The most memorable film I ever saw was ‘Satantango': black and white, in Hungarian, seven hours long.

It was an experience like no other, 20 years ago now, at the Auckland Film Festival.

There were two intermissions and the small band of intrepid viewers – no more than a couple of dozen of us – bonded during the screening like travellers on a sacred pilgrimage.

Most importantly, the film itself was brilliant and really taught me for the first time the joys of immersive long cinema – watching ‘Satantango' I felt a part of those muddy peasant landscapes, a comrade of the downtrodden farmers trudging silently along endlessly bleak dirt tracks.
The German film ‘Home from Home' is screening in the Mount.

A certain amount of the pleasure though, I must admit, was the simple, almost transgressive act of actually seeing the film, of actually watching something so rare and strange in the cinema.

Not only does it put you in a small privileged group who can brag about
doing just that, but it was also an absolutely unforgettable experience, something you really had to sit through to appreciate.

(I've since rewatched it on DVD and, striking though it is, the impact pales when viewing is so easily ‘interruptible'.)

I say all this because the Tauranga Film Society is holding a special film screening of a masterpiece of German cinema, 2013's ‘Home from Home: Chronicle of a Vision', at the Mauao Performing Arts Centre, Mount Maunganui, this Sunday afternoon (August 9).
The screening of ‘Home from Home', made possible by the Goethe Institute, is open to the general public and entry is by koha. It is in – you guessed it – German, is predominantly black and white and runs for four hours. Film buffs assemble! It starts at 1pm, with an intermission half way through for nibbles and drinks. Bringing
a cushion sounds like a good idea...

The film is from director Edgar Reitz, best known in Germany for his extraordinary series ‘Heimat', which dramatised 20th-century life in a German town over 50 hours of riveting television.

The film is set in that same country town but immerses us in the affairs of 1844, a time when rural life was harsh and feudal order still prevailed. Reviews worldwide have been rapturous.

TimeOut said '... a magnificent, career-capping achievement from one of the great storytellers of our era.”

That was the general tone of all the critics. It has an 8.1 rating on IMDB.

Fortunately, the leap back in time requires no prior acquaintance with any of ‘Heimat'. Bill Gosden, from the NZ International Film Festival describes ‘Home From Home' as 'shot with razor-sharp clarity in black-and-white digital CinemaScope, with occasional graphic incursions of colour, this is cinema both gloriously panoramic and intimately interior.”

It's cinema I'm looking forward to like Christmas. I realise this is not an experience for everyone, but for those hardy cinematic voyagers searching for new horizons – this one's for you (You can find the trailer at www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5AFlhyrylM)

International talent

And, speaking of films, the International Film Festival is about to roll into town, kicking off at The Rialto on Thursday 20 August. The programme is online and the easiest way I've discovered to find it is to go to www.nziff.co.nz and use the drop-down menu at the top to choose ‘Tauranga'. Then there's a full programme pdf.

Tauranga has more than 40 films coming here, along with a host of short films in various categories. It's hard not to notice that the similarly-timed Palmerston North and Hamilton festivals get a bunch more movies. And it's hard not to be slightly disappointed that many of the more interesting films from the Auckland line-up have disappeared along the way.

What we are left with are the more ‘mainstream' of the arty films, some of which, Belfast-set army thriller ‘‘71' and artificial intelligence sci-fi outing ‘Ex-Machina' should have had general release rather than rare festival showings.

Elsewhere there is Oliver Assayas' ‘Clouds of Silas Maria', French post WW2 film ‘Phoenix' – a Vertigo-like psychological thriller – and Kiwi schlocker ‘Deathgasm'.
The other notable feature is the sheer number of documentaries, including the Amy Winehouse film and the Scientology exposé ‘Going Clear'. Sadly, the most interesting one, Joshua Oppenheime's

‘The Look of Silence', isn't coming here.

watusi@thesun.co.nz