Monday, June 13, 2011

Umbrella Film Club

Advert from Umbrella Magazine between 1959 - 61

Some of these films have been re-shown recently at the Lanchester gallery in Coventry - Shadow Codex event
Lanchester Gallery Project (LGP) hosted a weekly film night as part of the exhibition OUR SHADOW CODEX. Each Wednesday, LGP screened a programme of rare films and video in the gallery. The selection is drawn from Alan Van Wijgerden’s collection and the original 1960s programme of the Umbrella Film Club. The Umbrella Club was initiated in 1955 by Coventry City Architects Department to encourage the appreciation and practice of arts. Van Wijgerden is a local video artist and documentary maker, who over the last three decades has methodically recorded the political transformation in Coventry. The cinema architecture has been incorporated into the installation build.
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http://lanchestergalleryprojects.org.uk/project/our-shadow-codex-film-club/



OTHER FILMS SHOWN AT THE UMBRELLA CLUB INCLUDED -

During the Transcendental Cauldron 31st Oct -2nd Nov 1969 -
Scorpio Rising - Director Kenneth Anger 1964
Relativity - Director Ed Emshwiller 1966
Sins of the Fleshapoids - Director Mike Kuchar 1964
OFF - ON  10 minute supporting short directed by Richard Bartlett

See the Transcendental Cauldron post for more details on these films.

Many more if you look through the Programmes pdf file (on another post here)
From the current Umbrella Website, a sad on the demise of Malcolm Curtis
Malcolm Curtis, who many of you will remember as the live wire behind the film group, responsible eventually for shooting the film 'Under the Umbrella' for the 10th anniversary in 1965. He kept the film group going till the Club became non-viable in the mid 70s."
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Summer with Monika - "One of the early films shown at the Umbrella at Little Park Street.

Summer with Monika (Swedish: Sommaren med Monika) is a 1953 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman. It sparked controversy abroad for its frank depiction of nudity, and along with the film One Summer of Happiness from the year before, directed by Arne Mattsson, it started the reputation of Sweden as a sexually liberated place.

The film made a star of its lead actress, Harriet Andersson. Bergman had been intimately involved with Andersson at the time and conceived the film as a vehicle for her. This marks an important shift in Bergman's portrayal of women on screen; the sexual objectification of Andersson is evident throughout the piece and subsequent works. The two of them would go on to make several other films together, even after their romantic relationship had ended, most notably Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), and Through a Glass Darkly (1961)."

(From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_with_Monika )



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