TCO Rooftop Cinema
Thursdays (and sometimes other nights too) at NAC
Doors open at 7:30PM / Screening at 8PM
get your tickets in advance!
Thursday 16 September 2021
TALKING ABOUT TREES
France, Sudan, Chad, Germany, Qatar, 2019. Directed by Suhaib Gasmelbari. 93 min. PG
Premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival (Panorama) 2019, this poignant and witty documentary focuses on four Sudanese directors whose careers have been stalled since a military coup in 1989 triggered the collapse of the country’s film industry. The film begins surreally with the filmmakers recreating the famous ‘closeup’ scene from Sunset Boulevard. None of them have worked properly in years. Now a power outage prevents them from even watching a movie, so they make do. Ibrahim Shaddad wraps a blue chiffon scarf coquettishly around his face as Norma Desmond, simpering: “I’m ready for my closeup.” Presented in Arabic with English Subtitles.
*****NEW DATES + moved to indoor screening at NAC’s Cinema lounge*****
Wednesday 13 October & Friday 15 October
FANNY: The Right To Rock
Canada, 2021. Directed by Bobbi Jo Hart. 92 min. NR
“Revivify Fanny. And my work is done.”- David Bowie
Sometime in the 1960s, in sunny Sacramento, two Filipina-American sisters got together with other teenage girls to play music. Little did they know their garage band would evolve into the legendary rock group Fanny, the first all-women band to release an LP with a major record label (Warner/Reprise, 1970). Despite releasing 5 critically-acclaimed albums over 5 years, touring with famed bands from SLADE to CHICAGO and amassing a dedicated fan base of music legends including David Bowie, Fanny’s groundbreaking impact in music was written out of history… until bandmates reunite 50 years later with a new rock record deal.
With incredible archival footage of the band’s rocking past intercut with its next chapter releasing a new LP today, the film includes interviews with a large cadre of music icons, including Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, Bonnie Raitt, The Go-Go’s Kathy Valentine, Todd Rundgren, The Runaways’ Cherie Currie, Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian, The B52’s Kate Pierson, Charles Neville and David Bowie guitarist and bassist Earl Slick and Gail Ann Dorsey.
Fighting early barriers of race, gender and sexuality in the music industry, and now ageism, the incredible women of Fanny are ready to claim their hallowed place in the halls of rock ‘n’ roll fame.
Thursday 30 September 2021- Screening moved indoors at NAC. Limited capacity. Proof of vaccine required at entry!
Malni—Towards the Ocean, Towards the Shore
USA, 2020. Directed by Sky Hopinka. 80 min. NR
A poetic, experimental debut feature circling the origin of the death myth from the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, małni – towards the ocean, towards the shore follows two people as they wander through their surrounding nature, the spirit world, and something much deeper inside. At its center are Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier, who take separate paths contemplating their afterlife, rebirth, and death. Probing questions about humanity’s place on earth and other worlds, Sky Hopinka’s film will have audiences thinking (and dreaming) about it long after. Presented in English and Chinook jargon, with subtitles.
“Critic’s Pick! An essential portrait of contemporary Indigenous life. Beckons audiences onto its wavelength by tapping into something more intuitive, the stuff of dreams.” — Beatrice Loayza, The New York Times
“Truly radical, not because of its politics or its impressions of the world at large, but because it presents something evocative, unique, and un-replicable in its personal voice.” – Soham Gadre, Film Inquiry
