Author: Roger Dodger

JUMBO EMBED

MARTIN EDEN EMBED

MARTIN EDEN

MARTIN EDEN
2019 | Dir Pietro Marcello | 129 mins | Italy | France

Martin Eden (Luca Marinelli), comes from Naples’ working class, but his fate is changed forever when he defends a young boy from a beating by a security guard on the docks. The boy repays him for his kindness by inviting him into his bourgeois home, and it is there that Martin meets Elena (Jessica Cressy), the daughter of an upper-crust industrial family. It is love at first sight for Eden, seduced by her education and refinement. Martin’s dream of becoming an accomplished writer is now something he hopes will elevate him to the family’s social standing and marriage with Elena. He proves himself quickly as an autodidact, but grapples with politics under the influence of a left-wing journalist, Russ Brissenden (Carlo Cecchi), who guides him deeper into socialist circles. It results not only in a political reawakening, but also to a split with Elena and her elite world.
However, his eventual success as a writer leads him into new problems.
Italian with English subtitles.

The David Lean Cinema receives a share of the ticket price when purchased via links on this page.

Distributor: New Wave Films – No account required.

Martin Eden is a sad story of a sad man who lacks the capacity for happiness and who is astonished to find that artistic success is as compromised as any other kind. But there is a kind of thrill in tracing his progress from rags to riches to annihilation. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian

LADY BOSS

LADY BOSS – THE JACKIE COLLINS STORY
2021 | Dir Laura Fairrie | 96 mins | USA | UK

We take an immersive journey through the trailblazing life of Jackie Collins. Spinning together fact and fiction, this feature documentary tells the untold story of a ground-breaking author and her mission to build a one-woman literary empire. Narrated by a cast of Jackie’s closest friends and family, the film reveals the private struggles of a woman who became an icon of 1980s feminism whilst hiding her personal vulnerability behind a carefully crafted, powerful, public persona.
With more than 500 million copies of her 32 novels sold in 40 countries around the world, several of which were turned into popular movies and television specials, Jackie Collins rose to the very top rungs of Hollywood celebrity with her tales of glamourous lives, fabulous wealth, sensational scandals, and, always, powerful women calling the shots.  Defining her own brand of feminism, and seizing the zeitgeist of 1980s success and power, Jackie defended her racy rhetoric from culture and literary critics, while carefully tending an enormous, faithful, and ardent base of fans.  Her personal life was, at turns, more ordinary and sometimes darker than her fans may have expected. She was a devoted mother of three who made lunches, took her kids to school, and cared for her ailing mother.  She also endured the tragic deaths of three loves, all the while discovering her own power and chronicling her amazing stories.  The last chapter of her life was ‘written’ in near secret.  Jackie lived with breast cancer for more than six years, sharing her terminal diagnosis only with her beloved daughters, until mere days before her death.  Her final letter to fans was both a thank you for their devotion and a clarion for their vigilance about their own personal health.
Film run ends on Friday 10 September 2021.

“A lively tribute to a woman who player by her own rules. This is an engrossing, fast-moving package full of visual interest…” Hollywood Reporter
“Watchable, with some stinging rebukes for the male snobs…” Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian

LADY BOSS EMBED

WE INTEND TO CAUSE HAVOC

WE INTEND TO CAUSE HAVOC
2019 | Dir Gio Arlotta | 88 mins | Czech | Italy | Zambia

The film follows the twenty-first century formation of WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc) Zambia’s most popular rock band of the 1970s and leaders of the ground-breaking ‘Zamrock’ movement. Lead singer, Jagari, whose name is an Africanisation
of Mick Jagger’s, guides us through the band’s awakening to the sounds of the The Rolling Stones and the British Invasion bands of the 60s, which would see Jagari and the band develop their own unique blend of heavy psychedelic rock and African rhythms taking them to the pinnacle of Zambia’s music scene.
After an arrest, prison sentence and religious conversion Jagari ends up leading the
quiet life of a countryside quartz miner until a reunion and performances in front of adoring crowds on his first ever European tour, 40 years after his last album was released.
Soundtracked by WITCH’s distinctive sound, WITCH: We Intend to Cause Havoc features band members Emmanuel ‘Jagari’ Chanda, Patrick Mwondela, Victor Kasoma and Groovy Joe Kunda, along with young contemporary psychedelic musicians Jacco Gardner and Nik Mauskoviç.

The David Lean Cinema receives a share of the ticket price when purchased via links on this page.

Distributor: Modern Films – No account required.

“The history of Zamrock, Africa’s great forgotten rockers” – Steve Rose in The Guardian

WITCH embed

TMSN embed

THE MAN STANDING NEXT

THE MAN STANDING NEXT (2020)
Dir Woo Min-ho | 114 mins | South Korea

It is 1979, and South Korea has been under the absolute domination of President Park’s dictatorship for 18 long years. Kim Gyu-pyeong (Lee Byung-hun), the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), has asserted his loyalty to the president despite having his doubts about the leader’s intentions. When the former director of the KCIA flees to America with a time-bomb of government secrets, Kim is sent on a mission to stop the truth in its tracks.
As the government’s web of lies continues to be spun, tensions build, alliances crumble, and the once impenetrable leadership must face the fact that all men, no matter how powerful, must die.
The South Korean nomination for the 2021 Academy Awards, The Man Standing Next is based on an acclaimed novel and charts the knife-edge political machinations which played out during one of the darkest periods of the country’s political history.
English, Korean, French, Japanese with English subtitles.

The David Lean Cinema receives a share of the ticket price when purchased via links on this page.

Distributor: Blue Finch Films – No account required.

“A complex quadrille of alliances and betrayals, performed mostly in darkened, panelled rooms, as the soundtrack provides a constant percussive beat spelling doom for several figures” Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian