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June
19, 2007
SEMPER
FI: ONE MARINE'S JOURNEY
An interview with Vince
DiPersio the director of the documentary Semper
Fi: One Marine’s Journey the story of Jeff Key, a kid from
Alabama, who set out for Hollywood where he found freedom, acceptance and deep
friendships. At thirty-four Key decides to join the Marine Corps Reserve only
to find his life again transformed in the wake of 9/11. Knowing he could get
out of the service by telling his superiors who he really was, Key decided to
go to war for the country he loved. Once in Iraq, Key’s heart was broken
by what he saw. When he makes the decision to reveal his homosexuality, Key becomes
true to himself. DiPersio is the recipient of three Academy Award nominations,
three Emmys, prizes from film festivals around the world, and the Robert F. Kennedy
Award for Journalism.
June
12, 2007
SEVERED
WAYS
An interview with director Tony
Stone whose film Severed
Ways will have its world premier June 22 at Film
Independent's Los Angeles Film Festival. Shot
independently at the site of actual Viking settlements in Newfoundland,
Severed Ways follows Vikings,
Indians and Irish monks as they collide on the shores of North America
in the name of personal glory and religious dominance in the 11th century.
Two stranded Vikings wade through a primeval landscape as they struggle
for survival while still in the grip of their Norse ways.
June
5,
2007
BRAND
UPON THE BRAIN!
An interview with director Guy
Madden. Equal parts childhood reminiscence, Expressionist
horror film, teen detectived serial, and Grand Guignol reverie, Brand
upon the Brain! is a new cinematic spectacle. Inspired by
the aesthetics and melodramatic flourishes of silent cinema, Central
European literature and the desolation of his native Winnipeg, Maddin
has fashioned a career like no other. A Super-8-cranking modern-day Eisenstein,
filming plots that would make John Waters blush, Maddin embraces a cinema
where expressionism, somnambulism and lurid sexual neuroses unite—and
conquer.
May
29, 2007
THE
WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL
An interview with Judy
Irving the director / producer of the documentary The
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. and Mark
Bittner, the subject of this film. In a celebration of
urban wildness, Irving follows formerly homeless street musician Mark
Bittner into San Francisco’s avian subculture, where a remarkable
flock of wild green-and-red parrots live and work to survive. Dubbed
the “Bohemian St. Francis,” Bittner falls in with the flock
as he searches for his path through life, unaware that the wild parrots
will do more for him than eat his sunflower seeds. Irving is a Sundance
and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker whose previous credits include Dark
Circle, a feature documentary about the nuclear industry, and Out of
the Way Café, an hour-long drama.
THE
DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK
An interview with co-director Ricki
Stern whose documentary, The
Devil Came on Horseback exposes the violence and tragedy
of the genocide in Darfur as seen through the eyes of a lone American
witness. Using thousands of uncompromising and exclusive photographs
taken by former US Marine Captain Brian Steidle during his role as a
military observer with the African Union,the film leads you through the
tragic impact of an Arab government bent on destroying its black African
citizens. Stern past documentaries include The Trials of
Darryl Hunt, In My Corner, and Neglect Not The Children.
May
22, 2007
NEW
YEAR BABY
An interview with Socheata
Poeuv the director and subject of the documentary New
Year Baby. Born on the Cambodian New Year in a Thai refugee camp,
Socheata never knew how she got there. After her birth, her family left the past
behind
and moved to Texas never speaking about their surviving the Khmer Rouge genocide.
In the film, Socheata journeys to Cambodia and discovers the truth about her
family.
New Year baby won the highest human rights cinema award, the Amnesty
International 'Movies That Matter' Award, at its premiere at the
2006 International Documentary Festival Amsterdam.
May
15, 2007
DAY
NIGHT DAY NIGHT
An interview with Julia
Loktev, writer and director of the controversial film about a female
suicide bomber, Day
Night Day Night. The film won the Independent Spirit "Someone
to Watch" Award, the Cannes Film Festival Prix Regards Jeune and Best Feature
at the Montréal Festival of New Cinema. In it, a 19-year-old prepares
to become a suicide bomber in Times Square. She speaks with no accent; it’s
impossible to pinpoint her ethnicity. We never learn why she made her decision;
she has made it already. We don’t know whom she represents or what she
believes, only that she believes it absolutely.
May
8, 2007
A LOBSTER TALE
An interview with screenwriter Court
Crandall of the film A
Lobster Tale. A movie tinged with magical realism, A Lobster
Tale won for its screenplay at the Austin Film Festival and was given
the Sundance Channel Audience Award. Shot in Halifax, the film takes place in
a
small Maine fishing town, where a struggling lobster fisherman discovers a mysterious
healing
sea moss in one of his traps. Tension in his already fragile family erupts when
the true supernatural quality of the moss is revealed and becomes sought after
by everyone in town.
May
1, 2007
AWAY FROM HER
An interview with Sarah
Polley director of Away
From Her, a screenplay adaptation of celebrated author Alice
Munro's short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." Starring
Julie Christie, Away
From Her explores the dilemma of a man coping with the institutionalization
of his wife because of Alzheimer's disease. Polley is a director, writer
and actress renowned in her native Canada for her peace and justice political
activism. From child star to director, her career ranges from the TV series The
Road to Avonlea to Atom Egoyan's The
Sweet Hereafter, from Terry Gilliiam's The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen to Isabel Coixet's The
Secret Life of Words.
April
24,
2007
EVERYTHING’S
GONE GREEN
An interview with Paul
Fox the director of Everything’s
Gone Green — a film about a twentysomething
uberslacker who is nonetheless willing
to fall into accidental success. Green comically
illustrates how hard it is to know what’s real in a world filled
with fabrication and hidden agendas. In 2005 Fox’s first feature-length
film, the psychological thriller The Dark Hours was released to critical
acclaim and garnered numerous awards at international festivals. Everything’s
Gone Green is his second feature. This film marks the first
screenplay written by the acclaimed author Douglas
Coupland ("Generation X").
SING
NOW OR FOREVER
HOLD YOUR
PEACE
An interview with Bruce
Leddy the director of Sing
Now or Forever Hold Your Peace winner of the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Audience
Award. A group of guys who sang together in a college a cappella group reunite
15 years later to perform at a friend's wedding and discover how their lives have
progressed — and in some cases regressed — since their college heyday.
April
17,
2007
THE
NEWPORT
BEACH
FILM
FESTIVAL
An
interview
with Gregg
Schwenk,
executive
director
of
the Newport
Beach
Film
Festival.
In
2007,
the
Festival
will
spotlight
over
350
films
from
around
the
world
including
features,
shorts,
documentaries,
and
animation
that
will
compete
for
a
series
of
awards
including
Jury
Awards
and
Audience
Awards.
In
addition
to
film
screenings,
the
Festival
will
host
several
premiere
galas,
yacht
parties,
and
question
and
answer
sessions
with
filmmakers.
The
Festival
runs
from
April
19th
through
April
29th,
2007
and
is
expected
to
attract
more
than
35,000
film
devotees.
April
10, 2007
KEVIN
THOMAS: REMEMBERING FRITZ LANG
Filmmakers in the indie, experimental, foreign, avant-garde and documentary fields
desperately need critics. Lacking money for a promotional campaign and forced
to rely on word-of-mouth, these filmmakers have found no better friend over the
past 40-plus years than Kevin
Thomas of the Los
Angeles Times. Thomas, one of the few people in Hollywood to
befriend the legendary Fritz
Lang, will share his personal rememberances of the director who
brought us Metropolis, M, Die
Nibelungen, The
Big Heat and The
Blue Gardenia. Thomas's film series, American
Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre, continues April 18 with a twin
bill — Double
Indemnity and Blood Money.
April
3,
2007
THE PRISONER OR: HOW I PLANNED TO KILL TONY BLAIR
An interview
with co-directors and co-producers Michael
Tucker and Petra
Epperlein of the documentary The
Prisoner Or: How I Planned To Kill Tony Blair.
Baghdad, September 2003: In a middle class house on a quiet street in
Baghdad, a family is fast asleep. Without warning, the front door is crashed
and American soldiers storm the house looking for weapons and bomb-making
material. Cameraman Michael Tucker documents the event as the men in the
house are cuffed and forced to kneel in the garden. Combining Tucker's
embedded footage, Yunis' home movies, testimony from former guard Benjamin
Thompson and original comic book art, Tucker and Epperlein trace the moving
story of an ordinary man trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
CHINA BLUE
An interview with Micha
X. Peled director of China
Blue. Like no other
film before, China Blue is a powerful and poignant journey into the harsh
world of sweatshop workers. Shot clandestinely, this is a deep-access
account of what both China and the international retailers don't want
us to see: how the clothes we buy are actually made. Following a pair
of denim jeans from birth to sale, China Blue links the power of the
U.S. consumer market to the daily lives of a Chinese factory owner and
two teenaged female factory workers. Filmed both in the factory and in
the workers' faraway village, this documentary provides a rare, human
glimpse at China's rapid transformation into a free market society. China
Blue will air on PBS's Independent
Lens Series on Tuesday, April 3 at 10:30
pm.
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