passed. But then Jacques Becker’s Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) and Renoir’s French Cancan (1955) catapulted him back to the top of the box-office. Suddenly Gabin was again a global star. Over the next twenty years until his death in 1976, Gabin made many more films, most of them very successful, commercially and critically. The season includes his later films such as Maigret tend un piège (Dir, Jean Delannoy, 1958), the first and best of three films in which he tackles Georges Simenon’s illustrious Commissaire Maigret; the nail-biting thriller Melodie en sous-sol (Dir, Henri Verneuil, 1963) co-starring Alain Delon who would always credit Gabin as a great influence; and the most poignant of his later films, Le Chat (Dir, Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1971) with tour-de-force performances by Gabin and the great Simone Signoret as an ageing and feuding husband and wife.

Gabin’s career lasted over 40 years and he became a mythical figure of French cinema. His rugged looks, rough voice and Parisian accent still anchored his characters in the same social milieu, and this is why he kept his popular following. Ultimately Gabin’s charisma endowed the ordinary man with dignity and prestige.

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, New Frontiers in film financing.

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The Greatest Movie Ever Sold directed by Morgan Spurlock.

Where and When: Thursday 29th September at BFI Southbank

On Thursday I saw Morgan Spurlock’s new documentary about branding, advertising and product placement, which is entirely funded by branding, advertising and product placement.

Afterward, a panel of experts from film and advertising discussed how producers can create new synergies and forms of production finance without losing their artistic integrity. The panel included; Pippa Cross, Producer of Chalet Girl, Duncan Forrester, Head of Public Affairs, Volvo, Darryl Collis, Director of Seesaw Media, Pete Buckingham, Head of Distribution and Exhibition at the BFI

“Nothing like a cold call to let you know how little power you have.” Morgan Spurlock.

What I learned:

1) The Greatest Movie Ever Sold was the first film to be in profit before it hit theatres

2) Spurlock ‘didn’t negotiate for success’ so the brands didn’t have to pay him any more money when the movie became a runaway success.

3) In the first few months, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold had over 900 million media impressions.

4) Spurlock called over 100 ad agencies and 650 companies to contribute to the documentary, only 15 companies said yes. A success rate of only 2%.

5) Pom juice is 40% as effective as Viagra for helping a man sustain an erection.

6) Volvo did not pay to be in Twilight, the filmmakers stayed true to the fact that Edward drives a Volvo in the book. But they have people come in and buy the car Edward drives after seeing the movies, even though it’s a £35-50,000 investment.

7) A big champagne company turned down the opportunity to be in The King’s Speech because they ‘didn’t do period films’.

8) Morgan Spurlock could not legally disparage the entire country of Germany in or around the Mini that he was given for the film. Most of the contracts had a non-disparagement clause.

9) Spurlock said all of the brands asked for ROI (return on investment) but not of them got it.

10) Ditto for the final cut, Spurlock says: ‘Retain final cut or it’s not your film”. However, if your film costs more than $40-50 million, you will not get final cut.

11) Spurlock’s advice to filmmakers when negotiating with brands and advertisers is: Always know what you are willing to give up. Integrity is valuable.

12) Fed ex did not pay to be in Castaway.

13) The film uses all of the things it criticise in the beginning to sell the film to you later

14) Old Navy gave Spurlock a cheque for £200,000 after seeing the documentary at the Sundance Premiere.

15) The brands have bigger lawyer than you.

16) Pippa Cross had to spend 2K on CGI to get ride of a beer bottle on Shooting Dogs because the beer brand did not want to be associated with the genocide.

17) The Social Network has Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the cast using Sony laptops, but, factually, the real people the film is based on would have been using Apple Macs.

18) Pippa Cross got Tesco vouchers for Chalet Girl, and the best Ski brands on board.

19) Morgan Spurlock made a deal with a tri-state pet discount store; you could get a goldfish and after the first one died, use a voucher to get another one. Like Spurlock does in the film.

20) Spurlock tried to get a gun company onboard, but they all said no.

21) The lawyer Morgan interviews in his documentary tells of of the term ‘Faction’. Where fact and fiction meet, and what advertisers use to confuse you and integrate their products into your favourite TV shows and Films.

The documentary is essential viewing for anyone interested in film, or raising finance.