DELTA BOYS
Q&A with director Andrew Berends
Buy TicketsWORLD PREMIERE
An American documentary filmmaker crosses the lines of Nigeria’s oil conflict in order to bear witness to the lives of the militants engaged in the struggle, and the civilians caught in the crossfire. With breathtaking cinematography DELTA BOYS offers a never before seen glimpse of life in the volatile oil-rich Niger Delta.
DELTA BOYS follows the lives of militant “Godfather” Ateke Tom who rules over his rebel camp with an iron fist, and Chima, a 21-year-old who left his home to join the fight. The film also shows life in a tiny fishing village where Mama, a 22-year-old, struggles to give birth amidst the conflict with no access to modern medical care. Their personal stories reflect a broad global struggle between entrenched power and corporate interest and an underserved population.
Despite the region’s massive oil wealth, the inhabitants of the Niger Delta live in poverty. Ateke’s militants have called for greater distribution of wealth and jobs. When their requests have been ignored, they’ve attacked oil-pipelines, kidnapped foreigners, and made the entire delta a no-go zone. But many feel that while the Niger Delta cause is just, the militants’ motives are not so pure.
Running time: 55 minutes
May 29, 2012 8:00 pm
SALESMAN
Q&A with director Albert Maysles
Buy Tickets“I was spellbound. I’ve seen Salesman three times and each time I’ve been more impressed. Fascinating, very funny, unforgettable.” - Vincent Canby, NEW YORK TIMES, April 18, 1969
“One of the most important films ever made. It must be seen.” - Hollis Alpert, SATURDAY REVIEW, 1969
“Eloquent and genuinely funny. No other land could have imaginably produced this picture.” - Penelope Gilliatt, NEW YORKER MAGAZINE, 1969
“Funny, touching, compassionate, an extraordinary portrait of a human being.” - John O’Connor, WALL STREET JOURNAL, April 18,1969
“A marvelous movie, Salesman is a non-documentary, non-fiction, opinionated film· Salesman is a funny film about sadness, a cruel film about sensibilities, a patter-filled film about dumbness.” - VOGUE, March 15, 1969
Salesman follows four door-to-door Bible salesmen as they walk the line between hype and despair. Paul “The Badger” Brennan, Charles “The Gipper” McDevitt, James “The Rabbit” Baker, and Raymond “The Bull” Martos, are so nicknamed for their particular selling styles—on their rounds. First making calls in and around Boston, where the company is based, then in Chicago at a sales conference, and finally in the promising new “territory” of Miami and vicinity. Their mission is simple: to convince people to buy what one of them calls “still the best seller in the world.”
But although their customers are mostly middle, working- class Catholics recommended by the local church, the Bible is a hard sell. In action, the salesmen rely on trusty catch phrases: “Could you say if this would help the family? Could you see where this would be of value in the home? A gain to you?” Talking, pushing, cajoling, telling jokes and stories, throwing out compliments, the salesmen make their “pitches” to a wide range of customers—lonely widows, married couples, Cuban immigrants, bored housewives—from those who clearly cannot afford the $50 book to those who, in the end, are convinced by the salesman’s somewhat too-cheerful patter.
From Webster, Massachusetts to Opa-Locka, Florida, the operating costs of the American Dream. Today Salesman is considered ‘the direct cinema classic’.
Director: Albert Maysles and David MayslesRunning time: 91 minutes
Release date: 1968
May 22, 2012 8:00 pm
COCAINE COWBOYS
Q&A with director Billy Corben & producer Alfred Spellman
Buy TicketsTickets will soon be available.
The Miami-based production company Rakontur celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, having created numerous doc hits ranging from THE U (ESPN’s highest-rated documentary) to BROKE (premiering at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival). STF celebrates Rakontur by screening their breakout sensation COCAINE COWBOYS. The film became an instant doc classic for its chronicles of the Miami drug trade in the 1970s and 1980s and its revealing interviews with both criminals and law enforcement. Director Billy Corben skillfully turns this tabloid subject matter into a probing look at the politics and economy of south Florida. The film became an instant cult classic and has spawned an HBO series currently in development by by producers Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer.
Read “10 years of rakontur” in the Miami Herald.
Director: Billy CorbenRunning time: 118 minutes
Release date: 2006
May 15, 2012 8:00 pm
FEED
Q&A with directors Kevin Rafferty & James Ridgeway
Buy TicketsTickets will soon be available
“Best doc of the year” - Village Voice
During the 1992 primary campaign season, directors Kevin Rafferty (ATOMIC CAFE) and James Ridgeway (Village Voice) took an insurgent approach by intercepting satellite feeds of unsuspecting candidates in candid moments. FEED presents a wild, sometimes wacky, yet always incisive look into the world of American politics. Watch Hillary Clinton schmooze with voters, Jerry Brown snort nose inhalers, Ross Perot talk dirty, Pat Buchanan get mad, and Bill Clinton sidestep Gennifer Flowers. Also featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Bush, Bob Kerry, Tom Harkin and Sam Donaldson in a bevy of unscripted and highly revealing moments.
Director: Kevin Rafferty, James RidgewayRunning time: 75 minutes
Release date: 1992
May 08, 2012 8:00 pm
F FOR FAKE
Buy TicketsTrickery. Deceit. Magic. In Orson Welles’s free-form documentary F for Fake, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully engages the central preoccupation of his career—the tenuous line between truth and illusion, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles embarks on a dizzying cinematic journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes—not the least of whom is Welles himself. Charming and inventive, F for Fake is an inspired prank and a searching examination of the essential duplicity of cinema. (description from Criterion)
Director: Orson WellesRunning time: 87 minutes
Release date: 1975
May 01, 2012 8:00 pm
BREASTS
Q&A with director Meema Spadola, producer Thom Powers & film subjects
Buy TicketsSTF Spring Season. Buy individual tickets or a season pass for $100 ($80 for IFC members).
“A hilarious and equally poignant tribute to the cultural shape we’re in.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“Strikingly original.” - New York Daily News
Breasts celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. This hour-long documentary, produced by STF’s own Thom Powers, consists of interviews with 22 women - ages 6 to 84 - discussing how breasts play a crucial role in the experiences of puberty, motherhood, sex, health, and aging. Interspersed throughout the documentary are segments of breast-related archival footage including a racy 1920s animated cartoon, a 1950s beauty pageant, and a 1970s bra commercial.
The participants, most of whom appear topless, represent a wide range of age, size, race and background. They include an 11-year-old on the verge of puberty; a breast-feeding mother; a 24-year-old with a breast reduction; a stripper with implants; two women with mastectomies; the self-proclaimed leader of the “Strong Breast Revolution”; a beautiful transsexual; a 49-year-old who is concerned about the safety of her silicone implants; a 420-pound comedienne; and two mother-daughter pairs. Their candid thoughts are humorous, moving, and often surprising.
Spadola found her subjects by distributing “breast questionnaires” throughout New York City in doctors’ offices, youth centers, schools, strip clubs and elsewhere. Over two hundred women (and one man) responded. The interviews were filmed by an all-women crew.
Director: Meema SpadolaRunning time: 60 minutes
Release date: 1997
April 24, 2012 8:00 pm
JESSE OWENS
Q&A with director / producer Laurens Grant
Buy TicketsSTF Spring Season. Buy individual tickets or a season pass for $100 ($80 for IFC members).
Selected as Opening Night film for Full Frame festival. He was the most famous athlete of his time, whose stunning triumph at the 1936 Olympic Games captivated the world, even as it infuriated the Nazis. Despite the racial slurs he endured, his grace and athleticism rallied crowds around the world. Yet when the four-time Olympic gold medalist returned home, he couldn’t even ride in the front of a bus. Jesse Owens is the story of the 22-year-old son of a sharecropper who triumphed over adversity to become a hero and world champion. But his story is also about the elusive, fleeting quality of fame and the way Americans idolize athletes when they suit our purpose, and forget them once they don’t. Produced and directed by Laurens Grant and written and produced by Stanley Nelson, the team behind the Emmy Award-winning documentary Freedom Riders. Co-presented with the Black Documentary Collective.
Director: Laurens GrantRunning time: 55 minutes
Release date: 2012
April 17, 2012 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Jesse Owens: An Olympic Legend
WE’RE NOT BROKE
Q&A with directors Karin Hayes & Victoria Bruce
Buy TicketsSTF Spring Opening Night. Buy individual tickets or a season pass for $100 ($80 for IFC members).
“Watch this movie and it will indicate why I support the spirit of OWS, if not every action” - @alecbaldwin
Official selection of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. American lawmakers cry “We’re Broke!” as they slash budgets, lay off schoolteachers, police, and firefighters. But We’re Not Broke reveals a counter narrative, exposing how multibillion-dollar American corporations avoid paying U.S. income tax. This eyeopening documentary, shown at Sundance, follows a grass roots citizens’ movement that rose up to hold corporations accountable. These inspiring individuals from across the country led the way for Occupy Wall Street. It makes for essential viewing in an election year.
Director: Karin Hayes & Victoria BruceRunning time: 81 minutes
Release date: 2012
April 10, 2012 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: We’re Not Broke: Closing the Corporate Tax Loopholes
ORDINARY MIRACLES: THE PHOTO LEAGUE’S NEW YORK
Q&A with directors Nina Rosenblum, Daniel Allentuck and Mary Engel (daughter of Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin). Photo League members including the wife of Sid Grossman Miriam Grossman Cohen and Rebecca Lepkoff will be present in the audience to add to the conversation
Buy Tickets8PM show sold out. NEW SHOW ADDED AT 9:50 PM with intro by filmmakers
Pre-Season Spring Special. Buy individual tickets or a season pass that includes pre-season specials and regular 8-week season that begins April 10: $100 ($80 for IFC members).
ORDINARY MIRACLES: THE PHOTO LEAGUE’S NEW YORK, tells the story of The Photo League, which was born out of the hopeful political ferment of the thirties and expired fifteen years later, a victim of Truman-era loyalty purges and the McCarren Act.
Conceived and run by two dropouts from New York’s City College, Sol Libsohn and Sid Grossman, the Photo League, a cooperative which depended entirely on membership dues, published a bulletin, mounted exhibitions and operated a school with a curriculum devised by Berenice Abbott and Paul Strand. The school’s principal instructor, Sid Grossman, was a charismatic and at times overbearing figure. Filling a void left by genteel but vapid amateur camera clubs, the Photo League attracted the likes of Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Aaron Siskind Lewis Hine, Weegee and emigre members Lisette Model, Lotte Jacobi and Marion Palfi. Featured speakers included Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White, Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier Bresson. In-depth group projects focusing on New York’s ethnic neighborhoods culminating in the “Harlem Document” were the League’s main focus.
The film combines interviews with a dozen surviving League members with a spellbinding musical score. Campbell Scott’s superb narration and 350 unforgettable images paint a unique and unexpected portrait of New York City from the 1939 World’s Fair to Be-Bop and Abstract Expressionism. No other organization, with the exception of the Farm Security Administration (most of whose members also belonged to the Photo League), was more important—or had a more lasting influence on American photography. A thought-provoking tribute.
Director: Nina Rosenblum and Daniel AllentuckRunning time: 75 minutes
Release date: 2012
March 29, 2012 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Ordinary Miracles: The Photo League’s New York
FROM HOLLYWOOD TO NUREMBERG: JOHN FORD, SAMUEL FULLER, GEORGE STEVENS
Q&A with director Christian Delage
Buy TicketsU.S. Premiere!
Pre-Season Spring Special. Buy individual tickets or a season pass that includes pre-season specials and regular 8-week season that begins April 10: $100 ($80 for IFC members).
“An eye-opener for auteurists and armchair generals alike” - Time Out New York
Hollywood directors John Ford, George Stevens, and Samuel Fuller entertained audiences with cinema classics like The Grapes of Wrath, Shane, and The Big Red One. But their most important contribution to history may have been their work in the U.S. Armed Forces and Secret Services, filming the realities of war and the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. Their documentation provides an essential visual record of WWII. Combining a wealth of rare material, including private letters and footage from their own personal archives, From Hollywood to Nuremberg explores these filmmakers’ experiences during and after WWII, their confrontation with Nazi atrocities, and the mark that left on them as artists.
George Stevens directed the Special Coverage Unit during the war under orders from General Eisenhower. His unit covered D-Day, the Allied march through France and the liberation of Dachau–with the concentration camp’s conditions, casualties, and survivors captured in still-stunning black-and-white and color footage. During the war, John Ford headed the Field Photographic Branch, crafting two Oscar-winning documentaries about Pearl Harbor and Midway. While stateside during the conflict itself, Ford used Stevens’s Dachau images for a contemporary film about Nazi atrocities that was later used as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials, whose filming Ford also oversaw. Unlike Ford and Stevens, Samuel Fuller wasn’t specially commissioned or trained for his role as a wartime documentarian. The son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Fuller joined the infantry in 1942 and, at the instruction of his captain, filmed the liberation of the Falkenau camp with a camera that Fuller’s mother had sent him. It was the first filming experience of a man who would go on to be a major American director, and whose 1980 movie The Big Red One would directly reflect upon his own wartime experiences.
From Hollywood to Nuremberg is presented in conjunction with “Filming the Camps: John Ford, Samuel Fuller, George Stevens,” a special exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, on view March 22 - October 14, 2012.
Director Christian Delage is a historian and filmmaker whose earlier credits include the documentary Nuremberg, The Nazis Facing Their Crimes.
Director: Christian DelageRunning time: 52 minutes
Release date: 2012
March 22, 2012 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: From Hollywood to Nuremberg: John Ford, Samuel Fuller, George Stevens
GIRL MODEL
Q&A with directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin and the founders of Model Alliance Sara Ziff and Jenna Sauers.
Buy TicketsSTF Winter Season Closing Night
Co-presented with POV
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Girl Model shows a rarely seen side of the fashion industry. The film brings a novelist’s eye for emotional and psychological complexity to its portrait of two women. Ashley, an American former model, travels to remote Siberian villages to scout young teenaged girls for fashion shoots in Japan. We see her discover Nadya, a thirteen-year old blonde, who radiates the innocence coveted by Ashley’s clients. Like thousands of other Russian girls, Nadya sees modelling as the best chance to support her family. She feels lucky when Ashley’s agency offers a contract with guarantees. But as the film follows Nadya to Japan and Ashley on her further scouting trips, we see each one grapple with the kind of harsh realities that fashion magazines tend to ignore.
Filmmakers David Redmon and Ashley Sabin (a different Ashley from the one onscreen) demonstrate an intrepid ability to track an unregulated system, and go far beyond mere fact collecting. Their attention to poetic detail — in faces, interactions and environments — elevates the film to a work of art.
Beautiful bodies are ever present. As a scout, Ashley makes selections from hundreds of aspiring girls. Her livelihood depends on getting them at the youngest age possible — and on matching current tastes. The criteria “changes minute by minute,” she says, “and it’s based on nothing.” We glimpse brief excepts of a video diary she kept during her own modelling days in the late nineties, revealing her distress and disillusionment. In the present, she projects an array of contradictory feelings that range from calculated to confused, jaded to vulnerable. She struggles to find her way between the glamorous and grotesque. Her sentences often trail off in doubt or end with “I don’t know.”
After watching Girl Model, the viewer can’t pretend not to know something of the realities of this industry. You start looking at models with new questions in mind.
The founders of Model Alliance (Sara Ziff and Jenna Sauers) will join the Q&A.
Model Alliance is a not-for-profit organization that provides a platform for models and leaders in the fashion industry to organize to radically improve the conditions under which models work. Founded in 2011 by Sara Ziff, with the support of fellow models and the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School, the Model Alliance is an industry group working to establish fair labor standards for models in the U.S.
Director: David Redmon and Ashley SabinRunning time: 78 minutes
Release date: 2011
March 20, 2012 8:00 pm
THE MAN NOBODY KNEW: IN SEARCH OF MY FATHER, CIA SPYMASTER WILLIAM COLBY
Q&A with director Carl Colby
Buy TicketsA son’s riveting look at a father whose life seemed straight out of a spy thriller, THE MAN NOBODY KNEW: IN SEARCH OF MY FATHER, CIA SPYMASTER WILLIAM COLBY uncovers the secret world of a legendary CIA spymaster. Told by William Colby’s son Carl, the story is at once a probing history of the CIA, a personal memoir of a family living in clandestine shadows, and an inquiry into the hard costs of a nation’s most cloaked actions.
From the beginning of his career as an OSS officer parachuting into Nazi-occupied Europe, William Colby rose through the ranks of “The Company,” and soon was involved in covert operations in hot spots around the globe. He swayed elections against the Communists in Italy, oversaw the coup against President Diem in Saigon, and ran the controversial Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which sparked today’s legacy of counter-insurgency. But after decades of obediently taking on the White House’s toughest and dirtiest assignments, and rising to become Director of CIA, Colby defied the President. Braving intense controversy, he opened up to Congress some of the agency’s darkest, most tightly held secrets and extra-legal operations.
Now, his son asks a series of powerful and relevant questions about the father who was a ghost-like presence in the family home – and the intelligence officer who became a major force in American history, paving the way for today’s provocative questions about security and secrecy vs. liberty and morality. The film forges a fascinating mix of rare archival footage, never-before-seen photos, and interviews with the “who’s who” of American intelligence, including former National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense and Director of CIA James Schlesinger, as well Pulitzer Prize journalists Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh and Tim Weiner. Through it all, Carl Colby searches for an authentic portrait of the man who remained masked even to those who loved him most.
Director: Carl ColbyRunning time: 104 minutes
Release date: 2011
March 13, 2012 7:59 pm
Related Blog Posts: The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby
SMASH HIS CAMERA
Q&A with director Leon Gast
Buy TicketsPlease note: SMASH HIS CAMERA will start at 8:30 pm.
“Famously and successfully sued by Jackie Onassis, and slugged just as famously and successfully by Marlon Brando, denounced from the pulpits of punditry for decades, [Ron] Galella has been a man easy to hate. But whether he can be blamed for sparking the current celeb-ysteria, he certainly created a body of work that is historically irreplaceable. [Director Leon] Gast, who won an Oscar® for his documentary When We Were Kings, gives us a man of personal complexity as well, a man who has photographed legends but still says ‘Catherine De Nerve,’ a tough guy who lives in a house a friend describes as right out of ‘The Sopranos,’ except the Sopranos did not have a statue-studded pet bunny cemetery in the backyard.”
— Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times
Running time: 87 minutes
Release date: 2010
March 06, 2012 8:30 pm
Related Blog Posts: Smash His Camera: The Life of Paparazzo Ron Galella
THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN
Q&A with director Thom Zimny
Buy TicketsDescription from TIFF 2010 catalog by Thom Powers:
The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town takes us into the studio with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band for the recording of their pivotal album. Grammy Award® and Emmy Award®-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny has gained access to extensive, never-before-seen footage shot between 1976 and 1978, capturing home rehearsals and recording sessions that allow us to hear songs in their earliest stages. For those uninitiated to Springsteen, the film unlocks the door to a rich musical world. For fans, it’s a trip to paradise.
New interviews with Springsteen and the band – who all recall the period in rich, vivid detail – bring fresh perspective to the archival footage. Prior to recording Darkness, the band had experienced a worldwide hit with the album Born to Run, which was musically influenced by Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound production technique. Everyone, including fellow band members, expected Springsteen to follow that seminal celebration of youth with something similar, but Springsteen became enmeshed in a lawsuit with former management that halted recording for two years. By the time the case was settled, Springsteen – now teamed with new producer Jon Landau – had found fresh storytelling inspiration in country and western icons like Hank Williams, while also gravitating towards the new, stripped-down sounds of punk. In songs like “Factory” and “Racing in the Street,” he explored new themes about reckoning with the adult world and the compromises it demanded.
For the Darkness album, Springsteen filled notebooks with lyrics for more than seventy songs. The period was so fertile that his unused ideas turned into winning singles for Patti Smith (“Because the Night”) and The Pointer Sisters (“Fire”).
Centering on Springsteen’s creativity and the challenges that he and the band overcame, this rock and roll drama reveals the camaraderie of a band wholly dedicated to their music. Cinematic imagery has always been prominent in Springsteen’s songs; now he comes full circle as the centrepiece of this enormously enjoyable film.
About the director:
Thom Zimny is a Grammy® and Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker who has been a visual collaborator and personal archivist with Bruce Springsteen for ten years. Zimny first teamed with Springsteen in 2001 for the Live in New York City HBO special and DVD, which earned him an Emmy Award. Zimny subsequently earned Grammy Awards for best long form music video as the producer and director of the feature documentary Wings for Wheels: The Making of “Born To Run” (05). He directed and edited the music video for the Golden Globe-winning song The Wrestler and directed the documentary Working On A Dream: A Superbowl Journal. The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town (10) is his latest feature documentary.
Running time: 85 minutes
Release date: 2010
February 28, 2012 8:00 pm
TOOTIE’S LAST SUIT
Q&A with director Lisa Katzman
Buy Tickets“Tootie represented a kind of soulfulness in the community, and a certain type of style, and everybody loved him.” – Wynton Marsalis
TOOTIE’S LAST SUIT explores the complex relationships, rituals, history, and music of New Orleans’ vibrant Mardi Gras Indian culture while telling the story of Allison “Tootie” Montana, former Chief of Yellow Pocahontas Hunters. Celebrated throughout the New Orleans as “the prettiest,” for the beauty and inventiveness of his elaborately beaded Mardi Gras costumes, Tootie Montana masked for 52 years, longer than any other Mardi Gras Indian. Through the example of his own achievement, he came to be revered for turning Mardi Gras Indians away from gang-style violence toward artistic accomplishment and competition.
When Tootie retired in 1997 from the painstaking labor of creating a new Mardi Gras suit each year, he conferred the title of Chief on his son Darryl Montana. Pressured by his fans, and possessed of an unflagging imagination and artistic will to create, Tootie committed himself to making a Mardi Gras comeback in 2004. As he completes his last Mardi Gras Indian suit, and decides to parade alone, lifelong conflicts erupt between Tootie and Darryl. Though deeply personal, this father-son rivalry speaks to the issue of how traditional cultures are preserved, and how they are continuously re-interpreted. TOOTIE’S LAST SUIT is not just about Tootie’s passing on the baton, but also about the difficulty of letting it go, as well as the distinct possibility that the baton will be dropped. While it is Tootie Montana’s voice that predominates, much of his story is told and seen from the points-of-view of his son Darryl, the various chiefs who are both his rivals and admirers, and others connected to the culture, including Wynton Marsalis and Dr. John.
In the aftermath of Katrina, TOOTIE’S LAST SUIT bears witness to the Mardi Gras Indians who, in picking up the threads of their torn lives and tradition, are the spiritual healers of New Orleans.
Director: Lisa KatzmanRunning time: 97 minutes
Release date: 2007
February 21, 2012 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Tootie’s Last Suit: The Culture of Mardi Gras Indians
ZELIG
Q&A with short film director Dana O'Keefe
Buy Tickets”[Allen’s] remarkably self-assured comedy is to his career what… Berlin Alexanderplatz is to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s and… Fanny and Alexander is to Ingmar Bergman’s ... Zelig is not only pricelessly funny, it’s also, on occasion, very moving. It works simultaneously as social history, as a love story, as an examination of several different kinds of film narrative, as satire and as parody . . . [It] is a nearly perfect - and perfectly original - Woody Allen comedy.” - Vincent Canby, New York Times (full article here)
Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Zelig, a curiously nondescript enigma who is discovered for his remarkable ability to transform himself to resemble anyone he’s near.
The film was shot almost entirely in the style of 1920s-style black-and-white film newsreels, which are seamlessly interwoven with stock footage from the era, including cleverly filmed re-enactments of historical events. Narration is likewise largely in newsreel style. While being mostly set in the 1920s, the storyline occasionally shifts to present day (1983) interviews, shot in color.
- Wikipedia excerpt, click here for full article
PLUS: AARON BURR, PART 2 (8 min) a selection of the 2011 New York Film Festival. A contemporary re-imagining of the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr explores the idea of history as a contested narrative. Directed by Dana O’Keefe.
Director: Woody AllenRunning time: 79 minutes
Release date: 1983
February 14, 2012 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Zelig: A Mockumentary For The Ages
UNFINISHED SPACES
Q&A with directors Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray
Buy Tickets“Cuba will count as having the most beautiful academy of arts in the world.” —Fidel Castro (1961)
Cuba’s ambitious National Art Schools project, designed by three young artists in the wake of Castro’s Revolution, is neglected, nearly forgotten, then ultimately rediscovered as a visionary architectural masterpiece.
In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba’s National Art Schools on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school’s first classes soon followed. Dancers, musicians and artists from all over the country reveled in the beauty of the schools, but as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate. Forty years later the schools are in use, but remain unfinished and decaying. Castro has invited the exiled architects back to finish their unrealized dream.
Unfinished Spaces features intimate footage of Fidel Castro, showing his devotion to creating a worldwide showcase for art, and it also documents the struggle and passion of three revolutionary artists.
Director: Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin MurrayRunning time: 86 minutes
Release date: 2011
February 07, 2012 8:00 pm
GIRL WITH BLACK BALLOONS
Q&A with director Corinne van der Borch and film subject Bettina + short film dir Jeffrey Wengrofsky & film subject Taylor Mead
Buy TicketsSTF Winter Season Opening Night
Winner of DOC NYC 2012 Metropolis Jury Prize
“Like “Grey Gardens” reimagined by Chris Marker, “Girl With Black Balloons” maintains a hypnotic effect, evolving into a perceptive diary film about the nature of all creation” - Indiewire
“Girl With Black Balloons is a beautifully conceived excavation—part archeological, part psychological— into the life and times of a truly authentic New York City character.” - Alan Berliner
Bettina is said to be the most beautiful woman to have ever lived in the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York City, according to residents, yet has hidden herself away in her studio for over 40 years. She sleeps on a lawn-chair and surrounds herself with boxes stacked from floor to ceiling, filled with works of her art that have never seen the light of day. These boxes hide a stunning body of work - but it’s come at a huge cost. Her life as a reclusive guardian over her creativity and artwork inspires us to think about the world that we have each chosen for ourselves, how we are captive of it or freed by it.
During humorous, intimate and provocative moments, first-time director Corinne van der Borch develops a delicate friendship with Bettina and gradually unveils the life of one of New York’s last true eccentrics.
Girl With Black Balloons Trailer from wondertimefilms on Vimeo.
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GIRL WITH BLACK BALLOONS will be preceded by the 11 min. short film THE PARTY IN TAYLOR MEAD’S KITCHEN, directed by Jeffrey Wengrofsky of The Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers.
After reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Taylor Mead, the scion of Michigan’s Democratic Party political boss Harry Mead, left his Grosse Point home and Merrill Lynch sinecure to hitchhike across the United States. Upon arriving in San Francisco, his ability to write and perform clever, bawdy, homoerotic poems made Taylor an instant hit with the Beatnik scene. He soon came to personify the Beatnik ethic in Ron Rice’s classic film, THE FLOWER THIEF, in 1960. Deciding to move to the Lower East Side of New York, then the Beat capital of the world, Taylor was soon a fixture of the downtown poetry scene and a Warhol Superstar, most famously appearing in “Tarzan and Jane Revisited…Sort of,” and most notoriously, as the star of ‘Taylor Mead’s Ass” in 1964. Taylor has since appeared scores of films, has acted for the stage, and has published books of poetry.
Fifty-odd years after trading in upper-crust luxury for bohemian art stardom, THE PARTY IN TAYLOR MEAD’S KITCHEN finds Taylor still living a life of poetry, painting, partying, acting, homo-eroticism, modest living, and indifference to bourgeois notions of hygiene. We visit the octogenarian in his Lower East Side grotto, finding him still brilliant, boyishly innocent, abundantly cute, and wanting to party at noon. The film depicts the romantic beauty and squalid dereliction of the bohemian life while dishing the dirt on Andy Warhol, Jack Kerouac, Ron Rice, Woody Allen, and Tallulah Bankhead.
The Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers is based in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and takes special pride in depicting the lives of local heroes.
Director: Corinne van der BorchRunning time: 59 minutes
Release date: 2011
January 31, 2012 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Girl With Black Balloons: A Life in Service of Art
TITICUT FOLLIES
Q&A with director Frederick Wiseman
Buy TicketsNOTE: 8pm show is sold-out. We just added a second show at 9:55pm that will be introduced by Frederick Wiseman.
Pre-Winter Season Special
Buy a Season Pass for $100 ($80 for IFC members) that includes this screening plus the regular 8-week season Jan. 31 - March 20.
The film is a stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. TITICUT FOLLIES documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers and psychiatrists.
“TITICUT FOLLIES is a documentary film that tells you more than you could possibly want to know — but no more than you should know — about life behind the walls of one of those institutions where we file and forget the criminal insane… A society’s treatment of the least of its citizens — and surely these are the least of ours — is perhaps the best measure of its civilization. The repulsive reality revealed in TITICUT FOLLIES forces us to contemplate our capacity for callousness.” –Richard Schickel, Life
“After a showing of TITICUT FOLLIES the mind does not dwell on the hospital’s ancient and even laughable physical plant, or its pitiable social atmosphere. What sticks, what really hurts is the sight of human life made cheap and betrayed. We see men needlessly stripped bare, insulted, herded about callously, mocked, taunted. We see them ignored or locked interminably in cells. We hear the craziness in the air, the sudden outbursts, the quieter but stronger undertow of irrational noise that any doctor who has worked under such circumstances can only take for so long. But much more significantly, we see the ‘professionals’, the doctors and workers who hold the fort in the Bridgewaters of this nation, and they are all over…TITICUT FOLLIES is a brilliant work of art…” –Robert Coles, The New Republic
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Running time: 84 minutes
Release date: 1967
January 17, 2012 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Titicut Follies: Torment at the Hands of the State
THE INTERRUPTERS
Q&A with director Steve James
Buy TicketsPre-Winter Season Special
THIS SCREENING IS SOLD-OUT
The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. From acclaimed director Steve James and bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz, this film is an unusually intimate journey into the stubborn persistence of violence in our cities. Shot over the course of a year out of Kartemquin Films, The Interrupters captures a period in Chicago when it became a national symbol for the violence in our cities. During that period, the city was besieged by high-profile incidents, most notably the brutal beating of Derrion Albert, a Chicago High School student, whose death was caught on videotape.
The film’s main subjects work for an innovative organization, CeaseFire. It was founded by an epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin, who believes that the spread of violence mimics the spread of infectious diseases, and so the treatment should be similar: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source. One of the cornerstones of the organization is the “Violence Interrupters” program, created by Tio Hardiman, who heads the program. The Interrupters — who have credibility on the streets because of their own personal histories — intervene in conflicts before they explode into violence.
In The Interrupters, Ameena Matthews, whose father is Jeff Fort, one of the city’s most notorious gang leaders, was herself a drug ring enforcer. But having children and finding solace in her Muslim faith pulled her off the streets and grounded her. In the wake of Derrion Albert’s death, Ameena becomes a close confidante to his mother, and helps her through her grieving. Ameena, who is known among her colleagues for her fearlessness, befriends a feisty teenaged girl who reminds her of herself at that age. The film follows that friendship over the course of many months, as Ameena tries to nudge the troubled girl in the right direction.
Cobe Williams, scarred by his father’s murder, was in and out of prison, until he had had enough. His family – particularly a young son – helped him find his footing. Cobe disarms others with his humor and his general good nature. His most challenging moment comes when he has to confront a man so bent on revenge that Cobe has to pat him down to make sure he’s put away his gun. Like Ameena, he gets deeply involved in the lives of those he encounters, including a teenaged boy just out of prison and a young man from his old neighborhood who’s squatting in a foreclosed home.
Eddie Bocanegra is haunted by a murder he committed when he was seventeen. His CeaseFire work is a part of his repentance for what he did. Eddie is most deeply disturbed by the aftereffects of the violence on children, and so he spends much of his time working with younger kids in an effort to both keep them off the streets and to get support to those who need it – including a 16-year-old girl whose brother died in her arms. Soulful and empathic, Eddie, who learned to paint in prison, teaches art to children, trying to warn them of the debilitating trauma experienced by those touched by the violence.
The Interrupters follows Ameena, Cobe and Eddie as they go about their work, and while doing so reveals their own inspired journeys of hope and redemption. The film attempts to make sense of what CeaseFire’s Tio Hardiman calls, simply, “the madness”.
Director: Steve JamesRunning time: 125 minutes
Release date: 2011
January 12, 2012 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: The Interrupters: Stopping Violence at its Source
UNDEFEATED
Q&A with directors Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin
Buy TicketsDescription from TIFF 2011 catalogue by Thom Powers:
Football doesn’t build character, coach Bill Courtney tells his players, “football reveals character.” In 2004, Courtney took on the daunting job of volunteer coaching at Manassas High School in inner-city Memphis, where players are more likely to wind up in jail than in college. The Manassas Tigers were the perennial whipping boys of the league, bereft of victories, funds and morale. Courtney recruited a group of freshmen to turn things around, and in their first season they got creamed. But they didn’t quit. With each passing year they won more games and more respect. By 2009, those freshmen had become seniors with one last chance to prove themselves and snag college scholarships. At the start of the season, Courtney set a goal: to win the first playoff game in the school’s 110-year history.
Filmmakers Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin had the sharp instincts to jump on this story at the start of the 2009 season. They distinguish themselves with virtuoso camera work and editing. From the film’s opening minutes, as Courtney delivers an impassioned locker-room speech, we’re hooked. Our emotional investment only deepens as we get to know the players. O.C. Brown, who has the size and speed of a human freight train, counts on a football scholarship as his best hope for the future. Chavis Daniels returns to Manassas after fifteen months in a youth penitentiary and struggles with personal demons. Montrail “Money” Brown, an undersized offensive lineman, strives to overachieve and win an academic scholarship. The pressure to succeed is compounded by an environment where poverty, broken homes and street violence are the norm.
Coach Courtney feels his own pressures as he pours energy into these kids at the expense of spending time with his own children. As the drama ratchets up week after week, the stakes are higher than just winning and losing football games. You’ve probably never heard of the Manassas Tigers, but by the end of the film you’ll be cheering them on like an ardent fan.
Director: Dan Lindsay and T.J. MartinRunning time: 109 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: WINTER 2012 December 20, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Undefeated: Life Lessons Learned on the Gridiron
BUCK
Q&A with director Cindy Meehl
Buy TicketsWinner of the Audience Award at both Sundance and Full Frame, BUCK profiles the real life horse whisperer who overcame an abusive childhood to teach a gentler approach to training horses.
“An Irresistible Documentary.” Los Angeles Times
“A movie that, actually could make the world a better place.” Box Office Magazine
Description from Sundance 2011 catalogue:
A living legend in the horse world, Buck Brannaman was the inspiration for The Horse Whisperer. For this true cowboy, horses are a mirror of the human soul. Reared by an abusive father, Buck eschews violence. By teaching people to communicate with horses through instinct, not punishment, he frees the spirit of the horse and its human comrade. Crisscrossing the world with Zenlike wisdom, Buck promulgates grace in the bond between man and horse. The animal-human relationship becomes a perfect metaphor for meeting the challenges of daily life, whether they consist of raising kids, running a business, or finding your flow with a dance partner.
What is extraordinary about Buck Brannaman, the man, leaps off the screen in this strikingly cinematic film by first-time director Cindy Meehl. Part guru, part psychologist, the adult Buck, who was once a beaten kid, has now beaten the odds. Buck Brannaman could transform your troubled horse. Buck the movie may transform your soul.
Director: Cindy MeehlRunning time: 88 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: WINTER 2012 December 19, 2011 7:30 pm
Related Blog Posts: Buck: Helping Horses With People Problems
SEMPER FI: ALWAYS FAITHFUL
Q&A with director Rachel Libert and Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger
Buy TicketsAs a drill instructor Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger lived and breathed the “Corps” and was responsible for indoctrinating thousands of new recruits with its motto Semper Fidelis or “Always Faithful.”
When Jerry’s nine-year old daughter Janey died of a rare type of leukemia, his world collapsed. As a grief-stricken father, he struggled for years to make sense of what happened. His search for answers led to the shocking discovery of a Marine Corps cover-up of one of the largest water contamination incidents in U.S. history.
Semper Fi: Always Faithful follows Jerry’s mission to expose the Marine Corps and force them to live up to their motto to the thousands of soldiers and their families exposed to toxic chemicals. His fight reveals a grave injustice at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune and a looming environmental crisis at military sites across the country.
Director: Tony Hardmon and Rachel LibertRunning time: 75 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: WINTER 2012 December 14, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Semper Fi: Always Faithful
PINA (in 3-D)
Q&A with dance critic Deborah Jowitt
Buy TicketsWim Wenders’ (Wings of Desire, Buena Vista Social Club) dazzling foray into 3D began as a collaboration with legendary choreographer Pina Bausch, an attempt to re-imagine her dance on the big screen. When Bausch died suddenly in 2009, Wenders forged on, turning the project into a moving tribute to her groundbreaking work with the Tanztheater Wuppertal ensemble. With longtime members of the troupe re-creating classic pieces, PINA delivers an exhilarating journey deep into Bausch’s world.
For this sneak preview, our guest speaker will be the renowned dance critic Deborah Jowitt who wrote about PINA for Film Comment.
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Director: Wim WendersRunning time: 106 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: WINTER 2012 December 12, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: STF Pre-Winter Season Special: 15 films for $100 ($80 for IFC Members)
Related Blog Posts: Pina: The Language of Dance
BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN
Q&A with directors Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky
Buy TicketsBATTLE FOR BROOKLYN follows the story of reluctant activist Daniel Goldstein as he struggles to save his home and community from being demolished to make way for a professional basketball arena and the densest real estate development in U.S. history. Along the way, he falls in love, gets married and starts a family while living in a vacated building located at the heart of the project site. Over the course of seven years, Daniel spearheads the movement against the development plan as he and the community fight tenaciously in the courts, the streets, and the media to stop the abuse of eminent domain and reveal the corruption at the heart of the plan.
BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN is the epic and universal tale of one man under pressure, and how far he will go to save his community and his home from the private developers who want to build a basketball arena on top of it. Along the way, he loses a fiancée, falls in love again, gets married, and starts a family. Shot over the course of eight years and compiled from almost 500 hours of footage, Battle for Brooklyn is an intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by the Prospect Heights community to save their neighborhood from destruction.
Daniel Goldstein spent five years carefully looking for the perfect apartment. Not long after he had begun to settle in, he was informed that he and his neighbors would be cleared out to make way for the Atlantic Yards development project. This massive plan to build a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets, and 16 skyscrapers, had been arranged by a private developer. This company, Forest City Ratner, claimed that the building of Atlantic Yards would provide jobs and additional housing, and that the arrival of the New Jersey Nets would be important to the community. In turn, Goldstein and a host of Brooklynites formed the group “Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn” to counter Ratner’s proposal and to expose misconceptions about the project.
The effort to stop the project pits Goldstein and his neighbors against Ratner and an entourage of lawyers and public relations emissaries, the government, and those residents taken in by the promises of jobs, housing, and a basketball team on their turf. Focusing on the Goldstein’s struggle to save his property from becoming center court, the film tells a story of the infuriating erosion of individual rights in the interest of corporate concerns and political maneuvering.
Director: Suki Hawley and Michael GalinskyRunning time: 93 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: WINTER 2012 December 13, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Battle For Brooklyn: When Neighbors Take on Big Business
IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT
Q&A with directors Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
Buy TicketsIn December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by Federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front—a group the FBI has called America’s “number one domestic terrorism threat.”
For years, the ELF—operating in separate anonymous cells without any central leadership—had launched spectacular arsons against dozens of businesses they accused of destroying the environment: timber companies, SUV dealerships, wild horse slaughterhouses, and a $12 million ski lodge at Vail, Colorado.
With the arrest of Daniel and thirteen others, the government had cracked what was probably the largest ELF cell in America and brought down the group responsible for the very first ELF arsons in this country.
IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of this ELF cell, by focusing on the transformation and radicalization of one of its members.
Part coming-of-age tale, part cops-and-robbers thriller, the film interweaves a verite chronicle of Daniel on house arrest as he faces life in prison, with a dramatic recounting of the events that led to his involvement with the group. And along the way it asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism, and the way we define terrorism.
Drawing from striking archival footage—much of it never before seen—and intimate interviews with ELF members, and with the prosecutor and detective who were chasing them, IF A TREE FALLS explores the tumultuous period from 1995 until early 2001 when environmentalists were clashing with timber companies and law enforcement, and the word “terrorism” had not yet been altered by 9/11.
Director: Marshall Curry and Sam CullmanRunning time: 85 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: WINTER 2012 December 15, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
FROM THE SKY DOWN
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
There are precious few acts in the music business that can match the integrity, breadth of appeal, and rugged durability of U2. Yet with the eighties drawing to a close and their epoch-making Joshua Tree album behind them, the Irish quartet had reached such dizzying heights of fame — and, some argued, arrogance — that it seemed the only thing left for them to do was fall apart like so many great rock ’n’ roll bands before them. Instead, they retreated to a German studio, revived their sense of humour, mischief and musical adventure, and ardently went about reinventing themselves. The result was 1991’s Achtung Baby, and the process of creating that astounding album is the subject of Davis Guggenheim’s exhilarating documentary From the Sky Down.
Gaining intimate access to the band as they return to Berlin’s beautiful Hansa Studios to rehearse for their Glastonbury performance of Achtung Baby, Guggenheim finds Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. in peak form. The band has always been insistent on renovating their back catalogue for live performances. As they set about finding fresh ways to interpret songs like “The Fly,” “One” and “Even Better Than the Real Thing,” they also begin to reminisce about how those songs first came to fruition — and about the stew of personal struggles that informed them.
Bono has always been a witty, self-effacing and articulate raconteur, and his tales of coping with massive success and its inevitable backlash are enormously entertaining.
A handful of the best stories come not from the band, however, but from some of their most esteemed collaborators, such as Brian Eno and Canadian Daniel Lanois. The producers provide fascinating descriptions of the strange, winding and often amusing journeys from inspiration to synthesis.
Drawing from a wealth of archival footage that’s alternately dazzling and revealing, From the Sky Down deserves a place amid the upper echelon of rock documentaries. And just as there’s nothing like seeing U2 onstage to feel the maximum thrill of their pulsating anthems, this film needs to be experienced on the big screen to fully surrender to its rush.
Director: Davis GuggenheimRunning time: 90 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
URBANIZED
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Director Gary Hustwit has an impressive track record when it comes to exploring the world of design. His popular essay films Helvetica and Objectified profiled the makers of graphics and household objects, respectively, by combining smart interviews with stylish cinematography. His latest film completes a design trilogy and hits even closer to home by looking at cities. In Urbanized, we meet architects, politicians, city planners, activists and others who bring fresh approaches to urban living. The film presents invigorating new strategies for meeting the challenges faced by populations that are expanding (like Mumbai) and shrinking (like Detroit).
City planning has inspired many great writers — from Jane Jacobs to Rem Koolhaas, who are both covered in Urbanized — but not as many filmmakers. Yet cinema has a great advantage, as Hustwit demonstrates by transporting us around the world to visually experience urban projects. In Santiago, the architect Alejandro Aravena tours new models for low-income housing. In Cape Town, landscape architect Tarna Klitzner explains how better walking paths in the Khayelitsha township helped reduce violence by forty per cent. In New Orleans, the artist Candy Chang solicits local input, placing stickers on abandoned buildings that read “I Wish This Was…” In Bogotá, mayor Enrique Peñalosa implements a plan to put public transportation ahead of private automobiles. Describing his mission, he quotes the Colombian constitution, which stipulates, “All citizens are equal before the law.” As Peñalosa pointedly adds, “This is not just poetry.”
Over half of today’s world population lives in cities; demographers expect that number to rise to seventy-five per cent by 2050. Urbanized looks at how governments implement decisions from the top down, but also how movements can rise from the bottom up. In Detroit, residents of a blighted neighbourhood clear vacant lots to plant vegetable gardens. In Stuttgart, protestors fight a plan to clear 200-year-old trees for new buildings. Hustwit’s film inspires us to look more carefully at our cities and become active in shaping their future.
Director: Gary HustwitRunning time: 82 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
UNDEFEATED
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Football doesn’t build character, coach Bill Courtney tells his players, “football reveals character.” In 2004, Courtney took on the daunting job of volunteer coaching at Manassas High School in inner-city Memphis, where players are more likely to wind up in jail than in college. The Manassas Tigers were the perennial whipping boys of the league, bereft of victories, funds and morale. Courtney recruited a group of freshmen to turn things around, and in their first season they got creamed. But they didn’t quit. With each passing year they won more games and more respect. By 2009, those freshmen had become seniors with one last chance to prove themselves and snag college scholarships. At the start of the season, Courtney set a goal: to win the first playoff game in the school’s 110-year history.
Filmmakers Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin had the sharp instincts to jump on this story at the start of the 2009 season. They distinguish themselves with virtuoso camera work and editing. From the film’s opening minutes, as Courtney delivers an impassioned lockerroom speech, we’re hooked. Our emotional investment only deepens as we get to know the players. O.C. Brown, who has the size and speed of a human freight train, counts on a football scholarship as his best hope for the future. Chavis Daniels returns to Manassas after fifteen months in a youth penitentiary and struggles with personal demons. Montrail “Money” Brown, an undersized offensive lineman, strives to overachieve and win an academic scholarship. The pressure to succeed is compounded by an environment where poverty, broken homes and street violence are the norm.
Coach Courtney feels his own pressures as he pours energy into these kids at the expense of spending time with his own children. As the drama ratchets up week after week, the stakes are higher than just winning and losing football games. You’ve probably never heard of the Manassas Tigers, but by the end of the film you’ll be cheering them on like an ardent fan.
About the directors:
Dan Lindsay is the director of Last Cup: Road to the World Series of Beer Pong (08) and co-director of Undefeated (11) with T.J. Martin. T.J. Martin met Dan Lindsay while working as editor on Last Cup: Road to the World Series of Beer Pong (08). He is the director of A Day in the Hype of America (02) and On the Rocks (05), and co-director of Undefeated (11).
T.J. Martin met Dan Lindsay while working as editor on Last Cup: Road to the World Series of Beer Pong (08). He is the director of A Day in the Hype of America (02) and On the Rocks (05), and co-director of Undefeated (11).
Director: Dan Lindsay and TJ MartinRunning time: 113 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
The Story of Film is a feast for cinema lovers. Mark Cousins adapts his celebrated book of the same title into this audacious fifteen-hour project, screening over multiple days at the Festival. He traces the entire history of film, concentrating on artistic vision (rather than business or celebrities) from the silent era to the digital age. Unlike historians who place an emphasis on Western cinema, Cousins takes a more global approach. He showcases iconic film clips from Asia, Africa, India, the Middle East and South America — woven into the more familiar legacy of Europe and North America. His treatment succeeds at being both erudite and accessible.
Often this kind of ambitious project requires the backing of an institution, which can result in a bland sensibility. But Cousins’ approach is more individualistic. Based in Scotland, he earned his expertise from an eclectic background of festival programming, filmmaking and teaching. For his popular BBC program and eponymous book Scene by Scene, he interviewed the likes of Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski and Bernardo Bertolucci. Now he marshals that wealth of knowledge to narrate TheStory of Film in his endearing brogue. He supplements his commentary by interviewing cinematic history makers such as Wim Wenders, Claire Denis and Alexander Sokurov. The conversations are shot with the idiosyncratic style of a one-person crew in locales around the world.
By taking a DIY approach, Cousins preserves an editorial independence that normally gets lost with a bigger budget and committee decision-making. His achievement represents a breakthrough for the multi-part documentary. After experiencing this history from such a distinctive viewpoint, you may crave similar treatments for music, literature, politics or whatever compels you. Of course, Cousins has the advantage of drawing upon image makers who take our breath away: Buster Keaton, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Fritz Lang, Yasujiro Ozu, Satyajit Ray, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Youssef Chahine, Agnes Varda, Nicholas Roeg, Ousmane Sembene, Abbas Kiarostami — to name only a sampling. In The Story of Film, you’ll drink their visions and walk away thirsty for more.
Episode 1-3
1. The birth of a great new art form: the movies. Filmed in the very buildings where the first movies were made, this first hour shows that ideas and passion have always driven film more than money and marketing. The very first movie stars, close ups and special effects and creation of the Hollywood myth. And a surprise: the greatest — and best-paid — writers in these early years were women.
2. Movies in the Roaring Twenties: Hollywood became a glittering entertainment industry with star directors like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. But the gloss and fantasy was challenged by movie makers like Robert Flaherty, Eric Von Stroheim and Carl Theodor Dreyer, who wanted films to be more serious and mature. This was a battle for the soul of cinema. The result: some of the greatest movies ever made.
3. The 1920s were a golden age for world cinema. German Expressionism, Soviet montage, French impressionism and surrealism were passionate new film movements, pushing the boundaries of the medium. Less well-known are the glories of Chinese and Japanese films, and the moving story of one of the great, now-forgotten, movie stars, Ruan Lingyu.
Episode 4-6
4. The coming of sound in the 1930s upends everything. We watch the birth of new types of film: screwball comedies, gangster pictures, horror films, westerns and musicals, and discover a master of most of them, Howard Hawks. Alfred Hitchcock hits his stride and French directors become masters of mood.
5. The trauma of World War II makes cinema more daring. The story starts in Italy; then we go to Hollywood, discover Orson Welles and chart the darkening of American film during the drama of the McCarthy era. Screenwriters Paul Schrader and Robert Towne discuss theses years. The director of Singin’ in the Rain, Stanley Donen, talks exclusively about his career.
6. Sex and melodrama in the movies of the fifties: James Dean, On the Waterfront and glossy weepies. We travel to Egypt, India, China, Mexico, Britain and Japan to find that movies there were also full of rage and passion. Exclusive interviews include associates of Indian master Satyajit Ray; legendary Japanese actress Kyoko Kagawa, who starred in films by Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu; and the first great African director, Youssef Chahine.
Episode 7-9
7. The explosive story of film in the late fifties and sixties: The great movie star Claudia Cardinale talks exclusively about Federico Fellini; in Denmark, Lars von Trier describes his admiration for Ingmar Bergman; and Bernardo Bertolucci remembers his work with Pier Paolo Pasolini. French filmmakers plant a bomb under the movies, and the new wave it causes sweeps across Europe.
8. The dazzling 1960s in cinema around the world: In Hollywood, legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler reveals how documentary influenced mainstream movies. Easy Rider and 2001: A Space Odyssey signal a new era in America cinema. We discover the films of Roman Polanski, Andrei Tarkvosky, and Nagisa Oshima. Black African cinema is born, and we talk exclusively to the Indian master director Mani Kaul.
9. The maturing of American cinema of the late sixties and seventies: Buck Henry, writer of The Graduate, talks exclusively about movie satire of the time. Paul Schrader reveals his thoughts on his existential screenplay for Taxi Driver. Writer Robert Towne explores the dark ideas in Chinatown, and director Charles Burnett talks about the birth of Black American cinema.
Episode 10-12
10.The movies that tried to change the world in the seventies: Wim Wenders in Germany; Ken Loach and Britain; Pasolini in Italy; the birth of new Australian cinema; and then Japan, which was making the most moving films in the world. Even bigger, bolder questions about film were being asked in Africa and South America, and the story ends with John Lennon’s favourite film, the extraordinary, psychedelic The Holy Mountain.
11. Star Wars, Jaws and The Exorcist created the multiplexes, but they were also innovative. In India the world’s most famous movie star, Amitabh Bachchan, shows how Bollywood was doing new things in the seventies too. And we discover that Bruce Lee movies kick-started the kinetic films of Hong Kong, where master Yuen Woo-ping talks exclusively about his action movies and his wire fu choreography for The Matrix.
12. Protest in the movies of the 1980s: brave filmmakers spoke truth to power. American independent director John Sayles talks exclusively about these years. In Beijing, Chinese cinema blossomed before the Tiananmen crackdown. In the Soviet Union, the past wells up in astonishing films, and master director Krzysztof Kieslowski emerges in Poland.
Episode 13-15
13. Film in the 1990s enters a surprise golden age. In Iran we meet Abbas Kiarostami, who rethought movie making and made it more real. Then, in Tokyo, we meet Shinji Tsukamoto, who laid the ground for the bold new Japanese horror cinema. In Paris one of the world’s greatest directors, Claire Denis, talks exclusively about her work. The story ends in Mexico.
14. Brilliant, flashy, playful movies in the English speaking world in the nineties. We look at what was new in Tarantino’s dialogue and the edginess of the Coen Brothers. The writer of Starship Troopers and Robocop talks exclusively about the films’ irony. In Australia, Baz Luhrmann talks about Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, and we plunge into the digital world to see how it has changed the movies forever.
15. Movies come full circle: They get more serious after 9/11, and Romanian movies come to the fore. But then David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive becomes one of the most complex dream films ever made and Inception turns film into a game. In Moscow, master director Alexander Sokurov talks exclusively about his innovative films. Then, a surprise: The Story of Film goes beyond the present, to look at film in the future.
About the director:
Mark Cousins is a Northern Irish writer, film critic and director. His short documentary films are The Psychology of Neo-Nazism: Another Journey by Train to Auschwitz (co-director, 93), I Know Where I’m Going! Revisited (94), Cinema Iran (05) and First Impressions (08). His feature documentaries are The New Ten Commandments (co-director, 08), The First Movie (09) and The Story of Film (11).
Running time: 900 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
SARAH PALIN: YOU BETCHA!
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Sarah Palin is a galvanizing political force in America’s deepening cultural rift. While her missteps are lambasted by critics and satirists, her base of support only grows. After her defeat as a Vice Presidential candidate and her resignation as Alaska’s governor, she retains a red-hot following stoked by her bestselling book Going Rogue: An American Life and the TV series Sarah Palin’s Alaska . She assiduously avoids taking questions from reporters, preferring to communicate with her fans via Facebook and Twitter. Filmmaker Nick Broomfield has never been fazed by uncooperative subjects, conducting his pursuits like a vigilante armed with a boom pole, frequently backed by his collaborator Joan Churchill behind the camera. His past documentary targets include Margaret Thatcher, Courtney Love and Heidi Fleiss. When headline makers block his access, he brings them down to a human scale by exploring their milieu.
For Sarah Palin – You Betcha!, that means travelling to Alaska. Broomfield makes several trips to interview Palin’s parents, neighbours and former colleagues. They trace her values to her upbringing in the Pentecostal faith. One memorable archival clip shows a church ceremony in which she is being exorcised of witches. An Alaskan pastor characterizes her faith as “apocalyptic Christian” and elaborates, “She has no hesitancy to use violence against evil…Until you understand that, I don’t think you understand Sarah Palin.”
Can she rise to a higher office? Several former allies describe Palin throwing them “under the bus” when they got in the way of her ambition. John McCain’s senior strategist tells Broomfield that she’s “deeply dishonest,” describing her aspiration to be President as “spine-chilling.”
Broomfield brings a wry humour to his quest, but also draws out the serious implications of Palin’s political future. Is this worthy of your concern? You betcha.
About the directors:
Nick Broomfield was born in London and studied law at Cardiff University before attending England’s National Film School. His documentaries include Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (92), Tracking Down Maggie (94), Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (95), Kurt and Courtney (97), Biggie and Tupac (02) and Sarah Palin (11). His first dramatic feature, Battle for Haditha (07), premiered at the Festival.
Joan Churchill is a cinematographer, producer and director who graduated from UCLA Film School. She co-directed the documentaries Juvenile Liaison (76), Tattooed (79), Soldier Girls (81), Lily Tomlin (86), Juvenile Liaison 2 (90), Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (03) and Sarah Palin (11).
Director: Nick Broomfield and Joan ChurchillRunning time: 90 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
SAMSARA
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Prepare yourself for an unparalleled sensory experience. Samsara reunites director Ron Fricke and producer Mark Magidson, whose previous films Baraka and Chronos were acclaimed for combining visual and musical artistry. Samsara expands on their effort to portray the connections between humanity and nature in a bold way. Filmed for over four years and in more than twenty countries, the film transports us through multiple cultures to sacred grounds, disaster sites, industrialized zones and natural wonders. By dispensing with dialogue and descriptive text, the filmmakers subvert our expectations of a documentary. Instead, they encourage our own interpretations inspired by images and musical compositions that infuse the ancient with the modern.
Samsara is a Tibetan word that means “the ever turning wheel of life,” and Fricke describes the film as a “guided meditation on the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.”
Early on, we watch a group of Buddhist monks in Ladakh perform the painstaking ritual of creating a sand mandala. Kneeling in a circle, the monks work separately — shaking coloured grains of sand from small tubes into an intricate design — and thereby compose a collective work of art. This breathtaking activity is indicative of how the filmmakers give us privileged access to profound scenarios. Other tableaux include the surrealist wreckage of houses after Hurricane Katrina, the testing of lifelike robots alongside their human counterparts, group exercises in a prison, garbage pickers in an endless horizon of trash and Muslim pilgrims circling around the tomb at Mecca.
Even when the setting is familiar, Fricke brings a revivified perspective with his stunning compositions, matched with the latest in photographic technology. His team shot on 65mm film, then transferred it through a high resolution scanning process to a digital format that makes for mesmerizing images. For filmgoers who cherished the revelations of Baraka almost twenty years ago, Samsara proves to be worth the wait.
About the director:
Ron Fricke is a filmmaker and cinematographer. His credits as director of photography include Koyaanisqatsi (82) and Atomic Artists (83). He shot and directed the short documentaries Chronos (85) and Sacred Site (86), as well as the feature documentaries Baraka (92) and Samsara (11).
Running time: 99 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
PEARL JAM TWENTY
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
How do you explain Pearl Jam’s twenty-year run? In 1991, the band’s first album, Ten, struck a zeitgeist chord with its guitar anthems and dark themes. Songs like “Alive” and “Even Flow” helped make alternative rock a leading force on the airwaves. Even if you weren’t a follower, you couldn’t miss the image of long hair, plaid shirts and onstage intensity. But for an alternative rock band, the toughest thing to overcome, besides failure, is success. Pearl Jam frequently found itself the target of controversy — cast as rivals to Nirvana, taking a stand against Ticketmaster, associated with a festival tragedy — that would test the mettle of any band. Yet for twenty years they’ve continued to make music vital to their fans. How did that happen?
Director Cameron Crowe is a perfect fit to tell this story. He was an early fan of the band, casting its members in his 1992 film Singles, set in the Seattle music scene. Shortly before then, former members of Mother Love Bone (rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament) had connected with lead guitarist Mike McCready. Their demo tape wound up in the hands of Eddie Vedder, a San Diego surfer whose lead vocals produced a howling baritone. Later, Matt Cameron took the position of drummer. And that Pearl Jam lineup has lasted to this day.
In Pearl Jam Twenty, Crowe elicits reflective interviews with the band on their breakthroughs and challenges. The documentary interweaves these conversations with a rich archive of older interviews and performances, taking us back to the time when “grunge” was the buzzword.
From early on, Pearl Jam earned a reputation for delivering powerful concerts. In memorable footage from the nineties, we see the athletic Vedder climb the stage scaffolding and dive into the audience on several occasions. He’s since cut back on those death-defying stunts, but the band has never stopped putting tremendous faith in its fans.
About the director:
Cameron Crowe was born in Palm Springs and grew up in San Diego. He started working as a music journalist before writing the book and screenplay Fast Times at Ridgemont High (82). His feature films are Say Anything (89), Singles (92), Jerry McGuire (96), Almost Famous (00), Vanilla Sky (01), Elizabethtown (05) and the documentary Pearl Jam Twenty (11).
Running time: 120 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory opens a new chapter in an eighteen-year-old murder case that has become an iconic example of a legal witch hunt. In 1993, three teenagers were accused of killing three younger boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. The teenagers — known as the West Memphis Three — steadfastly maintained their innocence, yet they were convicted and remain in prison, one of them on death row. Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky followed the case from its beginning and made two previous films that galvanized support for the accused. Paradise Lost 3 supplies ample background for those unfamiliar with the murders, revealing new testimonies and turnabouts that are as riveting as any detective story.
The first Paradise Lost chronicled how the accused teenagers — Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. — were sensationally depicted in the media as satanic cult followers. They made convenient scapegoats for a legal establishment under pressure to deliver a guilty verdict. When HBO broadcast Paradise Lost, many viewers were troubled by the prosecution and inspired to create a legal defence group. The film attracted support from high-profile figures such as Metallica, Eddie Vedder, Johnny Depp and Natalie Maines, who have helped raise funds for a new investigation. In Paradise Lost 2, the filmmakers documented accumulating evidence against an alternate suspect, Mark Byers, the stepfather of one of the murder victims. Byers drew suspicion over his criminal record, a history with weapons and a wife who died from mysterious causes. Although Byers was never prosecuted, many viewers of Paradise Lost 2 came away convinced that he must be the real killer.
In Paradise Lost 3, old perceptions are called into question yet again. New DNA evidence points away from Byers to another, previously neglected suspect. As the case awaits a new hearing, the film forces viewers to re-examine their own prejudices and think carefully before jumping to conclusions.
About the directors:
Joe Berlinger was born in Boca Raton, Florida. He studied at Colgate University. He is the co-director, with Bruce Sinofsky, of the documentaries Brother’s Keeper (92), Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (96), Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (00), Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (03) and Paradise Lost3: Purgatory (11).
Bruce Sinofsky was born in Boston. He is the co-director, with Joe Berlinger, of the documentaries Brother’s Keeper (92), Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (96), Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (00), Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (03) and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (11).
Director: Joe Berlinger and Bruce SinofskyRunning time: 106 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
NEIL YOUNG JOURNEYS
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
This past May, Neil Young brought his solo tour to Toronto’s Massey Hall, an iconic venue in the city of his birth. Jonathan Demme was on hand to capture the two nights, which highlighted new songs from the album Le Noise, produced by Daniel Lanois, mixed with classics like “Ohio” and “I Believe in You.” At sixty-five, Young retains a youthful vitality and musical curiosity that balances his wisdom and experience. It’s no wonder he’s been an inspiration to the likes of Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth. In Neil Young Journeys, Demme intersperses the Massey Hall concert footage with brief scenes from a road trip through Ontario. Driving a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria, Young visits the rural town of Omemee, where he spent a key part of his formative years, and reminisces about his former neighbours and their daughters. As he drives past bulldozers transforming the landscape, he remarks, “It’s all gone… it’s still in my head.”
For Mavericks, Young and Demme will present the world premiere of Neil Young Journeys in the splendid Princess of Wales Theatre, followed by a live conversation. Demme previously filmed Young performing in Nashville, the year after the musician survived a brain aneurysm, for the documentary Neil Young: Heart of Gold. Their second collaboration was Neil Young Trunk Show, memorializing a Pennsylvania concert during the tour for his album Chrome Dreams II. Young’s repertoire is so vast that none of the songs in those previous films overlap the selections featured in Neil Young Journeys.
At Massey Hall, Young shares the stage only with a wooden statue of a Native American as he moves between two pianos, an organ and several guitars, acoustic and electric. The songs are full of intense, poetic imagery. In one haunting number, “You Never Call,” he pays homage to his late friend Larry “L.A.” Johnson, who ran Young’s film company, Shakey Pictures. And in “Love and War,” he offers a kind of summation of his whole career: “Since the backstreets of Toronto/I sang for justice and I hit a bad chord/But I still try to sing about love and war.”
About the director:
Jonathan Demme was born in Baldwin, Long Island. His prolific career has included the films Caged Heat (74), Melvin and Howard (80), Stop Making Sense (84), Something Wild (86), The Silence of the Lambs (91), for which he won the Academy Award® for best director, Philadelphia (93), The Agronomist (03), Neil Young: Heart of Gold (06), Rachel Getting Married (08), Neil Young Trunk Show (09), I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad, and the Beautiful (11), also at this year’s Festival, and Neil Young Journeys (11).
Running time: 87 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
THE LOVE WE MAKE
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Paul McCartney was in New York City on an airport runway waiting to fly to Britain. As he absorbed the news of the unfolding tragedy, he wondered, “What can I do?” The answer, of course, lay in music.
McCartney reached out to master documentarian and long-time friend Albert Maysles, inviting Maysles to document his personal experiences on 16mm black and white film, a format seldom used in the digital age but of proven endurance and artistic quality. Over several weeks in October 2001, Maysles’ camera followed McCartney as he prepared for The Concert for New York City, a benefit he helped organize to uplift New York City during this period of uncertainty and vulnerability. The footage went unseen for years, requiring the passage of time to be put in perspective. Now, ten years later, Maysles, his directing partner Bradley Kaplan and editor Ian Markiewicz have emerged with an intimate work that explores the role of art and artists in a time of crisis.
This Mavericks event presents the world premiere of The Love We Make, followed by a live discussion with Maysles, Kaplan and members of their production team. McCartney, who can’t attend the Festival due to prior commitments, has pre-recorded an exclusive introduction to the film.
McCartney’s choice of Maysles renews a connection that dates back when The Beatles’ first trip to America in 1964. Albert and his brother David captured that historic visit in their pioneering observational style on 16mm black and white film for What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A.
Trained as a psychologist, Maysles has an uncanny ability to get beneath the surface of the people he films. That is put to good use in post-9/11 New York. We follow McCartney onstage and backstage at Madison Square Garden, as a who’s who of celebrities puts on a show. Inside this event, Maysles reveals a more candid side of individuals as they process a mix of anxiety and resilience in the aftermath of September 11.
About the directors:
Albert Maysles was born in Boston. He studied at Syracuse University and Boston University. His films include Meet Marlon Brando (65), Salesman (68), Gimme Shelter (70), Grey Gardens (75) and The Beales of Grey Gardens (06), all of which were co-directed with his brother David Maysles, and The Love We Make (11), co-directed by Bradley Kaplan.
Bradley Kaplan graduated from Brown University. He directed the television documentaries Muhammad and Larry (09), More Than a Paycheck: Hardest Working Americans (10) and Close Up: Photographers at Work – “Portraits” (11). He is the co-director, with Albert Maysles, of The Love We Make (11).
Director: Albert Maysles and Bradley KaplanRunning time: 94 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
THE LAST GLADIATORS
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Chris “Knuckles” Nilan can chart his hockey career by his scars. He earned those stripes as one the NHL’s fiercest enforcers, throwing punches to defend his teammates. While playing for the Montreal Canadiens in the mid-eighties, his fights racked up penalty minutes but received roaring approval from fans and helped win the Stanley Cup. When injuries forced Nilan to retire in 1992, he faced a new battle: how do you stop being a gladiator and re-enter normal society?
Director Alex Gibney, who played hockey as a youth, comes to Nilan’s story with an admiration for the game and its masters. While interviewing NHL greats, Gibney found himself drawn to Nilan, and uncovered a sensitive side behind the tough exterior. The Last Gladiators succeeds at connecting to both hockey fans and outsiders by taking a nuanced look at Nilan’s career and the legacy of enforcers.
In the film, Nilan recounts the ups and downs of his life with poignancy. As an Irish kid in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, he learned the law of streets: never back down, never stay down. He idolized the finesse of Boston Bruins’ star Bobby Orr. But he knew that his only way into the big leagues was with his fists. Nilan started as an enforcer but soon learned to be a complete player. Yet, his reputation as a fighter made him a target for kids who wanted to make names for themselves.
His legendary fights took their toll, sending him to the hospital for twenty six surgeries. Leaving the league in his mid-thirties, he had difficulty adjusting to desk jobs and gave in to addictions. Now he takes one day at a time and looks back on his glory days with a mixture of joy and regret.
Gibney has a knack for exploring flawed characters, as he displayed in Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Though rooted in hockey, The Last Gladiators raises wider questions about the bloodlust in our culture and how we treat our warriors when the battle is over.
About the director:
Alex Gibney was born in New York and studied at Yale University before attending UCLA Film School. His works as director include Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (05), for which he received an Academy Award® nomination for best documentary feature, The Human Behavior Experiments (06), Taxi to the Dark Side (07), which won the Academy Award® for best documentary feature, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (10) and The Last Gladiators (11).
Running time: 94 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
LAST CALL AT THE OASIS
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
When was the last time you worried about getting a glass of fresh water? In some parts of the world, it’s a daily anxiety. But for most people in developed countries, it never registers as a concern. You might consider yourself lucky, but water experts consider you dangerously deluded. In Last Call at the Oasis, we hear from scientists, activists and average citizens who are on the front lines of confronting an impending global water crisis. There’s no escaping it, but shifting our behaviour can lessen the impact. This requires a change in thinking — from individuals, governments and corporations. This invigorating wake-up call from the producers of Food, Inc. and An Inconvenient Truth can play a part.
Academy Award®–winning director Jessica Yu draws upon the research of scientists and enlists diverse voices ranging from the real Erin Brockovich, exemplifying feisty resistance, to actor Jack Black, supplying welcome comic relief. Robert Glennon, author of Unquenchable, points out that everything is connected to water. For instance, when you take into account all the water behind producing four pounds of steak, it adds up to eighteen thousand gallons — roughly the same amount as the average swimming pool. Beyond overconsumption, there are growing hazards of pollution. Water treatment facilities can handle garbage, but they can’t cope with the alarming increase of pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals.
This documentary reminds us that people are capable of change. In 1969, when Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River burst into flames due to industrial pollution, the shock galvanized the environmental movement, leading to the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Water Act. Sadly, those institutions have been weakened. The film reports that the Clean Water Act has been violated a half-million times in a recent five year period, while the EPA approves up to two thousand chemicals a year. Watching Last Call at the Oasis will bring a fresh shock. Whether it brings change is up to you.
About the director:
Jessica Yu was born in New York and studied English at Yale University. In addition to directing episodes of The West Wing and Grey’s Anatomy, she has directed several fiction and documentary shorts, including Home Base (90), Sour Death Balls (91), The Conductor (93), Oscar-winner Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien (96), Better Late (97) and The Kinda Sutra (09). Her feature length documentaries are Men of Reenaction (95), The Living Museum (98), In the Realms of the Unreal (02) and Protagonist (06). Her fiction film Ping Pong Playa’ (07) screened at the Festival. Last Call at the Oasis (11) is her latest documentary feature.
Running time: 105 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
THE ISLAND PRESIDENT
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
President Mohamed Nasheed governs the small territory of the Maldives, but he’s capable of wielding a large influence over anyone who watches The Island President. Unlike most politicians, Nasheed is refreshingly blunt and unafraid to challenge conventional thinking. He spent two decades leading a pro-democracy movement against a cruel dictatorship in his country, suffering imprisonments and torture, until groundswell support got him elected president at age forty-one. Suddenly he found himself facing a new crisis: the possible extinction of his own country. The Maldives is composed of twelve hundred coral islands off the coast of India (of which two hundred are occupied). If ocean levels continue to rise at their current rate, the region will be submerged like a modern Atlantis.
In this Mavericks event, we present the world premiere of The Island President, followed by a live conversation with President Nasheed and director Jon Shenk. The film gains remarkable access to Nasheed’s first year in office as he sets out to influence the world’s superpowers. The story culminates at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, where we get a rare insider’s look at political deal-making. Though Copenhagen was judged by many as a failure, it marked the first time in history that China, India and the United States agreed to reduce carbon emissions. As we see in the film, Nasheed played a key role in brokering that decision.
The Island President combines stunning cinematography with the haunting music of Radiohead for an unforgettable journey. In most of the world, Nasheed still remains unknown. This film promises to help change that as more people are exposed to his charm and eloquence. Having gone from prison to presidency, he has a powerful will for overcoming hopeless situations. The Maldives, Nasheed says, are “a cross between paradise and paradise,” and he makes us feel deeply invested in their survival. After this encounter, you may come away wishing he was your president.
About the director:
Jon Shenk earned a master’s degree in documentary filmmaking from Stanford University, and has extensive experience as a documentary cinematographer. He has directed the feature documentaries The Lost Boys of Sudan (03) and The Island President (11).
Running time: 101 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
INTO THE ABYSS
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Crime stories can often fall into a predictable pattern of whodunit, but trust Werner Herzog to bring his own unique approach to the genre. He focuses on a triple homicide case in Conroe, Texas, that occurred ten years ago. Epitomizing the word “senseless,” the apparent motive behind the murders was to steal a car for a joyride. The convicted killers were two teenagers, Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, who had a history of substance abuse and violent bravado. They deny their guilt (each blaming the other), but the verdict was based on strong evidence that Herzog doesn’t challenge. Instead, he probes the legacy of the crime and the psyches of the people involved, unveiling layers of humanity, both cold and compassionate.
Herzog, who strongly opposes capital punishment, came to this story after interviewing several people on death row. Among them was 28-year-old Perry, scheduled to die eight days after talking to Herzog. “When I talk to you, it does not necessarily mean that I have to like you,” Herzog says to Perry, “but… I think human beings should not be executed as simply as that.” Burkett, in contrast, was given a comparatively lenient sentence of life imprisonment, prompted by an emotional plea from his father (who is also incarcerated). After delving deeper, Herzog chose to concentrate on this particular case.
In a departure from films like Cave of Forgotten Dreams or Grizzly Man, Herzog refrains from his distinctive and familiar voice-over commentary, but his presence is felt through his questions. In addition to interviewing Perry and Burkett, he talks to their relatives, the victims’ families, law enforcement officials and others. Exploring an American gothic landscape, he takes us from luxury homes to impoverished trailers to prison cells. Herzog’s inquiries yield surprising moments that speak to a variety of human tendencies, including regret, redemption and irrational behaviour. As he’s done so often before, Herzog turns ominous territory into an enlightening trip.
About the director:
Werner Herzog was born in Munich and raised in the remote Bavarian village of Sachrang. He worked as a welder to fund his first film at age nineteen, and has since directed over fifty features. His films have won numerous awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (74) and best director at the Cannes Film Festival for Fitzcarraldo (82). His other films include Aguirre, the Wrath of God (72), The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (74), Stroszek (77), Lessons of Darkness (92), Grizzly Man (05), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (09), Cave of Forgotten Dreams (10) and Into the Abyss (11).
Running time: 106 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
I’M CAROLYN PARKER: THE GOOD, THE MAD, AND THE BEAUTIFUL
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Carolyn Parker is a proud resident of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. Despite living on modest means, Parker — a retired hotel chef with disabilities — makes the most of what she has, combining a bold sense of humour with a fierce activism and a pervasive spirituality. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, she was among the first residents to return and fight for her neighbourhood’s survival. Kyrah Julian, Carolyn’s teenage daughter, abandoned a full scholarship at Syracuse University to join her mother’s efforts; her son Rahsaan came home from California to help save the family home. A few months after the flood waters receded, filmmaker Jonathan Demme met Parker outside her damaged home while he was interviewing locals. From their casual introduction grew this poignant document, filmed over five years of one family’s struggle to rebuild from devastation.
Demme takes a personal approach, conducting conversations from behind the camera. When we first meet Parker, her house is in shambles — requiring new walls, electricity, windows, and more — yet she can’t fathom moving anywhere else. Her church suffered similar damage, raising debate as to whether the Catholic diocese will reinvest in the black community or divert resources to a predominantly white parish. Over the next several years, Parker’s unflagging efforts to save her home and church come across as alternately good, mad and beautiful.
Until Hurricane Katrina, most outsiders had never heard of the Lower Ninth Ward. Television news crews saturated us with images of desperate victims, then they moved on. Demme’s film is a remedy to this disasterdriven coverage. In true Louisiana fashion, he doesn’t rush. He takes pleasure in Parker’s company, whether she’s reminiscing about her early days in the civil rights struggle or just cooking dinner. The longevity of filming pays off with precious moments and large transformations. Indeed, Demme spent so much time with Parker’s family that he wound up casting roles for her daughter Kyrah and visiting Pastor Melvin Jones in Rachel Getting Married. Now it’s Carolyn Parker’s turn to shine on the big screen.
About the director:
Jonathan Demme was born in Baldwin, Long Island. His prolific career has included the films Caged Heat (74), Melvin and Howard (80), Stop Making Sense (84), Something Wild (86), The Silence of the Lambs (91), for which he won the Academy Award® for best director, Philadelphia (93), The Agronomist (03), Neil Young: Heart of Gold (06), Rachel Getting Married (08) and I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad, the Beautiful (11). His new documentary Neil Young Life (11) also screens at the Festival as part of the Masters programme.
Running time: 90 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
GIRL MODEL
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Girl Model shows a rarely seen side of the fashion industry. The film brings a novelist’s eye for emotional and psychological complexity to its portrait of two women. Ashley, an American former model, travels to remote Siberian villages to scout young teenaged girls for fashion shoots in Japan. We see her discover Nadya, a thirteen-yearold blonde, who radiates the innocence coveted by Ashley’s clients. Like thousands of other Russian girls, Nadya sees modelling as the best chance to support her family. She feels lucky when Ashley’s agency offers a contract with guarantees. But as the film follows Nadya to Japan and Ashley on her further scouting trips, we see each one grapple with the kind of harsh realities that fashion magazines tend to ignore.
Filmmakers David Redmon and Ashley Sabin (a different Ashley from the one onscreen) demonstrate an intrepid ability to track an unregulated system, and go far beyond mere fact collecting. Their attention to poetic detail — in faces, interactions and environments — elevates the film to a work of art.
Beautiful bodies are ever present. As a scout, Ashley makes selections from hundreds of aspiring girls. Her livelihood depends on getting them at the youngest age possible — and on matching current tastes. The criteria “changes minute by minute,” she says, “and it’s based on nothing.” We glimpse brief excepts of a video diary she kept during her own modelling days in the late nineties, revealing her distress and disillusionment. In the present, she projects an array of contradictory feelings that range from calculated to confused, jaded to vulnerable. She struggles to find her way between the glamorous and grotesque. Her sentences often trail off in doubt or end with “I don’t know.”
After watching Girl Model, the viewer can’t pretend not to know something of the realities of this industry. You start looking at models with new questions in mind.
About the directors:
Ashley Sabin studied art history at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She co-directed Kamp Katrina (07), Intimidad (08), Invisible Girlfriend (09) and Girl Model (11) with David Redmon.
David Redmon received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Albany. He is the director of Mardi Gras: Made in China (05), and co-directed Kamp Katrina (07), Intimidad (08), Invisible Girlfriend (09) and Girl Model (11) with Ashley Sabin.
Director: Ashley Sabin and David RedmonRunning time: 77 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
Related Blog Posts: Girl Model: The Abuse of Innocence
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS 20TH ANNIVERSARY: MICHAEL BARKER & TOM BERNARD
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
When you see the name Sony Pictures Classics, you can expect a quality film. That’s no small feat in a business that often panders to the lowest common denominator. Founders Michael Barker and Tom Bernard take a different tack by gambling on the kind of intelligent and international cinema that others consider too risky. Their roster of directors reads like a pantheon of world talent: Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar, Susanne Bier, David Cronenberg, Guillermo del Toro, Norman Jewison, Ang Lee, Errol Morris, Gus Van Sant, Mike Leigh, Zhang Yimou, and the list goes on and on.
To celebrate the company’s twentieth anniversary, Mavericks presents a special conversation with Barker and Bernard. The discussion will be moderated by Jonathan Demme, who worked with the duo most recently on Rachel Getting Married. They have an unlimited supply of stories from behind the scenes at the Toronto International Film Festival, Cannes and the Oscars — as well as less glamorous backdrops.
The partnership dates back to 1981. Barker recalls Bernard telling him, “Listen. You have skills I do not have. I have skills you do not have. Imagine what we could do together.” They paired for stints with United Artists Classics and Orion Classics, working with the likes of François Truffaut on The Last Metro and Akira Kurosawa on Ran. Since founding Sony Pictures Classics with Marcie Bloom in 1992, they’ve established an enviable track record with foreign films (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; The Lives of Others), American auteurs (Midnight in Paris; Capote) and documentaries (Inside Job; The Fog of War).
“I have always in my life wanted to be part of [artistry] even though I could never be an artist myself,” Barker told an interviewer in The Hollywood Reporter. “This was the place where we could be part of these artists’ lives but in a meaningful, positive way…. The artists want their movies to be seen.”
For cinema lovers, this is a unique opportunity to hear how some of the most lauded films of our time were shepherded to success.
Screened: TIFF 2011
CRAZY HORSE
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Ah, Paris and its cultural splendours. Master documentarian Frederick Wiseman has already taken us behind the scenes of the city’s renowned institutions in films like La Comédie-Française ou l’amour joué and La Danse – The Paris Opera Ballet. In Crazy Horse, he pulls back the curtain on Le Crazy Horse de Paris, a landmark that has prided itself as “the best nude dancing show in the world” since 1951. Le Crazy Horse sets itself apart from the average strip club by adhering to exacting standards in choreography, lights and physiques. The erotic revue is composed of songs and sequences that blend traits of old-fashioned burlesque, Bob Fosse and Cirque du Soleil — designed not only for the enjoyment of men, but also couples.
For Crazy Horse, Wiseman turns to High-Definition video after four decades of shooting primarily on 16mm film. The format proves well matched for Le Crazy Horse’s colourful decor and flesh without flaws. Wiseman and cinematographer John Davey embed in this fantasy factory for eleven weeks to document all its components. During their stay, Le Crazy Horse choreographer Philippe Decouflé seeks to revitalize the repertoire. Even if an act like “Baby Buns” sounds silly, Decouflé takes his work very seriously. Like any theatre director, he yearns for more resources and strains against the company’s shareholders.
“Désir” is the name of the new show that Decouflé wants to perfect. But the word also reflects the multiple desires that go into the making of any enterprise. Backstage, the dancers entertain themselves by watching a clip reel of Russian ballet bloopers that evoke different aspirations. In front of the house, customers pose for souvenir photographs to commemorate their night of naughty escapism. Wiseman observes these moments without imposing commentary or questions, allowing us to derive our own interpretations. You can analyze the film for its themes of voyeurism or enjoy it as a playful, sexy romp. The experience all depends on your desire.
About the director:
Frederick Wiseman was born in Boston and graduated from Yale Law School. He has directed nearly forty feature documentaries and has received multiple honours, including the American Society of Cinematographers Distinguished Achievement Award, the George Polk Career Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, three Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award and a Columbia DuPont Award. He is also an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His filmography includes Titicut Follies (67), High School (68), Law & Order (69), Welfare (75), Zoo (93), La Comédie- Française ou l’amour joué (97), The Last Letter (02), Public Housing (97), La Danse – The Paris Opera Ballet (09), Boxing Gym (10) and Crazy Horse (11).
Running time: 134 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
COMIC CON: EPISODE IV - A FAN’S HOPE
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
The elaborate title Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope gives a wink to Star Wars fans and anyone else who follows the sequel-prone world of comics and fantasy films. But don’t be fooled: this documentary is a bona fide first edition. Spurred by encouragement from Marvel impresario Stan Lee, director Morgan Spurlock explores the hopes of several fans making the annual summer pilgrimage to San Diego’s Comic-Con. “You’ve got to admire the fans because without them, you’re nothing,” says Lee. As a pop culture maven, Spurlock has great affection for this scene, as does producer Thomas Tull, whose credits range from The Dark Knight to It Might Get Loud. For fans weary of being mocked and misunderstood, this film is a hope come true.
Comic-Con started in 1970 and catered to a few hundred comic book collectors, then grew to encompass Hollywood blockbusters, anime, videogames and more. Today there are over a hundred thousand attendees whose attention is keenly sought by publicists, marketers and celebrities hustling their latest product. Within this fantasy bubble, plenty of real drama takes place. Spurlock stays behind the camera as we follow fans chasing their Comic-Con dreams: Eric, an aspiring illustrator, hopes to impress publishers and land a job; Holly, an amateur clothing designer, hopes her costumes will win an award; Chuck, a long-time comic book dealer, hopes a big sale will pay off his debts; and James, a young fan, hopes his girlfriend will accept a dramatic proposal. Although Comic-Con may be devoted to world-saving superheroes, its heart and soul come from these human-scale aspirations.
Throughout the film, we hear from Comic-Con veterans who have turned their passions into professions, including Kevin Smith, Seth Rogen, Joss Whedon, Matt Groening, Guillermo del Toro, Harry Knowles, Todd McFarlane and Frank Miller. They testify to what makes Comic-Con such an energizing experience for so many people. This film captures the whole spectacle, from the silly to the sublime.
About the director:
Morgan Spurlock was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and studied film at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He received worldwide acclaim for his Academy Award®-nominated debut Super Size Me (04). His other documentary features are Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? (08), Freakonomics (10), The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (11) and Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope (11).
Running time: 88 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
THE BOY WHO WAS A KING
Description from TIFF 2011 catalog by Thom Powers:
Quick, name three things that Bulgaria is famous for.
Feeling stumped? Let’s face it: Bulgaria keeps a low profile, whether as a current NATO member or former Eastern bloc state. Bulgarian director Andrey Paounov plays that obscurity to his advantage by spinning comic non-fiction tales from his country with an original sensibility. He previously filmed characters connected to a mental hospital (Georgi and the Butterflies) and a small town-turned-concentration camp (The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories). Now he focuses on a higher-profile Bulgarian: the boy king who later became prime minister.
At the age of six, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha received the first phone call of his life, informing him of his father’s sudden death and his birthright to become Tsar of Bulgaria. Only three years later, the nine-year-old king was overthrown by communist dissenters and he and his family were exiled from the country. Fifty years passed before the communist regime collapsed and Simeon was allowed to return home. Crowds cheered, “We want our King!” — even though the title no longer existed.
Simeon created a new political party and won a landslide majority to become the Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 2001. But it was a difficult period of transition for a country with eighty per cent unemployment. In four years, Simeon would find himself in a sort of exile again: this time from the favour of the nation that had celebrated his return.
To tell this tumultuous history, Paounov taps into a rich supply of archive footage, including memorable images of the boy king inspecting his troops. He’s also drawn to eccentric eyewitnesses and bystanders: the taxidermists who stuffed the king’s coyote, the chocolatiers who painstakingly sculpt his likeness in chocolate, the hopeful supporters who tattoo his face on their bodies, and the many constituents who create songs and puppet shows in the country’s honour. For a nation that keeps a low profile, Bulgaria proves to be rich in documentary material.
About the director:
Andrey Paounov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. His debut documentary, Georgi and the Butterflies (04), won the prize for best mid-length documentary at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories (07) screened at the Festival. The Boy Who Was a King (11) is his third film.
Running time: 90 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: TIFF 2011
CINEMA KOMUNISTO
Q&A with special guest David W. Leitner
Buy TicketsFALL SEASON CLOSING NIGHT
STF was proud to co-present the Tribeca Film Festival screening of CINEMA KOMUNISTO this past spring, and now we are extra delighted to bring it directly to STFers.
Description from Tribeca Film Festival:
For 32 years, Leka Konstantinovic was the personal film projectionist for Yugoslavian President and noted film enthusiast Josip Broz Tito. Tito’s cinephilia is legendary, and includes such startling but charming anecdotes as his order to blow up a functioning bridge to achieve a more accurate shot for a film, or hiring out the entire nation’s navy to serve as movie extras as part of their compulsory military service. But Marshal Tito’s efforts were not mere caprice, rather part of a concerted effort to imbue the new postwar state of Yugoslavia with a mythic history and national image through the magic of the movies.
Comprised of interviews with Konstantinovic and other important figures in the brief but glowing history of Yugoslavian cinema, Cinema Komunisto examines the intersections and contradictions of image and reality in the process of 20th-century nation-building, while also satisfying cinephiles with a wealth of gorgeous archival footage from more than 60 classic films. Yugoslavian film production collapsed after Tito’s death, along with the country itself, but both are briefly resurrected in this vibrant, fascinating celebration of a film industry—and a nation—that no longer exists. —Cara Cusumano
Director: Mila TurajlicRunning time: 100 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: FALL 2011 November 22, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Cinema Komunisto: A Glowing History of Yugoslavian Cinema
GIVE UP TOMORROW
Q&A with director Michael Collins and producer Marty Syjuco
Buy TicketsWinner of the 2011 Tribeca Audience Award
As a tropical storm beats down on the Philippine island of Cebu, two sisters leave work and never make it home. That same night, hundreds of miles away in Manila on a different island, Paco Larrañaga, 19, is at a party, surrounded by dozens of reliable witnesses. The missing women, Marijoy, 21, and Jacqueline Chong, 23,are pretty and innocent Chinese-Filipinos, a group that has formed a traditional underclass. Paco, accused of their rapes and murders, is part of a prominent mestizo political clan that includes a former president. Beefy and tough, with a past of petty offenses, he neatly fits the role of privileged thug – and that is how he is cast by a frenzied media circus that swarms his arrest and trial, and cheers his eventual sentence to death by lethal injection. Reflecting schisms of race, class, and political power at the core of the Philippines’ tumultuous democracy, clashing families, institutions, and individuals face off to convict or free Paco. Their irreconcilable versions of reality and justice play out in a case that ends a country’s use of capital punishment, yet fails to free an innocent man.
GIVE UP TOMORROW is not your usual suspense story of a man wrongly accused, and Paco Larrañaga is not your usual hero. But his very lack of facile appeal challenges his society and filmgoers to rely on facts over impressions, evidence over prejudice. Amnesty International, the government of Spain, Fair Trials International, and the United Nations are unequivocal in the belief that for more than a decade, Paco has been paying with his freedom for a crime he did not commit. Indeed, some 40 people including classmates and teachers from the culinary school he attends – along with photographic evidence – place him hundreds of miles from the grim crime scene. Rather than simply building an evidentiary case about an individual injustice, the film exposes the roots of this miscarriage to reveal the interconnected complexities that permeate Filipino culture. Unlike the court that Paco faces, GIVE UP TOMORROW gives a fair trial to the forces and institutions that arbitrate justice with a mix of capriciousness and malice. In a way that is both specific to the Philippines and disquietingly universal, the film exposes a Kafkaesque extravaganza populated by flamboyantly corrupt public officials, drug dealers, cops on the take, and journalists in thrall to and in lonely stance against, a frenzied legal and media circus. It is also an intimate family drama focused on the near mythic struggle of two angry and sorrowful mothers who have dedicated more than a decade to executing or saving one young man.
Director: Michael CollinsRunning time: 90 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: FALL 2011 November 15, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Give Up Tomorrow: Illuminating Injustice in the Philippines
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF ASA CARTER
Q&A with director Marco Ricci, producer Douglas Newman ane executive producer Laura Browder
Buy TicketsForrest Carter, best-selling author of The Outlaw Josey Wales and the autobiographical The Education of Little Tree, was the ‘storyteller in council’ for the Cherokee nation and a hero to many in the New Age movement. As a leader in the Native American cultural revival of the 1970s, Forrest touched millions of readers with his gentle and earthy tales of Indian life. Soon after his death, however, the public learned that Forrest had a hidden past. Forrest Carter was actually Asa Carter, violent Ku Klux Klansman and Alabama Governor George Wallace’s principal speechwriter, author of the infamous 1963 inaugural address, “Segregation Now! Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation Forever!”
Much more than a simple biographical film, THE RECONSTRUCTION OF ASA CARTER examines the phenomenon of ethnic impersonations and the influence they have had in shaping American notions of identity. Through studying Carter we are forced to confront difficult questions: how much of ethnicity is a construction? Is there such a thing as an authentic ethnic or racial identity? And what is it about American discourse that makes us accept these impersonators so readily—and then feel so betrayed when their deceptions are exposed? Ethnic impersonators like Carter force us to rethink our easy assumptions about identity; they disrupt the notion of the melting pot and make us question the ways in which all identities are constructed. They revise the basis for a national sense of self.
The Reconstruction of Asa Carter - Trailer from Mouth Watering Media on Vimeo.
Director: Marco RicciRunning time: 58 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: FALL 2011 November 01, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: The Reconstruction of Asa Carter: From Segregationist to Storyteller
JAY ROSENBLATT - SHORTS
Q&A with director Jay Rosenblatt
Buy Tickets“An exquisite artist who makes beautifully crafted miniatures.” (Atom Egoyan)
Jay Rosenblatt makes friendly art films…. His constructions of found footage and appropriated narration are inviting and accessible. (Mike Hale, New York Times)
Jay Rosenblatt is an internationally recognized artist who has been working as an independent filmmaker since 1980 and has completed over twenty-five films. His work explores our emotional and psychological cores and is personal in its content yet universal in its appeal. His films have received over 100 awards and have screened throughout the world - including a one week retrospective at the MOMA last fall.
Jay has prepared a special line-up for this STF appearance that includes:
Afraid So is about fear and anxiety; impending doom permeates the film. (3 min)
Human Remains illustrates the banality of evil by creating intimate portraits of five of the 20th century’s most reviled dictators. (30 min)
King of the Jews Utilizing Hollywood movies, 1950’s educational films, personal home movies and religious films, the filmmaker depicts his childhood fear of Jesus Christ. These childhood recollections are a point of departure for larger issues such as the roots of Christian anti-Semitism. (18 min)
The Darkness of Day is a haunting meditation on suicide. It is comprised entirely of found 16mm footage that had been discarded. (26 min)
The D Train An old man reflects on his entire life. How quickly it all goes by. (5 min)
Director: Jay RosenblattRunning time: 82 minutes
Screened: FALL 2011 October 25, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Jay Rosenblatt Shorts: Beautifully Crafted Miniatures
HOW TO START YOUR OWN COUNTRY
Q&A with director Jody Shapiro + Edwin Strauss (author of "How to Start Your Own Country") & Gregory Green (leader of Free State of Caroline)
Buy TicketsJody Shapiro’s ultra-sharp documentary HOW TO START YOUR OWN COUNTRY examines micro-nations – tiny states seldom recognized by better-known, more conventionally established countries. Traversing the globe, Shapiro introduces us to several states you’ve almost certainly never heard of.
Somewhere in Nevada is the Republic of Molossia. Its land mass is 1.3 acres, it’s population six (basically the president and his pets). There’s also the Principality of Seborga, established in 820 AD as a reward for returning Crusaders; North Dumpling Island, founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen; the Seasteading Institute, an experiment in offshore living; the New Free State of Caroline, a territory-less entity created by artist Gregory Green; Sealand, an abandoned World War II gun tower in the North Sea; and the Hutt River Principality, the second largest country on the continent of Australia.
Populated by genuine eccentrics, How to Start Your Own Country is idiosyncratic and hilarious. The founder of Molossia (where everything from Texas is banned) was inspired to create the country as a high school student after he and a friend saw the Peter Sellars chestnut The Mouse That Roared. Hutt River’s leader, a man called Leonard, seceded from Australia over production restrictions. He declared himself prince and his appreciative wife, Shirley, princess. “It’s a much easier job than a farmer’s wife,” Shirley enthuses.
But the film is also very serious, laying out the oddities and ironies of statehood through interviews with numerous experts. Is Lichtenstein less of a state because the Czech Republic doesn’t recognize it? How many countries need to recognize you before you’re taken seriously?
Shapiro is steadfastly respectful of his subjects, tuning into their burning desire for independence. He has a way of making eccentricity seem fascinating but totally rational. Someone who isn’t represented by a recognized government has no real constitutional or international rights, and Shapiro plumbs these more practical considerations with intelligence. Elegantly made and well researched, HOW TO START YOUR OWN COUNTRY is an entertaining, insightful and memorable work. (TIFF 2010, Steve Gravestock)
Director: Jody ShapiroRunning time: 72 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: FALL 2011 October 18, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: How to Start Your Own Country: The Micronation World
TRIBUTE TO GAIL DOLGIN
Q&A with special guests (colleagues, friends and family of Gail)
Buy TicketsLast October 2010, the documentary world was devastated to lose fellow documentarian Gail Dolgin. Activist, mother, “sister”, beloved friend, mentor, collaborator and comrade to many, and a deep believer in the power of non-fiction to be as riveting as it is strange. She courageously and artfully battled breast cancer for over a decade, all the while working in collaboration with her filmmaking partner Vincente Franco and/or as a creative consulting producer to many filmmakers in the Bay Area. Best known for her Academy Award nominated film DAUGHTER FROM DANANG (winner of a 2002 Sundance Grand Jury prize), Dolgin’s illustrious career encompassed compassionate socially-conscious docs including SUMMER OF LOVE, CUBA VA and most recently THE BARBER OF BIRMINGHAM: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement. Co-Directed and Produced with Robin Fryday it had it’s world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival [just three months after Gail passed away] and has gone on to win three “Best Documentary Short” awards.
Join Stranger Than Fiction for a special evening celebrating Gail Dolgin’s lasting legacy, inspired vision, commitment to justice and civil rights and her deep love for the pursuit of a good story. Co-presented with Chicken & Egg Pictures and POV
Director: TRIBUTE TO GAIL DOLGINRunning time: 90 minutes
Screened: FALL 2011 October 11, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: A Tribute to Gail Dolgin
DARK DAYS
Q&A with director Marc Singer
Buy TicketsWinner of the Sundance Film Festival - Audience, Cinematography and Freedom of Expression Awards (2000)
For years, a homeless community took root in a train tunnel beneath New York City, braving dangerous conditions and perpetual night. DARK DAYS explores this surprisingly domestic subterranean world, unearthing a way of life unimaginable to those above. Through stories simultaneously heartbreaking, hilarious, intimate, and off the cuff, tunnel dwellers reveal their reasons for taking refuge and their struggle to survive underground.
Filmed in striking black and white with a crew comprised of the tunnel’s inhabitants and scored by legendary turntablist DJ Shadow (Endtroducing…), DARK DAYS remains a soulful and enduring document of life on the fringe.
Director: Marc SingerRunning time: 94 minutes
Release date: 2000
Screened: FALL 2011 October 04, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Dark Days: Life in the Train Tunnels
THE LAST GLADIATORS
Q&A with director Alex Gibney
Buy TicketsSTF Fall Season Opening Night
Following the world premiere of THE LAST GLADIATORS at the Toronto International Film Festival this month, director Alex Gibney took away thoughts from watching the film with an audience and decided to tweak parts of the edit. In this special STF presentation, he’ll screen the work-in-progress to gain further insights and participate in a post-show discussion about the making of the film.
2011 TIFF Catalogue:
Chris “Knuckles” Nilan can chart his hockey career by his scars. He earned those stripes as one the NHL’s fiercest enforcers, throwing punches to defend his teammates. While playing for the Montreal Canadiens in the mid-eighties, his fights racked up penalty minutes but received roaring approval from fans and helped win the Stanley Cup. When injuries forced Nilan to retire in 1992, he faced a new battle: how do you stop being a gladiator and re-enter normal society?
Director Alex Gibney, who played hockey as a youth, comes to Nilan’s story with an admiration for the game and its masters. While interviewing NHL greats, Gibney found himself drawn to Nilan, and uncovered a sensitive side behind the tough exterior. The Last Gladiators succeeds at connecting to both hockey fans and outsiders by taking a nuanced look at Nilan’s career and the legacy of enforcers.
In the film, Nilan recounts the ups and downs of his life with poignancy. As an Irish kid in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, he learned the law of streets: never back down, never stay down. He idolized the finesse of Boston Bruins’ star Bobby Orr. But he knew that his only way into the big leagues was with his fists. Nilan started as an enforcer but soon learned to be a complete player. Yet, his reputation as a fighter made him a target for kids who wanted to make names for themselves.
His legendary fights took their toll, sending him to the hospital for twenty six surgeries. Leaving the league in his mid-thirties, he had difficulty adjusting to desk jobs and gave in to addictions. Now he takes one day at a time and looks back on his glory days with a mixture of joy and regret.
Gibney has a knack for exploring flawed characters, as he displayed in Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Though rooted in hockey, The Last Gladiators raises wider questions about the bloodlust in our culture and how we treat our warriors when the battle is over.
Director: Alex GibneyRunning time: 94 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: FALL 2011 September 27, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: STF Fall Season kicks off next Tuesday!
Related Blog Posts: The Last Gladiators: Hockey’s Enforcers
DIXIE CHICKS: SHUT UP & SING
Q&A with director Barbara Kopple
Buy TicketsSTF SUMMER SEASON - CLOSING NIGHT
A gala presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival and winner of “Best Documentary” at over half a dozen other film festivals, including the Chicago International Film Festival and Woodstock Film Festival, the New York Times calls SHUT UP & SING a “revealing case study of the relationship between politics, celebrity and the media in today’s polarized social climate.”
Two time Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple and Cecelia Peck chronicle the lives of the Dixie Chicks, an extremely successful all-woman Texas-based country music trio, over a three year period of intense public scrutiny, fan backlash, physical threats, and pressure from both corporate and conservative political elements in the United States, after lead singer Natalie Maines publicly criticized then U.S. President George W. Bush during a live concert.
Director: Barbara Kopple
Running time: 91 minutes
Release date: 2006
Screened: SUMMER 2011 August 09, 2011 8:00 pm
SOUL POWER
Q&A with director Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte
Buy TicketsDescription from TIFF 2008 catalog by Thom Powers:
Zaire ‘74 was the brainchild of South African musician Hugh Masekela and American record producer Stewart Levine, a three-day music festival that took place in Kinshasa in 1974. The event assembled America’s biggest rhythm and blues talents – including James Brown and the Mighty JBs, Bill Withers, B.B. King, and the Spinners – along with top African acts such as Miriam Makeba and Afrisa. The festival was held in conjunction with the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman known as the “Rumble in the Jungle.” Most of the American performers, emboldened by the civil rights movement, were visiting Africa for the first time, exploring their roots and somewhat naive beliefs about the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. The promoters hired a team of esteemed documentary cameramen to film everything, including street life in Kinshasa and behind-the-scenes footage of the show being assembled. The crew masterfully recorded classic numbers such as Makeba’s “The Click Song,” King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” and of course, Brown’s “Soul Power.” And then the footage sat unedited for over thirty years.
The festival and film were financed by a Liberian investment group that became mired in legal disputes. Eventually, the rights were settled to facilitate the completion of the 1996 film When We Were Kings, which focused on the Ali-Foreman fight, and it won an Academy Award®. Jeffrey Levy-Hinte was an editor on that project, and recognized that another film about the twelve-hour concert was waiting to be made. With Soul Power, he finally brings this work to fruition. None of the footage has ever been seen, including new sections with Ali. The film plays like a time capsule, with no contemporary interviews to interrupt its cinéma-verité sensibility.
Soul Power documents the heady days when the musical crossover between Africa and America was just emerging. The camera crew captures the excitement on the plane as salsa singer Celia Cruz leads the musicians in a jam session. After three decades, we finally have the privilege to share their journey.
Director: Jeffrey Kusama-HinteRunning time: 93 minutes
Release date: 2008
Screened: SUMMER 2011 August 02, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Soul Power: Takin’ It Back to Zaire 74
BETTER THIS WORLD
Q&A with director Katie Galloway; Copresented with POV
Buy Tickets“RIVETING. Structured like a taut thriller, Better This World delivers a chilling depiction of loyalty, naivete, political zealotry and the post-9/11 security state.” - Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
Two boyhood friends from Midland, Texas – David McKay and Bradley Crowder – fall under the sway of a charismatic revolutionary ten years their senior. At the volatile 2008 Republican Convention the “Texas Two” cross a line that radically changes their lives. The result: eight homemade bombs, multiple domestic terrorism charges and a high stakes entrapment defense hinging on the actions of a controversial FBI informant. A dramatic story of idealism, loyalty, crime and betrayal, BETTER THIS WORLD goes to the heart of the War on Terror and its impact on civil liberties and political dissent in post-9/11 America.
For more information on the film, visit the official website: betterthisworld.com or Facebook page.
Director: Kelly Duane de la Vega & Katie GallowayRunning time: 89 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: SUMMER 2011 July 26, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Better This World: The Price of Radical Political Dissent
STEVIE
Q&A with director Steve James
Buy TicketsNext week, director Steve James visits STF. Best known for HOOP DREAMS, Steve’s new film THE INTERRUPTERS (a strong Oscar contender) will be opening theatrically later this month. STF is proud to present his earlier work STEVIE that had the bad timing of opening in theaters the very week the Iraq War broke out. Although critically acclaimed, many audiences have not yet had a chance to see it. STEVIE marks the launch of a mini “Steve James festival” in New York - full details here.
“Brave…courageous and powerful…” - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
“A gripping, startingly honest portrait…has all the heartstopping will-the-kid-make-it drama of Hoop Dreams.” - Karen Durbin, New York Times
“Stevie emerges painfully but profoundly as one of the most unusual, if not absolutely unique, efforts in the field of nonfiction filmmaking.” - Andrew Sarris, The New York Observer
In 1995, filmmaker Steve James returns to Pomona, a beautiful rural hamlet in Southern Illinois to reconnect with Stevie Fielding, for whom James once served as an advocate Big Brother. He finds that the once difficult, awkward child has become—ten years later—an angry and troubled young man. Part way through filming, Stevie is arrested and charged with a serious crime. He confesses to the crime and then later recants. The filmmaker himself is drawn into the film as he tries to sort out his own feelings, past and present, about Stevie and how to deal with him in the wake of his arrest. What was to be a modest profile of Stevie, turns into an intimate four and a half year chronicle of a dysfunctional family’s struggle to heal.
STEVIE is increasingly being recognized as a modern documentary masterpiece, gaining acclaim as one of the top 25 essential documentaries of the decade in a list by popular online critic Marilyn Ferdinand. The Sunday Morning Reviews ranked it at #19, calling Steve James “the best documentarian working today… to make Stevie and Hoop Dreams in one lifetime is an amazing feat.”
Director: Steve James
Running time: 144 minutes
Release date: 2003
Screened: SUMMER 2011 July 19, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Stevie: Chronicling the Cycle of Abuse
MISSION TO MALAYA
Q&A with director Hope Ryden
Buy TicketsHope Ryden was a pioneering woman in the mostly male world of early ‘60s documentary. As part of Drew Associates, she collaborated on acclaimed films such as JANE, about Jane Fonda’s Broadway debut and CRISIS about school integration. She directed an unfinished film in the ‘60s that supplied crucial footage for Nancy Buirski’s THE LOVING STORY recently shown at the Tribeca Film Festival. Ryden’s contribution to the development of modern documentary has never been given the recognition it deserves and much of her work remains unavailable.
We hope to change that with this rare screening of MISSION TO MALAYA. Ryden and cameraman Sid Reichman follow a nurse in the early days of the Peace Corps as she travels to the Malaysian islands. The film captures the missionary zeal of the times and turns into a suspenseful adventure. Don’t miss this opportunity to pay tribute to Ryden’s career.
Director: Hope RydenRunning time: 60 minutes
Release date: 1964
Screened: SUMMER 2011 July 05, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Mission to Malaya: A Story of the Peace Corps
16 IN WEBSTER GROVES + WEBSTER GROVES REVISITED
Q&A with Ron Simon, The Paley Center for Media curator
Buy TicketsCo-presented by The Paley Center for Media
This evening will present a rare pair of films accompanied by a discussion about their significance. 16 IN WEBSTER GROVES was a 1966 award-winning one-hour TV special produced by CBS News focusing on the experiences of adolescents growing up and living in Webster Groves, Missouri, United States. The show became so controversial that CBS made a follow-up, WEBSTER GROVES REVISITED, which returned to the same characters and gave a different perspective. Viewed together, these works open bigger questions about the process of documentary making.
For a sense of the project’s legacy, watch the YouTube clip of novelist Jonathan Franzen who grew up in Webster Groves and remembers the local impact.
From Wikipedia: Produced by the late Arthur Barron and narrated by Charles Kuralt, the program was inspired by a survey conducted by the University of Chicago. It showed the middle-American, middle-class town to be a superficially friendly, prosperous, progressive, religious, charitable, arts-and-education oriented bedroom community whose adolescent culture, with the complicity (and, by inference, example and encouragement) of the adult population, was in fact clique-ridden, status-oriented, hyper-competitive, hypocritical, prejudiced, and materialistic. In stark contrast to the popular view in the mid-1960s that young people were rebelling against the values of their parents, the program depicted the Webster Groves teenagers as unimaginative and conformist. One sixteen year old girl, for example, declares that her dream is to live in a house down the street from the one she lives in now. That interview, and others with a cross section of sixteen-year-olds in the community, including minorities and exchange students, and consensual filming of their normal activities, both in school and at recreation, provided the content of the program.
A 2006 retrospective article in the local newspaper Riverfront Times indicated that, after the documentary aired, many the town’s citizens felt that their community had been unfairly portrayed. For example, when the documentary showed students running away from school in an apparent eagerness to leave, it was NOT mentioned that they were actually rushing out to see the CBS helicopter. Another time when the students were all portrayed as depressed, the real reason for that depression was not mentioned (the funeral of a popular student).
Director: Arthur Barron
Running time: 120 minutes
Release date: 1966
Screened: SUMMER 2011 July 12, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: 16 In Webster Groves: A Verite Treatment of Middle America
YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED
Q&A with director Anthony Baxter
Buy TicketsTHURSDAY NIGHT SPECIAL
In this David and Goliath story for the 21st century, a group of proud Scottish homeowners take on a celebrity tycoon. At stake is one of Britain’s very last stretches of wilderness.
American billionaire Donald Trump has bought up hundreds of acres on the northeast coast of Scotland, best known to movie-lovers as the setting for the 1983 classic film LOCAL HERO. And like the American oil tycoon played by Burt Lancaster, he needs to buy out a few more locals to make the deal come true. In a land swimming with golf courses, Trump is going to build two more – alongside a 450-room hotel and 1,500 luxury homes. The trouble is, the land he has purchased occupies one of Europe’s most environmentally sensitive stretches of coast, described by one leading scientist as Scotland’s Amazon rain forest. And the handful of local residents don’t want it destroyed.
After the Scottish Government overturns its own environmental laws to give Trump the green light, the stage is set for an extraordinary summer of discontent, as the bulldozers spring into action. Water and power is cut off, land disputes erupt, and some residents have thousands of tonnes of earth piled up next to their homes. Complaints go ignored by the police, who instead arrest the film’s director, Anthony Baxter. Local exasperation comes to a surreal head as the now “Dr” Trump scoops up an honorary doctorate from a local university, even as his tractors turn wild, untouched dunes into fairways.
Told entirely without narration, YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED captures the cultural chasm between the glamorous, jet-setting and media savvy Donald Trump and a deeply rooted Scottish community. What begins as an often amusing clash of world views grows increasingly bitter and disturbing. For the tycoon, the golf course is just another deal, with a possible billion dollar payoff. For the residents, it represents the destruction of a globally unique landscape that has been the backdrop for their lives.
Funny, inspiring and heartbreaking in turns, YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED is both an entertaining, can’t-believe-it’s-true tale and an environmental parable for our celebrity driven times. A moving score features music from jónsi, the internationally acclaimed musician and frontman of Sigur Ros. The film also offers a rare and revealing glimpse of the unfiltered Donald Trump, as he considers standing as a candidate for President of the United States.
Director: Anthony Baxter
Running time: 95 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: SUMMER 2011 July 07, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: You’ve Been Trumped: American Greed Run Amok
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
Q&A with directors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman
Buy TicketsThursday Night Special
Two shows: 6 & 8 pm
Who speaks for a divided community at the crossroads? BETWEEN TWO WORLDS is a groundbreaking personal exploration of the community and family divisions that are redefining American Jewish identity and politics. The filmmakers’ own families are battlegrounds over loyalty to Israel, interpretations of the Holocaust, intermarriage, and a secret communist past. Filmed in the United States and Israel, this first person documentary by award-winning filmmakers Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman begins with a near riot at a Jewish Film Festival in San Francisco, reveals the agonizing battle over divestment from Israel on a university campus, and shows the crackdown on dissent in Israel itself. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS has the exhilarating energy and fierce commitment of Jewish conversation itself.
Director: Alan Snitow and Deborah KaufmanRunning time: 70 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: SUMMER 2011 June 30, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Between Two Worlds: Examining Politics and Judaism
THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH: AN URBAN HISTORY
Q&A with director Chad Freidrichs
Buy TicketsIt began as a housing marvel. Two decades later, it ended in rubble. But what happened to those caught in between?
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the transformation of the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development and the St. Louis residents who called it home.
At the film’s historical center is an analysis of the massive impact of the national urban renewal program of the 1950s and 1960s, which prompted the process of mass suburbanization and emptied American cities of their residents, businesses, and industries.
Those left behind in the city faced a destitute, rapidly de-industrializing St. Louis , parceled out to downtown interests and increasingly segregated by class and race.
The residents of Pruitt-Igoe were among the hardest hit. Their gripping stories of survival, adaptation, and success are at the emotional heart of the film. The domestic turmoil wrought by punitive public welfare policies; the frustrating interactions with a paternalistic and cash-strapped Housing Authority; and the downward spiral of vacancy, vandalism and crime led to resident protest and action during the 1969 Rent Strike, the first in the history of public housing.
And yet, despite this complex history, Pruitt-Igoe has often been stereotyped. The world-famous image of its implosion has helped to perpetuate a myth of failure, a failure that has been used to critique Modernist architecture, attack public assistance programs, and stigmatize public housing residents.
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight. To examine the interests involved in Pruitt-Igoe’s creation. To re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma. To implode the myth.
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: an Urban History – Film Trailer from the Pruitt-Igoe Myth on Vimeo.
Director: Chad FreidrichsRunning time: 79 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: SUMMER 2011 June 28, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: An Urban History
BACK TO LIFE (VUELVE A LA VIDA)
Q&A with director Carlos Hagerman
Buy TicketsBack to Life revels in the art of storytelling as we get multiple perspectives on the life of an Acapulco legend, the scuba instructor Hilario Martinez. Known for teaching Hollywood stars and his ways with women, Martinez’s biggest catch was his wife Robyn Sidney, a New York model known in Acapulco as the “Giraffe” for her height, slender grace and fair complexion. After meeting Martinez on vacation, the Giraffe left her then husband and brought her 3-year-old son to live in Mexico. Although Martinez died in 2002, this film brings him back to life through recollections by his friends and family, including the Giraffe. At the center of their memories is the momentous hunt led by Martinez in the 1970s for a giant shark. Filmmaker Carlos Hagerman (who co-directed the award-winning Those Who Remain) brings a jaunty style to this tale that’s as pleasurable as a cold drink on a hot beach.
Trailer 1 “Vuelve a la vida” from la sombra del guayabo on Vimeo.
Director: Carlos HagermanRunning time: 72 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: SUMMER 2011 June 21, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Back to Life (Vuelve a la Vida): A Ceviche of Love
BRICK CITY
Q&A with filmmakers Mark Benjamin & Marc Levin
Buy TicketsWinner of the Peabody Award, BRICK CITY interweaves stories from Newark, including the charismatic mayor Cory Booker, a controversial police director, a gang member and his dynamic attorney. For STF, the filmmakers will screen episodes 1 and 2 from the second season, totaling 90 minutes. We follow growing tensions between the mayor and his police director; how a gang member faces difficult choices in the legal system; and the struggles of a couple to escape their troubles with the law and do something better for their community.
In the same way ambitious series like THE WIRE have expanded the canvas for fiction filmmaking, so does BRICK CITY point toward new horizons for doc makers.
Director: Mark Benjamin & Marc LevinRunning time: 90 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: SUMMER 2011 June 14, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Brick City: The Daily Drama of Newark
SENNA
Q&A Tom O'Keefe, writer for Autosport
Buy TicketsSummer Season Opening Night
Winner of the 2011 Sundance World Cinema Audience Award
Senna’s remarkable story, charting his physical and spiritual achievements on the track and off, his quest for perfection, and the mythical status he has since attained, is the subject of SENNA, a documentary feature that spans the racing legend’s years as an F1 driver, from his opening season in 1984 to his untimely death a decade later. Far more than a film for F1 fans, SENNA unfolds a remarkable story in a remarkable manner, eschewing many standard documentary techniques in favour of a more cinematic approach that makes full use of astounding footage, much of which is drawn from F1 archives and is previously unseen.
Directed by two times BAFTA winner Asif Kapadia, SENNA is made with the full co-operation of Ayrton Senna’s family, who gave permission for this to be the first documentary feature film about his life; Formula One, who gave permission to use previously unseen footage; and the Ayrton Senna Institute, the charitable foundation established after his death, which provides educational opportunities to millions of deprived Brazilian children.
This screening will include a Q&A with Autosport journalist Tom O’Keefe who covers the business and history of Forumula One racing. He recently worked as a consultant on the recent re-mastering of John Frankenheimer’s Oscar-winner GRAND PRIX (1967), the only film about Formula One until SENNA.
Director: Asif KapadiaRunning time: 104 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: SUMMER 2011 June 07, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: STF’s First Summer Season!
Related Blog Posts: Senna: The Life and Death of a Formula One Driver
BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD
Q&A with director Liz Garbus
Buy TicketsThursday Night Special
Description from Sundance 2011 catalogue:
Considered by many to be the world’s greatest chess player, Bobby Fischer personified the link between genius and madness. His trajectory propelled him from child prodigy to world chess champion at age 29 and then into a nosedive of delusions and paranoia. Fischer was a recluse for decades before resurfacing for a bizarre final chapter as a fugitive. As a loner with no familial support, Fischer had to defend his title while representing his country against the mighty Russians during the cold war. The center of media attention, Fischer was never equipped for a life in the spotlight.
From veteran filmmaker Liz Garbus, and the final project of late editor Karen Schmeer, Bobby Fischer Against the World exposes the disturbingly high price Fischer paid to achieve his legendary success and the resulting toll it took on his psyche. Rare archival footage and insightful interviews with those closest to him expand this captivating story of a mastermind’s tumultuous rise—and fall.
Director: Liz GarbusRunning time: 93 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: SUMMER 2011 June 02, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Bobby Fischer Against The World: Portrait of a Chess Genius
BUCK
Q&A with director Cindy Meehl
Buy TicketsWinner of the Audience Award at both Sundance and Full Frame, BUCK profiles the real life horse whisperer who overcame an abusive childhood to teach a gentler approach to training horses.
“An Irresistible Documentary.” Los Angeles Times
“A movie that, actually could make the world a better place.” Box Office Magazine
Description from Sundance 2011 catalogue:
A living legend in the horse world, Buck Brannaman was the inspiration for The Horse Whisperer. For this true cowboy, horses are a mirror of the human soul. Reared by an abusive father, Buck eschews violence. By teaching people to communicate with horses through instinct, not punishment, he frees the spirit of the horse and its human comrade. Crisscrossing the world with Zenlike wisdom, Buck promulgates grace in the bond between man and horse. The animal-human relationship becomes a perfect metaphor for meeting the challenges of daily life, whether they consist of raising kids, running a business, or finding your flow with a dance partner.
What is extraordinary about Buck Brannaman, the man, leaps off the screen in this strikingly cinematic film by first-time director Cindy Meehl. Part guru, part psychologist, the adult Buck, who was once a beaten kid, has now beaten the odds. Buck Brannaman could transform your troubled horse. Buck the movie may transform your soul.
View the trailer here
Director: Cindy MeehlRunning time: 88 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: SPRING 2011 May 31, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Buck: The Real-Life Horse Whisperer
MEGAMALL
Q&A w/ dirs Vera Aronow, Roger Grange, Sarah Mondale
Buy TicketsA story of money, power and politics in the age of sprawl, MEGAMALL explores the controversy behind one of America’s biggest shopping malls, the Palisades Center in West Nyack, New York (18 miles North of Manhattan). In 1996, the biggest mall developer in the Northeast broke ground on a toxic dump, one mile from the filmmakers’ homes. That move ignited a citizen uprising which lasted almost 20 years. With dramatic verite footage, in-depth interviews with key players in the dispute, as well as provocative commentary from leading urban critics, James Howard Kunstler (“The Geography of Nowhere”) and Roberta Brandes Gratz (“The Living City”), MEGAMALL gives viewers the real story behind the changing shape of America’s landscape.
Director: Vera Aronow, Roger Grange, Sarah MondaleRunning time: 81 minutes
Release date: 2009
Screened: SPRING 2011 May 24, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Megamall: Money, Power and Politics in the Age of Sprawl
THE PANAMA DECEPTION
Q&A with director Barbara Trent
Buy TicketsA riveting Academy Award-winning critique of the government’s history of militarization, made all the more timely by the current war on terrorism.
The Panama Deception documents the untold story of the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama; the events which led to it; the excessive force used; the enormity of the death and destruction; and the devastating aftermath. The Panama Deception uncovers the real reasons for this internationally condemned attack, presenting a view of the invasion which widely differs from that portrayed by the U.S. media and exposes how the U.S. government and the mainstream media suppressed information about this foreign policy disaster.
The Panama Deception includes never before seen footage of the invasion and its aftermath, as well asinterviews with both invasion proponents like Gen. Maxwell Thurman, Panamanian President Endara andPentagon spokesperson Pete Williams, and opponents like U.S. Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY.), Panamanian human rights workers Olga Mejia and Isabel Corro and former Panamanian diplomat Humberto Brown. Network news clips and media critics contribute to a staggering analysis of media control and selfcensorship relevant to any news coverage today, particularly during times of war.
Among the film’s excellent reviews are: “meticulously researched” (Hal Hinson, Washington Post);“outstanding” (Betsy Sherman, Boston Globe); “tough….provocative….moving….beautifully edited” (Vincent Canby, New York Times); and “lays out simply and forcefully the case against the ‘official’ version” (Peter Rainer, Los Angeles Times). - text from the Empowerment Project
Director: Barbara TrentRunning time: 91 minutes
Release date: 1992
Screened: SPRING 2011 May 17, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: The Panama Deception: Media’s Role in Driving the War Machine
THREE OF HEARTS: A POSTMODERN FAMILY
Q&A with director Susan Kaplan
Buy Tickets[A] thought-provoking story….THREE OF HEARTS does a good job of driving home the universality of their daily lives.”—Anita Gates, New York Times
Directed by DocuClub founder Susan Kaplan, THREE OF HEARTS follows the experiment of a New York menage a trois to sustain a lasting relationship. We watch the trio go through trials and tribulations of explaining the relationship to outsiders, trying to have a baby, and running a business. Filmed over 8 years, they go through dramatic changes that raise provocative questions about relationships in general.
The film premiered at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival and becomes even more fascinating to watch as time goes by.
Director: Susan KaplanRunning time: 95 minutes
Release date: 2004
Screened: SPRING 2011 May 10, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family
WE STILL LIVE HERE (ÂS NUTAYUNEÂN)
Q&A with director Anne Makepeace
Buy TicketsWE STILL LIVE HERE tells a remarkable story of cultural revival by the Wampanoag of Southeastern Massachusetts. Their ancestors ensured the survival of the first English settlers in America, and lived to regret it. Now they are bringing their language home again.
The story begins in 1994 when Jessie Little Doe, an intrepid, thirty-something Wampanoag social worker, began having recurring dreams: familiar-looking people from another time addressing her in an incomprehensible language. Jessie was perplexed and a little annoyed– why couldn’t they speak English? Later, she realized they were speaking Wampanoag, a language no one had used for more than a century. These events sent her and members of the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanaog communities on an odyssey that would uncover hundreds of documents written in their language, lead Jessie to a Masters in Linguistics at MIT, and result in something that had never been done before – bringing a language alive again in an American Indian community after many generations with no Native speakers.
Click here to view the trailer.
Director: Anne MakepeaceRunning time: 56 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: SPRING 2011 May 03, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: We Still Live Here: Witnessing the Rebirth of a Language
CUL DE SAC: A SUBURBAN WAR STORY / GARRET SCOTT GRANT
Q&A with Ian Olds
Buy TicketsThe first documentary by director Garrett Scott who went on to make the Iraq war masterpiece OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND with Ian Olds. CUL DE SAC tells the story of Shawn Nelson, a crystal meth addict who stole a tank from a San Diego military base and wreaked havoc in the suburbs. Scott takes the police helicopter footage of the event to tell a surreal story of the US military industrial complex and the rise and fall of suburbia.
“Brilliant… Each time Cul De Sac revisits Nelson’s low-speed tank chase, he seems less like a standard-issue nut-job loner and more like a military/industrial Frankenstein’s monster, haunted by (and hunted for) other people’s sins.” - New York Press
The film won acclaim when it played at the Toronto International Film Festival and NY Underground Film Festival. Filmmaker Magazine named Scott one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2002. It was a great loss when he died of a heart attack in March 2006, at age 37, two days before he and Olds were awarded the Independent Spirit Award. He was a beloved member of the New York documentary community and a regular attendee at Stranger Than Fiction.
This night will also showcase 2011 recipients of the Garrett Scott grant.
Photo Courtesy of Icarus Films
Director: Garrett ScottRunning time: 55 minutes
Release date: 2002
Screened: SPRING 2011 April 26, 2011 8:00 pm
THESE AMAZING SHADOWS
Q&A with directors Paul Mariano & Kurt Norton
Buy TicketsTHURSDAY NIGHT SPECIAL
What do the films Casablanca, Blazing Saddles and West Side Story have in common? Besides being popular, they have also been deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and listed on The National Film Registry. These Amazing Shadows, an 85-minute documentary, tells the history and importance of the Registry, a roll call of American cinema treasures that reflects the diversity of film, and indeed the American experience itself. The current list of 550 films includes selections from every genre – documentaries, home movies, Hollywood classics, avant-garde, newsreels and silent films. These Amazing Shadows reveals how “American movies tell us so much about ourselves…not just what we did, but what we thought, what we felt, what we aspired to, and the lies we told ourselves.”
Sundance 2011 catalogue description:
From Dorothy’s entrance into Oz to the pizza delivery at Ridgemont High, cinematic moments take on iconic levels of meaning in a film lover’s life.
As the government-appointed protector of our cinematic legacy, the National Film Registry selects culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant works for preservation in the Library of Congress. From award-winning features to music videos, experimental films to home movies, each registry selection reflects a truth of its time or a standout artistic vision. Through interviews with registry board members, archivists, and notable filmmakers like John Singleton and John Waters, directors Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton demonstrate the way film documents artistic and societal milestones.
Guided by a true cinephile’s love of the medium and a treasure trove of archival footage, These Amazing Shadows molds a cultural history from pieces of film, offering a microcosm of the work of the National Film Registry and making a powerful case for film preservation.
Director: Paul Mariano, Kurt Norton
Running time: 85 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: SPRING 2011 April 21, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: These Amazing Shadows: The Films That Make America
THE CHICAGO MATERNITY CENTER STORY
Q&A with Kartemquin co-founder Gordon Quinn, filmmaker Suzanne Davenport, and medical journalist Laura Newman
Buy TicketsSTF is pleased to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Kartemquin Films with a rare screening of THE CHICAGO MATERNITY CENTER STORY (1976), presented by Kartemquin co-founder Gordon Quinn.
For more than 75 years, the Chicago Maternity Center provided safe home deliveries for Chicago mothers. However, when modern medicine’s attitude toward home birth changed and funding from Northwestern University declined in 1974, the center was forced to close. This film interweaves the history of the center with the stories of a young woman about to have her first baby and the center’s fight to stay open in the face of the corporate takeover of medicine.
Gordon will be joined by two other special guests:
Suzanne Davenport co-directed “The Chicago Maternity Center Story” when she was a member of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union and the Kartemquin Films collaborative in the 1970’s. She has worked for local decision-making in Chicago Public Schools for two decades and continues to produce short videos and be active in public health, currently working with community health workers.
Laura Newman, New York medical journalist and blogger (www.patientpov.org), was one of the original WATCH (Women Act to Control Health Care) activists fighting to keep the Chicago Maternity Center open for women to deliver their babies at home. Her stories have appeared in peer-reviewed journals and on the web and she continues to be activist for “patients who feel that they are not being heard.”
Director: Jerry Blumenthal, Suzanne Davenport, Sharon Karp, Gordon Quinn, Jennifer RohrerRunning time: 60 minutes
Release date: 1976
Screened: SPRING 2011 April 19, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Chicago Maternity Center Story visits NY
WHOLPHIN
Q&A with Wholphin curator Brent Hoff & others
Buy TicketsFrom the publishers of McSweeney’s comes this quarterly anthology of strange and wonderful short films. Wholphin curator Brent Hoff presents doc surprises include some astoundingly funny and disturbing documentaries from the last few issues of Wholphin.
The selection will include a Slovenian film called “Arsy Varsy” that is perhaps the most cathartically wonderful and uplifting documentary short film Brent has ever seen; an engagingly single shot piece called “How To Explain It To My Parents” that documents artist Arno Cohen attempting to explain his art to his father; a film about deep underground backyard wrestling called “Here Comes Greatness” that must be seen to be believed… among various other funny surprises.
Running time: 90 minutesScreened: SPRING 2011 April 12, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Wholphin: Strange and Wonderful Shorts
STOLEN
Q&A with directors Violeta Ayala, Dan Fallshaw
Buy TicketsAustralian-based filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw originally set out to make a documentary about an under-reported land dispute in Northern Africa. Once they started shooting, however, they gradually stumbled on a story about modern slavery that has become hugely controversial.
In 2007, Ayala and Fallshaw were drawn to the cause of the Polisario Liberation Front, which represents the Sahrawi people (meaning “people of the Sahara”), who have long struggled for control of the Western Sahara against the competing interests of Morocco and other factions. The two spent several weeks in a refugee camp controlled by the Polisario. Inside the camps, a complex hierarchy exists between the white Arabs and blacks, all of whom consider themselves Sahrawi. The filmmakers focused on a black woman in her thirties named Fetim Sellami, who is reunited with her mother through a United Nations programme. Sellami has a noticeably servile relationship to an older white woman named Deido. Upon further questioning, the filmmakers recorded persuasive testimony that a form of slavery continues to be practised. The existence of modern slavery has been detailed in books like Kevin Bales’s Disposable People, but rarely has it been covered on film as intimately as in Stolen.
The Polisario staunchly maintains that it forbids slavery. When Ayala and Fallshaw raised the topic in the camps, they soon found themselves unwelcome. Fearing that their tapes would be seized, the filmmakers buried them in the desert and fled. Stolen turns into a tale of suspense and political intrigue as the filmmakers struggle to recover their tapes. Placing themselves in the story, Ayala and Fallshaw document their own moral quandaries. They include a statement by Sellami maintaining that she’s not a slave, contradicting what others say. The filmmakers don’t purport to have all the answers, but they do raise important questions. You can expect a heated discussion after each screening.
To learn about STOLEN’s fundraising campaign to bring more attention to the issue of slavery in the Sahara by getting their film into theaters in NY and LA, click here.
Co-presented with the African Film Festival
Director: Violeta Ayala, Dan FallshawRunning time: 75 minutes
Release date: 2009
Screened: SPRING 2011 April 05, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Stolen: Shining a Light on Modern Day Slavery
RESURRECT DEAD: THE MYSTERY OF THE TOYNBEE TILES
Q&A with director Jon Foy
Buy TicketsSpring Season Opening Night
STF announces its Spring Season, including 3 specials, for a total of 13 films. Act now to see them all at an early bird discount of $99 (available through March 28). Click “Buy Tickets” and select “8:00pm”.
Description from Sundance 2011 catalogue:
Toynbee Idea in Movie 2001. Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter.
Beginning in the early 1980s, hundreds of tiles carrying this cryptic message were found embedded in the asphalt of city streets as far apart as New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Santiago, and Buenos Aires. Street art? A prank? A message from space?
Filmmaker Jon Foy recounts how young artist Justin Duerr became fascinated with the strange plaques and, with two other “Toynbee tile” enthusiasts, Steve Weinik and Colin Smith, spent years trying to discover what they meant and who made them. The unlikely investigators uncovered increasingly bizarre clues: a newspaper article, a David Mamet play, a Jupiter colonization organization, and a Toynbee message that “hijacked” local news broadcasts.
That the origins of a street tile can be so captivating is testament to both Duerr’s passion and Foy’s filmmaking. Artfully constructed, Resurrect Dead thrusts us into the black hole of this fantastic mystery but also reflects on Duerr himself, and the personal connection he develops with finding an answer.
Running time: 85 minutes
Release date: 2011
Screened: SPRING 2011 March 29, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
THE PIPE
Q&A with director Risteard Ó Domhnaill & producer Rachel Lysaght
Buy TicketsMonday Night pre-Season Special
STF announces its Spring Season, including 2 more specials, for a total of 12 films. Act now to see them all at an early bird discount of $99. Offer ends Mar 28. Click “Buy Tickets” and select “8:00pm”.
Big energy corporations normally get what they want. When Shell discovered an undersea natural gas field off Ireland’s west coast, they swung into action. The plan was to build a giant, high-pressure pipe to transport raw gas through the town of Rossport to an inland refinery. Unfortunately, no one asked the residents of Rossport, who feared the risks of explosions and environmental hazards. In The Pipe, director Risteard Ó Domhnaill chronicles the crusade of Irish farmers and fishermen who rise up against Shell. For locals, the pipe isn’t a sign of prosperity, but a threat to their way of life.
The premise is reminiscent of Bill Forsyth’s 1983 comedy Local Hero, in which an American oil company faces cultural clashes with the inhabitants of a Scottish village. In Local Hero the dynamics could be played for laughs, but in The Pipe the real-life stakes have dire consequences. The film plunges us into violent clashes between protesters and police. As tensions mount, the community divides over how to confront Shell. The conflict widens to draw in Catholic priests and even the Irish political leader, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
In the past year, “Big Energy” has fought hard against documentarians. Industry advocates mounted a public relations attack on Gasland, and Chevron applied legal pressure on the filmmaker of Crude. The Pipe reminds us again how a multinational corporation can deploy vast resources to battle dissenters.
We come to know several key figures in the opposition, including the wizened and profane Maura Harrington and members of the “Rossport Five,” who served time in jail. Another standout is Pat “The Chief” O’Donnell, a professional crab fisherman who is fiercely protective over the region’s waters. “There’s no job in the world that would replace it,” he says of fishing. Chugging along in his modest crab boat, he confronts the world’s largest pipe-laying vessel, the Solitaire. The match is like a dinghy challenging an aircraft carrier, and the film places us alongside O’Donnell to witness the outcome. (Text by Thom Powers for the Toronto International Film Festival).
Director: Risteard Ó DomhnaillRunning time: 83 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: SPRING 2011 March 28, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: The Pipe: Fighting Big Oil
MOONEY VS. FOWLE
Q&A with crew members Robert Drew, James Lipscomb, D.A. Pennebaker, Bill Ray & Hope Ryden
Buy TicketsPre-Season Special
STF announces its Spring Season, including 3 specials, for a total of 13 films. Act now to see them all at an early bird discount of $99. Click “Buy Tickets” and select “8:00pm”.
Before “Friday Night Lights,” there was “Mooney vs Fowle” (aka “Football”), capturing the 1961 Florida State high school championship game. The title refers to the rival coaches Ottis Mooney of Miami High School vs Haywood Fowle of Edison High School, who led their teams before a crowd of 37,000 at the Orange Bowl. This classic documentary - now celebrating its 50th anniversary - has long been admired by film historians, but never released on home video. At the time of its original release, audiences weren’t used to seeing such candid coverage. The filmmaking team of Drew Associates was revolutionizing how reality was portrayed on television in works such their accounts of John F. Kennedy on the campaign trail and inside the White House in “Primary” and “Crisis.” Drew Associates was led to South Florida by LIFE Magazine editor-turned-filmmaker Jim Lipscomb who had attended Miami High. This unscripted look at the passions behind high school football stirred controversy at the time. Today it endures as a remarkable document of film history and Miami lore.
Director: James LipscombRunning time: 58 minutes
Release date: 1962
Screened: SPRING 2011 March 22, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Mooney vs. Fowle: The Living Camera Turns to Football
LOVE, LUST & LIES
Q&A with director Gillian Armstrong
Buy TicketsWednesday Night pre-Season Special
STF announces its Spring Season, including 4 specials, for a total of 14 films. Act now to see them all at an early bird discount of $99. Click “Buy Tickets” and select “8:00pm”.
Gillian Armstrong (Little Women, Oscar and Lucinda, My Brilliant Career) spent forty years following the lives of three women, from teenagers in the swinging 60’s to grandmothers in the new millenium. Filled with revelations throughout, this documentary lives up to its title. - Portland Women’s Festival
“The fifth in a “7 Up” - like documentary series directed by Gillian Armstrong since 1976, “Love Lust & Lies” is an entertaining and unflinchingly honest return to the lives of three working - class Adelaide women and their extended families. Now aged 47, Armstrong’s subjects speak with amazing candor about love, marriage, divorce, motherhood and that most fundamental human desire: the pursuit of happiness. Packaged with a wealth of footage from previous installments to produce a highly satisfying standalone viewing experience…” - Variety
Director: Gillian ArmstrongRunning time: 87 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: SPRING 2011 March 16, 2011 8:00 pm
HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A.
Q&A with director Barbara Kopple
Buy TicketsSTF’s winter season closes with the acclaimed HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A. Winner of an Academy Award, this film has been named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and selected one of the top five documentaries of all time by the International Documentary Association.
Harlan County, U.S.A. covers the efforts of 180 coal miners on strike against the Duke Power Company-owned Eastover Coal Company’s Brookside Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1973. Kopple initially intended to make a film about Kenzie, Miners for Democracy and the attempt to unseat Tony Boyle. When miners at the Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky, struck in June 1972, Kopple went there to film the strike against Duke Power Company and UMWA’s response (or lack thereof). The strike proved a more interesting subject, so Kopple switched the focus of her film.
Kopple and her crew spent years with the families depicted in the film, documenting the dire straits they find themselves in while striking for safer working conditions, fair labor practices, and decent wages: following them to picket in front of the stock exchange in New York, filming interviews with people affected by black lung disease, and even catching miners being shot at while striking.
(excerpts from Wikipedia)
Director: Barbara Kopple
Running time: 103 minutes
Release date: 1976
Screened: WINTER 2011 March 15, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Harlan County, U.S.A.: Solidarity at Brookside
THEATER OF WAR
Q&A with director John W. Walter
Buy TicketsA NYT Critics’ Pick, below are excerpts from Manohla Dargis’ review:
Director: John W. WalterIn his inspired, inspiring essayistic documentary “Theater of War,” the filmmaker John Walter jumps from art to history and politics and back again, from the theater of the streets to the theater of the stage, without pause. That makes the movie, which follows a Public Theater production in Central Park of Bertolt Brecht’s epic play “Mother Courage and Her Children,” tough to summarize, which is part of its appeal. Because while the movie is about a particular staging of “Mother Courage,” it is also about the war in Iraq, theater (and bicycle riding) as social protest, the necessity and futility of art, and the agonizing human failing that Mother Courage gives voice to in “The Song of the Great Capitulation.”
“Theater of War” is also, as a matter of course, about Brecht. He wrote the landmark “Mother Courage” in the late ’30s while in exile in Scandinavia, having left Germany in 1933 soon after Hitler was appointed chancellor. Set against the Thirty Years’ War and opening in 1624, the play pivots on Mother Courage, a war profiteer who sells goods to soldiers from her canteen wagon. (“Boots they will march in until they die!”) In time she loses her three children to the war, yet she holds on to her wagon, which she drags behind her like a coffer (or coffin). Though it is often described as a war play, the theater critic and Brecht translator Eric Bentley has countered that it is actually a business play.
The business of mounting a play is also part of what interests Mr. Walter, who directed the highly recommended 2002 documentary “How to Draw a Bunny,” about Ray Johnson, the collagist and pioneer of mail art. Money makes the world go around, including at the Public Theater, where Mr. Walter spends time with a costumer and a prop man, two workers whose labor (which doesn’t appear especially alienated) was instrumental to the 2006 production of “Mother Courage” under his lens. Receiving even more face time is Tony Kushner, who did the new translation for this production, and Meryl Streep, who starred in the title role and agreed to let Mr. Walter shoot the rehearsals as she groped around for — and then ferociously seized — her character.
Having divided his film into thematic chapters (“In Search of Bertolt Brecht”), Mr. Walter works through his subjects (art, activism, war, theater) associatively, circling around them. Images of Mr. Kushner riding his bicycle somehow lead, logically and seamlessly, to Iraq war protesters on their bicycles. Although the movie includes a fair share of talking heads (including that of the novelist Jay Cantor, who delivers a mini-course on Marxism threaded through the movie), as a filmmaker Mr. Walter always remembers to show and not just tell. Among the highlights: some wonderful home-movie fragments of Brecht with his young family and choice clips from his fascinating (sometimes funny) testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which the theater director Carl Weber laughingly terms a “brilliant performance.”
Running time: 95 minutes
Release date: 2088
Screened: WINTER 2011 March 08, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Theater of War: Brecht and the Art of Epic Docs
LOVE ON DELIVERY
Q&A with director Janus Metz & collaborator Sine Plambech
Buy TicketsDirector Janus Metz won the 2010 Cannes Critics Week prize for ARMADILLO that had its US premiere at DOC NYC and will be released this year. STF is pleased to showcase this earlier work which previously screened at SXSW, Full Frame and other fests.
From the Full Frame catalogue:
In Thy, a faraway Danish fishing community, there are now over five hundred Thai women. Fifteen years ago, there was one—Sommai, who has since become quite the professional matchmaker. When her niece, Kae, follows the well-traveled path from Bangkok to Copenhagen she has just three months to find a suitable husband before her visa expires. Arriving with great hopes but no Danish, Kae learns the basics: “good night,” “good morning,” and “I have a headache.” Through a personal ad, Sommai finds her a prospective suitor: Kjeld, a respectable young Dane with a decent job. Their courtship is painfully awkward, occasionally sweet, and largely reliant on a dictionary. Given amazing access to several Thai women and their Danish husbands, director Janus Metz captures the most intimate of moments in this beautifully photographed meditation on loneliness and love.
Running time: 59 minutes
Release date: 2008
Screened: WINTER 2011 March 01, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Love on Delivery: Marriage in a Global Society
A FILM UNFINISHED
Q&A with Isaac Zablocki, director of Israel Film Center at the Jewish Community Center
Buy TicketsTHURSDAY NIGHT SPECIAL
Winner: Best International Feature (Hot Docs, 2010), World Cinema Documentary Editing Award (Sundance, 2010)
At the end of WWII, 60 minutes of raw film, having sat undisturbed in an East German archive, was discovered. Shot by the Nazis in Warsaw in May 1942, and labeled simply “Ghetto,” this footage quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record of the Warsaw Ghetto. However, the later discovery of a long-missing reel, inclusive of multiple takes and cameraman staging scenes, complicated earlier readings of the footage. A FILM UNFINISHED presents the raw footage in its entirety, carefully noting fictionalized sequences (including a staged dinner party) falsely showing “the good life” enjoyed by Jewish urbanites, and probes deep into the making of a now-infamous Nazi propaganda film.
A FILM UNFINISHED is a film of enormous import, documenting some of the worst horrors of our time and exposing the efforts of its perpetrators to propel their agenda and cast it in a favorable light.
Director: Yael HersonskiRunning time: 89 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: WINTER 2011 February 24, 2011 8:00 pm
ROCK SCHOOL
Q&A with director Don Argott
Buy TicketsDon Argott, who visited STF last year with his film ART OF THE STEAL, returns with his brilliant earlier work also set in Philadelphia.
Reviewing the film for the New York Times review, Manohla Dargis wrote about ROCK SCHOOL:
There’s one thing you can say about Paul Green, the extravagantly voluble, relentlessly belligerent, sometimes wearisome center of the nonfiction film “Rock School” : He doesn’t worry about picking on someone not his own size. If anything, to judge from the evidence in Don Argott’s alternately hilarious and alarming documentary, Mr. Green’s pedagogic style appears predicated on the idea that if you spare the insults, derision and eardrum-piercing assaults, you spoil the child. Then again, perhaps Mr. Green is simply trying to prepare his young charges for the inevitable hearing loss that comes with a life hooked to squealing electric guitars and fully cranked amplifiers.
As Mr. Green eagerly explains in the film, Mr. Green is the founder and director of the Paul Green School of Rock Music. That’s P-A-U-L, space, new word, G-R-E-E-N. Founded in Philadelphia, Mr. Green’s establishment is essentially a music school with a Ray Davies kink: instead of sawing on violins, massacring classics out of the Suzuki method books, his students (ages 8 to 18) throttle electric guitars, bash drum kits and generally make like pint-size rockers. Forget Vivaldi; here, Ozzy rules, as do Zappa and Zeppelin.
...
Remarkably, he even makes Jack Black - who played a music teacher very much like Mr. Green in the Richard Linklater fictional film “School of Rock” - look positively unplugged.
Director: Don Argott
Running time: 93 minutes
Release date: 2005
Screened: WINTER 2011 February 22, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Rock School: Living the Dream
FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL
Q&A with friends of Karen Schmeer
Buy TicketsSTF is pleased to screen this classic work by Errol Morris in honor of the film’s editor Karen Schmeer, who was killed in January 2010 by a hit and run driver in New York City. For the Q&A, friends of Schmeer will discuss her contributions to documentary film and the new editing fellowship established in her name: http://www.karenschmeer.com/
Errol Morris himself calls “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control” “the ultimate low-concept movie—a film that utterly resists the possibility of a one-line summary,”
The film interweaves the stories of four obsessive men, each driven to create eccentric worlds of their dreams, all involving animals: Dave Hoover, a lion tamer who idolizes the late Clyde Beatty, and who shares his theories on the mind of wild animals; George Mendonça, a topiary gardener who has devoted a lifetime to painstakingly shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; Ray Mendez, who is fascinated with hairless mole-rats, tiny buck-toothed mammals who behave like insects; and Rodney Brooks, an M.I.T. scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs without specific instructions from a human controller. As the film proceeds, thematic connections between the four protagonists begin to emerge. The lion tamer and the topiary gardener look back at ways of life which are slowly disappearing; the mole-rat specialist and the robot scientist eye the future, envisioning creatures that may someday replace the human race.
The film’s style is as adventurous as its subject matter. Working with Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson (“Natural Born Killers,” “Casino”), Morris utilizes numerous film formats and resolutions—including black & white, color, 35mm, l6mm, Super 8 and video, as well as stock footage, old movies and cartoons—to create a singularly impressionistic collage of images. Morris’ trademark unblinking interviews were shot with his invention, the Interrotron, which allows his subjects to look directly into the camera lens and, at the same time, have eye contact (through an image projected on a teleprompter) with Morris. The film’s unique vision is echoed by Caleb Sampson’s haunting and powerful score.
Hilarious, sad, absurd, eerie and beautiful, “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control” is a film like no other. Starting as a darkly funny contemplation of the Sisyphus-like nature of human striving, it ultimately becomes a profoundly moving meditation on the very nature of existence. [Text excerpted from www.errolmorris.com]
About the Karen Schmeer Fellowship
The Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship is a year-long experience that encourages and champions the talent of an emerging editor. It creates opportunities to help cultivate an editor’s artistry and craft, and expand his or her professional and creative community. To be awarded for the first time in 2011, the Fellowship was created by friends and colleagues of Karen’s and is dedicated to honoring her memory, with the hope to provide for the fellows the kind of care and inspiration that Karen herself provided for so many.
Running time: 80 minutes
Release date: 80 minutes
Screened: WINTER 2011 February 15, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Fast, Cheap & Out of Control: A Tribute to Editor Karen Schmeer
NOBODY’S BUSINESS
Q&A with director Alan Berliner
Buy TicketsAlan Berliner takes on his reclusive father as the reluctant subject of this poignant and graceful study of family history and memory. What emerges is a uniquely cinematic biography that finds both humor and pathos in the swirl of conflicts and affections that bind father and son. Ultimately this complex portrait is a meeting of the minds - where the past meets the present, where generations collide, and where the boundaries of family life are pushed, pulled, stretched, torn and surprisingly at times, also healed.
Particularly in this age of low format video proliferation, Nobody’s Business is notable for its masterful editing, stunning craft and exquisite filmmaking. Filmmaker Alan Berliner achieves a rare feat of inter-generational sleuthing as he weaves together aesthetically and emotionally rich interviews with his father and other family members, an extraordinary array of archival material, and live action sequences to create an inventive and touching essay on memory and family. Mining the hitherto untapped resources of long-distance relatives, some of whom were unknown to him prior to the making of the film, Berliner touches upon universal themes relating to families, regardless of cultural background.
Special bonus: This night will also include Berliner’s rarely seen 10-minute short CITY EDITION (1980).
Director: Alan BerlinerRunning time: 60 minutes
Release date: 1996
Screened: WINTER 2011 February 08, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Nobody’s Business: Portrait of a Father
POSTER GIRL
Q&A with Diary dir Tim Hetherington; and Poster Girl dir Sara Nesson + film subject Robynn Murray
Buy TicketsThis evening combines two extraordinary short films by directors nominated for this year’s Academy Award. The combined film running time is 60 minutes, followed by an extended Q&A.
First up is DIARY (20 min) compiling 10 years of war reporting by Tim Hetherington (Oscar-nominated for RESTREPO) into an impressionistic personal reflection.
That will be followed by POSTER GIRL (38 min) nominated for the 2011 Oscar doc short after its appearances at the prestigious Telluride and IDFA film festivals. POSTER GIRL tells the story of Robynn Murray, an all-American high-school cheerleader turned “poster girl” for women in combat, distinguished by Army Magazine’s cover shot. Now home from Iraq, her tough-as-nails exterior begins to crack, leaving Robynn struggling with the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Shot and directed by first-time filmmaker Sara Nesson, POSTER GIRL is an emotionally raw documentary that follows Robynn over the course of two years as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and redemption, using art and poetry to redefine her life.
Director: Sara NessonRelease date: 2010
Screened: WINTER 2011 February 01, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Poster Girl: The War at Home
SCHMATTA: RAGS TO RICHES TO RAGS
Q&A with director Marc Levin
Buy TicketsNew York City’s garment district has been a microcosm of the American economy for the past century. It was the place for new immigrants to start climbing the ladder. During the early twentieth century, the industry absorbed Italians and Eastern European Jews who called it the schmatta business (Yiddish for “rags”). Later, Latinos and other ethnicities flowed in. For a period, the clothing industry was the biggest employer in the United States, producing ninety-five per cent of the country’s garments. Today that figure has plummeted to five per cent.
In Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags, director Marc Levin explores this dramatic shift in statistics by looking at the historical context and human faces behind it. In his long and diverse career, Levin has made documentaries about gangs, prisons and anti-Semitism. He has had two films screen at the Festival, including Slam, a dramatic feature that captured the zeitgeist of street poetry in the nineties. His keen ear for urban language is put to good use in Schmatta as he interviews a wide range of garment-district inhabitants, from cloth cutters to shop owners. These outspoken New Yorkers are the authentic versions of ethnic characters that Hollywood often turns into stereotypes.
Recent documentaries such as Valentino: The Last Emperor and The September Issue have shown us life at the top of the fashion industry. In Schmatta, we see all the steps below. With well-chosen archival footage, Levin looks back to key historical moments. The deadly 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory gave momentum to organized labour. By 1960, politicians like John F. Kennedy were actively courting the mighty garment union. But in the eighties, Ronald Reagan rolled back unions while new trade agreements sent jobs abroad.
Against this backdrop, Schmatta documents the current post-crash economy. We hear from freshly unemployed workers who put on a brave face, preserve their humour and try to make sense of the changing landscape. The shops stemming off Seventh Avenue that once hummed with sewing machines are being converted for upscale renters. If this gargantuan industry can be reduced to such a fraction, what does it mean for the rest of us? [Thom Powers, Toronto International Film Festival, 2009]
Director: Marc LevinRunning time: 75 minutes
Release date: 2009
Screened: WINTER 2011 January 25, 2011 8:00 pm
GREY GARDENS
Q&A with filmmakers Albert Maysles & Muffie Meyer
Buy TicketsWEDNESDAY NIGHT SPECIAL
Grey Gardens will receive the Legacy Award at the Cinema Eye Honors on Tues, Jan 18. In conjunction with this recognition, STF is moving to Wednesday for one week and showing the film.
Grey Gardens is the unbelievable but true story of Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie, the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Mother and daughter live in a world of their own behind the towering privets that surround their decaying 28-room East Hampton mansion known as
“Grey Gardens,” a place so far gone that the local authorities once threatened to evict them for violating building and sanitation codes. The incident made national headlines—American royalty, living in squalor! For the Beales were nothing short of the upper crust. Mrs. Beale, a.k.a. “Big Edie,” was a born aristocrat, sister of “Black Jack” Bouvier, Jackie O’s father. “Little Edie” was an aspiring actress of striking beauty who put her New York life on hold to care for her mother - and never left her side again. Together they descended into a strange life of dependence and eccentricity that no one had ever shared until the
Maysles arrived with their camera and tape recorder.
The Beales were ready for their close-ups. Little Edie— a still-attractive woman at 56—parades about coquettishly in her trademark improvised turbans
(her wildly original ensembles inspired a 9-page fashion spread in a 1998 issue of Harper’s Bazaar and a 1999 issue of Italian Vogue), reminisces about her brilliant past, still hoping that her Big Chance and Big Romance are just around the corner. Big Edie, trained soprano in her bohemian days, trills romantic songs of yesteryear in a slightly wobbly, but still rich voice. The women bicker, prattle, and flirt like characters out of Tennessee Williams or Eugene O’Neill. The film is a bittersweet love story, a record of the powerful and complex relationship between mother and daughter.
(text by Marjorie Sweeney)
Running time: 100 minutes
Release date: 1976
Screened: WINTER 2011 January 19, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Grey Gardens: Revisiting the Beales
ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE
Q&A with director Rob Lemkin
Buy TicketsWinner of multiple 2010 prizes at festivals including Sundance, Full Frame, True/False, One World, and others, ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE took ten years to complete and tells the harrowing story of the Khmer Rouge.
Description from Sundance catalogue:
The Khmer Rouge slaughtered nearly two million people in the late 1970s. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain unexplained. Until now. Enter Thet Sambath, an unassuming, yet cunning, investigative journalist who spends a decade of his life gaining the trust of the men and women who perpetrated the massacres. From the foot soldiers who slit throats to Pol Pot’s right-hand man, the notorious Brother Number Two, Sambath records shocking testimony never before seen or heard. Having neglected his own family for years, Sambath’s work comes at a price. But his is a personal mission. He lost his parents and his siblings in the Killing Fields. Amidst his journey to discover why his family died, we come to understand for the first time the real story of Cambodia’s tragedy.
Codirectors Rob Lemkin and Sambath create a watershed account of Cambodian history and a heartfelt quest for closure on one of the world’s darkest episodes.
Director: Rob Lemkin, Thet SambathRunning time: 94 minutes
Release date: 2009
Screened: WINTER 2011 January 11, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Enemies of the People: Searching for Meaning in the Killing Fields
CLIENT 9: THE RISE AND FALL OF ELIOT SPITZER
Q&A with director Alex Gibney
Buy TicketsMonday Night Special
Wall Street never faced a tougher crusader in the twenty-first century than Eliot Spitzer. As New York State Attorney General, he displayed fearlessness at prosecuting esteemed firms such as AIG and Bank of America. After being elected as New York State Governor by a landslide vote, he seemed poised to become America’s first Jewish President. But that trajectory came to an abrupt halt in March 2008 when the FBI prosecuted the Emperors Club escort agency and supplied a detailed description of Client #9, revealed by the press to be Spitzer. The scandal played out for as long as it would sell papers, but some of the most important questions went unanswered. Did politics play a role in the FBI investigation? Was the media misled in its focus? And what the hell was Spitzer thinking?
Renewing their collaboration from Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, director Alex Gibney and author Peter Elkind succeed at bringing fresh insight to Spitzer’s story. Combining their research, Gibney focused on the film while Elkind wrote the book Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Other journalists have based the majority of their evidence on the experience of Ashley Dupre, an escort whom Spitzer met with only once. For a more comprehensive perspective, Gibney uncovered the governor’s frequent companion, “Angelina,” and persuaded her to talk for the first time. Gibney’s tenacity also secured an intrepid interview with Spitzer and with several of his harshest political enemies.
Sex is only one layer of this story. The film supplies a valuable examination of the power dynamics between finance and politics. Spitzer is a riveting personality; he displays the qualities that make him both a brilliant lawyer and a flawed human being. When the banking crisis hit in the fall of 2008, just months after his forced resignation, the financial world suffered for want of Spitzer’s watchdog expertise. Spitzer recently ventured back into the public arena and will soon be hosting a new CNN talk show. After this account of his rise and fall, no one should count out his chances to rise again. [Thom Powers, Toronto International Film Festival]
Director: Alex GibneyRunning time: 117 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: WINTER 2011 January 10, 2011 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: Announcing STF 2011 Winter line-up!
Related Blog Posts: The Ballad of Eliot Spitzer
THE TILLMAN STORY
Q&A with director Amir Bar-Lev; co-presented with Film Panel Notetaker
Buy TicketsWINTER SEASON SPECIAL (free with purchase of STF winter pass - official season starts Jan. 11)
When Pat Tillman gave up his professional football career to join the Army Rangers in 2002, he became an instant symbol of patriotic fervor and unflinching duty. But the truth about Pat Tillman is far more complex, and ultimately far more heroic, than the caricature. And when the government tried to turn his death into propaganda, they took on the wrong family. From her home in Northern California, Pat’s mother, Dannie Tillman, led the family’s crusade to reveal the truth beneath the mythology of their son’s life and death. THE TILLMAN STORY resounds with emotion and insight, and goes beyond an indictment of the government to touch on themes as timeless as the notion of heroism itself.
A recent NY Times critics’ pick, read the review here.
Director: Amir Bar-LevRunning time: 94 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: WINTER 2011 December 20, 2010 8:00 pm
Related Blog Posts: The Tillman Story at STF
SURVIVING HITLER: A LOVE STORY
Q&A with director John-Keith Wasson
Buy TicketsWinner of the Inspiration Award at the 2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
As a teenager in Nazi Germany, Jutta is shocked to discover she is Jewish. She joins the German resistance and meets Helmuth, an injured soldier. The two become sweethearts and soon co-conspirators in the plot to assassinate Hitler. This would sound like a pitch for a Hollywood blockbuster were it not all true. Surviving Hitler: A Love Story is in fact a harrowing tale of war, resistance and survival. At the center of the documentary is a love story for the ages, with riveting narration by Jutta herself, original 8mm footage (shot by Helmuth) and, miraculously, a happy ending. — Jay Rosenblatt
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BONUS: SURVIVING HITLER: A LOVE STORY will be preceded by the short film LETTERS HOME (9 min), directed by Melissa Hacker. Letters Home is created around letters written by Melissa’s great-aunt Freda as she traveled through Germany and Austria in 1945 as a member of the American Army’s Women’s Army Corps.Running time: 66 minutes
Release date: 2010
Screened: FALL 2010 November 30, 2010 7:59 pm
Related Blog Posts: Surviving Hitler and living to tell about it
IN CONVERSATION WITH PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
Description from TIFF 2010 catalog by Thom Powers:
When does Philip Seymour Hoffman sleep? His active career hardly allows the time. Now he makes his film directing debut with Jack Goes Boating, showing separately as a Special Presentation (see page 155). The film, about two working class New York City couples and the delicacy of relationships, was adapted from a play by Bob Glaudini originally produced by the LAByrinth Theater Company. After playing Jack in the original Off-Broadway production, Hoffman continues the role on film. To honour his first foray behind the camera, we present him for this live interview moderated by Seamus O’Regan, host of Canada AM.
As a film actor, Hoffman became memorable to audiences through an array of supporting roles in films such as Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski, Magnolia and The Talented Mr. Ripley. He proved his ability to command the centre of a film in Capote, for which he won the Academy Award® for best actor, and garnered other nominations for his supporting roles in Charlie Wilson’s War and Doubt.
Equally impressive is his track record onstage. For ten years, Hoffman served at the LAByrinth Theater Company as co-artistic director alongside John Ortiz (who co-stars in Jack Goes Boating). Hoffman has directed and acted in numerous plays, earning Tony nominations for his performances in True West and Long Day’s Journey into Night.
In his approach to Jack Goes Boating, Hoffman drew upon his theatre experience by holding long rehearsals, not only with the actors but also with his cinematographer and support team. On making the transition from stage to screen as an actor, Hoffman said, “When you’re working on a play, you try to explore the things that might only be implied and fill in the blanks. In the movie, we got to literally explore a lot of different environments and interactions that couldn’t be seen in the play. That made our performances in the film more subtle.”
In this conversation, O’Regan will delve further into how Hoffman prepares himself for varying creative challenges. And will perhaps uncover the secrets to his stamina.
About the panelist:
Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in Fairport, New York and earned his B.F.A. in drama from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He made his film debut in acting in 1991, appearing on television and in film. He has appeared in such films as Boogie Nights (97), The Big Lebowski (98), Magnolia (99), The Talented Mr. Ripley (99), Almost Famous (00), Punch Drunk Love (02), The Savages (07), Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (07), Synechdoche, New York (08) and The Invention of Lying (09). He was nominated for two Golden Globe Award and two Academy Awards for his roles in Charlie Wilson’s War (07) and Doubt (07), and won both awards for his role in Capote (05). Jack Goes Boating (10) is his feature film debut as director.
IN CONVERSATION WITH APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL
Description from TIFF 2010 catalog by Thom Powers:
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is considered a cinematic treasure by art house aficionados. To get over his intimidating Thai name, he encourages westerners to call him Joe. At the age of thirty-nine, he straddles the worlds of film and art and is the focus of a monograph edited by TIFF Cinematheque director James Quandt. Yet exposure to Weerasethakul’s work has been limited. This year his reputation spread further when he won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives. Playing separately at the Festival in the Masters programme (see page 103), this playful and innovative film offers the chance to open the door to new audiences. In this Mavericks session, film critic Dennis Lim will interview Weerasethakul onstage and take us through his career, illustrated with film clips.
Born in Bangkok, Weerasethakul trained as an architect in Thailand before earning an M.F.A. in filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “I believe I was lucky to be in this place,” he told an interviewer. “I was encouraged to experiment with the idea that nothing was wrong. That’s the opposite from Thailand’s education system.” Returning to his native country, he directed a series of feature works that stood out for their bold experiments with structure, including Blissfully Yours, Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century.
With regards to Uncle Boonmee, he told the New York Times, “I was conscious about accessibility only because I wanted this to be like a children’s film, or a children’s book, to retain that feeling of innocence.” The approach was enthusiastically embraced by critics. Describing the film’s plot in The Guardian, Peter Bradsaw wrote, “Baldly recounted, these events sound ridiculous, and yet it all has something sublime and visionary about it, with a spiritual quality I can’t remember seeing in any film recently.” Whether you’re a Weerasethakul newcomer or a longtime follower, you shouldn’t pass up this chance to encounter his distinct sensibility in person.
About the director:
Apichatpong Weerasethakul was born in Bangkok. He completed a degree in architecture at Khon Kaen University and an M.F.A. in filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since the early nineties, he has been making short films and videos that merge fiction and documentary. His films include the groundbreaking Mysterious Object at Noon (00), The Adventures of Iron Pussy (03) and Syndromes and a Century (06). His films have won multiple awards at the Cannes Film Festival, including the Un Certain Regard award for Blissfully Yours (02), the Jury Prize for Tropical Malady (04) and the Palme d’Or for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (10).
IN CONVERSATION WITH KEN LOACH & PAUL LAVERTY
Description from TIFF 2010 catalog by Thom Powers:
For filmgoers who crave political engagement, the partnership of director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty is a rich source. Their latest work, Route Irish, which is playing separately in the Masters programme (see page 101), grapples with the Iraq war and the trend of using privatized soldiers who are more costly to taxpayers and less accountable to law than enlisted ranks. In this Mavericks session – moderated by documentary filmmaker Michael Moore – Loach and Laverty will have an onstage dialogue delving deeper into the film’s subject matter, and reflecting on other political currents that run through their work.
At age seventy-four, Loach has long used filmmaking to study how the working class relates to the ruling class. Cathy Come Home – his feature drama made for the BBC in 1966 – signaled a trenchant point of view in its depiction of a woman falling through the cracks of Britain’s social services. Even when politics aren’t explicit – in films such as Riff-Raff, Raining Stones and Ladybird Ladybird – he expresses a distinct sensitivity to how society distributes wealth and opportunity.
In the mid-nineties, Loach joined forces with the Scottish writer Paul Laverty, nearly twenty years his junior, who had previously worked in Nicaragua for a human rights organization. Their first collaboration, Carla’s Song, dealt with the US-backed war against the Sandinistas. They have since worked together on eleven films, including Bread & Roses, about the struggle for Los Angeles janitors to unionize, and The Wind that Shakes the Barley, about Ireland’s struggle for independence, which won the Palme d’Or At the Cannes Film Festival.
In shaping the characters for Route Irish, Laverty conducted extensive interviews with contractors who served in Iraq. Although the film employs fictional scenarios, the roots of the story lie in the real systems of privatized armies that have been reported by journalists such as Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. In this Mavericks conversation, Loach and Laverty will discuss the process of injecting their political passions into filmmaking.
About the panelists:
Ken Loach was born in Nuneaton, England and studied law at Oxford University. He made his first feature film, Poor Cow, in 1967. In 1994 he was awarded a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice International Film Festival. In 2004 his body of work was awarded the special prize of the 20th Anniversary of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. He also won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for The Wind that Shakes the Barley (06). His other films include Kes (69), Black Jack (79), Hidden Agenda (90), Riff-Raff (91), Raining Stones (93), Ladybird Ladybird (94), Land and Freedom (95), My Name Is Joe (98), Bread and Roses (00), Sweet Sixteen (02), the omnibus film Chacun son cinema (segment, 07), It’s a Free World (07) and Route Irish (10).
Paul Laverty was born in Calcutta, India. He earned a degree in philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome. After practicing as a lawyer he worked for a human rights organization in Nicaragua, and won a Fullbright Award to study film in the US. His screenwriting credits include Carla’s Song (96), My Name Is Joe (98), Bread and Roses (00), The Wind that Shakes the Barley (06) and Route Irish (10).
Screened: TIFF 2010
IN CONVERSATION WITH KELLY REICHARDT
Description from TIFF 2010 catalog by Thom Powers:
Kelly Reichardt has distinguished herself as an American original with films such as Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy that invest small moments with deep significance. In her new film Meek’s Cutoff, she breaks away from a contemporary setting for her first period piece, set in 1845 on the Oregon Trail. Meek’s Cutoff plays separately in the Festival’s Contemporary World Cinema programme. For this Mavericks discussion, Reichardt will be interviewed by Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum, exploring the director’s career and the process behind Meek’s Cutoff.
Reichardt made her debut in 1994 with River of Grass, a unique road movie about people escaping a crime, which captured the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. She followed with Ode, based on the novel Ode to Billie Joe, and two short films before winning great acclaim for Old Joy in 2006. The film follows two men on a trip into the woods; one feels the growing responsibilities of impending fatherhood while the other appreciates his independence. Schwarzbaum called it a “shimmering, quiet treasure of a film, an elegy to mutable friendship, enduring nature, and the sense of loss that inevitably accompanies the adult pull to move forward.”
With several of her films based in Oregon, Reichardt shares camaraderie with fellow Northwest filmmakers Gus Van Sant (Milk) and Todd Haynes (I’m Not There). All three are dedicated to individualistic storytelling, but Van Sant and Haynes eventually moved from low budgets to larger productions. Is that in the future for Reichardt? “There’s something great about having privacy when you’re making a film,” she said in an interview with Van Sant. “It’s good when there aren’t any extra hands in the pie and no one is imposing false deadlines on you…. But Todd [Haynes] thinks it’s a flawed way of thinking. He doesn’t think I’m necessarily making it easier for myself by doing everything so small.” This Mavericks discussion will explore how Reichardt got to this point in her career and where she’s headed.
About the director:
Kelly Reichardt was born in Miami and directed the short films Ode (99), Then a Year (01) and Travis (04). Her feature films include River of Grass (94), which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Old Joy (06), which won a Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Wendy and Lucy (08), which was named best film of 2008 by the Toronto Film Critics Association, and Meek’s Cutoff (10).
IN CONVERSATION WITH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Description from TIFF 2010 catalog by Thom Powers:
Bruce Springsteen visits the Festival for the world premiere of The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town – playing separately as a Gala. The documentary explores the creative process of his pivotal 1978 album, where his focus shifts from youth to adulthood. Interviewed in the film, Springsteen often reaches for cinematic comparisons to describe his songs. That sparked the idea to invite him for a longer conversation about the interplay between music and film. Springsteen graciously accepted our invitation to be interviewed on stage by the actor Ed Norton for this Mavericks dialogue.
Where the conversation will go is anyone’s guess. But it prompts us to consider how much Springsteen’s music and American filmmaking have exchanged. From Springsteen’s descriptive lyrics, we can conjure scenes in our head of “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” or “Hungry Heart” or “Atlantic City.” Sean Penn has credited the song “Highway Patrolman” as inspiration for his first film The Indian Runner. Springsteen has contributed unforgettable title songs to films such as The Wrestler, Dead Man Walking, and Philadelphia,for which he won an Academy Award® for best original song. Springsteen even made a cameo appearance in the movie High Fidelity, offering love advice to Jon Cusack’s character in a dream sequence.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Springsteen could easily rest on his laurels. Yet in recent years, he has shown no signs of slowing down; in fact, quite the opposite. His song “The Rising” became a touchstone to commemorate September 11, 2001 and he memorably performed “Working on a Dream” for Barack Obama’s campaign. When Springsteen was honored last year at the Kennedy Center, his fellow New Jersey native Jon Stewart said in tribute, “I didn’t understand his music for a long time, until I began to yearn. Until I began to question the things that I was making and doing in my own life. Until I realized that it wasn’t just about the joyful parade on stage and the theatrics. It was about stories of lives that could be changed.”
Screened: TIFF 2010
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