Rialto Cinemas, 167 Broadway, Newmarket
Auckland Film Society's 2012 Season screens at the Rialto Cinemas, 167 Broadway, Newmarket, March – October,
Mondays at 6:30pm, except as noted below. Please note: no screenings
on public holidays. We screen on the following Tuesday.
Most screenings are members only. Please arrive early
– no guaranteed seating.
We reluctantly reserve the right to change the programme if a film
does not arrive. Late changes will be advised on the home page of this
website.
Opening Night
Monday 05 March
6:30 pmTHE
ASPHALT JUNGLEFilm noir classics
John Huston | USA | 1950 | 35mm B&W 1.37:1 | 112 mins | PG low level violence
The big daddy of big caper movies, this brilliant, chilling thriller revolves around a million-dollar jewel heist. “A taut, unsentimental study in character and relative morality… It has spawned countless imitations, few of which even remotely approach the intelligence and detail of the original.” – Time Out
AFS thanks Time Out Bookstore Ltd
– Metro Best Bookshop 2009
Monday 12 MarchItalian classics: past & present
6:30 pmTHE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE Le conseguenze dell'amore
Paolo Sorrentino | Italy | 2004 | 35mm 2.35:1 | 100 mins | M violence, offensive language, drug use
“Echoes of Visconti and Antonioni abound in this exquisitely subdued high-gloss psychological thriller in which a dour Mafia bagman exiled in a Swiss hotel jeopardises his safety with a love affair… Moves seamlessly from stylish stasis into explosive violence to great effect..” – Sight & Sound
Monday 19 MarchOutback Australia
6:30 pmWAKE IN FRIGHT
Ted Kotcheff | Australia | 1971 | 35mm 1.85:1 | 114 mins | R16
“This gritty classic follows the increasingly off-kilter journey of a very proper and uptight teacher whose one night in the outback turns into a shattering hallucination of gambling, drinking and brutality… Controversial and groundbreaking… One of the great beacons of Australian cinema.” – ACMI
Monday 26 MarchContemporary world cinema
6:30 pmASHES OF TIME REDUX Dung che sai duk
Wong Kar-wai | Hong Kong | 1994/2008 | BluRay 16:9 | 93 mins | M violence
A new, streamlined version of the hugely costly and ambitious martial arts epic released to widespread incomprehension in 1994. “The changes – a reworked score, less murky colouring – serve to bring out more lustrously than ever the yearning wondrousness of this star-laden treasure.” – Daily Telegraph
Monday 02 April
6:30 pmHOME SWEET HOME: FOUR FILMS BY MARTIN RUMSBY
Martin Rumsby| USA/NZ | 2000 – 2007| DV
Roving film programmer and writer Martin Rumsby has been working in the field of experimental cinema since his involvement with the Alternative Cinema co-op in th 1980s. These four films trace his personal journeys from New Zealand out to the world and back.
Tuesday 10 AprilOutback Australia
6:30 pmWALKABOUT
Nicolas Roeg | Australia | 1971 | 35mm 1.85:1 | 100 mins | PG
A fable-like story of a teenage girl and her young brother stranded in the Australian outback. “It’s that rare thing, the intellectually haunting film – the movie that doesn't shock with its gore or stun with its violence so much as work its way beneath your senses to terrify with a realization about our species and ourselves that we'd rather not admit is true.” – New York Sun
Monday 16 AprilFilm noir classics
6:30 pmTHE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE
Tay Garnett | USA | 1946 | 35mm B&W 1.37:1 | 113 mins | PG adult themes
A classic James M Cain adaptation. “More film blanc than noir, as screencombusting lovers John Garfield and Lana Turner – dressed more for Park Avenue than the greasy spoon she slings hash in – plot to do away with her nice but old husband.” – Film Forum
Monday 23 AprilFilm noir classics
6:30 pmMILDRED PIERCE
followed by Auckland Film Society AGM, 8:45pm
Michael Curtiz | USA | 1945 | 35mm B&W 1.37:1 | 111 mins | PG low level violence
Joan Crawford won her only Oscar for the title role, as a single mother who toils her way from waitress to successful businesswoman to provide for her spoilt and ungrateful daughter. Director Michael Curtiz followed up the success of Casablanca with this melodramatic noir adaptation of James M Cain’s notoriously racy novel.
Monday 30 April
Italian classics: past & present
6:00 pmGOMORRAHGomorra
Matteo Garrone | Italy | 2008 | 35mm 2.35:1 | 137 mins | R16 violence, offensive language, drug use
Riveting adaptation of Roberto Saviano’s bestselling exposé of the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia. “A modern classic that blends documentary inquiry with a thrilling crisscross of stories and characters all caught in the web of slavery and poverty spun by the Mafia.” – Observer
Monday 07 May
Chinese cinema
6:30 pmLAST TRAIN HOMEGui tu lie chie
Fan Lixin | Canada/China | 2009 | DV 16:9 | 85 mins
“The mind-boggling notion of 130 million Chinese migrant workers making their way home from inhospitable industrial cities to impoverished villages once each year gets a human face in Lixin Fan’s extraordinary, vital documentary… Essential viewing.” – Entertainment Weekly
Monday 14 May
German silents
6:30 pmTABU
FW Murnau | USA | 1931 | 35mm B&W 1.37:1 | 81 mins | M
A young Tahitian’s forbidden love for a sacred virgin. “Murnau’s tragic Polynesian saga liberated him from the studios, enabling him to show his mastery of the natural world… one of the most stunningly beautiful films ever made.” – MOMA
Monday 21 May
Alternate realities
6:30 pmPLUG AND PRAY
Jens Schanze | Germany | 2010 | DV 16:9 | 90 mins
“The deeply fascinating and occasionally frightening future of artificial intelligence is the focus of this globe-trotting report on the state of things in the field. Among others, futurist Ray Kurzweil and computer pioneer Joseph Weizenbaum consider whether man really can go beyond biology.” – Vancouver IFF
AFS thanks 95bFM
Monday 28 MayGerman silents
6:30 pmHAMLET
S Gade & H Schall | Germany | 1921 | DV 4:3 B&W | 111 mins | cert tbc
Legendary Danish actress Asta Nielsen produced and starred in this gender-bending version of Hamlet in which the Prince of Denmark is a girl brought up as a boy. Nielsen’s “body language as Hamlet is as self-aware as Tilda Swinton maneuvering between sexes in Orlando.” – NotComing.com.
Polychrome-tinted 2007 restoration from the German Film Institute
Tuesday 05 JuneItalian classics: past & present
6:30 pmLA STRADA
Federico Fellini | Italy | 1954 | 35mm B&W 1.37:1 |108 mins | M adult themes
Best Foreign Film, Academy Awards 1956
The film that made Fellini a household name. Anthony Quinn is a force of nature as the itinerant circus strongman who buys an affection-starved waif (Fellini’s muse Giulietta Masina) from her poverty-stricken family. “The cornerstone of Fellini’ s work.” – Martin Scorsese
Monday 11 JuneAlternate realities
6:00 pmWORLD ON A WIREWelt am Draht
Rainer Werner Fassbinder | West Germany | 1973 | DV | cert tbc
Fassbinder’s long unseen science-fiction epic offers a boundlessly inventive take on future paranoia. “Anticipates Blade Runner in its meditation on artificial and human intelligence and The Matrix in its conception of reality as a computer-generated illusion.” – New York Times
Monday 18 JuneFrench documentaries
6:30 pmRACHEL
Simone Bitton | France | 2009 | DV 16:9 | 100 mins
This intelligent, layered documentary puts the Gaza Strip death of American peace activist Rachel Corrie in the context of a new generation of globalised activists crossing the world to put themselves in harm’s way. “Simone Bitton again proves that she is one of the finest contemporary documentarians.” – Screendaily
Monday 25 JuneFrench documentaries
6:30 pmNENETTE
Nicolas Philibert | France | 2010 | DV 16:9 | 70 mins
Born in the jungles of Borneo, Nénette is a 40-year-old orangutan – and the oldest (and most beloved) inhabitant at the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Documentarian Philibert’s film is a captivating study of an enigmatic animal and our relationship to her. “Remarkable.” – Sight &
Sound
Monday 02 JulyItalian classics: past & present
6:30 pmTHE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS Il giardino dei Finzi Contini
Vittorio De Sica | Italy | 1970 | 35mm 1.85:1 | 94 mins | PG
This late-career triumph from Bicycle Thieves director Vittorio De Sica follows the lives of two Jewish families in the years leading up to World War II. “An autumnal work in two senses – the subject is the last golden flash of freedom before one of history’s major tragedies… De Sica’s final great work.” – Bright Lights Film Journal
Monday 09 July
6:30 pmMAP OF THE HUMAN HEART
Vincent Ward | 1993 | Australia/UK/Canada/France | BluRay | 109 mins | cert tbc
An epic romantic adventure set in the Arctic Circle, spread across 30 years and two continents. “Grand, noble and boldly imaginative… breathtaking! It is not too soon to call Vincent Ward one of film’s great image makers.” – Jay Carr, Boston Globe
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