Category: General

Ah look it’s been a while since we last showed a film hasn’t it? Well yes after four solid years of film screenings we had a bit of a break; a gap year you could say.

But we’ll be back this very Autumn 2015 with some new films, a slightly new look and some new times. So do watch this space for an update soon.

May’s film, Born in Flames, is a 1983 feminist science fiction film by Lizzie Borden that explores intersecting issues of classism, racism, sexism, and heterosexism in the post-revolutionary socialist democracy of the United States.

The film presents a group of queer black women who, confronted with the oppression of daily life under the racist heteropatriachy, decide to take their community organizing to the next level by engaging in an armed insurrection against the government.

While the film is over 30 years old, issues of party allegiance, racism within feminist organizing, and state repression remain as prevalent today as they did then. The film is a powerful challenge to any revolutionary who believes that sexism,racism, and homophobia will be abolished ‘after the revolution’.

Doors 19:00, film starts 19:15. See you there!

April’s screening on Sunday 6 April is Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s look at how ideology is constructed by the media we consume.

From the Catholic underpinnings of the Sound of Music to the fascist political dimensions of Jaws, Zizek (often called the “rockstar” of cultural theory) uses Lacanian psychoanalysis to examine the messages embedded in the films we watch. Zizek is a contraversial and often entertaining character but is always engaging and often thought provoking.

Doors 19:00, film starts 19:15. See you there!

Two Czech media students hire an advertising agency to launch a huge campaign for a new hypermarket called “Czech Dream”. The only thing is that the hypermarket does not exist.

Czech dream follows the students through the world of carefully-crafted advertising hype as they try to create a media spectacle and open their entirely fictitious hypermarket near Prague just before the Czech Republic joins the EU.

Ken Fox writes of the film:

Whether you decide that this project is a brilliant hoax that exposes how the rapid transition from communism to a free-market economy has created an ad-addicted, consumer-mad culture in the Czech Republic, or that it’s simply a cruel joke, one thing is undeniable: It’s a fascinating account, formulated and filmed by a pair of young Czech media students, of the way advertising and consumer manipulation can create a market for anything at all, even something that doesn’t exist.

Doors 19:00, film starts 19:15. See you there!

Our February screening, on 2 February at 19:00, is the first film to be filmed entirely in Saudi Arabia.

Directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, it tells the story of  Wadjda, a 10-year old girl who lives in Riyadh in a conservative family. One day Wadjda sees a beautiful green bike that she falls in love with. But her mother won’t allow her to have it, fearing the repurcussions of her daughter owning a bicycle in a society where bikes are viewed as dangerous to a girl’s virtue.

So she decides to raise the money herself by various enterprises, and eventually by entering a Koran recital competition.

Bitch magazine says of the film:

Wadjda doesn’t rest on the accomplishment of being an international first—the film is excellent by any standard. It would be a great film even if it were the fourth film shot in Saudi Arabia or the hundredth. What’s refreshing about the film is it does not try to tell a moral story. Instead, it follows a young girl named Wadjda through her daily life, resulting in an intimate look at the kind of life that’s rarely seen.

You can watch the trailer on youtube

Doors 19:00, film starts 19:15. See you there!

What better way to recover from yuletide revelry than an evening at OARC watching our January film: Winstanley, which we’ll be showing at 7pm on Sunday, 5 January 2014.

It tells the story of the seventeenth century digger, Gerarrd Winstanley, who inspired perhaps one of the first (documented) land squats in the world, at Georges Hill in Surrey. The Diggers were radical levellers, who believed that the Earth was made a common treasury for all. You can read a fuller account of Winstanley’s life on diggers.org

The film, made in 1976, follows the Digger settlement telling the story of it’s struggle with the local landlords. It’s beautfully filmed in black and white.

Doors 19:00, film starts 19:15. See you there!

OARC Sunday Screenings are back on 6 October, with Ken Loach’s classic tale of the Spanish Civil War, Land and Freedom.

The film tells the tale of a dissilusioned Liverpudlian socialist who decides to follow his principles and enlist in the international brigades to fight fascism. In Spain he discovers both solidarity and bitter political infighting.

As usual, we’ll be showing some short films from citizen journalists around the world from groups such as Indymedia, Reel News and Democracy Now from 7pm. Main film starts at 7.30pm, discussion of topics raised in the film afterwards and a strict 10pm finish, adjourning to The Star in Rectory Road for a refreshing beverage and further discussions afterwards.

We’re taking a break in August and September for our summer holiday, but not before we’ve shown the excellent documentary Catfish on 1st July, so Do join us for that.

We’ll be back on Sunday 7th October to show in our first film of our late summer / autumn season, Josh Fox’s excellent Gasland.  More info on this soon.

We’re always looking for indepedent, grass-roots or cult films to show at OARC and the Community Centre, so if you’ve got an idea for us, let us know.  We’re especially looking for those of you who are up for coming and presenting a film and helping to chair a debate afterwards, but it’s not essential, so don’t let that be a berrier to letting us have your ideas.  You can email us at oarcfilms at ox4 dot org, or you can simply post a comment to this article.

All the best, and see you in July, then again in October, and have a great summer in the meantime!

OARC Films.