201103071237.jpg
“Wel­ling­ton Film Soci­ety opens tonight? You don’t say!”

All over the world it is volun­teer organ­isa­tions like the Wel­ling­ton Film Soci­ety that keep the flame of film art alive so that cinephili­acs like me can get a decent pal­ate cleanser every Monday night after a week­end of Hol­ly­wood tosh.

I can’t recom­mend Soci­ety mem­ber­ship highly enough. Your mem­ber­ship fee equates to around three bucks a screen­ing (33 Mondays!) and your mem­ber­ship gets you enough dis­counts (at the Film Fest­iv­al and par­ti­cip­at­ing cinemas) that it doesn’t take long to pay for itself.

This year’s pro­gramme has many high­lights. The French and Ger­man sea­sons (sup­por­ted by the French Embassy and the Goethe Insti­tute respect­ively) are always inter­est­ing. This year: a trib­ute to the lumin­ous movie star Isa­belle Hup­pert and a couple of clas­sic crime flicks; three east Ger­man doc­u­ment­ar­ies as well as a chance to see two very early Ger­man pro­duc­tions by the great Hol­ly­wood styl­ist Ernst Lub­itsch (his clas­sic The Shop Around the Corner, which was remade in 1998 as You’ve Got Mail, also screens).

There are oppor­tun­it­ies to see some recent clas­sics on the big screen once again: Ter­rence Malick’s The New World didn’t even get a cinema release in NZ and has found a repu­ta­tion only on home video; Sokurov’s spec­tac­u­lar Rus­si­an Ark is a must-see; Sotishi’s anim­ated psy­cho­drama Mil­len­ni­um Act­ress; Barry Barclay’s Ngati – the list goes on.

And of course there are the big screen mas­ter­pieces – this year we have Rossellini’s Jour­ney in Italy star­ring Ingrid Berg­man, the Japan­ese clas­sic San­sho the Bailiff and the irre­press­ible Singin’ in the Rain – argu­ably the most joy­ous 103 minutes ever com­mit­ted to cel­lu­loid.

The first screen­ing is tonight – a sneak pre­view of the new Bill Murray/Robert Duvall com­edy Get Low – and hence­for­ward every Monday until Novem­ber 28 (inter­rup­ted only by pub­lic hol­i­days and oth­er fest­ivals).

While I’m encour­aging you to start organ­ising your diar­ies it is worth not­ing that, due to the Rugby World Cup and the accom­pa­ny­ing changes to school hol­i­days, this year’s Wel­ling­ton Film Fest­iv­al is two weeks later than usu­al: July 29 to August 14. Book that annu­al leave now.

Prin­ted (in short­er form) in Wel­ling­ton’s Cap­it­al Times on Wed­nes­day 9 March, 2011.