Culture Diary w/c 09-09-2019
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from around the North of England and the rest of the UK – and loads of it’s free!
Monday – Scalarama/Venues Nationwide – Prices Vary
The annual, nationwide celebration of cinema continues. Running until the end of this month in venues large, small and often non-traditional, it is inspired by the energy and DIY spirit of the legendary Scala Cinema. Founded in 2011, the festival runs on the dictum of “by everyone, for everyone, everywhere,” foregrounding the passion of exhibitors and audiences above all else. Entering its second week, among tonight’s offerings are The Night of the Hunter, prizewinning Liverpool indie, Some Girls Wander and Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Read Adam Scovell on The Night of the Hunter
Tuesday – Margaret Atwood: Live @ 7.30pm in Cinemas Nationwide
For many it will still sound too good to be true, but today sees the publication of Margaret Atwood’s sequel to her foreboding and prescient ground-breaking 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. Brought to popular attention recently with the TV adaptation, on returning to the story 34 years on, Atwood has said: “Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.” The author will be joined and interviewed by Samira Ahmed to discuss the new book, her career and – no doubt – our dizzying, depressing present day reality.
Wednesday – Exhibition Opening: William Blake @ Tate Britain, London – £18
Quite rightly described as a visionary today, “in his own time,” says Liz Mitchell, “he was an oddity, an outcast whose weird nightmare visions put him beyond the pale of the Academy. And when you actually look — really look — at his work,” Mitchell continues, “it is mighty strange.” Mitchell was responding to Blake’s 2016 Tate Liverpool presentation (in a display alongside Tracey Emin). Now the painter, printmaker and poet is the subject of a solo show at Tate Britain, in an exhibition that will include more than 300 works, which seeks to reposition Blake as “a visual artist for the 21st century”.
Thursday – Season Opening: Anime’s Human Machines @ the Barbican, London
Anime’s Human Machines kicks off at the Barbican today, somewhat counterintuitively perhaps for a season dedicated to animation, with live action body horror Tetsuo, The Iron Man. But, released in 1989 (a year after Akira), it is justifiably considered to be in the vanguard of Japanese cyberpunk. Discussing Tetsuo’s influence pre-screening is season curator Helen McCarthy, joined by a panel of experts including Jasper Sharp, Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere and Rayna Denison.
Friday – For Sama + Q&A 6.30pm @ Picturehouse Central, London – £16.90
Programmed by BFI backed influencer project, Reclaim The Frame (RTF), whose aim is to grow audiences for films told from a female perspective, For Sama has been described as “A love letter from a young mother to her daughter”. But this tells only part of the story. The mother in question is Waad al-Kateab, who filmed her life in rebel-held Aleppo through five years of the Syrian uprising, and For Sama – a document of the challenges faced by women and children – is the result. For more on Reclaim The Frame, read our interview with Mia Bays
Saturday – A Day in Liverpool Film Screening 2pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – £7
Emerging in the 1920s, the city symphony genre – which foregrounded urban spaces, capturing modernity’s hustle and bustle in heaving metropolises such as Berlin – evoked a sense of place and progress in ways few people could. At the end of that decade, Liverpool’s docks, the now defunct overhead railway and tram systems, and construction of the Anglican Cathedral were captured for posterity by writer, director and animator Anson Dyer. See the film this weekend on its 90th anniversary, with a live score performed by composer and songwriter Aidan Smith.
Sunday – Exhibition Closing: Scott Charlesworth @ OUTPUT Gallery, Liverpool – FREE
Guest curated by Open Eye Gallery’s Thomas Dukes, today is your last chance to see The Dirt I’m Made Of, an exhibition of photographs by Scott Charlesworth. The title refers to all the things – small and large – that define us, and our perceptions of where we’re from. For Charlesworth, says Dukes: “It’s staring through the windscreen and viewfinder and wondering about what it means to come from somewhere. The 8 cooling towers of Fiddler’s Ferry Power Station [which] act as beacons during country long journeys, revealing themselves and polluting the sky with smoke, marking the home stretch.”
Mike Pinnington
Images from top: On set still from The Night of the Hunter; Install image from Tracey Emin and William Blake: In Focus at Tate Liverpool (18 September 2016-3 September 2017), courtesy Pete Goodbody; Scott Charlesworth @ OUTPUT Gallery
