SPLICE GROUPS
We’re all about building wellbeing through community - creating opportunities for people to come together, collaborate and participate in meaningful ways. Everyone is welcome to come along, so get involved!
Splice Pub Prattle is an informal meeting of people on the 1st Wednesday of the month, in Vultures Lane Tavern, (no 10 Vulcan Lane, City), at 6.30pm downstairs. We chat about all sorts of things and all are welcome, the only condition is that we respect each other and listen to each person's ideas.
Splice Film Festival movies - FREE at EMC:
Capernaum (Lebanon, 2018) 10 Dec Ellen Melville Centre, 6.30pm
It is time to end the year on a high and something different. Caperbaum is Set in the slums of Beirut. Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus is: "Capernaum hits hard, but rewards viewers with a smart, compassionate, and ultimately stirring picture of lives in the balance". Enough to say that the story follows the brutal life of a 12 year boy, Zain, (played by a Syrian refugee, also called Zain) who sues his parents for giving him life. The Times (UK) wrote: It's harsh and abrasive, and sometimes difficult...but Labaki [the Director] has layered the film with just enough moments of kindness to break your heart." This was the first Lebanese film nominated for the Academy Awards and won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. Very well regarded. The kids win out.
The Class (Entre Les Murs) (France, 2006) Ellen Melville Centre, Feb 4, 2020, 6.30pm
Every teacher knows that the classroom can be a battlefield. In The Class, François Marin (François Bégaudeau, who actually is a teacher) is a French language and literature teacher at an inner-city Paris high school. As Marin takes on the problem students, school violence, ethnic tensions and the education system, he finds that his greatest resource lies in his tough, vulnerable amazing students - if he can find it bring it out. This is by the way a real class.
The Rotten Tomatoes consensus of this is: "Energetic and bright, this hybrid of documentary style and dramatic plotting looks at the present and future of France through the interactions of a teacher and his students in an inner city high school. It is a film for teachers".
Ida (Poland 2014), Ellen Melville Centre, Mar 3, 6.30pm
"Ida" is the story, set in Poland in 1962, of a young woman who is about to take her vows as a nun. Before doing so the mother-superior tells her she needs to connect with her past, including her aunt who is a worldly and cynical communist. I have chosen this film because it shows us a wider picture of Poles dealing with the dark memories of Nazi occupation and the realities of Soviet rule. Rotten Tomatoes says: "Empathetically written, splendidly acted, and beautifully photographed, Ida finds director Pawel Pawlikowski revisiting his roots to powerful effect." It won the Academy Award for best Foreign Language Film in 2014. The Financial Times reviewer wrote: "This frugal, static film in black and white is wondrous with life and drama. First-time actress Agata Trzebuchowska has a face you could watch forever." The fact that a review like that could appear in the ever restrained Financial Times demands attention.
See some of our other Auckland groups here:
