23 What with Queen’s Birth­day and all, it’s a light, but good month for Film Soci­ety screen­ings.

First up is the 1998 Ger­man movie 23, a film by young Ger­man dir­ect­or Hans-Chris­ti­an Schmid is based on the true story of Karl Koch, a young com­puter hack­er who stumbles across a hid­den world of intrigue, decep­tion and danger. After the light tone of the first hour the film becomes more chilling as the hid­den forces of law and order close in. The clas­si­fic­a­tion is R16 (con­tains drug use and offens­ive lan­guage). Made avail­able through the Goethe Insti­tut, 23 is free to mem­bers, with the pub­lic admit­ted by way of dona­tion at the door.

Screens Monday 13, 6.15pm at the Para­mount.

Next is Shang­hai Express (1932). This Amer­ic­an clas­sic by Joseph von Stern­berg stars Mar­lene Diet­rich as Shang­hai Lily. This mys­tic­al and exot­ic story of love and destruc­tion is styl­ized to have everything done to the rhythm of a train. The plot con­cerns an evac­u­ation from Pek­ing to Shang­hai, but it’s in every sense a vehicle for some­thing else: a parade of decept­ive appear­ances and iden­tit­ies, cen­ter­ing on the notion of a pros­ti­tute with more hon­our than those around her. It’s a while since we’ve been able to say it, but this screen­ing is for mem­bers only.

Screens Monday 20 June, 6.15pm at the Para­mount.

And finally, Dis­tant Lights (2002). The dis­tant lights in Hans-Chris­ti­an Schmid’s enga­ging ensemble drama are those illu­min­ated by the prom­ise of a bet­ter life. The Pol­ish town of Slu­bice is a dan­ger­ous place for
Rus­si­ans and Ukra­ni­ans who hope to slip across the Oder River to great­er eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies. The film, set over a 48-hour peri­od, fol­lows sev­er­al criss-cross­ing tra­ject­or­ies into the mor­ass of treach­ery, oppor­tunism, des­per­a­tion and sus­pense. This film first screened in the 2003 Wel­ling­ton Film Fest­iv­al. Made avail­able through the Goethe Insti­tut, Dis­tant Lights is free to mem­bers, with the pub­lic admit­ted by way of dona­tion at the door.

Monday 27 June, 6.15pm, Where else but the Para­mount?

That’s it for June. Plenty to keep you occu­pied mid-month in decid­ing what to book for at the Wel­ling­ton Film Fest­iv­al, which com­mences on 15 July. The list of films already con­firmed can be found on the
34th Wel­ling­ton Film Fest­iv­al link here.

More inform­a­tion on the Wel­ling­ton Film Soci­ety, includ­ing screen­ing sced­ules, sub­scrip­tion inform­a­tion & mem­ber­ship forms can be found here.

(lif­ted from the WFS monthly emailed news­let­ter)