Film series on Sex, Secrets and Lies to be screened at St John’s in February and March

A series of films exploring the theme of sexual secrets and deception, including The Wicker Man, Prudence and the Pill and Seksmisja, is to be shown at St John’s as part of the Reproduction on Film series which takes place before and during the city’s famous Science Festival.

The Reproduction on Film series is to be shown at St John’s College in February and March, and the theme this year is Sex, Secrets and Lies. The fifth series of films in this programme is put on by the Generation to Reproduction group, comprising Cambridge historians of medicine and biology, with funding from the Wellcome Trust.

The series takes place before and during the Cambridge Science Festival, a programme of free events which allows the public to explore issues of scientific interest in Cambridge and welcomes over 40,000 visitors each year.

Reproduction on Film: Sex, Secrets and Lies features six film events which focus on the exposure of lies, conspiracies and deception, leading to life-changing consequences for those involved. The series was devised by Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, research associate on the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award on Generation to Reproduction in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, and will be shown in the Old Divinity School at St John’s between 3 February and 20 March 2016; all films are free except the final event which features live music. Previous topics featured in the Reproduction on Film series are Outlaws, Making Babies, Monstrosity, and Reproductive Dystopias.

The first film in the series to be shown on Wednesday 3 February is Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), a sung-through musical romance telling a tale of lovers separated by war, illegitimate pregnancy, and the pressure of marrying someone you don’t necessarily love. The introduction and discussion is led by Isabelle McNeill, College Lecturer at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and the film is co-presented by the Alliance Française Cambridge.

On Wednesday 10 February audiences can see Secrets and Lies, a Mike Leigh film, with an introduction and discussion led by Anandi Ramamurthy, Senior Lecturer in Media at Sheffield University. This observational film reveals the secrets of the members of a dysfunctional family, and focuses on an upwardly mobile young black woman who is looking for her birth mother after her adoptive parents die, only to discover that she is white and working class.

Seksmisja (Sexmission), a Science Festival event co-presented with Cambridge Polish Studies and Polish Waves on Cambridge 105, will be screened on Wednesday 9 March. This Polish political satire and science fiction comedy features  two male scientists who wake from a frozen animation experiment that went wrong to find out they are prisoners in an all-female dystopia. The film is introduced by Stanley Bill, Director of Studies in Modern and Medieval Languages at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and Jas Rainbow, co-editor of Get Real Cambridge, and is followed by a discussion.

The next Science Festival film is Prudence and the Pill on Monday 14 March. This film, starring David Niven and Deborah Kerr dates, back to 1968, when the contraceptive pill had sparked Britain’s sexual revolution. This comedy of errors sees the pill being mistaken for aspirin, and vice versa. The introduction to the film and discussion is led by Jessica Borge from Birbeck, the University of London.

The cult classic The Wicker Man is being shown on Wednesday 16 March, and is introduced by Justin Smith, Professor of Media Industries at the University of Portsmouth, who is also leading the discussion. The film focuses on a devout Christian police sergeant who is investigating a missing girl on the remote Summerisle in Scotland and finds himself involved in pagan fertility rituals mixed with free love, folk music, and something much darker. 

The final event takes place on Sunday 20 March, and features An Evening of Silent Shorts and Live Music. These rarely screened science, medical and experimental silent movies focus on human sexuality and reproduction, with live musical accompaniment by Robert Stillman from Canterbury Christ Church University. Films include Gestation of the Ovum (Friedrich Kopsch, Germany, 1924), Childbirth as an Athletic Feat (Helen Rodway and Thorpe Coombe, UK, 1939), Window Water Baby Moving (Stan Brakhage, US, 1959) and Fuses (Carolee Schneemann, US, 1967) and they are screened with an explicit content warning. The event is introduced by Angela Saward from the Wellcome Library, Tim Boon from the Science Museum, and David E. James from the University of Southern California), and is followed by a discussion. Admission is £5.

All films will be shown in the Main Lecture Theatre in the Old Divinity School at St John’s College, and screenings will take place at 7pm.

For more information about the Reproduction on Film series, visit the webpage on the Department of History and Philosophy of Science website.