A major UK-wide celebration of one of the greatest and most enduring filmmaking partnerships: Michael Powell (1905-1990) and Emeric Pressburger (1902-1988) is coming to Plymouth.
Plymouth Arts Cinema is hosting a multi-venue season of beautiful, dark and mysterious films, talks, workshops and events inspired by and culminating in an immersive screening of Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes in December with a newly commissioned dance work from Barbican Theatre. Audiences new and old will re-discover the beautiful, transgressive worlds created on screen by the radical imaginations of these hugely influential filmmakers.
The season will take inspiration from The Red Shoes and will revisit classic films, show new representations of dance on screen, and invite special guests to share their love and curiosity for these perfect cinema mavericks.
The films take a dark look at the fevered relationship between female creative genius and representations of the monstrous feminine power on screen. Anna Bogutskaya, film writer and podcaster, will introduce Black Swan. Barbican Theatre will host a dance workshop for young people and a film marathon with all of the dance-film guilty pleasures we love. A Matter of Life and Death will screen at the Jill Craigie Cinema at The Arts Institute, University of Plymouth, Suspiria, Black Swan, I Know Where I’m Going! and The Red Shoes will screen at Plymouth Arts Cinema.
Venues: Plymouth Arts Cinema, Barbican Theatre, Jill Craigie Cinema, University of Plymouth.
Details for all events can be found at https://plymouthartscinema.org/event-attribute/powell-pressburger/
Event Information
A Matter of Life and Death (U)
Monday 6 November, 7pm, Jill Craigie Cinema, University of Plymouth
Associate Professor of Filmmaking at the University of Plymouth, Mark Carey, will introduce ‘Powell & Pressburger’s crowning achievement’ A Matter of Life and Death, discussing its origins, production and cultural significance. David Niven plays a British airman who survives a plane crash and falls in love with an American radio operator (Kim Hunter), only to be summoned to the afterlife by a heavenly ‘Conductor’ (Marius Goring). But is heaven just a hallucination brought on by brain injury? Described by Martin Scorsese as “an audacious film” that is “romantic, daring and beautiful” and by Mark Kermode as “one of the greatest movies ever made”, it has been referenced or riffed on by Aardman, the Harry Potter series, BBC’s Big Train, Marvel, Pet Shop Boys, Phil Collins, and appeared on British stamps and at the opening of the 2012 Olympics.
Tickets £6, £4 concessions, free to University of Plymouth students
Available from https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/whats-on/autumn-2023-a-matter-of-life-and-death
Suspiria (18)
Thursday 16 November, 6pm, Plymouth Arts Cinema
A darkness swirls at the centre of a world-renowned dance company in director Luca Guadagnino’s ambitious, dark and feminist re-imaging of Dario Argento’s sublime Suspiria. Unfolding in Berlin in the 70s, it follows Susie Bannion an ambitious young dancer auditioning for a place in a prestigious school. Students are disappearing, and its apparent that some kind of ancient violence lives in the school's walls. With an eerily brilliant score by Thom Yorke and an earthy, muted colour palette of greens and pale pinks, Guadagnino has made a spellbinding look at corruption, innocence, and female power that expertly blends filmmaking, dance and performance.
Tickets £5 full price / £4 concessions.