with Macky Alston
Four out of ten released convicts will be reincarcerated within six months. Faith-based groups such as Exodus Transitional Community, founded by ex-con Julio Medina, are doing good work to help former prisoners reintegrate into free society. More than ordinary social services, this organization provides a caring community and teaches skills needed to survive “on the outside.” Macky Alston profiles Medina and three recently released prisoners, tracking their difficult road in this heartbreaking and inspiring documentary.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Monday, July 30th, 2007
with Alan Berliner
Documentarian Alan Berliner’s father Oscar is the reluctant subject of his simultaneously funniest and saddest film. In an attempt to understand himself and where he comes from, Alan questions his father about his life, about his family history, and about his divorce from Alan’s mother, but the old curmudgeon will have none of it. He insists that his life is ordinary, unimportant, and can see no value in the project. Hilariously cranky, Oscar resists his son’s effort with colorful language. Like boxers sparring in a ring (a metaphor Berliner illustrates with stock footage), Alan keeps swinging away and eventually the past is brought to light in this loving but combative father-son dialogue.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Monday, July 30th, 2007
with Alan Berliner
Filmmaker Alan Berliner battles his life-long enemy, insomnia, in this creative and humorous documentary. Mixing clips of old films, interviews with sleep experts, and conversations with his own family, Wide Awake follows Berliner through groggy mornings and energetic nights, and as he struggles to turn off his overactive mind and go to sleep at 3, 4, 5 o’clock in the morning. After his son is born, he visits a sleep clinic and consults a number of experts in an attempt to change himself into a “morning person.” Yet when he suspects that this could fundamentally change who he is, he becomes unsure if he can really go through with it, relying as he does on the fervent creativity that comes from the night. Although a bit self-indulgent, Berliner’s humor shines through in this odd and enjoyable look at sleep problems. Wide Awake may prove to be the sleeper hit of the festival.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Monday, July 30th, 2007
with director Su Friedrich
In the dazzling, genre-defying Sink or Swim, lesbian feminist director Su Friedrich examines her difficult relationship with her father, an academic linguist who divorced her mother when she was twelve. Divided into twenty-six vignettes, one for each letter of the alphabet, the film paints a vivid portrait of childhood’s end, using an eclectic mixture of autobiography, home movies, nursery rhymes, German lieder, anthropological observation, and classical mythology. Intellectually adventurous yet deeply heartfelt, Sink or Swim explores the collateral damage that occurs when family ties break down.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Monday, July 30th, 2007
with director Su Friedrich
Lesbian feminist, social activist, and Princeton University professor, experimental filmmaker Su Friedrich has directed eighteen films and videos over the past three decades. The Ties That Bind brings her radical avant-garde sensibility to the traditional documentary form. The soundtrack features an oral interview with Friedrich’s German mother (who is never seen in the film), in which she describes her life as a young woman during the Nazi regime. The images, however, present an impressionistic account of the early-1980s “nuclear freeze” movement. Friedrich’s startling juxtapositions and deft use of montage draw unsettling parallels between the Reagan administration and the Third Reich, while reminding audiences that social justice can never be achieved without the leadership of politically active women.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Monday, July 30th, 2007
with Charles Burnett
Widely acclaimed but rarely screened, My Brother’s Wedding is the second feature from African American director Charles Burnett. This unofficial companion to Burnett’s earlier A Killer of Sheep tells the story of Pierce (Everett Silas), an unambitious African American dry-cleaner who discovers that his best friend’s funeral will occur on the same day as his upwardly mobile brother’s wedding. Torn between loyalty to his community and duty to family, Pierce tries to work out a compromise. Recently restored by the Pacific Film Archive, My Brother’s Wedding weaves Burnett’s close observations of working-class life into a broader tapestry of African American class struggle.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Monday, July 30th, 2007
with Alan Berliner
An experimental documentary complied from 16mm home movies of more than 60 different families, The Family Album is a collage of sounds and images of family life. Excellent pre-digital age editing by quirky filmmaker Alan Berliner pieces together an intimate portrait of the American Family, from the 1920s to the 1950s. These amateur movies and audio recordings mix profoundly to depict a deep journey from innocence to experience. With its historical progression constantly in the background, this hour-long montage charts the evolution of the family and offers an insightful perspective on life. Critic Roger Ebert called this “the most intriguing film” of the 1987 Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Monday, July 30th, 2007
with Macky Alston
A half-century after Swarthmore student Bob Brechtel planned a Virginia Tech-style massacre that killed one student, he has become an upstanding member of his community and beloved father to two girls. Macky Alston’s documentary film records Brechtel’s revelation of his secret past to his daughters and the University of Arizona community where he teaches psychology. His family’s love and loyalty is tested, a judicial system which was far more lenient 50 years ago is examined, and important issues about the old case surface, including the possibility that the bullying, which Brechtel says motivated the shooting, might never have happened.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Friday, July 27th, 2007
In the ravaged nation of Chad, an uneasy peace has settled as the government grants amnesty to all war criminals. Sixteen-year-old Atim the orphan leaves his village, seeking a man he does not know for a dark, singular purpose: to avenge the death of his father. It is the dry season in Africa, and when he arrives in the town of N’djamena, thoughts of revenge are overtaken by the need to survive. Through a twist of fate, Atim finds an unlikely father figure in the man he has determined to kill. The tale explores issues of obsession and humanity while studying how two enemies must learn to live with each other. The New York Times calls Daratt an “unassumingly political work that unfolds with the simplicity of a parable and the gravity of a Bible story.”
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Thursday, July 26th, 2007
Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, Shotgun Stories illuminates the life of three brothers named Son, Boy, and Kid, abandoned as boys by a father who could not even bother to give them proper names. At their father’s funeral, a feud begins to simmer between these forgotten sons and the new young men their common patriarch raised after he left and became a model Christian. Filmmaker Jeff Nichols bravely explores the complex issues of family and revenge in this work that received a New American Cinema Award and which the jury called “a starkly powerful tale told with a distinctively American voice.”
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
with director Esther Robinson
In 1965, promising young filmmaker Danny Williams dropped out of Harvard against his family’s wishes to move to Manhattan. There he edited two films for the brothers Maysles, met and fell in love with Andy Warhol, and became a fixture at the Warhol Factory. He made over twenty short films and designed the groundbreaking Velvet Underground/ Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) light show. One year later, while visiting his family, he borrowed his mother’s car and was never heard from again. Decades later, his films resurfaced but Danny never did. Esther Robinson, Williams’ niece, explores the elusive life and mysterious disappearance of her uncle in this personal and probing documentary.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
with Stewart Stern, Donald Sosin, Joanna Seaton, Paul Reisler, Terri Allard and the Charlottesville Children’s Chorus
Of all the screen incarnations of J.M. Barrie’s beloved stage play, Herbert Brenon’s 1924 silent version may be the most faithful, despite occasional attempts to “Americanize” the little boy who won’t grow up. With atmospheric cinematography and magical special effects that still amaze audiences after more than eighty years, this Peter Pan is a delight for the entire family. Silent film buffs will recognize Asian American actress Anna May Wong in the role of princess Tiger Lily. Please note: Children 12 and under admitted to this screening for the special discount price of $1.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
with Macky Alston
When white filmmaker Macky Alston questions why so many African-Americans share his last name, he launches on a journey that exposes his family’s secrets. With the discovery that his ancestors once owned a large number of slaves who, in turn, took the family name, Alston traces his own heritage and the possible blood relationship between his family and their slaves’ descendants. While unearthing long-secret documents, he meets many colorful characters, some of whom are less interested than he in revealing their past.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
with Doro Bachrach
“Nobody puts Baby in a corner!” Director Emile Ardolino followed the Oscar-winning 1983 documentary He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’ with his first mainstream theatrical film, now celebrating its twentieth anniversary with a digitally restored 35mm print. Set at a Catskills summer resort in the early 1960s, yet whose most memorable songs are 1980s soft rock ballads, Dirty Dancing tells the story of an awkward upper-crust teenage girl (Jennifer Grey) who finds love, self-confidence, and perfect six-pack abs with her hunky, working-class dance instructor (Patrick Swayze). Broadway veterans Jerry Orbach, Kelly Bishop, and Lonny Price round out an uncommonly strong supporting cast. Choreography by Kenny Ortega (High School Musical) helped make Dirty Dancing a sleeper hit with audiences twenty years ago, and a cult favorite today.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
with screenwriter Stewart Stern
Inspired by a nonfiction account of juvenile delinquency, maverick director Nicholas Ray and screenwriter Stuart Stern fashioned this definitive cinematic portrait of alienated teendom with several none-too-subtle nods to Sigmund Freud. James Dean became an instant pop-culture icon in the role of loner Jim Stark, whose outsider status and trademark red jacket place him at the center of an unconventional triangle with fellow students Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Sal Mineo). Plato’s merciless treatment at the hands of high-school bullies and Stark’s violent clashes with a gang of toughs, including a young Dennis Hopper, eventually escalate into a tragic confrontation with Los Angeles police. Jim Backus, perhaps best known as the cartoon voice of Mr. Magoo, delivers a memorable supporting performance as the young Stark’s emasculated father.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
As the hearing child of two deaf parents, director Irene Taylor Brodsky brings a unique perspective to this moving feature-length documentary, which received an Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Hear and Now chronicles the experiences of Paul and Sally Taylor, two retirees who, after sixty-five years of silence, acquire surgical cochlear implants. But even if they notice sounds, will they ever truly be able to hear? And what will happen to their relationship if one of them responds to the implant and the other doesn’t? Brodsky’s unflinching gaze not only captures her parents’ struggle to adjust to new technology, but also provides a glimpse of the perplexed and sympathetic reactions grown children often have to the unconventional life choices of their retired parents.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
with Charles Burnett
One of the unsung masterpieces of African American filmmaking, Charles Burnett’s first feature began life as a graduate student project at UCLA. Using semi-documentary techniques and a cast of nonprofessional actors, Burnett created an impressionistic yet finely detailed account of family and community ties within the Watts ghetto of Los Angeles, then set it to an unforgettable soundtrack of blues, jazz, pop and classical music. The film focuses on working-class father Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders), who butchers sheep at a local slaughterhouse and suffers from job-related insomnia. First seen at film festivals in 1977, but not commercially released until this year, Killer of Sheep presages the auteurist African American cinema of Spike Lee and John Singleton, and sounds a clarion call for social change.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
with Godfrey Cheshire
When the cousin of filmmaker Godfrey Cheshire decides to literally uproot the family homestead, Midway Plantation, to protect it from the encroaching sprawl of Raleigh, North Carolina, the act prompts the family to explore the historical, social, and cultural implications of the ante-bellum plantation, and discover a whole new branch of the family they never knew existed: the African-American branch. This documentary chronicles not only the amazing technical feat of moving a large house several miles, but also tension within the family and the surprising joy of meeting new relatives. The film also examines the myth versus the reality of the pre-Civil War plantation experience, including a look at culture-shaping films such as Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, and Roots.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
with Perrin Chiles and Tricia Regan
In 1980, autism was a relatively rare disorder, diagnosed in one in 10,000 children in the United States. Now it is closer to one in 150. Director Tricia Regan captures the struggles and triumphs of five autistic children who defy expectations by writing, rehearsing and performing their own full-length musical, under the instruction of a professional acting coach who is herself the mother of an autistic child. Over the course of the production, we get to know each child and their family, and learn how their own particular set of symptoms help shape their personality and how they relate to the outside world. As these children step out of their inner worlds, they learn to work together and help dispel myths about their condition.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Sunday, July 22nd, 2007
with Jane Gillooly
TODAY THE HAWK TAKES ONE CHICK (2007, work in progress) with Jane Gillooly
4:00 pm, Vinegar Hill Theater
Director: Jane Gillooly
Cinematographer: Jane Gillooly
Running Time: 73 min
In Swaziland, the circle of life has been turned on its head. Grandmothers – or Gogo, as they are called in SiSwati and many southern African languages – watch their adult children die of AIDS and are forced to raise their many grandchildren on their own. Great documentaries have the power to personalize seemingly incomprehensible world issues, breaking barriers of distance and language to present the human condition across cultures. Few achieve that feat as well as Jane Gillooly’s Today the Hawk Takes One Chick, which presents the stories of three African Gogos living in a society at the threshold of simultaneous collapse and reinvention, organizing into communities at an age when they expected that their adult children would be taking care of them. Gillooly’s direction shines light on the individual suffering and perseverance of those afflicted by AIDS. For 73 minutes, Gillooly’s work invites the audience to live in a world where HIV affects everyone and forces us to ponder the fate of its people. The cinematography and sound recording is sensitive, observant, and mesmerizing; we feel drawn in as participants, overwhelmed and inspired by the challenges the Gogos face, with not enough support.
In this work-in-progress, filmmaker Jane Gillooly documents the struggles of the Gogo to organize into communities at an age when they expected that their adult children would be taking care of them. The Gogo Project is a consortium of international aid organizations working to provide seeds and fertilizers for gardens, shoes and school uniforms for the children, and profitable trade skills to the Gogo so that they can support their new households.
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Sunday, July 22nd, 2007
with Jane Gillooly
In 1973, while the Supreme Court heard Roe vs. Wade, Ms. Magazine published an infamous photo of a crouched, naked woman, dead in a motel room following a botched abortion attempt. Filmmaker Jane Gillooly tells the story of that “anonymous” woman in the 1964 photograph, in reality 28-year-old Gerri Santoro, mother of two and married to an abusive husband, and the effect that image had on Santoro’s family and the nation. Through interviews and family photos, we come to know Gerri Santoro and understand the abortion debate in personal terms. Gloria Steinhem calls Leona’s Sister Gerri “as heart stopping as any experience of our own, this fine and moving documentary reminds all who see it that life stories, not statistics, contain the truth.”
Posted in 2007, Briefs, Sunday, July 22nd, 2007