DocHouse November Screenings

November sees the final month of screenings from hard-hitting documentary showcasing company Dochouse before they receive their own screen at the newly renovated Curzon Bloomsbury on the 16th January, and after last month’s highly successful screenings (including a special preview of Citizenfour, now showing nationwide), we recommend you book your tickets now for one of these unique and enriching events.
Taking centre stage is Maidan, which screens on 30 November at the ICA, followed by a post-show discussion. This Ukrainian film won best film at the 2014 Astra Film Festival and was selected to screen at Cannes, Toronto and the London Film Festivals this year. Described by The Guardian as ‘a vital and urgent film,’ the doc chronicles the civil uprising against President Yanukovych in Maidan, Kiev’s main square, earlier this year - a historic turning point for Ukraine and its people. Helmed by Acclaimed director Sergei Loznitsa (In The Fog, My Joy) it was filmed over a period of ninety days, beginning with the peaceful carnival of singing, speeches and music before moving on to the inevitable climactic violence that shook the world.
Also showing at the Rich Mix on November 13 is Emptying the Skies, a film based on an essay by best-selling novelist Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections) which investigates the poaching of migratory songbirds, killed in their tens of millions every year in southern Europe in order to make ambelopoulia; a prized delicacy in Cyprus. Directors Douglas and Roger Kass follow a group of bird lovers waging a secret and highly dangerous war against poachers and landowners in their attempt to protect these tiny globe-flying creatures.