Best Film Screenings in the North (14-21 Oct)
The best film events happening in Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds this week, including two films by Ousmane Sembène and Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley
Get to know the films of Ousmane Sembène ('the father of African film')
Ousmane Sembène was the great pioneer of African cinema, and you’ve a couple of chances to see two of his best films on the big screen this week.
Xala
This razor sharp morality tale centers on a corrupt Dakar businessman who finds that with power in the boardroom comes an embarrassing weakness in the bedroom ('xala' means impotence). Sembène's attack on the Senegalese bourgeoisie who he feels have let his nation down is the best kind of satire: hilarious but full of anger.
20 Oct, HOME, Manchester, 6.15pm
Moolaadé
The final film from Sembène concerns the strong-willed second wife of an elder in a West African village who refuses to allow four little girls to undergo the traditional circumcision ceremony. The setup is simple but, as ever with Sembène, the film vibrates with urgency and humanity.
18 Oct, Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds, 5.40pm
Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach
Next Friday (21 Oct) sees Ken Loach's Palme d'Or-winner I, Daniel Blake hit UK screens. It’s the great socialist filmmaker’s most powerful film in years. Small Cinema’s programmers have perfectly timed this screening of documentary Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach to get you up to date with this extraordinary force in British filmmaking.
16 Oct, Liverpool Small Cinema, 5pm
The Talented Mr Ripley
There have been several screen adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels. Anthony Minghella’s straightforward and shimmeringly beautiful retelling of Highsmith’s first take on Ripley might be the best. Particularly great is Matt Damon, who brings real sadness and pathos to his depiction of the psychopathic con artist of the title.
DM16: Design City
Manchester’s fourth annual festival that celebrates design in all its forms comes to HOME this weekend with a tantalising lineup of stylish movies with great design in their celluloid's DNA. This week’s trio are Fight Club (16 Oct, 5.50pm), Vertigo (17 Oct, 6pm) and Dr Strangelove (18 Oct, 6.20pm), three films from three directors (David Fincher, Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick) with the sharpest eyes for detail and composition in the business.
If you've a film event you'd like us to know about, send details to jamie@theskinny.co.uk