Another quick reminder.  This is tonight. Director Mark Cousins is in town and will be taking part in a Q&A after a screening of his latest film ‘The First Movie’. More info here

After some problems with the initial run of the film, The Belmont is showing Tom DiCillo’s Doors documentary When You’re Strange every day this week. Narrated by some guy called Johnny Depp, it’s packed with rare archive footage including plenty of Jim Morrison being, erm, Jim Morrison.  You have been warned…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMMo3EmIfJw]

This has to be film of the week doesn’t it?  Good old Serge…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMLn1zt0brA]

A welcome 50th anniversary big screen re-release for Jean Luc Godard’s new-wave classic.  All together now, “New York Herald Tribune.”  Superb(e).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCDEAu4R8hA]

Romana Schmalisch presents a lecture/screening using a reconstruction of a film prop from Alexander Medvedkin’s film “The New Moscow” (1938).

The performance reflects on change in urban space using a film archive developed for the machine and has previously been shown in Zurich, Moscow, Rome, Bucharest, Kaliningrad, Vilnius, Kaunas, Warsaw, Berlin, Kiev, London, Paris and Yerevan. Looks cool:

Mobile Cinema

It’s about time there was a proper documentary on maverick comedian Bill Hicks and, going by the reviews, British film-makers Matt Hurlock and Paul Thomas (aided by Hicks’ friends and family) have come up with something that does him justice.  Check The Belmont website for screening times.

Warning: Trailer contains sweary words. Unsurprisingly.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaUvt81gH9c]

This looks great (and slightly frightening), read on, then check the trailer below…

Just how much of our personal information is floating around in government and corporate databases? Filmmaker David Bond decides to find out, by disappearing for a month and setting two of the world’s top private investigators the task of tracking him down, using only publicly available data.

Living in one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world (yup, the UK), he decides to find out how much private companies and the government know about him by putting himself under surveillance and attempting to disappear – a decision that changes his life forever. Leaving his pregnant wife and young child behind, he is tracked across the database state on a chilling journey that forces him to contemplate the meaning of privacy – and the loss of it.

The screening will be followed by a live-by-satellite debate between David Bond (Director), Michael Nyman (who composed the music for the film), David Davis MP, Phil Booth (NO2ID) and Shami Chakrabarti (Liberty).

“A brilliant new documentary.” – Henry Porter, The Observer

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/7534492]

www.erasingdavid.com

The Belmont Picturehouse is delighted to team up with The Kiosque and Momentum Pictures to bring you the opportunity to win some fantastic prizes for the new film THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, which screens at The Belmont from Friday 12th March…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlF-hk3IJQE]

Based on the first instalment of Stieg Larsson’s hugely successful Millennium Trilogy, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO introduces us to a world of buried secrets, family tragedy and simmering sexual tension.  Financial reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Nyqvist) is flying high at Millennium magazine until a story about industrial magnate Hans-Erik Wennerström lands him in court with a libel charge.

Facing conviction, Blomkvist accepts an offer from Wennerström’s rival Henrik Vanger (Taube) to leave Stockholm and travel to the island of Hedestad. It was here 30 years previously that Vanger’s young niece, Harriet, went missing. In return for the journalist’s help in solving the mystery, the ageing Vanger will provide Blomkvist with all the information he needs to prove that Wennerström is involved in criminal activity.

Enter Lisbeth Salander (Rapace), a troubled but beautiful young hacker. Escaping the demons of her own past, she is drawn to Blomkvist’s case. As the pair dig deeper into the Vangers’ complex history, they will uncover a series of shocking events that will draw them inexorably together, but place them in the greatest danger they have ever known…

We have 3 sets of the novel + T-shirt to give away (pictured below). All you have to do is answer the following question:

What language was the novel originally written in?

a) English b) Swedish c) Na’vi

And email your answer to belmont@picturehouses.co.uk marked ‘Dragon Tattoo Comp‘.  Closing date for entries is Monday 15th March

Good luck!

There’s always been a healthy Skateboard culture in Aberdeen and the scene up here is hugely respected across the UK and beyond.  It’s a wee bit more visible nowadays with the addition of the amazing Transition Extreme but skaters tend not to rest on their laurels for too long, they continue to get up off their arses and do stuff. Aye, it was ever thus.

Which brings us to the premiere of A-Deen at The Belmont, it’s a new local skate film which documents the scene over the last three years or so: £3 in (seats are limited, so get down early), you can walk away with a DVD copy for a fiver, T-Shirts will be on sale and there’s a potentially messy party afterwards at Origin from 11pm. See? Doing stuff.

This isn’t the first skate vid to come out of this parish, there have been a few, most notably Alex Craig’s H’Min Bam which is regarded as a classic.  Have a look at Alex’s current venture after the poster. It’s worth it…

OK, so Alex Craig doesn’t live round here anymore (he’s based in Canada) but he is from the North East and is making waves as a film-maker. The trailer below is for his new film Machotaildrop,  a surrealist skate-based fable that’s already been part of the Toronto International Film Festival (the first of many fest screenings I reckon). Fingers-crossed it makes it over here at some point, because it looks totally mental.  Fact fans take note:  the movie also features another expat Aberdonian in the shape of pro-skater John Rattray…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maMF3E7WlBs]