-- ADMISSION FREE --                                         

 

Welcome to the UCL Bloomsbury Theatre and the first edition of The Festival of the Moving Image (FMI), hosted by the Spanish and Latin American Department and the Film Studies Programme at University College London, with the support of UCL Futures, Unison-UCL branch, the UCL Film&TV society and the British-Cuban Heritage Foundation.

It is our aim that the festival will become one of the leading university events for the exhibition, interpretation and study of audio-visual culture. It has been created to give film students the opportunity to present their works, for the first time, in a unique venue: the UCL Bloomsbury Theatre. The festival is offering free admission to everyone from film societies, adult and higher education learners to the general public united by their passion for the moving image. The festival encourages partnership work with cultural institutions, organisations and personalities at a local, national and international level, through a practical programme of film retrospectives, workshops, exhibitions and publications.

The first edition of The Festival of the Moving Image: Por Primera Vez, is devoted to the audio visual culture of the Americas, celebrating the great humanist, the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel García Márquez and his work in cinema, in the context of the international festivities commemorating the first Spanish edition of the novel Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967); the 40th anniversary of the New Latin American Cinema Movement, the centenary of Frida Kahlo’s birth, the end of the slave trade in the British colonies and the European contribution to the development of the Americas’ film art. The festival pays special tribute to the former Spanish cultural mentor Pilar Miró for her exceptional work.

We have many people to thank for making the FMI possible. A special thank you goes to the Bloomsbury Theatre, the British Council, Proyecto Palomas, the Latin American Film Foundation, the ICAIC, the EICTV, Unison-UCL branch, Anti-Slavery International, UNICEF, the International Institute for the Study of Cuba. Our eternal gratitude to Gabriel García Márquez, Fernando Birri, Ken Loach, Julio García Espinosa, Tanya Valette, Octavio Cortázar, Carlos Alfonso (Síntesis), Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paul Leduc, Yat-Sen Chang, Carlo Nero, Vanessa Regradve, Lizette Vila, Aidan McQuade, Prof. Michael Worton, Peter Cadley, Frank Penter, Prof. Stephen Hart, Dr. Lee Grieveson, Dr. Steven Wilkinson, Alquimia Peña, Melanie Hopkins, Jenny White, Henrietta Parsons, Ileana Carreno, Sandra del Pino. Many, many thanks to Dolores Calviño, Rafa Ocon, Marcela Zamora, Naomi Rousseau, Gemma Wolfes, Mariana Bietti, Sabina Romeo, Georgina Annan, Yudeisy Echemendia, Ann Cross and the festival’s team: Melanie Jones, Pablo Conde, Pepe Baena, Maria Cotera, Rebecca Foale, Rebecca Radmore, Chantal Connaughton, Encarna Lopez, Andrea del Duce, Marcela Iriarte-Villalobos, James Nicholls, Cameron Bain, and Georgina Cammalleri; our gratitude to the Latin American embassies, in particular those of Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela and all friends and supporters. A special thank you is extended to our audience, to whom this festival is dedicated.

García Márquez - Magical Realism - Cinema

10.00 am
Fernando Birri | Un Señor muy Viejo con unas alas enormes (A Very Old Man With Enormous   Wings) | Argentina| 1991| colour | 90mins | In Spanish with English subtitles. Magical realism and comic confusion blend in a startling film about visions and expectations; original story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who also co-wrote the screenplay.

11.30 am
Jorge Alí Triana | Edipo Alcalde (Mayor Oedipus) | Colombia | 1996 | colour | 95mins | In Spanish with   English subtitles. García Márquez’s adaptation of the classical Greek tragedy set amidst the military conflict (representing the Theban plagues) of contemporary Colombia. Mayor Edipo (Oedipus) must mediate a peace deal between conflicting guerrilla groups and the army.

2.30 pm
Francesco Rosi |, Cronaca di una morte annunciata (Chronicle of a Death Foretold) | Italy/France | 1987, | colour | 106mins | In English | Rosi's adaptation of the most ‘realist’ work by García Márquez is a bright interpretation of the literary story set within a tiny South American community.

5.00 pm 
Holly Aylett | Tales Beyond Solitude | UK | 1989 | colour | 53mins| In the year of García Márquez’s 80th birthday, 60 years from the date of his first publication, and 25 years from the Nobel Prize award, this documentary still takes the viewer on a journey of discovery, about García Márquez, the world of “magical realism”, and the films based on his writing. 

6.00 pm Break

7.00 pm
Panel Discussion Q&A:
García Márquez - Magical Realism – Cinema

© 2007 Photo Vlad
Chair Prof. Stephen Hart (UCL), Kenneth Reeds (Spanish & LatinAmerican Department, UCL), Holly Aylett (British filmmaker), Prof. Gerald Martin (University of Pittsburgh, USA), Fernando Birri (Latin American Film Foundation), Chantal Connaughton (Interpreter at Roundtables for
Fernando Birri).

Opening: Exhibition Anti-Slavery International
(UCL North Cloisters 30th October - 6th November)

Opening: Exhibition The Art of the Film Poster: reference ICAIC
( UCL South Cloisters 30th October - 6th November)

The New Latin American Cinema Movement in the History of World Film

10.00 am
Three pioneer works of the New Latin American Cinema Movement and classic films of social realism in the Americas:

Julio Garcia Espinosa | El Mégano | Cuba| 1955 | black and white | 20mins | No dialogue;

Fernando Birri| Tire Dié (Throw me a Dime | Argentina | 1958 | black and white| 33mins|Spanish with English subtitles;

Santiago Alvarez | Now!, | Cuba| 1965 | black and white | 5mins | No dialogue

11.00 am
Paul Leduc | Frida naturaleza viva | Mexico | 1986 | colour | 108mins | In Spanish with    English subtitles .Biographical picture of the Mexican Painter Frida Kahlo, the film is about pieces of Kahlo’s life: her accident, her affairs, her paintings, her political activities.

1.00 pm Break

2.00 pm
Nelson Pereira dos Santos| Vidas secas (Barren Lives) | Brazil | 1963 | black & white | 100mins | dos Santos is rightly considered the father of Brazil's Cinema Novo movement. Vidas Secas follows two years in the life of a family whose poverty and limitations are extreme, both in terms of their ability to express themselves and even in terms of their ability to survive. All they possess they carry on their backs, as they search for a little patch of land on which to settle.

4.00 pm
Fernando Pino Solanas | Tangos: El Exilio de Gardel (Tangos, the Exile of Gardel | Argentina | 1985 | colour | 119 min | In Spanish with English subtitles. Pino Solanas was forced to flee to France in the mid 1970s. His seminal film Tangos, the Exile of Gardel, winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, explores the challenges of a group of Argentinean refugees who hope to stage a hybrid tango performance in Paris.

6.00 pm Break

7.00 pm
Panel Discussion Q&A:

The New Latin American Cinema Movement in the History of World Film

Chair Prof. Stephen Hart (UCL), Fernando Birri (Latin American Film Foundation), Lizette Vila (ICAIC), Ken Loach (British Filmmaker), Eva Tarr (Director Latin American Film Festival UK), Prof. Russell Porter (University of Chicago), Pepe Baena and Chantal Connaughton (Interpreters for Lizette Vila and Fernando Birri).

Ken Loach and Fernando Birri / Vladimir Smith, Ken Loach, Lizette Vila, Fernando Birri and Eva Tarr

Mother Africa, the Americas and the Anti-Slavery Movement  

10.00 am
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea | La última cena (The Last Supper) | Cuba | 1976 | 110mins | colour |  In Spanish with English subtitles, the film is based on a historical incident at the end of the eighteenth century in which a guilt-ridden count invited 12 of his slaves to a Holy Week supper. During the dinner, using religious analogies, the count washes and kisses their feet, lectures his guests on the perfect happiness possible in slavery. They in turn tell stories and make requests. He promises no work on Good Friday, but he leaves early that morning and the cruel overseer rousts the slaves for a long day cutting cane. The slaves fight back. 

11.50 am
Michael Apted | Amazing Grace | UK | 2006 | 117mins | colour | The film is about the campaign against the slave trade in 18th century Britain, led by the abolitionist William Wilberforce, who was responsible for steering anti-slave trade legislation through the British parliament. The title is a reference to the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ and the film also recounts John Newton’s writing of the hymn

1.50 pm Break

3.00 pm
Humberto Solás | Lucía | Cuba | 1968 | 160 mins | black and white | In Spanish with English subtitles| this is an epic, three part feature film, three separate stories related by the common theme of women and their struggle for liberation. The film tells the stories of three Lucías, one in 1895, when the Cubans fought for independence from the Spaniards; in 1933, when Cuban popular resistance against the dictator Geraldo Machado resulted in failure; and 196-, in the aftermath of the victory of the revolution led by Fidel Castro. This last Lucía is immersed in a struggle to overcome her husband’s machismo, a result of poor social values to be overcome.

5.45 pm Break
 
6.45 pm
Anti-Slavery International | Hell on Earth | UK | 2007 | 15mins | colour. The film focuses on modern forms of slavery which affect more than 12 million people around the world today. Footage was shot in 2006 in Niger and the Philippines and interviews with those directly affected by slavery practices. It also features extended interviews with anti-slavery activists from different countries and with those who have been subjected to slavery practices. The DVD also features a gallery of powerful images which take viewers on a visual journey through history, from the time of the Transatlantic Slave Trade to slavery in the contemporary world. This gallery has been produced by Anti-Slavery International to mark the 200th anniversary of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade.

7.00 pm
Panel Discussion Q&A:

Mother Africa, the Americas and the Anti-Slavery Movement
Chair Dr. Chris Abel (UCL), Aidan McQuade (Director Anti-Slavery International), Marcela Zamora (EICTV), Dr. Stephen Wilkinson (The International Institute for the Study of Cuba); Vladimir Smith (Curator of the Festival of the Moving Image and the British-Cuban Heritage Foundation).

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