[Reader-list] [Announcements] invitation to a curation of films of Pedro Almodovar

[Anurag]

Dear Friends

The Filmstudies group at Sarai in collaboration with the History Society,
Ramjas College is doing a two-day Cuartion of films by Spanish Director Pedro
Almodavar on the 3rd and the 4th of March, 2004 at the Seminar Hall, Ramjas
College, Delhi University.
It begins at 12.30 p.m.

A detailed Programme with the film synopses is given below.
All are invited.

Best
Anurag
Filmstudies
Sarai







                    The History Society, Ramjas College
                     and The SARAI Programme, CSDS
                                           present

                  A Curation of Films of Pedro Almodovar

                         3rd and 4th March, 2004, 12.30 p.m onwards
               at The Seminar Room, Ramjas College, Delhi University.

Programme  :

3rd March
Introduction by Dr. Ravi S. Vasudevan
Screenings
Labyrinth Of Passion, 1982, 100 mins.
All About  My Mother, 1999, 102 mins.

4th March
Open Discussion
Screenings
Law Of Desire, 1986, 100 mins.
Talk To Her, 2001, 114 mins.


ENQUIRIES : anurag at sarai.net



About Pedro Almodovar

Pedro ALMODÓVAR was born on September 24, 1949 in Calzada de
Calatrava, Province of Ciudad Real, administrative district of
Almagro and archbishopric of Toledo (SPAIN / EUROPE).When he was 16
years old he moved to Madrid alone, without his family and without
money. He had only one concrete project: to study cinematic art and
to make movies. After one and a half years of daredevil shooting in
16 mm, in 1980 his first movie 'Pepi,Lucy, Bom...' was shown for the very
first time. His Filmography already includes more than 10 (¡fantastic!) films
!Until today Pedro Almodóvar has been decorated with a lot of Awards for his
work.


Synopses of the Films

Labyrinth Of Passion

This is an early and rather choice effort from Spanish filmmaker Pedro
Almodovar--his second feature, made before he went slick and lost much of his
funkiness. The varied cast of characters includes a onetime nymphomaniac
named Sexilia who's a member of a rock band, a gay Arab prince, a Lacanian
psychotherapist, and assorted transvestites, punks, and Iranian
fundamentalists. Cheerfully slapdash and high-spirited in the farcical John
Waters manner, although one may get irritated at times with Almodovar's
wholesale rip-offs of other films' musical scores (Miklos Rozsa is a
particular favorite), his feeble flashbacks, and occasional heartlessness in
ch choosing his sources of humor (e.g., a dry cleaner who periodically forces
his daughter to have sex with him). Still, it's much livelier than Women on
the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! With Cecilia
Roth, Imanol Arias, Fernando Vivanco, Helga Line, and Marta Fernandez-Muro
(1982).

All About My Mother

Cecilia Roth stars in this celebrated film from Spanish director Pedro
Almodóvar. Distraught over the death of her teenage son, Manuela drives to
Barcelona to find the boy's father, an itinerant transsexual named Lola (Toni
Canto). While combing the city's less reputable districts, she also meets up
with Agrado (Antonia San Juan), a sassy transvestite prostitute, and Rosa
(Penélope Cruz), a pregnant nun on her way to El Salvador. She also becomes
the manager for Huma (Marisa Paredes), the actress her son idolized, and
helps her through a run of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. Together these great
ladies bond through various heartrending crises, enduring the pain and
celebrating the beauty of being women (or almost women). Considered to be one
of Almodóvar's most fully realized works, this charming and unique film
blends his earlier gender-bending irreverence with the mature grace and
compassion of his later work, striking a perfect note of humour and pathos

Law of Desire

Law of Desire is an unbridled send-up of the absurdities of human desire, a
wildly funny film that took American and European audiences by storm and
immediately established director Pedro Almodovar. Law of Desire features a
fabulous trio - Pablo, a famous Madrid director for whom men are prepared to
die, his new love-crazed boyfriend Antonio, and Pablo's flamboyant and
gorgeous transsexual sister Tina.

Pablo is suffering because Juan, his lover, shares his steamy passion but not
his commitment, and has returned to his village in southern Spain. Trying to
forget him, Pablo is seduced by the tall, dark, handsome and heterosexual
Antonio who, in the space of 24 hours, goes from having his first gay affair,
to being Pablo's demanding - and threatening - lover. Pablo makes the mistake
of dismissing Antonio as inconsequential but Antonio intends to pursue his
passions to their ultimate conclusion.

Talk To Her

TALK TO HER is a story about the friendship of two men, about loneliness and
the long convalescence of the wounds provoked by passion. It is also a film
about incommunication among couples, and about communication. About film as a
subject of conversation. About how monologues before a silent person can
become an effective form of dialogue. About silence as "eloquence of the
body", about film as an ideal vehicle/language in relationships between
people, about how a film told in words can stop time and install itself in
the lives of those who tell it and those who hear it.
TALK TO HER is a film about the joy of narration and about the word as a
weapon against solitude, disease, death and madness. It is also a film about
madness, about a type of madness so close to tenderness and common sense that
it does not diverge from normality


SARAI/CSDS
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road
Delhi- 110054
www.sarai.net

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