Bringing factual features to the capital’s cinemas each week, the DocHouse Thursdays season continues at the Prince Charles on February 2 with a special preview of Nostalgia For The Light, followed by a conversation with director Patricio Guzmán. His extraordinary looking film is set in the world’s driest place, the Atacama Desert (used for depicting Martian locations in fictional pieces), where a translucent sky enables unparalleled stargazing. Astronomical meditations are entwined with the earthly quest by relatives of those ‘disappeared’ during Pinochet’s regime, who search for their loved ones’ remains amid the mountain observatories.
Next Thursday’s outing at the Kilburn Tricyle comprises a double bill UK premiere for The Light In Her Eyes, following a female Islamic preacher around Syria, and Boxing Girls Of Kabul, whose Olympic hopeful pugilists train in a stadium where women were once stoned to death.
Screening at Rich Mix on February 16, Unfinished Spaces is a bittersweet profile of the architects of Cuba’s radical National Arts Schools project. Commissioned in 1961 by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro (who features in previously unseen footage), the three principals have endured decades of contrasting fortunes, exalted ambition commingling with shattered dreams.
This month’s globe-trotting programme concludes at Hammersmith’s Riverside Studios on February 23 with Bernadette: Notes On A Political Journey, which offers an insight into the turbulent life and civil rights work of Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, the veteran Northern Irish activist and former MP who was elected to Parliament aged just 21. The documentary was made by Lelia Doolan, who will also take part in a Q&A.
Check the DocHouse website for more information about these and future events.
