Thursday 30 October 2014
Ryan Coogler | USA, 2013 | 85 mins | Cert 15
Plus short film BURN including Q&A with director
It is hard to do justice in words to the cinematic, emotional and political experience that is Fruitvale Station. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and the Best First Film Award at Cannes the same year, this is a film which, for all its massive and widespread acclaim, has not been seen by nearly enough people. This is unfortunate, given the fact that we are still living in a society in which events such as the ones depicted in the film – the unprovoked state-sanctioned murder of young, working-class black men and women – is a regular (and seemingly unpunishable) occurrence.
Director Ryan Coogler charts, in alternately funny, moving and shocking detail, the last day on the planet of Oscar Grant (played by Wire star Michael B. Jordan), a 22-year-old son, friend, partner and father of one little girl, who was shot dead, unarmed, by subway police at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, California in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2009. The film reveals him as an ordinarily flawed and complex human being, and skilfully draws the audience into the ups and downs of his difficult but ultimately love-filled life, even as we know that by the end of the film he will be dead.
Burn
Ken Fero | UK, 2014 | 30 mins
In August 2011 Britain was on fire – but what was the spark that led to the crisis? When Mark Duggan was shot by the police, the scene was clearly set for a confrontation, but it was not the first time. Including Q&A with director Ken Fero and Graeme Burke, son of Joy Gardner.