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Strike a Pose

When seven young male dancers were plucked from the New York drag-ball scene to appear in Madonna’s Vogue music video, they never could have envisaged what life had in store for them. Embarking on the 1990 Blonde Ambition Tour, they would become global icons for the gay community, making vogueing a global phenomenon and forming a kind of surrogate family with the Queen of Pop, as seen in the movie In Bed With Madonna (1991). Revisiting their stories 25 years on, Strike a Pose is open, emotional retelling of the highs of fame and stardom, and the hardships of dealing with the fall once it’s all over.

Followed by Q&A with the filmmaker Ester Gould and original Madonna dancer Kevin Stea. Introduced by the delectable voguers House of Shabazz. 

Tickets available from the Rio Cinema website here.

After party at VFD, for more information click here.

 

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Transit Havana

Odette, Juani and Malú are awaiting gender realignment, courtesy of Europe’s best surgeons. They are the beneficiaries of a programme established by Fidel Castro’s daughter Mariela, who is being credited with leading a sexual revolution under the auspices of the socialist state. Marking a sea change in the lives of Cuban trans people, they nevertheless face the difficulties of bigotry, poverty and prostitution, all themes that are sensitively explored in this truly touching documentary.

Tickets available from the Rio Cinema website here.

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Sonita

A story of conservative society, furious rhymes and mic drops, Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami’s extraordinary film follows Sonita Alizadeh, a young female Afghan refugee living in Iran, who rejects an arranged marriage in order to pursue a life making rap music. Standing up to conservative traditions and challenging assumptions, her dream of emulating Rihanna goes down like a lead balloon with her mother. But this self-possessed would be pop star isn’t going to let that stop her.

Sonita won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for World Cinema – Documentary at Sundance Film Festival 2016.

Tickets are available from the Genesis website here.

Part of Cutting East.

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Notes on Blindness (HoH screening)

When writer and theologian John Hull went blind in 1983, he began keeping an audiocassette diary of his daily life. When it was published in 1990, Oliver Sacks described it as ‘the most extraordinary, precise, deep and beautiful account of blindness’. Using total access to the recordings, Notes on Blindness is an ever-evolving artistic project that has included a short film and an engrossing VR experience. Dubbing actors with the recorded voice of Hull, its exploration of how dreams, memories and imagination are impacted by a lack of sight, this is a formally extraordinary insight into a hidden interior world.

This screening will provide captions for the hard of hearing. Following the screening there will be a discussion about hard of hearing subtitling with Pablo Romero-Fresco (University of Roehampton). There will be a BSL interpreter present. 

Tickets are available from the Genesis website here.

Limited number of FREE tickets available here.

Part of Roots. More information here.

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Notes on Blindness

When writer and theologian John Hull went blind in 1983, he began keeping an audiocassette diary of his daily life. When it was published in 1990, Oliver Sacks described it as ‘the most extraordinary, precise, deep and beautiful account of blindness’. Using total access to the recordings, Notes on Blindness is an ever-evolving artistic project that has included a short film and an engrossing VR experience. Dubbing actors with the recorded voice of Hull, its exploration of how dreams, memories and imagination are impacted by a lack of sight, this is a formally extraordinary insight into a hidden interior world.

Followed by Q&A. Audio Description headsets available on request. 

Tickets available from the Picturehouses website here.

 

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National Bird

The people damaged by helping to conduct America’s drone war speak out in National Bird, a disturbing new documentary executive produced by Wim Wenders and Errol Morris. Heather, Daniel and Lisa are former operatives in the U.S. Air Force’s predator programme. Having previously conducted America’s unmanned war before turning whistle-blower, all are suffering from various levels of trauma, government surveillance, and the outright threat of jail. Director Sonia Kennebeck’s film tracks their stories as they battle PTSD, legal trouble and, in one case, an eye opening trip to Afghanistan. What emerges is a disturbing portrait of a nation detached from what it means to protect its citizens, or other people’s. And in its drone footage sweeping over the landscapes of America, its warnings for the future are only too clear.

Followed by Q&A with the filmmaker Sonia Kennebeck.

Tickets available from the Picturehouse website here.

 

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Los Punks: We Are All We Have

Take a trip into the backyards of South Central and East Los Angeles in Los Punks: an intimate documentary exploring a homegrown DIY community of bands, skaters and resolute togetherness. Angela Boatwright’s debut finds a scene four-decades old, but in rude health; uniting young people who often feel unwelcome in the ‘mainstream’, providing a fruitful breeding ground for Latino punk and a conscious, active community, often in the face of poverty and violence.

Tickets available from the Genesis website here.
Part of 40 Years of Punk, for more information click here.

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Uncle Howard

Filmmaker Aaron Brookner delves into the fascinating and tragic story of his uncle Howard, a filmmaker and major player in the 70s and 80s cultural revolution that defined New York’s Lower East Side. Rediscovering Howard’s life and influence through interviews with family and friends such as Jim Jarmusch, much of the film focuses on Howard Brookner’s relationship with William Burroughs, with the former’s unfinished film project languishing inside a locked apartment building, unseen. Loaded with electrifying archive footage, this is unparalleled insight into a vibrant period of queer and NYC history, with a moving personal dimension.

Followed by a Q&A. Tickets available from the Rio Cinema website here.

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Seven Sisters Indoor Market, The

The groundswell of gentrification, urban regeneration and community exclusion in East London is touchingly explored in The Seven Sisters Market. Depicting a rapidly transforming London through the eyes of a diverse group of migrants, this observational documentary takes in the work and social lives of the people frequenting this vibrant and historic local marketplace, its importance in the community, and the threat posed by hyper-capitalist development to the melting pot cultural life of London, where the nature of urban space is being rapidly, disturbingly redefined.

Followed by a Q&A. Tickets available at the Rio Cinema website here.

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London Overground

‘A tiny little map of what is happening now’ is how legendary east London author Iain Sinclair describes the London Overground line, the subject of John Roger’s (Make Your Own Damn Art, EEFF 2012) film following Sinclair and frequent collaborator Andrew Kötting as they traverse the train line on foot. Undertaken for the purposes of Sinclair’s book of the same name, this journey takes place over a year as opposed to the day’s walk written about by Sinclair. But that simply creates space for Sinclair’s fascination with the ‘Ginger Line’ as the ‘spin-drier of capitalism, whirling banknotes around the city…a real moment to look at this city of unreal money’. An engrossing, frequently humorous exploration of a unique mind, and its insights into a changing city.

Followed by a Q&A. Tickets available from the Rio Cinema website here.