This weekend we’re screening “The Road Home”, a Chinese production that won 12 awards including the 2001 Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival as well as 4 other nominations.

“In the simple, small-scale love story The Road Home, Zhang Ziyi proves in her film debut what a powerhouse force she is on-screen, even while wearing braids and playing a vulnerable teen with a crush.” Mike Clark, USA Today

The Director

“Zhang Yimou’s childhood was a difficult one in terms of his family political and economical situation. These difficulties were to set the stage for a lifetime of struggle against Chinese officials. Yimou was in secondary school when the Cultural Revolution started in 1966. He abandoned school and worked as a laborer on a farm, and then in a textile mill (much like the one portrayed in Ju Dou). After the Cultural Revolution, Yimou became a photographer, buying his first camera in 1974. Many of his photos were published in local periodicals, including the Shaanxi Daily.

In 1979, Yimou entered the Beijing Central Film Academy (China’s only film school) after a long struggle to be admitted. His initial applications were summarily rejected because he was older than the regulation application age. He was accepted only after a personal appeal to the Minister of Culture, who accepted Yimou after viewing his portfolio of photographic work. Yimou studied at the Central Film Academy until 1982, focusing on cinematography. In 1982, Yimou graduated as a member of China’s Fifth Generation of filmmakers. The fifth generation is the first to have studied western film forms, and to grow away from the standard communist use of film strictly as a propaganda tool.”

Show Information:
Date: Sunday, 15 June 2008
Time: 06:00 PM

Venue: Punjab Lok Rahs
Flat # 8, Third Floor, RB1, Awami Complex
Garden Town Lahore.
042 5940166, 0333 4320802

Click here for directions and a map.

Cheers,
Team
Punjnad Film Club

Movie: Bringing Down A Dictator
Venue: The Club
When: 5:00 PM, Saturday, June 7, 2008
Running Time: 56 mins
Link to website: http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/films/bdd/

The official synopsis is given below:

Synopsis

Bringing Down A Dictator documents the spectacular defeat of Slobodan Milosevic in October, 2000, not by force of arms, as many had predicted, but by an ingenious non-violent strategy of honest elections and massive civil disobedience.

Milosevic was strengthened by patriotic fervor when NATO bombed Yugoslavia in early 1999, but a few months later, a student movement named Otpor! (“Resistance” in Serbian) launched a surprising offensive. Audaciously demanding the removal of Milosevic, they recruited where discontent was strongest, in the Serbian heartland.

Their weapons were rock concerts and ridicule, the internet and email, spray-painted slogans and a willingness to be arrested. Otpor students became the shock troops in an army of human rights, pro-democracy, anti-war, women’s groups, and opposition political parties. Their slogan: “He’s Finished!”

Trained in non-violent action and partially financed by the US and western Europe, they forged a unified political opposition, fought to stop vote fraud, and systematically undermined police and army loyalty. When Milosevic refused to accept defeat at the polls, the opposition called a general strike. As normal life ground to a halt, Serbs by the hundreds of thousands poured into the capital on October 5 to seize the Federal Parliament in a dramatic triumph for democracy. The one-hour documentary is narrated by Martin Sheen.

However, let us be clear that we neither advocate nor solicit funding from foreign governments or parties or agencies of any sort. Quite to the contrary, we actively reject any such initiatives as being in contradiction to one of our major arguments against the current usurper of the Army House and the Presidential Palace: the sale of Pakistani sovereignty and honour to the highest bidder.

What we find interesting about this film, and the motivation for screening it at this juncture, is:

1. the high degree of creativeity and the sheer audacity of the students and young people involved in Otpor, and,
2. the culmination of the movement in a massive march on the capital that leads to the downfall of the regime.

The “Roving Film Festival” is attracting sizable audiences in the universities. The festival has been to three universities so far. It started from Beaconhouse National University, moved to COMSATS and just finished its successful run in Lahore College for Women University. It’s been a joyful experience to all of us organizers, especially when we talk with the students and found that the films were hitting hard and spreading inspiration – from the topics to the techniques of film-making.

The Festival’s last venue is National College of Business Administration & Economics, where the dates were 22-24 May and the shows started at 5:00 pm everyday. We have to postpone Punjab University English Department screenings due to internal university administration issue. The new dates will be announced soon.

The schedule of the next thee films is posted below. Due to rising temperatures, we have moved the screening time to 6:00 pm each Sunday.

We invite you to just drop by any Sunday and cherish the films and participate in the burning post-screening discussions.

Wishes,
Team
Punjnad Film Club

Dear Friends,

“Strawberry and Chocolate is ultimately a film of many layers, and the viewer who invests more into watching the picture will get more out. While the movie might superficially seem to be a comedy, it is most effective during the quietly dramatic moments. The obvious fulcrum — Diego and David’s relationship — is as complex and antithetical as the film’s overall tone. Mentor and pupil, with different ideologies, the two need more from each other than either initially guesses at.” James Berardinelli

This week’s screening is “Strawberry and Chocolate”. Directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, this co-produced Cuban-Spanish-Mexican film was released in 1994. It has been nominated for 1995 Oscars and won 22 other awards in Berlin International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and Havana Film Festival.

Show Information:
Date: Sunday, 18 May 2008
Time: 05:00 PM

Venue: Punjab Lok Rahs
Flat # 8, Third Floor, RB1, Awami Complex
Garden Town Lahore.
042 5940166, 0333 4320802

Directions:
http://punjnadfilmclub.wordpress.com/how-to-reach-us/

Cheers,

Team
Punjnad Film Club

Curiously enough, there is a congruence between the themes explored in our next film, City of God, and the dates May 11 and May 12. On May 11, 1998, the sub-continent went irrevocably nuclear. On May 12, 2007, the terrorists of MQM (as alleged by practically every serious commentator and analyst of the Pakistani political and socio-economic environment) unleashed mayhem on our crumbling City of Lights.

Directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, the film was nominated in several categories at the Oscars in 2003, won the best foreign film award at the British Independents in 2003, was nominated for the same at the 2003 BAFTAs, won the 2003 BAFTA best editing award and won or was in the running for awards at film festivals around the world. Perhaps the most intriguing and revealing citation was from the jury for the FIPRESCI prize, awarded to director Fernando Meirelles, at the 2002 Havana Film Festival: “For approaching the explosive theme of social exclusion, using an ambitious, complex and involving style of narration, without moralising or condoning violence.”

Show Information:
Date: Sunday, 11 May 2008
Time: 05:00 PM

Venue: Punjab Lok Rahs
Flat # 8, Third Floor, RB1, Awami Complex
Garden Town Lahore.
042 5940166, 0333 4320802

Roving film festival – details posted!

We are screening “Goodbye, Lenin!” this week. Directed by German filmmaker Wolfgang Becker this film was nominated at the 2004 Golden Globe and BAFTA awards, and won several others including the Blue Angel at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival.

The Director
Wolfgang Becker
Becker studied German, History and American Studies at the Free University in Berlin. He followed this with a job at a sound studio in 1980 and then began studies at the German Film and Television Academy (dffb). He started working as a freelance cameraman in 1983 and graduated from the dffb in 1986 with Schmetterlinge (Butterflies), which won the Student Academy Award in 1988, the Golden Leopard at Locarno and the Saarland Prime-Minister’s Award at the 1988 Ophuels Festival Saarbruecken.

Show Information:
Date: Sunday, 4 May 2008
Time: 05:00 PM

Venue: Punjab Lok Rahs
Flat # 8, Third Floor, RB1, Awami Complex
Garden Town Lahore.
042 5940166, 0333 4320802

• As most people find the Sunday timing more convenient, the Friday screening is being dropped. From now on, films will be shown only at 5 PM on Sundays.
• We’re organising the Punjnad Roving Film Festival, a festival that will visit eight educational institutions in Lahore in order to introduce students to quality cinema. More updates in the next few days – so keep checking this blog.

And now, the schedule for the next four screenings:

Directions to the venue are given here.

This weekend, we’re screening In this World, directed by Michael Winterbottom.  This film won the 2004 BAFTA Film Award, the 2003 Berlin Film Festival Award, the 2003 British Independent Film Award, the 2004 Directors’ Guild of Great Britain and was nominated for the European Film Awards.

“Shot over five months in 2002, Michael Winterbottom’s In This World starts out as a documentary about the plight of Pakistani immigrants that travel by land to London in search of a better life, then quickly morphs into something more interesting. Telling a fictionalized story about real-life, teenage refugee camp inhabitants Jamal and Enayat, the movie opens with a voiceover explanation of conditions of the camp where they live and of the realities of the people-smuggling trade. There are less than five minutes of this narration, however, before the movie launches into the expansive tale of their journey to escape poverty. As they travel from city to city, by bus, foot, and boat, a 3D world map charts their progress, Indiana Jones-style.” – Jeremy Heilman

The Director
Michael Winterbottom 
Born in March 29, 1961 in England, Michael Winterbottom is a prolific British filmmaker who has directed fifteen films in the past twelve years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features.

His working style is more often to make actors improvise, rather than work exclusively from the script.

Show Information:
Date: Friday, April 18, 2008
Time: 7:00 PM

Date: Sunday, April 20, 2008
Time: 5:00 PM

Venue:
Punjab Lok Rahs
Flat # 8, Third Floor, RB1, Awami Complex
Garden Town Lahore.
042 5940166, 0333 4320802