May 26 – Lumumba
The true story of the rise to power and brutal assassination of the formerly vilified and later redeemed leader of the independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Using newly discovered historical evidence, Haitian-born and later Congo-raised writer and director Raoul Peck renders an emotional and tautly woven account of the mail clerk and beer salesman with a flair for oratory and an uncompromising belief in the capacity of his homeland to build a prosperous nation independent of its former Belgium overlords. Lumumba emerges here as the heroic sacrificial lamb dubiously portrayed by the international media and led to slaughter by commercial and political interests in Belgium, the United States, the international community, and Lumumba’s own administration; a true story of political intrigue and murder where political entities, captains of commerce, and the military dovetail in their quest for economic and political hegemony
Film starts at 7.45 and will be followed by discussion and drinks.
£3 entry to film / £2 students / unwaged
Running time: 115 mins
Arna’s Children is a 2003 Palestinian documentary film directed by Juliano Mer Khamis about a children’s theatre group in Jenin in the Palestinian territories. The film won “Best Documentary Feature” 2004 Tribeca Film Festival. Arna Mer-Khamis, a Palestinian Jewish woman, was a legendary activist for the rights of the Palestinian people. During the First Intifada she helped establish a children’s theatre group in Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, teaching children, including Zakaria Zubeidi, to express themselves through acting. After her death in 1994, the project was abandoned. Her son Juliano, a well-known actor in Israeli television and the director for the group, filmed Arna working with the children over a 6-year period. Following Arna’s death, he returns to the camp to find out what became of the young refugees.
