Go noir

American Center in collaboration with Cinedarbaar celebrates Film Noir through screening of 8 specially curated movies in 3 days. Being held from 8 – 10 May at the American Center Auditorium there will be quizzes and interesting sessions to complete the whole experience of watching movies.

The festival will open with Double Indemnity, a 1944 crime drama directed by Billy Wilder which was nominated for 7 Oscars and was adapted from a novella written by crime fiction writer James M. Cain. Other movies include The Killers (1946) loosely based on Ernest Hemmingway’s short story, The Lady from Shanghai (1947) directed by the auteur Orson Welles, Thieves Highway (1949) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) based on novels by A I Bezzerides, In a lonely Place (1950) directed by Nicholas Ray and considered as the noir-classic. Neo – Noir films such as Blade Runner (1982), the popular sci-fi thriller noir film and LA Confidential (1997) an adaptation known to give a true depiction of LA will also be screened during the three days. Neo-noir film establishes a much more frightening and grim reality than what was established in the noir films of the 1940s and 1950s.

Film Noir or the Black Cinema was coined by French critic Nino Frank to describe the genres of detective, gangster, crime and melodramatic films. Guns, Cigarettes, Hats, femme fatales wearing sensual makeup and plunging necklines, mixing drinks with their gangster beaus marked a typical movie of the genre.

Through these films, important techniques of noir and auteurs of the genre like director Orson Welles, Nicholas Ray, Robert Aldrich etc. will be explored. Learn more about this genre through the interactive sessions on such topics after the movie screening. Come discover the world of heroes and antiheroes, mobsters, killers, criminal milieu, expressionistic lighting and shadows with a free entry for all. Few lucky visitors can also get a chance to win full-size posters of the movie through a review writing competition and by answering fun quiz after the screening.

To request an invitation, please e-mail to [email protected] or collect your passes prior to the event. Carry a valid photo ID and the e-invite.