Friday 16th June at 8pm
Zizek!
Astra Taylor USA 05 digital 71 mins

The author of works on subjects as wide-ranging as Alfred Hitchcock, 9/11, opera, Christianity, Lenin and David Lynch, Slavoj Zizek is one of the most important- and provocative - cultural theorists working today. Taylor's debut documentary trails the Slovenian philosopher as he traverses the globe, racing from packed New York City lecture halls, through the streets of Buenos Aires, and stopping off at home in Ljubljana. In transit, Zizek obsessively unravels the invisible workings of ideology according to his unique blend of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Marxism, and pop culture critique.   Erudite and immensely entertaining - a portrait of cultural theorist as spectacle showman.   This is an advanced preview ahead of its UK release. Thanks to Astra Taylor and the New York Documentary Campaign for this screening.
Introduced by Mark Devenney

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Saturday 17th at 6.30pm
The Universal Clock
Geoff Bowie Canada 2001 video 76 min.

The Universal Clock explores the assumption that the contemporary documentary has become a homogenized, customised commodity - its packaged, streamlined images and sounds concerned less with revealing reality than concealing it. Bowie finds an opposition to this mass media 'monoform' in the work of filmmaker Peter Watkins whose unique cinematic approach, sometimes described as documentary reconstruction, is determined by the opinions and actions of his films participants. Bowie follows and interviews Watkins as he makes his most recent work 'The Commune (Paris 1871)', an epic six-hour re-imagining of the 19th century uprising against Napoleon III by the Communards. Critical Positions will host a special screening of The Commune in late summer. Introduced by Jonathan Swain.

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Saturday 17th June at 8.30pm
Negri: A Revolt That Never Ends
Alexandra Weltz and Andreas Pichler Germany 2004 digital 52 min

A profile of the writer, philosopher and alleged ideologue of the Italian Red Brigades - Antonio Negri has been at the forefront of radical thought in Italy for decades. 'Revolt' traces Negri's life and ideas from his early involvement in 'Autonomia' and the left-wing workers movements of the 1960s and 1970s, through to his imprisonment, exile, and subsequent collaboration with Deleuze and Guattari. Now internationally renown as the co-author of 'Empire', Negri is a leading spokesman of the anti-globalization movement. The film features recent interviews conducted following his release from confinement, commentary from his co-author Michael Hardt, and rare archival footage of workers strikes, street confrontations and the political repression that followed. 'Crackles with unexpected twists and is braced by lucid excurses on Negri's political theories... Great!' - Cineaste
Introduced by Andy Knott.

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Sunday 18th at 4pm
The Net
Lutz Dammbeck Germany 2004 digital 110 mins

A complex, thought provoking exploration of the hidden history of the internet and its parallel social philosophies. Award winning filmmaker Dammbeck combines investigative journalism and travelogue to trace the contrasting counterculture responses to the technological revolution. From early pioneers of media art like Marshall McLuhan and Nam Jun Paik through to hippy idealists like Tim Leary and Ken Kesey, to an in depth investigation of the ultimate opponent of technological control Ted Kaczynski - the Unabomber. Dammbeck’s conceptual quest Links these multiple nodes of cultural and political thought revealing an unsettling matrix of revolutionary advances, coincidences, and conspiracies. ‘An intellectual roller coaster ride through art, technology, philosophy, politics, psychology and sociology.’ Osnabrück Media Art Festival.[more]

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Sunday 18th June at 7pm
The Ister
David Barison+ Daniel Ross 2004 Australia digital 189 mins

The Ister is a remarkable 3000km journey to the heart of Europe, from the mouth of the Danube river in Romania, to its source in the German Black Forest. It forms a compelling philosophical investigation in to the nature of being and time that takes as its starting point the 1942 lectures of Martin Heidegger and the poetry of Friedrich Holderlin. Though Heidegger swore allegiance to the National Socialists in 1933, his work has inspired some of the most remarkable thinkers and artists working today. As the voyage progresses four of these - Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe , Jean-Luc Nancy, Bernard Stiegler, and the filmmaker Hans-Jürgen Syberberg evaluate Heidegger’s pivotal role in contemporary thought and attempt to unravel the extraordinary past and future of ‘the west’. "An impressive philosophical exercise and a meditative work of cinematic beauty." - Jamie Russell/BBC. "A philosophical feast—at which it is possible to gorge oneself yet leave feeling elated,” Variety [more]
Introduced by Mary Anne Francis.

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Wednesday 21 st June at 6pm
Argument
(Anthony McCall & Andrew Tyndall, US, 1978, video, 84 mins)

Anthony McCall and Andrew Tyndall's legendary and provocative essay film first screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1978, and has been almost unseen for the last twenty years. Artist film and video distributor LUX has now made a new high definition restoration of the film, and its trenchant analysis of media ideology seems more pertinent than ever.
Three male voices dissect one edition of The New York Times through a series of locked-off shots, revealing the prejudice and latent content of news and advertisements, reading images as texts and presenting text as an image. Fashion photographs are used as a starting point for a political investigation of news, advertising, and images of masculinity - while at the same time, the filmmakers reflect on their own position and the possibility of radical film practice. Influenced by both the American and European avant-gardes, notably Godard and Hollis Frampton, Argument is stylistically beautiful and relentless in its enquiry.

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Wednesday 21st at 8pm
Sociology is a Martial Art
Pierre Carles France 2002 video 146 mins subtitled

A rigorous, compelling, award winning portrait of the life and work of the late Pierre Bourdieu, regarded by many as one of France's most influential thinkers and prominent social activists. Bourdieu’s work explored the complex correlations between cultural codes and the hierarchies of class and power – he saw sociology not simply as an academic ritual but as a tool for political action. Filmed over three years, Carles’ camera follows Bourdieu as he lectures, attends political rallies, travels, meets with his students, staff, and research team in Paris, and includes Bourdieu in conversation with Günter Grass. ‘Sociology…’ became a huge hit in France shortly before Bourdieu’s death in 2002. "Compelling! Truly moving." - Cineaste ‘Perhaps the definitive memoriam to Bourdieu’ Leonardo Review [more from Leonardo]

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Thursday 22 nd June at 6pm
Images of the World and the Inscription of War
Dir Harun Farocki West Germany 1988 16mm 75 mins subtitles

What can the camera capture that the eye cannot see? Filmmaker and theorist Harun Farocki is a leading montage-based film essayist whose work attempts to disclose the structures behind institutional power and the ideologies embedded in visual communication.   In this, his most celebrated film, a series of aerial photographs of Auschwitz inadvertently taken by the US airforce in 1944 and rediscovered in a CIA archive 30 years later, serve as the basis for a dazzling examination of 100 years of image making.

'There is not a wasted frame in 75 minutes...' NY Times

Interview with Farocki (Senses of Cinema)
Introduction to Farocki (Senses of Cinema)

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Thursday 22nd June at 8pm
Town Bloody Hall
Chris Hegedus/D A Pennebaker USA 1979 16mm 88 min

A raucous, rough-edged and riotously funny record of the now legendary debate on feminism held in New York in 1971, organised in response to the furore surrounding Norman Mailer's inflammatory article 'The Prisoner of Sex'. Mailer himself chaired the discussion, sharing the podium with four women representing different strands of feminism; journalist and lesbian spokeswoman Jill Johnston , critic Diana Trilling, author Germaine Greer and president of N.O.W Jacqueline Cebellos. Roving, zooming camerawork intimately captures the volatile atmosphere and impassioned reactions of both jury and audience. An invaluable historical artefact, and a distillation of the political currents then raging in the USA and far beyond.

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