Keep those winter blues away

Two more screenings this week. What better way to keep those winter blues away?

1) The Majewski season continues tomorrow (Friday 22 May) at 5:30pm with a screening of WOJACZEK at the Christchurch Art Gallery. Free entry for film society members, open to the public for koha.

A feature about Rafał Wojaczek, a rebelious poet who died prematurely, like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jim Morrison, in his twenties. Fueled by his selfdestructive life, his poetry made a lasting impression on generations of Poles. He drank and fought and walked through windows. Constantly attempting suicide he unsuccessfully hung himself and jumped from the third floor.

2) Monday, 6:30pm at Rialto Cinemas, we screen Gus Van Sant's first feature film, MALA NOCHE.

Gus Vant Sant is arguably the most important living American director, having consistently slipped between provocative (and sometimes political) art films and the mainstream with films such as DRUGSTORE COWBOY (1989), MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO (1991), EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES (1993), TO DIE FOR (1995), GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997), ELEPHANT (2003), LAST DAYS (2005), and the recent Oscar-winning MILK (2008), to name just a few. Don't miss this rare opportunity to see Van Sant's debut feature, MALA NOCHE (1985).

Distinctively original, 20 years on, the début feature of Gus Van Sant focuses on Walt, who works in a liquor store in Portland, Oregon, and his unrequited love for a young Mexican hustler.

Shot on 16mm for $25,000, it was the first of his bittersweet odes to tender outcasts and remains the simplest and least burdened. Walt, who frames the narrative through his voiceover, is the prototypical Van Sant hero: handsome, vague, and impossibly gentle, poised between cuddly introspection and bright flashes of exuberance...

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