Oktober
Vrijdag 4 oktober, 20:00
CONTEMPORARY
Asian Movie Night: Cat Got Your Tongue
Cats’ Apartment
Jung Jae Eun | 2020 | Zuid-Korea | 88’ | EN subs
EN Cat Got Your Tongue is Asian Movie Night Autumn Edition, engaging with screening, poetry reading, talks and a nail salon. Films in this program share stories about people staying with difficulties and troubles in their lives while making kinship with stray cats.
Filmhuis Cavia is one of the venues of the Asian Movie Night programme that deals with a theme on cat and care. Cats' Apartment is a documentary film about the migration process of cats who lost their homes due to the reconstruction of Dunchon Jugong Apartment (12,032 households) in Seoul. The area is designed for humans by humans, but many other species' lives coexist. After the complex was abandoned, it had been squatted by cats. However, their lives were at stake when demolition began. Who owns the city? Are urban spaces pursuing a 'city only for humans' without a sense of responsibility for other living things? The film conveys sympathy and comfort to all vulnerable people in the city who had to leave the area by recording violence from the cats' perspectives.
After the screening, there will be a poetry reading: I Will Call Those Things My Cats*
*A poem from I’m Ok I’am Pig, 2014 written by Kim Hyesoon
Woensdag 9 oktober, 20:30
SPECIAL
Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes:
Peruvian Horror Cinema
EN In various parts of the Andes, a diverse range of films is challenging the hegemonic practices of film production, archiving, and distribution. These productions emerge from marginalized communities, using simple, often outdated devices to make films. These films resonate with sectors of society that have felt underrepresented by mainstream media, showcasing histories and memories that are often lost in the complex socio-political contexts from which they arise.
On the 9th and 10th of October, we will present a selection of these films curated and introduced by three Latin American scholars who are part of the book Small Cinemas of the Andes: New Aesthetics, Practices and Platforms (2023). After the screenings, they will also engage in a discussion with the audience. MORE→
Donderdag 10 oktober, 20:30
SPECIAL
Small(er) Cinemas of the Andes:
Ecuadorian Small(er) Cinemas in a double-bill
EN In various parts of the Andes, a diverse range of films is challenging the hegemonic practices of film production, archiving, and distribution. These productions emerge from marginalized communities, using simple, often outdated devices to make films. These films resonate with sectors of society that have felt underrepresented by mainstream media, showcasing histories and memories that are often lost in the complex socio-political contexts from which they arise.
On the 9th and 10th of October, we will present a selection of these films curated and introduced by three Latin American scholars who are part of the book Small Cinemas of the Andes: New Aesthetics, Practices and Platforms (2023). After the screenings, they will also engage in a discussion with the audience. MORE→
Vrijdag 11 oktober, 20:30
CLASSIC
Andreas Marschall special
Tears of Kali
Andreas Marschall | 2004 | Duitsland | 106’ | German, EN subs
EN To celebrate the completion of Andreas Marschall’s new feature film, Black.White.Red. (2024), Filmhuis Cavia is proud to present this German director’s past works: his feature film debut Tears of Kali (2004) and his subsequent genre-horror film Masks (2011).
Tears of Kali tells eerie stories around the Taylor-Eriksson-group and their members in three episodes - Shakti, Devi, Kali -, embedded into a frame plot. This group tried to re-define the limits of self-finding, sex and violence. Starting as a psychological cat-and-mouse-game, the story soon turns into pure horror.
“It is easy to go to hell, the gates are wide open night and day. The problem is to return, to find the way back, that is the difficult goal.” (Virgil, Aeneid; from the press kit of Tears of Kali)
Please note: Tears of Kali contains disturbing depictions of graphic violence, occult themes, physical and psychological torture, self-harm and suicide.
Zaterdag 12 oktober, 20:30
CLASSIC
Andreas Marschall special
Masks
Andreas Marschall | 2011 | Duitsland | 108’ | German, EN subs
EN After multiple rejections from drama schools, aspiring actress Stella gets accepted into the "Matteusz Gdula" private school. But despite her hard work, her lack of talent makes her the target of ridicule from her peers. The only person she befriends is Cecile, a charismatic girl who seems to live at the school. Cecile tells Stella about Gdula, the mysterious founder of the school, who invented a controversial acting method in the 70s that was supposed to make every actor “shine.” However, when several students died during his sessions, Gdula committed suicide, and his method was banned. The disappearance of a fellow student, strange noises from the abandoned wing of the school, and the teachers' odd behavior when asked about Gdula and his method—all suggest that someone is still practicing Gdula’s bizarre technique. And Stella wants to participate, no matter the cost—even if it might cost her life...
Please note: Masks contains disturbing depictions of graphic violence, self-harm and death.
Andreas Marschall, born in Karlsruhe in 1961, is a renowned German artist and filmmaker. He became known in the 1980s as a cover artist for rock and metal bands like Blind Guardian, Kreator and Hammerfall, before starting to direct and edit music videos, commercials, and films. Marschall's notable works include the 2004 psychological horror film Tears of Kali (2004), the Giallo-inspired Masks (2011), and his contribution to the horror anthology German Angst (2015) alongside Jörg Buttgereit and Michal Kosakowski. In addition to filmmaking, Marschall continues to design album covers and direct music videos.
Zondag 13 oktober, 20:30
FILM FESTIVAL
Amsterdam Film Meeting pre-festival screening
Weightless + Q&A
Marta Hryniuk & Nick Thomas | 2023 | Ukraine, NL | 100’ (incl. Q&A) | EN subs
EN In Marta Hryniuk & Nick Thomas’ debut feature collaboration, self-taught ethnographer Khrystyna Bunii travels solo across remote southwestern Ukraine in pursuit of her anthropological research. As she encounters people and digitises their family photo archives, conversations and interconnections emerge. Conducting visual research into the trans-national region of Hutsulshchyna, Bunii pursues a political practice of self-narration from the margins of representation. The sequences of this poetic journey do not simply elucidate the history of the region, but rather call for an associative labour from researcher and spectator alike, and finding people who want to talk about the region’s past is not an easy task.
Made through close collaboration between the film’s directors and protagonist, Weightless combines observational and direct cinema styles with staged performance and elements of documentary-essay. This screening will be in the presence of the filmmakers, in anticipation of the screening of their short films at the Amsterdam Film Meeting, taking place on November 3rd.
Vrijdag 18 oktober, 20:30
DOCU
Oblatos: Epic Flight Into The Night + Q&A
Acelo Ruiz Villanueva | 2019 | Mexico | 105’ | EN subs
EN Mexico, 1976, government persecution of student and labor organizations continues. Toño and Guaymas, members of the September 23rd Communist League, one of the most important underground resistance organizations in the country’s history, are detained on the grounds of subversion, and sent to the high security section of Oblatos Penitentiary in Guadalajara. The only chance of surviving is to escape.
This documentary tells the story of these two characters and the complex guerrilla plan they plotted to escape from prison. It allows us to see the reasons why they decided to leave everything behind to join the underground struggle. Through the voices of Waymas, a worker in a subway repair workshop in Mexico City, and Toño, who sold chickens in a market in the city of Guadalajara, the director shows an important moment in Mexico’s social history that still needs to be interrogated in order to bring justice to all the victims of state violence through a low-intensity warfare against students, workers, and peasants during the so-called “Dirty War”.
The aftertalk will be followed by an online Q&A session with the director of the documentary, Acelo Ruiz Villanueva.
Zaterdag 19 oktober, 20:30
CONTEMPORARY
Andreas Marschall special
Black.White.Red.
Andreas Marschall | 2024 | Zwitserland | 93’ | EN subs
EN Filmhuis Cavia proudly presents Black.White.Red., the newest feature film by Andreas Marschall and winner of the BUTtest Feature Award 2024. The film was originally planned to be shot in St. Petersburg, Kiev and Marseille, but after delays due to the coronavirus, the Russo-Ukrainian war forced the film crew to change their plans significantly.
The protagonist of this film and club owner Chemkar lives for excess and criminal business. When the mysterious and seductive drug courier Eris brings him the brand-new designer drug FLASHBACK, the doors to long-buried memories of his childlike, innocent self are opened. Chemkar believes he has found redemption. But Eris's love does not lead to paradise, but straight to hell.
Director’s statement: "For me, BWR [= Black.White.Red.] was an experiment that began as an art project and whose outcome was decisively changed by Russia's war on Ukraine. What was originally an art installation with numerous pop-culture references to the European genre cinema of the seventies and eighties turned more and more into the hellish journey of a male soul, who is tormented by the violence of a father who acts like a god of war. Influenced by the disintegration of our familiar world order, associations and stark contrasts took over the linear narrative, combining opera music with techno, childhood poetry with images of violence, dream with stark reality as if in a delirium. For me, the editing process was also like a journey whose outcome I didn't know. I hope that the viewer will also go on a journey and not see BWR as a classic narrative, but experience it like a dark dream."
Vrijdag 25 oktober, 20:30
SEX-POSITIVE
Kissable Screens: Acsexybility
Daniel Gonçalves | 2023 | Brazilië | 85’ | EN subs
EN Acsexybility is a documentary that tells stories about the sexuality of people with disabilities. Through the characters' conversation with the director, the film talks about flirting, kissing, dating, masturbation, ableism and, of course, sex. Its greatest strength is precisely hearing from people with disabilities things that society does not expect them to say and do. We want to change the idea that they are asexual, angelic, special and even devoid of desires. We fuck and we fuck well, they say.
Daniel Gonçalves is Rio-based filmmaker and born with a disability that no doctor has been able to diagnose. His personal documentary My name is Daniel tells a coming-of-age story full of humor, self-reflection and maternal love, in which the director goes in search of the cause of his physical disability.
It’s ironic that Cavia, a space meant to foster culture and community, is not wheelchair accessible—reflecting the troubling reality that only 15% of cultural venues in Amsterdam offer such access. While we lack the means to modify the space, we believe sharing this film is essential to raise awareness and advocate for greater accessibility in cultural spaces.
Maandag 28 oktober, 20:30
FILM FESTIVAL
Amsterdam Film Meeting pre-festival screening
Eros, O Deus Do Amor (Eros, God of Love)
Walter Hugo Khouri | 1981 | Brazil | 107' | EN subs
EN The Amsterdam Film Meeting is proud to present the first partial retrospective of Walter Hugo Khouri’s work outside of Brazil, in collaboration with the Cinemateca Brasileira and the Estate of Walter Hugo Khouri. This selection highlights Khouri’s distinctive exploration of the erotic drama genre, focusing on themes of desire, obsession, and the complexities of human relationships. Spanning multiple decades of his career, these films reflect Khouri's unique position in Brazilian film history. In Khouri's universe, unreliable narrators, mysterious women, and elements of psychological horror create an expression that stands apart from both mainstream and underground Brazilian cinema.
Entering the 1980s, Khouri directed one of his most acclaimed films, Eros, O Deus Do Amor, the culmination of his stylistic evolution. The film is a blend of experimental techniques with a voyeuristic meditation on memory and the character’s sexual encounters — a kind of Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960) à la brasileira. Through the eyes of his protagonist, Khouri invites the audience into a world of obsession, violent sex, and inner turmoil, where the boundaries between observer and participant blur, and the act of looking becomes a scopophilic exploration of male desire.
30 oktober t/m 3 november
FILM FESTIVAL
Amsterdam Film Meeting
EN From October 30 to November 3 the Amsterdam Film Meeting crawls out the seats of Filmhuis Cavia to screen innovative storytelling and experimental forms, blending fiction, non-fiction and performance at the first edition of a fest dedicated to independent cinema(s). With a mix of repertory and new films, in the presence of their makers, we’re hoping to foster meaningful conversations and strong cinematic encounters. MORE→