Nostalghia: A Ghostlights Film Night

A small screening of Tarkovsky’s dreamlike film about exile, memory, faith and the impossible hope of returning home, followed by an unhurried conversation.

I’m beginning a Ghostlights film night with a film I would name as one of my favourites: Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia.

A Russian writer travels through Italy while researching the life of an eighteenth-century composer. Away from home, he becomes absorbed by memory, longing and the figure of a man who believes the world can still be saved by a single impossible act.

This is a slow, strange and extraordinarily beautiful film. It moves through ruined buildings, pools, rain, fog, dreams and remembered rooms, asking what home means when it can no longer be reached in any simple way.

Its concerns with exile, faith, sacrifice, memory and purpose feel very close to the territory Ghostlights often explores.

THE SCREENING

We’ll meet in the residential cinema room in my building, have a brief introduction, and then watch the film without interruption.

We’ll be watching a recently released 4K UHD edition on the cinema room’s approximately 50-inch screen, giving the film’s extraordinary landscapes, interiors and dream sequences a suitably rich presentation.

This is deliberately not a large public screening. It is closer to watching a beautiful film in a friend’s living room.

AFTER THE FILM

Afterwards, we can stay and chat or visit one of the bars next door and talk about whatever remained with us.

No knowledge of film theory is needed, and nobody will be expected to produce an interpretation.

PRACTICAL DETAILS

The room is comfortable and intimate. There will be four guest places, making five of us in total, including me. Two of the seats have footrests.

Please RSVP only if you are reasonably sure you can attend, so that one of the limited places is not lost.

The film is subtitled and runs for just over two hours. Allow approximately three hours for the introduction, screening and conversation.

You are welcome to bring quiet snacks and drinks. I’ll be doing the same.

• 4K UHD edition
• four guest places
• Free. 18+

Ghostlights Collective explores practical esotericism, folklore, myth, depth psychology and the imaginative arts through participatory events in and around Manchester.