What happens when a guy who hates musicals is cursed to sing them? I Hate Musicals is just one of the films featured on the opening night. A group of waiters come wanna-be actors find themselves foiling a mafia 'hit' in the outrageous Bon Appetit! and a lawyer bent on framing a murderer for his own diabolical schemes in JUST; comedy, animation and yes, even a musical, kick off the week of short films.

A series of very useful if alarming 'User Guides' kick off the evening, followed by a spooky thriller from Ireland called Last Night, an animation featuring the voice of Danny Devito and the perils of prom night where Prombies! stalk the halls and a comedy involving 'Fluff'. Other Tuesday highlights include an amazing mix of animation and live action in Adjustment and a short that explores what happens when you sneak into an aircraft rest room and ignore all the warning signs!

An office drone finds his life changed by a free-spirited young woman in the whimsical short drama The Girl Who Could Run 600 Miles Per Hour! and the animation Knight Games shows us a dragon being taught the tricks of the trade when guarding a damsel in distress. An animated monster movie from Japan Negadon: the Monster from Mars captures the 'Golden Age' of tokusatsu cinema, followed by a gritty urban tale from the USA; Pop Foul are among the other films being screened.

Expect black comedies from the USA and Finland in the shape of Gay Zombie and The Strange Death of Mrs Muller, some French sci-fi in the shape of Waiting for Yesterday and gothic horror from Ireland in Rogairie.

The final evening is another trip around the world that starts close to home with quirky romantic comedy Hoopla and how not to prepare for The Audition. Our journey then takes us to Finland for BANG! and then across to Canada for Hiro where a man and his prize bug must not be parted! We swiftly cross to New Zealand before heading home for more UK films about obsession and how to tackle urban youths at the corner shop in Hooded.

 

Thursday 3 July at 7.30pm

Venue: John Clare Theatre, Central Library, Broadway

Admission: £4 Members & £5 Non-members

Orphée (1950), recently re-released, updates a classic myth for modern audiences, referencing everything from French Resistance shortwave radios to Nazi bully boys and rock'n'roll teenyboppers. Its real achievement, is in realising the power of cinema to bring fantasy to life.

 

Full of haunting imagery plucked from the realm of fairy tales, Orphée is one of the great cinematic fantasies of the 20th century, a bold attempt to merge film and poetry. Updating the Greek myth of Orpheus' journey into the underworld to 1940s France, surrealist filmmaker Jean Cocteau spins a captivating daydream around the adventures of a poet (Jean Marais) who is taken through a mirror into the next world by a mysterious princess (María Casares), who might be Death herself.

 

Written & directed by Jean Cocteau and stars Jean Marais, Francois Perier & Maria Casares.

95 mins. In French with English subtitles.

Cert: PG & contains mild violence