Documentary Films at IFI Temple Bar - Thursday 13.09.07 to Sunday 16.09.07

dublin | miscellaneous | event notice Monday September 03, 2007 15:07 by Ronan

Documentary films in IFI - Thurs 13.09.07 to Sun 16.09.07.

Hi

Not trying to take away from the good work of the Seomra Spraoi Screening Group (Wednesday nights) but there are a few documentary films that might be of interest to people here on in the IFI in Temple Bar from Thurs 13.09.07 to Sun 16.09.07.

Stranger than Fiction Documentary Season 07
http://www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/season2_07.asp?SID=134

Sample given below, check the web for more details.

Losers and Winners
http://www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/dispfilm_07.asp?filmID=5630

German efficiency and Chinese industriousness pass each other on globalization's economic ladder in this revealing, candid and wryly humourous look at the efforts of 400 Chinese workers, supervised by 30 German foremen (“The Shutdown Department”), to cut apart a virtually brand new coking plant so it can be rebuilt in China. While the German foremen lament the loss of jobs and fret over what they perceive as unsafe working practices, the Chinese workers struggle to support their families back home and wonder why the Germans always leave for the day when the real work is just beginning. With intimate access to an industrial marvel, and to subjects who are decidedly frank in their admonition of each other, directors Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken explore the dicey cultural dynamics between two countries facing very different futures.

Iraq in Fragments
http://www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/sdispfilm_07.asp?SID=134...=5628

This prize-winning documentary is a genuinely awe-inspiring work of cinéma vérité filmmaking. Longley spent more than two years filming in Iraq, often under extraordinary duress, to create this stunningly photographed, poetically rendered vision of post-War Iraq as seen through the eyes of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. This unforgettable film opens a window on the world of the war’s casualties that is profoundly haunting and often ravishing. An opus in three parts, Iraq in Fragments offers a portrait of the different faces of war: a fatherless boy is apprenticed to the owner of a Baghdad garage; Sadr followers in two Shiite cities rally for regional elections while enforcing Islamic law at gunpoint; and a family of Kurdish farmers welcomes the US presence, which has allowed them freedom previously denied. Despite the disparity of the stories, the film flows with a wholeness that is both grand and intimate in scale.

Mosney
http://www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/sdispfilm_07.asp?SID=134...=5619

Thirty miles north of Dublin lies a collection of rundown chalets and rusting fairground rides. This is Mosney, for fifty years a family holiday destination, which at its peak could accommodate 2800 campers and 4000 day visitors. Today, it is a holding centre for asylum seekers: in this surreal global village people wait years for decisions on their asylum claims. There are children who were born here. Mosney, a crumbling relic of a pleasure centre, is the only world they know. Over three years, the filmmakers lived in Mosney, gaining the trust of the residents and an unprecedented insight into lives spent in constant fear of deportation. From Congo, Kurdistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Sri Lanka and countless other countries, we hear why people have been forced to leave everything and move to a country full of strangers. We learn about the trauma of waiting in this bizarre processing centre, and the disintegration of aspirations, ambitions and mental health while the slow wheels of our administration ponder their lives.

Manufacturing Dissent
http://www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/sdispfilm_07.asp?SID=134...=5632

Manufacturing Dissent – Uncovering Michael Moore is an exposé documentary on film-maker and polemicist Michael Moore. It chronicles the supercharged climate in America that has fuelled Moore’s transition from struggling filmmaker to icon of the political left. The film seeks to separate fact, fiction and legend, as the directors Caine & Melnyk track Moore on tour during the release of the explosive Fahrenheit 9/11, his sensational documentary that spoke out against the integrity of the Bush Administration.
Interestingly, both Caine and Melynk admit to being supporters of Moore. Then they began looking at the methods Moore employs in his films, and the deeper they dug, the more they began to question these processes. The result is a controversial, wellrounded portrait of Michael Moore the man, and an engrossing indictment of his shady, manipulative tactics as a documentary maker. ‘Intelligent and provocative, this film is not an assault by right-wing ideologues but a dissection by two ‘progressive liberals,’ and has all the more impact for it.’ Variety

Cheers,
Ronan