Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 266: Wed Oct 3

Ava and Gabriel: A Love Story (de Rooy, 1990): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.40pm



This 35mm screening is part of the 'Black and Banned' season at BFI Southbank. You can find details of all the films in the season here

Chicago Reader review:
A black painter trained in Holland arrives on the Dutch island of Curacao in the 1940s to execute a church mural, but his proposal to model his Virgin on a local mixed-race woman provokes crude theological debate as to whether Mary must be shown as white. Felix de Rooy's 1990 film is less a drama than a rambling and often nostalgic portrait of life on the island built of varied details, including the seduction of the painter by the governor's wife, episodes of gay sex, and a mother who beats her adult daughter.

Fred Camper


Here (and above) is an extract.

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