Xmas screening: Plácido

We’re bringing the star of our ‘Top 5 Foreign Christmas Films‘ to Leeds this December!

In collaboration with our friends at Instituto Cervantes, we’ll be showing the Spanish classic, Plácido (Berlanga, 1961), for free at 7pm, Monday the 9th of December, at the Hyde Park Book Club.

 

Film Synopsis

Christmas has often been a period that inspires us to consider those less fortunate,  an idea that Plácido both commends and satirises. A community of old women commit to sit a homeless or infirm person at their table on Christmas eve, producing a touching as well as farcically funny results in this classic Spanish Christmas film.

– Read more on eyeforfilm.co.uk

 

Gomorrah

For Leeds Cineforum’s next screening, our co-director Rachel Johnson will present Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, 2008). The screening will take place at 18:30-21:30 on Wednesday the 9th of May at The Brunswick.

Garrone’s film won the Grand Prix and Cannes in 2008, and has since become a globally successful TV series. Gomorrah blends genres from neorealism to noir, offering a stylish yet gritty exposé of the Neapolitan crime syndicate, the Camorra.

Mamma Roma

For our first screening on campus, the University of Leeds Italian Department’s Maddalena Moretti will present Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma (1962).

One of Pasolini’s earlier works, the often overlooked Mamma Roma has been described as being filmed ‘in the great tradition of Italian neorealism’, and offering ‘an unflinching look at the struggle for survival in postwar Italy.’ (Read more on The Criterion Collection website).

The film also stars one of the greatest Italian divas, Anna Magnani, as Mamma Roma – a middle-aged prostitute who struggles to overcome her past for the sake of her son, Ettore. As in many of his earliest movies (and the novels which preceded them), Pasolini explores the limited lives and dashed hopes of the cafoni, the Italian equivalent of America’s hillbillies. (Synopsis based on Rotten Tomatoes).

As usual, the screening will be followed by a group discussion over wine and nibbles.

When: 5-8pm, Wednesday 25th October

Where: Seminar room 1, Botany House

 

This screening is funded by the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures and the AHRC OWRI fund.