Films

[AEB]

These films may be of interest, showing at Odeon Shaftesbury Avenue from 28 April. 

http://londonlabourfilmfest.com/the-programme/

[jondwhite]

Festival Films as follows Big Society The Musical  EUROPEAN FILM PREMIERE  Plus Q&A with director and actors  Monday 28th April 2014 18:00  Dir: Lynn Harwood  90 minutes  Big Society, the musical, gives a voice to thousands of people struggling to be heard in the face of the government’s punitive cuts. It does so by telling an untold story through music.  Linda (Paula Simms) works with young offenders in Liverpool. Facing unemployment, pending the closure of her Youth Centre, Linda thinks only of Connor, a defiant 14-year-old who has no one apart from her. She risks everything to help him. But as she fights for control, she realizes she has none. When no one hears you shout… Sing!  Big Society is brought to us by Liverpool’s, First Take – an award-winning non profit filmmaking organisation, specialising in working with diverse communities and producing edgy, authentic, untold and often complex stories. Big Society, the musical, is no exception.— Rosetta  Monday 28th April 2014 20:15  Dir: Jean Pierre & Luc Dardenne  95 minutes  A deserving winner of the Palme D’or at Cannes in 1999, Rosetta was written and directed by the Belgian film-making team of brothers, Luc and Jean Pierre Dardenne.  It is an uncompromising tale of poverty, closely following the life of a young woman struggling to shake free of her dead-end background. Living on a Belgian caravan site with her alcoholic mother, Rosetta burns with a desire for the things most of us take for granted — a regular job and a regular life.  This is a truly moving and commanding classic that justifiably earned its lead, Émilie Dequenne, the best actress prize at Cannes.— Kinky Boots  Tuesday 29th April 2014 18:00  Dir: Julian Jarrold  107 minutes  Kinky Boots tells the story of a traditional Northampton shoemaker who’s family business is in trouble. After a chance meeting he sees a business opportunity by diversifying into the market of fetish shoes (or Kinky Boots) — an opportunity that could save his family business and the jobs of his workers.  The award-winning actor, Chiwetel Ejifor, plays the drag queen, Lola, who advises and helps the shoemaker Charlie (Joel Edgerton) in his new venture. Based on a true story, this is riotous comedy is a truly heart-warming tale.— Silent Running  Tuesday 29th April 2014 20:00  Dir: Douglas Trumbull  89 minutes  This 1970’s environmentally themed sci-fi classic had an enormous influence on the whole Sci-Fi genre and so is of significant importance.  Set in the future when plant life on earth has become extinct. Only a few specimens have been preserved in enormous, greenhouse-like domes attached to a fleet of space freighters, outside the orbit of Saturn.  Freeman Lowell (the recently Oscar nominated Bruce Dern) is one of four crewmen aboard the Valley Forge and is the resident botanist and ecologist who carefully preserves a variety of plants for their eventual return to Earth. Lowell lovingly cultivates the crops and attends to the animal life.  After he’s given the order to jettison his beloved crops, Freeman Lowell goes rogue in a bid to protect the flora. As one of the first true eco-warriors, Lowell takes matters into his own hands and the action really begins— Burgos  EUROPEAN film premiere  Wednesday 30th April 2014 18:00  Dir: Joel Lamangan  90 minutes  Written and directed by two of the Philippines’ cinema’s leading lights, Ricardo Lee and Joel C Lamangan, Burgos is a film about a mother’s desperate search for her missing son.  In April 2007 Jonas Burgos, an agriculturist and a member of the Farmers Alliance of Bulacan, was abducted by seven armed men and a woman at a restaurant in Ever Gotesco Mall, Quezon City, Philippines.  Seven years later, Mrs Edita Burgos’s tireless crusade to search for his son still goes on. The human rights group, Desaparecidos (Families of the Disappeared), supports her. They have found direct links of the abduction and detention with the Phillippine military, though they deny it repeatedly.  The Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines UK (CHRP-UK), in co-operation with the London Labour Film Festival, is proud to screen Burgos at the London Film Festival.— Monsieur Verdoux  Wednesday 30th April 2014 20:30  Dir: Charlie Chaplin  124 minutes  In this brilliant black comedy we see Charlie Chaplin as we’ve rarely seen him before. Chaplin plays Henri Verdoux, a loyal bank teller who is laid off after thirty years of exemplary service. To continue to support his beloved wife and child, he turns to crime. He marries and murders a series of wealthy widows.  He is eventually caught and convicted. But before being led to his death, he dismisses his killing of a few, as no worse than the killing of many in war, for which others are honored. This philosophical film was originally received far better in Europe than in America — and has become something of a cult movie.— Trash Dance  EUROPEAN film premiere  Thursday 1st May 2014 18:00  Dir: Andrew Garrison  68 minutes  Trash Dance is a film that finds beauty and grace in a completely unexpected place – garbage trucks and in the unseen men and women who pick up our trash. American filmmaker, Andrew Garrison follows choreographer Allison Orr as she rides along with Austin sanitation workers on their daily routes to observe and later convince them to perform a most unlikely spectacle.  On an abandoned airport runway, two dozen trash collectors and their trucks deliver — for one night only — a stunningly beautiful and moving performance, in front of an audience of thousands, who are awed to discover how in the world a garbage truck can “dance.”— Still The Enemy Within  Thursday 1st May 2014 19:30  Still The Enemy Within is a hotly anticipated union and crowd funded documentary due to be revealed later this year. In an exclusive London Labour Film Festival event, Producer Sinead Kirwan will discuss plans for the film and present some excerpts from the film, which goes to the heart of the Labour movement. In a film that tells the story of the strike from the frontline, this story examines and celebrates 30 years since the miners strike.— Le Capital  Thursday 1st May 2014 20:30  Dir: Costa Gavras  114 minutes  The financial thriller, Le Capital by the Greek-French film director Costa Gavras takes an unflinching look at the world of greed and high finance.  It follows the story of an executive Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh) who becomes the CEO of a large bank, only to upset the bank’s board of directors when he begins to take unilateral control of the bank.  We witness his ruthless ambition, power struggles, greed and deception. However, his brutal ascent is jeopardized by a hostile takeover attempt from a large American hedge fund led by Dittmar Rigule (Gabriel Byrne).  Le Capital is fast-paced, darkly comic and a suspenseful drama well worth the many accolades it has received.— Women’s Day  FILM PREMIERE  Plus Q&A with Maria Sadowska  Friday 2nd May 2014 18:00  Dir: Maria Sadowska  90 minutes  Described by many as a Polish ‘Erin Brockovich’, Women’s Day follows the troubles and dilemmas of the heroine, Halina Radwan (Katarzyna Kwiatkowska) in her fight for justice against an unscrupulous, low-cost supermarket-chain, ‘Motylek’ (Butterfly).  The plot is based on the true story of a former manageress of a cut-price supermarket chain in Poland. She took the chain to court for twenty-six thousand złoty (over five thousand euro) for two-and-a-half thousand hours of unpaid overtime.  The film is an indictment of what Poles call ‘dziki’ (wild) capitalism in which employees are compelled to work semi-legally. Such capitalism is a result of Poland’s comparative poverty by European Union standards, with minimum wages as little as (one euro) an hour, and chronic unemployment which forces workers to fight to keep almost any kind of employment. We are delighted to be welcoming Maria Sadowska to the event.— Burn  Friday 2nd May 2014 18:00  Dir: Tom Putnam/Brenda Sanchez  86 minutes  Burn is a feature documentary about Detroit, told through the eyes of Detroit firefighters, who are charged with the thankless task of saving a city that many have written off as dead.  Burn follows the crew of Engine Company 50: one of the busiest firehouses in America. Located on Detroit’s blighted east side, E50 stands at ground zero of the city’s problems. Every day, these firefighters face injury, disablement, and death. But they come back, day after day, resolved to make a difference.  They’re certainly not here for the money: their starting salary is $30,000 and they haven’t seen a raise in 10 years. BURN tells the story of these exceptional individuals who, despite the challenges and dysfunction, believe in their city and are attempting to make a difference every day.

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