THE BIOSCOPE. FEBRUARY - MAY 2011

is a special selection of films exploring the diverse themes surrounding human migration. This eclectic selection of films, which is realized in partnership with the Goethe Institut, includes features, documentaries, classics and experimental pieces from around the world. The series provides a fascinating examination of immigration and cinema. The series will screen from January through to May at The Bioscope, with screenings held almost every Wednesday at 8pm.

FILM SELECTIONOPENING NIGHT FILM 23 FEBHEAD ON (aka Gegen Die Wand) Dir. Fatih AkinGermany, 2004, 121mins

40-year-old Cahit is brought to German psychiatric clinic after attempting suicide and sets out to start a new life, even as he longs for drugs and alcohol to numb his pain. Sibel is young, pretty and, like Cahit, Turkish-German. She lives a lifestyle that is a bit too wild for her devout, conservative Muslim family and fakes a suicide attempt to try and escape them. But the incident brings shame upon her family, who insist that only marriage can save her. Sibel begs Cahit to marry her and he reluctantly agrees, perhaps in an effort to save her and to find meaning in his own life. Initially the two share an apartment and little else as Sibel sees other men and Cahit continues to have flings with his on-again, off-again girlfriend. Gradually, however, Cahit begins to fall in love with Sibel and she, in turn, comes to realize that she loves him - but not before an incident of jealous violence tests this fledgling romance. When Cahit is sent to jail and Sibel flees to Turkey, her heart, mind and soul remain with him - but for how long?

AFRICA PARADIS 2 MARDir. Sylvestre Amoussou Benin/France, 2006, 86mins

In the year 2033, economic and political crisis has left Europe floundering while Africa has risen to become a global superpower. Olivier and Pauline, a French engineer and teacher, can no longer survive in France and they decide to immigrate into the United States of Africa. However, they do not manage to get an entry visa and have to turn to the services of a smuggler. From this point their life turns upside down and they face the grim reality of the world of illegal im-migration, unemployment and poverty.

GOODBYE SOLO 10 MAR Dir. Sylvestre Amoussou Benin/France, 2006, 86mins

On the lonely roads of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, two men forge an improbable friendship that will change both of their lives forever. Solo is a Senegalese cab driver working to provide a better life for his young family. William is a tough Southern good ol‘ boy with a lifetime of regrets.

THE LOST BOYS OF SUDAN 16 MARDirs.Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk USA, 2004, 87 minutes,

LOST BOYS OF SUDAN is an Emmy-nominated feature-length documentary that follows two Sudanese refugees on an extraordinary journey from Africa to America. Orphaned as young boys in one of Africa’s cruelest civil wars, Peter Dut and Santino Chuor survived lion attacks and militia gunfire to reach a refugee camp in Kenya along with thousands of other children. From there, remarkably, they were chosen to come to America. Safe at last from physical danger and hunger, a world away from home.

IMPORT EXPORT 23 MARDir. Ulrich SeidlAustria, 2007, 141mins

Director Ulrich Seidl’s despairing, relentlessly downbeat social drama Import/Export unfolds against the backdrop of contemporary Europe. Olga (Ekateryna Rak) is a single mother struggling to raise her child with a very meager income from her nursing job in a Ukrainian hospital. In desperation, she takes a job as a nude webcam model for an adult entertainment outfit that caters to German men, then quickly decides that life in her town is unbearable, and ultimately leaves her child with her mother, heading west to search for a better life.

VOICES FROM ACROSS THE FENCE & THE INVISIBLES 30 MARVOICES FORM ACROSS THE FENCE (NIGHT WILL INCLUDE A PANEL DISCUSSION)Dir. Andy SpitzSouth Africa, 2002.

Mozambique’s civil war saw hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the bitter post independence carnage, jumping the fence and crossing the Kruger National Park, into South Africa. Nearly two decades later, the fence is still a physical and psychological barrier dividing families. Through the use of video messages filmed and transported between the two countries, Voices Across The Fence provides a glimpse into the lives of those who left and of those who remained behind.

THE INVISIBLESDir. Marc Silver and Gael Garcia BernalUSA/MEX 20 mins.

This new short film by Gael Garcia Bernal and Marc Silver, details the plight of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who leave their homes in Central and South America each year to travel across Mexico in search of a better life in the USA.Inspired by the stories of the people who make this journey through Mexico, actor and director Gael García Bernal and director Marc Silver joined forces with Amnesty International to shine a light on the abuses migrants suffer. Told over four parts, the film is a shocking look at a world many people would rather you didn’t know about.

CONVERSATIONS ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON 20 APRDir.Khalo Matabane South Africa, 2005, 90mins

Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon is a thoughtful, insightful, and articulate melding of fiction and documentary on the changing landscape of new South African society as a result of continental (and international) immigration, refugeeism, and exile. Told from the perspective of an eccentric, aimless man biding his time at a local park reading Somali writer Nuruddin Farah’s novel, Links who becomes inspired to write a story based on his chance encounter one day with a lonely, introverted Somali refugee named Fatima, the film examines the multifaceted nature of African diaspora, and the meaning of South African identity.

SIERRA LEONE’S REFUGEE ALL STARS 27 APRDir. Zach Niles, Banker White USA, 2005, 78 mins

Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars are a band of six Sierra Leonean musicians who came together to form a band while living in a refugee camp in Guinea. Many of their family and friends were murdered in the war, leaving each of them with physical and emotional scars that may never heal. Despite the unimaginable horrors of civil war, they were saved and brought hope and happiness to their fellow refugees through their music.

ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL 6 APRDir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany, 1974, 93mins

SYNOPSIS: Rainer Werner Fassbinder paid homage to Douglas Sirk, with this updated version of Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Lonely widow Emmi Kurowski meets Arab worker Ali in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love––to their own surprise––and to the shock of family, colleagues, and drinking buddies. In Ali: Fear Eats the Soul(Angst essen seele auf), Fassbinder expertly uses the emotional power of the melodrama to underscore the racial tensions threatening German culture.

STRANGER THAN PARADISE 11 MAYDir. Jim Jarmusch USA, 1984, 89mins

This is about a self-styled New York hipster who is paid a surprise and quite unwelcome visit by his pretty sixteen-year-old Hungarian cousin. From initial hostility and indifference a strange affection grows between the two exiles. Due to complete boredom they decide to visit their aunt in the wastelands of Cleveland and then proceed to sunny Florida where they lose all their money and unwittingly gain a fortune. With a final ironic twist, they are at the end, back where they began.

NUOVOMONDO (AKA GOLDEN DOOR)Dir. Emanuele CrialeseItaly, 2006, 118mins

GOLDEN DOOR is a modern fable from director Emanuele Crialese that captures the spirit of the immigrant experience as one family sheds the comfort of the Old World for the opportunities of the New - a risk that carries no guarantee of success. In a desolate corner of the Sicilian countryside lives a family of peasants who have worked the same land for generations, at one with nature, surrounded by the spirits of the dead. The hard changeless monotony of daily life is interrupted by tales of the New World where money falls from trees and carrots are ten feet long.

THE IMMIGRANT & GOLDEN DOOR 4 MAYTHE IMMIGRANT Dir. Charlie Chaplin USA, 1917, 20mins

The Immigrant is a 1917 American comedy short film starring the Charlie Chaplin Tramp character as an immigrant coming to the United States who is accused of theft on the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, and befriends a young woman along the way. It also stars Edna Purviance and Eric Campbell. The movie was written and directed by Chaplin.

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LETTER TO MY COUSIN IN CHINA & LAST TRAIN HOME 18 MAYLETTER TO MY COUSIN IN CHINA Screening at 6:30pmDir. Henion HanSouth Africa, 1999, 52mins

The film is an intimate revelation of one immigrant family’s history and the notion of what creates a feeling of “home” and belonging. A Letter to My Cousin gives an insider’s view of what it was like to live as a second-class citizen during the apartheid years – moving from Hainan Island to South Africa, from Taiwan to the United States, following Han’s ailing father, preparing for the afterlife. © Andrew Worsdale / Weekly Mail and Guardian

LAST TRAIN HOME Screening at 8:30pmDir. Lixin FanSouth Africa, 2009, 85 mins

In Last Train Home, an emotionally engaging and visually beautiful debut film from Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan, we are drawn into the fractured lives of a single migrant family caught up in the movement between city and countryside, both driven and damaged by economic realities beyond their control.

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