LWLies X MUBI X ICA presents… A week­end of 35mm movie magic

Please walk into the light – MUBI, ICA and Lit­tle White Lies are proud to present a week­ender of movie mas­ter­works screened on glis­ten­ing 35mm cel­lu­loid. The films we have select­ed are all out­liers in some aspect or anoth­er. They are all the prod­uct of genius direc­tors look­ing to cap­i­talise on the pos­si­bil­i­ties of this young medium.

They ask not what cin­e­ma can do for them, but what they can do for cin­e­ma. And even though each title offers a deeply per­son­al insight into the inquir­ing, philo­soph­i­cal, play­ful and sub­ver­sive minds of their mak­er, they also speak about cin­e­ma itself. What does it mean to make a movie? To cre­ate a world? To build a person?

The line-up includes: Jacques Tati’s dance through the Paris of his dreams in Play­time; a dev­il­ish trea­tise on truth in Orson Welles’ F for Fake; an eccen­tric, soul-search­ing con­fes­sion­al in Agnés Varda’s The Beach­es of Agnés; and a Limo-ride through the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma with Leos Carax’ Holy Motors.

Play­time (1967) Direct­ed by Jacques Tati

Fri­day 8 Decem­ber, Cin­e­ma 1 – 8.30pm

A mas­ter­piece that tow­ers above them all, Jacques Tati’s Play­time is a film which rejects nar­ra­tive in an attempt to emu­late the sights, sounds and smells of a mod­ern metrop­o­lis. It’s an immer­sive VR expe­ri­ence 50 years before VR exist­ed. In this stun­ning, panoram­ic opus, Tati’s trade­mark char­ac­ter – the pipe-smok­ing green­horn M Hulot – arrives in a Paris that’s been enmeshed with glass and steel, clean lines and cold hearts. It’s a lament for the par­ti­tions we build our­selves in the name of progress, and the emo­tions we for­get to use while dis­con­nect­ed from the con­vul­sive bus­tle of life. See it and swoon at a hand­made epic like no other.

Daisies (1966), Direct­ed by Vera Chytilová

Sat­ur­day 9 Decem­ber, Cin­e­ma 1 – 2pm

There is noth­ing out there like Daisies, Vera Chytilová’s con­tro­ver­sial anar­cho-fem­i­nist riot from 1966. The film sees two women on a mis­sion to smash up the world before nuclear bombs fall and take care of the job for them. It is a psy­che­del­ic mias­ma of colours and shapes, and is whol­ly emblem­at­ic of the unher­ald­ed director’s com­bat­ive and dis­cor­dant style. The grand finale, in which our hero­ines engage in a pro­longed food fight – a not-so-veiled attack on bour­geois deca­dence – has to be seen to be believed.

F for Fake (1973) Direct­ed by Orson Welles

Sat­ur­day 9 Decem­ber, Cin­e­ma 1 – 8.30pm

And for his final trick, that old racon­teur, huck­ster and magi­cian Orson Welles draws us into his tan­gled web of intrigue and lies in the daz­zling F for Fake. Welles him­self, while mak­ing mer­ry on the isle of Ibiza, intro­duces us to mas­ter art forg­er Elmyr de Hory, as well as hoax biog­ra­ph­er Clif­ford Irv­ing, and in doing so, asks his audi­ence to ques­tion the verac­i­ty of every­thing they see and hear. Fic­tion and doc­u­men­tary is man­gled and inter-spliced, and Welles’ game is to remain one step ahead by nev­er assur­ing the view­er which is which. This is cin­e­ma as a daz­zling par­lour game, and it’s also one of the best edit­ed films ever made.

The Beach­es of Agnés (2008), Direct­ed by Agnés Varda

Sun­day 10 Decem­ber, Cin­e­ma 1 – 3pm

It’s both head-spin­ning and bril­liant that the French icon Agnés Var­da picked up an hon­orary Oscar this year, in recog­ni­tion of her life’s work. This feels fit­ting, as she is a direc­tor whose films refuse to fit into the com­fort­able cat­e­gories set out by the Acad­e­my. This ambling auto-por­trait from 2008 is the per­fect gate­way drug into the won­der­ful world of Var­da, touch­ing on her hopes and anx­i­eties, her past and her future, her loves and her loss­es, and it even includes a short sequence doc­u­ment­ing her attempt to sail, sin­gle-hand­ed, up the Seine in a fish­ing boat at the age of 80. Tru­ly an inspi­ra­tion for us all.

Holy Motors (2012) Direct­ed by Leos Carax

Sun­day 10 Decem­ber, Cin­e­ma 1 – 8pm

Leos Carax: dream­er; cinephile; over-reach­ing fab­u­list and chain-smok­ing torch­bear­er for the artis­tic ideals of the Nou­velle Vague and the ciné­ma du look. With Holy Motors, he has made a film that is wor­thy of his esteemed rep­u­ta­tion, and it is a rare priv­i­lege to be able to screen it on 35mm. Though tempt­ing to try and describe exact­ly what this film is, it’s far too rich, mys­te­ri­ous and play­ful to index in such a cosy fash­ion. It is a loose-leaf odyssey that flies in the face of easy inter­pre­ta­tion, fol­low­ing Denis Lavant as he assumes a num­ber of sur­re­al guis­es as Mon­sieur Oscar, a man who trav­els through the Paris night in a white stretch Limo, look­ing for a way to fit in.

Light Show #1 runs 8 – 10 at ICA Lon­don, with the sup­port of Cre­ative Europe – Media Pro­gramme of the Euro­pean Union. For more info and to book tick­ets vis­it ica.art