Screenwriter and playwright Farmer Hong, who has received Taipei Golden Horse and Hong Kong Film Award for Best Screenplay for Trivisa, and Hong Kong Drama Award for Best Play for The Abandoned Harbour, will share his experience in writing for screen, TV and stage.

The Hustler
Director｜ Robert Rossen
Screenplay｜ Robert Rossen, Sidney Carroll
Cast｜ Paul Newman, George C. Scott
1961/ B&W / 134 mins / In English with English subtitles

Like Fast Eddie Felson, it seems that Robert Rossen’s journey to the depths of hell summoned all of his creative forces to align. Every element as precise and ambiguous as a physics puzzle, Rossen’s black-and-white Cinemascope screen mirrors the grungy, lonely glamour of the midwestern American pool halls where Fast Eddie displays as many confounding skills in his pool game as in his artful swindling. The scintillating performances of Paul Newman’s charming hustler, Piper Laurie’s troubled, perceptive Sarah and George C. Scott’s manipulative mastermind bounce off of one another in a high stakes game that aims beyond the shabby theatrics of the pool hall and into politics, filmmaking and the daily trafficking of the human spirit. The layers of masks and manipulation never fully peel away from the propaganda that all the “twisted, perverted, crippled” characters use to protect themselves and somehow “win.” Rossen’s search through night clubs, boxing rings, political parties and ancient Rome all seem to lead to Eddie’s chance to beat Minnesota Fats. At the end of a complex, tragic, gracefully executed game, exile may be the price of enlightenment.

Forty Guns
Dir: Samuel Fuller
Screenplay: Samuel Fuller
Photography: Joseph F. Biroc
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck、Barry Sullivan

1957 / 80 min / B&W / In English with English subtitles

One of the great revisionist Westerns of all time, Forty Guns melds Greek myth and genre tropes into a stylistically audacious proto-feminist fairy tale built around the larger-than-life figure of Barbara Stanwyck’s “Woman with a Whip,” Jessica Drummond, a seductive and ruthlessly sensible tyrant who rules with unflinching authority over her vast Arizona cattle territory and faithful army of men. Drummond’s sole weakness and source of tragedy is her inability to control her feckless and violent younger brother, who wrecks havoc on the town of Tombstone and draws the wrath of Griff Bonnell, a legendary ex-gunslinger turned US Marshall in town on a mission with his two brothers. Fuller uses a glorious black-and-white widescreen canvas to etch a bold woodblock vision of the West, ignited by stylistic flourishes—extreme close-ups of eyes, shots down the barrel of a gun—that would be openly imitated by the likes of Sergio Leone and Seijun Suzuki, among the many auteurs influenced by Fuller’s visionary films.

THE POWER AND THE GLORY
Director｜William K. Howard
Screenplay｜Preston Sturges
Cinematographer｜James Wong Howe
Cast｜Spencer Tracy, Collen Moore

After the funeral service for Tom Garner (Spencer Tracy), a powerful and much-hated railroad tycoon who committed suicide, his best friend Henry (Ralph Morgan) recalls Garner’s life, his family problems, and his rise from track walker to president of the railroad. The Power and the Glory was loosely based by Sturges on the life of C. W. Post, his second wife’s grandfather, who founded the Postum Cereal Company, which later became General Foods.The film, told through flashbacks, was also cited by Pauline Kael in her essay “Raising Kane”, as a prototype for the narrative of Citizen Kane (1941).

In this Cha Reading Series event “Nostalgia in the Chinese City”, Cha contributors Antony Dapiran and Paul French will discuss nostalgia in their work and in the Chinese cities where they have lived and worked for many years. Moderated by Cha co-editor Tammy Ho Lai-Ming.

Nostalgia—from the Greek words nostos (‘homecoming’) and algia (‘pain’ or ‘ache)—a yearning for lost time and place, for a past where one perhaps felt more ‘at home’. We may feel nostalgia for our own past, or for earlier times we could not have personally known. And it seems that nowhere is this more sharply felt than in the rapidly developing metropolises of China. Our cities are sites of collective memory, and collective amnesia. Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing: all suffer forms of the “culture of disappearance”; all have ambiguous—sometimes wistful, sometimes problematic—relationships with the past. Whether in a tourist packed hutong, an old Shanghai-themed café, a G.O.D. store, or gazing at a lone junk sailing on Victoria Harbour—we encounter nostalgia triggers daily. It can be comforting or confusing, positive or negative. It is political and it is personal. Nostalgia is a community, even if those communities are long gone now.

導演：秦劍

聯合導演：楚原

編劇：司馬才華

攝影：陳幹

主演：江雪、謝賢、嘉玲

1957/ 黑白/ 105 分鐘/ 粵語

葉菁（謝賢飾）與馬來少女蘇蓮娜相戀, 卻遭母親阻撓, 娜不忿, 揚言向菁下「降頭」。菁回唐山後, 愛上表妹紫薇（江雪飾）, 令表姊藍怡（嘉玲飾）妒火中燒。薇、怡先後遇難, 菁以為被「降頭」所害, 找娜尋仇, 事後卻發現舊居的艷鬼竟是怡, 原來一切都是怡奪愛的陰謀。

In this Cha Reading Series event “Nine Dragon Island”, Cha contributors Eleanor Goodman and Lucas Klein will discuss poetry, translation, and the writing of China—alongside readings from their recent and forthcoming books, including Goodman’s Nine Dragon Island (Enclave/Zephyr, 2016) and Iron Moon: Chinese Worker Poetry (White Pine, 2017), and Klein’s October Dedications: The Selected Poetry of Mang Ke (Zephyr, 2018) and translations of Li Shangyin (NYRB, 2018). Moderated by Cha’s co-editor Tammy Ho Lai-Ming.

Director: Luchino Visconti

Screenplay: Luchino Visconti、Suso Cecchi D’Amico

Cast: Alida Valli、Farley Granger

This lush, Technicolor tragic romance from Luchino Visconti stars Alida Valli as a nineteenth-century Italian countess who, during the Austrian occupation of her country, puts her marriage and political principles on the line by engaging in a torrid affair with a dashing Austrian lieutenant, played by Farley Granger. Gilded with ornate costumes and sets and a rich classical soundtrack, and featuring fearless performances, this operatic melodrama is an extraordinary evocation of reckless emotions and deranged lust, from one of the cinema’s great sensualists.

「又或把注意力放回身下的泥土 學習如何跟它妥協，如何讓自己繼續優雅地活著。」──《旁觀生活》〈阿里山神木〉

在這個手機即拍即享的年代，詩人葉英傑仍然堅持用文字慢慢調整和構築他的視角，不爭鳴，不宣示，始終維持冷靜的敏銳。來到他的第五本詩集《旁觀生活》，英傑為我們凝住了異地、家族、浮生的生命光影，伴我們體味細水長流的甘醇。

詩人自述：

葉英傑仍然記得第一首詩是什麼時候寫的，是在１９８９年２月５日，地點在廣州表姐的家中，那天是農曆年廿九，說的是不想年假過得這麼快，差不多要回港捨不得廣州的親友。之後在１９９２年開始拿青年文學獎（１９、２０、２１、２２、２４屆）。那時候他的詩使用很多意象，有人說很超現實。之後被王良和抓去跟一班詩友一起談詩；這詩社是〈我們詩社〉。後來還有〈大學詩會〉（然而參與的時候他不再是大學生了）。後來憑〈散步〉拿２０００年中文文學獎。此後他就揮不開〈散步〉了。〈散步〉是他第一首很自覺的，敘事成份很重的詩。經過多年努力，終於完成了《尋找最舒適的坐姿》及最新的《旁觀生活》這兩本詩集。這兩本詩集其實是二為一體的，都是有關家，有關各親友，有關生活。是的，葉英傑的詩，似乎都離不開一直圍繞的「人」，和生活。

Ruben Ôstlund’s The Square is a satire about the high art world. While it stirs conversations in the art scene, does it reflect the reality? In collaboration with M+, bc invited their curators to talk about the awkward art world!

Synopsis

The world is full of flaws; life is far-from-perfect. It is all the more challenging for people with disabilities.

Joanna and King are facing their darkness, as they are losing their eyesight bit by bit. Baobao is hearing-impaired since birth, she cannot communicate with the others but her greatest desire is to speak and express herself. Hazel has cerebral palsy and cannot walk; even though wheelchair can replace her legs, she is fed up with the prolonged pain.

Life is strenuous, but Joanna, King, Baobao and Hazel rediscovered the passion for life when they embarked on a journey to the theatre stage, making the impossible possible.

Light Up is a documentary about the struggle of the four protagonists against their personal restraints in the Hand in Hand Capable Theatre, witnessing how they made their way to the stage after difficult but ultimately positive training and rehearsals.

synopsis

In January 1987, a 22-year-old college student dies during a police interrogation. Under the orders of Director Park (KIM Yoon-seok), the police request the body to be cremated in order to destroy evidence. Public Prosecutor Choi (HA Jung-woo), who was on duty on the day of the incident, denies the request and calls for an autopsy. The police maintain the lie that the death was a simple accident, resulting from shock. The autopsy results, however, point to torture as the cause of death.

Yoon (LEE Hee-jun), a journalist following the case, reports that the death was a result of asphyxiation during torture. Director Park attempts to conceal the truth by ending the case, arresting two detectives including inspector Cho (PARK Hee-soon). While in prison, inspector Cho reveals the truth to prison guard Han Byung-yong (YOO Hai-jin), who embarks on a dangerous mission to relay the information to an opposition politician through his niece, Yeon-hee (KIM Tae-ri).

The Taking of Power by Louis XIV
Dir: Roberto Rossellini
Scriptwriter: Philippe Erlanger、Jean Gruault
Cast: Jean-Marie Patte、Raymond Jourdan、César Silvagni
1966/ Color/ 90 mins/ in Italian with English subtitles

Filmmaking legend Roberto Rossellini brings his passion for realism and unerring eye for the everyday to this portrait of the early years of the reign of France’s “Sun King,” and in the process reinvents the costume drama. The death of chief minister Cardinal Mazarin, the construction of the palace at Versailles, the extravagant meals of the royal court: all are recounted with the same meticulous quotidian detail that Rossellini brought to his contemporary portraits of postwar Italy. The Taking of Power by Louis XIV dares to place a larger-than-life figure at the level of mere mortal.

Stromboli

Director: Roberto Rossellini

Screenplay: Roberto Rossellini、Sergio Amidei、Gian Paolo Callegari、Art Cohn、Renzo Cesana

Cinematographer: Otello Martelli

Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Mario Vitale

1950/ B&W/ 107’/ Italian/ English Subtitles

After Ingrid Bergman expressed her fondness of Rossellini’s Rome, Open City, the couple-to-be soon kicked their first ever collaboration – Stromboli. Living in an Italian refugee camp after World War II, the Nordic Karen from Lithuania meets Antonio, a recently released Italian POW. After the denial of a visa to her dreamland – Argentina, Karen marries Antonio and they soon sail off to his home village, Stromboli. The village is not only a fishing community on a remote island but is also at the foot of an active volcano. With the difficulty of speaking the local dialect and understanding the cultural discrepancy, most local villagers treat Karen merely as an exotic foreigner and a loose woman. In the final scene, she sets off across the volcanic mountains to seek her freedom and a better future. Here, one cannot help but feel that Rossellini has achieved a fusion of melodramatic touch on women and the neo-realist style that powerfully and vividly captures the geographical details.

Forsaken Woman《程大嫂》

導演：李鐵

編劇：李鐵

主演：芳艷芬、張瑛、黃千歲

1954/ 黑白/ 135 分鐘/ 黑白/ 粵語

《程大嫂》由植利影業公司於1954年出品，故事取材於魯迅小說《祝福》，並以越劇《祥林嫂》為藍本。《程大嫂》刻劃封建社會家庭對女性的壓迫，芳艷芬由少女角色演到中年、老年，一生坎坷，被賣、被姦、被白眼、被囚……盡顯 演技。此片為芳艷芬自組的公司出品，無論攝影、美術、撰曲、音樂都是上盛之作 。

Synopsis
During the early days of World War II, with the fall of France imminent, Britain faces its darkest hour as the threat of invasion looms. As the seemingly unstoppable Nazi forces advance, and with the Allied army cornered on the beaches of Dunkirk, the fate of Western Europe hangs on the leadership of the newly-appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Academy Award nominee Gary Oldman). While maneuvering his political rivals, he must confront the ultimate choice: negotiate with Hitler and save the British people at a terrible cost or rally the nation and fight on against incredible odds. Directed by Joe Wright, DARKEST HOUR is the dramatic and inspiring story of four weeks in 1940 during which Churchill’s courage to lead changed the course of world history.

Lady Iron Fan

In 1941 in the midst of WWII, the Wan Brothers, the pioneers of Chinese animation, completed Asia’s first – and the world’s third – feature-length animated film. Based on a chapter of Journey to the West, Princess Iron Fan was a big hit at the time, its popularity extending even to Japan. The film greatly influenced the development of Chinese animation, including the Wans’ later Havoc in Heaven. Drawing from Disney and Chinese opera while relying heavily on rotoscoping, the Wans applied slapstick, shape-shifting and topsy-turvy visuals to the Monkey King’s battle of wits with Princess Iron Fan and the Bull King in order to acquire her magical fan to quell the flames of a volcanic mountain range.

Suzuki Seijun, avant-garde filmmaker and one of the important figures of Japanese New Wave, passed away in February this year. His works often feature spontaneous actions, surreal styles, jarring colours, odd angles and progressive ideas, forming a unique Seijun aesthetics”. Strong in his personal style and oblivious of audience’s reactions, he faced termination of contract which led to removal of his films from distribution. Though unfortunate, the incident certainly makes his life story even more legendary. What loss did his death mean to the Japanese film industry? Let us commemorate our Director in Focus with screenings and a talk.

They rebel in order to resist. Singing “hail to Kim Jong-un”, organising band shows in abandoned university buildings and performing 100 songs in 10 minutes, Bamseom Pirates probably is the most controversial punk band in Korea. Listen to their tunes closely, and look into Korean politics with director Jung Yoon-suk and scholar Steve Chung who specialises in the field of Korean popular culture, you will realise that Bamseom Pirates is not just some young people who rebel without a cause.

1946/ B&W/ 134 mins/English and Italian in English Subtitles
The middle film in Rossellini’s famous “war trilogy” – between Open City and Germany Year Zero – Paisà is a series of sequences from the lives of everyday Italians, both civilians and antifascist partisans, during the fight for the liberation of Italy by the Allied armies in 1943 and 1944. Starting in the south and moving north, the episodes follow the armies as they traverse the different regions – depicting tales of everyday heroism, a kind of neorealist “history from below.” Framed by a map of Italy whose pieces are illuminated one by one, the stories express a hope that fascism’s authoritarian hierarchies would be replaced with a pluralist Italy which acknowledged and celebrated regional differences.

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