TREŠNJA CINEMA
This year, The Trešnjevka market cinema is expanding to two more locations! Three Fridays in a row we will be watching: Cinema on Rails (at Munjarski put, which used to be on the Samoborček train route), the good old Trešnjevka market cinema, and ''Mladost'' Cinema – a special summer refreshing treat by the outdoor pool at Sava. Join us on June 28, July 5, and July 12!
CINEMA ON RAILS
Friday, June 28, 2024 at 9.30. p.m.
Munjarski put, next to Trešnjevka Hockey Club
We will be watching a selection of short films of different genres with the theme of trains and railways, at the spot that was once part of the train route of the legendary Samoborček train. The winding railroad became the scene of the turbulent changes in the history of our society. From the paradox of the working class survival, anchored in rural areas (People on wheels), to the mystical ride across the turbulences of life, with a certain aversion toward dissimilar fellow travelers (A Journey), to status and ideological differences between social classes intersecting at a train station (A Junction). A journal entry records merging of the two worlds, internal and external, as seen from the window of a passenger compartment of a fast moving train (The Travelogue), and a train at a standstill (The city I have to travel to). On the other side of the unfulfilled promise of the progress, symbolized by the derelict railway lines in the film train route Knin-Zadar, in the railroad vignette Newsreel 242 – Sunny railways, connecting historical youth labor actions with today’s silent acts of resistance, a glimpse of hope lights up our neglected trains, while the director calls on us to imagine a world outside of capitalism and the violence of borders. Because we – the resigned and asleep passengers – still have the power to get them out of tracks.
People on wheels, dir. by Rudolf Sremec, 1963, documentary
A journey, dir. by Bogdan Žižić, 1972, feature
A junction, dir. by Krsto Papić, 1969, documentary
The Travelogue, dir. by Tatjana Ivančić, 1976, experimental
The city I have to travel to, dir. by Valentina Lončarić, 2020, documentary
Knin – Zadar, dir. by Melita Vrsaljko, 2022, documentary
Newsreel 242 – Sunny railways, dir. by Nika Autor, 2023, documentary
TREŠNJEVKA MARKET CINEMA
Friday, July 5, 2024 at 9 p.m.
Trešnjevka market
The second movie night, at the Trešnjevka market, for the first time, we tackle the topic of food, which, since the beginning of human community, has had a social, economic, ethical, and symbolic value. In a vivid and eccentric Japanese comedy Super(market)woman (1996), the unsuccessful supermarket manager Goro employs his old school crush, the vigorous and clever housewife Hanako, to help him in competing with the new rival store in town, that compensates for their low quality products with attractive offers and unusually low prices. With her insider advice and innovative ideas that give priority to the wellbeing of the consumers over easy money, Hanako revitalizes the store; however, not without resistance by greedy owners and slacking employees. A master of the genre, Jūzō Itami, brilliantly amalgamates slapstick comedy, satire, and a sharp social critique on traps of consumerism and unfair competition. On the same evening we are showing the short movie The Market (2006), a playful miniature on our prejudice about food and the importance on organic production of food. Croatian experimental film director Ana Hušman transforms the ritual of buying of groceries and food pickling into a contemplative battle between the domestic and high quality food versus imported, lower quality products.
The Market, dir. by Ana Hušman, 2006, experimental, 9’
Super(market)woman / Sūpā no onna, dir. by Jûzô Itami, 1996, feature (comedy), 127’
MLADOST CINEMA
Friday, July 12, 2024, at 9 p.m.
green area behind the Mladost outdoor pool
The third evening brings a diptych dedicated to the youth, which takes us to that unusual age at the threshold of the adulthood, when we discover everything for the first time. Famous cineastes Chantal Akerman and Lucrecia Martel tackle girlhood and examine imaginary girl worlds. In her film I’m hungry, I’m cold (1984), Akerman follows two teenage girls from Brussels who ran away from home and are trying to find their way around a big city. Boundlessly playful and rebellious friends, youthfully unhindered, hastily devour Paris and turn social conventions upside down, all while heavily smoking cigarettes. Lucrecia Martel’s debut feature film The Swamp, which won awards at the Berlinale and the Sundance Film Festival, is a piercing and multilayered black humor study of the life of the upper middle class in Argentina. The film focuses on a family captured in the absurdity of everyday life, the growing up of three spoiled teenagers in a well-off but dysfunctional family, carrying the burden of the colonial heritage, as well as class antagonism. In a decadent backwater, the boundaries between the luxurious estate and the swamp that surrounds it are blurred, while tragicomic scenes of a leisurely life at the pool superbly capture the comfortable complacence of a province where growing up is hampered by a lack of responsibility.
I’m hungry, I’m cold / J’ai faim, j’ai froid, dir. by Chantal Akerman, 1984, feature, 12’
the Swamp / La ciénaga, dir. by Lucrecia Martel, 2001, feature (dramedy), 103’
Films selected by: Dina Pokrajac
Trešnja cinema has been made possible in cooperation with the Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević city local boards assembly, the city district Trešnjevka – North and the city board assembly Trešnjevka – South, and financed through the Plan of Necessary Activities, Programs, and Projects for improving the quality of life of citizens, using the resources provided by the City Office for Culture and Civil Society of the City of Zagreb, and by the Croatian Audiovisual Center HAVC. Partners: The Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium in Zagreb and Zagreb film. BLOK’s annual program in 2024 is supported by the Kultura Nova foundation.
