John Berger at 100
Essayist, novelist, screenwriter, translator, playwright, painter and critic John Berger (1926-2017) is one of the most internationally influential writers of the last fifty years.
To mark what would have been his hundredth year, we’re celebrating his unique way of seeing with a season of screenings, offering a window into the creative and collaborative life of this sorely missed storyteller and deeply political thinker.
From the illuminating and influential TV films he made with Mike Dibb about art and thinking, to his creative partnerships with photographers, narrative script-work with Swiss director Alain Tanner and portraits of his decades living rurally in Haute-Savoie, join us as we celebrate his life, work and legacy alongside a series of special guests.
With thanks to Andrew Kelly (former Director of Bristol Ideas) for his support on this project.
Upcoming screenings in this season
About Time: Once Upon a Time
classified 15 John Berger at 100
Filmed entirely in different spaces in and around John Berger’s house in the Haute Savoie in France, Once upon a Time is a moving and unusual meditation on our experience of time, as revealed through a careful selection of contrasting and thought-provoking time-centred ‘stories’, both old and new.
Salgado: The Spectre of Hope
classified 15 John Berger at 100
Spectre of Hope is based on the latest work of photographer Sebastiao Salgado. Salgado spent 6 years traveling to over 40 countries, taking pictures of globalisation and its consequences - most notably, the mass migrations of populations around the world. In the film, Salgado presents his remarkable photographs in conversation with John Berger.
La Salamandre
classified 15Subtitled screening
Freelance journalist Pierre (Jean-Luc Bideau) and his friend Paul (Jacques Denis), a poet, join forces to pen a screenplay about Rosemonde (Bulle Ogier), who may or not may not have shot her uncle many years earlier.
Play Me Something + Ways of Listening
classified 15 John Berger at 100
A double bill screening of 2016's Ways of Listening, a chapter from The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger, followed by 1989's Play Me Something starring Tilda Swinton.
Ways of Seeing
classified 15 John Berger at 100
Mike Dibb and John Berger’s Ways of Seeing changed the way people think about painting and art criticism. This watershed work shows, through word and image, how what we see is always influenced by a whole host of assumptions concerning the nature of beauty, truth, civilization, form, taste, class and gender.