Special Screenings: Film meets Philosophy
Rabbit-Proof Fence (12.04)
Vertigo (13.04)
The Intruder (14.04)
Brothers (17.04)
Borderless (18.04)
Death in Venice (19.04)
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Rabbit-Proof Fence (12.04)
12.04 (Thursday), 19.00
RABBIT-PROOF FENCE (2002), dir. Philippe Noyce (AU), 93’
Topic: The World - Quarantine for the Lepers (in Macedonian) – academic Ferid Muhić
Official Opening of the 8. Philosophical Film Festival
West Australia, 1931. At the time, mixed race children were taken away from their Aboriginal mothers and brought to be reeducated by orders of the Protector of the Aborigines, A.O. Neville (called Mr. Devil by them). Molly, Daisy and Gracie, two sisters and their cousin, aged 14, 8 and 10, decide to leave the camp, crossing over a thousand miles to return to their mother. Rabbit-Proof Fence is a film about an attempt of one culture to assimilate another culture and the inalienable right to life, culture and language, told through a story from the real life of the Australian “Stolen generations”.
The film is based on the book “Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence” by Doris Pilkington Garimara, the daughter of Molly. Along with numerous awards by critics and audiences, Rabbit-Proof Fence has won the Australian AACTA Award for Best Film in 2002. -
Vertigo (13.04)
13.04 (Friday), 18.30
VERTIGO, 1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock (US), 128’
Topic: Vertigo: The Thinking and Living Image
– Gian Maria Tore, senior lecturer at University of Luxembourg
John “Scottie” Fergusson (James Stewart) is forced to retire after his acrophobia causes the death of a fellow police officer and the woman he was hired to follow. Hitchcock’s VERTIGO, a romantic mystery about obsession, manipulation and fear, is the most acclaimed masterpiece of the “Master of Suspense”. It has been voted the Greatest Film of All Time – after fifty years, overtaking Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” in the famous poll organized by the “Sight and Sound” magazine, published by the British Film Institute.
Scottie falls in love with a woman who does not exist, while the real woman has fallen in love with him, and in tricking him, she tricked herself. By preferring his dream over the woman in front of him, he stands to lose both. What happens when the vertigo of the protagonist becomes the vertigo of the viewer?
With the support of the Faculty of Philosophy, University "Ss. Cyril and Methodius" - Skopje -
The Intruder (14.04)
14.04 (Saturday), 18.30
THE INTRUDER (L’intrus, 2004), dir. Claire Denis (FR), 130’
Topic: Intrusions: Claire Denis and Jean-Luc Nancy
– Hannah Paveck, PhD Candidate (King's College London)
„My films are not highly intellectual” – says Claire Denis, “and THE INTRUDER is like a boat lost in the ocean drifting…”
This film nominated for a Golden Lion at the 61st Venice Film Festival, is based on the autobiographical essay with the same name by contemporary French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy. Louis Trebor (Michel Subor), a man approaching seventy years of age, lives alone with his dogs near the French-Swiss border. He has a heart problem and needs an urgent transplant. Nancy, who himself has undergone a heart transplantation, poses the question: “Where does life reside? And what happens when your heart turns into a stranger, an intruder in your body, and you – a stranger, an intruder in the world?” Inspired by each other, the philosopher and the director 'intrude' upon each other’s works, while Denis with the background guitar and trumpet from Stuart Staples (Tindersticks) turns THE INTRUDER into an elliptical (audio) visual poem in which the picture and the sound have equal meaning and place.
With the support of the Faculty of Philosophy, University "Ss. Cyril and Methodius" and the French Institute in Skopje -
Brothers (17.04)
17.04 (Tuesday), 18.30 PFF Doc.
BROTHERS (Brødre, 2015), dir. Aslaug Holm (NO), 110’
Topic: Philosophy of Childhood, or Towards the Ontological Language of Children's Play - Boshko Karadzov, PhD
Two brothers, Markus and Lukas, live in an old, yellow city house in the center of Oslo. Closeby is Smola, the place where their mother grew up. Markus loves football and wants to become a professional, while Lukas is more philosophically inclined and has many questions about the world, for example “Mom, what will happen to my dreams when I am dead, will they continue to live?”
This intimate documentary (often compared to 'Boyhood' by Linklater from 2014) follows Markus and Lukas during a decade as they grow – through their hopes and dreams, expectations and disappointments. With the subtle cinematography of Holms, both their mother and director of the film, BROTHERS is a film about the authentic life of children and about time (the time of a child and the time of the grown ups).
The film is the winner of the Norwegian Amanda Award for Best Director, and the Best International Feature Documentary Award on Hot Docs in Toronto, Canada. -
Borderless (18.04)
18.04 (Wednesday), 18.30
BORDERLESS (Bedone Marz, 2014)
dir. Amirhossein Asgari (IR), 100’
Q&A with Amirhossein Asgari
BORDERLESS is a story of a boy fishing and making necklaces from shells, on a protected rusty ship, between two borders, on a no-man’s land… He has turned the ship into a place of peace and solitude, a tiny protected world of his own in the middle of war. His isolation and peace are disturbed when a stranger shows up.
The film, featuring unusually little dialogue, wonderful cinematography (by Ashkan Ashkani) and almost no music at all, is an extraordinary contemplative study on the consequences of war and what it means to be human and humane. The film visually tells a universal story through the specifics of film language and through the eyes of the two children protagonists of the film.
The film has won the Asian Future Best Film award at the 27. Tokyo Fim Festival.
With the support of the Iranian Embassy in Skopje -
Death in Venice (19.04)
19.04 (Thursday), 19.00
DEATH IN VENICE (Morte a Venezia, 1971)
dir. Luchino Visconti (IT/FR), 130’
Topic: ‘Death in Venice’ - from Mann to Visconti
(in Macedonian) – Prof. Dr. Aleksandar Prokopiev
Official Closing of the Festival and Awards Ceremony
Gustav von Aschenbach (character loosely based on Gustav Mahler, played by Dirk Bogarde) is an avantgarde German composer traveling to Lido, Venice, looking for some peace and rest on his doctor’s suggestion. But instead of peace, Aschenbach, who is on the edge of his vitality and energy, is haunted and pained by the face of a young boy in its adolescence (Tadzio), in his eyes beauty incarnate, much like Michelangelo’s David, or Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. What is the nature of beauty in music, in art or in life? And could we resist the passions? Opposing Eros, Thanatos is threatening Venice, and all ideals could soon disappear.
Visconti’s film adaptation of Thomas Man’s book, intertwined with the etheric adagio of Mahler’s Simphony No. 5, is the winner of the “25th ANNIVERSARY PRIZE” at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
With the support of the Italian Embassy in Skopje