July 2011
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Space is Overrated.
An architect builds a house in an alleyway for writer Etgar Keret
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Ulreich Seidl Retrospective and California Company...
Now underway at Anthology Film Archives, a retrospective of Austria’s top subversive “documentary” filmmaker Ulreich Seidl. Featuring several of Seidl’s films, including MODELS and ANIMAL LOVE, in addition to his latest narrative masterpiece IMPORT/EXPORT.
Also playing now at Anthology is Lee Ann Schmitt’s CALIFORNIA COMPANY TOWN, which is not to be missed. In the...
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Don't Miss Tony Manero at Cinema Village
A festival hit from Cannes and the New York Film Festival, Pablo Larrain’s Tony Manero is now screening at Cinema Village. One of the more chilling and original films out in some time, this one is not to be missed.
Balancing black humor against allegorical indictment of the Pinochet regime’s oppression on narrow stack heels, striking, very offbeat period pic “Tony Manero”...
June 2009
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June 20 - TIKIMENTARY at Otto's Shrunken Head
Head out to Otto’s Shrunken Head this Saturday, June 20 for an exotic, surf-themed night of cinema and music. First up is Duda Leite’s Tikimentary, a documentary about all things tiki, which shows at 7PM. Following the screening is a lineup of surf rock bands, including The Chillers, Thee Icepicks, Bongo Surf, The Octomen, and Sasquatch and the Sick-A-Billys.
Showing Saturday,...
May 2009
11 posts
Dardenne Brothers Retrospecive Underway at Lincoln...
Touted as the most extensive Dardenne retrospective ever mounted, Lincoln Center hosts a week of films from the unimitable chroniclers of Belgium’s street culture and society on the fringes. Beyond L’Enfant: The Complete Dardenne Brothers began last night and runs through June 2.
Screenings include Palme d’Or winners L’Enfant (The Child) and Rosetta, as well as exciting and hard to...
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May 24 - A NAME IN WHITE FILM FESTIVAL at...
Filmmaker Reuben Meltzer’s third annual A Name in White Film Festival is happening this Sunday, May 24 at Millenium Film Workshop. There are two separate programs, one at 2pm and one at 5pm, and both include a separate lineup of local New York filmmakers including Joel Schelmowitz, Karl Mendoca, Reed French, Jeff Curran, Will Lucas, Maura Feeney, Jonah Kruvant, Savros Toumanidis, Tawania...
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BURMA VJ now playing at Film Forum - Special Q&A...
One of the most anticipated docs of the year, ANDERS ØSTERGAARD’s Burma VJ, is now playing at Film Forum courtesy of Oscilloscope Pictures. Burma VJ has garnered awards and attention from top film festivals including IDFA, DOX, Sundance, SxSW and Hot Docs. Doc follows a courageous group of underground video journalists who risk everything to document 2007 uprising junta uprising in Burma. ...
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Last week of Kim Longinotto documentaries at MoMA...
Make sure to get out to MoMA for the last week of the Kim Longinotto retrospective and see some of the finest documentaries of the past few decades. “Longinotto is one of the pre-eminent documentary filmmakers working today, renowned for creating extraordinary human portraits and tackling controversial topics with sensitivity and compassion. Longinotto’s films have...
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May 15 - QUICKSHOTS at The Archive, Curated by...
Screenshots is a new montly media and video series. Quickshots, this month’s event, occurs May 15 at The Archive in Brooklyn and is organized by curator Nana Seo and artist Leung Chi Wo, both based out of Hong Kong. The artists featured include: Chow Chun Fai (Hong Kong), David Clarke (Hong Kong), Ise Parkingproject (Malaysia), Yoshiaki Kaihatsu (Tokyo), Kwan Sheung Chi (Hong Kong), Lam...
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May 14 - Joel Schlemowitz presents NON-CAMERA...
Experimental filmmaker and curator Joel Schlemowitz is presenting Non-Camera Filmmaking, a collection of short films all made without the use of a physical camera. Come support twelve emerging filmmakers as they break the rules of moviemaking and explore the myriad possibilities of celluloid and projection. Among the filmmakers exhibiting their work are: Jaclyn Amor, Cassandra Colletti,...
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May 11 - Flaherty NYC presents JOHNNY BERLIN 2 at...
Flaherty NYC is bringing director Dominic DeJoseph to Anthology Film Archives on Monday, May 11 to present his latest documentary, Johnny Berlin 2; Notes from the Dumpster, the sequel to Johnny Berlin. The latest film continues in the adventures of a train porter wh now finds himself broke in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. “Brilliantly funny and wise monologue-as-portrait of a unique American...
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Cinema 16 and Smack Mellon present - Another music...
Cinema 16 recreates the experience of the silent film era, as curator Molly Surno programs obscure vintage films and pairs them with contemporary New York musicians. Bands are given one month to compose a musical score in order to modernize the tradition of live music accompanying films during the 1920s.
For this incarnation of Cinema 16 at Smack Mellon (92 Plymouth St. @ Washington St., DUMBO),...
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Thursday 7:30PM THE SACRED + THE SURREAL: BRUCE...
Tomorrow at 7:30PM St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan (Park Ave at 50th St) will host what is sure to be a memorable Rooftop Films event, screening short films from Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali, and Red Bucket Films under. Accompanying the films are scores composed by acclaimed composer Keeril Makan, performed by world renowned pianist Bruce Levingston. This event was put together in...
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Sunday, May 3: "RIP: A Remix Manifesto" at...
Timely issues of copyright control, piracy, and fair use come to the forefront of Brett Gaylor’s RIP: A Remix Manifesto (2009), which focuses on the controversy surrounding the increasingly popular sample-based musical artist Girl Talk. Gaylor’s film goes above and beyond the bounds of most traditional documentaries and fully engages in the issue at hand: he has made his film...
April 2009
3 posts
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Spike Lee's JOE'S BED-STUY BARBERSHOP: WE CUT...
Perhaps the most unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome, addition to The French Institute Alliance Francaise’s month-long tribute to influential programmer Jackie Raynal, Spike Lee’s NYU thesis film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads will screen tomorrow, Tuesday 4/14, at 4 p.m. Raynal programmed two long running (but sadly long gone) art house theaters in Manhattan -...
2009 New York African Film Festival Starts...
New York City’s finest showcase for African cinema, the 16th annual New York African Film Festival kicks off tomorrow at Linocln Center with the theme “Africa In Transition.” This year’s festival features several US premieres of quality new narratives, documentaries, and shorts. NYAFF runs April 8-14 at the Walter Reade theater and May 22-25 at BAM, with a special panel...
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Saturday, April 4 at Union Docs: An Evening with...
UnionDocs will be screening a 16mm print of Matthew Porterfield’s debut narrative feature Hamilton Saturday at 8PM. Richard Brody, editor and writer at the New Yorker and author of Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard, will be present to moderate a post-screening discussion with Porterfield. Following this Porterfield will provide a preview of his forthcoming feature Metal...
March 2009
6 posts
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Don't Miss The Cinema Eye Honors this Sunday at...
Tickets are still available for the second annual Cinema Eye Awards which take place this Sunday at TheTimesCenter (242 W 41St Street). The Cinema Eye Awards have become the gold standard for honors in nonfiction filmmaking recognizing such categories as editing, producing, cinematography, as well as shorts. The were launched last year by documentary filmmaker and critic AJ Schnack in...
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March 26 - Dreyer's GERTRUD at BAM and Cinemachat...
Screening for one day only as part of BAM’s Carl Theodor Dreyer retrospective, Dreyer’s opus and final film Gertrud (1964) is playing Thursday. Show times are at 4:30, 6:50, and 9:30pm, with a special Cinemachat with film historian Elliott Stein following the 6:50 show which is not to be missed. “There is no other movie like Gertrud. It exists in its own bright, one-entry category,...
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Tuesday, March 17, 7:30PM KEN JACOBS show and...
New York City experimental filmmaking pioneer and founder of the Millennium Film Workshop Ken Jacobs will be present at Light Industry this Tuesday to present work, Return to LH6. Following will be a conversation with Jacobs and Amy Taubin. Come out to what’s sure to be a memorable evening.
“I expanded on the Laff Movie selections so one never knew what to expect and I disapproved...
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March 13 - Godard's BAND OF OUTSIDERS introduced...
Brooklyn’s own Jonathan Lethem will introduce a screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s masterful (and, some might argue, his masterpiece) Band of Outsiders (Bande à Part) this Friday, March 13 at 9:30PM at The Rubin Museum of Art. Godard’s wife and muse, Anna Karina, stars in this charming homage to film noir about a young woman who is roped into robbing her family by Sami Frey (Mr....
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Monday March 9 - Josh Weinstien and Jacqueline...
Flying On One Engine - Trailer from FlyingOnOneEngine on Vimeo.
This Monday Anthology Film Archives will host its monthly screening series with the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, Flaherty NYC, at 7:30PM. Jacqueline Goss will be in attendance and presenting her innovative short film STRANGER COMES TO TOWN. Also on hand is NYC based filmmaker Josh Weinstein presenting his debut doc FLYING ON...
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March 6 - JOEL SCHLEMOWITZ + TILL BY TURNING +...
Prominent New York City experimental filmmaker and curator Joel Schlemowitz will be providing a visual performance to music by Till By Turning and Folds Ensemble at Issue Project Room this Friday, March 6, at 8:00PM. In addition to Schelmowitz’s visuals, this event will also include new music by Jim Altieri, Katherine Young (of Till by Turning), and a trio for violin, piano, and...
February 2009
5 posts
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Feb. 25 - Albert Serra's BIRDSONG / EL CANT DELS...
Don’t miss Albert Serra’s new feature, Birdsong, opening Wednesday February 25 at Anthology Film Archives. A follow-up to the minimalist but bold Don Quixote adaptation Quixotic/Honor de Cavelleria, Serra is back with a new feature which has already garnered much acclaim on the festival circuit. Birdsong gives us Serra’s take on the biblical story of the Three Kings. Serra will...
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Feb. 23 - Profit Motive and The Whispering Wind...
Come watch one of the best progressive experimental docs of the past few years this Monday evening at the Museum of Modern Art. John Gianvito will be present to present and discuss his 2007 PROFIT MOTIVE AND THE WHISPERING WIND, which won Best Experimental Film by the National Society of Film Critics. Inspired by Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, this doc...
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ANOTHER SIDE OF A KING: FILMS AND LITERATURE OF...
As part of Black History Month, Maysles Cinema is paying tribute to Woodie King, Jr., a pioneering writer and director for both stage and screen. Born in Alabama, King was raised in Detroit where he worked for Ford Motor Company before becoming an engineer. Dissatisfied with the state of theater and lack of roles for black actors, he began forging his own movement first in Detroit, and later in...
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Feb 7 - Scott Nyerges at Millennium Film Workshop
Brooklyn-based experimental filmmaker Scott Nyerges will make an appearance at Millennium Film Workshop as part of their on-going Personal Cinema series this Saturday, February 7, for a special presentation of his works including Autumnal (2008), Polar (2007), Flow (2005), Means and Meditations (2004), Floating in the Ether (2002), and a sneak-peak at a work-in-progress. Many of his films...
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Feb 7 - MISSING ALLEN and THE GRANDFATHER TRILOGY...
Double feature at UnionDocs this week curated by Lorenzo Gattorna. First is Missing Allen (2001), a private detective documentary in which the director, Christian Bauer, combs the country in search of Allen Ross, a friend and collaborator who disappeared shortly after he and Bauer completed a film together. Years go by as the search goes on, and the possibility for a grim conclusion grows...
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THE HAPPY MAN and 53 WINTER DAYS at NYU
Tuesday, February 3 marks the first day of Spanish Women Behind the Camera, a series of ten films showing Tuesdays throughout the month at the King Juan Carlos 1 of Spain Center at NYU. The opening night film is Judith Colell’s directorial debut 53 Winter Days (53 días de invierno) (2006), which Jonathan Holland of Variety described as a “gentle, character-based [film that]...
January 2009
23 posts
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Jan. 30 - THREE VIDEOS BY TAKAHIKO IIMURA at...
Legendary Japanese experimental filmmaker Takahiko Iimura will be at Anthology Film Archives on Friday presenting two of his classic films as well as a special “remix” of one of his works. Scott MacDonald praised Iimura’s work as being able “refresh our ability to perceive.” The works being screened are Self Identity (1972-74, revised 2008),...
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Jan. 30 - From Underground to Independent: New...
This Friday, January 30th, the China Institute will be screening work from underground Chinese filmmakers who use their cameras to investigate the country’s on-going modernization. Inspired by Dziga Vertov, San Yuan Li (2003) examines the conflict between traditional and urban cultures, while Digital Underground in the PRC (2008) discusses the possibilities the future holds for Chinese...
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Jan 30. THE PANIC AT NEEDLE PARK w/cast, crew
A dramatic debut of sorts for Al Pacino, this film couldn’t be more “New York”. Needle Park is the intersection of 72nd street and Broadway and is where the drug deals go down. A non-traditional, almost documentary style film, Pacino often improvised on set while remaining true to the script co-written by the brilliant Joan Didion. Kitty Winn as decent southerner and Al Pacino...
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Jan 18. - UP ON THE ROOF at UnionDocs
As iconic as the skyline they grace are New York’s pigeons, a heritage that is fast becoming a part of the past. An affectionate tribute and fond farewell, JL Aronson’s Up on the Roof (2008) documents the last gasp of Williamsburg’s pigeon coops as rapid gentrification and higher rents drive out not only its long-time residents, but also its long-time traditions. Through rooftop conversations...
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Tonight! BOF and AMAZING THE LION at The PIT
Special big-screen presentation of two fabulous new web-comedy series, Amazing the Lion and BOF (which, of course, stands for “Best of Friends”), at The People’s Improv Theater. Cleverly animated with a darkly, almost psychedelic sense of humor, Amazing the Lion focuses on the mis-adventures of a lion and his pals (including a suicidal panda) in the magical forest near the Long...
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Jan. 15 - DO THE RIGHT THING at Maysles Cinema
Tonight, Maysles Cinema’s Rent Control: NYC Documented and Imagined continues with Spike Lee’s classic Do the Right Thing (1989). His portrait of cultural and racial conflicts that converge around Sal’s Pizza on the hottest day of the summer is certainly among the most evocative and insightful New York stories ever put to film. The stellar ensemble cast, featuring Danny...
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Jan. 14 - THE EDUCATION OF SONNY CARSON at Maysles...
The epic, six-month long series Rent Control: NYC Documented and Imagined continues this week at the Maysles Cinema. This month, Brooklyn is in focus, and tonight’s film is Michael Campus’ The Education of Sonny Carson (1974). Shot on-location and based on a true story, this story of 1950’s street gangs was described as having a “primal energy that imbues it with...
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Jan 14 - JEM COHEN at Light Industry
Jem Cohen is among the most innovative and inimitable of modern filmmakers. He documents the world around him with an unparalleled expressive attention to rhythm, texture, and atmosphere - which is why his music portraits, such as Instrument (1999), are so vibrant and alive. Tonight at Light Industry, Cohen offers the rare treat of viewing his raw footage - some of which he hasn’t even...
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ALEX RIVERA at Flaherty NYC/Anthology Film...
This Monday, Flaherty NYC presents the short films of Alex Rivera, the acclaimed director of the geo-political immigration sci-fi thriller, Sleep Dealer (2008), which has been all around the world at film festivals in the past year (including Sundance, Berlin, Hamptons, Helsinki, and Rio de Janeiro). A rare cinematic treat, this showcase gives viewers the unique opportunity to watch the early...
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WALL STREET at Project Film School/DCTV
Feeling nostalgic for American economy of the past? Take a trip down memory lane with Project Film School’s presentation of Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987), and get a look at the behind-the-scenes corruption stock market with Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, and Martin Sheen. The post-screening discussion with Marcus Hempt, former Senior VP Capital Markets division of Lehman...
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DELUSIONAL DOWNTOWN DIVAS at APF Lab and Online
Lena Dunham has an eye and ear for the mundane, intimate minutiae of everyday life. The sort of things that only you or your closest friends would laugh about. Yet somehow Dunham is able to channel that familiarity into her short works. The ability for viewers to connect so quickly and effortlessly to not only the characters, but also their environment, is part of what makes her films so...
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Silent Light at the Film Forum for two weeks only!
Carlos Reygadas’ entrancing film about adultery among a Mennonite family living in North Mexico opens with one of the most beautiful shots one could never imagine. A film with little dialogue and no professional actors, Reygadas takes his filmmaking to the next level with this heartbreaking and powerful story set amongst the most unlikely background. Silent Light has been rated one of the...
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ONE NIGHT ONLY: YEAST and FROWNLAND at 92Y Tribeca
Indie filmmaking couple Ronald and Mary Bronstein will be gracing 92Y Tribeca with a double feature of Mary’s Yeast (2008), Ronald’s Frownland (2007), and an on-stage discussion. Both films are emotionally raw and brutally insightful portraits of problematic relationships. Yeast, which focuses on the strained friendships of a young woman, stars indie icons Greta Gerwig (Hannah Takes...
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TONIGHT ONLY: RED GOLD at Walter Reade
Which is the more important natural resource? Salmon, or gold and copper? Ben Knight and Travis Rummel’s geo-political doc, Red Gold (2008), investigates the controversy surrounding this issue as it affects local rivers in Bristol Bay, Alaska. As activist filmmaking, it’s incredibly even handed and gives the opposition a fair chance, though it’s clear who the directors side...
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Jeff Krulik at Light Industry
Cult chronicler of American sub-culture Jeff Krulik will be at Brooklyn’s Light Industry Tuesday, January 6 (tomorrow!) showing clips from his wealth of films with wonderfully bizarro titles and equally wondrous topics, including Heavy Metal Picnic, Led Zeppelin Played Here, and Ambassador Theater Psychedelic Memories. Music critic Michael Azerrad (Rolling Stone, Spin, amongst many others)...
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Jacques Tati's PLAYTIME at WALTER READE
For one day only, Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade theater is projecting a 70mm (!!!) print of Jacques Tati’s masterpiece Playtime (1967). A modernist ballet of people, buildings, space, and technology, Tati’s structural humor has never been more precise, reticent, or hilarious. With his characteristic lanky grace, Tati’s Monsieur Hulot passes passes through crowds, crosses...
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HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART 1 at Symphony Space
Symphony Space is doubling their dose of Mel Brooks. Showing alternately with Young Frankenstein is History of the World Part 1 (1981) which, depending on your views, might actually be more accurate than your high school textbook. With Mel Brooks in five roles, and the indelible Madeline Kahn as Empress Nympho, it’s hard to find a reason NOT to go see this again. If you need more...
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YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN at SYMPHONY SPACE
Forget Broadway and see the original Young Frankenstein (1974) on the big screen. Among the most pitch-perfect as well as reverent of genre satires. Mel Brooks’ film is a cinematic love letter to the Universal horror series of the 1930s, filled with inimitable performances by Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, and Teri Garr. Thirty-five years later, we’re...
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PEDRO COSTA at MONKEYTOWN
Among the most insistent voices in contemporary cinema, Pedro Costa is exhibited far too rarely in American theaters. Whether a volcanic landscape or a dilapidated slum, Costa creates a sacred cinematic space on-screen - he presents “nothing” but receives everything. Costa’s is a cinema of reticence, built upon near-still compositions in which the movement of light and shadow...
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TONIGHT ONLY: EL TOPO at IFC CENTER
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo (1970). The ultimate midnight movie experience - some unholy cross-breeding of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, Godard’s politicized aesthetics, Bunuel’s surrealistic symbolism, and Jodorowsky’s own mystical explorations. After a gunfighter and his son wander into a town only to find everyone has been massacred, the two set out on a...