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WHAT: MoMA Film Screening Schedule
WHEN: February 23, 2009 – March 1, 2009
WHERE: The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019
Monday, February 23, 2009
7:00pm An Evening with John Gianvito
Filmmaker John Gianvito introduces his latest film, presented as part of Documentary Fortnight 2009. Following the screening, Gianvito will engage in a discussion with Marita Sturken, professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, where she teaches courses in visual culture, cultural studies, cultural memory, and consumerism. She is the author of several books, including Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering.
Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind. 2007. USA. Directed by John Gianvito. Gianvito's moving film, a cinematic retelling of Howard Zinn's book A People's History of the United States, powerfully fuses poetry and politics. Vestiges of this country's political heritage are resurrected through shots of gravestones and other public memorials, static compositions that are stunning in their elegant beauty and historical scope. Spanning the colonial period to the present day, Gianvito's film honors such icons as Sojourner Truth, Malcolm X, and Henry David Thoreau, together with forgotten figures, represented only by a set of dates, an occasional quote, or a brief summary of their life’s work. 58 min.
Program 90 min.
Theater 2
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
1:30pm Atlantic City. 1981. USA. Directed by Louis Malle. Screenplay by John Guare. With Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli. Gift of Paramount Pictures. 104 min.
Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater)
6:00pm Sync or Swim. 2008. USA. Directed by Cheryl Furjanic. This informative and entertaining film dives into the world of synchronized swimming, following dedicated young women as they compete for spots on the U.S. national team and train relentlessly in pursuit of an Olympic medal. In the midst of their training, they must pull together to support a teammate during a personal tragedy. 90 min.
New York premiere. Discussion with Furjanic
Theater 1
6:00pm Inventario Balcanico (Balkan Inventory). 2000. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. This film marked Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi's return to the hallmark style they established in From the Pole to the Equator: the manipulation of early footage—colorized, sped up, and slowed down—to make a statement about the human condition. Here they use film shot by amateurs, travelers, and Nazi troops in the Balkans. 62 min.
Theater 2
8:00pm Prisoners of War (Prigionieri della guerra). 1995. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. This haunting film comprises of footage shot during WWI from opposite sides of the conflict: Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The filmmakers tinted the material with sensual colors from sepia to red, blue, and purple and slowed the footage to analyze the material. The total absence of commentary renders the material eloquent and disturbing. 67 min.
Theater 2
8:30pm Brooklyn DIY. 2009. USA. Directed by Marcin Ramocki. Brooklyn DIY is a long overdue examination of the creative renaissance in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Home to underground warehouse parties, anarchistic street creativity, and artist-run galleries and performance spaces, Williamsburg gave birth to one of the most vibrant and rebellious artistic communities to arise in the 1980s, permanently changing the city's cultural landscape. Featuring interviews with a host of artists and neighborhood characters, Ramocki's film captures life in a utopian universe made by artists, for artists—along with its inevitable decline in the face of real estate development, gentrification, and the post–September 11 market collapse. 75 min.
World premiere. Discussion with Ramocki and participants in the film
Theater 1
Thursday, February 26, 2009
1:30pm Atlantic City. 1981. USA. Directed by Louis Malle. Screenplay by John Guare. With Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli. Gift of Paramount Pictures. 104 min.
Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater)
6:00pm The Bridge (Die Brug). 1928. The Netherlands. Directed by Joris Ivens. General assistance by Helen van Dongen. Silent. 15 min.
Rain (Regen). 1929. The Netherlands. Directed by Joris Ivens, Mannus Franken. General assistance and assistant camera by van Dongen. Silent. 12 min.
The Spanish Earth. 1937. USA. Directed by Joris Ivens. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Commentary and narration by Ernest Hemingway. Helen van Dongen's association with Joris Ivens began in the 1920s when she was working at the optical equipment firm owned by Ivens's father. Along with other film enthusiasts, Ivens and Van Dongen formed Filmliga, an avant-garde film society that included Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, and Hans Richter. Van Dongen served as a general assistant and photographer on The Bridge, Ivens's first film, about the function of the Rotterdam railroad bridge over the Maas River, and on Rain, an observation of a rain shower in Amsterdam. After studying sound recording and editing at the Tobis Films Sonores studios and the UFA studios, Van Dongen transitioned into editing and worked almost exclusively with Ivens. As the editor of The Spanish Earth—a chronicle of the Spanish Civil War with a strong bias for the Republican government—van Dongen, in collaboration with Ivens, used sound as a driving narrative force. 53 min.
Program 80 min.
Theater 1
6:00pm Our Disappeared (Nuestros Desaparecidos). 2008. USA. Directed by Juan Mandelbaum. 99 min.
Discussion with Mandelbaum
Theater 2
8:30pm The 400 Million. 1939. USA. Directed by Joris Ivens. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Narration by Fredric March. After The Spanish Earth, the director and editor collaborated on another political documentary, The 400 Million,which documents the graphic horror of the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. The film exemplifies Ivens and van Dongen's trademark juxtaposition of the resilient spirit of the oppressed with unimaginable destruction and death. 56 min.
Power and the Land. 1940. USA. Directed by Joris Ivens. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Power and the Land,which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to document the government's efforts to convince American farmers to use electricity, was the last of van Dongen's thirteen film collaborations with Ivens. 38 min.
Theater 1
9:00pm Prisoners of War (Prigionieri della guerra). 1995. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. This haunting film comprises of footage shot during WWI from opposite sides of the conflict: Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The filmmakers tinted the material with sensual colors from sepia to red, blue, and purple and slowed the footage to analyze the material. The total absence of commentary renders the material eloquent and disturbing. 67 min.
Theater 2
Friday, February 27, 2009
1:30pm Atlantic City. 1981. USA. Directed by Louis Malle. Screenplay by John Guare. With Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli. Gift of Paramount Pictures. 104 min.
Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater)
6:00pm Transparencies. 1998. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. This abstract exploration of the relationship between film and war compares the process of decay in nitrate film and gunpowder. 8 min.
On the Heights All Is Peace (Su tutte le vette é pace). 1998. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. This impressionistic antiwar film centers on the armed struggle between Austro-Hungarian and Italian forces on the Alpine Front during WWI, and includes original film material by the pioneer filmmaker Luca Comerio. The film captures the war through the eyes of the ordinary soldiers in the field, showing blood-stained, wounded bodies and anonymous crowds. 72 min.
Theater 2
6:00pm The Land. 1942. USA. Directed by Robert J. Flaherty. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Restored with funding from the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Fund and The Film Foundation. Van Dongen's second commission by the USDA, and her first collaboration with Flaherty, concerns the plight of farmers faced with erosion, unemployment, and new technology. 42 min.
Louisiana Story. 1948. USA. Directed by Robert J. Flaherty. Screenplay by Robert J. Flaherty, Frances Flaherty. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Produced by van Dongen, Richard Leacock. With Joseph Boudreau, Lionel Le Blanc, Frank Hardy. Restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, in cooperation with the Amsterdam Filmmuseum and MoMA. Although Flaherty's vision of nonfiction was more romanticized than that of the actuality-inclined Joris Ivens, both directors' work with van Dongen shared a heavy reliance on editing and sound design in story development, as seen in Louisiana Story, a fictionalized account of the introduction of oil drilling to the Louisiana bayou, as seen through the eyes of a Cajun boy. 79 min.
Theater 1
8:00pm Flesh in Ecstasy: Gaston Lachaise and the Woman He Loved. 2008. USA. Directed by George Stoney, David Bagnall. Taking as its focus Gaston Lachaise's striking Standing Woman statue, the film explores the artist's relationship with his model for the work: his wife and muse, Isabel Dutaud Nagel. The film includes quotes from the sculptor's passionate love letters and scenes of the statue's recent recasting at the Modern Art Factory in Brooklyn, NY. In English, French; English subtitles. 21 min.
Race or Reason: The Bellport Dilemma. 2003. USA. Directed by Betty Puleston, Lynne Jackson. Produced by George Stoney. In 1969–70, when race riots were sweeping across America, a series of ugly confrontations at a racially mixed high school rocked the small Long Island town of Bellport. Local resident Betty Puleston opened her home as a meeting place where black, white, and Latino students could air their grievances, providing them with a pair of video cameras to facilitate dialogue. Thirty years later, the former students regrouped to view the tapes. Courtesy Filmmakers Library. 59 min.
Theater 2
8:30pm The Bridge (Die Brug). 1928. The Netherlands. Directed by Joris Ivens. General assistance by Helen van Dongen. Silent. 15 min.
Rain (Regen). 1929. The Netherlands. Directed by Joris Ivens, Mannus Franken. General assistance and assistant camera by van Dongen. Silent. 12 min.
The Spanish Earth. 1937. USA. Directed by Joris Ivens. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Commentary and narration by Ernest Hemingway. Helen van Dongen's association with Joris Ivens began in the 1920s when she was working at the optical equipment firm owned by Ivens's father. Along with other film enthusiasts, Ivens and Van Dongen formed Filmliga, an avant-garde film society that included Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, and Hans Richter. Van Dongen served as a general assistant and photographer on The Bridge, Ivens's first film, about the function of the Rotterdam railroad bridge over the Maas River, and on Rain, an observation of a rain shower in Amsterdam. After studying sound recording and editing at the Tobis Films Sonores studios and the UFA studios, Van Dongen transitioned into editing and worked almost exclusively with Ivens. As the editor of The Spanish Earth—a chronicle of the Spanish Civil War with a strong bias for the Republican government—van Dongen, in collaboration with Ivens, used sound as a driving narrative force. 53 min.
Program 80 min.
Theater 1
Saturday, February 28, 2009
2:00pm The 400 Million. 1939. USA. Directed by Joris Ivens. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Narration by Fredric March. After The Spanish Earth, the director and editor collaborated on another political documentary, The 400 Million,which documents the graphic horror of the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. The film exemplifies Ivens and van Dongen's trademark juxtaposition of the resilient spirit of the oppressed with unimaginable destruction and death. 56 min.
Power and the Land. 1940. USA. Directed by Joris Ivens. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Power and the Land,which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to document the government's efforts to convince American farmers to use electricity, was the last of van Dongen's thirteen film collaborations with Ivens. 38 min.
Theater 1
2:00pm Short Film Program 2
Mysterious Lights (Luci misteriose). 2005. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. A film based on the 1930s images of an unknown Jewish-Belgian Surrealist photographer and filmmaker. The shots reveal intimate scenes from the daily life of the artist and his girlfriend in the years preceding WWII. 12 min.
African Diary (Diario Africano). 1994. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. A reworking of images from a film diary recorded by an anonymous traveler in Algeria between 1927 and 1936, this film is an illustration of the camera as an instrument of colonial domination. 8 min.
Diana's Looking Glass (Lo specchio di Diana). 1996. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. In 1926 the remains of two ships built by the Emperor Caligula were found at the bottom of Lake Nemi, near Rome. Mussolini had the lake drained and established a museum as a celebration of the imperial origins of Fascism, but the museum and ships were destroyed by fleeing Nazis in 1944. The film commemorates these events. 31 min.
Nocturne. 1997. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. A silent, elegiac poem describing the pain and violence of war, made from footage shot at Sarajevo in 1995, Belgrade in 1996, and Zagreb in the 1980s, and incorporating archival footage from WWI. 18 min.
Visions of the Desert (Visioni del deserto). 2000. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. A montage of images taken by an unknown French explorer in the Sahara Desert in the early 1920s. 18 min.
Program 87 min.
Theater 2
4:15pm Images of the East, Barbaric Tourism (Images d'Orient, tourisme vandale). 2001. Italy. Directed by Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian. The filmmakers use footage shot in India by tourists in the late 1920s to illustrate the elitist attitudes of Westerners toward the Far East. The film contrasts the wretched life of the poor and malnourished with the sumptuous lifestyles of the Europeans. 62 min.
Theater 2
5:45pm The Uprising of 1934. 1995. USA. Directed by George Stoney, Judith Helfand, Susanne Rostock. Largely forgotten today, the General Textile Strike is a stirring chapter in the history of labor movements in the American South. In 1934, textile workers took the lead in a nationwide strike in which half a million people walked off their jobs. These new union members successfully stood up for their rights and became a force to be reckoned with—until management crushed the strike, mill workers were murdered, and thousands more were blacklisted. Courtesy Icarus Films. 90 min.
Theater 2
7:00pm The Land. 1942. USA. Directed by Robert J. Flaherty. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Restored with funding from the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Fund and The Film Foundation. Van Dongen's second commission by the USDA, and her first collaboration with Flaherty, concerns the plight of farmers faced with erosion, unemployment, and new technology. 42 min.
Louisiana Story. 1948. USA. Directed by Robert J. Flaherty. Screenplay by Robert J. Flaherty, Frances Flaherty. Edited by Helen van Dongen. Produced by van Dongen, Richard Leacock. With Joseph Boudreau, Lionel Le Blanc, Frank Hardy. Restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, in cooperation with the Amsterdam Filmmuseum and MoMA. Although Flaherty's vision of nonfiction was more romanticized than that of the actuality-inclined Joris Ivens, both directors' work with van Dongen shared a heavy reliance on editing and sound design in story development, as seen in Louisiana Story, a fictionalized account of the introduction of oil drilling to the Louisiana bayou, as seen through the eyes of a Cajun boy. 79 min.
Theater 1
7:45pm How the Myth Was Made. 1978. USA. Directed by George Stoney. A film about the making of a film: Robert Flaherty's 1934 classic Man of Aran, which chronicled fishermen's struggle for existence on Ireland's bleak Aran Islands. Stoney revisits the islands and interviews surviving locals about their memories of the original film—and their reactions to making this one. Includes excerpts from the original documentary. Courtesy Circulating Film and Video Library, MoMA. 60 min.
Theater 2
Public Information: The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019
Hours: Films are screened Wednesday-Monday. For screening schedules, please visit www.moma.org.
Film Admission: $10 adults; $8 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D. $6 full-time students with current I.D. (For admittance to film programs only.) The price of a film ticket may be applied toward the price of a Museum admission ticket when a film ticket stub is presented at the Lobby Information Desk within 30 days of the date on the stub (does not apply during Target Free Friday Nights, 4:00–8:00 p.m.). Admission is free for Museum members and for Museum members and for Museum ticketholders.