Calendar
Film Saloon: Adaptation and Revisions
Aug 21, 2008
This evening we call attention to film artists who draw from the creative wellspring of those that have come before them. Cinema has a long history of making visual adaptations to novels, plays, comic books, operas, etc. But muses sometimes speak in tongues! Cinema is also strewn with controversial successes and failures as directors re-imagine their source material to challenge traditional fans and engage with new ones by turning familiar material on its ear.
Tonight, we sit down with some of Seattle's own filmmakers who have chosen to make work based in part or in full on someone else's previous work. Some filmmakers attempt to remain faithful to the original text and illustrate by supplying images to the text (or sounds) from the author. Others choose to reinterpret the source material to fit an alternative or more modern perspective of a well-traveled work. This panel discussion will feature a bevy of local film artists, showing clips of their work and discussing the topic, led by our inimitable moderator, Andy Spletzer. Come with your own opinions and decide for yourself if these artists are walking in the footsteps of greats or merely stomping on graves.
To the Limit
Aug 23 - Aug 28, 2008
Pepe Danquart, Germany/Austria, 2006, 35mm, 95 min
TO THE LIMIT is a visually breathtaking essay about daredevils hooked on the thrill of speed rock-climbing.
Medium Cool
Aug 22 - Aug 23, 2008
(Haskell Wexler, USA, 1969, 35mm, 110 min)
Talk about WILD IN THE STREETS! Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler (WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, BOUND FOR GLORY) produced, directed, wrote and shot this very cool, very radical end-of-the-60s artifact, a cinéma vérité-style drama set against — and actually filmed during — the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, where hippies, Yippies and other anti-Vietnam War protestors engaged police in bloody battle on the city streets. Robert Forster (JACKIE BROWN, MULHOLLAND DRIVE) plays a detached TV news cameraman who becomes conscious of the political and ethical ramifications of his work when the FBI begins using his footage to identity militants.
“One of the most devastating and technically sophisticated anti-establishment films ever made. Taking its title almost straight from mouth of media guru Marshall McLuhan…[MEDIUM COOL] film remains a landmark of political cinema and an insightful essay on the ‘cool medium.'” -James Monaco, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM
Summer '68
Aug 23 - Aug 24, 2008
(Norman Fruchter and John Douglas, 1969, BETA, 60 min)
Fruchter and Douglas craft a compelling document of the events leading up to the volatile 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Focusing specifically on the growth of the radical movement in the U.S., the film presents the struggle for students and activists to find a proper medium for their message.
SUMMER of '68 will screen with a variety of television political announcements, commercials, and news reports from '68, which will help illuminate sentiments present in mass media and American culture at large.
Spirited Away
Sponsored by Izilla Toys
Aug 25 - Aug 26, 2008
SPIRITED AWAY, winner of a variety of international awards including an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, is Hayao Miyazaki's best-known work.
Cartune Xprez: 2008 AMRCAN FALL tour
Sponsored by THE LAWRIMORE PROJECT AND PLEXI PIXEL
Aug 29, 2008
Multimedia dance duo Hooliganship (Peter Burr and Christopher Doulgeris) present the freshest incarnation of Cartune Xprez, a 70-minute animation party that celebrates the wilderness of imagination through motion pictures. Featured artists include Bruce Bickford, Shana Moulton, Takeshi Murata, Paper Rad and others. Included in this cartoon theater will be their most recent piece entitled "Realer" in which audiences don 3D glasses and bear witness to a televised parade gone awry. This program provides a rare opportunity to see videos by emerging and internationally known artists. Collectively, their resumes include collaborations with Frank Zappa and major exhibitions at the Whitney Biennial, the MOMA in New York, the Sundance Film Festival and many other institutions throughout the world.
Constantine’s Sword
Aug 29 - Sep 04, 2008
Constantine's Sword begins in Colorado Springs, where anti-Semitism and Evangelical endorsements are running rampant at the U.S. Air Force Academy. James Carroll, a former Catholic priest with an Air Force upbringing, dives head-on into the dark past of Catholicism and how its roots have come to flourish in the modern era. Focusing on Christian anti-semitism and the more recent violence against Muslims, Carroll traces how traditional Christian heroes marginalized a vibrant people, and makes the history of anti-Semitism painfully clear and accessible. In doing so, he artfully integrates his own personal story of religion and activism. The film offers a harrowing look into U.S. foreign policy, past and present, and the role that religious fanaticism has played.
"Constantine's Sword speaks provocatively to history and our moment." - Ty Burr, Boston Globe
Network
Sponsored by KBCS 91.3 FM
Aug 30 - Sep 04, 2008
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
La France
Sep 05 - Sep 11, 2008
One of the most genuinely peculiar movies to emerge in many a moon, La France is a bizarre but beautiful brew, equal parts gender-bending drama, war-film, romantic odyssey, and anachronistic folk-musical. Determined to find her husband who has vanished into the storm of WWI, Camille (Sylvie Testud) disguises herself as a man and sets off into the countryside, where she soon falls in with a band of wandering soldiers who are burdened with a secret of their own. Eschewing realism for an allegorical, fable-like tone, La France is note-perfect, a soulful, mysterious, and poetic voyage through a landscape that is both war-torn and enchanted. Like the songs that punctuate the narrative, La France is melancholy, strange and lovely.
"Without ever surrendering its deadpan naturalism, La France becomes increasingly poetic: The seasons change, the landscape grows barren, and the stars in the sky take their names from the dead men below." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice
The Dead Science: Leviathan Blood
Sep 05, 2008
Part of The Dead Science's "Villainaire Festival of Culture," this program will contain both new and archival film showcasing the work of local band The Dead Science and its adjunct performance company The Villainaires Academy. The evening's core will be a full-length film culled from the harrowing documentation of the V.A.'s last piece, "Greasy Demon Heat Balboa," a mythically remembered performance that was staged in the winter of 2006. Taking inspiration from the Marx Bros., Rocky Balboa, and Julianna Wetmore of Born Without A Face fame, "GDHB" is a dreadful and hilarious whale of a work. This evening will also feature a few short pieces, including fresh-out-the-kitchen music videos and other artistic jetsam.
This event is Night 5 of the Villainaire Festival of Culture.
The Immortal Woman
Sep 06 - Sep 07, 2008
Robbe-Grillet's first solo directorial feature, scripted before Last Year at Marienbad, The Immortal Woman was only completed in 1962. Winner of the Prix Louis Delluc, this enigmatic film tells the story of N., who falls in love with the elusive stranger Leila in Istanbul. She disappears mysteriously and he is determined he will find her again. Robbe-Grillet plays out this dance of desire, illusion, and death in Byzantium, repeating sequences in altered form to emphasize the unreliability of fact, the elusiveness of the past. The eerie, evocative soundtrack includes unnerving music by Georges Delerue.
Trans–Europe–Express
Sep 06, 2008
(Alain Robbe–Grillet, France, 1966, 35mm, 95 min)
My Left Hand
Sep 08, 2008
What do you do when you’re 31-years old, married with two young children and facing cancer, the loss of your left hand, and possibly your life? If you're Seattle native Joshua Isaac, you get a camera and make MY LEFT HAND - a thought-provoking and ultimately triumphant film.
Following the film will be a panel discussion and dessert reception.
Cost: $5/advance; $8/at door. Scholarships available.
For more information on this event, contact Marjorie Schnyder at 206-861-3146 or [email protected] To learn more about this award-winning film, go to http://mylefthand-themovie.com.
Soul Nite!
Sponsored by CAFÉ RACER
Sep 11, 2008
Momma's Man
Sep 12 - Sep 22, 2008
(Azazel Jacobs, USA, 2008, 35mm, 94 min)
The latest work from writer/director Azazel Jacob, son of avante garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs, Momma’s Man strikes a chord with anyone who’s ever been anxious about returning to the family nest after years away from home. But what if, once you returned home, you didn’t want to leave?
The Man Who Lies
Sep 13 - Sep 14, 2008
(Alain Robbe–Grillet, France, 1968, 35mm, 116 min)
Is the man lying or not? With Robbe–Grillet, it is impossible to tell, and probably beside the point. Boris Varissa, the Kafkaesque protagonist played by Jean–Louis Trintingant, arrives in a small town that is in mourning for a local resistance hero, Jean Robin, who disappeared before the end of the war and is presumed dead. No one recognizes Boris, though he claims to have been Jean’s assistant and savior. Boris adjusts his tales of his relationship with the fallen hero to the listener, and his stories increasingly take on the quality of myth. Of course, Robbe–Grillet devotes plenty of time to the erotic—Boris enjoys the sexual pleasures of several women during their time of mourning, and watches a lesbian affair between maid and sister –and ends all narrative certainty with a time–tried device that might leave you agog. The Man Who Lies was written for Trintingant, who won the Best Actor award at the Berlin film festival, where the film also won the award for Best Screenplay.
Eden and After
Sep 13 - Sep 14, 2008
(Alain Robbe–Grillet, France, 1971, 35mm, 121 min)
This was Robbe–Grillet’s first excursion into color, shot in Tunisia and Czechoslovakia. While part of an actor’s group, Catherine tries some ’fear powder’ offered to her by mysterious stranger Duche–min. He vanishes and she sets off for North Africa to find him, living for real the hallucinations she had witnessed earlier. Says Robbe–Grillet, “This is a film about colors. About the blue and white of the landscape, and about the red that would come to stain it cruelly.”
Northwest Forum Annual Meeting
Sep 15, 2008
More information and agenda here
Audition aka Competition
Sep 16 - Sep 17, 2008
(Miloš Forman, Czechoslovakia, 1963, 35mm, 77 min)
New 35mm print!
Forman’s rarely screened early film is composed of two short films: Audition and If There Were No Music. The former is about Czech provincial life and amateur music–making and is considered one of the films that launched the Czech New Wave. The second is a faux documentary of several talent auditions, providing a snapshot of Czech life in the Bohemian 1960s. The pair are set to a stirring soundtrack of Czech pop, folk, and classical music.
Black Peter
Sep 16 - Sep 17, 2008
(Miloš Forman, Czechoslovakia, 1964, 35mm, 85 min)
New 35mm print!
Miloš Forman’s first fully fictional feature is a funny, astutely observed, affectionate comedy about a disenchanted 1960s Czech teenager. Peter works as a trainee supermarket detective, clashes with his conservative father, and pines for the local tomboy. Forman employed non–professional actors, improvisation, and real locations to breathe new life into Czech cinema, and this charming, anti–authoritarian movie won the Czechoslovak Film Critics’ prize.
Doxita
Sep 18, 2008
Doxita is a traveling festival of documentary films that are under 40 minutes in length. The program, comprised of approximately two hours of film, represents a wide variety of documentary designed to profile the great content and artistic vision that non–fiction short films provide, but that people don’t often get a chance to see. The festival includes Martin Thomas (A film about one´s man´s painful journey to stop his stammer, UK/Wales, by Dylan Wyn Thomas, 31 minutes); The Guarantee (A tale told through animated drawings of one man´s consideration of plastic surgery to help his ballet career, USA, by Jesse Epstein, 10 minutes); Cross Your Eyes, Keep Them Wide (An invitation into a special workspace for artists with development disabilities; USA, by Ben Wu, 23 minutes); El Cerco (A breathtaking look at tuna fishing in the Mediterranean, Spain, by Ricardo Iscar/Nacho Martin, 12 minutes); and Vángelo Monzón (An inside look at a man who has been making bricks in Argentina since he was a boy, Sweden, by Andréas Lennartsson, 8 minutes), among others.
The Universe of Keith Haring
Sponsored by THE HIDEOUT BAR and HENRY ART GALLERY
Sep 19 - Sep 25, 2008
(Christina Clausen, USA, 2007, digiBETA, 90 min)
The creator of some of the most popular and enduring images of late 20th Century art, Keith Haring was also an iconic figure of the downtown New York scene in the ’80s. Christina Clausen’s documentary offers an affectionate, deeply personal glimpse into Haring’s life.