CCA All Events

Ceòl ’s Craic Gaelic hub at Celtic Connections

23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Download the full Gaelic programme here

Celtic Connections’ link to Gaelic musical traditions and influences is thriving in this year’s programme yet again. It recognises not only the global community of Gaels across the Celtic and world music scene, but also acknowledges that the home of the festival, Glasgow, is where the largest concentrated number of Gaelic speakers live. This music has had a strong impact on the revival of Gaelic speakers and both music and language are inextricably linked.

During Celtic Connections, Ceòl ’s Craic, the vibrant social hub and platform for contemporary Gaelic culture in Glasgow, presents a vibrant programme exploring aspects of fusion between Gaelic and other world traditions. A series of films, lectures and workshops will take place at CCA, looking at Gaelic arts, history and inspirations. In the upstairs bar there will be late night music sessions with a Gaelic twist and a daily information portal on all Gaelic services and organisations in the city.

Gaelic information desk open 2 – 4pm / Tuesday, Thursday & Friday

Experience Gaelic arts and culture with Ceòl ‘s Craic and enjoy some great food at Saramago Café Bar (special deal with Ceol ‘s Craic ticket - two courses for £7.50).

Download the full Gaelic programme here

Takeaway China

24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Ricefield's annual festival, Takeaway China, brings the most innovative Chinese Language Cinema and grassroots, independent filmmaking from China to venues across Glasgow.

With special thanks to CIFA (China Independent Film Archive) and the Beijing New Youth Film Festival, as well as Takeaway China sponsors: The Confucius Institute at Glasgow University, Tangent Graphic and the Millenium Hotel Glasgow.

For films showing at CCA see the links on the left. For the full programme visit www.takeawaychina.com

Creative Lab: Escutcheon Athletics

30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The internet has shaped our lives, the world we live in, and even how we think of it. Distance has been minimalised, physical presence has become a novelty, and apparently it will never die. Yet for all of this, the internet, the information itself, is estimated to weigh only about 50 grams. GFAJ-101 is an experiment in the aesthetics of a material that is, by and large, non-existent. The play undertaken for this month-long residency in February is meant to ask questions and provide only the possibilities of answers. It is concerned with the ways that our understanding of and active engagement in the whole world can be shaped by the underlying concept of this new gossamer material.

Escutcheon Athletics is an experiential practice that utilises physicality and athleticism to explore spirituality. Stemming from a belief in multiple forms of intelligence (such as kinesthetic, linguistic, musical, mathematical...) the department employs myriad processes to construct moments of meditative awareness during heightened activity, and the exhaustion that follows. From exercise to zazen, and ancient skill to paradigms of modern, there is no end goal to this work except for experience, and to be aware of the experience.

Exhibition: (SAC) Ongoing bodies: Syndrome de Paris Suite

02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Working collaboratively, artists Simone Hutchinson, Alex Kennedy and Conal McStravick will develop a moving image and sound installation derived from a co-authored text. (SAC) Ongoing bodies: Syndrome de Paris Suite re-contextualises a series of performances filmed at CCA and Glasgow School of Art, in 2010.

The installation explores ideas of Orientalism (specifically Japonisme), referencing Japanese Kabuki opera, The Heron Maiden; where the male actor in a female role (onnagata) symbolises the problem of embodying the other sex. Other references include Samuel Beckett’s Quad and the body performances of artist Dan Graham.

Presented on a series of domestic and gallery monitors, the installation uses the viewer’s movements within the space to trigger sensors that regulate and ‘edit’ the situation and experience of the work.

About Simone Hutchinson, Alex Kennedy and Conal McStravick
Simone Hutchinson (born Middlesborough) is currently researching a PhD in English Literature, investigating the politics and aesthetics of work and labour in fiction, at the University of Glasgow.

Alexander Kennedy (born Stirling) currently manages a small Glasgow-based publishing press, Daat Press. He has worked for a number of years as a critic and art historian at the University of Glasgow and Edinburgh College of Art.

Conal McStravick (born Lurgan) is an artist based in London who works with moving image, text and installation. Graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 2005, he served on the Transmission Gallery Committee until 2009 and participated in LUX Associate Artists Programme 2011.

Takeaway China: Old Dog

03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Dir. Pema Tseden
2010, 88 mins
Mandarin w/ English subtitles

The old dog in question is a scruffy "nomad mastiff" that Gonpo's family has had for years. But as many dogs in their village have been stolen recently, Gonpo decides to sell him in the town. When his father finds out and tries to get the dog back, it sets off a chain of tragicomic events. Another starkly beautiful sketch of contemporary Tibetan life by Pema Tsedan.

Glasgow Tango Studio presents El Abrazo Tango Club

03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Class starts 7.30pm, milonga at 8.30pm

El Abrazo Tango Club is a relaxed and fun evening, starting with a class for intermediate and advanced dancers followed by a milonga. The music will range from golden era to contemporary arrangements of those traditional tunes, tango nuevo and alternative, all suitable for dancing tango.

If you are new to Argentine Tango you are welcome to pop in for free and see this amazing dance in its social setting and maybe get inspired to start your tango journey. If you are a visiting tanguero or tanguera in town, in this milonga you can experience the friendly Glaswegian tango scene with good dancers and good floor craft.

Exhibition: Polis

04 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

In the exhibition Polis, Glasgow-based artist, Helen de Main presents a new body of work in printmaking and sculpture. The works appear as fragments and remnants of objects, building encounters between real or fictive events that have either just happened or are about to take place. These images and texts continue de Main’s concern with questioning power, movement and control through a series of dysfunctional calls to action.

Takeaway China: Petition

04 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Dir. Zhao Liang
2009, Documentary, 120 mins
Mandarin w/ English subtitles

Zhao Liang’s confronting feature-length documentary is the result of more than a decade of living and filming in a shanty town next to Beijing South Railway Station. The slum—now demolished—was once home to a floating population of thousands who came from all over the country to lodge complaints about authorities in their hometowns.

Glasgow Short Film Festival 2012

09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Glasgow Short Film Festival 2012 is the biggest edition of GSFF yet - over 150 films screened in 53 events over four heady days of competition screenings, retrospectives, masterclasses, live performances and parties. Based at CCA but this year also branching out to The Berkeley Suite and The Shed, GSFF is a friendly yet feverish celebration of all things short and filmic.

Follow GSFF for all the latest news on Facebook and Twitter. Keep up to date with news and progress on the GSFF blog.

Contact GSFF at shorts@glasgowfilm.org or view the full brochure below:

Way Back When: International Competition 1
Thursday 9 February / 1pm
Saturday 11 February / 5pm
CCA Cinema
Ages: 15+

Memories of a time long past haunt the films in our first international selection, from a childhood abruptly ended in Zaire, to youthful misadventures, some more sinister than others. We can never truly escape our past sins. Featuring unnerving Japanese animation 663114, Serbian drama Sergeant, reminiscent of Claire Denis’s work in its visceral portrayal of masculinity, and the hilarious one shot quickie 15 Summers Later.

Full details of all the films are provided in the Glasgow Short Film Festival brochure.

To book, please go to www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff or call 0141 332 6535

The Great Outdoors: International Competition 2
Thursday 9 February / 3pm
Saturday 11 February / 7pm
CCA Cinema
Ages: 15+

The open countryside can be a place of ritual or a setting for allegory. It can represent freedom or danger, a utopian state or a border to be crossed. This programme includes Ben Russell’s River Rites and To Make a Prairie by James Nares, whose 1982 film Waiting for the Wind featured in the New York No Wave retrospective at GSFF11. Films from Poland and Iran, and multi-award- winning Romanian thriller Silent River complete the programme.

Full details of all the films are provided in the Glasgow Short Film Festival brochure.

To book, please go to www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff or call 0141 332 6535

Fight the Power: International Competition 3
Thursday 9 February / 5pm
Sunday 12 February / 1.15pm
CCA Cinema
Ages: 15+

Against the odds, the films in our third international selection show small gestures of resistance, defiantly approaching horrific political realities with honesty and dark comedy. Featuring two films from Scotland, Jimmy and Asylum, the Iranian film The Wind is Blowing on my Street, which won a special mention at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, and a devastating critique of China’s suppression of dissent which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Full details of all the films are provided in the Glasgow Short Film Festival brochure.

To book, please go to www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff or call 0141 332 6535

For the Good of All: International Competition 4
Friday 10 February / 1pm
Saturday 11 February / 3pm
CCA Cinema
Ages: 15+

Picture a world in which winning The Apprentice is the pinnacle of creative aspiration. This programme is all about regulation, regimentation and institutionalisation. There is no place for spontaneity and self-expression. From a South Korean registry office to Canadian office cubicles, via a German pitching workshop and a female cadet school in Moscow, the absurdity of the corporate mindset is plain to see, hilarious and chillingly familiar.

Full details of all the films are provided in the Glasgow Short Film Festival brochure.

To book, please go to www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff or call 0141 332 6535

Telling Stories: International Competition 5
Friday 10 February / 3pm
Saturday 11 February / 9pm
CCA Cinema
Ages: 15+

This programme examines, confounds and subverts conventions of storytelling. Genres clash in a self-referential struggle for narrative supremacy. Bill Plympton remakes his 2005 film Guard Dog with the aid of seventy animators recruited online, each recreating a scene in their own style, while Now Follows dissects the ‘typical’ short film shot by shot, to great comic effect. Also featuring multi-award-winning sci-fi schlocker Decapoda Shock, Sundance favourite Pioneer, starring Will Oldham, and Johnny Barrington’s highland epic Tumult.

Full details of all the films are provided in the Glasgow Short Film Festival brochure.

To book, please go to www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff or call 0141 332 6535

Sweet Sorrow: International Competition 6
Thursday 9 February / 9pm
Saturday 11 February / 11am
Ages: 15+
CCA Cinema

When love dies, how do we react? Denial, escape, desire, obsession, acceptance and grief are the states of mind explored in this bittersweet selection. Featuring Fred Worden’s experimental reworking of a scene from the 1932 film Possessed, the minimalist Brazilian sketch Fantasmas, and the latest film from Rachel Lang (For You I Will Fight, GSFF11), fresh from winning the prestigious Ingmar Bergman Award at Uppsala Short Film Festival: White Turnips Make it Hard to Sleep.

Full details of all the films are provided in the Glasgow Short Film Festival brochure.

To book, please go to www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff or call 0141 332 6535

Bad Behaviour: International Competition 7
Thursday 9 February / 9pm
Saturday 11 February / 11am
CCA Cinema
Ages: 15+

The weight of adult expectation is forced on the young in our seventh international selection. Boundaries are demarcated, transgressions are punished. But why can’t grown ups behave like kids once in a while? Featuring the hilarious Las Palmas, winner of the audience award at Encounters and Gothenburg Film Festivals, Sundance favourite The Strange Ones, and Green Crayons, the latest film from GSFF alumnus Kazik Radwanski (Princess Margaret Blvd., Out in that Deep Blue Sea).

Full details of all the films are provided in the Glasgow Short Film Festival brochure.

To book, please go to www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff or call 0141 332 6535

Surreal/Political: Animations from Oberhausen
Thursday 9 February / 7pm
CCA Cinema
Ages: 15+

The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen runs one of the world’s most notable, largest and oldest short film archives. This special selection features eight award-winning animations dating from 1964 to 1997, in which filmmakers don’t shy away from taking a political stance. The programme takes a journey through time, tracing the history of the animated short, particularly those of the surreal variety. Many of the works on view have long since attained the status of classics; as such, they also reflect the history of the Oberhausen Festival. We are delighted to welcome Oberhausen archivist Carsten Spicher to introduce this screening and discuss the films.

To book, please go to www.glasgowfilm.org/gsff or call 0141 332 6535

Scottish Screenwriters

13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Scottish Screenwriters was formed in 2005 by John McShane and Jerry Brannigan to continue the work started in the various screenwriting courses they had attended. The Glasgow screenwriting group continues to grow and has links with the Edinburgh screenwriting group as well as having contacts worldwide and more than 300 online members.

Meetings are usually on the second Monday of each month and the first half normally consists of a short talk and Q&A from an industry based guest, followed by workshopping of member’s scripts.

The aim is to provide a safe and welcoming environment for screenwriters of all levels of experience to meet and discuss their work with fellow writers.

For full details see www.scottishscreenwriters.co.uk

Glasgow Film Festival

16 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Tickets: £8 (£6) / Ticket deals available from www.glasgowfilm.org/festival

An unmissable date for the diary, Glasgow Film Festival returns in February with an exceptional programme of special screenings, unique events and rare opportunities to get up close and personal with cutting-edge filmmakers. Over 34,000 tickets were sold during the Festival in 2011, helping to make GFF the fastest growing film event in the UK.

During Glasgow Film Festival, CCA will welcome Kapow!@GFF, Weimarvellous, Crossing the Line, European Cinema and Fashion in Film.

For full details please see www.glasgowfilm.org/festival

Weimarvellous
Friday 17 & Saturday 18 Feb
To add some fun and old-fashioned glamour to the dark winter months we have curated a special event inspired by the cabaret movement of Weimar Republic Germany. This tumultuous period, seen as a ‘wild crucible for modern ideas and experiments’, provides the perfect stimulus for a weekend of entertainment and experiment. We launch the weekend with a screening of The Blue Angel (with a free drink, dahlink), followed by a short selection of cabaret acts in the CCA café/bar and rounding off with your chance to sing karaoke inspired by Bob Fosse’s 1972 film Cabaret.

On Saturday we present two experiments in film, sound and presentation: a live improvised accompaniment to silent film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City by an established Scottish jazz trio and, later, a novel amalgamation – a live film and sound improvisation titled Glasgow: Symphony of a Great City. We close the weekend with a screening of the beautiful and historic Prince Achmed, created in the1920s by avant-garde animator Lotte Reiniger.
Curated and sponsored by the University of Edinburgh in partnership with GFF and Cinema Spectacular.

Kapow!@GFF
Tuesday 21 – Thursday 23 Feb
Faster than a speeding computer graphic, more powerful than a capture motion performance and more keenly anticipated than The Avengers 2012 blockbuster, Kapow!@GFF offers a knock-out, kick ass celebration of all that is great in graphic novels, comic books, animation and gaming. Superheroes in Glasgow was one of the most popular strands of the 2011 Festival. Kapow!@GFF, with Festival Ambassador Mark Millar, promises some of the best dark nights you will ever have.

Crossing the Line
Tuesday 21 February
A brand new strand for this year’s Festival which explores the crossover between cinema and visual art. Discover films by internationally renowned artists as well as the best in experimental and avant-garde cinema. Crossing the Line is a platform for daring and alternative approaches to cinema and explores the very limits of the medium.

The State of Independents
Tuesday 21 February
Welcome to the world of American cinema that lies beyond the razzle dazzle of what Hollywood has to offer. Intensely personal visions, incredibly compelling stories and quirky, funny, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art joy from hot new talents.

European Cinema
Wednesday 22 February
A stunning array of choice films from across the continent from rising star Mia Hansen-Løve’s tale of first love to the newest heart-warmer from the Dardenne brothers. Welcome to the great big family of European cinema.

Glasgow Music and Film Festival
Wednesday 22 February
Glasgow Music and Film Festival is back to continue its tradition of blending new, experimental sonic and visual explorations. Honed and cultivated by seasoned film fanatics at GFF and switched on music aficionados at the Arches, the Festival celebrates the special relationship between film and music. This year’s expertly crafted selection of jaw-dropping live events and fascinating documentaries champion the lost, the unseen, the psychedelic, the imagined and the nostalgic.

Fashion in Film
Friday 24 February
This year’s Fashion in Film strand is bursting at the seams with some of the hottest names in the biz. GFF Fashion Ambassador Tessa Hartmann of the Scottish Fashion Awards has helped us clear the cinematic runway for in-depth portraits of the lives of iconic designers, fashion editors and celebrated photographers. Throw in a little 1920s glamour from a silent gem and a lively debate on the power and seduction of high heels and we’ve got fashion in film covered from head to toe.

The Edge of the World
Saturday 25 February
Join us as we shine a light on indigenous cultures around the world, bringing you highlights from Imagine NATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Canada as well as home-grown Gaelic talent.

Scottish Writers' Centre presents The Writer's Life with Jacqueline Smith

16 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The next big debate of the year, The Writer’s Life. How can we transform the ups and downs of acceptance and rejection into creativity and craft? Talk and tools for the literary life.

Jacqueline Smith has published a Collection of Poetry, Muted Hellion available in selected Glasgow Libraries and online and has had various poems published over the years, the most recent, Dumbie & The Devil a Scottish ballad, in the Long Poem Magazine Issue 7, due out January 2012.

She attended the Creative Writing Project at GCNS in 2008 where she completed her first novel, and will complete the MLitt. in Creative Writing in August 2012 at Glasgow University whilst also finishing her second novel.

Jacqueline graduated with Distinction from The Scottish College of Homoeopathy in 1997 and received a PostGrad Certificate for Teaching in Further Education from Dundee University in 2005.

She has practiced Meditation for over two decades and taught since 2001. She created and taught courses on Meditation, Relaxation & Integrative Art at Langside College, St. Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art, Lodging House Mission and the Tibetan Buddhist Centre and has facilitated writing workshops at Revive MS Therapy Centre in Glasgow.

She was until recently MC and organiser at Poetry@The Ivory, and is now Chairwoman of the Scottish Writers' Centre based at CCA.

Exhibition: Underside, backside, inside, even

16 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Laura Aldridge’s work moves freely between wall-based reliefs and sculptural installations, playing on the abilities of ‘collage’ to operate in two and three-dimensions. Her works use fabric, images (both photographic and silk-screened) and found objects to create installations that the artist describes as ‘expanded collage’. She often arranges elements of her works upon tables, low plinths or across gallery walls to bring ‘things’ together so that they might coalesce as a whole.

Underside, backside, inside, even is a series of new fabric sculptures, depicting oversized fabric pockets found on a variety of clothing, from pinafore dresses to the back pockets of jeans. Rendered and hand-stitched in great detail, larger than human scale and cut-out from their original context, these pockets become ‘things’, emphasising their potential to hold other objects or even the body. The sensory elements of Aldridge’s installations are important in setting up a relationship between ‘bodies’ to ‘objects’.

About Laura Aldridge
Laura Aldridge (born Frimley, England, 1978) graduated with an MFA in Fine Art from Glasgow School of Art in 2006, spending an exchange at CALARTS, Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include: Cairn, Pittenweem, Fife, 2011; Studio Voltaire, London, 2011 and Cats are not important at Transmission Gallery, 2011. Laura is also part of the Glasgow-based Poster Club.

Aldridge’s exhibition at CCA has been generously supported by The Elephant Trust.

Exhibition: Thinking Ourselves into Existence

16 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Psykick Dancehall is Hannah Ellul and Ben Knight. They will use the Vanguard space to continue their ongoing discussions with musician, musicologist and founder of Sheffield-based record label Singing Knives, Jon Marshall. What are the politics of experimental music and how can they be explored through interdisciplinary means? What new forms of collaboration might this provoke?

Throughout February Psykick Dancehall will host a resource room and a listening space with an archive of recordings, as well as hosting discussions, talks and performances.

Write Camera Action!

20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Write Camera Action! hosts creative workshops on the third Monday of every month. Pre-submitted scripts are matched with a director and actors to workshop and often have observers attached to their groups. The actors remaining after scripts are cast form improvisation workshops and the night closes with a performance from all groups. Further details and info on script submissions from writecameraaction@hotmail.co.uk

Talk: Laure Prouvost: The Wanderer

23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Laure Prouvost presents a discussion on her new film The Wanderer as a trailer to the seven-part project commissioned by FLAMIN and Book Works. The film is a fictional story in which a character undergoes a series of increasingly bizarre and mysterious experiences. As he tries to hold onto reality, it seems to melt from under him.

The Wanderer has been developed from a work by artist Rory Macbeth, who translated a Kafka novella from German into English without any knowledge of the German language or a dictionary, over a period of two years. Mixing everyday footage with staged interludes, the plot will constantly be undermined by disparate audio/visual elements and misunderstandings.

About Laure Prouvoust and Rory Macbeth
Laure Prouvost was born in 1978 in Croix-Lille, France, and lives and works in London. She graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Arts in 2002. In 2009 she completed the LUX Artist Associate Programme. Recent solo exhibitions include; Frieze Projects, 2011; Before Before at MOT International, London, 2011 and Art Now Lightbox at Tate Britain, London, 2010. She was the winner of the Principle Prize at the 2011 Oberhausen Short Film Festival. In November 2011, Prouvost won the Max Mara art prize for women.

Rory Macbeth (1965) lives and works in Leeds and London. He received a BA in Fine Art from Central St. Martin's in 2000 and has performed and exhibited extensively throughout Europe. Macbeth is also the founder and co-director of PILOT, the only large-scale international forum and archive of artists who are not represented by galleries.

Trade – The Flower Industry In Kenya

28 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Greater transparency in the international financial system would transform the lives of some of the world’s poorest people. Each year around US$160 billion is diverted away from developing economies through secretive practices and tax avoidance. In addition to this, the structure of the international trade system favours wealthy states and companies at the expense of less economically developed countries.

Since the 1990s, the bulk of flowers and vegetables grown in Kenya are specifically grown for export and Britain has imported significant quantities of both. What is the impact on Kenya of this new industry, and does big business moving into a struggling economy actually help?

At the start of Fair Trade Fortnight, join us for a screening of a documentary film followed by an expert panel discussion and Q&A exploring the issues of trade and tax.

Introducing Poverty Over
Poverty Over is Christian Aid's powerful manifesto which investigates why the developing world is still poor, and defines what needs to change to help bring an end to poverty.

In partnership, Christian Aid and the Guardian have created a series of investigative documentaries exploring key issues faced by the world’s poorest communities.

Cheeky Breakfast Productions presents The Pitch: Apocalypse

28 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Cheeky Breakfast Productions invites you to their debut experimental multi-arts event, The Pitch. An event committed to showcasing some of the finest new performance from artists of all disciplines and stages in their career.

Artists are asked to respond to a given stimulus, those successful are then given two months to develop their idea culminating in an evening of performance, screenings, and happenings at CCA. The night itself with involve a number of brand new works of art and a drinks reception, at which ticket holders will receive a free cocktail.

Because the economic crisis deepens further, fossil fuels continue to run out, the ice caps continue to melt, and the Mayan calendar runs out in the coming year, the stimulus for this first experiment will be, The End of the World. Participants can be as literal or as broad with the stimulus as they desire. Artistic license is encouraged.

If you are interested in submitting a piece for this event, simply type a short proposal on no more than one side of A4 with your/company name, your proposed work, how it relates to the stimulus, the approximate length of the work, a rough idea of previous experience and your technical requirements (these should be minimal).

Send this to alldaycheeky@gmail.com before Christmas Day, that’s the 25th OF DECEMBER 2011 with the subject The Pitch.

GRAMNet and BEMIS present The Broadest Shoulders and One Way, a Tuareg Journey

29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The 2011/12 Film Series is organised in partnership between GRAMNet (Glasgow Refugee Asylum and Migration Network) and BEMIS (Black and Ethnic Minorities Infrastructure in Scotland), with the support of the newly established Glasgow Human Rights Network (GHRN). This year we will showcase films and documentaries addressing a whole range of migration-related issues including; journeys and narratives; asylum and immigration bureaucracies; recognition and social justice, deportation and humiliation; separation and reunion. The ethos underpinning the 2011/12 film series is ‘Think Global, Act Local’. Following each film, invited local organisations and community groups will suggest positive actions that can be undertaken locally to address one or more of the issues raised in each film.

To celebrate the World Day of Social Justice, GRAMNet and BEMIS will screen The Broadest Shoulders (2011), a short film by the Camcorder Guerillas which confronts the effects of spending cuts in the UK on disabled people; and One Way, a Tuareg Journey (2010).

One Way, a Tuareg Journey is a documentary by Fabio Caramaschi. It narrates the parallel stories of Tuareg brothers Sidi and Alkhassoum, separated by the family’s migration to Italy. While Sidi manages to join his father in Italy, together with his mother and sister, younger Alkhassoum cannot obtain the necessary documents and therefore has to be left behind in Niger, in the care of his paternal grandfather. The documentary follows Sidi over a period of several years. All the time Alkhassoum’s ‘present absence’ is intensely felt, and difficult questions are asked to which even adults do not always have an answer.

Screenings are accompanied by forums and Q&A for everyone to share views and thoughts in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. The audience is warmly invited to congregate in Saramago Cafe Bar following each screening to continue our informal discussions.

Seeds of Thought

29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Join us for the usual Seeds gathering at CCA. A fun, relaxed evening of spoken word and acoustic music. A diverse range of acts perform, from traditional African 'mbira' music to comedic and dramatic sketches and visual presentations. No two events are the same on this platform for regular, seasoned and new performers. Open mic for those who want to share in the fun and easy going spirit of the evening.