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Sophie Okonedo in SKIN: Black Daughter of White Parents

Sophie Okonedo in Skin

Winner of four audience awards, including at the AFI Dallas and Santa Barbara film festivals, Skin tells the factually inspired (and quite curious) story of Sandra Laing (Hotel Rwanda’s Academy Award nominee Sophie Okonedo as an adult; Ella Ramangwane as child), the "black" daughter of "white" Afrikaner parents (veterans Sam Neill and Alice Krige), who until then — South Africa in the 1950s — had been unaware that they must have had some black ancestors.
Though raised as a white girl by her parents, Sandra soon discovers the importance of her skin color after she’s officially reclassified as black and is expelled from her school. Her parents then fight a judicial battle to have their [...]

THE END OF POVERTY? US Release

Philippe Diaz’s documentary The End of Poverty?, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week sidebar and has been screened at more than two dozen international film festivals, will be released nationwide by Cinema Libre starting in New York City on November 13 (at the Village East Cinema), followed by Los Angeles on November 25 (at the Laemmle Sunset 5 and Culver Plaza Theaters), with a platform release to follow including runs in Seattle, Portland, and Austin, and later in Boston, San Francisco, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.
"Most of the experts interviewed in the film had predicted the current economic crisis more than two years ago, when we started to film, explaining that a system based on a [...]

TAPESTRIES OF HOPE Screening in New York

PRESS RELEASE
Freshwater Haven, a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the dramatic social change that is required to stop the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of women, announced today it’s production, Tapestries of Hope, will be shown at an exclusive screening on Sunday, October 18, 2009 in New York City. This special event will be followed by screenings at the United States Department of State and in the Capitol Visitors Center Theater 10/20/09.
Tapestries of Hope (www.tapestriesofhope.com) is an astounding story told through the eyes of filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley. The film captures her sojourn to Africa as she investigated the longstanding myths surrounding the power of virgin blood, including its ability to cure HIV/AIDS.
Documenting the work of Zimbabwean child and [...]

Sidney Poitier, Richard Widmark: NO WAY OUT Screening

Sidney Poitier, Richard Widmark in No Way Out

Ruby Dee will be the special guest at a screening of No Way Out (1950), part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Monday Nights with Oscar” series on September 21 at 7 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.
Film historian and scholar Foster Hirsch will host this celebration of the centennial of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s birth and the recent gift of Mankiewicz’ papers to the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library.
In the socially conscious No Way Out, Richard Widmark plays a racist patient — and petty criminal — who, following his brother’s death, becomes intent on destroying the life [...]

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT at Film Forum

Lew Ayres and Louis Wolheim in All Quiet on the Western Front

The silent version of the best picture Academy Award winner All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), in my view the greatest war movie ever made, will be screened at New York City’s Film Forum on Monday, August 3. Showtimes are at 3:20, 6:50, and 9:20.
Having been restored and preserved by the Library of Congress, and featuring two reels cut from the original talkie print following the film’s East and West Coast premieres, this silent version — edited from the foreign negative — comes with musical accompaniment intended for foreign markets where theaters hadn’t yet been equipped to sound. (I should add that in the silent [...]

LOREN CASS No Longer Undistributed

Kino International has acquired the theatrical release of Loren Cass (2007), directed, written and edited by first-time filmmaker Chris Fuller.
Nominated for a Gotham Award as one of the best undistributed films of 2007, Loren Cass is finally scheduled to premiere in New York City on July 24 at the Cinema Village. The film will expand to other major markets during the summer and fall of 2009, before being released on DVD at the end of the year.
Filmed in St. Petersburg, Florida, Loren Cass is set in 1997, when a group of teenagers struggle to rebuild their lives following violent ethnic riots provoked by the (real-life) killing of an 18-year-old black adolescent, who was gunned down [...]

Hollywood’s Greatest Year in New York City

Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (top); Bette Davis, Geraldine Fitzgerald in Dark Victory (middle); Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights (bottom)

Gone with the Wind, the 1939 Best Picture winner, will kick off the New York presentation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ latest screening series, "Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939," on Saturday, June 20, at 12:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Theater in New York City. Turner Classic Movies host and film historian Robert Osborne will host the event.
"Hollywood’s Greatest Year" will continue through mid-October, showcasing all 10 Best Picture nominees from 1939. Screenings will take place on Monday at 7:30 p.m., [...]

Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in GUNGA DIN Screening

George Stevens‘ rousingly politically incorrect — and for the most part much admired — action-adventure tale Gunga Din will have a special screening on Friday, June 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Prior to the film, Oscar winners Ben Burtt and Craig Barron will discuss the sound and visual effects used in this 1939 classic starring Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Victor McLaglen.
Gunga Din will also will be presented in New York City on Monday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy Theater.
Written by Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol, from a story by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, which [...]

SÉRAPHINE: Q&A with Martin Provost

The winner of 7 French Academy Awards, including best film, best original screenplay, and best actress, Martin Provost’s Séraphine stars Yolande Moreau as painter Séraphine Louis, aka Séraphine de Senlis, a plain, poor, uncultured, devoutly Catholic, and emotionally unbalanced housekeeper who became known as a major artistic talent in the early 20th century.
Written by Provost and Marc Abdelnour, Séraphine focuses on the artist’s relationship with avant-garde art dealer Wilhelm Uhde (played by Ulrich Tukur), who one day discovered that his cleaning lady in the town of Senlis was a masterful painter.
A sleeper hit in France, Séraphine has been met with raves on this side of the Atlantic as well. The LA Weekly’s Scott Foundas called it "the best movie [...]

Luis Buñuel’s VIRIDIANA Screening

Viridiana, Luis Buñuel’s provocative 1961 Palme d’Or-winning classic proving that life is a bitch and then you play cards, will run at New York City’s Film Forum from Friday, April 24, through Thursday, April 30.
Inspired by a painting of Saint Viridiana kneeling on the floor before a crucifix and crown of thorns (and by Benito Pérez Galdós‘ novel Halma), co-written by Buñuel and Julio Alejandro, and financed by the lead actress’ rich husband, Viridiana stars Silvia Pinal (recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Ariel Award), as a pious young nun who, before entering a cloister, goes visit her strange and reclusive uncle (Fernando Rey). There, while trying to do Good, she befriends the [...]

D. W. Griffith, Emile Cohl – A Century Ago: The Films of 1908

“A Century Ago: The Films of 1908,” showcasing filmmaking highlights of 1908, will be the next presentation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ series “Monday Nights with Oscar.” The screenings will be held on Monday, April 20, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City. Hosted by the Academy’s Director of Educational Programs and Special Projects Randy Haberkamp, the evening will feature live musical accompaniment by Michael Mortilla.
Among the shorts included in the “A Century Ago: The Films of 1908” presentation are Biograph’s After Many Years, in which new director D. W. Griffith (above) experiments with parallel cutting and camera movement; Vitagraph’s trick film The Thieving [...]

MIDNIGHT COWBOY at the DGA in New York City

John Schlesinger’s 1969 socio-psychological drama Midnight Cowboy, one of the better best picture Oscar winners, will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Monday Nights with Oscar” series on Monday, March 16, at 7:30 p.m. at the Directors Guild of America Theatre in New York City.
David V. Picker, the executive-in-charge at United Artists during the making of Midnight Cowboy, will moderate an onstage discussion with Academy Award-winning producer Jerome Hellman, Academy Award-nominated (supporting) actress Sylvia Miles, actor Bob Balaban, cinematographer Adam Holender, composer John Barry, and costume designer Ann Roth.
Adapted by Waldo Salt from James Leo Herlihy’s novel, Midnight Cowboy stars [...]

Curtain Call: Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance

Accompanying the exhibit Curtain Call: Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance, the New York Public Library’s Library for the Performing Arts will present a series of films from March 3-April 28 highlighting the role of female costume and production designers in Hollywood films from the 1910s to the 2000s. (See schedule below.)
Curated by Joseph Yranski, the series includes:

The short Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with stage performer Hobart Bosworth and future 1920s star Bebe Daniels
The fluffy Colleen Moore vehicle Irene, which features a fashion show
The rare silent Camille, starring superstar Norma Talmadge and her soon-to-be off-screen lover Gilbert Roland
She, which features early color sequences and Helen Gahagan, best known for being smeared ("pink down to her [...]

CineKink NYC 2009

When a film festival’s community sponsors have names such as DDevious Delights, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, Gay Male S/M Activists, Leather Invasion, Lesbian Sex Mafia, the film festival in question must be CineKink NYC, currently taking place at the Anthology Film Archives, at 32 Second Avenue & 2nd St. in New York City.
Among the screening films are Daryl Wein’s documentary Sex Positive, about an early AIDS activist; Robert Pratten’s horror thriller Mindflesh; a shorts program called — I kid you not — "Whips & Restraint"; the documentary Graphic Sexual Horror; and the sex-film industry parody The Auteur, which happens to be the only film among those listed that I’ve seen. (The best thing about [...]

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN at Film Forum

Leave Her to Heaven (1945) — one of the best (and brightest) of all film noirs — will be screened at New York City’s Film Forum from March 6-12.
I’ve already written about Leave Her to Heaven when it was screened in Los Angeles a couple of years ago, so I’ll just add here that this psychological thriller-melodrama should be watched on the big screen and that the stunningly beautiful Gene Tierney — as a woman who loved too (pathologically) much — was a much better actress than people give her credit for.
Call it a "woman’s film" if you wish, but in its own trash-novel style Leave Her to Heaven is cooler, tougher, and more disturbing than The Maltese Falcon, [...]

Marni Nixon at Film Forum

Marni Nixon, the voice behind, among others, Deborah Kerr in The King and I and An Affair to Remember, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, will be honored at New York City’s Film Forum on Monday, February 23 at 7:30 pm. Nixon, who turns 79 the day before the tribute, will be present for an onstage interview about her seven-decade career. The interview will be conducted by musical theater writer Stephen Cole, co-author of Nixon’s autobiography I Could Have Sung All Night, and Film Forum’s Director of Repertory Programming Bruce Goldstein. Admission is $20 ($10 for Film Forum members).
Every time Marni Nixon’s name comes up I think [...]

Gen Art Film Festival 2009

PRESS RELEASE
Gen Art Film Submissions
The 14th Annual Gen Art Film Festival kicks off on April 1, 2009 in New York City. The Gen Art Film Festival (GAFF)’s unique format showcases seven features and seven shorts from emerging filmmakers which are followed by seven premiere parties. The festival allows film lovers to experience a movie premiere like a true insider. Each night of this cutting edge festival is an interactive experience, allowing filmmakers, media, and the audience to share in the excitement.  The festival will be taking place at SVA; the completely redesigned, state-of-the-art Visual Arts Theater on West 23rd Street between 8-9th Avenue.
Adding to the anticipation, the star-studded LYMELIFE is set to open the GAFF festival.  Executive produced by Martin Scorsese and [...]

Oscar 2009: Animated and Live Action Short Film Screenings in New York City

"Shorts!," the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences program featuring the 2009 Oscar nominees in the Animated and Live Action Short Film categories, will be presented in New York City on Saturday, February 14, at the Academy Theater at Lighthouse International (111 East 59th Street). There will be two separate screenings of the nominated films, the first at noon and an encore presentation at 4 p.m.
Film historian Robert Osborne, who is a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, host of Turner Classic Movies, and author of the new book 80 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards, will act as host of the noon screening. Osborne will also be [...]

Agnieszka Holland Retrospective at MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art’s ongoing Agnieszka Holland retrospective in New York City continues until January 5, 2009. Holland, best known for her World War II era drama Europa Europa, The Secret Garden (above, lower photo), Washington Square, and Total Eclipse (top photo, with Leonardo DiCaprio), directed and wrote a number of lesser-known films in her native Poland.
Among the upcoming MoMA screenings are several efforts from her Polish period, including the 1981 political dramas Fever and A Lonely Woman, both of which were banned in Poland at the time.
Also screening are the intriguing US-made drama Anna (1987), directed by Yurek Bogayevicz, written by Holland, and starring a magnificent, Oscar-nominated Sally Kirkland, and the social drama The Offsiders (2008), directed by [...]

Douglas Fairbanks in THE THIEF OF BAGDAD Screening

A fully restored print of the 1924 silent-film version of The Thief of Bagdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks, will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Fairbanks celebration in a special “Monday Nights with Oscar” presentation on Monday, December 15, at 7 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City. The screening will feature live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin.
The Thief of Bagdad will be presented in conjunction with the publication of the Academy’s latest book, Douglas Fairbanks, by Jeffrey Vance, with Tony Maietta and photographic editor Robert Cushman. Vance and Maietta will take part in a book signing following the screening.
Directed by Raoul Walsh [...]

WERE THE WORLD MINE Trailer

 
Co-written by partners Cory James Krueckeberg and Tom Gustafson (from Gustafson’s 2003 short Faeries) and directed by Gustafson, Were the World Mine tells the story of small-town teen Timothy (Tanner Cohen), who happens to be gay, ostracized, and in love with his private school’s top jock (Nathaniel David Becker). Timothy’s sole means of escape is his musico-magical world, filled with shining lights and singing athletes.
Enters a quirky English teacher (hilariously played by Wendy Robie of Twin Peaks), who decides to stage a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Timothy is cast as Puck and ends up playing the role offstage as well, using a liquid-spraying, purple pansy to spread love — of the sort that dares [...]

RASHOMON: Monday Nights with Oscar

Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic Rashomon, which officially introduced Japanese cinema to the world at large, will be the next film presented as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Monday Nights with Oscar.” The East Coast premiere of the new digitally restored print of Rashomon will take place on Monday, November 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.
Though it revolves around the rape of a woman and the murder of her Samurai husband, Rashomon, co-adapted by Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s stories "Rashomon" and "In a Grove," is less a crime drama than an examination of the mind-boggling nature of truth. [...]

Bob Hope: Thanks for the Memories

Although Bob Hope was one of the most popular American (though English-born) entertainers of the 20th century, I’ve always found him hard to swallow. So, why am I so disappointed that I won’t be in New York City this fall (Oct. 7–Nov. 25) to check out the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts‘ free screenings of the series "Bob Hope: Thanks for the Memories"?
Well, how about the fact that the series, arranged by Joseph Yranski of the New York Library for the Performing Arts’ Reserve Film & Video Collection, will be screening the little-seen, British-made The Iron Petticoat (1956), which, however poorly received at the time, paired Hope with none other than Katharine Hepburn in this Ninotchka [...]

A TIME FOR BURNING: Monday Nights with Oscar

A Time for Burning, a 1967 Oscar-nominated documentary about the interactions between two segregated churches in Omaha, Nebraska, during the height of the civil rights movement, will be screened at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ "Monday Nights with Oscar" on Monday, October 20, at 8 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.
Hosted by journalist and filmmaker Elvis Mitchell, the evening will include an onstage discussion with the film’s producer-director, William C. Jersey (right), and Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers, who is featured in it. The screening will premiere a new print from the Academy Film Archive.
As per the Academy’s press release, A Time for [...]

Meet the Oscars, New York 2008

The exhibition "Meet the Oscars, New York" will display 50 new Oscar statuettes, two inscribed Academy Awards, and one Oscar for the public to hold. The East Coast version of "Meet the Oscars" will take place at the Times Square Studios in New York City from Friday, February 15, through Saturday, February 23. The exhibition will be open daily from noon to 7 p.m. Admission is free.
The Oscar won by Gary Cooper for his performance as the title character in Sergeant York (1941, right) will be on display alongside Thelma Schoonmaker’s Academy Award for Film Editing for The Departed (2006).
Cooper and Schoonmaker each have won three Academy Awards.
Gary Cooper won his second Oscar for the 1952 Western High [...]

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