The Bioscope’s March movie madness
MABONENG PRECINCT – Independent cinema The Bioscope will thrill movie lovers this month with a selection of action-packed, interesting and off-beat films. The cinema also features an adjoining restaurant and craft beer bar, the Chalkboard, which doubles up as the box office and lobby bar. On 7 March at 7.30pm, the Bioscope will launch Blow …
MABONENG PRECINCT – Independent cinema The Bioscope will thrill movie lovers this month with a selection of action-packed, interesting and off-beat films.
The cinema also features an adjoining restaurant and craft beer bar, the Chalkboard, which doubles up as the box office and lobby bar.
On 7 March at 7.30pm, the Bioscope will launch Blow Up Cinema, a new signature event that will feature the “best action films ever made”.
The first action classic to kick off this new event is the 1987 film Robocop, set in a dystopic, crime-ridden Detroit, in which a terminally wounded police officer returns to the force as a powerful cyborg haunted by submerged memories.
The one-of-a-kind documentary Convento will be screened from 8 until 11 March.
Prima ballerina Geraldine Zwanikken, photographer Kees and their two sons left Holland in 1980, to take up residence at the Convento Sao Francisco de Mertola, a vacant monastery situated at the confluence of two rivers in southeast Portugal.
The arrival of the family brought a transformation to the decaying monastery with their eccentric endeavours.
The short film tour of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen will be screened between 13 and 15 March.
For the tour, the festival organisers compile the most interesting works from the previous year’s competitions and its archive into feature-length programmes.
This year, The Bioscope will screen outstanding titles from the 2013 International and German competitions, as well as the best artist film and video selection.
The 2013 Oscar-nominated documentary How to Survive a Plague will be screened from 21 March.
The film tells the story of two coalitions, Act Up and Tag (Treatment Action Group), whose activism and innovation helped transform Aids from a death-sentence to a manageable condition.
Despite a lack of scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, and moved them from experimental trials to patients in record time.
Filmmaker David France used unfettered access to never-before-seen archival footage from the 1980s and 90s to put the viewer in the middle of the controversial actions, heated meetings, heartbreaking failures and exultant breakthroughs of heroes in the making.
Details: 011 039 7306; www.thebioscope.co.za
Watch the Convento trailer
