SPOTLIGHT ON ROLF DE HEER

Rolf de Heer is Australian cinema’s great reconciler. Having made 11 films since graduating from the Australian School of Film, TV and Radio in 1980, he serves as the bridge between the Australian cinema of the 1970’s - whose brightest lights left the country for Hollywood - and the embattled film industry of the 1990s. In his recent films, de Heer has connected mainstream Australian audiences with provocative, politically charged subject matter



THE TRACKER

Friday, October 5 at 7:00 and Sunday, October 7 at 4:00

Set in the Australian outback in the 1920’s the film traces the casual racism and violence that typified Euro-Australian’s treatment of aboriginal people. David Gulpilil, the éminence grise of Australian acting, plays an Aboriginal man caught between his people and white Australian culture as he helps soldiers try to track down a fugitive. (2002, 98 min.)


TEN CANOES

Friday, October 12 at 7:00 and Sunday, October 14 at 4:00

It was Gulpilil who proposed that de Heer make a film using aboriginal stories set in a Ylognu village prior to the arrival of Europeans. The result is TEN CANOES. Winner of a special jury prize at Cannes, de Heer’s latest work weaves together a tale of love, betrayal, magic and memory. It offers an unprecedented, and surprisingly funny, cinematic interpretation of the rich oral culture of the Ganalbingu people (it is the first feature film shot entirely in an Australian aboriginal language). (2006, 90 min.)

BAMAKO

Friday, October 19 at 7:00 and Sunday, October 21 at 4:00

In the courtyard of a communal dwelling in Mali, a remarkable tribunal has been convened: The people of Africa are putting on trial officials from the International Monetary Fund and other international institutions, charging them with promoting policies that have increased the continent’s deprivation. Director Abderrahmane Sissako (WAITING FOR HAPPINESS) effortlessly alternates the images and rhythms of everyday village life with a stark exposé of the causes of underdevelopment. Filled with warm colors and inspirational music, BAMAKO voices Africa’s grievances in an original and profoundly moving way: educating, and at the same time, entertaining the audience.
(2006, 115 mins, in Bambara and French with English subtitles)

WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS

Sunday, October 28 at 4:00

Hideko Takamine gives a devastating performance in Japanese master Mikio Naruse’s heartbreaking study of feminine perseverance. “Keiko is a thirty-year-old widow who runs a bar in Tokyo's extravagant Ginza district. At her stage in life she gradually realizes she must either remarry or own her own business in order to gain a sense of security. Deftly rejecting advances from lascivious patrons, she prepares to borrow the money to strike out on her own without a male 'sponsor,' but one of her customers proposes marriage, changing all her plans. However, the courtship only bears out the vulnerability of a single woman in a mercurial trade." - Audie Bock
(1960, 86 min., in Japanese w/English subtitles)