Tag Archives: Hanif Kureishi

THINKING ALOUD ABOUT CINEMA: CINEMA REDISCOVERED 2025 WRAP-UP

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If a week ago we podcast on what we were looking forward to at the CINEMA REDISCOVERED festival, this is the bookend reflecting on what we actually saw. We are once again full of praise for the organisers, the friendliness of the staff at the Watershed, the originality and diversity of the programme, the community aspect, the educational component and the way that it trains young people up to programme and curate and then gives them an opportunity to exercise those skills.

Emotional highlights included a reunion of Stephen Frears, Hanif Kureishi and Gordon Warnecke at the MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE screening and Stephen Woolley and Julian Temple getting back together to reminisce about Palace Pictures and ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS, which we liked so much we plan a separate podcast on it.

We appreciated the mini programs scheduled on single days (Carlos Saura, Maria Luisa Bemberg, Anna Mae Wong) and the longer ones (the AGAINST THE GRAIN: 1980s BRITISH CINEMA, MASUMURA x WAKAO). It was fantastic to be able to see some films at the BRISTOL MEGASCREEN (THE FALL OF OTRAR, DIVA, THE BEAST TO DIE, MANJI). We talk at some length on individual films as well (ROSA LA ROSE, FILLE PUBLIQUE; THEMROC, DESERT HEARTS, ONE POTATO TWO POTATO and others. In such a full program, there are also films we both missed, such as the great HANDSWORTH SONGS.

We praise the way Sheldon Hall designed his talk on films on Channel 4 for this particular audience, including broadcast dates on every film at the festival and under which strand; for Stephen Horne’s fantastic, multi-instrument accompaniment to the Anna Mae Wong programme; and the care in curating the introductions to the films, with most speakers understanding that the intro is not about them or their interests but about enhancing the audience’s experience and appreciation.

The festival left us wishing for a fuller programme the last evening but being left wishing for more is not a bad thing.

 

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

José Arroyo

Day 8 – Sammy and Rosy Get Laid (Stephen Frears, UK, 1987)

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sammy and Rosie

 

Day 8:
I was nominated by Andrew Grimes Griffin – One movie poster a day for 10 days. The no explanation bit is annoying people so: I loved British cinema in the 80s. The diversity: The Long Good Friday, A Private Function, Mona Lisa, The Merchant-Ivories, Dance with a Stranger, Brittania Hospital, The Greenways and Jarmans, the Bill Forsyths. And these of the top of my head. All were much discussed and remain memorable. My favourite of these was the run of films Stephen Frears had in the mid-80s: Launderette, Prick up Your Ears and my favourite of all: Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. I loved the interracial aspect, the visual inventiveness, the sexyness and cool embodied by Roland Gift, the social critique. Little did I know that it´s a film that inspired vitriol by the people I liked best in Britain….and for the moments in the film I liked best, e.g. the description of a Sunday (or was it a Saturday), holding hands with your loved one after a night of passion, walking through the Southbank, visiting a gallery, going to a movie and catching a lecture. My idea of a perfect Sunday. Who knew that would invoke all kinds of class hatred. That , if I remember correctly, it was Colin McCabe who gave the lecture in the film might have had something to do with it. But still. Anyway this raised all kinds of issues of cross-cultural analysis, what does one need to know? We understand knowing little can be a problem. But can it also be a problem to know too much?

 

José Arroyo