Monday
Sep262011
The History of Cinema in 5 Films
Monday, September 26, 2011 at 6:00AMWhat if you had to explain cinema to someone from another planet and only had five films to do it with? Which films would you pick, and why? Would they be your favourites, your ‘Desert Island Discs’? The ones that changed cinema the most? The ones that are representative of key moments, ideas or artists? Would there be any Australian films on the list?
Join us at AFTRS on 05 October, 2011 at 6:30 pm for a revealing and entertaining debate amongst influential screen culture and industry figures about which films they would pick. Special guests include:
- Neil Peplow – Director of Screen Content, AFTRS
- Kristy Matheson, Film Programmer, ACMI
- Julie Rigg, ABC Radio National MovieTime Presenter and film critic
- Moderated by Karen Pearlman, Head of Screen Studies, AFTRS
Rules of Engagement – each of our special guests will prepare a list of five, with short clips and pithy arguments for why they are right. The audience will vote to come up with a list of ten films.
This event is presented as part of the AFTRS Graduate Certificate in Screen Culture, a course for future arts and broadcast industry critics, commentators, curators, festival directors, arts administrators and project officers. More info here.
For my own pick of 5 - I went for 5 films metaphorically concerned with Humanity by being films about Aliens. Thus I choose:
1) Day the Earth Stood Still (where humanity is in Judgement by the Alien)
2) 2001 (where Humanity becomes the Alien)
3) Alien (where Humanity’s greed seeks to unleash the Alien as a weapon)
4) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (where the Aliens are our friends offering us transcendence)
5) District 9 (where the Alien is the victim and in need of our help)
What are your 5?
Reader Comments (1)
1 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
2 H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds
3 Transformers
4 Wall-E
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