The Joys of a Curi­ous Cin­e­mat­ic Mind

See if you can name a movie which doesn’t con­tain some the­mat­ic over­lap with the notion of curios­i­ty. It could be the guid­ing force behind an entire nar­ra­tive. Or a sim­ple moti­va­tor that trans­ports a char­ac­ter from point A to point B. Curios­i­ty is inte­gral to human inter­ac­tions, and movies tend to fix­ate on show­ing peo­ple as they accrue knowl­edge, or meet new peo­ple, or expe­ri­ence new locales or sensations.

The act of going to the cin­e­ma can involve a fair amount of curios­i­ty too. Away from the eye-scorch­ing strip-light­ing and eau de pop­corn of the mul­ti­plex, it can some­times take a curi­ous mind to breach the front doors of the local art house or cin­e­ma club, to won­der what goes on inside, away from the com­fort of the Hol­ly­wood main­stream. Bong Joon Ho, on his tri­umphant 2020 awards tour, invit­ed peo­ple to search for their inner curios­i­ty when it came to watch­ing films with subtitles. 

Film Feels, a BFI FAN ini­tia­tive sup­port­ed through Nation­al Lot­tery fund­ing and led by Film Hub Mid­lands, have clev­er­ly tak­en the curios­i­ty inher­ent to cin­e­ma, and the curios­i­ty inher­ent to cin­emago­ing, and chan­nelled them both in a sea­son in which cin­e­mas, film clubs and events organ­i­sa­tions have been empow­ered to pro­gramme screen­ings and events that riff on that expan­sive but dis­tinc­tive impulse of curiosity.

As part of this cel­e­bra­tion, Film Feels have award­ed funds to 27 organ­i­sa­tions around the UK, who have each inter­pret­ed this tan­ta­lis­ing brief in their own unique way, from Blae­nau Ffes­tin­iog to Chester, and from Belfast to the Isle of Skye. Our trail, like all epic jour­neys, starts in Bed­ford and the mul­ti arts organ­i­sa­tion, The Place Bed­ford, which is part­ner­ing with Youtube chan­nel The Cin­e­ma Car­tog­ra­phy [CC] to curate a sea­son of six films focused around the theme of Curios­i­ty. To add a cool immer­sive ele­ment to the phys­i­cal screen­ings, CC have also cre­at­ed a the­mat­i­cal­ly-apro­pos video essay which you can see below.

Else­where, in Glas­gow, Edin­burgh and New­cas­tle, Cine­topia and fem­i­nist-sur­re­al­ist mag­a­zine The Débu­tante, will present an expand­ed pro­gramme called Elec­tric Mus­es, a women-led evening of sur­re­al­ist film and cre­ative tech­no­log­i­cal­ly includ­ing screen­ings of Ger­maine Dulac’s The Seashell and the Cler­gy­man (1928) and Maya Deren’s Mesh­es of the After­noon (1943) with live scores pro­vid­ed by Bell Lungs and Auro­ra Engine. Curios­i­ty is here rep­re­sent­ed in the artist’s cre­ative muse and a desire to expand upon con­ven­tion­al forms of storytelling.

Jacques Riv­ette​’s sem­i­nal Celine and Julie Go Boat­ing (1973) – which may be the ulti­mate mesh­ing of curios­i­ty as both a nar­ra­tive device and cen­tral theme of a movie – will screen on 35mm in July at Nottingham’s Broad­way cin­e­ma, and on the back of that, var­i­ous oth­er ethe­re­al off-shoots will screen as well, includ­ing David Lynch​’s Mul­hol­land Dri­ve (2001) and Robert Alt­man​’s 3 Women (1977). Lon­don Short Film Fes­ti­val, in part­ner­ship with Zodi­ac Film Club, will also screen the film along­side a spe­cial­ly curat­ed shorts pro­gramme at the end of July.

Birds Eye View​‘s Quee­ri­ous pro­gramme will be tour­ing Reclaim The Frame Part­ner venues across the UK, includ­ing Glas­gow Film The­atre, Show­room (Sheffield), Kome­dia (Brighton) and Rio Cin­e­ma (Lon­don), invit­ing audi­ences to get curi­ous and explore mul­ti­tude of desires on screen, through sto­ries of sex­u­al (re)awakening and queer love through a fem­i­nist lens. Select­ed titles are also avail­able online via BFI Player.

And this is all just the tip of the ice­berg, offer­ing a sense of the range of cin­e­mat­ic treats in store, and the cre­ativ­i­ty of pro­gram­mers around the UK react­ing to such a wide-rang­ing brief. The entire project sym­bol­is­es the idea that, when it comes to dis­cov­er­ing new art, it takes efforts from both the indi­vid­ual and the arts pro­gram­mer work­ing togeth­er for the mag­ic to tru­ly hap­pen. For infor­ma­tion of all Film Feels screen­ings that are hap­pen­ing through June and August of 2022 you can head to Film​Feels​.co​.uk. All we have left to say is: get curi­ous about curiosity.

Film Feels: Curi­ous is run­ning in the UK now. For more details head to film​feels​.co​.uk

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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