Anthology Film Archives

DOCUMENTARY SERIES
About Endings.
Michael Harkins FINAL MOMENTS WITH OLD PAINT (2011, 3 minutes, video)
Madeline Youngberg LAST SEASON (2007, 9 minutes, video)
Germano Cecere O PUORCO (2009, 16 minutes, video)
Christoph Faulhaber PALAU BLUE SKY (2011, 13 minutes, video)
Orrin Luc EMINENT DOMAIN (2011, 17 minutes, video)

FIRST SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Rio Puertollano BROKEN WINGS (2011, 4 minutes, video)
Ryan O’Leary BRUCE’S GARDEN (2011, 8 minutes, 16mm)
Kyle Thrash WE’RE NOT WAVING, WE’RE DROWNING (2011, 13 minutes, video)
Nick De Ruve DR. THOMPSON (2010, 22 minutes, video)

SECOND SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Bill Schaumberg BURNT TOAST (2011, 8 minutes, video)
Germano Cecere TIME LAPSE (2010, 11 minutes, video)
Eri Yokoyama STILL (2011, 15 minutes, video)
Moema Umann BEFORE BREAKFAST (2011, 19 minutes, video)
Erik Peterson CAFÉ CON LECHE (2011, 22 minutes, 35mm)

FILM OF THE MONTH SCREENING
The most popular NewFilmmakers Online Film during March 2011.
Maryanne Galvin
INTERROGATE THIS: PSYCHOLOGISTS TAKE ON TERROR
2011, 90 minutes, video.
Presents a troubling and deeply human story illustrating the complexities encountered when national security, psychology, politics, ethics, and morality collide.

Wednesday, January 4, Documentaries at 6:00, First Short Film Program at 7:15, Second Short Film Program at 8:15, Film of the Month at 9:45.

JAMES FOTOPOULOS IN WONDERLAND
Astoundingly prolific and ceaselessly inventive, James Fotopoulos has been a luminary of the underground film scene for almost twenty years now. A mainstay of the former NY Underground Film Festival, his work is evoked annually during Migrating Forms, the multimedia festival that grew out of the NYUFF, which takes its name from one of Fotopoulos’s best-known films. But it’s been too long since Anthology has featured his work. In tandem with an exhibition at Bushwick’s Microscope Gallery, we are pleased to present four recent works, three of them world premieres.
These screenings are presented in conjunction with an exhibition devoted to Fotopoulos’s work at Microscope Gallery in Bushwick, opening on Saturday, January 7. For more info, please visit: www.microscopegallery.com.

WORLD PREMIERE!
“Thousands of years into the future, through the eyes of an alien life-form, we see the fossilized beings of Ronald Reagan and William Casey enact their relationship as if in a crude ancient play. CHIMERA was originally intended to be part of a trilogy about Western Civilization, including NAUTILUS, a sprawling ooze-like pre-history currently being made as a book, and RICHARD NIXON, a heavily-researched epic of aesthetic exhaustion (currently in production).” –J.F.

Script by Carl Meyer based on the story “A Trip to Tilsit” by Herman Sudermann. Photographed by Charles Rosher and Karl Strauss. With George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor.
Murnau’s first American film is an allegory set in no particular time or place, about a man who is temporarily overruled by his passions, inflamed by the power of evil as personified by the city woman, and who finally returns to his senses and the orderly family life of the country. It is a virtuoso exercise representing the expressiveness of the silent film as it neared its end.

JAMES FOTOPOULOS IN WONDERLAND
Astoundingly prolific and ceaselessly inventive, James Fotopoulos has been a luminary of the underground film scene for almost twenty years now. A mainstay of the former NY Underground Film Festival, his work is evoked annually during Migrating Forms, the multimedia festival that grew out of the NYUFF, which takes its name from one of Fotopoulos’s best-known films. But it’s been too long since Anthology has featured his work. In tandem with an exhibition at Bushwick’s Microscope Gallery, we are pleased to present four recent works, three of them world premieres.
These screenings are presented in conjunction with an exhibition devoted to Fotopoulos’s work at Microscope Gallery in Bushwick, opening on Saturday, January 7. For more info, please visit: www.microscopegallery.com.

WORLD PREMIERE!
UNTITLED (THANKS. GET IN…)
2008, 58 minutes, video. Written by Raymond Pettibon.
A dashing leading man of the forties picks up a stag model hitchhiker on the Boulevard one night in West Hollywood during the 1960s. As they remain stuck in traffic, the young model recognizes the star, asks advice, and triggers a psychedelic discourse on acting for the camera and the metaphysics of fame on the big screen.
&
WORLD PREMIERE!
THICK COMB2011
28 minutes, video.
“For two decades the image of the ‘thick comb’, a fleshy mass with protruding stalks, stayed with me. Written in 1993, THICK COMB was my earliest unrealized script, about a criminal porn producer hunting down the world’s greatest lover for thieving an adult film’s production budget. A couple years ago I resurrected the piece and rewrote it with the protagonist confessing to his lover my other incomplete film scenarios from the 1990s.” –J.F.

(UMARETE WA MITA KEREDO…)

In referring to this film Ozu stated, “I started to make a film about grownups. While I had originally planned to make a fairly bright little story, it changed while I was working on it and came out very dark.” The story concerns a very average suburban office worker, with a wife and two very un-average sons, who is unable to stand up to his boss.
“Joyful…as true and as moving and as timely today as it was in 1932.” –Jonas Mekas

JAMES FOTOPOULOS IN WONDERLAND
Astoundingly prolific and ceaselessly inventive, James Fotopoulos has been a luminary of the underground film scene for almost twenty years now. A mainstay of the former NY Underground Film Festival, his work is evoked annually during Migrating Forms, the multimedia festival that grew out of the NYUFF, which takes its name from one of Fotopoulos’s best-known films. But it’s been too long since Anthology has featured his work. In tandem with an exhibition at Bushwick’s Microscope Gallery, we are pleased to present four recent works, three of them world premieres.
These screenings are presented in conjunction with an exhibition devoted to Fotopoulos’s work at Microscope Gallery in Bushwick, opening on Saturday, January 7. For more info, please visit: www.microscopegallery.com.

An adaptation of the 1886 musical ALICE IN WONDERLAND: A DREAM PLAY FOR CHILDREN, by Henry Saville Clark and Walter Slaughter, Fotopoulos’s feature-length film propels the Clark/Slaughter score into the 21st century digital age, using sculptures, drawings, text, and original music to explore the late-19th century’s evolution of painting, literature, and theater into early photography and moving pictures.
“At the center of the proceedings is a medium close-up of a very beautiful young woman who appears in two guises. … Although her face almost never changes its expression, it seems very much alive, thanks to the talent of the actress and Fotopoulos’s filmmaking. One fully believes that the drawings (most of them charcoal-shaded outlines on a coral ground), which cross-fade seemingly in front of her face and behind her head, are projected from her psyche.” –Amy Taubin, ARTFORUM

(LA RÈGLE DU JEU)
“Detested when it first appeared (for satirizing the French ruling class on the brink of the Second World War), almost destroyed by brutal cutting, restored in 1959 to virtually its original form, THE RULES OF THE GAME is now universally acknowledged as a masterpiece and perhaps Renoir’s supreme achievement. In the four international critics’ polls organized every ten years (since 1952) by SIGHT AND SOUND, only two films have been constant: one is BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, and the other is THE RULES OF THE GAME. And in the 1982 poll, THE RULES OF THE GAME had climbed to second place. Its extreme complexity (it seems, after more than 20 viewings, one of the cinema’s few truly inexhaustible films) makes it peculiarly difficult to write about briefly.” –Robin Wood.

Script by Carl Meyer based on the story “A Trip to Tilsit” by Herman Sudermann. Photographed by Charles Rosher and Karl Strauss. With George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor.
Murnau’s first American film is an allegory set in no particular time or place, about a man who is temporarily overruled by his passions, inflamed by the power of evil as personified by the city woman, and who finally returns to his senses and the orderly family life of the country. It is a virtuoso exercise representing the expressiveness of the silent film as it neared its end.

OCCUPY WALL STREET AT AFA!
In support of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Anthology presents these programs featuring politically-committed, protest-themed work by filmmakers Ken Jacobs, Peter Whitehead, Travis Wilkerson, and others. Co-organized by Occupy Cinema, the weekend will combine completed works with footage shot at OWS protests throughout the world.

For more radical political filmmaking, check out the extensive INTERNATIONALIST CINEMA FOR TODAY series, coming up in March.

Special thanks to Ken Jacobs, Peter Whitehead, Nicole Brenez, Nora Connor, Nell Constantinople, Jon Dieringer, Bradley Eros, David Phelps, Shelly Silver, Feliz Solomon, Troy Swain, Pam Tietze, and Romas Zabarauskas.

This program features several new and recent videos by avant-garde master Ken Jacobs, a filmmaker who has long distinguished himself by combining challenging perceptual experimentation with impassioned political protest. A fervent supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement from day one, Jacobs has been enthusiastically filming the protests, and offering his work in support of the cause. This program, which includes his extraordinary new video work, SEEKING THE MONKEY KING (whose mind-blowing Dolby 5.1 soundtrack will triumphantly show off Anthology’s newly upgraded Courthouse Theater sound system), duplicates one that was presented at Zuccotti Park just over 24 hours before the NYPD raided and cleared the encampment.

THE PUSHCARTS LEAVE ETERNITY STREET (2011, 15 minutes, digital video. Assisted by Nisi Jacobs; music by David Moss.)
Excerpts from OCCUPY WALL STREET, THE 99% JOIN IN (2011)
“I videotaped in 3D the Zuccotti site and then this unending and unreported march of 50,000 to a 100,000 people coming down Broadway to join the protesters.” –K.J.
CAPITALISM: SLAVERY (2006, 3 minutes, digital video, silent. Assisted by Eric Nelson.)
CAPITALISM: CHILD LABOR (2006, 14 minutes, digital video. Assisted by Eric Nelson; music by Rick Reed.)
ANOTHER OCCUPATION (2011, 15 minutes, digital video. Assisted by Nisi Jacobs, music by Rick Reed.)
SEEKING THE MONKEY KING
2011, 40 minutes, digital video. Music by JG Thirlwell; assistants: Jason Drakeford and Nisi Jacobs.
“The film could have well been called KICKING AND SCREAMING but that only describes me in the process of making it, questioning its taste. Once the message kicked in it overrode all objection. … [It] is a reversion to my mid-twenties and that sense of horror that drove the making of STAR SPANGLED TO DEATH.” –K.J.
Total running time: ca. 100 minutes.

(FRANCESCO, GIULIARE DI DIO)
Francesco (St. Francis of Assisi) comes back to Santa Maria degli Angeli from Rome, journeying with his friars through the rain. When they are driven out of a hut, he begs the brothers’ forgiveness for abusing their obedience. While the monks are finishing the chapel, Brother Ginepro arrives naked again and confesses that the previous night he was tempted by the Devil. Later, he cuts the foot off a pig to feed a sick brother. That evening, Francesco meets a leper and kisses him. Brother Ginepro receives Francesco’s permission to preach and arrives at the camp of Nicolaio, the tyrant of Viterbo, whose cruelty he overcomes with his perfect humility. Francesco teaches Brother Leone that bearing injuries and blows is an example of perfect joy. Francesco sends his brothers out to preach far and wide.

OCCUPY WALL STREET AT AFA!

In support of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Anthology presents these programs featuring politically-committed, protest-themed work by filmmakers Ken Jacobs, Peter Whitehead, Travis Wilkerson, and others. Co-organized by Occupy Cinema, the weekend will combine completed works with footage shot at OWS protests throughout the world.

For more radical political filmmaking, check out the extensive INTERNATIONALIST CINEMA FOR TODAY series, coming up in March.

Special thanks to Ken Jacobs, Peter Whitehead, Nicole Brenez, Nora Connor, Nell Constantinople, Jon Dieringer, Bradley Eros, David Phelps, Shelly Silver, Feliz Solomon, Troy Swain, Pam Tietze, and Romas Zabarauskas.

OCCUPY CINEMA PRESENTS: NEWS FROM THE NIGHT

Travis Wilkerson
AN INJURY TO ONE
2002, 53 minutes, video.
Charting the rise and fall of Butte, Montana, and focusing on the mysterious death of Wobbly organizer Frank Little, this experimental documentary by Travis Wilkerson (who has been closely involved in OWS Los Angeles) chronicles a particularly volatile moment in early-20th-century American labor history.
“One of American independent cinema’s great achievements of the past decade.” –Dennis Lim, LOS ANGELES TIMES

Preceded by:
A COLLECTION OF YOUTUBE CLIPS AND OTHER FOOTAGE OF OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTESTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Out of the cultural wasteland of cute-baby and dancing-cat videos come these unseen, uncensored, eyewitness accounts of direct democracy, shot by the world, curated by Occupy Cinema.
Members of Occupy Cinema will be here in person to present the program!

(UMARETE WA MITA KEREDO…)

In referring to this film Ozu stated, “I started to make a film about grownups. While I had originally planned to make a fairly bright little story, it changed while I was working on it and came out very dark.” The story concerns a very average suburban office worker, with a wife and two very un-average sons, who is unable to stand up to his boss.
“Joyful…as true and as moving and as timely today as it was in 1932.” –Jonas Mekas

(FRANCESCO, GIULIARE DI DIO)
Francesco (St. Francis of Assisi) comes back to Santa Maria degli Angeli from Rome, journeying with his friars through the rain. When they are driven out of a hut, he begs the brothers’ forgiveness for abusing their obedience. While the monks are finishing the chapel, Brother Ginepro arrives naked again and confesses that the previous night he was tempted by the Devil. Later, he cuts the foot off a pig to feed a sick brother. That evening, Francesco meets a leper and kisses him. Brother Ginepro receives Francesco’s permission to preach and arrives at the camp of Nicolaio, the tyrant of Viterbo, whose cruelty he overcomes with his perfect humility. Francesco teaches Brother Leone that bearing injuries and blows is an example of perfect joy. Francesco sends his brothers out to preach far and wide.

(LA RÈGLE DU JEU)
“Detested when it first appeared (for satirizing the French ruling class on the brink of the Second World War), almost destroyed by brutal cutting, restored in 1959 to virtually its original form, THE RULES OF THE GAME is now universally acknowledged as a masterpiece and perhaps Renoir’s supreme achievement. In the four international critics’ polls organized every ten years (since 1952) by SIGHT AND SOUND, only two films have been constant: one is BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, and the other is THE RULES OF THE GAME. And in the 1982 poll, THE RULES OF THE GAME had climbed to second place. Its extreme complexity (it seems, after more than 20 viewings, one of the cinema’s few truly inexhaustible films) makes it peculiarly difficult to write about briefly.” –Robin Wood.

OCCUPY WALL STREET AT AFA!

In support of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Anthology presents these programs featuring politically-committed, protest-themed work by filmmakers Ken Jacobs, Peter Whitehead, Travis Wilkerson, and others. Co-organized by Occupy Cinema, the weekend will combine completed works with footage shot at OWS protests throughout the world.

For more radical political filmmaking, check out the extensive INTERNATIONALIST CINEMA FOR TODAY series, coming up in March.

Special thanks to Ken Jacobs, Peter Whitehead, Nicole Brenez, Nora Connor, Nell Constantinople, Jon Dieringer, Bradley Eros, David Phelps, Shelly Silver, Feliz Solomon, Troy Swain, Pam Tietze, and Romas Zabarauskas.

Peter Whitehead
THE FALL
1969, 120 minutes, 16mm-to-video
An extraordinary piece of filmmaking, and an extremely personal statement on violence, revolution, and the turbulence within late-60s America, THE FALL culminates with unforgettable footage of the 1968 student occupation of Columbia University.

Filmed entirely in and around NY between October 1967 and June 1968, the film features Robert Kennedy, The Bread and Puppet Theater, Paul Auster (as a fresh-faced Columbia student), Tom Hayden, Mark Rudd, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Arthur Miller, Robert Lowell, Robert Rauschenberg, and The Deconstructivists.

“In the final movement, Whitehead puts on his red shades and moves in with the Columbia students barricaded in Low Library. There’s fresh material here of free-form Motown dancing and the preparations for police assault, which, when it comes, has the chaos of combat photography.” –J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

Peter Whitehead wishes to offer this screening to the Occupying people of NYC.

Script by Carl Meyer based on the story “A Trip to Tilsit” by Herman Sudermann. Photographed by Charles Rosher and Karl Strauss. With George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor.
Murnau’s first American film is an allegory set in no particular time or place, about a man who is temporarily overruled by his passions, inflamed by the power of evil as personified by the city woman, and who finally returns to his senses and the orderly family life of the country. It is a virtuoso exercise representing the expressiveness of the silent film as it neared its end.

NEWFILMMAKERS VISITS BOSTON AND SOME OTHER PLACES ALONG THE WAY

DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Mike Holland BOSTON BUSKER (2011, 6 minutes, video)
&
Jeff Schwartz GIVE ME A SHOT OF ANYTHING
2011, 81 minutes, video.

SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Silvana Jakich GREEN CLOGS (2011, 9 minutes, video)
Graham Winfrey WINGMEN (2011, 15 minutes, video)
Saori Yamamoto BEHIND THE HOLE (2011, 17 minutes, video)
Robert Freedman III 24 HOURS (2011, 18 minutes, video)

FIRST FEATURE PRESENTATION
Edward Mensore
THE DEPOSITION
2011, 85 minutes, video.
When a man accidentally causes a car wreck that kills his former lover, his life is derailed and his mind is splintered with guilt and uncertainty about what exactly happened.

SECOND FEATURE PRESENTATION
Jeff Feldman
SOLITARY CHILD
2011, 93 minutes, video.
Ricky, a high school baseball star, causes an automobile accident only weeks before graduation. Unable to cope with his guilt, he leaves New Jersey and goes to Boston to start a new life. Ultimately Ricky returns to New Jersey but finds his family has him on a collision course with the past.

Wednesday, January 11, Documentaries at 6:00, Short Film Program at 7:45, First Feature at 9:00, Second Feature at 10:45.

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS NEW ASIAN FILMS

DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Eunice Lau HERO (2011, 13 minutes, video)
Andrew Hongo LEGACY (2011, 40 minutes, video)

SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Mariko Takai A DARK SIDE OF HUSBAND & WIFE (2011, 6 minutes, video)
Colan Belshaw ALOWETTE (2011, 8 minutes, video)
Rachel Adkins IN TRANSIT (2011, 11 minutes, video)
George Billard AFTERSHOCK (2010, 17 minutes, video)
Namsuk Kim RED JEANS (2011, 17 minutes, video)
Sam Schectman THE AGENCY (2010, 22 minutes, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Chris Benker
THE YAKUZA AND THE MERMAID
2011, 100 minutes, video.
A writer, having trouble finishing a crime story, meets a mysterious woman who literally brings his characters to life. Unfortunately, the gangster in his story just wants to be left alone, even if it means killing the writer.

Wednesday, January 11, Documentaries at 6:00, Short Film Program at 7:15, Feature Presentation at 9:00.

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave.

The third installment of Keiller’s “Robinson” trilogy finds Robinson wandering through the English countryside, wondering aloud whether the failures of late capitalism in the UK can be explained by the flora and detritus he passes. Keiller’s materialist approach yields ravishing results, affirming his status as a serious thinker with a knack for finding the “moving wind in the trees”. As with LONDON and ROBINSON IN SPACE, the titular protagonist’s philosophical musings remain a constant, guiding the viewer’s attention to the manifold histories hidden within each object he encounters.

“[T]he latest essay film/experimental landscape study/cinematic state-of-the-union address from the great British avant-gardist Patrick Keiller, is…the conclusion to a trilogy that even most hardcore cinephiles may not have known was in progress. Keiller…has joined the focused, more outwardly political tone of LONDON with ROBINSON IN SPACE’s more pointillist, philosophical-longview perspective, resulting in a new work that zeroes in on absolute particulars of the contemporary environment while contemplating our place within the cosmos.” –Michael Sicinski, CINEMA SCOPE

As you may already know, SINGLE FRAME is an Anthology series singularly devoted to slide projections. For the last few calendars we have been inviting artists and collectors to present works from their vast repertoires. This time around, however, we are inviting you, our audience, to bring your own slides for a show-and-tell open screening event. Attendees can bring up to 25 slides for our communal viewing pleasure, and if there is music or sound, all the better. Vacation snapshots, family get-togethers with long-gone grandparents, luscious landscapes, towering national monuments, documentation of outlandish performance art pieces or gallery installations, corporate presentations, found images from the bottom of flea market bins…. We hope to see all this, and much more. Come one, come all, no slide will be refused!

Keiller’s first feature, narrated by an anonymous and unseen fellow traveler (Paul Scofield) of the filmmaker’s equally invisible surrogate, Robinson, scours London for traces of the city’s history, as well as for answers concerning its decadent present – marked as it was in the early 1990s by IRA bombings, a fourth consecutive electoral victory for the Tories, and the persistent influence of the British royal family.

Preceded by:
VALTOS OR THE VEIL (1987, 11 minutes, 16mm, b&w)

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave.

The third installment of Keiller’s “Robinson” trilogy finds Robinson wandering through the English countryside, wondering aloud whether the failures of late capitalism in the UK can be explained by the flora and detritus he passes. Keiller’s materialist approach yields ravishing results, affirming his status as a serious thinker with a knack for finding the “moving wind in the trees”. As with LONDON and ROBINSON IN SPACE, the titular protagonist’s philosophical musings remain a constant, guiding the viewer’s attention to the manifold histories hidden within each object he encounters.

“[T]he latest essay film/experimental landscape study/cinematic state-of-the-union address from the great British avant-gardist Patrick Keiller, is…the conclusion to a trilogy that even most hardcore cinephiles may not have known was in progress. Keiller…has joined the focused, more outwardly political tone of LONDON with ROBINSON IN SPACE’s more pointillist, philosophical-longview perspective, resulting in a new work that zeroes in on absolute particulars of the contemporary environment while contemplating our place within the cosmos.” –Michael Sicinski, CINEMA SCOPE

Keiller uses a range of documentary techniques to confront England’s housing problem; voiceover narration by Tilda Swinton, archival footage, and statistics accompany interviews with cultural commentators and urban theorists in this search for insights into the apparent absence of affordable, quality houses in the UK. Though distinct in many ways, THE DILAPIDATED DWELLING is nevertheless very much in the same essayistic vein as Keiller’s “Robinson” trilogy.

Preceded by:
THE END (1986, 18 minutes, video, b&w)

Keiller uses a range of documentary techniques to confront England’s housing problem; voiceover narration by Tilda Swinton, archival footage, and statistics accompany interviews with cultural commentators and urban theorists in this search for insights into the apparent absence of affordable, quality houses in the UK. Though distinct in many ways, THE DILAPIDATED DWELLING is nevertheless very much in the same essayistic vein as Keiller’s “Robinson” trilogy.

Preceded by:
THE END (1986, 18 minutes, video, b&w)

Robinson and his nameless friend return as Keiller expands the scope of his research – at once lyrical and analytical – to include all of England. Self-consciously philosophical and dripping irony, Keiller’s one-man effort (as with LONDON, he wrote, shot, and directed) is a tour of his native country that discovers and addresses problems everywhere it looks.

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave.

The third installment of Keiller’s “Robinson” trilogy finds Robinson wandering through the English countryside, wondering aloud whether the failures of late capitalism in the UK can be explained by the flora and detritus he passes. Keiller’s materialist approach yields ravishing results, affirming his status as a serious thinker with a knack for finding the “moving wind in the trees”. As with LONDON and ROBINSON IN SPACE, the titular protagonist’s philosophical musings remain a constant, guiding the viewer’s attention to the manifold histories hidden within each object he encounters.

“[T]he latest essay film/experimental landscape study/cinematic state-of-the-union address from the great British avant-gardist Patrick Keiller, is…the conclusion to a trilogy that even most hardcore cinephiles may not have known was in progress. Keiller…has joined the focused, more outwardly political tone of LONDON with ROBINSON IN SPACE’s more pointillist, philosophical-longview perspective, resulting in a new work that zeroes in on absolute particulars of the contemporary environment while contemplating our place within the cosmos.” –Michael Sicinski, CINEMA SCOPE

Directors present! Benefit for PETA!

For further program information: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=idona8eab&v=0015cPBtOwYvcVSgnm7IkAa7arCBqUHJGVVP2rm_qfe63l8hNAv1AF6mGKccFSVmRw9XUC-nt8JYSPMhb43v0-S5FfNbmUcgNgs5s7hfyk4Gn22kTs4C_Bu-FBBM3hs7lL8

Keiller’s first feature, narrated by an anonymous and unseen fellow traveler (Paul Scofield) of the filmmaker’s equally invisible surrogate, Robinson, scours London for traces of the city’s history, as well as for answers concerning its decadent present – marked as it was in the early 1990s by IRA bombings, a fourth consecutive electoral victory for the Tories, and the persistent influence of the British royal family.

Preceded by:
VALTOS OR THE VEIL (1987, 11 minutes, 16mm, b&w)

(TRIUMPH DES WILLENS)
“The official Nazi record of the 1934 Nuremberg Party rally, commissioned by Hitler and directed by Leni Riefenstahl, [it] is one of the most controversial contributions to film history because of its subject matter – her insistence that the film is solely a work of art and not propaganda; and the presentation of the subject matter – the manipulation of reality in this ‘documentary’ record. The contributions to the art of film this work has to offer are closely tied to the controversies. [It] is a masterpiece of style and editing, which in turn are the very techniques used to manipulate reality and create emotionally effective propaganda.” –Marie Saeli

Robinson and his nameless friend return as Keiller expands the scope of his research – at once lyrical and analytical – to include all of England. Self-consciously philosophical and dripping irony, Keiller’s one-man effort (as with LONDON, he wrote, shot, and directed) is a tour of his native country that discovers and addresses problems everywhere it looks.

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave.

The third installment of Keiller’s “Robinson” trilogy finds Robinson wandering through the English countryside, wondering aloud whether the failures of late capitalism in the UK can be explained by the flora and detritus he passes. Keiller’s materialist approach yields ravishing results, affirming his status as a serious thinker with a knack for finding the “moving wind in the trees”. As with LONDON and ROBINSON IN SPACE, the titular protagonist’s philosophical musings remain a constant, guiding the viewer’s attention to the manifold histories hidden within each object he encounters.

“[T]he latest essay film/experimental landscape study/cinematic state-of-the-union address from the great British avant-gardist Patrick Keiller, is…the conclusion to a trilogy that even most hardcore cinephiles may not have known was in progress. Keiller…has joined the focused, more outwardly political tone of LONDON with ROBINSON IN SPACE’s more pointillist, philosophical-longview perspective, resulting in a new work that zeroes in on absolute particulars of the contemporary environment while contemplating our place within the cosmos.” –Michael Sicinski, CINEMA SCOPE

Keiller’s first feature, narrated by an anonymous and unseen fellow traveler (Paul Scofield) of the filmmaker’s equally invisible surrogate, Robinson, scours London for traces of the city’s history, as well as for answers concerning its decadent present – marked as it was in the early 1990s by IRA bombings, a fourth consecutive electoral victory for the Tories, and the persistent influence of the British royal family.

Preceded by:
VALTOS OR THE VEIL (1987, 11 minutes, 16mm, b&w)

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave.

The third installment of Keiller’s “Robinson” trilogy finds Robinson wandering through the English countryside, wondering aloud whether the failures of late capitalism in the UK can be explained by the flora and detritus he passes. Keiller’s materialist approach yields ravishing results, affirming his status as a serious thinker with a knack for finding the “moving wind in the trees”. As with LONDON and ROBINSON IN SPACE, the titular protagonist’s philosophical musings remain a constant, guiding the viewer’s attention to the manifold histories hidden within each object he encounters.

“[T]he latest essay film/experimental landscape study/cinematic state-of-the-union address from the great British avant-gardist Patrick Keiller, is…the conclusion to a trilogy that even most hardcore cinephiles may not have known was in progress. Keiller…has joined the focused, more outwardly political tone of LONDON with ROBINSON IN SPACE’s more pointillist, philosophical-longview perspective, resulting in a new work that zeroes in on absolute particulars of the contemporary environment while contemplating our place within the cosmos.” –Michael Sicinski, CINEMA SCOPE

Robinson and his nameless friend return as Keiller expands the scope of his research – at once lyrical and analytical – to include all of England. Self-consciously philosophical and dripping irony, Keiller’s one-man effort (as with LONDON, he wrote, shot, and directed) is a tour of his native country that discovers and addresses problems everywhere it looks.

Keiller’s first feature, narrated by an anonymous and unseen fellow traveler (Paul Scofield) of the filmmaker’s equally invisible surrogate, Robinson, scours London for traces of the city’s history, as well as for answers concerning its decadent present – marked as it was in the early 1990s by IRA bombings, a fourth consecutive electoral victory for the Tories, and the persistent influence of the British royal family.

Preceded by:
VALTOS OR THE VEIL (1987, 11 minutes, 16mm, b&w)

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave.

The third installment of Keiller’s “Robinson” trilogy finds Robinson wandering through the English countryside, wondering aloud whether the failures of late capitalism in the UK can be explained by the flora and detritus he passes. Keiller’s materialist approach yields ravishing results, affirming his status as a serious thinker with a knack for finding the “moving wind in the trees”. As with LONDON and ROBINSON IN SPACE, the titular protagonist’s philosophical musings remain a constant, guiding the viewer’s attention to the manifold histories hidden within each object he encounters.

“[T]he latest essay film/experimental landscape study/cinematic state-of-the-union address from the great British avant-gardist Patrick Keiller, is…the conclusion to a trilogy that even most hardcore cinephiles may not have known was in progress. Keiller…has joined the focused, more outwardly political tone of LONDON with ROBINSON IN SPACE’s more pointillist, philosophical-longview perspective, resulting in a new work that zeroes in on absolute particulars of the contemporary environment while contemplating our place within the cosmos.” –Michael Sicinski, CINEMA SCOPE

Robinson and his nameless friend return as Keiller expands the scope of his research – at once lyrical and analytical – to include all of England. Self-consciously philosophical and dripping irony, Keiller’s one-man effort (as with LONDON, he wrote, shot, and directed) is a tour of his native country that discovers and addresses problems everywhere it looks.

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave.

The third installment of Keiller’s “Robinson” trilogy finds Robinson wandering through the English countryside, wondering aloud whether the failures of late capitalism in the UK can be explained by the flora and detritus he passes. Keiller’s materialist approach yields ravishing results, affirming his status as a serious thinker with a knack for finding the “moving wind in the trees”. As with LONDON and ROBINSON IN SPACE, the titular protagonist’s philosophical musings remain a constant, guiding the viewer’s attention to the manifold histories hidden within each object he encounters.

“[T]he latest essay film/experimental landscape study/cinematic state-of-the-union address from the great British avant-gardist Patrick Keiller, is…the conclusion to a trilogy that even most hardcore cinephiles may not have known was in progress. Keiller…has joined the focused, more outwardly political tone of LONDON with ROBINSON IN SPACE’s more pointillist, philosophical-longview perspective, resulting in a new work that zeroes in on absolute particulars of the contemporary environment while contemplating our place within the cosmos.” –Michael Sicinski, CINEMA SCOPE

(AUTOBIOGRAFIA LUI NICOLAE CEAUŞESCU)

“[A] tour de force of found-footage moviemaking that’s sustained through its three-hour running time by a single brilliant conceit. Ujică documents Ceauşescu’s 1965-89 dictatorship by chronologically assembling official video and television recordings – and nothing else. ‘Autobiography’ is the operative word. This is the story of Ceauşescu as he would have written it in moving images if he could have. Romanians, of course, will write a mirror-opposite story as they watch, and the ironies will be rich – a black enough comedy to make one weep. But even for those with only the barest knowledge of this particular history, the movie is fascinating.” –Amy Taubin, ARTFORUM

(DAS SCHLEYERBAND)

“[A] compilation of television and news footage comprising two hours of media accounts regarding the infamous Baader-Meinhof gang. [The] material begins with the September 1977 kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the dramatic news reportage from the scene of the car accident in Cologne where Schleyer was abducted…[and] proceeds to chronologically relay footage from official press conferences, talk-show speculation, public interviews, and the news, giving a broad and detailed account of the events leading up to the final downfall of the Red Army Faction…. Bruch contrasts this with short episodes from other aspects of popular culture: a fashion commercial advertising lipstick, images of a space shuttle launch, disco shows, and John Lennon’s song ‘Working Class Hero’.” –K.V.B.

(PADENIYE DINASTI ROMANOVIKH)

A devastating chronicle of Tsarist Russia from the eve of WWI until its brutal demise in the revolutions of February and October 1917, this work comprises hundreds of films that Shub unearthed and rescued from damp cellars and other neglected corners of the Soviet Union, including newsreels and home movies taken by the Tsar’s own cameramen. Using the film splice as a cudgel, Shub contrasts the Imperial Family with the backbreaking toil of the masses, a bitter satire that makes the Revolution seem both historically inevitable and triumphant.

(CHELOVEK S KINO-APPARATOM)
“Little introduction is needed for one of the great masterpieces of world cinema, Vertov’s extraordinary meditation on then-contemporary Soviet Russian society and the place of filmmakers within it. A kind of ‘city symphony,’ cataloguing the sights and sounds of urban life, the film is structured across a day, beginning with citizens waking up while machines are revved up. As Vertov shows us, among the first heading off to work is the ‘man with the movie camera,’ played in the film by his brother and cameraman Mikhail Kaufman. For Vertov, the camera was a kind of infinitely more perfect eye: it could offer details and aspects of the world that might be missed otherwise.” –FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Composed solely of rarely-seen footage found in Soviet film archives, BLOCKADE vividly re-creates the momentous events of the WWII siege of Leningrad, which lasted for 900 days and claimed at least 600,000 lives. BLOCKADE is a dramatically compelling demonstration of the power of archival footage, here synergized by an evocative soundtrack, to bring history to life.

“A highly compressed but brutally effective narrative of a city fighting for its life under the direst of circumstances. Loznitsa organizes the footage at hand brilliantly.” –George Robinson, THE JEWISH WEEK

As he did with BLOCKADE, Loznitsa has once again selected excerpts from newsreels, propaganda films, TV shows, and feature films that present an evocative portrait of Soviet life during the 1950s and 60s. The film’s fascinating flow of disparate scenes is, seen from today’s perspective, alternately poignant, funny, and tragic. The cumulative impact reveals a life of hardship, deprivation, and seemingly absurd social rituals, but one always inspired by the vision, or illusion, of a communist future.

“This video is made up of footage that I took with my Sony from the television newscasts during the collapse of the USSR, with the home noises in the background. It’s a capsule record of what happened and how it happened during that crucial period as recorded by the television newscasters. It can be also viewed as a classic Greek drama in which the destinies of nations are changed drastically by the unbending, bordering-on-irrational will of one small man, one small nation determined to regain its freedom, backed by Olympus in its fight against the Might & Power, against the Impossible.” –J.M.

(KINOGLAZ)

(SHAGHAI, SOVIET!)

(LE FOND DE L’AIR EST ROUGE)

Marker’s epic film-essay on the worldwide political wars of the 1960s and 70s: Vietnam, Bolivia, May ‘68, Prague, Chile, and the fate of the New Left. Released in France in 1978, and restored and ‘re-actualized’ by Marker fifteen years later (after the fall of the Soviet Union), it is a sweeping, global contemplation of a critical era in political history.

(SHESTAIA CHAST MIRA)

Henri Storck L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT INCONNU (1930, 17 minutes, 16mm, b&w, silent)
A montage of newsreel clips satirizing ceremonies commemorating the war dead and indicting world rearmament. It is an ancestor of many subsequent compilation films.

Alberto Cavalcanti YELLOW CAESAR (1941, 24 minutes, video, b&w)
Cavalcanti ingeniously edits newsreel and propaganda footage of Mussolini to portray the despot in the most absurd and unflattering light.

Ken Jacobs PERFECT FILM (1986, 22 minutes, 16mm, b&w)
“TV newscast discards from 1965 relating to the assassination of Malcolm X, out-takes of history reprinted as found in a Canal St. bin (with the exception of boosting volume second half). A lot of film is perfect left alone, perfectly revealing in its unconscious or semi-conscious form.” –K.J.
Total running time: ca. 65 minutes.

(LE FOND DE L’AIR EST ROUGE)

Marker’s epic film-essay on the worldwide political wars of the 1960s and 70s: Vietnam, Bolivia, May ‘68, Prague, Chile, and the fate of the New Left. Released in France in 1978, and restored and ‘re-actualized’ by Marker fifteen years later (after the fall of the Soviet Union), it is a sweeping, global contemplation of a critical era in political history.

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE was born at age 21 in 1975 Era Vulgari in BalTimOre, usa. It was at this time that he decided that he was a Mad Scientist/d-composer/Sound Thinker/Thought Collector. Since then he has been active with the Krononautic Organism (a time travelers’ society), Nuclear Brain Physics Surgery School, the Neoast?! ‘Patanational Cultural Conspiracy’, the Church of the SubGenius (in which he’s a saint), etc. Whenever he has the energy he devotes himself to “undermining ‘reality’ maintenance traps” through attempting to apply the maxim “Anything is Anything.” These days this is usually manifested by being a Psychopathfinder & a Jack-Off-Of-All-Trades.

We will be presenting two programs of his work, one devoted to a selection of recent short films, and the other featuring his epic documentary on the work of avant-garde composer, musician, and writer Franz Kamin.

PROGRAM 1:
DEFENDERS OF GOOLENGOOK (2000-04, 17.5 minutes, video)
I.A.C. DEER HEAD SCULPTURE @ FORMER RANKIN STEEL MILL (2000-04, 8.5 minutes, video)
LEDGER OF ST DERMAIN (2004, 7 minutes, mini-DV/slides/slidestrip/Super8mm-to-video)
HAIRCUT PARADOX (2005-06, 14 minutes, video)
CAPITALISM IS AN ISM (2006, 6.5 minutes, video)
the ballad of CodyodeeodoooO (2006-07, 13 minutes, video)
SUBTITLES (CLOSURE VERSION) (2005-08, 12 minutes, 8mm/Super-8mm/16mm/VHS/image data files/mini-dv-to-DVD)
TV ‘NEWS’ COMMITS SUICIDE (2009, 6 minutes, video)
ROBOTIC (for YouTube) (2009, 7 minutes, video)
COLONY (2010-11, 9 minutes, video)
Total running time: ca. 105 minutes.

PROGRAM 2:
DEPOT (wherein resides the UNDEAD of Franz Kamin)
2011, 220 minutes, video.
A 3 hour and 40 minute documentary about the life and work of composer, writer, performer, and pianist Franz Kamin, who was born in 1941 and studied piano in Oklahoma and Indiana in the 1960s. His extensive compositions and texts were influenced by topology as well as by alcoholism and other difficult personal battles. Despite a fantastically large and substantial body of work, he remained largely unknown, except to specialists in the esoteric, all the way up to his death in a car crash in 2010.

Himself a student of the avant-garde and a composer, writer, performer, musician, and moviemaker, tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE is uniquely qualified to pay tribute to Kamin. Familiar with Kamin’s work since 1974, he befriended him in 1977, performed in his pieces in 1992 and 1993, and stayed in touch with him until shortly before Kamin’s death.

(AUTOBIOGRAFIA LUI NICOLAE CEAUŞESCU)

“[A] tour de force of found-footage moviemaking that’s sustained through its three-hour running time by a single brilliant conceit. Ujică documents Ceauşescu’s 1965-89 dictatorship by chronologically assembling official video and television recordings – and nothing else. ‘Autobiography’ is the operative word. This is the story of Ceauşescu as he would have written it in moving images if he could have. Romanians, of course, will write a mirror-opposite story as they watch, and the ironies will be rich – a black enough comedy to make one weep. But even for those with only the barest knowledge of this particular history, the movie is fascinating.” –Amy Taubin, ARTFORUM

“The basic elements of an Alvarez film are essentially the same as in many television documentaries: still photos edited to a soundtrack. In fact, Alvarez announced his aesthetic credo in this way: ‘Give me two photos, music, and a moviola, and I’ll give you a movie.’ But it would be hard to find a style of cinema more removed from the niceties of American television documentary than Alvarez’s remarkably dynamic and bracingly radical montage constructions.” –Adrian Martin, CINEASTE

NOW (1965, 6 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE (1965, 28 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
L.B.J. (1967, 20 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
79 SPRINGTIMES OF HO CHI MINH (1969, 25 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
THE PONGO’S DREAM (1970, 11 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
Total running time: ca. 95 minutes.

Preservation print courtesy of UCLA Film and Television Archive; preservation funded by The Film Foundation.
De Antonio and producer Dan Talbot obtained from CBS 188 hours of kinescopes showing the 1954 Army-McCarthy senate hearings, then spent three years culling the footage. De Antonio supervised the innovative final version, edited by young neophyte Robert Duncan in his East Village apartment. Best known for its shunning of voice-over narration, the film actually begins with a minute of nothing but a narrator’s voice, which explains, “Everything you are about to see actually happened…” The voice of Emile de Antonio himself.

This film tells the history of the German Democratic Republic through East Germany’s official newsreels and state films. Kissel and Wesnigk have excavated the archives of the East German state film studio to discover priceless archival footage: Walter Ulbricht playing ping pong, the East German version of SESAME STREET, Erich and Margot Honecker dancing their last waltz. This fast-moving compendium of East Germany’s forty years portrays a fantasy world so bizarre that one can’t help but to reflect on other forms of propaganda – including our own.

STRICTLY PROPAGANDA is available for VOD download at onlinefilm.org: http://onlinefilm.org/de_DE/film/39912

This film uses a brilliant collage of materials (home movies, archival footage, animated and educational films, commercials, and political propaganda) to express the false idealism that characterized the Nazis’ rise to power. On the soundtrack are popular tunes, a panoply of music that the average German citizen would have blithely enjoyed as his nation prepared to wreak havoc on much of the world.

“What distinguishes [it from other similar compilation films] is its musical fluidity. The flow of images has a terrible inexorability. Watching this movie is like watching people pirouette gaily off a cliff.” –J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

NEWFILMMAKERS WELCOMES BACK THIRD WORLD NEWSREEL

THIRD WORLD NEWSREEL PROGRAM
Third World Newsreel (TWN) is an alternative media arts organization that fosters the creation, appreciation, and dissemination of independent film and video by and about people of color and social justice issues. TWN promotes the self-representation of traditionally marginalized groups as well as the negotiated representation of those groups by artists who work in solidarity with them.

FIRST SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Jace McPartland IN THE WOODS (2010, 5 minutes, video)
Kris Rajan DON’T PANIC (2011, 11 minutes, video)
Jeremy Craig TERREBONNE (2010, 14 minutes, 16mm)
Michael Aronson MANIFESTO (2011, 28 minutes, 35mm)

SECOND SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Chihwen Lo PORN STARS (2011, 1 minute, video)
Jesse Rosenberg AT MY FINGERTIPS (2011, 9 minutes, video)
Lije Sarki CLOSING DOORS (2011, 10 minutes, video)
Jonny Look THE STICKY CHOCOLATE KINGDOM (2011, 18 minutes, video)
Judge Enrigue Ponce #OMG IM TRENDING (2011, 30 minutes, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Nathaniel Katzman
I DON’T WANT TO KILL MYSELF
2011, 85 minutes, video.
When his friend is almost charged with a DUI, James decides to fake a suicide attempt in order to get him out of it; when this goes wrong he ends up in an out-patient recovery group for a strange bunch of suicidal people.

Wednesday, January 25, Documentaries at 6:00, First Short Film Program at 7:15, Second Short Film Program at 8:30, Feature Presentation at 10:00.

As he did with BLOCKADE, Loznitsa has once again selected excerpts from newsreels, propaganda films, TV shows, and feature films that present an evocative portrait of Soviet life during the 1950s and 60s. The film’s fascinating flow of disparate scenes is, seen from today’s perspective, alternately poignant, funny, and tragic. The cumulative impact reveals a life of hardship, deprivation, and seemingly absurd social rituals, but one always inspired by the vision, or illusion, of a communist future.

Composed solely of rarely-seen footage found in Soviet film archives, BLOCKADE vividly re-creates the momentous events of the WWII siege of Leningrad, which lasted for 900 days and claimed at least 600,000 lives. BLOCKADE is a dramatically compelling demonstration of the power of archival footage, here synergized by an evocative soundtrack, to bring history to life.

“A highly compressed but brutally effective narrative of a city fighting for its life under the direst of circumstances. Loznitsa organizes the footage at hand brilliantly.” –George Robinson, THE JEWISH WEEK

(ÜBERLEBEN IN NEW YORK)
Print courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
The successes, trials, and tribulations of three young German women trying to conquer the New York City jungle. Claudia, Uli, and Anna have very different backgrounds and deal with big-city challenges in very different ways; but all agree that the fascination of New York outweighs its frustrations, heartaches, and dangers.

Preservation print courtesy of UCLA Film and Television Archive; preservation funded by The Film Foundation.
De Antonio and producer Dan Talbot obtained from CBS 188 hours of kinescopes showing the 1954 Army-McCarthy senate hearings, then spent three years culling the footage. De Antonio supervised the innovative final version, edited by young neophyte Robert Duncan in his East Village apartment. Best known for its shunning of voice-over narration, the film actually begins with a minute of nothing but a narrator’s voice, which explains, “Everything you are about to see actually happened…” The voice of Emile de Antonio himself.

Twenty years after his documentary SURVIVAL IN NEW YORK, von Praunheim returns to the city which provided him some of the most exciting years of his life. Remembering his own experiences in the wild 70s, and recollecting the big changes in the 80s when AIDS started to take its toll, Rosa meets his former protagonists and goes on a personal journey to discover what has become of ‘his’ New York.

(DAS SCHLEYERBAND)

“[A] compilation of television and news footage comprising two hours of media accounts regarding the infamous Baader-Meinhof gang. [The] material begins with the September 1977 kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the dramatic news reportage from the scene of the car accident in Cologne where Schleyer was abducted…[and] proceeds to chronologically relay footage from official press conferences, talk-show speculation, public interviews, and the news, giving a broad and detailed account of the events leading up to the final downfall of the Red Army Faction…. Bruch contrasts this with short episodes from other aspects of popular culture: a fashion commercial advertising lipstick, images of a space shuttle launch, disco shows, and John Lennon’s song ‘Working Class Hero’.” –K.V.B.

STUCK ON THE SECOND TIER: UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS: GREGORY LA CAVA
Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Godard, Fellini, Altman, and Chaplin are known entities, inexhaustible yet deeply mined. Describing the cinematic style of Siodmak, La Cava, Dwan, Eustache, Ferreri, Walsh, Rudolph, or Vidor is a more slippery proposition, however, mostly because their films are harder to see. UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS, programmed by Miriam Bale and taking place at venues across NYC, attempts to remedy that, with screenings of rarely-shown films by directors like these.
For Anthology’s contribution to the UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS events, we’ve decided to focus on the great Gregory La Cava, a director well-known for the beloved musical STAGE DOOR and the acclaimed depression-era comedy MY MAN GODFREY, but also the creator of many other, lesser-known classics, such as the two highlighted here. Few Hollywood filmmakers have so effortlessly and gracefully intertwined the comic and the serious – La Cava rarely broaches the pretense of comedy, but his films penetrate to realms of feeling as affecting and profound as in any self-important drama.
Look out for more UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS screenings at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and elsewhere this winter.

With Irene Dunne, Robert Montgomery, Preston Foster, and Eugene Pallette.
This sublime film exemplifies La Cava’s gift for creating comedies that contain a profound depth of feeling. Starting with a cruel joke – a couple of callow men make a bet that one of them can seduce the woman sharing their train compartment – the film charts the relationship that develops between Irene Dunne, a small-town girl in the big city, and Robert Montgomery, the brother of the man who has heartlessly seduced and abandoned her. Their love affair is all the more affecting for taking place against a backdrop of heartbreak and alcoholism, all conveyed under the guise of comedy. UNFINISHED BUSINESS is truly one of the most remarkable Hollywood films of the 1940s.

People, monsters, sensations. The beguiling images in PRATER transform the legendary Viennese attraction into a cinematic experience. The film brings together the cultural history of the oldest amusement park in the world with brilliant insights into the changeability of technological attractions. We are introduced to the people for whom the Prater is a place of amusement, memory, or quite simply the center of life.

STUCK ON THE SECOND TIER: UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS: GREGORY LA CAVA
Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Godard, Fellini, Altman, and Chaplin are known entities, inexhaustible yet deeply mined. Describing the cinematic style of Siodmak, La Cava, Dwan, Eustache, Ferreri, Walsh, Rudolph, or Vidor is a more slippery proposition, however, mostly because their films are harder to see. UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS, programmed by Miriam Bale and taking place at venues across NYC, attempts to remedy that, with screenings of rarely-shown films by directors like these.
For Anthology’s contribution to the UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS events, we’ve decided to focus on the great Gregory La Cava, a director well-known for the beloved musical STAGE DOOR and the acclaimed depression-era comedy MY MAN GODFREY, but also the creator of many other, lesser-known classics, such as the two highlighted here. Few Hollywood filmmakers have so effortlessly and gracefully intertwined the comic and the serious – La Cava rarely broaches the pretense of comedy, but his films penetrate to realms of feeling as affecting and profound as in any self-important drama.
Look out for more UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS screenings at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and elsewhere this winter.

With Claudette Colbert and Melvyn Douglas.
Colbert plays a secretary at a department store who falls for and ultimately marries her boss (Douglas), only to find that she’s taken on more than she bargained for, thanks to his hellspawn daughter, evil sister-in-law, and boozy butler. Displaying the melancholy undertones and alcohol-fueled set pieces that mark so many of his films, SHE MARRIED HER BOSS is often cited as one of La Cava’s best.

(STAUB)

Having devoted his career to crafting essayistic treatments of oft-overlooked aspects of the material world, Bitomsky turns his attention to a presence so miniscule as to go unnoticed, despite the fundamental role it plays in our social and aesthetic lives – dust. DUST elevates its microscopic subject to a position of cosmic importance.

“Devoting itself to the tiniest ‘visible subject’ that a film can have, DUST manages to be philosophical without seeming pedantic. … [It] is characterized by its clean cinematography, uncluttered compositions, and unceasing dialectic.” –J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

(ODINNADTSAYI)

“It starts with the laughter of children. Images from the late 80s in the GDR to the immediate present of the year 2008 in Germany. Those residual images have besieged my head, constantly reassembling themselves into new shapes that are further and further removed from their original meaning and function. They remain in motion. They become history. The material remains incomplete. It consists of what I held on to, what remained important to me. It is my picture.” –T.H.

(TRI PESNI O LENINYE)

STUCK ON THE SECOND TIER: UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS: GREGORY LA CAVA
Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Godard, Fellini, Altman, and Chaplin are known entities, inexhaustible yet deeply mined. Describing the cinematic style of Siodmak, La Cava, Dwan, Eustache, Ferreri, Walsh, Rudolph, or Vidor is a more slippery proposition, however, mostly because their films are harder to see. UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS, programmed by Miriam Bale and taking place at venues across NYC, attempts to remedy that, with screenings of rarely-shown films by directors like these.
For Anthology’s contribution to the UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS events, we’ve decided to focus on the great Gregory La Cava, a director well-known for the beloved musical STAGE DOOR and the acclaimed depression-era comedy MY MAN GODFREY, but also the creator of many other, lesser-known classics, such as the two highlighted here. Few Hollywood filmmakers have so effortlessly and gracefully intertwined the comic and the serious – La Cava rarely broaches the pretense of comedy, but his films penetrate to realms of feeling as affecting and profound as in any self-important drama.
Look out for more UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS screenings at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and elsewhere this winter.

With Claudette Colbert and Melvyn Douglas.
Colbert plays a secretary at a department store who falls for and ultimately marries her boss (Douglas), only to find that she’s taken on more than she bargained for, thanks to his hellspawn daughter, evil sister-in-law, and boozy butler. Displaying the melancholy undertones and alcohol-fueled set pieces that mark so many of his films, SHE MARRIED HER BOSS is often cited as one of La Cava’s best.

A film about the indigenous community of the Kollas of Tinkunaku, a region in northern Argentina. Without recourse to dialogue, the film conveys the life of this community. We accompany the seasonal journey of Viviano and Ramona from the valley up to the village of Santa Cruz, 3000 meters above sea level, where they spend the summertime. Through their experiences, the film portrays the story of the day-to-day disappearance of an indigenous group.

STUCK ON THE SECOND TIER: UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS: GREGORY LA CAVA
Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Godard, Fellini, Altman, and Chaplin are known entities, inexhaustible yet deeply mined. Describing the cinematic style of Siodmak, La Cava, Dwan, Eustache, Ferreri, Walsh, Rudolph, or Vidor is a more slippery proposition, however, mostly because their films are harder to see. UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS, programmed by Miriam Bale and taking place at venues across NYC, attempts to remedy that, with screenings of rarely-shown films by directors like these.
For Anthology’s contribution to the UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS events, we’ve decided to focus on the great Gregory La Cava, a director well-known for the beloved musical STAGE DOOR and the acclaimed depression-era comedy MY MAN GODFREY, but also the creator of many other, lesser-known classics, such as the two highlighted here. Few Hollywood filmmakers have so effortlessly and gracefully intertwined the comic and the serious – La Cava rarely broaches the pretense of comedy, but his films penetrate to realms of feeling as affecting and profound as in any self-important drama.
Look out for more UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS screenings at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and elsewhere this winter.

With Irene Dunne, Robert Montgomery, Preston Foster, and Eugene Pallette.
This sublime film exemplifies La Cava’s gift for creating comedies that contain a profound depth of feeling. Starting with a cruel joke – a couple of callow men make a bet that one of them can seduce the woman sharing their train compartment – the film charts the relationship that develops between Irene Dunne, a small-town girl in the big city, and Robert Montgomery, the brother of the man who has heartlessly seduced and abandoned her. Their love affair is all the more affecting for taking place against a backdrop of heartbreak and alcoholism, all conveyed under the guise of comedy. UNFINISHED BUSINESS is truly one of the most remarkable Hollywood films of the 1940s.

“His films are densely composed labyrinths, in which precisely photographed everyday views of landscapes and workplaces mysteriously clash with convoluted deadpan voiceovers about histories of crime.” –Christoph Huber, CINEMA SCOPE
KNITTELFELD – TOWN WITHOUT HISTORY / KNITTELFELD – STADT OHNE GESCHICHTE
1997, 34 minutes, 16mm. In German with English subtitles.
A portrait of a small town in Austria, in which the local authorities have achieved only a minimum of order, and where members of the Pritz family commit various crimes of differing dimensions.
&
WOLFF VON AMERONGEN – DID HE COMMIT BANKRUPTCY OFFENCES? / HAT WOLFF VON AMERONGEN KONKURSDELIKTE BEGANGEN?
2004, 73 minutes, 35mm. In German with English subtitles.
“The most remarkable discovery in recent German-language cinema. Friedl’s first feature is a hypnotic visual puzzle at the interface of documentary, essay film, and pulp fiction. On the soundtrack: an unflinchingly ‘objective’ account of the labyrinthine genealogies, criminal involvements and afflictions of Germany’s economic leaders in the 20th century. On the screen: pans and tracking shots through European financial centers, production sites and landscapes…. At times, image and sound are aligned, at others they just miss each other.” –DOCUMENTA12
“Looks even more visionary in the light of developments during the recent economic crisis, and may be one of the definitive films of the decade.” –Christoph Huber, CINEMA SCOPE
Total running time: ca. 110 minutes.

(DAS NETZ)

A subversive history of the Internet, this insightful documentary traces contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution via an inquiry into the rationale of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber, who grew to oppose the late-20th-century web of technology. Dammbeck’s conceptual quest links multiple nodes of cultural and political thought in the manner of the Internet itself. THE NET exposes a hidden matrix of revolutionary advances, coincidences, and conspiracies.

(ENTUZIASM: SIMFONIYA DONBASSA)

STUCK ON THE SECOND TIER: UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS: GREGORY LA CAVA
Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Godard, Fellini, Altman, and Chaplin are known entities, inexhaustible yet deeply mined. Describing the cinematic style of Siodmak, La Cava, Dwan, Eustache, Ferreri, Walsh, Rudolph, or Vidor is a more slippery proposition, however, mostly because their films are harder to see. UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS, programmed by Miriam Bale and taking place at venues across NYC, attempts to remedy that, with screenings of rarely-shown films by directors like these.
For Anthology’s contribution to the UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS events, we’ve decided to focus on the great Gregory La Cava, a director well-known for the beloved musical STAGE DOOR and the acclaimed depression-era comedy MY MAN GODFREY, but also the creator of many other, lesser-known classics, such as the two highlighted here. Few Hollywood filmmakers have so effortlessly and gracefully intertwined the comic and the serious – La Cava rarely broaches the pretense of comedy, but his films penetrate to realms of feeling as affecting and profound as in any self-important drama.
Look out for more UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS screenings at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and elsewhere this winter.

With Irene Dunne, Robert Montgomery, Preston Foster, and Eugene Pallette.
This sublime film exemplifies La Cava’s gift for creating comedies that contain a profound depth of feeling. Starting with a cruel joke – a couple of callow men make a bet that one of them can seduce the woman sharing their train compartment – the film charts the relationship that develops between Irene Dunne, a small-town girl in the big city, and Robert Montgomery, the brother of the man who has heartlessly seduced and abandoned her. Their love affair is all the more affecting for taking place against a backdrop of heartbreak and alcoholism, all conveyed under the guise of comedy. UNFINISHED BUSINESS is truly one of the most remarkable Hollywood films of the 1940s.

(BLACK BOX BRD)

In November 1989, the chairman of the board of Deutsche Bank was killed in a terrorist attack ascribed to the RAF. Four years later, Wolfgang Grams, a suspected RAF member, was killed in a gun battle with the police. This acclaimed film intertwines the two life stories without implying any explicit connection. The decisive context lies in the late-1980s era of the Federal Republic, in which both men featured as prominent representatives of diametrically opposed ideologies.

STUCK ON THE SECOND TIER: UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS: GREGORY LA CAVA
Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Godard, Fellini, Altman, and Chaplin are known entities, inexhaustible yet deeply mined. Describing the cinematic style of Siodmak, La Cava, Dwan, Eustache, Ferreri, Walsh, Rudolph, or Vidor is a more slippery proposition, however, mostly because their films are harder to see. UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS, programmed by Miriam Bale and taking place at venues across NYC, attempts to remedy that, with screenings of rarely-shown films by directors like these.
For Anthology’s contribution to the UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS events, we’ve decided to focus on the great Gregory La Cava, a director well-known for the beloved musical STAGE DOOR and the acclaimed depression-era comedy MY MAN GODFREY, but also the creator of many other, lesser-known classics, such as the two highlighted here. Few Hollywood filmmakers have so effortlessly and gracefully intertwined the comic and the serious – La Cava rarely broaches the pretense of comedy, but his films penetrate to realms of feeling as affecting and profound as in any self-important drama.
Look out for more UNDERKNOWN AUTEURS screenings at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and elsewhere this winter.

With Claudette Colbert and Melvyn Douglas.
Colbert plays a secretary at a department store who falls for and ultimately marries her boss (Douglas), only to find that she’s taken on more than she bargained for, thanks to his hellspawn daughter, evil sister-in-law, and boozy butler. Displaying the melancholy undertones and alcohol-fueled set pieces that mark so many of his films, SHE MARRIED HER BOSS is often cited as one of La Cava’s best.

(DER KICK)

In July 2002 two teenage brothers and their friend brutally tortured and, with a fatal kick to the head, killed a 16-year-old boy in a town north of Berlin. When the body was found and the three skinheads were charged with his murder, widespread public outrage ensued. The media debated the causes of this horrific crime – racism, social deprivation, binge drinking, or the influence of violent films. Veiel’s approach to the story, however, is a far cry from media sensation and public hysteria. Interviews and court records formed the basis for an experimental stage play and subsequently a ‘docu-play’. Veiel’s provocation lies in the radical form and the way he provides the biographies behind the crime.

(HOLUNDERBLÜTE)

A journey into the land of childhood, to that magical place where past, present, and the future meet – where everything is still possible, still thinkable, and where longings and expectations are still part of one’s experience. The film deals with the lives of children in and around Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that belonged to East Prussia before the Second World War.

Koepp’s latest film – his most personal to date – is brave, sad, funny, and rebelliously hopeful. Visiting significant places from his personal life and from his earlier films, he ponders questions of home and identity, and how wars and the passage of time can affect landscapes and people. It is a historical panorama of a country torn apart.

“His films are densely composed labyrinths, in which precisely photographed everyday views of landscapes and workplaces mysteriously clash with convoluted deadpan voiceovers about histories of crime.” –Christoph Huber, CINEMA SCOPE
KNITTELFELD – TOWN WITHOUT HISTORY / KNITTELFELD – STADT OHNE GESCHICHTE
1997, 34 minutes, 16mm. In German with English subtitles.
A portrait of a small town in Austria, in which the local authorities have achieved only a minimum of order, and where members of the Pritz family commit various crimes of differing dimensions.
&
WOLFF VON AMERONGEN – DID HE COMMIT BANKRUPTCY OFFENCES? / HAT WOLFF VON AMERONGEN KONKURSDELIKTE BEGANGEN?
2004, 73 minutes, 35mm. In German with English subtitles.
“The most remarkable discovery in recent German-language cinema. Friedl’s first feature is a hypnotic visual puzzle at the interface of documentary, essay film, and pulp fiction. On the soundtrack: an unflinchingly ‘objective’ account of the labyrinthine genealogies, criminal involvements and afflictions of Germany’s economic leaders in the 20th century. On the screen: pans and tracking shots through European financial centers, production sites and landscapes…. At times, image and sound are aligned, at others they just miss each other.” –DOCUMENTA12
“Looks even more visionary in the light of developments during the recent economic crisis, and may be one of the definitive films of the decade.” –Christoph Huber, CINEMA SCOPE
Total running time: ca. 110 minutes.

Screening details TBA – please visit: www.nywift.org for program updates.

NEW YORK WOMEN IN FILM AND TELEVISION

In January 2010, Anthology began hosting monthly screenings organized by New York Women in Film and Television. These screenings include works by NYWIFT members as well as from women filmmakers around the world.

Films included in the series must be directed, co-directed, produced, written, edited, or shot by women. Whenever possible, the filmmakers are present for a Q&A following the screening, as well as an after-party with cash bar and complimentary food.

The preeminent entertainment industry association for women in New York City, NYWIFT supports women calling the shots in film, television, and digital media. NYWIFT energizes the careers of women in entertainment by illuminating their achievements, providing training and professional development activities, and advocating for equity. Our membership comprises more than 2,000 women and men working both above and below the line. NYWIFT is part of a network of 40 Women-in-Film organizations worldwide, representing more than 10,000 members.

Screening details TBA – please visit: www.nywift.org for program updates.

(DER TAG DES SPATZEN)

DAY OF THE SPARROW is a political wildlife documentary. It tells the story of a country where the border between war and peace is disappearing. On November 14, 2005, a sparrow is shot dead in Leeuwarden, and in Kabul a German soldier dies. These competing headlines are the starting point for Scheffner to trace the war using the methods of an ornithologist. In Germany, not in Afghanistan, since it is here that we are faced with the question: Are we living in a state of peace or war?