Screening times:
Thursday, October 9, 6:30 PM

Embeth Davidtz | South Africa | 2024 | 99m
English and Shona with English subtitles

This is another Carbon Arc Cinema's ICYMI screening, bringing back quality art house films that briefly ran at the multiplex.

Based on Alexandra Fuller’s memoir of the same name, Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight captures the childhood of 7-year-old Bobo Fuller on her family farm in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) at the end of the Zimbabwean War for independence in 1980, just as Robert Mugabe was coming to power.

Growing up in the midst of a conflict she can’t understand, the near-feral Bobo internalizes elements of the struggle and tries to make sense of her life in a magical way. Through her seven-year-old gaze we witness Rhodesia’s final days, and the deep scars the war leaves on survivors.

Director Embeth Davidtz is a South African actor who made her mark with roles in Schindler’s List, Junebug, and Mad Men. Her voice as a director is confident and clear while she gives herself a key part as Bobo’s mother, Nicola, a woman self-medicating undiagnosed mental illness with alcohol.

But it’s Lexi Venter as Bobo who carries the movie with her astonishing performance. The picture also delivers a gorgeous sense of place and the care to colonial era cultural detail, like the placement of Roger Whittaker and “The Warrior” from Ipi Tombi on the soundtrack.

“Precisely the sort of intelligent, human-scale adult drama audiences insist no one makes anymore.” - Peter Debruge, Variety

“Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight manages the difficult trick of getting us to care for the Fullers while saving our sympathy for the Zimbabweans.”- Ty Burr, Washington Post

“The grand takeaway is Venter’s astonishing turn. That kid’s got a future, and it began with a filmmaker who knew how to direct her.” - Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire

$12 ($11.40 cash at the door if available)
Price includes HST