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.
BURMA VJ now playing at Film Forum - Special Q&A following tonight’s show
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. For more information go to:
www.filmforum.org/films/burma.html
Tonight’s 8PM screening features a Q&A with Featured Buddhist Monks
Venerable U Gawsita, Venerable U Agga Nyana & Venerable Pyinyar Zawta,
Leaders of the 2007 Uprising
Last week of Kim Longinotto documentaries at MoMA retrospective
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 won international acclaim and dozens of premiere awards at festivals worldwide”(Women Make Movies). SISTERS IN LAW (poigniant and sometimes comedic doc following two extraordinary women in Cameroon fighting for justice) and THE DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET (on female gential mutilation in Kenya) will both be screening again this week amongst others.
Photo: Shinjuku Boys. 1995. Great Britain. Directed by Kim Longinotto, Jano Williams
More information: www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/947
May 11 - Flaherty NYC presents JOHNNY BERLIN 2 at Anthology Film Archives
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 thinker,” proclaims the Sarasota Film Festival, while Snow Vandermore at El Vigilate highly recommended the film by saying, “I was hoping it would just keeping going on and on, it was that good.”
Shooting People’s Ingrid Kopp will be on hand to discuss the film with the director after the screening, and help to give away a few free special prizes!
Showing Monday, May 11 at 7:30PM at Anthology Film Archives.
Sunday, May 3: “RIP: A Remix Manifesto” at UnionDocs at 7:30PM
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 “open source” and available online for anyone to “remix” themselves. Visit opensourcecinema.org for more info.
New York-based programmer Steve Holmgren has curated this event, and has invited Fred Benenson (co-founder of Free Culture @ NYU) for a conversation after the film.
Saturday, April 4 at Union Docs: An Evening with Matthew Porterfield
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 Gods, which won the Panasonic Digital Filmmaking Grand Prize Grant at this year’s Independent Film Week and is scheduled to begin shooting this July. Producer Jordan Mintzer and cinematographer Jeremy Saulnier will also be present. This evening is curated by Steve Holmgren.
“HAMILTON recalls the films of Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien, particularly Dust in the Wind. Eschewing cuts, dialogue, and plot in general, it teeters between minimal storytelling and pure Warholian observation, and such deliberate reticence is easy to admire.”-Ben Kenigsberg, TIME OUT CHICAGO
Don’t Miss The Cinema Eye Honors this Sunday at TheTimesCenter
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 association with Danielle DiGiacomo at IndiePix (who became a presenting sponsor), John Vanco and the IFC Center, and Stranger Than Fiction’s Thom Powers. Tickets are $75 for what promises to be an amazing evening, award presenters include Laurie Anderson, Albert Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker and Morgan Spurlock. The evening features music DJ’ed by Ion Furjanic and admission includes entry and free drinks and food at the after party, Arena. There is also reports that MAN ON WIRE’s Philippe Petit will be present.
Nominees for Outstanding Achievement in NonFiction Feature Filmmaking are: James Marsh’s MAN ON WIRE, Guy Maddin’s MY WINNIPEG, Margaret Brown’s THE ORDER OF MYTHS, Marina Zenovich’s ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, and Ari Folman’s WALTZ WITH BASHIR.
For more information or to purchase tickets visit: www.cinemaeyehonors.com
Monday March 9 - Josh Weinstien and Jacqueline Goss in person for FLAHERTY NYC
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 ONE ENGINE which has played at festivals across the world including IDFA, South by Southwest, and Full Frame. Both docs are centered on the theme of last year’s Seminar, The Age of Migration. A special post screening discussion will be moderated by fellow NYC filmmaker Scott Nyerges.
Showing Monday, March 9 at 7:30PM at Anthology Film Archives.
Feb. 23 - Profit Motive and The Whispering Wind with John Gianvito present at MoMA
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 chronicles America’s history of rebellion through grave sites and memorials of often forgotten past figures of protest. Screens as part of MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight.
ANOTHER SIDE OF A KING: FILMS AND LITERATURE OF WOODIE KING, JR. at Maysles Cinema
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 New York City where he would go on to found the New Federal Theater. You can read more about King’s life in this article by Jerry Tallmer from The Villager.
Another Side of a King: Films and Literature of Woodie King, Jr. will be showcasing several of King’s films including: Death of A Prophet (1981) (Feb. 11 and Feb. 18, 7:00 pm), a documentary about Malcolm X’s last 24 hours and featuring music by Max Roach; Segregating The Greatest Generation (2006) (Feb. 12, 7:00 pm), about black artists during World War II; The Long Night (1976) (Feb. 13, 7:00 pm), his first feature film; and The Torture of Mothers: The Case of the Harlem Six (1980) (Feb. 20, 7:00 pm) based on a true story that occurred in 1963.
Woodie King Jr. will also be at Maysles Cinema in person on Thursday, Feb. 19 at 7:00 pm for a reading and reception.
