ALL FILMS ADELAIDE PREMIERES

 

|| Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy || The Protector || Death Note || Death Note: The Last Name

RE-SCHEDULED 7:30 TUES 16 OCTOBER

TIBET: A BUDDHIST TRILOGY (PG)

Dir: Graham Coleman UK (orig) 1979 35mm 134mins

We apologise to everyone who came to see the film in September. The prints had not arrived.

We are delighted to be able to re-schedule this leading survey of Tibetan Buddhism originally made in 1979 and now re-edited to ensure its classic status.

The classic film of Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama re-edited - a staggering and bracing object, stylistically bold and hypnotically captivating.

 

7:30 TUES 30 OCTOBER

The Protector (Tom Yum Goong) (MA15+)

Dir: Prachya Pinkaew Thai/Aust 2005 16mm 108mins

In this relentless, fast paced action film (and follow up to Ong Bak) spiced with Muay Thai moves, Kham’s (Tony Jaa) life is turned upside down when a notorious Asian gang steals his family’s prized elephants, which were to be offered as a token of devotion to His Majesty the King of Thailand, and smuggles them to Australia.

Kham must travel to a foreign land to unravel a conspiracy that will reach into the highest levels of the Australian government.  With the help of a disgraced Thai-born police detective, he must reclaim his beloved animals and stay true to his heritage against almost impossible odds.

7:30 TUES 13 NOVEMBER

Death Note (Desu nôto) (M)

Dir: Shusuke Kaneko Japan 2006 35mm 130mins

The Manga (2003-2006, 108 chapters, writer Tsugumi Ohba and illustrator Takeshi Obata), the Anime (2007-7), These two live action films (a third is in production).

Light Yagami is a brilliant university student who resents the crime and corruption in the world. His life undergoes a drastic change when he discovers a mysterious notebook, known as the "Death Note", lying on the ground. The Death Note's instructions claim that, if a human's name is written within it, that person will die.

 

7:30 TUES 27 NOVEMBER

Death Note: The Last Name (M)

Dir: Shusuke Kaneko Japan 2006 35mm 141mins

Like the first film, "Death Note: The Last Name" is less a shocker than an elaborate on-screen game, defined by arbitrary rules that may exist for the convenience of the plot, but acquire an absorbing logic of their own.

Best known for his "Gamera" and "Godzilla" series installments, director Shusuke Kaneko acknowledges the film's manga roots, while delivering his own, highly stylized take on the "Death Note" world. He conducts his investigations into the nature of good and evil, media-manufactured illusion and all-too-human reality with touches of self-mocking humor and a nod to Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," while spelling out everything in cartoonish capitals.

 

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CINEASIA - JULY, AUGUST, SEPTEMBER 2007

Mind Game || The Crying Wind || Paprika || Valley Of The Flowers

7:30 TUES 24 JULY

Put simply, Mind Game is a mind-blowing experience.

MIND GAME (MA15+)

Food, drinks, martial arts.

Dir: Masaaki Yuasa Japan 2004 35mm 104mins

Anime. From the streets of Tokyo, to the belly of a whale, to heaven itself.

Mind Game turns heads and blows minds as a hybrid narrative and experimental anime that recalls anything from Yellow Submarine to Waking Life. A complete smorgasbord of 2 and 3 dimensional animation styles coupled with an utterly surreal mood that bounces around just as much as the visuals.

“Grand metaphysical themes, gloriously extended avant psychedelic sequences, and Japanified bits of Bakshian bawdiness.”

 

7:30 TUES 7 AUG

THE CRYING WIND

Dir Yoichi Higashi Japan 2004 106mins

(Imported) with the assistance of the Japan Foundation.

THE CRYING WIND is a collaboration between the prize-winning Okinawan writer Medoruma Shun, and the veteran, socially-engaged Japanese film director Higashi Yoichi.

The setting is the present-day, more than fifty years after the end of World War 2, in a small seaside village in northern Okinawa. In an open-air burial ground on a cliff near the ocean, there is a skull of a Japanese kamikaze pilot. The villagers call it the “Crying Head” and fear it?. . .

Based on two short stories, the film has been scripted by the writer himself. Taking place in the setting of Okinawa's abundant natural beauty and the still vivid traces of the war, the story centers on the vibrant lives of young boys within a web of encounter and parting of people in the village.

Innovation Award Montreal Film Festival for its poetic quality. Not Classified - 18+

7:30 TUES 21 AUG

Someone walking cold into a movie theater showing Paprika might be excused for thinking the screen was having a Technicolor seizure.

PAPRIKA (M)

Dir: Satoshi Kon Japan 2006 90mins

This is your brain on anime!

From the maker of Perfect Blue comes a surreal anime trip into dream.

Dr. Atsuko Chiba is a genius scientist by day, and a kick-ass dream warrior named Paprika by night. In this psychedelic sci-fi adventure anime, it will take the skills of both women to save the world.

NEW Image Gallery

The intersections between sleep and waking, memory, cinema, and the Internet lead to a spectacular battle of titans who spring from the mind's darkest recesses. Chicago Reader

“Eye popping.” “Evidence that Japanese animators are reaching for the moon while their American counterparts remain stuck in the kiddie [sandpit].” A gorgeous riot of future-shock ideas and brightly animated imagery, the doors of perception never close. NY Times

7:30 TUES 4 SEPT

VALLEY OF THE FLOWERS (M)

Dir Pan Nalin India / France / Japan / Germany 2006 155mns

A sweeping epic set on the Himalayan Silk route - bandits, their code of honour and a striking woman. A haunting, ethereal love story that traverses two centuries. From the maker of Samsara.

Nalin is a self trained fimmaker who was rejected by Bollywood and ultimately made friends with France and has had huge success with a documentary Ayurveda: Art of Being, which broke all records and ran in Paris for 20 months.

Clearly this is not a film for commercial American sensitivities. His films are a mixture of epic, adventure, sex and spiritualism. He is also able to make a "big' film on a quite modest budget.  Certainly a filmmaker to watch.