SORRY THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT

Popcorn Taxi
proudly presents the first screening of

MOON

plus

Audience Q&A with director

Duncan Jones

Live from London

Monday September 28, 2009
7pm SHARP!

Event Cinemas Bondi Junction

It is the near future. Astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is living on the far side of the Moon, completing a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Earth’s primary source of energy, Helium-3. It is a lonely job, made harder by a broken satellite that allows no live communications home. Taped messages are all Sam can send and receive.
Thankfully, his time on the Moon is nearly over, and Sam will be reunited with his wife, Tess, and their three-year-old daughter, Eve, in only a few short weeks. Finally, he will leave the isolation of “Sarang,” the Moon base that has been his home for so long, and he will finally have someone to talk to beyond “Gerty” (Kevin Spacey), the base’s well-intentioned – but rather uncomplicated – computer.
Suddenly, Sam’s health starts to deteriorate. Painful headaches, hallucinations and a lack of focus lead to a near-fatal incident... Then it really gets weird!

This is one event you cannot miss.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I have always been a fan of science fiction films. In my mind, the golden age of SF cinema was the ‘70s, early ‘80s, when films like Silent Running, Alien, Blade Runner and Outland told human stories in future environments. I’ve always wanted to make a film that felt like it could fit into that canon.
There are unquestionably less of those kind of sci-fi films these days. I don’t know why. I have a theory, though: I think over the last couple of decades filmmakers have allowed themselves to become a bit embarrassed by SF’s philosophical side. It’s OK to “geek out” at the cool effects and “oooh” and “ahh” at amazing vistas, but we’re never supposed to take it too seriously. We’ve allowed ourselves to be convinced that SF should be frivolous, for teenage boys. We’re told that the old films, the Outlands and Silent Runnings, were too plaintive, too whiney. I think that’s ridiculous. People who appreciate science fiction want the best for the world, but they understand that there is an education to be had by investigating the worst of what might happen. That’s why Blade Runner was so brilliant; it used the future to make us look at basic human qualities from a fresh perspective. Empathy. Humanity. How do you define these things? I wanted to address those questions.
Quite a few years ago, I read Entering Space by the renowned astronautical engineer, Robert Zubrin. Zubrin put forward a wholly scientific and engaging case for why and how humanity should be colonising our solar system. It was a nuts-and-bolts approach to space exploration, and took into account the fiscal appetites that would make space colonization attractive in our capitalist world. One of the first steps recommended was to set up a “shake-and-bake” Helium-3 mining facility on the moon to extract fuel for fusion-powered generators.
The book made a real impression on me. I couldn’t help thinking that that first step into space habitation, a step that would be made for profit rather than purely scientific reasons, was a fascinating conflict of interests. Companies by their very nature would seek to extract the maximum amount of raw materials from any endeavor, for a minimum outlay of costs. That’s just good business. But without any locals, without human rights groups or oversight to keep an eye on things, what might a company try to get away with? What might even the most benign, “green” corporation be willing to do? What would they do to a lone, blue-collar caretaker on a base on the far side of the Moon?
These are some of the basic ideas that informed the science fiction setting of MOON, but this belies the root of the film; its human element. MOON is about alienation; it’s about how we anthropomorphize technology; it’s about the paranoia that strikes you when you are in a long distance relationship; and it’s about learning to accept yourself.
A lot to take on for a little indie film, but maybe that was the best place to try. It is “only science fiction”, after all.
Duncan Jones

MORE ABOUT THE CAST & DIRECTOR

SAM ROCKWELL – Sam Bell
Sam Rockwell has emerged as one of the most dynamic actors of his generation by continuing to take on challenging roles in both independent and studio productions.
Rockwell can currently be seen in Universal Studios' Frost/Nixon, directed by Ron Howard. He can next be seen starring in the extraterrestrial British film Moon, directed by Duncan Jones. In addition, he recently wrapped The Winning Season directed by James C. Strouse. Both films will premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Upcoming films include Jared Hess' Gentlemen Broncos from Fox Searchlight and Kirk Jones' Everybody's Fine from Miramax, with Robert DeNiro and Drew Barrymore.
Rockwell has created memorable characters in several films, including Andrew Dominik's critically acclaimed film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; David Gordon Green's acclaimed film Snow Angels; the Russo brothers' comedy Welcome to Collinwood; David Mamet's Heist; the blockbuster Charlie's Angels; and Frank Darabont's Oscar®-nominated The Green Mile. Rockwell also appeared in DreamWorks' box-office hit Galaxy Quest.
Additional credits include Clark Gregg's adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel “Choke”; Joshua; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; and Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men. He has also appeared in Woody Allen's Celebrity; Michael Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream; John Duigan's Lawn Dogs; John Hamburg's Safe Men; Saul Rubinek's dark comedy Jerry and Tom; Tom DiCillo's Box of Moonlight; Peter Cohn's Drunks; Paul Schrader's Light Sleeper; Uli Edel's Last Exit to Brooklyn; and made his feature film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's Clownhouse, while he was a student at San Francisco's High School of the Performing Arts.
Rockwell won critical praise, as well as the Berlin Film Festival's Silver Berlin Bear Award and Movieline's Breakthrough Performance of the Year Award, for his portrayal of Chuck Barris in George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Other awards include Best Actor at the Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia for his performance in Joshua and the Decades Achievement Award from Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival.
On stage, Rockwell was seen in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, opposite Eric Bogosian, at The Public Theater. Philip Seymour Hoffman directed the LAByrinth Theater Company production. Rockwell has appeared in Face Divided as part of the EST Marathon series, as well as the off-Broadway production of Goose-Pimples, which was written by noted film writer/director Mike Leigh. He has also appeared in The Dumb Waiter and Hot L Baltimore for the Williamstown Theatre Festival, both of which were directed by Joe Montello.

KEVIN SPACEY – Voice of Gerty
Kevin Spacey is Artistic Director of The Old Vic Theatre Company. He directed its inaugural production Cloaca, before appearing in National Anthems, The Philadelphia Story, Richard II, A Moon for the Misbegotten, which subsequently transferred to Broadway and most recently Speed-the-Plow, with Jeff Goldblum, directed by Matthew Warchus.
Previous theatre includes The Iceman Cometh (Evening Standard and Olivier Awards for Best Actor) directed by Howard Davies (Almeida, Old Vic and Broadway); Lost in Yonkers (Tony Award, Best Supporting Actor); Long Day’s Journey into Night, with Jack Lemmon, directed by Jonathan Miller (Broadway and West End) and The Seagull (Kennedy Center).
Films include: Superman Returns, Beyond the Sea (director and actor), The Usual Suspects (Academy Award, Best Supporting Actor), American Beauty (Academy and BAFTA Awards, Best
Actor), Swimming with Sharks, Se7en, LA Confidential, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Negotiator, Hurlyburly, K-Pax and The Shipping News.
His production company Trigger Street has produced the films The United States of Leland, The Big Kahuna, 21 for Sony Pictures, Bernard And Doris starring Ralph Fiennes and Susan Sarandon, which was nominated for 10 Emmy Awards and 3 Golden Globes. Their next feature Fanboys will be released in early 2009. His latest film Shrink with Robin Williams will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
In addition he will be seen in Nick Moran’s film Telstar opposite Colm O’Neil and Pam Ferris, which recently debuted at the London Film Festival. He was most recently nominated for an Emmy and Golden Globe Award as Best Actor for his performance as Ron Klain in Recount, a co-production between Trigger Street and HBO, a behind-the-scenes account of the 36-day battle for the Presidency in 2000 between Bush Gore and won the Emmy for Best Film of the Year.
He is currently Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University. He was recently honored with a special Evening Standard Theatre Award for bringing new life to the Old Vic.

DUNCAN JONES – Director and Writer
Director and Writer Duncan Jones, has just completed his first feature film MOON starring Sam Rockwell (Choke, Frost/Nixon, The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy, The Green Mile, and Charlie’s Angles) and Kevin Spacey (American Beauty, The Usual Suspects, Se7en, LA Confidential and K-PAX), as the voice of Gerty. Duncan, who has established a notorious reputation for controversial fare in the advertising arena, started out as a wild-cam operator for Tony Scott (director of Spy Game, Enemy of the State, Top Gun and Crimson Tide), before going on to work as an AD for cerebral promo and commercials director Walter Stern. After a stint in the computer games biz, Duncan created the CG/live action commercial Blade Jogger, which won a top award at the UK’s Kodak Student Commercial Competition, and his short film Whistle, which has screened at festivals around the world and numerous times on Film Four in the UK.
After a period shooting low budget music videos, Duncan earned an opportunity to shoot his first big budget commercial with advertising guru Trevor Beattie. The result was Britain’s longest primetime commercial… and possibly the most unusual advertising hoax ever broadcast in the UK causing a flood of newspaper inches as its authenticity was investigated. Trevor and Duncan immediately hit it off, and when Trevor left to start his own agency, he invited Duncan to join him at BMB as a creative/in house commercials director and all round ideas person. Their initial offering, the 90-second French Connection woman on woman fight fest “Fashion v Style” caused such controversy, it made front-page news and was subsequently named a finalist at the prestigious 2006 Cannes Lions.
Duncan’s film making influences have been vast and eclectic, and to his great good fortune, he has had the chance to meet and in some cases work with those influences personally.
In 2005, Duncan founded Liberty Films with producer Stuart Fenegan to produce feature films and commercials. Duncan is currently writing and developing his next feature: Mute with support from The UK Film Council.