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If you’re reading this, the chances are that you
spend more time than is necessarily healthy
sitting in dark auditoria revelling in the
communal experience of watching movies.
You will love this film.
Directed by Uli Gaulke, Comrades in Dreams
is a joyful, poignant and beautifully observed
celebration of moviegoing. From a small-town
picturehouse in America run by a middle-aged
woman who seems constantly on the verge
of tears, we’re taken to an open-air cinema
in Burkina Faso, leased by three friends who
dream of one day owning a cinema with a roof.
In rural India, meanwhile, the bashful Anup
has customers fighting to get into his tent,
which he moves from village to village. Most
astonishingly, Gaulke takes us to North Korea,
where Hang Yong-sil is hugely proud to show
thinly veiled propaganda glorifying the nation
and its leaders to the farmers who make up
her audience.
A subtle, hugely engaging and quietly moving
piece of work that starts off as a film about
cinemas, and becomes a film about life, love,
loneliness and the pursuit of happiness.
Jenny Leask,
Edinburgh Film Festival Programme
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