September

to

January Programme

2015

Welcome to our exciting Autumn Programme of great movies!

The Grassmarket Community Project and Greyfriars Kirk love movies . We have come

together to organise the showing of films at least once a week for the benefit of our

members and the wider public. We have already shown over 50 movies free of charge

including powerful dramas, documentaries, family movies and classics as well as

hosting discussions.

Grassmarket Picture House encourages local film makers, groups and the general

public to hire our facility at excellent rates or suggest people who may wish to get

involved in or support our community cinema.

The Grassmarket Picture House, based in the Grassmarket Community Project is a

cosy community screening facility open to everyone. Everyone receives a warm

welcome. Our movies are shown for FREE though we strongly encourage donations

towards our Film Licence and overheads.

Grab a drink and snuggle down into our wonderful venue and enjoy!

Jonny Kinross

Chief Executive, Grassmarket Community Project

Membership

Become a Member for £20 (£5 concession) and

Get a 20% discount at the GCP Café

Help choose members’ screening

No need to donate at each screening

Why not volunteer? If you

volunteer we’ll give you free

membership. We need café

staff, people to set rooms up

and ushers. It’s a great for you

and helps sustain our cinema

Autumn Calendar

Septem

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Mon 7th 7pm Kind Hearts & Coronets

Mon 14th 7pm Last Orders

Mon 21st 7pm Glasgow Film Festival Animated Shorts

Sat 26th 2pm Glasgow Film Festival Animated Shorts (Kids’ Screening)

Mon 28th 7pm Gospel of Us

Mon 5th 7pm Selma

Mon 12th 7pm Do the Right Thing

Mon 12th-Fri

16th

Free Family Films throughout the Half Term holiday —

to be confirmed

Mon 19th 7pm Edinburgh Short Film screening then Quiz

Mon 26th 7pm Bride of Frankenstein (Halloween Special)

Mon 2nd Blueberry Soup Gather Film Festival Screening & Quiz

Mon 9th Paths of Glory

Mon 16th Amelie—LOVE Film Screening

Mon 23rd Persepolis

Sat 28th Secret of Kells (Kids’ Screening

Mon 30th Secret of Kells

Mon 7th 7pm Hedwig & the Angry Inch

Fri 11th– Sun

13th

Star Wars I—VI Weekend (Fri 7pm, Sat 11am, 3pm,

7pm, Sun 11am & 3pm.

Mon 14th 7pm Harvey

Mon 21st 7pm *Cinema Members’ Choice*

Tues 22nd 2pm Muppet’s Christmas Carol

Mon 28th 7pm Whisky Galore

Tues 29th 2pm Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Weds 30th 2pm Laurel & Hardy

“Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) should be heir to a dukedom but his family, the snobbish D’Ascoynes, have cut Louis off because his mother married badly. Vengeful and hate-filled, he sets out to regain his rightful place by killing everyone in the way. Everyone in ‘the way’ is played by Alec Guinness. All of them. He’s every member of the D’Ascoyne family and while each role is quite small, Guinness makes them all memorable. He’s helped by Dennis Price’s Louis devising increasingly wild ways with each of Guinness’ deaths being a fresh and horribly funny thrill.

It’s a treat to have a comedy as involving as a drama. You care about Louis and his cause even though it’s a tale of class differences that was dated even on release (made in 1949, it’s set around 1900). Louis should be hateful: he’s one of the cinema’s first serial killers. But as would not happen for another 50 years until “The Talented Mr Ripley”, “Kind Hearts and Coronets” is a film where you want the murderer to escape.” BBCi Films

Director: Robert Hamer Writers: Roy Horniman (novel), Robert Hamer (screenplay) Stars: Dennis Price, Alec Guinness & Valerie Hobson

CERTIFICATE U | RUNNING TIME 106 mins

Kind Hearts & Coronets Monday 7th September | 7PM

Jack Dodd was a London butcher who enjoyed a pint with his mates for over 50 years. When he died, he died as he lived, with a smile on his face watching a horse race on which he had bet, with borrowed money. But before he died he had a final request, ‘Last Orders’, that his ashes be scattered in the sea at Margate. The movie follows his mates, Ray, Lenny and Vic and his son Vince as they journey to the sea with the ashes. Along the way, the threads of their lives, their loves and their disappointments are woven together in their memories of Jack and his wife

Director: Fred Schepisi Writers: Graham Swift (novel), Fred Schepisi

Stars: Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins & Tom Courtenay

“Makes for one of the most rewarding and authentic depictions of or tributes to the Cockney way of life in recent years.” Time Out

CERTIFICATE 15|RUNNING TIME 109 mins

Last Orders Monday 14th September 7pm

Grassmarket Picture House is delighted to showreel 11 short animated films featured in this years Glasgow Short Film Festival

Zebra

Julia Ocker | Germany | 2013 | 3 min One day a zebra ran into a tree.

The Little Cousteau Jakub Kouřil | Czech Republic | 2013 | 8 min A little boy longs for deep-sea adventures in a snow-covered city. An homage to Jacques Cousteau.

Hopfrog Leonid Shmelkov | Russia | 2012 | 5 min Non-scientific observations of a creature who just can’t stop jumping.

Grump Lise Cordellier | France | 2014 | 4 min Oscar is a very brave 9 year old boy. Encouraged by his two sisters Lucille and Garance, he begins a new adventure. What can he do to save their house from falling down the cliff? Thanks to Josette the seagull, he may have found a solution.

Choir Tour

Edmunds Jansons | Latvia | 2012 | 5 min

A world famous boys’ choir goes on tour. In the hands of their conductor they are an obedient

musical instrument. But left alone without supervision they are just playful children.

Polar Where? Terry Thomas | UK | 2013 | 2 min A polar bear searches for his missing friend.

Frenemy Vera Lalyko | Germany | 2014 | 6 min A cat and dog are just about poised to get one over on the other. A mysterious incident occurs which results in them swapping voices. All attempts to reverse are in vain. Finally enemies become friends.

New Species Kateřina Karhánková | Czech Republic | 2013 | 7 min This is a story about three kids who find a mysterious bone and their journey in trying to find the creature the bone belongs to.

Avocado Bear Thomas Fraser | UK | 2014 | 5 min A particularly over-ripe Avocado Bear experiences a hollow feeling when he suddenly finds himself without the precious stone set in his belly. However, a fresh encounter may uncover what he’s truly been missing all along…

Macropolis Joel Simon | UK | 2012 | 8 min Two broken toys are discarded from a factory production line. They rebel and chase the factory delivery van in the hope of rejoining their friends.

Silent Limbert Fabian, Brandon Oldenburg | USA | 2014 | 3 min Two street performers dream of bringing their Picture and Sound Show to life. When they discover a magical contraption inside an old theatre, they embark on a cinematic adventure of sight and sound, traveling through movie history to find the audience they always wanted. CERTIFICATE U | RUNNING TIME 56 MINS

Monday 21st September | 7PM

Saturday 26th September | 2PM

Gospel of Us Monday 28th September

Dave McKean presents The Gospel of Us, the film adaptation of the ground-braking

theatre events starring Michael Sheen, taking inspiration from one of the defining

narratives of our times, this contemporary re-telling of the Passion story took place

across the town with the people of Port Talbot as its cast and crew and heroes.

The scene is set during Easter in Port Talbot which is in a battle against the sinister

authoritarian forces of ICU—a merciless corporation depleting the town of its re-

sources and scant regard for the residents. The atmosphere is explosive and re-

sistance is inevitable. When a company man and suicide bomber clash on the

beach, catastrophe is only averted by the intervention of a softly spoken man who

had disappeared 40 days earlier. Revealed later as the Teacher (Michael Sheen), he

attracts followers and becomes a focus for the Resistance. His influence quickly

draws the attention of ICU who perceive him as a threat to be removed at all

costs…

UNRATED | RUNNING TIME 120 mins

Selma Monday 5th October | 7PM

This week we begin a two-part celebration of black history with Selma, director

Ava Duvernay’s portrayal of Martin Luther Kings involvement and organisation

of the historic protest march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama in 1965.

Starring David Oyelowo as Dr King struggling to galvanise the recent success of

the Civil Rights Act and extend it to voting rights for black people in the South

who were being turned away from voter registration booths by prejudice.

Oyelowo’s performance was deemed ‘charismatic, commanding, complicated

and utterly credible, his portrayal of Dr King is surely the stuff of which awards

are made’ by The Oberserver’s Mark Kermode.

Though the film begins with the apparent success of the Civil Rights battle with

King receiving the Novel Peace Prize, what follows is a battle between the will

of the people and the billy-clubs of the authorities.

Certificate 12A | RUNNING TIME 128 mins

Do the Right Thing Mon 12th October | 7PM

For our second week celebrating and exploring black American history, Spike Lee

delivers in splendid form with a pacy, punchy ensemble piece set in Brooklyn during

one stiflingly hot 24 hours. Lee himself plays Mookie, pizza delivery-man for Sal

(Aiello) and his two sons; though selfishly neglectful of his Hispanic lover and child,

Mookie is mostly Mr Nice Guy, ever ready to lend his calming influence to the storm

of insults that fly between the local blacks, Italians, Koreans and white cops.

Eventually, however, the heat takes its toll, and petty disagreements escalate into a

full-scale riot. Effortlessly moving from comedy to serious social comment, eliciting

excellent performances from a large and perfectly selected cast, and making superb

use of music both to create mood and comment on the action, Lee contrives to see

both sides of each conflict without falling prey to simplistic sentimentality. Best of

all, the film -- at once stylised and realistic - buzzes throughout with the sheer, edgy

bravado that comes from living one's life on the streets. It looks, sounds, and feels

right: sure proof that Lee's virtuoso technique and righteous anger are tempered by

real humanity.

CERTIFICATE 18 | RUNNING TIME 120 mins

Monday 19th October | 7PM

Short Film Screening and Quiz

Join us for a special evening for members of the

Grassmarket Picturehouse to test their knowledge of film!

A team of film fanatics will be putting together their

favourite questions to challenge and entertain fellow film

lovers!

FILM QUIZ

Bride of Frankenstein Monday 26th October | 7PM

This macabre, satirical film is generally considered one of the greatest horror films

of all time - a spectacular, bizarre, high-camp, excessive, humorous, farcical and

surrealistic film. Both Frankenstein films were produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr. (the

head of Universal) and directed by horror master James Whale, at a time when

monster films were diminishing. The film reunited Colin Clive (as Dr. Frankenstein)

with Boris Karloff as the Monster, but brought two new characters to the fore-

front: Ernest Thesiger as a necromancer who has miniaturized and imprisoned

various human beings in glass jars, and Elsa Lanchester as the Monster's Bride.

CERTIFICATE U | RUNNING TIME 73 mins

Blueberry Soup

Get a taste of Gather Film Festival (GFF)

GFF launched in March 2015 and explores life-changing and horizon-widening experiences, on a local and global level. Sample what GFF has

to offer with this one-off film screening – full details available soon.

GFF is part of Gather festival - an annual celebration of culture, community, and global citizenship; a week-long blend of events from

film, art and dance to food, sports and language organized by students, staff and the community at EUSA and the University of Edinburgh.

GATHER 20 – 28 February 2016

Find out more about Gather Festival online:

www.gatheruoe.wordpress.com

Special Gather Film Screening Monday 2nd November | 7PM

All Quiet on the Western Front Monday 9th November | 7PM

“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death,

fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are

set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently,

innocently slay one another.”

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

To mark remembrance day this year we have decided to show a film that shows the

brutal devastation of war as well as being a magnificent film adaptation of one of its

survivor’s stories. The book was banned by the Nazis as it was deemed pacifist and

dangerously anti-German and therefore subversive of Hitler’s militarist regime.

The film faithfully adapts Remarque’s tale of a group of young patriotic men who

eagerly enlist in the army to fight for their country. It then follows them as their

trauma unravels their patriotic fervour and forces them to realise the full horror of

war and its destruction of a generation.

The film was made only a dozen years following the end of the Great War, and the

memories of the war were still fresh however for modern

audiences its power and meaning can be re-applied to our

understanding of recent and current conflicts. As a piece of

artistic reflection on the senselessness of violence we can

join in on meditating on the need for peace and the

imperative of learning moral lessons from warfare.

CERTIFICATE PG | RUNNING TIME 136 mins

This evening’s screening is brought to us by the BFI as part of their Love Season. The

power of love is cinema’s most seductive illusion, making our hearts beat faster and

shaping our dreams and longings. BFI Love re-kindles audience passions for film and

television’s most enduring love stories, celebrating big screen romance, our most

cherished romantic comedies, and the darkest tales of obsession and betrayal.

"Amélie" is a fanciful comedy about a young woman who discretely orchestrates the

lives of the people around her, creating a world exclusively of her own making. Shot in

over 80 Parisian locations, acclaimed director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen"; "The

City of Lost Children") invokes his incomparable visionary style to capture the exquisite

charm and mystery of modern-day Paris through the eyes of a beautiful ingenue.

It is so hard to make a nimble, charming comedy. So hard to get the tone right and find

actors who embody charm instead of impersonating it. It takes so much confidence to

dance on the tightrope of whimsy. "Amelie" takes those chances, and gets away with

them.

CERTIFICATE 15 | RUNNING TIME 122 mins

Amélie Monday 16th November | 7pm

Persepolis Monday 23rd November | 7 PM

Superbly elegant and simple, Persepolis is based on the comic-book series by the

Franco-Iranian artist Marjane Satrapi, a coming-of-age story that I can only de-

scribe as an auto-graphic-novel-ography. Satrapi has co-written and co-directed

the movie version, and what a treat: funny and moving with a bracingly authentic

feel, reproducing the graphic work with broad, bold strokes and a depth-of-field

effect achieved with a recessive series of two-dimensional planes, like the ocean

waves at the back of a panto set. Muted colour tones are introduced for sequences

happening in the present, and deploying the cartoonist's classic skill, Satrapi cre-

ates witty and sympathetic facial expressions with hardly more than a squiggle.

This is one of those rare things in the cinema: a movie with an urgent new story to

tell and an urgent new way of telling it.

It is the story of Marjane, a little girl growing up in pre-revolutionary Iran in the

1970s. Her hero is Bruce Lee, and she is always scampering under the grown-ups'

legs at parties, baffling one and all by striking ferocious martial arts poses. She is

the indulged and adored daughter of well-to-do secular leftists who campaign

ceaselessly against the Shah, and find family members harassed and imprisoned.

CERTIFICATE 12 | RUNNING TIME 96 mins

The Secret of Kells Monday 30th November | 7pm

& Saturday 28th November | 2pm

Young Brendan lives in the Abbey of Kells, a remote medieval outpost under

siege from raising barbarians. One day a celebrated master illuminator arrives

from foreign lands carrying an ancient but unfinished book, brimming with se-

cret wisdom and powers. To help complete the magical book, Brendan has to

overcome his deepest fears on a dangerous quest that takes him into the en-

chanted forest, where mysthical creatures hide. It is here that he meets the fairy

Aisling, a mysterious young wolf-girl, who helps him along the way. But with the

barbarians closing in, will Brendan’s determination and artistic vision illuminate

the darkness and show that enlightenment is the best fortification against evil?

Magic, fantasy, and Celtic mythology come together in a riot of color and detail

that dazzle the eyes, in a sweeping story about the power of imagination and

faith to carry humanity through dark times.

CERTIFICATE PG | RUNNING TIME 75 mins

Hedwig & the Angry Inch Monday 7th December | 7pm

Is the world ready for Hedwig? After all, this allegorical semi-drag show that calls itself a ''post-punk neo-glam rock musical'' bears an uncomfortably subversive message about the fluidity of sexual roles, disguise and self-invention in rock music.

One way of looking at this clever, funny, wildly innovative film tricked out with surreal pop embellishments and Day-Glo colors is to see it as the kind of movie David Bowie might have made had he pushed his early-70's gender-bending persona to its logical limit.

Written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, who turns in a spectacular lead performance, ''Hedwig'' follows the travails of the title character, a would-be rock star and survivor of a botched sex-change operation that has left her encumbered with an unwanted and embarrassing vestige of masculinity. Strutting through the movie in a dazzling assortment of wigs, and baring gams whose sleek, tapering curves rival those of Marlene Dietrich and Tina Turner, Mr. Mitchell is as imperiously charismatic on the screen as he was on the stage. His embittered but plucky title character, who makes her way from East Berlin to

Kansas and subsequently across America on a no-budget rock tour of tacky seafood

restaurants, often suggests Mr. Bowie as a chilly German dominatrix. But Hedwig's

hauteur only partly camouflages the vulnerability of a desperately lonely, expatriate

girlie boy snared in a sexual limbo in the American heartland while hopelessly pursuing

his/her artistic doppelgänger, the rock idol Tommy Gnosis (Michael Pitt).

CERTIFICATE 15 | RUNNING TIME 95 mins

STAR WARS I-VI WEEKEND Friday 11th—Sunday 13th

December

Just before the much anticipated Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens is

released on December 18th re-acquaint yourself with all 6 legendary movies that

created the most well known successful and inter-generational following of any

movie. Or perhaps you haven’t seen any or all of these and you’d like to see what

the fuss about? Feel free to dress up at the closing Return of the Jedi when we

will be awarding prizes to under 14’s in the best costume.

Times of screenings:

Friday 11th Dec 7pm—Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, (released May 19, 1999)

Saturday 12th Dec— 11am Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, (released May 16, 2002)

Saturday 12th Dec 3pm — Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, (released May 19, 2005)

Saturday 12th Dec—7pm Star Wars, (released May 25, 1977)

Sunday 13th Dec 11am —The Empire Strikes Back, (released May 21, 1980)

Sunday 13th Dec 1pm — Return of the Jedi, (released May 25, 1983) + fancy dress competition

Harvey Monday 14th December | 7pm

“Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, “In this world Elwood, you must be”—she always called me Elwood—”In this world , Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.”

James Stewart in Harvey

Of course, it depends a great deal upon what you have in mind in the way of entertainment by which you would be amused. But if you're for warm and gentle whimsey, for a charmingly fanciful farce and for a little touch of pathos anent the fateful evanescence of man's dreams, then the movie version of "Harvey" is definitely for you.

As a matter of fact, we'll even wager that, if you're not in a mood for all of these, an hour and three-quarters with "Harvey" will do you a world of good. And if it does not—if a visit to the Astor, where it opened yesterday, does not send you forth into the highways and the byways embracing a warm glow—then the fault will be less with "Harvey," we suspect, than it will be with you.

Adapted from Mary Chase’s play, Harvey is a charming comedy about a good

natured drunk (James Stewart) who has an imaginary six-foot rabbit as his best

friend. The film is gentle and funny, and full of fine performances, including

Josephine Hull’s Academy Award-winning turn.

CERTIFICATE UNRATED| RUNNING TIME 104 mins

Monday 21st December—7pm

PICTURE HOUSE MEMBERS’ CHOICE

If you have a membership you will be able to

suggest a movie for this night. A week before we

will vote of them using a first preference system.

Suggestions welcome anytime—

What will you choose?

Introduce your children to a classic re-telling of Dickens’ Christmas carol by the

Muppets. Join in with the singing and bask in the comedy genius of a host of

familiar characters.

The plot follows Charles Dickens’ original 1843 novel closely, complete with the

omniscient narrator Dickens himself (played by The Great Gonzo, aided by Rizzo

the rat), stars Sir Michael Caine—in, frankly, a brilliant performance— as

Ebenezer Scrooge. Caine tears into the role and is, unlike plenty of Muppet movie

guest stars, never upstaged by Kermit the Frog or Miss Piggy.

The film was made just after the death of creator Jim Henson in 1990 and his

absence is clearly felt by all involved and though there’s a lightness of touch

running throughout, this is probably one of the darkest Muppet film yet. But

somehow, it’s also the one most filled with love.

CERTIFICATE U | RUNNING TIME 85 mins

The Muppet Christmas Carol Tuesday 22nd December | 2PM

Whisky Galore Monday 28th December | 7pm

Basil Radford plays a flustered Englishman sent to command a Home Guard force

on a remote Scottish island during the second world war. He is pop-eyed with

indignation to find that his men, along with the entire civilian population –

maddened by a wartime alcohol shortage – are secretly intent on plundering

50,000 cases of whisky from a shipwreck. This tale of an outsider failing to come

to grips with a tight-knit community could be screened as a triple bill with Local

Hero ("Oil-money galore") and The Wicker Man ("Occult conspiracy galore").

Insouciantly, the film finally reveals that the mass pilfering drove whisky prices up,

and eventually caused another booze famine. So victimless crime doesn't pay?

Well, this looks like mere lip-service being paid to the moral justice of the free

market. The film's sympathies are entirely with the drinkers. Perhaps it couldn't

be made in today's sober times.

A classic film to watch just before Scotland celebrates Hogmanay!

CERTIFICATE UNRATED | RUNNING TIME 83 mins

Grassmarket Picture House FREE

Family Films for Christmas at 2pm Tuesday 29th December Miracle on 34th St

Wednesday 30th December Laurel & Hardy