The Nightingale - Saturday, 7:30pm
British filmmaker Steve Connolly's
films are inquisitive works: they ask questions about the spaces they
investigate, and they ask questions of the viewer. Less exploration
and more collected clues, finding the answers does not seem to be as
of much concern as finding the right complex. In MAS SE PERDIO (2008)
Havana, Cuba is the setting. An outdoor stadium with a few young men
working out (potential), the structure of an elegant national ballet
school that was never used (forgotten glory), and an intersection being
restored with manual labor (limited resources) are shown. Although the
film is presented in three acts, each section juxtaposes the different
shooting locations, allowing their shared obsolescence to act as a stand
in for the continual restoration of the outdated that has permeated
communist Cuba. Less structured but more personal is FILM FOR TOM (2005). Connolly
gives us all the trappings of a biography when we see scenes from the
childhood of Tom Pearson and hear an adult voice recounting the events
of his life. However, this is not a film about Tom, but rather about
Connolly's anguish over Tom's violent murder. The narrator, after
being told by a psychoanalyst that he has no sense of self, responds
"Perhaps I could find myself in someone else," and through
his film Connolly allows each of us to find our unique story in that
of another. Also screening: THE READING ROOM (2002), POSTCARD FROM ISTANBUL
(2003), THE WHALE (2003), GREAT AMERICAN DESERT (2007). Connolly in
person. (2002-08, approx. 62 min, 16mm and video) JH - Cine-File.info
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