WELCOME TO OUR NEXT SCREENING
Timm Kröger's
THE UNIVERSAL THEORY
(Germany/Austria/Switzerland | 2023 | 118 mins | M violence & content that may disturb)
In co-operation with the Goethe-Institut
Wednesday 7 May, 7.30PM, University of Otago’s Castle 1 Lecture Theatre**
This heady sci-fi thriller takes us on a gripping cinematic voyage packed with astute film references, Hitchcockian suspense and brain-melting metaphysics.
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| “This fiendishly clever and inventive sci-fi... opens with strung-out novelist Johannes Leinert (Jan Bülow) appearing on a German chat show in 1974. He’s supposedly there to plug a novel about the existence of parallel worlds called The Theory of Everything. Except, he explains to the baffled host, it’s not a novel. All of it is real... In German filmmaker Timm Kröger’s assured hands, all this plays like a journey of scientific discovery or a descent into madness – occasionally both at the same time... You could be watching Spellbound in some smoky 1940s picturehouse. The Universal Theory takes a cue or two from Chris Marker’s seminal New Wave noodle-twister La Jetée, too. But just as it seems to be clever clogs hard sci-fi... it steps back from the blackboard and turns swooningly romantic” (Phil de Semlyen, Time Out).
FURTHER REVIEW
"Filmed in high-contrast black-and-white and lensed in widescreen CinemaScope by its talented director of photography, Roland Stuprich, to evoke classic film noir of the 1940s and ’50s, the film is visually evocative without convincing us that we’re actually watching a product of that era. Instead, the film’s studied effect, and the stilted nature of its performances (including from two leads whose doomed romance feels more fatalistic than fated, and too quickly), combine with the nitrate charge of its period aesthetics to produce a fugue-like frisson" (Isaac Feldberg, RogerEbert.com).
Finally, watch Cliff Stevenson, cinema critic, review The Universal Theory.
–––––––––––––––– Please Note:
A reminder: the NZ Federation of Film Societies has cancelled the screenings of How Far Is Heaven (ours was 23 July) because one of the subjects of the film now objects to it being shown. The Society's Committee is now in negotiation with the Federation to secure a suitable replacement title – we will advise members of this soon as possible.–––––––––––––––– ABOUT THE DUNEDIN FILM SOCIETY
ADMISSION
Free to members.
TO JOIN
To purchase a Full Season membership:- complete a membership form from our website and pay by online bank transfer (06-0942-0696013-00);
- or join at the door before any screening (cash only).
- you can also join at the OUSA office reception at the University of Otago (cash only).
Alternatively, you can purchase a Three-Film sampler ($25), which can be also be shared to bring two friends to one screening. The sampler does not expire and can be used over multiple years.
Membership includes generous discounts at Rialto Cinemas (from Monday to Friday) and the 2025 Dunedin Whānau Marama New Zealand International Film Festival; and FREE entry to the 2025 screenings of all other affiliated New Zealand Film Societies. Each member is entitled to ONE FREE GUEST ADMISSION to a single screening.
**To get to the Castle 1 Theatre: walk up between the University of Otago’s Arts building (Burns) and Information Services building (Central Library), on Albany Street.
WE WELCOME YOUR FEEDBACK!... on this screening, or any other Dunedin Film Society showing, on dunedinfi...@gmail.com –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– |
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| | Dunedin Film Society
PO BOX 6139 Dunedin North Dunedin, Otago 9059New Zealand |
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