Following on from the hugely successful first season of Cinema Thursday, the Durban Film Society is pleased to continue with these outdoor screenings. Every first and third Thursday of the month, the KZNSA Gallery lawn will transform into a picnic theatre with a selection of international art-house, classic, foreign, experimental and generally interesting films. Bring your blankets, snacks and vino, and relive the era of the drive-in as the screen flickers under the starry sky. If the temperamental Durban weather threatens to rain on our parade, the screening will move inside to the tiered café seating.

Once again the programme will offer an eclectic mix of memorable films from across space and time for those of us who have a taste for the alternative. Attached is the programme for the coming three-month season, so you can diarise the dates of films well in advance. Film curator Sarah Dawson has chosen films according to themes. For this season, themes are ‘Day Dreams’, ‘Childhood Memories’, and ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’.

The goal of Cinema Thursday Picnic Screenings is to contribute to the development of a culture of film appreciation and filmmaking in our city, and not for the financial gain of the organisers. However, there are running costs incurred by the Gallery, such as set up costs, and the security guard, which we’d like your help in covering. A collection box will be passed around at the screenings into which we’d love you to place a donation should you feel moved to do so.

KZNSA CINEMA THURSDAY
SECOND SEASON 2010
FULL PROGRAMME

DAY DREAMS

15 JULY
Spirited Away (2001) , Dir. Hayao Miyazaki , 125 mins, Japan

A favourite of many, the enchanting Spirited Away has a host of awards behind it, including an Oscar for best animated feature. The story begins as Chihiro and her parents take a wrong turn down a dirt path while traveling to their new home in the countryside. We then follow the fanciful adventures of the sullen ten-year-old girl as she discovers a secret world. Emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually complex, this film is seldom described as anything but magical.

NB: PG (Bring your kids!)

29 JULY
DURBAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: SPECIAL KZNSA CINEMA THURSDAY EVENT

18:00 Short Film Package – Latitude 2
(See DIFF programme for details)
20:00 Durban Short Film Challenge
Local filmmakers were challenged to produce a 5 minute film in just three weeks. Come and see film that is being made in your own back yard.
Filmmakers in attendance.

5 AUGUST
City of Lost Children (1995), Dir. Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet , 112 mins, France

From the director of Amelie and Delicatessen, this beautifully realised surrealist piece has a completely unique, somewhat “antique”, visual feel. The scientist, Krank, kidnaps children in order to steal their dreams so that he might remain young. But since the children fear the frightening scientist and his henchman, all he is able to get his hands on are their nightmares. Full of wonderful characters including cyclops, dwarves and giants, this film will be sure to delight you.

NB: PG

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

19 AUGUST
12 and Holding (2005) , Dir. Michael Cuesta, 90 mins, USA

With three united, but unique narrative threads, it tells the story of young twins Rudy and Jacon, and their friends Leonard and Malee, as a dark event thrusts them into adulthood for the first time. According to an LA Times reviewer, “Arresting in its use of suspense, humor and finely observed character details, the film homes in on an especially treacherous part of childhood, the passage into adolescence. Cuesta and screenwriter Anthony S. Cipriano consistently keep the audience on edge as a group of tweens are thrust from the comfort of innocence into the darkness of experience.” 12 and Holding can be regarded as an example of truly sensitive filmmaking.

NB: Some violence, language and sexual content involving minors.

2 SEPTEMBER
Kikujirô no natsu (1999), Dir. Takeshi Kitano, 121 mins, Japan

When young Masao, under the guardianship of his grandmother, finds himself feeling lonely and abandoned during his summer holidays, he decides to set out to find his long lost mother. His journey is intercepted by a friend of his grandmother, who sends her husband, Kikujiro, to accompany him on his journey. But as it turns out, the ex-Yakuza, bad mannered man may be more of a child than Masao. Their excursion to the cycle races is the first of a series of adventures for the unlikely pair which soon turns out to be a whimsical journey of laughter and tears with a wide array of surprises and odd ball characters they meet along the way. This film is just wonderful.

NB: PG 13 (But mostly suitable for all ages)

THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES

16 SEPTEMBER
Audition (1999), Takashi Miike, 115 mins, Japan

Shigeharu Aoyama, a middle-aged widower who lost his wife to an illness seven years prior, is urged by his 17-year-old son, Shigehiko, to begin dating women again. Aoyama's friend and colleague, Yoshikawa, a film producer, devises a plan to hold a mock-audition, in which young, beautiful women would audition for the "part" of Aoyama's new wife, under the impression that they are auditioning for a new film, but actually so Aoyama can marry one of the contestants. A truly terrifying film, neither the viewer nor Aoyama could possibly expect what horror this match-making exercise might unleash.

NB: 18 (NOT for sensitive viewers. At all.)

7 OCTOBER
Eraserhead (1976), Dir. David Lynch, 89 mins, USA

A cult classic, Eraserhead is surreal horror that cannot be explained in easy terms. It has baffled critics for decades. In one sense it is the dark cinematic realisation of a nightmare. Created while he lived in Philadelphia , Lynch made the film in a context in which he was troubled by his environment. He says “There was a sense of dread pretty much everywhere I went. I didn't live in any good parts of Philadelphia, and so dread was my general feeling. I hated it. And, also, I loved it.” This was Lynch's first feature film, and he himself has described it as his “most spiritual film”.

NB: Disturbing content.