Wel­come to our final month of the 2005 sea­son.

The whole month (if we can include Mon­day 31 October)features the work of Ger­man film pro­duc­er Artur Brauner. Arguably the most influ­en­tial film pro­duc­er of post-war Ger­many, he was also dri­ven to pro­duce films about vic­tims of the Nation­al Social­ist regime (when the Nazis invad­ed Lódz, Poland, Brauner’s home town, they killed forty-nine of his rel­a­tives). Though the major­i­ty of his pro­duc­tion out­put con­sist­ed of musi­cal roman­tic come­dies and mys­ter­ies, he returned from time to time to a top­ic which lay close to his heart — to hon­our the vic­tims of Hitler’s regime. The films are made by rep­utable direc­tors and well-known actors.

This sea­son of five films are all on Mon­day nights at 6.15pm at the Para­mount and have been made avail­able to the Welling­ton Film Soci­ety by The Goethe-Insti­tut. The screen­ings will be free to mem­bers, with the pub­lic admit­ted by way of dona­tion at the door — paper (or qui­et) mon­ey please.

The first film in the sea­son on Mon­day 31 Octo­ber is CHARLOTTE S (Frans Weisz, Germany/Netherlands 1980). It tells the sto­ry of painter Char­lotte Solomon, por­trayed by Bir­git Doll — who won a Bavar­i­an Film Award for her per­for­mance. Born in Berlin in 1917, Char­lotte pur­sued her dream of becom­ing a painter in the midst of domes­tic melo­dra­ma and his­tor­i­cal tragedy. When the Third Reich came to pow­er she took refuge in the South of France, where she cre­at­ed her life in a col­lec­tion of almost 800 gouach­es. Before being sent to Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 26, she packed her work in a suit­case and pre­sent­ed it a local doc­tor. “Please keep these safe”, she said. “It’s my whole life”.

Love in GermanyOn Mon­day 7 Novem­ber, Andrezej Waj­da’s A LOVE IN GERMANY (1983), based on the nov­el by Rolf Hochhuth about a for­bid­den love affair dur­ing World War II. In

a small Ger­mann town, Pauli­na runs a gro­cery store while her hus­band is serv­ing in the army. She falls mad­ly and pas­sion­ate­ly in love with a Pol­ish pris­on­er of war who is young enough to be her son. The penal­ty for their love is death for the POW and impris­on­ment for Pauli­na. Han­na Schygul­la’s por­trait of the reck­less wife whose thirst for a love which admits no lim­its is a tour de force per­for­mance.

ANGRY HARVEST, made by Agniesz­ka Hol­land in 1985, is the film on Mon­day 14 Novem­ber. The set­ting is occu­pied Poland and the dra­ma cen­tres in the rela­tion­ship between a farmer, played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, who is reap­ing the ben­e­fits of wartime scarci­ty, and a jew­ish woman, played by Elis­a­beth Tris­se­naar, whom he finds in the woods after she has escaped from an Auschwitz-bound train. He har­bours her in his cel­lar and brings her back to health. The dynam­ic per­for­mances of these two char­ac­ters (played by actors who were promi­nent in the films of Rain­er Wern­er Fass­binder) con­tribute to the strength of the film.

Ist­van Szabo is the direc­tor of HANUSSEN, which was nom­i­nat­ed in the Best For­eign-Lan­guge Film cat­e­go­ry for both the Gold­en Globe Awards and the Acad­e­my Awards in 1988. It screens on Mon­day 21 Novem­ber. Togeth­er with Mephis­to (1981) and Colonel Redl (1984) it is the third part of Szabo’s ‘wartime tril­o­gy’ — all star­ring Klaus Maria Bran­dauer with cin­e­matog­ra­phy by Lajos Koltai. While recu­per­at­ing in a mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal, Karl Schroed­er comes under the influ­ence of a Jew­ish psy­chol­o­gist who guides him through the sub­tle art of hyp­no­tism. He also learns how to mar­ket his bizarre gifts with a new name and image. Rein­vent­ed as suave tur­baned mys­tic Erik Jan Hanussen he quick­ly moves into influ­en­tial cir­cles and cap­tures the atten­tion of Hitler when he declares that the coun­try is on the thresh­old of a new era: of order, and the tri­umph of the will. But he makes a fatal mis­take when he pre­dicts the burn­ing of the Ger­man Reich­stag…

The final film in the sea­son on Mon­day 28 Novem­ber is THE ROSE GARDEN (1990), direct­ed by Fons Rade­mak­ers. Once again Brauner places his con­fi­dence in big-name stars such as Liv Ull­mann, Max­i­m­il­ian Schell and Peter Fon­da. Schell, oth­er­wise an elo­quent actor, con­vinc­ing­ly makes the stam­mer­ing and speech­less­ness of a trau­ma­tised sur­vivor a part of him­self. The cen­tral sto­ry, based on his­tor­i­cal fact, deals with the hang­ing of 20 Jew­ish chil­dren in a school in Ham­burg a few days before the end of the war. The for­mer con­cen­tra­tion camp com­man­der who was respon­si­ble was liv­ing unboth­ered by the author­i­ties when the film was being made. The film makes ques­tions about the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and what is jus­tice and injus­tice its main theme.

Con­firmed after the cur­rent issue of “Cinephile” was issued, is anoth­er selec­tion of recent French doc­u­men­taries on DVD pre­sent­ed by the Film Soci­ety in con­junc­tion with the French Embassy and Film Archive. Admis­sion will be free to Welling­ton Film Soci­ety mem­bers with the pub­lic pay­ing nor­mal admis­sion prices at the Archive’s Mediathe­atre. Just present your card at the box office to receive a com­ple­men­tary tick­et. You’ll find details of the three strongest and best known on our web­site. Each will have two screen­ings — at 7.00pm on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day nights.

SALVADORE ALLENDE (2003), direct­ed by Patri­cio Guz­man. Fri­day 4 and Sat­ur­day 5 Novem­ber.

WALL (2004), direct­ed by Simone Bit­ton, was in this year’s Welling­ton Film Fes­ti­val. It deserves these extra screen­ings on Fri­day 18 and Sat­ur­day 19 Novem­ber.

ODESSA ODESSA (2004), direct­ed by Michale Bogan­im, depicts the lives of cur­rent Jew­ish res­i­dents from Odessa in Rus­sia, as well as expa­tri­ates who have relo­cat­ed to “Lit­tle Odessa” in Brighton Beach, New York, and Ashod, Israel. Its Jew­ish theme com­ple­ments this mon­th’s Film Soci­ety sea­son. Screens Fri­day 25 and Sat­ur­day 26 Novem­ber.

Oth­er fea­ture-length films in this doc­u­men­tary sea­son — all at 7.00pm are:

THE ROUGH BOYS [Les Mau­vais Gar­cons] (2004), direct­ed by David Carr-Brown, Pierre Bour­geois and Patri­cia Bodet. Screens Fri­day 11 Novem­ber only.

PAUL IN HIS LIFE [Paul dans sa vie] (2004), direct­ed by Remi Mauger, screens on Sat­ur­day 12 Novem­ber only.

L’AFFAIRE VALERIE (2004), direct­ed by Fran­cois Cail­lat, screened on Fri­day 2 Decem­ber only.

As well there are three short films, LE PEAU TROUEE, LE ROSSIGNOL and PARADIS, which will screen at 6.00pm on Sat­ur­days 12 Novem­ber, 19 Novem­ber and 26 Novem­ber respec­tive­ly. Click here for the French Embassy list­ing of these films and as usu­al, check the Archive’s events cal­en­dar

The 4th Chi­nese Film Fes­ti­val runs at the Rial­to from 10 to 13 Novem­ber, with inten­sive film­go­ing avail­able on the Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Check the weblink for the sched­ule and links to descrip­tions of the films.

Book­ings now open.

Here’s an extra for the begin­ning of next month. As part of the Khan­dal­lah Arts Fes­ti­val, our silent-film pianist, David Beat­ie will be accom­pa­ny­ing Bro­ken Blos­soms at the Khan­dal­lah Town Hall on Sat­ur­day 3 Decem­ber at 8.00pm. Final details are yet to be finalised but it is expect­ed there will be a small charge to cov­er hall hire and sup­per.

And keep sup­port­ing the Para­mount by attend­ing their reg­u­lar screen­ings. Com­ing up:

On 3 Novem­ber, ELIZABETHTOWN (Cameron Crowe, USA 2005). Girl meets boy sto­ry in which Orlan­do Bloom flies to his home town of the title and Kisrten Dun­st is the flight atten­dant who pays him spe­cial atten­tion.

THUMBSUCKER (Mike Mills, USA 2005), opens on 10 Novem­ber. This gen­tle satire of sub­ur­ban fam­i­ly angst was in the Film Fes­ti­val and reserves this return sea­son.

Fer­nan­do Meirelles (City of God) returns to the screen with THE CONSTANT GARDENER (USA 2005), an adap­ta­tion of a John Le Carre nov­el. It opens on 17 Novem­ber.

Anoth­er Film Fes­ti­val title returns on 24 Novem­ber. Cos­ta Gavras’ THE AX [Le Couperet] (France/Belgium/Spain 2005). Jose Gar­cia plays a man made redun­dant from a posi­tion at a paper mill. After two years search­ing for a job he hits on a plan to iden­ti­fy and elim­i­nate his com­peti­tors. Black com­e­dy does­n’t come much black­er than this…

Oh, and the 24 Hour V Movie Marathon opens Sat­ur­day 5 Novem­ber at 6.00pm. Thir­teen films are promised in 24 hours!

Welling­ton Film Soci­ety