Culture, Main Category, Movie, Past Events

SKEPTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL #5

skeptoThursday, April 10th, 19.00: Tirana Ekspres has the pleasure to be again partner of SKEPTO International Film Festival’s 5th edition and dedicate one evening to the best SKEPO short-films! Don’t miss!

These movies are on display tonight:

Tryouts – 14′ – Spain, U.S.A.
The sunshine egg – 6′ – Germany
More than two hours – 15′ – Iran
Debtfools – 9′ – Greece, Spain
The radar – 18′ – France
Hollow Land – 14′ – Canada, Denmark, France
Rabbit and Deer – 16′ – Hungary
Rosemary Jane – 17′ – U.K.

Please find more details here:
http://skepto.net/en/content/skepto-international-film-festival-2014-parallel-screenings-programme

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MOVIE NIGHTS APRIL – LOVE #1

Tuesday 8th April, 19.30: A very long engagement (by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 133 min) France, during World War One. Young woman Mathilde desperately search for her fiancé who might have been killed in the battle. She investigates what actually took place on the battlefield. Along the way she discovers the heights and depths of the human soul. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEOfbNPTyAY — What is the month of April known for? In Tirana Ekspres we are going to present this month with different stories about: youth and ageing, passion against routine, careless vs. obsession.

It’s all about love!

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REBELLION – MOVIE NIGHTS in MARCH 2014

movie nights_poster march_rebellionIn March, our Movie Nights are dedicated to the topic of REBELLION – people in Ukraine or Turkey, in Syria or Albania are raising their voices for their rights, against opression, for democratic values and self-determination.

The name of March comes form the god “Mars” and the ancient Romans thought that it was a lucky time to begin a war. In Tirana Ekspres we believe that every Tuesday in March will be the right time to start a Rebellion! We are going to present movies which deal with that topic in a different way – they will make you happy or sad, disgusted or enchanted, confused or fascinated… But they will never leave you indifferent!

Tuesday, 4th March, 19:30

Malcolm X (by Spike Lee, 201 min)

Malcolm X was the famous and controversial African American activist. Leader in the struggle for black liberation as well as black pride, one of the most outspoken individuals who had a different side of the civil rights movement in America. Biographical epic from his early life as a small-time gangster, to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam and his assassination.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6nVedUs4vs

Tuesday, 11th March, 19:30:

A Clockwork Orange (by Stanley Kubrick, 136 min)

London, England in the foreseeable future. Alex is a charismatic sociopath whose interests include classical music,  rape, and what is termed “ultra-violence”. He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim).As with all luck, his eventually runs out and he’s arrested and convicted of murder and rape. While in prison, Alex learns of an experimental program in which convicts are programed to detest violence. Based on Anthony Burgess’s novel. “Frightening. Funny. Bizarre.”

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPRzm8ibDQ8

Tuesday, 18th March, 19:30:

Dogville (by  Lars Von Trier, 177 min)

America, during the 1930s. On the run from the gangsters, Grace arrives in the small town of Dogville. Locals agree to host and protect her during two weeks before deciding if she can stay longer. All they ask in return is a little help with the chores around the town.  After certain time, townspeople start to take advantage of Grace’s situation, as they realize how much power they have over her… “Arrogant, disturbing, though-provoking.”

Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJVu1UzetH8

Tuesday, 25th March, 19.30:

Rebellion. The time is now!

1.     Occupations (by Lars Von Trier, 3 min)

Lars Von Trier is an unpredictable director, who throughout his career has been labeled a misogynist, a nightmare and a soul robber by some of his actors… What would happen if you interrupted Lars von Trier during a movie?

2.     World of glory (by Roy Andersson, 14 min)

An ordinary man tells about his work, his family and ordinary home. He lives proudly his cheerless an dull life…

3.     Yokoku (Patriorism) (by Yukio Mishima, 30 min)

A story of a soldier who has to commit suicide after a failed coup. A silent, black-and-white film with long intertitles elaborating on the story and its historical background.

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Culture, Main Category, Movie, Past Events, Visual Arts

REMEMBRANCE OF ROMA GENOCIDE

Monday, 27th January 2014: International Day of  Commemoration of the Vicitims of Holocaust!

18:00 Opening of the exhibition Shiko dhe Mos Harro

18:30 Documentary movie: “A People Uncounted” (watch the trailer here: http://youtu.be/e7slCGDaSWY)

On occasion of the International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust (January 27th) the NGO Roma Active Albania (RAA), based in Tirana, presents Shiko dhe Mos Harro, an exhibition on the remembrance of the Roma Genocide convicted by the Nazis during the World War II.
In August 2013 young Roma and Non-Roma from all over Europe came together to commemorate the day of the liquidation of the “Zigeunerlager” in Auschwitz in 1944. During four days they were gathering in workshops and discussion rounds to learn about this widely unknown part of the Holocaust and to work on an active culture of remembrance to fight antigypsyism, racism, hate speech and extremism in Europe.
RAA wants to share this experience and promote the recognition of the Roma Genocide in a wider public in Albania. After the opening of the exhibition there will be a screening of the documentary movie “A People Uncounted” to give more insight to the topic of Roma Genocide in general.

Roma Active Albania in Cooperation with Tirana Ekspres.

 

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ITALIAN NEOREALISM – MOVIE NIGHTS IN JANUARY 2014

ITALIAN NEOREALISM

In the new year 2014, the weekly Movie Night @ Tirana Ekspres starts with a cycle of films introducing the era of Italian Neo-realism.

Tuesday, 28/01/2014, 19.30: “Roma” (Comedy, 127min, 1972) by Federico Fellini

Neorealism belongs to an era between massacres and progress in a century of wars and totalitarism. It arose from a situation of battered World War II, where the crop has failed. Neorealiste cinema returns or intends to restore art to rescue a human role, exactly right there when this has affected the darkest point of human civilization. Neo-realism for Roberto Rossellini (who is a key director of this movement), is a tool to cope with real life and how to approach things more real.

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SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN

This Tuesdays’ movie, December 3rd, 19:30 @ Tirana Ekspres:

Searching for Sugar Man is a documentary film directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts of two Cape Town fans in the late 1990s, Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true, and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez’s music, which never took off in the United States, had become wildly popular in South Africa, but little was known about him there.
On 10 February 2013, the film won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary at the 66th British Academy Film Awards in London, and two weeks later it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academysearching for sugarman Awards in Hollywood.

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SAMSARA Movie

samsaraTuesday, 26th November at 19.30 @ Tirana Ekspres: Samsara is a 2011 documentary film, directed by Ron Fricke and produced by Mark Magidson, who also collaborated on Baraka (1992), a film of a similar vein. Samsara was filmed over four years in 25 countries around the world. It was shot in 70 mm format and output to digital format. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and received a limited release in August 2012.

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AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

WEDTirana Ekspres together with the USA embassy in Tirana will organize the screening of the two times winner of the Academy Award documentary film titled “An inconvenient truth”. This event is organized on the world environment day. Please find the description of the documentary below.

INTRODUCTION

An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore’s campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate made in the film, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and opening in New York City and Los Angeles on May 24, 2006, the documentary was a critical and box-office success, winning 2 Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song. The film earned $49 million at the box office worldwide, becoming the sixth-highest-grossing documentary film to date in the United States. The idea to document his efforts came from producer Laurie David who saw his presentation at a town-hall meeting on global warming which coincided with the opening ofThe Day After Tomorrow. David was so inspired by Gore’s slide show that she, with producer Lawrence Bender, met with Guggenheim to adapt the presentation into a film.Since the film’s release, An Inconvenient Truth has been credited for raising international public awareness of climate change and reenergizing the environmental movement. The documentary has also been included in science curricula in schools around the world, which has spurred some controversy.

SYNOPSIS

An Inconvenient Truth focuses on Al Gore and on his travels in support of his efforts to educate the public about the severity of the climate crisis. Gore says, “I’ve been trying to tell this story for a long time and I feel as if I’ve failed to get the message across.” The film documents a Keynote presentation (which Gore refers to as “the slide show”) that Gore has presented throughout the world. It intersperses Gore’s exploration of data and predictions regarding climate change and its potential for disaster with his own life story.The former vice president opens the film by greeting an audience with a joke: “I am Al Gore; I used to be the next President of the United States.” Gore then begins his slide show on climate change; a comprehensive presentation replete with detailed graphs, flow charts and stark visuals. Gore shows off several majestic photographs of the Earth taken from multiple space missions, Earthrise andThe Blue Marble. Gore notes that these photos dramatically transformed the way we see the Earth, helping spark modern environmentalism.Following this, Gore shares anecdotes that inspired his interest in the issue, including his college education with early climate expertRoger Revelle at Harvard University, his sister’s death from lung cancer and his young son’s near-fatal car accident. Gore recalls a story from his grade-school years, where a fellow student asked his geography teacher about continental drift; in response, the teacher called the concept the “most ridiculous thing [he’d] ever heard.” Gore ties this conclusion to the assumption that “the Earth is so big, we can’t possibly have any lasting, harmful impact on the Earth’s environment.” For comic effect, Gore uses a clip from the Futurama episode “Crimes of the Hot” to describe the greenhouse effect. Gore refers to his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 United States presidential election as a “hard blow” yet one which subsequently “brought into clear focus, the mission [he] had been pursuing for all these years.”The Pale Blue Dot, a Voyager 1 photo showing Earth (circled) as a single pixel from 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometres) away, is featured in the film. Al Gore points out that all of human history has happened on that tiny pixel, which is our only home.Throughout the movie, Gore discusses the scientific opinion on climate change, as well as the present and future effects of global warming and stresses that climate change “is really not a political issue, so much as a moral one”, describing the consequences he believes global climate change will produce if the amount of human-generated greenhouse gases is not significantly reduced in the very near future. Gore also presents Antarctic ice coring data showing CO2 levels higher now than in the past 650,000 years.The film includes segments intended to refute critics who say that global warming is unproven or that warming will be insignificant. For example, Gore discusses the possibility of the collapse of a major ice sheet in Greenland or in West Antarctica, either of which could raise global sea levels by approximately 20 feet, flooding coastal areas and producing 100 million refugees. Melt water from Greenland, because of its lower salinity, could then halt the currents that keep northern Europe warm and quickly trigger dramatic local cooling there. It also contains various short animated projections of what could happen to different animals more vulnerable to climate change.The documentary ends with Gore arguing that if appropriate actions are taken soon, the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed by releasing less CO2 and planting more vegetation to consume existing CO2. Gore calls upon his viewers to learn how they can help him in these efforts. Gore concludes the film by saying:”Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive; we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, we just have to have the determination to make it happen. We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource.” During the film’s end credits, a diaporama pops up on screen suggesting to viewers things at home they can do to combat climate change, including “recycle”, “speak up in your community”, “try to buy a hybrid vehicle” and “encourage everyone you know to watch this movie.” Gore’s book of the same title was published concurrently with the theatrical release of the documentary. The book contains additional information, scientific analysis, and Gore’s commentary on the issues presented in the documentary. A 2007 documentary entitledAn Update with Former Vice President Al Gore features Gore discussing additional information that came to light after the film was completed, such as Hurricane Katrina, coral reef depletion, glacial earthquake activity on the Greenland ice sheet, wildfires, and trapped methane gas release associated with permafrost melting.

As seen on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth

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ONCE UPON A TIME

ONCE UPON A TIMEWhen we watch a good film, something extraordinary happens. We become so involved with what’s going on that we feel we are living the story ourselves. Films enchant, terrify and inspire us, yet their visual storytelling techniques are not a modern phenomenon; in fact, they go back to the ancient past. But how did film really get its ability to transport us to other worlds? Where did the ingredients of visual storytelling come from?

The first story ever written is four thousand years old, and tells the tale of Gilgamesh, the legendary lion-killing king who is the world’s first action hero.

The story of Gilgamesh was well known throughout the Middle East. In about 645 BC, King Ashurbanipal of Assyria sought to promote himself by capitalizing on the hero’s power and glamour. Knowing full well that few of his subjects could read, Ashurbanipal came up with a groundbreaking solution. He departed from a story told in words and devised a story told in pictures with himself playing the lead role instead of Gilgamesh. His sculptors created a series of freeze frames in stone depicting Ashurbanipal as the slayer of lions, and placed them around his throne room.

Ashurbanipal then went on to create what is probably the world’s first complete visual story, an epic blockbuster with a cast of thousands. The story told of his war with his enemies, the Elamites, and used a visual storytelling technique that had never been seen before – a complex tale that unfolded over many scenes. Not only did it have a beginning, middle and an end, it also had subplots that made the whole story more intriguing. In the end, however, though the freezes are filled with blood and violence, there is no real rage, tears, or emotion. The story is as cold as the stone it is engraved on, making it hard to feel engaged with these characters.

This story is unique in that it’s the first narrative to exploit the universal human desire for a hero. But just having a hero in words is not enough. Unfortunately, it was hard to get emotionally involved in the tale.

It took the Greeks to come up with a visual storytelling style that made you really care; that had psychologically credible characters. The Greeks had a rich tradition of evocative storytelling, and there was one epic story they loved to visualize above all others – Homer’s tale of Odysseus. On the coastline of Sperlonga in Southern Italy, Greek artist converted an enormous cave into a dinning room where guests would sit amongst enormous sculptures and be fed and entertained with stories. The sculptures where not there just for ornamentation, but rather to help visualize the storytelling. One giant sculpture illustrated an incident in the dramatic story of Odysseus’ encounter with the Cyclops, where Odysseus and his men are driving a wooden stake into the Cyclops’ single eye. The sculptors have chosen to show the moment of maximum tension – right before the spear went into the single eye – because it is at this moment that the character’s emotions are the most revealing. And by depicting realistic emotions, this is no longer a story that just tells you what happened, but how it happened. It has psychological motivation. It shows you what people are feeling and marks a crucial step in the history of visual story telling.

The Romans took storytelling one-step further; they combined the three elements of a strong heroic lead, a gripping storyline, and emotionally involving characters into a single visual narrative. Trajan’s Column in Rome (see Storytelling Interactive) is perhaps the best example of this type of visual communication.

In the end, however, as impressive as the column may be, it’s still missing something – it still lacks the power to captivate. But this missing piece can be found in the non-classical civilization of the Australian Aborigines, whose storytelling combines the visual, as well as music and singing. The images that most Aboriginal artists paint today are the same images that were painted on rock walls thousands of years ago. The Barramundi fish, Yingarna, the Earth Mother, the Rainbow Serpent – these are paintings that each tell a unique story. However, the Aboriginal artist doesn’t paint a sequence of images as if outlining the plot of a story. Instead, they use single stylized images to trigger in the mind of the onlooker stories they already know. But the use of a single image is only one part of their storytelling secret. These artists also use music, song and dance to enveloped their audience in a full multimedia experience designed to stimulate not only the eyes, but the ears as well. This soundtrack, then, is what has given Aboriginal stories the power to survive for thousands of years. It is this soundtrack that provides the power for the Aboriginal story to have survived thousands of years, and which is so critical to the success of modern film’s ability to transport us into other worlds.ONCE UPON A TIMEWhen we watch a good film, something extraordinary happens. We become so involved with what’s going on that we feel we are living the story ourselves. Films enchant, terrify and inspire us, yet their visual storytelling techniques are not a modern phenomenon; in fact, they go back to the ancient past. But how did film really get its ability to transport us to other worlds? Where did the ingredients of visual storytelling come from?

The first story ever written is four thousand years old, and tells the tale of Gilgamesh, the legendary lion-killing king who is the world’s first action hero.

The story of Gilgamesh was well known throughout the Middle East. In about 645 BC, King Ashurbanipal of Assyria sought to promote himself by capitalizing on the hero’s power and glamour. Knowing full well that few of his subjects could read, Ashurbanipal came up with a groundbreaking solution. He departed from a story told in words and devised a story told in pictures with himself playing the lead role instead of Gilgamesh. His sculptors created a series of freeze frames in stone depicting Ashurbanipal as the slayer of lions, and placed them around his throne room.

Ashurbanipal then went on to create what is probably the world’s first complete visual story, an epic blockbuster with a cast of thousands. The story told of his war with his enemies, the Elamites, and used a visual storytelling technique that had never been seen before – a complex tale that unfolded over many scenes. Not only did it have a beginning, middle and an end, it also had subplots that made the whole story more intriguing. In the end, however, though the freezes are filled with blood and violence, there is no real rage, tears, or emotion. The story is as cold as the stone it is engraved on, making it hard to feel engaged with these characters.

This story is unique in that it’s the first narrative to exploit the universal human desire for a hero. But just having a hero in words is not enough. Unfortunately, it was hard to get emotionally involved in the tale.

It took the Greeks to come up with a visual storytelling style that made you really care; that had psychologically credible characters. The Greeks had a rich tradition of evocative storytelling, and there was one epic story they loved to visualize above all others – Homer’s tale of Odysseus. On the coastline of Sperlonga in Southern Italy, Greek artist converted an enormous cave into a dinning room where guests would sit amongst enormous sculptures and be fed and entertained with stories. The sculptures where not there just for ornamentation, but rather to help visualize the storytelling. One giant sculpture illustrated an incident in the dramatic story of Odysseus’ encounter with the Cyclops, where Odysseus and his men are driving a wooden stake into the Cyclops’ single eye. The sculptors have chosen to show the moment of maximum tension – right before the spear went into the single eye – because it is at this moment that the character’s emotions are the most revealing. And by depicting realistic emotions, this is no longer a story that just tells you what happened, but how it happened. It has psychological motivation. It shows you what people are feeling and marks a crucial step in the history of visual story telling.

The Romans took storytelling one-step further; they combined the three elements of a strong heroic lead, a gripping storyline, and emotionally involving characters into a single visual narrative. Trajan’s Column in Rome (see Storytelling Interactive) is perhaps the best example of this type of visual communication.

In the end, however, as impressive as the column may be, it’s still missing something – it still lacks the power to captivate. But this missing piece can be found in the non-classical civilization of the Australian Aborigines, whose storytelling combines the visual, as well as music and singing. The images that most Aboriginal artists paint today are the same images that were painted on rock walls thousands of years ago. The Barramundi fish, Yingarna, the Earth Mother, the Rainbow Serpent – these are paintings that each tell a unique story. However, the Aboriginal artist doesn’t paint a sequence of images as if outlining the plot of a story. Instead, they use single stylized images to trigger in the mind of the onlooker stories they already know. But the use of a single image is only one part of their storytelling secret. These artists also use music, song and dance to enveloped their audience in a full multimedia experience designed to stimulate not only the eyes, but the ears as well. This soundtrack, then, is what has given Aboriginal stories the power to survive for thousands of years. It is this soundtrack that provides the power for the Aboriginal story to have survived thousands of years, and which is so critical to the success of modern film’s ability to transport us into other worlds.

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