cinema scene

German experimental filmmaker and video artist Harun Farocki died on July 30 in Berlin at age 70, leaving behind more than 100 films, mostly short documentaries that explored contemporary life and its various problems, including war, imprisonment, surveillance and capitalism.

In tribute, the Reading Room and Filmvirus present “As We Can See Here: A Tribute to Harun Farocki” tomorrow and Sunday.

Tomorrow’s programme opens at 1pm with 1986’s “As We Can See Here (or As You See)”. That’s followed at 2.15 by “Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory” from 1995. “Still Life” from 1997 is at 2.55, and then at 4 it’s “Prison Images” from 2000. From 2003, “War at a Distance” is at 5, followed at 6 by “Nothing Ventured” from 2004.

From 1988, “Images of the World and the Inscriptions of War” opens Sunday’s programme at 1, followed at 2.15 by “How to Live in the German Federal Republic” from 1990. “Respite” from 2007 screens at 3.40, followed at 5 with a talk by experts Keiko Sei and Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn.

The venue is the Reading Room, a fourth-floor walk-up art gallery on Bangkok’ s Silom Soi 19. For more details, Facebook.com/

thereadingroombkk.

 

Also showing

l  The Friese-Greene Club – Next Wednesday’s question-and-answer session will be with Bangkok-based production designer Jim Newport, who will share his thoughts about working on the 1987 cult-classic thriller “The Stepfather”. Shows are at 8pm. For the full schedule, see FGC.in.th.

l  The Lives of Others – Writers are featured in this Sunday’s Filmvirus double bill of biopics at Thammasat University Tha Prachan – director Paul Schrader’s “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” and “Hamsun”, starring Max von Sydow as the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian author who was later disgraced for his support of Nazi Germany. The show starts at 12.30 on Sunday in the Pridi Banomyong Library. For details, call (02) 613-3529 or (02) 613-3530.

l  Alliance Française – Selections from last year’s My French Film Festival in Bangkok are featured this month. Next week, it’s “La désintégration” about Arab kids living in Lille, France, who fall under the influence of a charismatic older Arab. The show is at 7pm on Wednesday. For details, see www.AFThailande.org.

l  Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – Cross-cultural struggles are explored in “The Namesake”, a 2006 drama by Mira Nair about the son of Bengali immigrants in New York, who feels uncomfortable with his strange name Gogol. Kal Penn, Irrfan Khan and Tabu star. The show is at 7 next Thursday. Admission for non-members is Bt150 baht plus 100 baht for Indian wine and food. For details, see www.fccthai.com.

 

Sneak preview

l  “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” – Four pizza-chomping outcast brothers rise up out of the ooze of New York’s sewers to discover their destiny as crime-fighting superheroes. They join forces with a plucky TV reporter (Megan Fox) to combat the supervillain martial-artist Shredder. Jonathan Liebesman, the South African helmer of “Battle: Los Angeles” and “Wrath of the Titans” directs and Michael Bay produces. It’s in sneak previews from around 8 nightly at most multiplexes until it opens wide next Thursday.