Women Aren’t Funny, is a season celebrating 13 films directed & written by women from the 1940s to today. Explore the season and book tickets: https://www.thegardencinema.co.uk/season/women-arent-funny/
The Passionate Stranger is a highly satirical takedown of romantic novel tropes – so formally experimental that it feels decades ahead of its time. Muriel Box is Britain’s most prolific female director but is often overlooked. Box directed 13 feature films in the 1950s and early 60s and was the first woman to win an Oscar for best original screenplay.
Melanie Williams is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, and she is currently working on a monograph on the filmmaker Muriel Box, to be published by BFI Bloomsbury.
Lawrence Napper was senior researcher on UEA’s British Cinema History Research Project from 2001-2005, and is currently a full time lecturer at King’s College London.
Recorded on 9th June 2024 at The Garden Cinema
39-41 Parker Street London WC2B 5PQ
Women Aren’t Funny, a season celebrating 13 films directed & written by women from the 1940s to today, opened with Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl, Dance.
Explore the season and book tickets: https://www.thegardencinema.co.uk/season/women-arent-funny/
Arzner was for some years, Hollywood’s only working female director. Our panel – a curator, a comedian and an Arzner academic – break down the history of women in Hollywood, what the film tells us about gender and sexuality in early Hollywood, and its impact today.
Melanie Iredale is a film curator, cultural activist, and director of Reclaim The Frame – a charity with a mission to champion films by filmmakers of all marginalised genders and to build audiences for them. In partnership with cinemas, distributors and festivals across the UK and beyond, #ReclaimTheFrame creates impactful and inclusive campaigns, advocating for equity in all film spaces.
Caroline Cassin is a film and cultural events programmer, who recently graduated with an MA in Film Studies, Programming and Curation from the National Film and Television School. Caroline hosts monthly pre-Code cinema series, Women & Cocaine, at the Cinema Museum in London, and she curated the recent retrospective on Dorothy Arzner at the BFI. Her projects explore and re-examine women’s history in the film industry, both behind and in front of the camera.
Mary O’Connell is an award-winning silly billy, comedian and writer coming box fresh off her sold out, critically acclaimed, debut solo hour ‘Money Princess’. Named “Top 15 Must-See Comedy Shows 2023” by Rolling Stone, “Top 12 Rising Stars” by Evening Standard and called ‘one of the most relatable shows of the fringe’ by The Telegraph. She recently did a run of her hour at the Soho Theatre and has recently done tour support for Tig Notaro. Mary’s performance style is a mix of observational annoyance combined with a left-field view of the world that makes for hilarious and often absurd material. Can be seen on Comedy Central Live and BBC3’s Stand Up for Live Comedy.
Follow Mary on Instagram: https://instagram.com/marywiththegoldshoes
Recorded on 7th June 2024 at The Garden Cinema
39-41 Parker Street London WC2B 5PQ
Young people took to the streets with political muralism all over Chile in the late 60s, at the same time that young people in New York were starting modern graffiti, and May 68 took place in Paris. Chile Estyle is a documentary film which explores the past and present of Chile’s unique street art tradition, which comes from a remix of political muralism and graffiti, and has been part of Chilean cultural and political life since the 60s. The result is a visually arresting, informative, and entertaining film.
Director Pablo Aravena discusses his work and interest in street art, DJing, Hip Hop, and graffiti, and how the scene ties in with regional politics, with Alborada’s Pablo Navarrete.
The film is showing again, with a Q&A, on 13 July.
Sundance-winning Lithuanian writer-director Marija Kavtaradze joins a Garden Cinema audience to talk about her film Slow, hosted by Conic Films’s Aisha Marong. A modern love story about two people exploring how to build their own kind of intimacy, Slow was Lithuania’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards®.
Filmed at the Garden Cinema on 23rd May 2024
Director César Díaz joins by Pablo Navarrete from Alborada/Alborada Films to discuss his film Our Mothers, as part of New Central American Cinema season at the Garden Cinema.
Our Mothers is one of the rare films looking at the massacre carried out by the US backed military against the indigenous population. Our Mothers won the Camera d’Or and the SACD Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It received six nominations at the 10th Magritte Awards, including Best Film and Best Director for Díaz, winning Best First Feature Film. It was selected as the Belgian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.
Filmed at the Garden Cinema on 7th May April 2024
Director Oliver Schmitz tells some of the extraordinary tales of the making of Mapantsula, in conversation with Maona Art’s Tatenda Jamera.
Presented in partnership with Mosa Mpetha of Cinema Africa! and Tatenda Jamera of Maona Art
Supported by Independent Cinema Office and What The Hero Wants
Funded by BFI Audience Projects Fund
A true classic of guerrilla filmmaking, Mapantsula has been newly restored after years of suppression, marking the 30th anniversary of South African Freedom Day in April 2024. Mapantsula is one of the most important and influential films to ever be peroduced and exported out of Africa. Director Oliver Schmitz worked closely with co-writer and lead actor Thomas Mogotlane, to produce a film under extreme censorship, and by evasion of the authorities, they bravely created a radical and rare anti-apartheid feature film. Mapantsula tells the story of Panic, a small-time hood who believes he sees all the angles. But he is soon in the web of the authorities, pushed to betray the revolutionaries fighting for change.
Filmed at the Garden Cinema on 25th April 2024
Our very own Claudia Jolly hosts a Q&A with The Teachers’ Lounge lead actress Leonie Benesch. Her character Carla Nowak is a dedicated and idealistic new high-school teacher, seeming to have connected with her Year 8 students, who are engaged and eager to learn in her maths class. But something is bubbling underneath the surface, and she’s quickly thrust into a delicate situation when a Turkish boy is suspected of theft. Not convinced of his guilt, Carla takes matters into her own hands and inadvertently starts down a path that soon begins to spiral out of control. As she tries to mediate between students, parents and opinionated colleagues, she is relentlessly confronted with the structures of the school system. Carla is pushed to her limits, and the school becomes a proxy for the cultural and ethical clashes of modern day society.
Filmed at the Garden Cinema on 23rd April 2024
Director Milad Alami joins playwright Fatima Serghini for a discussion about his new film, Opponent. The film follows Iman and his family who have been forced to flee Iran. As refugees, they end up in a run-down hotel in northern Sweden. Despite feeling powerless, Iman tries to maintain his role as the family patriarch. To increase their chances of asylum, he breaks a promise to his wife and joins the local wrestling club. As the rumors start to resurface, Iman’s fear and desperation begin to take a hold.
Opponent is a complex and suspenseful drama about ethnic and personal identities. This subject is tackled with remarkable authenticity and poise by Milad Alami, who himself is a second-generation Iranian immigrant.
Filmed at the Garden Cinema on 13th April 2024