With Chloe Zhao currently scooping awards for her latest film,
Nomadland, it's a fitting time for her 2015 debut
Songs My Brothers Taught Me to find its way to UK streaming
courtesy of MUBI. Other highlights include the early works of
Hou Hsiao-Hsien, a spotlight on pinku producer Keiko Sato and
more. Check out the full roster below.
Notturno
The new film by award-winning filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi (Fire At Sea), Notturno is an urgent cinematic achievement from a
master of the documentary form. Shot in Iran, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon
over the course of three turbulent years, it is an intimate and
devastating depiction of the civilian populations who have no choice but
to live on the frontlines. Told with compassion, grace and humanism, this
is a breathtaking cinematic journey.
To accompany the release of Notturno, MUBI will be showing a complete retrospective of Rosi’s work in their
special The Splendor Of Truth: The Cinema Of Gianfranco Rosi, starting in
February. Boatman (1993),
Below Sea Level (2008),
El Sicario, Room 164 (2010), Sacro Gra (2013),
and Fire At Sea (2016) are an unconventional account of life
on the margins, starting where the news headlines end.
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
With her new film Nomadland receiving universal acclaim,
MUBI exclusively presents Chloé Zhao’s debut. Beautifully photographed in
the badlands of the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, this is a
wistful and delicately observed tale of loss and familial bonds, featuring
a wonderful cast of non-professional actors.
Independent Women: The Pioneering Cinema of Márta Mészáros
Starting this month, MUBI are spotlighting the trailblazing feminist
cinema of Hungarian director Márta Mészáros, who is celebrating her
90th birthday this year. Leading the way for many talented filmmakers,
Mészáros was the first woman to win a Golden Bear at the 1975 Berlinale.
Throughout the upcoming months MUBI will be showing 10 of Mészáros’ films,
most of which are in their newly restored versions, starting with her
debut The Girl (1968), the first Hungarian feature directed
by a woman.
Hsiao-Hsien Focus: The Early Years
MUBI kicks off a two-month retrospective on the cinema of leading
Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien this March. Starting with his
first film, the musical romantic comedy Cute Girl (1980),
they’ll continue their focus with
The Green, Green Grass Of Home (1982), a tender, beautifully
shot tale of love and childhood in a rural setting, and Hou’s breakout
film The Boys From Fengkuei (1983), an affecting and layered
coming-of-age story that established him as an internationally renowned
filmmaker. In April, they’ll show a restored version of
Daughter Of The Nile (1987), a haunting story of urban
alienation focused on the daily struggles of young people in Taipei.
Keiko Sato: Pinku Maverick
Throughout March, MUBI will be celebrating the work of Keiko Sato,
the Japanese producer behind many of the films of the pinku eiga genre. As
a female producer working on erotic films originally designed to entice
male audiences, Sato was uniquely positioned and, together with young
directors who bent the rules of the genre, created some of the most
radical, avant-garde works in Japanese film. The newly restored titles
included in the special are:
Inflatable Sex Doll Of The Wastelands (Atsushi Yamatoya, 1967), Blue Film Woman (Kan Mukai, 1969),
Women Hell Song: Shakuhachi Benten (Mamoru Watanabe,
1970), Gushing Prayer (Masao Adachi, 1971) and
Abnormal Family (Masayuki Suo, 1984).
Ways of Seeing With Barbara Hammer
On International Women's Day, and nearly two years after her death, MUBI
will be celebrating the work of luminary experimental filmmaker
Barbara Hammer. Born from Hammer’s initiative, who invited
filmmakers to create new films with some of her unused footage, we’re
showing two films that engage with her lasting creative legacy:
Lynne Sachs’ A Month Of Single Frames (2019) and
Deborah Stratman’s Vever (For Barbara) (2019).
Los Conductos
Winner of the Best First Feature Award at the Berlinale,
Los Conductos is a hallucinatory, psychedelic, and political
journey referring to Colombia’s violent history and inspired by the
protagonist’s own experience of leaving a religious sect.
The Legend of the Stardust Brothers
Filled with celebrity cameos, infectious musical performances and
seemingly endless costume changes,
The Legend of the Stardust Brothers is a newly-restored
musical filled with 80s Japanese pop culture adapted from an “imaginary
soundtrack”.
South
In South, British filmmaker Morgan Quaintance draws historical parallels
between two anti-racist and anti-authoritarian freedom movements in
Chicago’s South Side and South London. Expressionistic and urgent, this is
a deeply relevant work to our age.
