Film series: Cinema ‘68 28 February – 6 May 2018

It is 50 years since the events of 1968 radically reshaped the social, political and cultural landscape. From Hong Kong to Helsinki, Mexico City to Malaysia, protests, strikes and revolution ripped apart the East-West divide. Decolonisation movements, civil rights marches, mass opposition to Vietnam and rebellions against dictatorships reverberated across the globe. Prague was invaded. Tokyo students took to the streets. Paris burned.

In this moment of worldwide reinvention, cinema experienced a parallel overhaul. Under the banner of New Wave movements, exciting new filmmaking talents boldly decentralised international cinema’s established centres of gravity. In Latin America and Africa, the first stirrings of Third Cinema decried colonialism; in Eastern Europe, artists rebelled against the strictures of social realism; and in South East Asia, the national cinemas of Singapore and Cambodia entered their golden ages. Filmmakers looked beyond national and aesthetic borders, drawing succour as much from arte povera, situationism and pop art as the now decade-old French nouvelle vague.

Apart from their production date, the selected films share a fascination with memory. These stories about mythology, zombies and lost arts remind us that – even in 1968 – the present moment was never immediately at hand but rather expectant with its future and haunted by the past.

Bringing together ten landmark films released in 1968, this season (screening 28 February – 6 May 2018) showcases the singular visions of post-revolutionary Cuban cinema, Japanese nūberu bāgu, the Italian spaghetti western and more. Cinema ’68 offers a genre-spanning cross-section of a remarkable moment in time.

Films

• 28 February, 4 March – Rat life and diet in North America (director Joyce Wieland, Canada, 1968, 16mm) + Night of the living dead (director George A Romero, US, 1968, 16mm) 

• 7, 11 March – The swimmer (director Frank Perry, US, 1968, 35mm) 

• 14, 18 March – Once upon a time in the west (director Sergio Leone, Italy/US, 1968, 35mm) 

• 21, 25 March – Lucía (director Humberto Solás, Cuba, 1968, 35mm) 

• 28 March, 1 April – Stolen kisses (director François Truffaut, France, 1968, 35mm) 

• 4, 8 April – Reconstruction (director Lucian Pintilie, Romania, 1968, 35mm)  

• 11, 15 April – Kuroneko (director Kaneto Shindô, Japan, 1968, 35mm) 

• 18, 22 April – The arch (director Tang Shu Shuen, Hong Kong, 1968, 35mm) 

• 25, 29 April – Pas de deux (director Norman McLaren, Canada, 1968, 16mm) + Innocence unprotected (director Dušan Makavejev, Yugoslavia, 1968, 16mm) 

• 2, 6 May – Shame (director Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1968, 35mm)