LIQUID STATES / 16 AUG – 11 OCT / MULTIPLE VENUES
This season, Lightcube has put together a series of films that discuss this quality of the cinema – of its ability to shift shapes and fill new containers. The series includes various titles that are influenced by other media in their very construct, and use these influences to extend and further the intrinsic qualities of the filmic medium itself. We have A Chinese Ghost Story, in which the movements of its fantastical protagonists encapsulate the video-age of the late 1980s, followed by Jacques Tati’s Les Vacances Des Mr. Hulot, a film that is constructed like a Jean Corti harmonica score.
TRANSMISSIONS: A FESTIVAL OF INDEPENDENT CINEMA / 14 – 18 NOV / SACAC
Transmissions is LCFS’s flagship annual film festival of independent cinema from around the world. Sri Aurobindo Center for Arts and Communication will serve as the venue for the second edition. The festival, slated to take place from the 14th to 18th November 2013, will feature a section of features and short-features, an experimental film selection, student films and independent film classics shown in retrospect. Accompanying these will be panel discussions, video workshops, lectures, post-film discussions and opportunities for the cineaste to purchase film literature, film criticism magazines, posters and other such items at the venue.
THE MACHINE AGE / KIRAN NADAR MUSEUM OF ART / 2 AUGUST – 27 SEPTEMBER / 5 PM
For details scroll below, or click on ‘The Machine Age’ tab to your left.
THE MACHINE AGE / KIRAN NADAR MUSEUM OF ART / 27 SEPTEMBER / 5 PM
TRAFFIC / 1971 / JACQES TATI / 5 PM
In Trafic, Hulot is a bumbling automobile designer who works for Altra, a Paris auto plant. He, along with a truckdriver and a publicity agent (Maria Kimberly), takes a new camper-car (designed by Hulot) to an auto show in Amsterdam. On the way there, they encounter various obstacles on the road. Some of the obstacles that Hulot and his companions encounter are getting impounded byDutch customs guards, a car accident (meticulously choreographed by the filmmakers), and an inefficient mechanic. – Wikipedia
93 mins, Colour, DVD
THE MACHINE AGE / KIRAN NADAR MUSEUM OF ART / 20 SEPTEMBER / 5 PM
HUMAIN, TROP HUMAIN / 1973 / LOUIS MALLE / 5 PM
A documentary study of the automotive industry, focusing on the manufacturing process at a Citroen factory. - NewWaveFilm
75 mins, Colour, DVD
THE MACHINE AGE / KIRAN NADAR MUSEUM OF ART / 13 SEPTEMBER / 5 PM
RED DESERT / 1964 / MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI / 5 PM
Michelangelo Antonioni’s panoramas of contemporary alienation were decade-defining artistic events, and Red Desert, his first color film, is perhaps his most epochal. This provocative look at the spiritual desolation of the technological age – about a disaffected woman, brilliantly portrayed by Antonioni muse Monica Vitti, wandering through a bleak industrial landscape beset by power plants and environmental toxins, and tentatively flirting with her husband’s coworker, played by Richard Harris – continues to keep viewers spellbound. With one startling, painterly composition after another, Red Desert creates a nearly apocalyptic image of its time, and confirms Antonioni as cinema’s preeminent poet of the modern age. -Janus Films
117 mins, Colour, DVD
THE MACHINE AGE / KIRAN NADAR MUSEUM OF ART / 6 SEPTEMBER / 5 PM
BLUE COLLAR / 1978 / Paul Schrader / 5 PM
A trio of Detroit auto workers, two black—Zeke Brown (Pryor) and Smokey James (Kotto)—and one white—Jerry Bartowski (Keitel) are fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass. Coupled with financial hardships on each man’s end, the trio hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters. – Wikipedia
114 mins, Colour, DVD
THE MACHINE AGE / KIRAN NADAR MUSEUM OF ART / 30 AUGUST / 5 PM
AJANTRIK / 1958 / RITWIK GHATAK / 5 PM
One of the earliest Indian films to portray an inanimate object, in this case anautomobile, as a character in the story. It achieves this through the use of sounds, recorded during post-production, to emphasize the car’s bodily functions and movements. – Wikipedia
108 mins, B & W, DVD
THE MACHINE AGE / KIRAN NADAR MUSEUM OF ART / 23 AUGUST / 5 PM
SHOULDER ARMS / 1918 / CHARLIE CHAPLIN / 5 PM
Charlie is a boot camp private who has a dream of being a hero who goes on a daring mission behind enemy lines. – IMDb
45 mins, B & W, DVD
MODERN TIMES / 1936 / CHARLIE CHAPLIN / 6 PM
The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman. – IMDb
87 mins, B & W, DVD
THE MACHINE AGE / KIRAN NADAR MUSEUM OF ART / 17 AUGUST / 5 PM
A NOUS À LIBERTE/ 1931 / RENE CLAIR/ 5 PM
À nous la liberté is a landmark in the history of film comedy and sound film. Back in 1931 when almost all film directors in every country were cautiously using the new technology as a recording medium, Clair, with the help of Georges Auric’s musical score, was exploring it as a creative medium. Throughout the film we see and hear many unusual sound effects and uses of recorded sound: the “sound” of assembly line mechanization done through music (using xylophones, among other instruments), aural flashbacks, singing flowers and more. – Full Unemployed Cinema
97 mins, B & W, DVD
