Sprechsaal Kino: Surrealist Greats of Feminist Film

This week at Sprechsaal we dedicate our programme to surrealist feminist films and directors. We are showing 3 films in which we will explore surrealism and where female filmmakers and feminism fit alongside that. Can surrealism serve as an aesthetic approach that offers female filmmakers a way of talking about ideas not confined to mainstream, which is often seen as bounded by issues of patriarchy and capitalism?

as always, free entry and cheap drinks.


FILMS SHOWING:
Thursday, 1. June, 20:00:
The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) by Germaine Dulac

Friday, 2. June, 20:00:
Daisies (Sedmikrásky) (1966) by Věra Chytilová

Saturday, 3. June, 20:00:
Vagabond (1985) by Agnès Varda



more info below:

Thursday, 1. June 2017 - 20:00
The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928)
Film by Germaine Dulac
(FRA) OmU

The Seashell and the Clergyman is now commonly recognized as the first surrealist film of the 1920s and 30s, and yet, despite such avant-garde credentials, and the fact that a female director directed the film, most people still consider Luis Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou the pre-eminent surrealist film of its time.
Obsessed with a general's woman, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism. The film follows him and his erotic hallucinations. What we have here is a visually imaginative critique of patriarchy – state and church – and of male sexuality. On its premiere, the surrealists greeted it with noisy derision, calling Dulac “une vache”.

Friday, 2. June 2017 - 20:00
Daisies (1966)
Film by Věra Chytilová
(CZE) OmU

Maybe the New Wave’s most anarchic entry, Věra Chytilová’s absurdist farce follows the misadventures of two brash young women. Believing the world to be “spoiled,” they embark on a series of pranks in which nothing—food, clothes, men, war—is taken seriously. Daisies is an aesthetically and politically adventurous film that’s widely considered one of the great works of feminist cinema.

Saturday, 3. June 2017 - 20:00
Vagabond (1985)
Film by Agnès Varda
(BEL) OmU

Sandrine Bonnaire won the Best Actress César for her portrayal of the defiant young drifter Mona, found frozen to death in a ditch at the beginning of Vagabond. Agnès Varda pieces together Mona’s story through flashbacks told by those who encountered her (played by a largely nonprofessional cast), producing a splintered portrait of an enigmatic woman. With its sparse, poetic imagery, Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi) is a stunner, and won Varda the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.