20 November 2014 (Hong Kong) – The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (HKIFFS)’s monthly programme, HKIFF Cine Fan January / February screenings will feature Marlon Brando: The King of Acting , Mosfilm: Celebrating 90th Anniversary,Special Presentation: The Battle of Algiers. “Top 20 Must-see” with Raging Bull and Apocalypse Now Redu”,and “Local Heroes”presenting My Voice, My life directed by Ruby Yang. From Classics, Mosfilm to local indie documentary ,this Cine Fan will give movie-goers the best movie choices in the new year.
Marlon Brando – The King of Acting
Born into a Midwestern middle-class family, his mother a frustrated actress, Marlon Brando mixed theater and rebellion at an early age, capped by his expulsion from military school and his move to New York City, where he was initiated into the Stanislavski system. This school forced actors to explore their own lives to shape characters. Rocketing to Broadway stardom at 23 with A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), he was lured to Hollywood for the film version and varied masterpieces –Viva Zapata!, Julius Caesar, The Wild One and On the Waterfront – that made him both a respected actor and a sex symbol and won his first Academy Award, for Best actor in On the Waterfront. In his later career he gave a stunning incarnation as Vito Corleone in the blockbuster masterpiece The Godfather and an aggressively different, disturbing role in Last Tango in Paris.
Born into a Midwestern middle-class family, his mother a frustrated actress, Marlon Brando mixed theater and rebellion at an early age, capped by his expulsion from military school and his move to New York City, where he was initiated into the Stanislavski system. This school forced actors to explore their own lives to shape characters. Rocketing to Broadway stardom at 23 with A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), he was lured to Hollywood for the film version and varied masterpieces –Viva Zapata!, Julius Caesar, The Wild One and On the Waterfront – that made him both a respected actor and a sex symbol and won his first Academy Award, for Best actor in On the Waterfront. In his later career he gave a stunning incarnation as Vito Corleone in the blockbuster masterpiece The Godfather and an aggressively different, disturbing role in Last Tango in Paris.
Cine Fan presents five films including A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, Guys and Dolls, Burn! and Last Tango in Paris.
Mosfilm: Celebrating 90th Anniversary
Mosfilm, Russia’s largest and oldest film studio, celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. Mosfilm is not only one of the world’s oldest-running film studios, but also a living testament to history. While Mosfilm continued operations during WWII at its temporary facilities in Almaty, its creative output was severely repressed during the postwar years. Five different style and theme films had been chosen including Solaris, Dersu Uzala, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, Several Days of Oblomov’s Life and White Tiger.
Mosfilm, Russia’s largest and oldest film studio, celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. Mosfilm is not only one of the world’s oldest-running film studios, but also a living testament to history. While Mosfilm continued operations during WWII at its temporary facilities in Almaty, its creative output was severely repressed during the postwar years. Five different style and theme films had been chosen including Solaris, Dersu Uzala, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, Several Days of Oblomov’s Life and White Tiger.
Jean Eustache – The Missing Link in the French New Wave
Jean Eustache (1938-1941) provides one of the “missing links” of 20th century French cinema. Eustache was born in a working class family in Pessac and raised in Narbonne, both of which marked him as a self-taught product of provincial Southern France. His two key films, are also marked by their differences: where The Mother and the Whore is modern, young, intense in its sexuality and psychology, My Little Loves opens with lyrical color and nostalgic music that evoke an entirely different universe, the lost youth that was itself utterly transformed by the political and social changes underpinning 1968 unrest and the Nouvelle Vague. His career was cut short by paralysis from an automobile accident in 1981, leading to his suicide shortly thereafter.
Jean Eustache (1938-1941) provides one of the “missing links” of 20th century French cinema. Eustache was born in a working class family in Pessac and raised in Narbonne, both of which marked him as a self-taught product of provincial Southern France. His two key films, are also marked by their differences: where The Mother and the Whore is modern, young, intense in its sexuality and psychology, My Little Loves opens with lyrical color and nostalgic music that evoke an entirely different universe, the lost youth that was itself utterly transformed by the political and social changes underpinning 1968 unrest and the Nouvelle Vague. His career was cut short by paralysis from an automobile accident in 1981, leading to his suicide shortly thereafter.
Special Presentation: Battle of Algiers (director: Gillo Pontecorvo)
A reconstructed history so powerful it scared the French, who delayed screenings for five years, inspired revolutionaries worldwide and often comes to eclipse the actual histories it depicts. This stunningly shot and orchestrated drama (music by Ennio Morricone) retells the events of the Algerian War for Independence through composite characters of heartbreaking reality and unforgettable visual and sonic tableaus. Not only the revolutionaries but even the colonizers and soldiers who torture them are human, and the violence of both all the more painful for the beliefs that underpin destruction.
A reconstructed history so powerful it scared the French, who delayed screenings for five years, inspired revolutionaries worldwide and often comes to eclipse the actual histories it depicts. This stunningly shot and orchestrated drama (music by Ennio Morricone) retells the events of the Algerian War for Independence through composite characters of heartbreaking reality and unforgettable visual and sonic tableaus. Not only the revolutionaries but even the colonizers and soldiers who torture them are human, and the violence of both all the more painful for the beliefs that underpin destruction.
The January / February programmes also present “Top 20 Must See” features Raging Bull and Apocalypse Now Redux. “Local Heroes” is bringing Hong Kong audience the latest local indie documentary My Voice, My Life directed by Ruby Yang, the Oscar-winner documentary filmmaker. Don’t miss out !
The full programme can be viewed at www.cinefan.com.hk, while tickets can be booked online at www.urbtix.hk or in-person at all URBTIX outlets from 14 October onwards.