I know we haven't done a new episode in ages but as we greet the new year, we thought we'd look back at 2022, and look ahead to what 2023 holds.

Featuring:

Our holiday viewing, including Avatar: The Way of Water.

A film directed by our very own Felix Dembinski - Letters to the Postman

Our general relationship to cinema over the last year.

A run-through of new releases seen and not seen in 2022.

In memoriam - Jean-Marie Straub & Jean-Luc Godard.

The Sight & Sound list.

What we're looking forward to (and dreading) in 2023.

Enjoy x

cinemarising.com

email us: [email protected]
Instagram: @cinema_rising

Intro music: Joel Oldham @old.joel
Artwork:  Fred Sanders @fredsanders.creative

“Nothing is more anarchic than power” 

This quote by  one Pier Paolo Pasolini is the guiding theme behind the latest pairing from Felix

We talk two films about the unchecked cruelty of the ruling classes enacted on the less privileged.

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) The pro-torture porn classic by Pasolini follows four rich, insane libertines who force eighteen teenagers to participate in a series of torturous, humiliating rituals. 

Who’s Minding the Store? (1963) Directed by Frank Tashlin and starring Jerry Lewis as an ambitious working man, WMTS finds our hero unwittingly coerced into a job at a department store owned by the parents of his secretly mega-rich girlfriend. The parents - who despise his humble origins, hatch a scheme to drive a wedge between the couple.

cinemarising.com

email us: [email protected]
Instagram: @cinema_rising

Intro music: Joel Oldham @old.joel
Artwork:  Fred Sanders @fredsanders.creative

With our screening of Gamer coming up on August 2nd, we pair Neveldine and Taylor's anrachic, ahead-of-its-time cult favourite with  Eugene Kotlyarenko's Spree. Both films explore the role of technology in an increasingly divided society, incorporating new media into the directors' vision.  We also talk about Baz Luhrman's Elvis for a bit.

Gamer (2009)  We barely scratch the surface of Neveldine &  Taylor's unfairly maligned masterpiece, but you can find out more about the film and buy tickets to our screening (which includes a pre-recordeed intro from Steven Shaviro + music after the film) at our website. Come by on August 2nd to Avalon Cafe in Bermondsey to see the film and discuss it irl.

Spree (2020)  Kotlyarenko's  film follows  Kurt Kunkle (Joe Keery) as a socially maladjusted rideshare driver who stages a killing spree in a desperate bid to achieve viral success.

cinemarising.com

email us: [email protected]
Instagram: @cinema_rising

Intro music: Joel Oldham @old.joel
Artwork:  Fred Sanders @fredsanders.creative

Season Four is here. We start our deep dive into how the theme of "chaos" has been explored on film with a classic pairing from Felix. We take  a look at Andrzej Żuławski's controversial folk horror/erotic thriller Szamanka (1996) and the 1994 disasterpiece Clifford (1994).

Szamanka (1996) Starring Boguslaw "The Polish Bruce Willis" Linda and the then first-time actress Iwona Petry, Szamanka explores the violently intense sexual relationship between an archaeology professor (Linda) and a possibly mentally ill woman referred to only as "The Italian" (Petry).

Clifford (1996) Hoping to match the success of superficially similar nineties comedies like Home Alone and Problem Child, but failing to find a child star with adequate box office draw, Orion Studios decided to cast middle-aged comedian Martin Short as the eponymous Clifford. Short plays a ten-year-old sadist whose prolonged stay with his uncle (Charles Grodin) and his put-upon girlfriend (Mary Steenburgen) results in a whirlwind of psychic and physical violence.

email us: [email protected]
Instagram: @cinema_rising

Intro music: Joel Oldham @old.joel
Artwork:  Fred Sanders @fredsanders.creative

Just a quick one - come and see Gamer on August 2nd with an introduction from critic and author Steven Shaviro and music after the film.

Tickets here:

https://www.cinemarising.com/screenings

For this season finale, we break format to pair a film, not with another film, but with a concept. Pushing the structure of a double-feature podcast to breaking point,  we look at Billy Wilder's 1950 noir classic, then look at how contemporary film culture has transformed us all into a strange version of Gloria Swanson's iconic femme fatale - Norma Desmond.

Desmond lives in a memory palace built from her years of stardom, fruitlessly longing for another moment in the spotlight, desperate to recapture the victories of years passed.  For many, the decline of cinema's cultural relevance and the increasing share given over to corporate, IP-driven interests has led to a similar retreat into film history. We explore cinema's prevalent obsession with the past, from American auteurs' drift towards nostalgia to deep-faking and dieting dead or aging stars. Finally, we look ahead, and try and conceive of a  future for the movies.

Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for a special announcement very soon.

email us: [email protected]
Instagram: @cinema_rising

Intro music: Joel Oldham @old.joel
Artwork:  Fred Sanders @fredsanders.creative

In the penultimate episode of the season, we look at one film you know and one you might not. We talk the certified best film ever, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, alongside Ronald Chase’s Bruges-La-Morte.

Vertigo (1958) Burdened with the title of “The Greatest Film Ever Made”, Hitchcock’s technicolour noir remains a discomfiting study of memory, obsession, and the act of looking itself.

Bruges-La-Morte (1978) Director Ronald Chase cut his teeth as a dancer in the 1950s, before transitioning into opera design and filmmaking, using projection of original footage to enhance the theatrical experience. Shot on a shoestring, repurposing the crew and equipment from a previous project, Chase’s adaptation of the novel of the same title is a bizarre, feverish feat of low-budget ingenuity. Also one of the only non-Star Wars roles from C3-P0 actor Anthony Daniels . Available for free on Chase’s Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/412529232

email us: [email protected]
Instagram: @cinema_rising

Intro music: Joel Oldham @old.joel
Artwork:  Fred Sanders @fredsanders.creative

In this episode, we are joined by filmmaker (and Felix's roommate) Andrea Ratti.

Andrea's Website

Andrea's Letterboxd

His picks:

The Long Grey Line (1955) One of legendary Hollywood director John Ford's many masterpieces, The Long Grey Line adapts the real-life of Martin "Marty"  Maher, who spent over fifty years as an instructor at West Point: America's officer training academy.

Still Life (2006) China's Three Gorges Project is an enormous industrial undertaking that has resulted in the flooding of several major urban areas, displacing millions in the process. Jia Zhangke's Still Life follows two ordinary people searching for lost loved ones in the soon-to-be flooded city of Fenjie.

email us: [email protected]
Instagram: @cinema_rising

Intro music: Joel Oldham @old.joel
Artwork:  Fred Sanders @fredsanders.creative

We welcome filmmaker Thomas Watchorn to discuss two films that deploy elements of folk horror, but remain markedly different to more conventional entries in the sub-genre.

Tom's Vimeo Page

Tom's Letterboxd

Tom's Twitter

Red Shift  (1978) Directed by The Long Good Friday director John Mackenzie as part of the Play For Today series, Red Shift is an adaptation of a novel by Alan Garner (ostensibly written for children) - a time-hopping exploration of the link between land and memory, touching on topics as vast as religion, mental health and the subjugation of women through history. 

Rökkur (2017) After his ex leaves him a troubling voice message, a man ventures to a secluded cabin where the pair grappled with a litany of painful memories. Evidently, something else is going on, with director Erlingur Thoroddsen weaving an unsettling mystery into the carefully crafted relationship drama.

email us: [email protected]
Instagram: @cinema_rising

Intro music: Joel Oldham @old.joel
Artwork:  Fred Sanders @fredsanders.creative

Returning champion Joe MacDonald joins us in the basement as we look at the intersection of memory and technology, the past and the future.

Sans Soleil (1983) Chris Marker's galaxy-brained video essay moves from Africa to Japan as the french filmmaker pontificates on a range of topics, particularly how tech has shaped our relationship to memory.

Total Recall (1990)  Dutch maverick Paul Verhoeven loosely adapts Philip K Dick's 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale', in the processing creating both an entertaining Arnold vehicle and a typically subversive examination of America's fantasies.

email us: [email protected]
Instagram: @cinema_rising

Intro music: Joel Oldham @old.joel
Artwork:  Fred Sanders @fredsanders.creative