Calendar
Gerhard Richter Painting
Seattle Premiere! Extended until April 15!
Mar 23 - Apr 15, 2012
(Corinna Belz, 2011, Germany, 97 min)
Gerhard Richter, one of the most significant contemporary artists of our times, granted filmmaker Corinna Belz access to his studio in the spring and summer of 2009 as he worked on a series of large abstract paintings.Gerhard Richter Painting offers rare insights into the artist’s process with a quiet, fly-on-the-wall perspective. The paintings themselves become the protagonists. Gerhard Richter Painting is the penetrating portrait of an artist at work—and a fascinating film about the art of seeing.
The Christening
Seattle Premiere!
Sponsored by TheSunBreak.com
Mar 30 - Apr 05, 2012
(Marcin Wrona, 2010, Poland, 35mm, 86 min)
Fans of Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Bronson, Pusher Trilogy) will delight in Marcin Wrona’s sophomore feature The Christening. The film is loosely based on the real story of a man from the Polish provinces who, after operating as a criminal in his hometown, finds himself in Warsaw. He hopes to change his luck and to escape from the criminal past he left behind. Unfortunately, there is a mafia sentence against him.
Kati with an I
Seattle Premiere!
Mar 30 - Apr 05, 2012
(Robert Greene, 2010, USA, DigiBeta, 86 min)
For his first documentary feature, Robert Greene shares with us an intimate portrait of his half-sister Kati. Incorporating a lifetime of home movies, recorded phone conversations and the lushly textured cinematography of Sean Price Williams, Greene focuses on the moment in Kati’s life which, for many of us, is a familiar dividing line between childhood and the adult world: graduation from high school and the decisions that follow. Greene skillfully takes us from episodes of girlish frivolity to the times that can feel like the end of the world, through to those moments when every hope seems possible and every possibility is a promise. A worthy addition to the documentary genre of intimate portraits of ordinary people, like Stevie and Billy the Kid.
Occultural Film Series: Magick in Cinema w/Brian Butler
Co-presented by the Esoteric Book Conference
Apr 05, 2012
(Various directors, USA, Various formats, 1hr 40 min total program time)
Artist, writer and filmmaker Brian Butler presents a program that explores the occult as depicted in avant garde and experimental film. Magick has been defined by Aleister Crowley as "the science and art of causing change to occur inconformity with the will." The short film is a perfect medium for modern occult ritual—utilizing sound light and color to alter the consciousness of the viewer. This program includes pioneers in the field of occult film as well as newer works by Brian Butler.
Framing Pictures
Free!
Jan 13 - Jun 15, 2012
Join us for a monthly discussion with three longtime Seattle film critics (and occasional guest commentators) who have much to say on the subject of cinephilia past, present and future. The conversation includes former Film Comment editor Richard Jameson, Everett Herald/KUOW critic Robert Horton and MSN.com critic Kathleen Murphy.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Seattle premiere!
Apr 06 - Apr 12, 2012
(Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011, Turkey, Blu-ray, 150 min)
The plot of this co-winner of the 2011 Cannes Grand Prix is simple: a group of men search for a corpse. But the story is not so straightforward. Set against the haunted and monotonous landscape of the Anatolian steppe, the task of finding the body is cloaked in lies, mystery and a growing unease. The film dips into both the road movie and police genres, but the investigation within the film is purely figurative, unearthing questions of human existence.
Laura
New 35mm Print! Sponsored by TheSunBreak.com
Apr 06 - Apr 12, 2012
(Otto Preminger, 1944, USA, 35mm, 88 min)
Otto Preminger’s first acknowledged feature (he disavows everything that came before) is a masterpiece of American movies. Though it shares many of the standard trappings of film noir, Laura transcends the genre on almost every level. The tightly structured, relentless narrative style that would mark most of Preminger’s future work was less common in other noirs, where simplicity was the norm. Don’t miss a rare opportunity to see this great American classic on the big screen.
"One of the great examples of film noir (and a great film, period)...if you haven't seen this film, do yourself a favor and go get caught up in its spell." -The Seattle Times
This is Not a Film
Seattle Premiere!
Apr 13 - Apr 19, 2012
(Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Jafar Panahi, 2010, Iran, Blu-ray, 75 min)
Smuggled out of Iran on a USB drive hidden inside a cake, This is Not a Film protests its nature for good reason. At the onset of the project, filmmaker Jafar Panahi is faced with a six-year jail sentence and a twenty-year ban from filmmaking. Calling on friend and fellow filmmaker Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Panahi suggests that reading a script on camera would not count as "making a film." Eventually abandoning this project, the film shifts to capture Panahi’s house arrest, his calls to his lawyer and the slow deliberate steps of his pet iguana.
The Great Northwest
Director in Attendance Friday!
Apr 13 - Apr 19, 2012
(Matt McCormick, USA 2012, HD, 70min)
The Great Northwest is an experimental documentary that is based on the re-creation of a 3,200 mile road-trip made in 1958 by four Seattle women who thoroughly documented their journey in an elaborate scrapbook of photos, postcards, and brochures. Fifty years later, Portland artist and filmmaker Matt McCormick found that scrapbook in a thrift store, and in 2010 set out on the road, following their route as precisely as possible and searching out every stop in which the ladies had documented. Patiently shot with an observational and voyeuristic approach, The Great Northwest is a lyrical time-capsule that explores how the landscape and road-side culture of the Pacific Northwest has changed over the past 50 years.
MUSIC-CRAFT featuring FRANK ZAPPA, TALKING HEADS AND THE KINKS
Sponsored by Easy Street Records
Apr 13, 2012
A 60-minute program of Frank Zappa in Stockholm in 1973, Talking Heads in Rome 1980 and The Kinks on BBC 1972 and on Rockpalast 1982. Witness the Talking Heads from one of their most definitive tours – Remain in Light. This film was recently re-broadcast on Italian TV and is likely the best unofficial Talking Heads film anywhere. Professionally filmed. Then, behold Frank Zappa and the Mothers live in Stockholm in the freezing Scandinavian weather! This concert was televised as part of a Swedish series of concert broadcasts embarrassingly titled Oppåpoppa ("Get Up And Pop!"). The picture and sound are second-to-none. Finally, the ever-clever, cheeky Kinks make their debut in this classic 1972 BBC TV performance in London. A rare and intimate hour spent in the glory days!
On The Grind + Emerald Concrete
Directors in attendance!
Apr 17, 2012
(James Cheeks III/Various)
Visions in Motion: A Memorial Retrospective, 1954-2000
Co-presented by The Sprocket Society
Apr 18, 2012
(Robert Breer, Various years, 16mm, 96 min)
The son of an inventor, Robert Breer (Sept. 30, 1926–Aug. 13, 2011) studied engineering at Stanford but soon devoted his life to the visual arts. As a painter, sculptor and pioneering experimental filmmaker, he achieved international acclaim as one of the finest of his generation. His film techniques combined line animation, stop-motion, rotoscoping, home movies and single-frame editing, often with audio collage. This special program features 16 of Breer’s short films, spanning his entire career and including award-winning and rarely-shown gems like A Miracle (1954), Jamestown Baloos (1957), Fuji (1973), Rubber Cement (1975), Bang! (1986) and ATOZ (2000).
The Turin Horse
Seattle Premiere!
Apr 20 - Apr 26, 2012
(Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky, 2011, Hungary, France, Germany, Switzerland, 35mm, 146 min)
Megacities
Director in attendance!
Apr 24, 2012
(Michael Glawogger, Austria, 1998, 35mm, 90 min)
To journey the streets of New York, Mumbai, Moscow, and Mexico City—the “megacities” that Michael Glawogger surveys in his documentary—is to stumble upon a new world on every block and yet see many of the same things again and again, as if in a dream. What began, according to Glawogger, as a “confusing pile of images”—kids to hustlers to targets to passengers to prostitutes—the Austrian director has carefully assembled into an adventure whose form is as dangerous as the cities that it documents. Though he avoids processing and retouching shots on principle, Glawogger stages scenes with real-life subjects that could never be captured otherwise, making his film neither a fictionalization nor the impartial observation of a bystander.
Workingman's Death
Director in attendance!
Apr 25, 2012
(Michael Glawogger, Austria, 2005, 35mm, 122 min)
In his tradition of making documentaries that enthrall the senses while they wrestle the mind, Michael Glawogger turns the spotlight on hard labor across the globe today—occupations so grueling that even remembering their existence comes as a shock—stitching them together with Wolfgang Thaler’s unforgettable cinematography. From the tearing apart of oil tankers in Pakistan to the illegal mining of coal in Ukraine, Glawogger frames each staggering scene like a photograph: this is a documentary, not a horror film, and captures the best along with the worst of “real life.” In 2005, this collage of terrors and triumphs stunned audiences around the world, and was named Best Documentary at the German Film Awards, the Yerevan Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival.
Fata Morgana
Apr 26, 2012
(Werner Herzog, Germany, 1971, digiBeta, 79 min)
The great Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger, in Seattle to screen his Globalization Trilogy at the Film Forum, walks audiences through one of Werner Herzog's finest films in this special event. Join us for a conversation with the artist as he discusses how Herzog's Fata Morgana has inspired his work. Happy hour with Glawogger starts at 5pm in the Film Forum's lobby!
Whores' Glory
Apr 27 - May 03, 2012
(Michael Glawogger, Austria, 2011, 35mm/Digital, 110 min)
In 2011, Michael Glawogger completed his trilogy of Globalization Documentaries. The third installment zeroes in on prostitution on three fronts—religion, state, and language—in countries where each variable is different. In the City of Joy in Bangladesh, prostitutes see their services as the only thing keeping men from attacking women in the streets. Sex workers in Thailand hope to supplement their work—viewed as just another industry—with second jobs. And in a city tellingly close to the U.S. border, where the film finally crosses the innermost threshold of the sex industry, Mexican women form a cult around a merciful goddess of death. But anyone who has seen Megacities or Workingman’s Death will recognize the “signature” of Glawogger’s documentary camera: as it invades, it transforms, and startles the audience with scenes of surprising beauty.
Jean Gentil
Directors in attendance Fri-Sun!
Apr 27 - May 03, 2012
(Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, Mexico/Dominican Republic, 2010, 35mm, 84 min)
Right before Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, husband and wife Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán traveled to the island to shoot Jean Gentil, whose gentleman hero, Jean Remy, loses his job teaching French and must scramble for work in Santo Domingo. The wonder of Jean Gentil is its ability to follow Jean’s every hardship, as well as to stand in the shadow of the earthquake that would strike during production, and yet, in focusing so closely on one man’s actions and reactions, to rise above the grimness of its circumstance.
Cochochi
Directors in Attendance!
Apr 28, 2012
(Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, 2007, Mexico, 35mm, 87 min)
Ocaso
Directors in Attendance!
Apr 29, 2012
(Theo Court, Chile/Dominican Republic, 2010, 35mm, 80 min)
In Spanish, “ocaso” means “decline,” as in the setting of the sun, and a superior title could not be found for Theo Court’s portrait of an old caretaker on an even older Chilean estate. As he goes about the duties that he has performed—and others have carried out before him—for centuries, a crew of men and machines emerge to begin renovation on the house. The classic story of the worker who finds himself irrelevant is itself made relevant again, not only by Court’s stoic storytelling, but by cinematographer Mauro Herce’s shots, rich in their length, alive in their attention to light and darkness.
Les Anges du Peche
New 35mm Print!
May 01, 2012
(Robert Bresson, 1943, France, 35mm, 121 min)
Bresson’s first feature film was unavailable for many years on revival circuits or video, and is the only Bresson film released during the German occupation of France.