Contrasting Quality in Cine Club's March Programme

Contrasting Quality in Cine Club's March Programme
The cinema screens of Alcalá de Henares will be alive to the contrasting qualities of films from Germany, China and the United Kingdom in March, although one less film will be screened by the Cine Club in the third month of the year because of the Easter week break. The definitive programme will therefore include four sessions a week showing 'Luther' (Eric Till, 2003), 'Lust, Caution' (Ang Lee, 2007) and 'Irina Palm' (Sam Garbarski, 2007).

Cine Club kicks off the month with a film with a theological theme. Coinciding with the eighteenth Festival of Sacred Art in the Madrid Region, a feature film centred on religion from four years ago will be brought back to our screens. On Wednesday the 5th and Thursday the 6th of March 'Luther' will be screened in the Teatro Salón Cervantes. This Franco-German film was directed by the veteran Eric Till, and stars Joseph Fiennes alongside other actors of renown such as Bruno Ganz ('Downfall') and the late Peter Ustinov. The major events of the life of Martin Luther, the monk who caused a schism within the Catholic Church in the XVI century, are depicted in this 121 minute film.

The next film programmed by the Cine Club is even longer at 157 minutes. 'Lust, Caution' will be screened at the Multicines Cisneros cinema. The film marks the long awaited return of Ang Lee to the director's chair following his award-winning 'Brokeback Mountain'. Tony Leung and Joan Chen star in this spy story set in the Shanghai of 1942, occupied by the Japanese. This is an exemplary complex, passionate, and extremely physical film, with the intrigue of a thriller for which Ang Lee was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It was however ignored by the Oscar ceremony last year despite being one of the films most lauded by critics the world over. It will be screened in Alcalá on the 12th and 13th of March.

The last of the films to be included by the Cine Club in March is a far cry from the world of big-budget macro-productions. On the 26th and 27th 'Irina Palm' will be screened at the TSC, a small scale British feature that focuses on the character played by Marianne Faithfull. She takes on the role of Maggie, a widow and a born fighter struggling to help her son Tom get ahead and to raise the money required to pay for treatment for her sick grandson. With these goals in mind she begins an unlikely job in a sex shop where she has to satisfy the desires of clients with a wall separating her from them. Irina Palm is the pseudonym she uses to hide her real identity. A thorny drama handled from an optimistic and entertaining point of view, which turned out to be one of the revelations of last year's crop of films, receiving a fantastic response from audiences.

'Lust Caution' will be shown at the Multicines Cisneros cinema (Plaza de los Santos Niños, 5), and the other two films at the Teatro Salón Cervantes (Cervantes s/n) in Alcalá de Henares. All three films will be screened on Wednesday and Thursday. The screenings will be held at the same times as always: 18.30 and 21.00. Entry for members of the Cine Club is 1 euro, and for those of you who are not members of the film club it is 3 euros.
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