A Note on This Week's Films

23 October 2023

I’m extraordinarily proud of the films we have brought together this week. All four approach ideas of humanity and social constructs from their own unique perspectives. Acclaimed British filmmaker Ken Loach’s The Old Oak presents realities and questions expectations through the kaleidoscope of a diaspora of peoples; Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money mines the gulf between the hyper rich and the working citizen, John Berry’s Claudine charts the path of a black working mother in 1970s Harlem and Jules Dassin’s Uptight explores militancy in the in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Entertaining in their own unique ways, each film has at its core a deep exploration of human values and our accountability toward one another. The span of 50 years between each duo of pictures proves that we wrestle still - perhaps always will - with those same questions, expectations and social constructs.

As a cinema operator I’m not here to instruct on ways of seeing or thinking, or on how others should live their lives - that’s nobody’s job. But if we in our industry can present works of art and commerce that encourage questions, well then that’s our job.

There is one more day to catch all four of these films - Thursday 26 October - and I heartily recommend all four, although if you’ve left it until now you’ll only be able to catch two of them!

Dan, Programmer & Managing Director, King Street Cinema