Capital Celluloid 2014 - Day 61: Sun Mar 2

Finis Terrae (Epstein, 1929): Tin Tabernacle Church, 12 Cambridge Ave, Kilburn, NW6


This is a special film programme in a wonderful venue curated by Nobody Ordered Wolves. Here is the introduction to the evening:


A very special programme of films about the sea. A series of poems about the ocean – its cruelty and its beauty – shown under the arches of a ship's innards. A ship that has run aground in Kilburn Park, encased in a tin church built in nine days in 1863. Jean Epstein's work has been unjustly neglected in the Anglophone world. A true pioneer of cinema, he proved a heavy influence upon the work of Buñuel and many other surrealist filmmakers. Using mostly non-professional actors, the film shows the precariousness of life in the remote coastal islands, where even broken bottle can have mortal consequences. Probing the love between two young men, this film is full of imagery that overflows with the grotesque in nature and the surrealism of the seaweed smoker's work. Moment to moment, Finis Terrae delivers more swoonsome cinema beauty than I Am Cuba, Days of Heaven and The Conformist combined. 
The feature is preceded by a programme of shorts that show the sea as a cruel mistress, the home of freakish vampires and as the source of all musical rhythm.

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