Board Room Screenings
Alexandra Business Park
Prescot Road
St. Helens
WA10 3TP
In the lead up to The Invisible City‘s main event on 12 November 2016, there was a series of intimate screenings of films, which were pensive reflections on paranoia and control.
In the lonely and increasingly automated city we bare witness to obsessive behavior and the pervasive climate of surveillance. Via a wall of CCTV cameras or crackling audio recording, in the office or tower block there is a glitch, a complication in what has been seen or heard.
It is here we see a redemptive glimpse of humanity as political and personal ethics are broken.
Red Road (Dir. Andrea Arnold / 2006 / cert. 18)
8 November / 7pm
Thriller Red Road is the first feature film by acclaimed, experimental British filmmaker Andrea Arnold. Exploring themes of obsession and visibility, the film follows CCTV operator Jackie (Kate Dickie) as she observes the world on multiple monitors. Jackie’s routine is disrupted when a man appears on her screen – a man she thought she would never see again. Compelled to discover more, she leaves the safety of her surveillance duties and starts to follow him…
Arnold received an Oscar for her short film Wasp (2005), and won the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival for Red Road and other feature films, Fish Tank and American Honey.
1971 (Dir. Johanna Hamilton / 2014)
9 November / 7pm
Before Watergate, Wikileaks and Edward Snowden, there was Media, Pennsylvania. On March 8, 1971 eight ordinary citizens – calling themselves the ‘Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI’ – broke into an FBI office in Pennsylvania, and took hundreds of secret files. In doing so, they uncovered the FBI’s vast and illegal regime of spying and intimidation. Mailed anonymously, the stolen documents started to show up in newsrooms. The heist yielded a trove of damning evidence – the most significant being an illegal program overseen by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover known as COINTELPRO. Despite one of the largest investigations ever conducted, the FBI never solved the mystery of the break-in, and the identities of the members of the group remained a secret. Until now – 1971 is their story.
The Conversation (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola / 1974 / cert. 15)
10 November / 7pm
In Francis Ford Coppola’s tense psychological thriller, Gene Hackman plays PI Harry Caul, a fiercely private, electronic surveillance expert employed to spy on a young couple. Consumed by curiosity and paranoia, Caul faces a moral-dilema when he suspects the people he is tracking are in serious danger and that his commission, and unknown client, may not be what they seem. The film explores the complex cross-over between suspicion and intimacy, and how the imagination can miss-construe our understanding of what is real.
The Conversation received a number of awards, including the Palme d’Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.
How to Book
Tickets for the Board Room Screenings are free, but must be booked in advance as there is a limited capacity. You can book online at Eventbrite or in person at the Heart of Glass (Old Beecham’s Building, Water Street, St Helens, WA10 1PZ) every Wednesday (10am-4pm).
Location
The screenings will take place in the former Pilkington’s Glass Board Room. Visit the Alexandra Park venue page for the address, directions and arrival info.
Credits
The Board Room Screenings are part of the The Invisible City programme of events, curated and produced by Heart of Glass and Abandon Normal Devices, in partnership with Alexandra Park (St Helens) Management Limited. This project is supported by Arts Council England and Film Hub North West Central, proud to be a member of the BFI Film Audience Network.
Event info:
- Tue 8th — Thu 10th Nov 2016