Culture in Society: Dumfries Working-Class History
- RBC Film Theatre Mill Road Dumfries, Scotland, DG2 7BE United Kingdom (map)
Click on film title below for more info.
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Victor Kossakovsky’s visually stunning film takes audiences on an extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete, and its ancestor stone. He raises a fundamental question: how do we inhabit the world of tomorrow?
Architecton is an epic, intimate, and poetic meditation on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction — and offer hope for survival and a way forward. Centring on a landscape project by the Italian architect Michele De Lucchi, Kossakovsky uses the perfect circle of stones in De Lucchi’s garden to reflect on the rise and fall of civilisations, capturing breathtaking imagery, from the temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon, dating back to AD 60 to the recent destruction of cities in Turkey following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in early 2023.
Rocks and stone connect the disparate societies, from ghostly monoliths stuck in the earth to tragic heaps of concrete rubble waiting to be hauled off and repurposed. Through Kossakovsky’s lens, the grandeur and folly of humanity and its precarious relationship with nature posits the urgent question: How do we build, and how can we build better, before it’s too late?
In our annual Book Week Scotland event, poet JoAnne McKay will draw on her current reading to explore how museums, and archaeology, are going to be tools for dealing with the climate crisis, and how past strategies and technologies may be needed to assist with our future. Combining readings from Reinventing Sustainability (Guttman-Bond) and Museums and Societal Collapse (Robert Janes) along with her own poetry, JoAnne will offer a unique insight into this fascinating topic.
JoAnne has selected the documentary Jane Goodall - Reasons for Hope (Dir David Lickle, 2023, 45 mins). Drawing on decades of work by the world’s most famous living ethologist and environmentalist, Reasons for Hope, is an uplifting journey around the globe to highlight good news stories that will inspire people to make a difference in the world around them.
Screening in association with Dumfries Fairtrade in recognition of World Fairtrade Day. Followed by informal Q&A.
When a massive Chinese factory complex in rural Ethiopia plans an ambitious expansion to a second site, the realities of industrialisation are pulled into focus.
Made in Ethiopia takes a panoramic view, following three women involved in the project from polar perspectives: Motto, the formidable businesswoman in charge of the expansion project, factory worker Beti who has staked her future on the work opportunities the factory provides, and farmer Workinesh, whose land has been earmarked for the new industrial park.
Filmed over four years, Made in Ethiopia lifts the curtain on China’s historic but misunderstood impact on Africa, and explores contemporary Ethiopia at a moment of profound change.
- Tagged: Documentary, November