The Fabulous Picture Show

Offering a fresh perspective on the world of movies and international film-making.

Rather than guess what cinema audiences want to know from filmmakers, The Fabulous Picture Show invites them to ask the questions.

The Fabulous Picture Show (FPS) is hosted from a live cinema event that brings filmmakers from across the world face-to-face with an international audience, and lets the public set the agenda.

After watching a specially screened film at the Everyman Cinema Club in London, our audience is invited by entertainment editor and presenter Amanda Palmer to question the guests in a lively, insightful, and often revealing debate.

As well as seeing filmmakers face their public, Amanda Palmer and the FPS team also talk to actors, directors, cinematographers, composers, costume and set designers – just about everyone involved in making interesting films.

Our features cover everything from world cinema, to experimenta, from the best of Hollywood to Nollywood, from shorts and music videos to documentary-style pieces that tell the stories of real people engaged in all levels of filmmaking.

Whether we’re covering the latest glitzy Hollywood premiere, or the most moving personal story, The Fabulous Picture Show aims to apply rigorous journalistic standards, a critical contextualising eye and, where appropriate, an irreverent sense of humour.

Amanda Palmer conceived The Fabulous Picture Show concept series, and leads a talented team in producing the bi-monthly programme for Al Jazeera English’s entertainment strand.

Coming up on the next edition of The Fabulous Picture Show:

Special Screening: Beaufort

Amanda and Joseph Cedar

Israeli film Beaufort won a prestigious Silver Bear for Best Director when it premiered at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, and has since been attracting record audiences back home.

Beaufort focuses on a group of young soldiers assigned to protect the last Israeli outpost in Lebanon, Beaufort Castle, as they prepare to withdraw in 2000, ending Israel’s 18 year occupation. Oshri Cohen plays 22-year-old commander Liraz Liberti leading a group of largely teenage soldiers who have left their families and girlfriends to fight an increasingly futile mission.

Praised and criticised for demonstrating the vulnerability of Israel’s army, most of whom are conscripted, Joseph Cedar hopes his film demonstrates the ‘inconceivable waste of human life’ which war brings. However in a brutal irony, Beaufort’s filming wrapped up only a month before violence between Israel and Lebanon broke out once again in July 2006.

Director and former Israeli soldier Joseph Cedar joins our host Amanda Palmer and an international cinema audience at the Everyman Cinema Club for a thought-provoking debate on this powerful film.

Sunshine

Sunshine

British director Danny Boyle has just released his own take on the sci-fi genre, with his eerie thriller Sunshine. Starring Irish actor Cillian Murphy as a solar physicist on a mission to save the sun from destruction, Boyle also recruited a behind-the-scenes science consultant Dr Cox (who weirdly resembles the leading man) to try and get some plausibility factor into the film.

Amanda talks to the cast and Boyle, a filmmaker who insists he’s an optimist, despite the bleakness of his earlier films, Trainspotting and Shallow Grave.

Sydney Pollack

Sydney Pollack

Legendary American director Sydney Pollack is a candid, funny but also modest guest when he hosts a masterclass to discuss his 40 year film career.

Pollack is behind some of Hollywood’s most iconic moments, from dressing Dustin Hoffman in drag for Tootsie to winning an Oscar for Out of Africa. Amanda Palmer meets the director after attending his masterclass, to discuss how his failed acting career helped him become one of the world’s best known directors.

Goodbye Bafana

Goodbye Bafana

Goodbye Bafana tells the story of a prison warden whose apartheid-driven racist views were changed when he was assigned to guard young activist Nelson Mandela.

The film is based on the memoirs of James Gregory, a white prison guard who was indeed one of Mandela’s wardens. But whilst Gregory tells a tale of redemption, not everyone is convinced of Gregory’s recollections, and Mandela himself has refused to comment on his claims. FPS asks Goodbye Bafana’s actor, Joseph Fiennes, what he makes of the controversy.

This edition of The Fabulous Picture Show will air daily from Saturday 7th April 2007 at the following times:

Saturday 7th April – 14:30 and 22:30 GMT; Sunday 8th April – 02:30 and 12:30 GMT; Monday 9th April – 07:30 GMT; Tuesday 10th April – 07:00 and 13:30 GMT; Wednesday 11th April – 00:30, 11:30 and 20:30 GMT; Thursday 12th April – 05:30 and 19:30 GMT; Friday 13th April – 03:00 and 16:30 GMT; Saturday 14th April – 06:30 GMT

Click here for Amanda Palmer’s biography

To contact us:

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Please remember to let us know if you would prefer a day time or an evening screening and do use the same form if you would like to leave a comment regarding our show.

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