10 Days to Change Minds Through the Moving Image
There are 10 days left of our ramshackle but increasingly enjoyable film festival.
Tonight
Tonight, at the Exmouth Arms in Bath Road, we have La Cocina, in the upstairs room at the back. Starting at about 7pm, admission £7. I have now seen all but the last 20 minutes, and it is rather wonderful. It is Mexican, mostly in Spanish with sub-titles, telling the story of the people who work in big, frantic restaurant kitchens in New York City. They are almost all immigrants, mostly illegal, mostly Hispanic. There is a tortured romance, lots of dramatic conflict, lyrical passages of philosophical chat about language, race, culture, food, class and sex. There’s a haunting score and gorgeous black-and-white (mostly) photography that, for once, is not a cheap ticket to nostalgialand. Thoroughly recommended.
As someone whose only post-graduate qualification is a Level Two food hygiene and handling certificate, I know this world a little and it is good to see a film whose sympathies are with those working to serve. Anyone who convinces me they have worked in catering will get in for nothing. I don’t have to see your certificate, and certainly not your knife skills. Maybe recite all 12/13/14/15 allergens? Or explain to me what ‘lupin’ is and why it is in our food.
Tomorrow, Wednesday 1 October
We have Radical at Pip and Jims Church (aka St Philip and St James, in Grafton Road, Cheltenham. Again at 7pm, also £7. This is a really wonderful film, about a teacher with extraordinary methods who arrives in a school in a narco-war area where no one at all wants to teach. He wants to make learning fun. This proves threatening to almost everyone and there are difficult consequences. However, it is for the most part funny and inspiring. The leads and the young cast are excellent. The script has a few radical-teacher clichés (but, frankly, that never did the French film industry any harm) but it side-steps them and packs a powerful emotional punch. Anyone who likes children, learning, science and John Stuart Mill will find this a joy. Do come. I had a grand scheme for music, entertainment and food. Who knows, we have about 48 hours so we might yet get that together.
Thursday 2 October
Two treats. Down at the Electric Picture House in Wotton-under-Edge they are showing From Ground Zero. It’s an anthology or portmanteau film made up of all sorts of bits and pieces, fact and fiction, about Gaza, made by people on the ground. It’s a lovely little cinema and I hope lots of people turn up to see this very timely film.
Gaza may yet usher in the End of the World if it’s not beaten to the punch by the Eastern Front.
So we’ve decided to show Edgar Wright’s World’s End, preceded by the other two films in what is now apparently known as the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, ie, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. They are at The Exmouth Arms on Thursday. We’re showing them without a break and admission will be FREE. Yes, free, gratis and for nothing. After all, what will money be worth in the Last Days or just after? Acknowledging that everybody has seen them, or bits of them, this will be an ‘intensely relaxed’ screening. You can have a drink, wander in and out, shout out the punchlines for whatever floats your boat. Possibly not an evening for Ingmar Bergman fans, but who knows. Terry Gilliam and I agreed that The Seventh Seal has its funny side.
More later in the week, but that’s the hot news for today.
As I say, do come.
Old News
Meanwhile, Holly Gilliam, Terry’s manager/daughter, liked my little interview with her Dad so much she is putting it on the official Monty Python YouTube channel. But you can watch it here now. Terry is a very funny and very nice man. The garrulous West Country oaf doing the interviewing and laughing too much is being sent for retraining, now the police are no longer concerned with him.