Film Season: I’m Too Happy

Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor

Book now

Film Season: I’m Too Happy

HOME Manchester, Manchester
3-13 December 2016

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Feed Me - Image courtesy of HOME
Book now

Rachel Maclean’s unsettling, rainbow-dipped work is full of references to Disney princesses, horror films and fairy tales. So it makes perfect sense for HOME to accompany Wot u 🙂 about?, their exhibition of Maclean’s work, with a season of films that digs into her influences and cinematic affinities. Selected by Maclean herself, alongside curator Bren O’Callaghan, the season expands upon themes within the artist’s works that address childhood, happiness and innocence as a context, state or quality ripe for commodification and exploitation.

On Saturday 3rd December HOME are showing Alice, acclaimed Czech animator Jan Švankmajer’s surreal adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale. Like Maclean, Švankmajer combines live action with animation and visual effects in order to craft an inventive work that both delights and disturbs.

Alice - Image courtesy of HOME
Alice – Image courtesy of HOME

Where the Czech director uses stop-motion, Maclean uses computer generated effects in combination with old-fashioned make-up to transform herself into multiple characters in her 2015 film Feed Me. Screening on Monday 5th December Maclean’s parable of the pleasures and perils of indulgence showcases the extravagance and excess of her artistic palette.

Canadian auteur Guy Maddin concludes the season on Tuesday 13th December with his 2003, depression era tale, The Saddest Music in the World. Starring Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet) as a beer baroness who sponsors a competition to find the world’s saddest song, Maddin’s stylish oddity is “part musical melodrama, part tongue-in-cheek social satire and part phantasmagoria.”

 

 

What's on at HOME Manchester

Freaky Friday at HOME
FamiliesManchester
Freaky Friday at HOME

HOME’s Christmas show Freaky Friday makes its UK stage premiere. A funny, heartfelt Disney musical offering a body-swappingly brilliant alternative to panto.

From £27.70
SÉANCE at HOME
Until
TheatreManchester
SÉANCE at HOME

Happening at HOME, SÉANCE transforms the interior of a shipping container into a Victorian séance room.

From £13.00

Where to go near Film Season: I’m Too Happy

Manchester
Restaurant
Indian Tiffin Room, Manchester

Indian Tiffin Room is a restaurant specialising in Indian street food, with branches in Cheadle and Manchester. This is the information for the Manchester venue.

The Ritz Manchester live music venue
Manchester
Music venue
The Ritz

The Ritz was originally a dance hall, built in 1928, has hosted The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and The Smiths and is still going strong as a gig venue now.

Homeground
Manchester
Event venue
Homeground

Homeground is HOME’s brand new outdoor venue, providing an open-air space for theatre, food, film, music, comedy and more.

Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
Burgess Cafe Bar
at IABF

Small but perfectly-formed café – which also serves as the in-house bookstore, stocking all manner of Burgess-related works, along with recordings of his music. It’s a welcoming space, with huge glass windows making for a bright, welcoming atmosphere.

Rain Bar pub in Manchester
City Centre
Bar or Pub
Rain Bar

This huge three-floor pub, formerly a Victorian warehouse, then an umbrella factory (hence the name), has one of the city centre’s largest beer gardens. The two-tier terrace overlooks the Rochdale canal and what used to be the back of the Hacienda, providing an unusual, historic view of the city.

Manchester
Bar or Pub
The Briton’s Protection

Standing on the corner of a junction opposite The Bridgewater Hall, The Briton’s Protection is Manchester’s oldest pub. It has occupied the same spot since 1795, going under the equally

Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
Castlefield
Gallery
Castlefield Gallery

The influential Castlefield Gallery sits at the edge of Manchester’s exciting Castlefield district, an ideal home for thought-provoking contemporary art.

What's on: Cinema

Culture Guides

Cinema in the North

A host of Halloween horrors, experimental shorts, plus pioneering black British cinema make our October Cinema Guide.

Theatre in Manchester and the North
Theatre in the North

Theatre this month bursts with contrasts - from bold new writing and Black History Month highlights to contemporary arts and reimagined classics.

Exhibitions in the North

Galleries around the North are gearing up for a new season of exhibitions - from iconic art prizes to smaller, artist-led gems.

Wisp Press Image
Music in the North

From corrupted shoegaze to experimental electronica, post-hardcore to Indian classical, these are the shows that should be on your radar.