Northwest Film Center - Exhibition Programs

june/july/august 2001

SOVIET CINEMA

OF THE SIXTIES

Most film historians consider the1920s to be the golden age of Soviet Cinema. The work of Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin and Dovzhenko and others had international impact, raising cinema from its humble origins as primarily entertainment to a potent force for social change and artistic expression. The rise of Stalin and increasing political conformity brought a brief era to an end and it was not until Khruschev’s 20th Party Congress denouncement (1956) of the three decades of terror that had ruled the Soviet Union were artists and filmmakers freed from the strictures of socialist realism.

The slow “thaw” that ensued in the late fifties freed artists to examine the nonidealized life, and they, like their much better known and advanced peers in Europe, quickly raced ahead of the slowly evolving political and social changes, testing the limits of the state while connecting long buried history with the promise of a freer future.

More a mindset than a strictly chronological period or movement, the1960s saw the emergence of directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Andrei Kochalovsky, whose influence would be felt internationally, distinctive voices from the Soviet Republics like Georgia (Georgy Shagelaya) and Armenia (Sergei Paradjanov), women (Kira Muratova and Larissa Shepikto) and a generation of other voices new (Marlen Khutsiev) and old (Mikhail Romm), unafraid to take on the complexities of contemporary life.

The circulation of these rarely screened films, mostly new 35mm prints, has been made possible through the efforts of Alla Verlotsky of Seagull Films and Richard Pena of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, who organized an extensive retrospective in New York. Thanks go to Trilogy for co-sponsoring this selection of the films at the Northwest Film Center.

A genuine cult figure in Italy, and darling of European critics, Nanni Moretti’s newest feature, LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO (OUR SON’S ROOM), has just earned him his second Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (the much celebrated DEAR DIARY brought the first in 1993). The Film Center is pleased to screen these two titles and eight other's from the director's body of work. Moretti’s films reflect the critical eye of his generation, infused with acerbic political observations about the climate of his times. Born in 1953 in the province of Bolzano in Northern Italy, Moretti shot his first two works in 1973 on Super-8. In 1976 he had his first starring role, in the Taviani Brothers’ PADRE PADRONE, and has since worked as both an actor and director. As a director, Moretti is indebted to the great tradition of American movie comedy. Like Chaplin and Keaton, he is a complete auteur: writing, directing and starring in all of his films. His love of the chaotic moment is reminiscent of the delirious highjinks of the Marx brothers in their prime. An intellectual even when the narrative is low-brow, slapstick comedy, Moretti practices the art of balancing comedy with deeper metaphysical concerns and a political consciousness informed by his close involvement in the Italian Communist Party. With a radical, almost anarchic style of filmmaking, Moretti has gained a reputation as a neurotic, whimsical and unconventional director. This retrospective provides an opportunity to discover the parameters of a unique comedic talent.

Special Thanks: Gwen Deglise, American Cinematheque, Los Angeles; Camilla Cormanni/ CINECITTA HOLDING; Guido Fink/ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE, Los Angeles; Italian Consul General of Los Angeles; Italian Trade Commission; Roy Ventress and Giovanna Zamboni-Paulis/ITALIAN HERITAGE CULTURE FOUNDATION; Melinda Hovee/FINE LINE FEATURES; Suzanne Fedak/WINSTAR CINEMA.

From Agnes Varda's THE GLEANERS AND I to the outrageous PLASTER CASTER, this Summer features some not to be missed special screenings and visiting artists.

This year's Academy Award nominated documentaries speak eloquently of social responsibility and the betrayals of the past. The shorts speak to the variety of the art of film- and what wonders twenty minutes can inspire.

German television producer Regina Zeigler said the idea just came one night during dinner with a friend. “Why not commission a series of short erotic films for the 1990s?" She contacted half-a-dozen internationally known directors, from differing backgrounds, culture and lifestyles, and the project was born. Nine years, 25 episodes and a shelf-full of international awards later, EROTIC TALES is a unique and richly entertaining anthology quite unlike any other. The TALES are, for the most part, playful short stories (half-hour) of fantasy, sometimes spiced with humor and occasionally poetic or exotic. While the primary factors of the “erotic” are the indefinable, perhaps these reveal that the truly erotic has to take place entirely in the imagination. The Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal once said “If it’s not erotic, it’s not interesting.” We hope you find these flights of imagination of interest.
PRESENTATION OF EROTIC TALES IS SPONSORED BY TRILOGY VIDEO & DVD.

"WONDERFUL! Studded with found metaphors and serendipitous insights. One of the bravest, most idiosyncratic of French filmmakers. She is a constant, funny presence in the film, providing piquant voice-over narration. She's a treasure!" —A.O. Scott, The New York Times "TWO BIG THUMBS UP! Surprisingly profound, poetic and moving! You just kind of sit there in awe." —Roger Ebert, Ebert & Roeper and the Movies "Varda has a divine passion for the rejected and abused. She's rational, childlike, historical, certainly art-historical, legalistic, humanistic, and of course, persistent. One falls hopelessly in love with her. " —Harlan Jacobson, Film Comment	MAY 25-31 7 & 9 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM PIFF FAVORITE THE GLEANERS AND I FRANCE 2000 DIRECTOR: Agnes Varda Taking as her inspiration the paintings of 19th century artists like Millet and Van Gogh who captured the centuries-old peasant tradition of gleaning the fields for leftover harvest, Varda embarks on an extraordinary journey across France in search of their contemporary counterparts. Capturing herself as well, a gleaner of images, she finds those who rummage, forage and scavenge for a variety of reasons. Some literally harvest food for survival; some are activists whose refusal of consumerism leads them to live off “ownerless goods.” Still others are artists who recycle found objects. Connecting her discoveries are Varda’s own reflections on gathering images and memories—and on waste, the environment, aging and art—woven into a funny, provocative and poetic film-essay. (82 mins.) .
JUNE 1 2 3 FRI 7 & 9 P.M., SAT 7 & 9 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM PIFF FAVORITE THE TASTE OF OTHERS FRANCE 2000 DIRECTOR: Agnès Jaoui Castella is a successful suburban businessman caught behind the changing times. More out of boredom than interest, he allows his wife Angelique to drag him to a performance of Racine’s “Berenice.” Much to his surprise he is overwhelmed by the power and beauty of lead actress Clara, who plays the Queen. He becomes so infatuated with her that he goes back to the play night after night. These are but two satellites revolving in writer-director Jaoui’s universe. Around them gravitate others who perhaps should never have met, but their encounters reveal hidden facets of their personalities they would never have suspected. This buoyant, comic, tender and very French comedy of manners introduces us to characters the movies tend to forget: great actresses who don’t get the breaks, bored rich women with no sense of style, and sexy, knowing barmaids who can’t find love. French Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, and winner of four French Cesar Awards including Best Film and Best Screenplay. (112 mins.)	JUNE 8 9 10 FRI 7:30 P.M., SAT 7 & 9 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM NIGHT WALTZ: THE MUSIC OF PAUL BOWLES US 1999 DIRECTOR: OWSLEY BROWN At 17, Paul Bowles was introduced to composer Aaron Copland, who took him as a student. As part of the vibrant New York art and music scene of the 1930s and 40s, Bowles matured into a recognized voice in American musical composition. Long before he became a celebrated author, best know for his novel "The Sheltering Sky," Bowles composed music for Lincoln Kirsten's ballet Yankee Clipper, Orson Welles' Mercury Theater and three Tennessee Williams plays. Bowles, who died this past November at 89 in Tangier, recounts his life in music, revealing a lesser-known side of this renowned artist. (77 mins.)
JUNE 15 FRI 8 P.M. GUILD THEATRE VISITING ARTIST AN EVENING WITH ELISABETH SUBRIN Elisabeth Subrin’s provocative work examines the intersections of history and subjectivity within female biography. Engaging conventions of documentary and personal narrative, her works strategically undermine their own forms, shifting historical periods, genres and identifications to explore the residual impact of feminism and the hazy boundaries between fiction and nonfiction. Tonight she will screen SWALLOW (1995), a mixed media collage which in often humorous fashion examines the possibility that depression and anorexia are language disorders; SHULIE (1997), a fictional “remake” of a documentary portrait made in 1967 of a then unknown young woman (Shulamith Firestone) who later emerged as author of the ground-breaking text “The Dialectic of Sex: the Case for Feminist Revolution”; and THE FANCY (2000), a speculative visual essay that explores the life of artist Francesca Woodman (1958 -1981) as evoked in the published catalogues of and about her photographs. (2 hrs.)	JUNE 15 16 17 FRI 7 & 9 P.M., sAT 7 & 9 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM FAAT KINE SENEGAL 2000 Director: ousmane Sembene Sembene's (CAMP DE THIAROYE, GUELWAAR) new film provides a warm, colorful and often humorous portrait of life in contemporary Dakar. Chic, liberated Faat-Kine seems to have it all: a good job managing a gas station; a home that is the envy of friends and family; and two daughters getting a good education. But with her triumphs, the anxieties of generations of political and cultural tribal custom and male dominance are ever present. She has to work twice as hard for half the rewards and true equality is elusive. Juxtaposing Faat-Kine's personal struggle with those of a larger culture where poverty and affluence, new and old and dreams and reality live side by side, Sembene measures progress and disappointment and the strength necessary to make a better future. "A rich comedy of manners! Gives a feeling of hope about Africa's future which might even be saved by its stubborn women." —Jonathan Rosenbaum, FILM COMMENT. (90 mins.)
JUNE 22 23 24 FRI 7 & 8:45 P.M., SAT 7 & 8:45 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM PERSONA SWEDEN 1966 DIRECTOR: INGMAR BERGMAN Regarded by many as Bergman's most important and personal film and a masterpiece of modernist cinema, PERSONA explores the relationship between two women: a prominent actress (Liv Ullman) who has suffered a nervous breakdown and mysteriously lost the power of speech, and her nurse (Bibi Andersson), whose own anguish, deeply hidden, is unleashed by the mysterious forces of the woman in her care. The two women, who look alike, begin to merge and converge–or are they actually facets of one divided personality? Famed for its striking narrative and visual innovation, bold erotic charge and psychological rawness ."There is no suggestion of [Ullmann] acting in PERSONA, only the extraordinary, indefinite emotions of a photographed face—one of the greatest images in world cinema."—David Thompson (84 mins.)	JUNE 23 SAT 2 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM 25TH YOUNG PEOPLE’S FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL U.S. 1999-2001 Join us for this year’s Winner’s Program of film and video work created by youth grades K-12 living in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Many of the young mediamakers will be present in this free public program of shorts, animation, dramas and documentaries recognized for their originality, artistic merit, technical achievement or conviction in investigation of subject matter. The program also includes presentation of the annual Service To Young Filmmakers Award, and recognition of this year’s winners of the Northwest High School Screen Writing Competition. (120 min.) FREE ADMISSION
JUNE 29 30 JULY 1 FRI 7 & 8:45 P.M., SAT 7 & 8:45 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM PIFF FAVORITE THE BIG ANIMAL POLAND 2000 DIRECTOR:JERZY STUHR The late Krzysztof Kieslowski wrote this gentle absurdist comedic commentary on the perils of offbeat behavior and the paranoid intolerance of those who always conform. Zygmut Sawicki (Jerzy Stuhr) is a small-town bank clerk who one day finds a camel in his garden. He and his wife soon love the camel, as do the townsfolk. But soon the town starts getting tired and suspicious of the animal, becoming hostile when various schemes to make money of the “attraction” are flatly refused by Zygmut. So the Sawicki family bears the brunt of ostracism until the camel takes matters into his own...hands. “Can someone love...a camel? By choosing something that isn’t understood by normal standards, we bring upon ourselves loneliness, ill feeling and anger of others. This film shows how intolerance is bred.” —Jerzy Stuhr. (75 mins.)	JULY 6 7 8 FRI 7:30 P.M., SAT 7:30 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. GUILD THEATRE THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO FRANCE 1955 DIRECTOR: HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT Winner of a special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Clouzot’s (DIABOLIQUE, THE WAGES OF FEAR) fascinating film is at once an intimate and daring portrait of an artist at work and an extraordinary collaboration between artist and filmmaker. Inventing an entirely new kind of art film—one that uniquely captures the creative moment—Clouzot places the camera behind a semi-transparent surface. Picasso, armed with brush and a special (saturating) ink, literally draws on screen. As we witness 20 works come to life on this special celluloid canvas, the artist talks about his work as it evolves. The result, writes critic Pauline Kael, “is one of the most joyful of all records of an artist at work…the artist as clown, as conjurer, as master funmaker.” (85 mins.)
JULY 12 THU 8 P.M. GUILD THEATRE visiting artist GERRY FIALKA PRESENTS PIXEL VISIONS: THE BEST OF PXL THIS Since its creation as a child’s toy in the late 1980’s, the Fisher Price PXL-2000 toy video camera, which records sound and image on regular 1/4” audio cassette tapes, has been used by media artists all over the world. Los Angeles artist Gerry Fialka devotedly curates the annual PXL This Festival, an eclectic showcase of works by artists delighted by the grainy, low-tech image and perhaps ambivalent about the perfectionist goals of the latest in digital devices. Tonight Fialka will present a program that includes an inspiring selection of works by Rich Ferguson, Jeff Shepher, Kate Perotti, Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth), Phil Chamberlin, James Balsam, Betsy Kalin, Dave Edison, Michael Possert, Eli Elliott, Farah Rocker, Joe Frese, D.J. Beard and many others. (2 hrs.)	JULY 27 28 29 FRI 7&9 P.M., SAT 7&9 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. GUILD THEATRE MAU MAU SEX SEX DIRECTOR: TED BONNITT “A love letter to a nearly forgotten corner of American pop culture’s underground.”—VARIETY. Bonnitt’s hilarious and sometimes unsettling film is a portrait of America’s two oldest salesmen of cinematic sex, Dan Sonney, 84, and David Friedman, 76. Since the 1940s they have produced an astounding body of “Adults Only” sexploitation films including such grindhouse classics as BLOOD FEAST, THE DEFILERS, CHILD PRIDE, and WAGES OF SIN. Aiming directly at a market eschewed by the studios and incorporating the zeal of the carnival circuit, Sonney and Friedman found an American public rabid for their lurid nudie-cutie and S&M roughie fantasies –which by today’s standards are somewhat tame but in their day were the cutting edge of the forbidden. Vintage clips, laugh-filled recollections and surprising family stories tell “…the classic anti-Hollywood success story.” —Eric Caidin, CULT MOVIE MAGAZINE. (80 mins.)
AUGUST 2 3 4 THU 8 P.M., FRI 7:30 P.M., SAT 8 P.M. whitsell auditorium PAINTERS PAINTING US 1972 DIRECTOR: EMILE DE ANTONIO De Antonio’s (POINT OF ORDER, MILLHOUSE, UNDERGROUND) fascinating film is an intimate homage to the New York art world from 1940 to 1970. Seen through the eyes of the artists, critics, dealers, collectors and curators who defined the era, it is both an extraordinary document as well as singular art-history lesson: there is simply no other film like it. Among the many, interviewed in studios and galleries: Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, Hans Hoffman, Kenneth Nolan, Larry Poons, Jules Olitsky, Andy Warhol, Hilton Kramer, Clement Greenberg, Leo Castelli, Robert Scull, William Rubin, Philip Johnson, Henry Geldzahler and Thomas Hess. (116 mins.) On view at the Portland Art Museum through September 8 is the Clement Greenberg Collection, which features work by many of the artists in “Painters Painting” and critic Clement Greenberg.	AUG 9 THU 7:30 p.m. GUILD THEATRE OPEN SCREENING Regional film and video makers are invited to bring or send work for open screening. Admission is free and there is no charge to show work. To confirm a place in the program and insure we have the equipment you require, please call (503) 276-4259. Free admission.PLEASE HAVE YOUR WORKS DELIVERED TO THE FILM CENTER by AUGUST 3.
AUGUST 10 11 FRI 7&9 P.M., SAT 7&9 P.M. GUILD THEATRE PENILE PORTRAITS PLASTER CASTER US 2000 DIRECTOR: JESSICA VILLINES You want art? Jessica’s Villines’ engaging portrait tells the story of super groupie Cynthia Plaster Caster, who has been making casts of male rock stars’ genitalia for over three decades. Framed around Cynthia’s gallery retrospective at New York’s Threadwaxing Space, PLASTER CASTER covers every angle of her story: the legendary castings of Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding and Eric Burdon and MC5’s Wayne Kramer; her “sponsorship” from Frank Zappa and resulting lawsuits; interviews with her fans, including the Make Ups’ Ian Svenonius, the Revolting Cocks’ Chris Connelly, Momus, Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra, the Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelly, the Mekon’s Jon Langford, Camille Paglia, and many others; and finally, on-camera attempts to make new casts of two new indie-rockers bent on being immortalized. Yes, you could say Cynthia knows dick. (103 mins.)	AUG 12 13 SUN 7:30 P.m., MON 7:30 P.m. GUILD THEATRE THE NINTH ANNUAL SHORT ATTENTION SPAN FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL directors: various Bored by long films, even way too long shorts? This annual showcase of work from aroud the world proves that brevity is not only the soul of wit–it’s the tonic for our ever-shortening attention spans. A frenetic collection of films and videos–from the surreal to the serious to the dramatic and depraved–each of which is under two minutes. among the filmmakers with pieces are Micheal Moore, Doug Copland, David Weir amd Ari Gold. (90 mins.)
AUGUST 17 18 FRI 7 P.M., SAT 9 P.M. GUILD THEATRE THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES IRAN 1994 DIRECTOR: ABBAS KIAROSTAMI On many international top ten lists of films of the 1990s, Kiarostami's witty work examines the social status of filmmaking among ordinary people while saluting the vicissitudes of moviemaking. A film crew arrives in an isolated village in Northern Iran following the devastating earthquake in 1992. Houssein, a young bricklayer, is offered a small part in the film, and is delighted to learn that Farkhonde, the woman he has ardently been pursuing, has been cast in the role of his wife. Farkhonde and her family have rejected Houssein as a suitor because he is homeless and illiterate. He seizes the chance to persist in his courting, and complications and tensions soon spill over into the film-within-a-film, as real life roles and fictional ones begin to blur. A bittersweet mix of farce and formalism, "the delight and deep emotional satisfactions that come derive...from Kiarostami's deep humor, loving humanity and clear poetic intelligence."—Dimitri Eipides, Toronto Film Festival. (102 mins.)	AUGUST 17 18 FRI 9 P.M., SAT 7 P.M. GUILD THEATRE A TASTE OF CHERRY IRAN 1997 DIRECTOR: ABBAS KIAROSTAMI Winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and every bit the critical rival to THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES, A TASTE OF CHERRY follows a middle-aged, middle class man, quietly resolved to some desperate purpose, as he criss-crosses the rural outskirts of Tehran in his expensive SUV. He gives lifts to a series of strangers—a Kurdish soldier, an Afghani seminarian, a Turkish taxidermist— and then offers each a considerable sum of money if they will assist him in a terrible task. Kiarostami's celebrated poetic humanism is everywhere in evidence; his noted formalism, unique blurring of fact and fiction, documentary and drama, for which he is so well known, is here held in check until the film's last, enigmatic finale. "Emotionally engrossing...filmed with the piercing intensity of a fable...one of the director's darkest and most personal movies."—Deborah Young, VARIETY. (98 mins.)
SEPTEMBER 1 SAT 9 P.M. SPECIAL EVENT – HOLLYWOOD THEATRE THE 2001 PERIPHERAL PRODUCE INVITATIONAL Peripheral Produce, Portland’s acclaimed experimental film screening series, celebrates its fifth year of programming with its most ‘extreme’event to date. Co-sponsored by the Film Center, The Invitational pits filmmaker vs filmmaker in this competitive film event that will decide the PP World Champion of Experimental Cinema. Projectors will be blazing as filmmakers from across the country converge in Portland with brand new works for this cinematic showdown. Among the many stepping into the booth: Craig Baldwin, Miranda July, Brian Frye, Animal Charm, Melinda Stone, Vanessa Renwick, Sarah Marcus, Bill Brown, Jason Livingson, Bryan Boyle, Phillip Cooper and Sam Green. Complete program information will be available in August at www.rodeofilmco.com or nwfilm.org. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd. Funded in part by a Regional Arts and Culture Project Grant.

TO TOP

SOVIET CINEMA OF THE SIXTIES

JUNE 1 3 FRI 7:30 P.M., SUN 6 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
THE LETTER NEVER SENT
USSR 1959
DIRECTOR: MIKHAIL KALATOZOV Tatiana Samoilova, who starred in Kalatoz’s earlier classic THE CRANES ARE FLYING, rejoins the director and the unparalleled cinematography team of Mikhail Kalatozov and Sergei Urusevsky in this fact-based drama about a geological expedition to Siberia that meets just about every imaginable obstacle. From Arctic frosts to a forest fire, Urusevsky’s camera is every bit as unhinged in nature’s expanses as on the boulevards of Moscow. With the search for diamonds driving the plot, the era’s typical sanctification of science receives a nicely done revision. A visual inspiration to Francis Coppola in the production of APOCALYPSE NOW, Kalatozov’s film is “A heroic saga [of] Dantean heights…”– VILLAGE VOICE. (97 mins.)

JUNE 7 9 THU 7 P.M., SAT 8:30 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
FIRST TEACHER
USSR 1965
DIRECTOR: ANDREI KONCHALOVSKY Like Larissa Shepitko’s HEAT (see June 28), FIRST TEACHER is based on a story by Chingiz Aitmatov, and Konchalovsky’s (SIBERADE, ASYA’S HAPPINESS) directing debut similarly recasts frontier drama for Soviet Asia, which once again proves a fertile soil for such transplants. The story takes place in 1923 and begins with a Communist teacher’s attempts to set up a school in a remote Kirghiz village. Soon enough a forbidden love with a beautiful 16-year-old girl leads to conflict with the local Kulak. FIRST TEACHER earned Kirghiz actress Natalya Arinbasarova the Best Actress Prize at the Venice Film Festival, in addition to garnering a Golden Lion nomination for Konchalovsky. (102 mins.)

JUNE 9 10 SAT 7 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATER
COLOR OF POMEGRANATES
USSR 1969
DIRECTOR: SERGEI PARADJANOV Sergei Paradjanov's first feature after SHADOWS OF OUR FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS (see June 22) surrealistically traces the life of a great 18th-century Armenian poet and monk, Sayat Nova, through his writings. The history and heritage of the Armenian nation and people–a story of Turkish genocide, Persian invasions, and a vast migration to the Russian section in the early 20th century; a heritage of ceremony, iconography, and architectural styles drawn from the Bible–are represented in striking fashion. “A visual experience that defies description, its eloquent imagery and often obscure symbols are drawn from Armenian paintings, poetry and history. As a friend of the director once remarked, ‘Paradjanov makes films not about how things are, but how they would have been had he been God.”—FABER COMPANION TO FOREIGN FILMS. (75 mins.)

JUNE 16 SAT 7:30 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
HAMLET
USSR 1964
DIRECTOR: GRIGORY KOZINTSEV Even though the language barrier does make moot a comparison between Innokenti Smoktunovsky and Laurence Olivier, Kozintsev’s film is arguably the finest screen Hamlet of all time. Receiving a special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival and a nomination for a Best Foreign Picture Golden Globe, HAMLET is by no means a “filmed play.” Kozintsev’s film is profoundly cinematic, swept clean of Freudian accoutrements and treated with somber fervor closer to Orson Welles’ MACBETH. Here, the Prince of Denmark is no vacillating dreamer, but the embodiment of power— an activist (read “dissident”) fixed on repelling the sinister manipulations of hostile outside forces. Boris Pasternak’s modern language translation is used for the dialogue along with a dramatic score by Shostakovich. (140 mins.)

JUNE 22 FRI 7:30 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
SHADOWS OF
FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS
USSR 1964
DIRECTOR: SERGEI PARADJANOV Paradjanov’s celebrated debut takes its nominal plot from a Carpathian folk tale but uses his own conception of hue and motion to create a unique series of mini-narratives. With manic reds, swish pans of a country fair and stark, static monochromes of a treacherous winterscape, SHADOWS simultaneously feeds off of and subsumes its folk-art origins. Paradjanov, a Georgia-born Armenian, laces the Ukrainian material with Middle Eastern mysticism to create an effect that is less specifically “ethnic” than pointedly un-Russian. The film is also defiantly formalist, a color-drunk experiment in pure form. Its emergence during the rule of Khruschev, who during his career bulldozed an Abstract Expressionist art exhibit, is one of the brief triumphs of the Thaw. (97 mins.)

JUNE 24 SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
DEBUT
USSR 1970
DIRECTOR: GLEB PANFILOV Inna Churikova virtually reprises her NO FORD IN THE FIRE part, a plain, naïve and excitable girl handed the Big Chance, but this setting is a contemporary and slightly more light-hearted endeavor. Churikova plays a factory worker who lands a role as Joan of Arc in a film, with only a community theater part of Baba Yaga to her credits. Director/ husband Panfilov’s self-awareness is quite evident here, from the way in which the character’s ascent is shaped to mirror the actress’, to the film’s set of a film set. DEBUT won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. (91 mins.)

JUNE 28 30 THU 7 P.M., SAT 9 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
HEAT
USSR 1963
DIRECTOR: LARISSA SHEPITKO When she died in a 1979 automobile accident at the age of 40, Larissa Shepitko (THE ASCENT) was arguably the Soviet Union’s foremost female filmmaker. HEAT, her third feature, tells of an idealistic high school graduate who goes to work on a state farm in Krighiz, where he clashes with the farm’s authoritarian, tractor-driving leader. An allegory of the rigidity of Stalinism versus the revolutionary spirit of the first five-year plan, it was adapted from a short story by Chingiz Aitmatov. Winner of the Best Director Prize at the Leningrad Film Festival. (85 mins.)

JUNE 2 3 SAT 7:30 P.M., SUN 8 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
NINE DAYS OF ONE YEAR
USSR 1961
DIRECTOR: MIKHAIL ROMM A film absolutely essential to the Soviet ‘60s, NINE DAYS is a deeply ambivalent ode to science. Two nuclear physicists stand on the verge of a great, and alarming, discovery. One worldly and wry (Innokenty Smoktunovsky), the other a Communist zealot (Alexei Batalov), they embody the divided soul of the “Thaw.” Unfolding against pointedly sterile surfaces of labs, airports and classy restaurants, NINE DAYS ingeniously sells the Soviets on a vision of themselves as Westerners with such Western concerns as technological guilt. In the powerful return to the countryside community, one sees Russian cinema revisiting its Stalin-era self and withdrawing in terror. “The Soviet equivalent of ON THE BEACH or FAIL SAFE.”—J. Hoberman. (110 mins.)

JUNE 8 10 FRI 7:30 P.M., SUN 8:45 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
JULY RAIN
USSR 1966
DIRECTOR: MARLEN KHUTSIEV A romantic New Wave affair in which a love story is flanked by documentary street sequences, Khutsiev’s film is an engaging portrait of mid-1960s Moscow youth. Folk singer-songwriter Yuri Vizbor, in a bold casting decision, plays one of the main parts, and his sad and fanciful folk songs with fellow musician Bulat Okudjava provide the film’s soundtrack. Aleksandr Mitta, another principal, is better known as the director of the Soviet Union’s only all-out disaster movie, THE CREW. (103 mins.)

JUNE 14 THU 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
I AM TWENTY
USSR 1964
DIRECTOR: MARLEN KHUTSIEV What started out as a ninety-minute story about three youngsters confronted with the ghost of the war (via a visit from one of the protagonists’ dead father), instead became an epic three-hour journey through the young, post-Stalinist Moscow. When Khruschev was shown the early cut, he hated it enough—perhaps for its innovative narrative techniques and fantastical plot devices —to necessitate a title change and reshoots so extensive that the key part of the father ended up performed by a different actor. The result is a fascinatingly sprawling, urban, contemporary drama revealing a society forever haunted by World War II. (175 mins.)

JUNE 17 SUN 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
USSR 1967
DIRECTOR: KIRA MURATOVA Shelved for 20 years over inscrutable “moral” objections (free love and bureaucratic disrespect), BRIEF ENCOUNTERS follows Nadya (Nina Ruslanova) on her quest for the attentions of Maxim, a famous geologist. The sexual appeal of scientists at the time was undeniable. Here, the appeal is aided by the casting of Vladimir Vysotsky and his portrayal of Maxim. A theater actor and cult singer of outlaw folk songs in 1967, Vysotsky became a full-fledged national idol. Captured in BRIEF ENCOUNTERS at his most prolifically bearded, he is a striking screen presence. Kira Muratova wisely cast herself as a town official who shatters rival Nadya’s dreams of getting there first. (96 mins.)

JUNE 21 THU 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
PIROSMANI
USSR 1968
DIRECTOR: GEORGY SHAGELAYA The life of Pirosmani (1863-1918), a Georgian primitivist folk painter, is explored in dreamlike detail by his compatriot Georgy Shagelaya. Pirosmani spent much of his life wandering from tavern to tavern, exchanging his paintings for food, drink and shelter. The film’s curious sepia color scheme pays a subtle tribute to Pirosmani’s own artwork, which ranges from folk whimsy to unfettered drama. Lush with static compositions and muted colors, the film’s cinematography itself recreates Pirosmani’s work while telling the story of his poor, lonely life. “Beautifully shot, it’s not often that an artist gets the film he deserves.”—TIME OUT. (86 mins.)

JUNE 23 SAT 7:30 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
NO FORD IN THE FIRE
USSR 1967
DIRECTOR: GLEB PANFILOV An episodic melodrama set in the violent wake of the October revolution, NO FORD IN THE FIRE illustrates the story of a country girl who briefly manages to express herself through direct and furious artwork, with her Pirosmani-esque drawings serving as chapter dividers. In addition to Alexei Solonitsyn’s role as a petulant Commissar, NO FORD IN THE FIRE contains a truly star-making performance by Inna Churikova. Cast for her “plain” looks, Churikova is in fact astoundingly beautiful in a way that would only be embraced much later. Her wildly inventive, frequently comic and subtly eroticized acting amounts to one of the greatest performances in all of Russian film. (95 mins.)

JUNE 27 JULY 1 WED 7 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
IVAN’S CHILDHOOD
(MY NAME IS IVAN)
USSR 1962
DIRECTOR: ANDREI TARKOVSKY Tarkovsky’s feature-length debut has all the hallmarks of his later body of work. From iconic visual signatures to the overarching sense of hushed anguish, Tarkovsky stakes his claim at a still-unique territory in world cinema with this wrenching tale of a soldier who survives as a spy behind enemy lines. Slipped by Russian censors, this is a tale unique among Russian World War films—manifestly spiritual, not to say Christian—expressing outrage less about the war than of the general horror of violence. Awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. (96 mins.)

JUNE 29 30 FRI 7:30 P.M., SAT 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
ASYA’S HAPPINESS
USSR 1967
DIRECTOR: ANDREI KONCHALOVSKY A young Russian woman who lives and works on a Soviet collective farm becomes pregnant, much to the disapproval of her superiors. Asya, however, is so delighted that she is unconcerned that her lover will not marry her. Konchalovsky chose mostly non-professionals from the location where ASYA’S HAPPINESS was filmed and encouraged them to speak in their own words about their experiences. Under a political regime opposed to religion, the film’s ordinary people are revealed as extraordinarily moral practitioners of bedrock Christian values. So dangerous was Konchalovsky’s unfettered imagination (the workers also have views on Vietnam and the Gulags) that his film was banned for 21 years. (98 mins.)

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JULY 13 14 15 FRI 7:30 P.M., SAT 7:30 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. GUILD THEATRE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORTS For most people, selecting the short film Oscar nominees—live-action and animated—is a guessing game? Which film did you pick this year that didn’t win? Here is your chance to see them all together. Best Live Action Short Film Nominees SERAGLIO US 2000 DIRECTORS: GAIL LERNER, COLIN CAMPBELL The story of an unhappy housewife who becomes an unlikely seductress after she finds a love note tucked inside a cabbage. (13 mins.) BY COURIER US 2000 DIRECTORS: PETER RIEGERT, ERICKA FREDERICK Two lovers, no longer speaking, find they need the “poetic” assistance of a 13-year-old from the wrong side of the tracks. (13 mins.) ONE DAY CROSSING HUNGARY 1999 DIRECTORS: JOANNA STEIN, CHRISTINA LAZARIDI A Budapest woman struggles to protect her family and its dark secret during the final bloody days of World War II. (25 mins.) Also winner of a Student Academy Award. QUIERO SER MEXICO/GERMANY 2000 DIRECTOR: FLORIAN GALLENBERGER Two orphan brothers scrap to survive on the streets of Mexico City by selling balloons—until love derails their plans. (34 mins.) Winner Best Live-Action Short. UMA HISTORIA DE FUTEBOL BRAZIL 1999 DIRECTOR: PAULO MACHLINE An aging man recalls when he and his youthful friends, one of them the renowned Pele, played soccer. (21 mins.) Best Animated Short Film Nominees FATHER AND DAUGHTER BRITAIN 2000 DIRECTOR: MICHAEL DUDOK DE WIT A father says goodbye to his young daughter, and she awaits his return for days, seasons, years… (8 mins.) Winner Best Animated Short. THE PERIWEG MAKER GERMANY/BRITAIN 1999 DIRECTORS: ANNETTE, STEFFEN SCHAFFLER A man seals himself off to survive in plague-ridden medieval London until a sick child raps at his door. (15 mins.) REJECTED US 2000 DIRECTOR: DON HERTZFIELD A fictional collision between art, commerce and madness. (9 mins.)	JULY 19 THU 7 P.M. GUILD THEATRE OSCAR DOCUMENTARIES SOUND AND FURY US 1999 DIRECTOR: JOSH ARONSON A remarkable medical technology known as the cochlear implant has now made it possible for most deaf children to hear if done at an early age. For some, the device is clearly a miracle, but for others, it is a cruel procedure that poses a significant threat to the deaf community and its entire way of life. The experience of the Artinian family is a true embodiment of this heated and complex debate, and their incredible story movingly demonstrates the tensions and raw emotion at its core. Sparking passionate response from hearing and deaf relatives on every side, their intimate story surfaces issues of personal identity, disability, culture and community in deaf culture most in the hearing world would not consider. "Intellectually provocative and emotionally involving...almost as much about children's rights, identity and politics, and fears and fantasies about advanced technology as it is about deafness."—Amy Taubin, THE VILLAGE VOICE. (80 mins.) WITH THE MAN ON LINCOLN’S NOSE US 2000 DIRECTOR: DANIEL RAIM Raim examines the cinematic contributions of one of Hollywood’s most important Art Directors and Production Designers, whose diverse credits include such classics as IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, THE BIRDS, IN COLD BLOOD and Fiddler on the roof. (39 mins.)
JULY 20 fri 7:30 P.M. GUILD THEATRE OSCAR DOCUMENTARIES SCOTTSBORO: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY US 2000 DIRECTOR: BARAK GOODMAN, DANIEL ANKER In 1931, nine African-American boys, 13 to 19 years old, were pulled from a freight train in Painted Rock, Alabama, as were two disheveled white women. Accused of raping the women, the nine went on trial in neighboring Scottsboro, beginning a torturous ordeal of racism, exploitation, sensationalism and international furor. With a precise eye, Goodman and Barak chronicle the unlikely union between the NAACP and the Communist Party, represented by New York "Jewish carpetbagger" lawyer Sam Liebowitz, in their efforts to simultaneously spare the boys and use them to their own ends. At once a riveting political drama, tragic story of injustice and wrongful incarceration and telling chapter in Black-Jewish relations, SCOTTSBORO is a vivid recounting of an almost forgotten American story that gave birth to the Civil Rights Movement. (90 mins.) PRECEDED BY CURTAIN CALL US 2000 DIRECTOR: CHUCK BRAVERMAN The curtain rises once more on the lives of these film, theatre and music performers, now residents of the Actors’ Fund Home. Their stories rekindle a glorious past. (38 mins.)	JULY 22 SUN 7 P.M. WHITELL AUDITORIUM OSCAR DOCUMENTARIES INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS US 2000 DIRECTOR: MARK JONATHAN HARRIS In an unprecedented act of mercy, the British government approved an extraordinary rescue mission at the start of WWII, allowing 10,000 refugee children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to enter the country. In order to save their children’s lives, Jewish parents were forced to make the painful–and selfless–decision to send them away. Most of the children never saw their families again. From the survivors come powerful stories of the Kindertransport –stories of love, loss and survival filtered through the lens of childhood innocence and haunted lives. This year’s winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary. (117 mins.)
JULY 25 WED 7:30 P.M. GUILD THEATRE OSCAR DOCUMENTARIES LONG NIGHT'S JOURNEY INTO DAY US 2000 DIRECTORS: FRANCIS REID & DEBORAH HOFFMAN Not all wounds were magically healed following the fall of apartheid in South Africa; citizens on both sides of the struggle are still left with the daunting task of coming to terms with past horrors and finding a way to move into a new future. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was created to encourage a sense of closure by investigating the crimes of apartheid and offering complete amnesty to perpetrators in exchange for full disclosure. Filmed over a two-year period, the film follows several cases from both sides. A white special-forces officer attempts to reconcile with the wife of a black man he murdered; a young black activist revisits his killing of a white student during a riot. Heart-wrenching footage of the trials and interviews with both victims and perpetrators provide a remarkable glimpse of history in the making. Winner of the Peace Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. (95 mins.) PRECEDED BY ON TIPTOE: GENTLE STEPS TO FREEDOM US 2000 DIRECTOR: ERIC SIMONSON A portrait of the South African musician group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who started with nothing but a dream and have risen to international acclaim. (39 mins.)	JULY 26 THU 7 P.M. GUILD THEATRE OSCAR DOCUMENTARies LEGACY US 2000 DIRECTOR: TOD S. LENDING “At the outset, LEGACY appears to be yet another expose on the debilitation of urban poverty: its subject is the Collins family, who have raised their children on welfare in the absence of paternal support for over three generations. Undereducated and underemployed, the Collins women reside in one of Chicago’s oldest and most dangerous housing projects; each day they are bombarded by the chronic menaces of addiction and violence. But against these seemingly insurmountable life reversals, the family rises, finding the inner strength and resolution to break the cycle of poverty. A stunning saga of ascendancy from despair, writer/director/ producer Lending’s film, six years in the making, is a masterwork of unique inspiration.” —Sundance Film Festival. (90 mins.) PRECEDED BY BIG MAMMA US 2000 DIRECTOR: TRACY STEVENSON Viola Dees adores her 9-year-old grandson Walter, but at 89, raising him is not the easiest thing to do. But she’s all he has and age has nothing to do with love. (40 mins.) Winner Best Documentary Short.

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Nanni Moretti: A Life on Film

JULY 6 8 FRI. 7:30 P.M., SUN. 7:45 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM DEAR DIARY ITALY 1993 Moretti was awarded Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival for this unusual and deceptively simple mix of funny and sober musings told in three vignettes. In the first, wanderings and coincidences reveal his views on cinema as he naively takes in a screening of HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. The second segment, set in Sicily, riotously reflects on the degradation into marginality of the politics of the 60s. Finally, Moretti touchingly turns the camera on his own struggle with cancer. “By turns meditative, witty and metaphysical, DEAR DIARY is the film of a man, confronting his own mortality, who seeks to find out where he fits into the puzzle of life.” —Toronto Film Festival (100 mins.)	JULY 7 8 SAT 7:30 P.M., SUN 6 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM OUR SON'S ROOM ITALY 2001 American distribution rights to OUR SON'S ROOM have been sold. The film will now open in the Fall. All scheduled screening will be replaced by APRILE.	JULY 12 15 THU 7 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM APRILE ITALY 1998 Saturated with metaphors of gestation and birth, APRILE focuses on two events in Moretti’s life taking place during this month. Distracted by the impending birth of his first child and the possibility of the election of Italy’s first left-wing government, Moretti decided to delay the completion of a musical about a Trotskyite pastry chef. Instead, turning his camera to the political turmoil, he investigates unfolding events with a joyful, self-deprecating humor. Juxtaposing first child nervousness with the confusion of a political upheaval, Moretti reveals the ironies and tragedies that arise when political policies meet human lives. (78 mins.)
JULY 14 15 SAT 7 P.M., SUN 8:45 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM PALOMBELLA ROSSA ITALY 1989 A recurring character in Moretti’s work, Michele (Moretti) is an official of the Italian Communist Party who, in PALOMBELLA ROSSA, experiences temporary amnesia as a result of a car accident. As he tries to reconstruct his life, dreams and political motives—skewering militants, organized religion, parental relations and even DR. ZHIVAGO along the way—the laughs flow freely. Using a water polo match (Moretti’s favorite sport) as an allegory for the stagnation of the Italian Communist Party, Moretti mirrors Michele’s personal tension via a culminating moment in which he must take the decisive penalty shot. (87 mins.)	JULY 14 SAT 9 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM THE THING ITALY 1990 Conceived as a companion piece to PALOMBELLA ROSSA, this rapid-fire montage documents the failure of the Italian Communist Party. Infiltrating the party organization and eavesdropping on conversations, Moretti’s camera illuminates the history of the party’s ideology. Compelling, humorous and thought-provoking, THE THING reveals not only Italy’s early 1990s Communist culture, but also that of years to come. Moretti’s invasive technique and seemingly objective position serve to bring forth the personalities behind the movement and to surpass the challenge of making a political documentary. (59 mins.)	JULY 19 20 THU 7 P.M., FRI 9 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM THE MASS HAS ENDED ITALY 1984 Moretti plays a young, idealistic priest, Don Giulio, assigned to his first parish. He arrives to find that his parishioners have defected en masse because of the amorous behavior of the previous pastor. What follows, in a series of taut and wonderfully executed scenes, is a meditation on the various forms love takes, an inquiry which both fascinates and mystifies Don Giulio. With his character’s friends and family providing further variations on the theme, Moretti traverses a world of pain and separation, joy and togetherness. Not only precise in its execution but also ambitious in its theme and structure, Moretti’s film comes together in perfect harmony. (96 mins.)
JULY 20 21 FRI 7 p.m., SAT 7 P.M. FRI: GUILD THEATRE SAT: WHITSELL AUDITORIUM SWEET BODY OF BIANCA ITALY 1984 Seemingly more fictional than his other work, BIANCA focuses on a lonely young mathematician working at a ridiculously hip and liberal “Marilyn Monroe High School.” A control freak obsessed with idealized notions about happy family life, he meddles in his friends’ affairs in desperate attempts to prevent them from splitting up. When he falls in love with the woman of his dreams, the new French teacher, he comes to realize that the neat logic of math fails in matters of the heart. With his trademark dark humor, Moretti wryly wrestles with the cosmic condition. (96 mins.)	JULY 21 22 SAT 9 P.M., SUN 7 P.M. GUILD THEATRE SWEET DREAMS ITALY 1981 Here Moretti casts himself as Michele, a filmmaker living with his mother and trying to complete a screenplay entitled “Freud’s Mother.” With a nod to Fellini’s 8 1/2, fiction and reality begin to intermingle with the emergence of lifelike dreams and hallucinations, culminating in a bizarre game show scene where filmmakers engage in a verbal battle royale. “SOGNI D’ORO is not a film about cinema and it’s not even about the torments of an artist... It talks about something completely different, but anyone who’s decided what it’s about in advance can see what they like. There’s suffering and pain in my film, but that’s not cinema, that’s life.” —NM. Jury Prize, Venice Film Festival. (105 mins.)	JULY 26 THU 7 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM ECCE BOMBO ITALY 1978 ECCE BOMBO took the Italian cinema by storm, generating accolades from critics and audiences alike. Moretti’s alter ego, Michele, leads a fairly benign life, surrounded by a small group of friends more or less swamped by personal problems. After a series of political and amorous misadventures and a night waiting for the sunrise on a beach near Rome, the group tries to face life more seriously. “It’s a kind of Hellzapoppin’ through behind the inventive word gags and sketch sitcoms... Between the delusion with active campus leftism…and the wasteland of preoccupied parenthood, Moretti half-heartedly wreathes the irrational hopelessness of his own age group in grey humor.” —VARIETY (103 mins.)
JULY 28 SAT 7:30 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM I AM SELF SUFFICIENT ITALY 1976 Moretti shot his first feature film on super 8 for about $1,500. This humorous parody of totalitarianism is realized in the setting of an experimental theatre group with Moretti’s familiar character of Michele in the grips of a marriage crisis. A big hit with the Italian “cinema club” audience, the film established Moretti as Italian cinema’s enfant terrible. “Of course Michele’s obsessions, neuroses, rage and enthusiasm are all mine, they come out of me. The only way I can reach others is by starting with myself.” —NM (95 mins.)

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German television producer Regina Zeigler said the idea just came one night during dinner with a friend. “Why not commission a series of short erotic films for the 1990s? She contacted half-a-dozen internationally known directors, from differing backgrounds, culture and lifestyles, and the project was born. Nine years, 25 episodes and a shelf-full of international awards later, EROTIC TALES is a unique and richly entertaining anthology quite unlike any other. The TALES are, for the most part, playful short stories (half-hour) of fantasy, sometimes spiced with humor and occasionally poetic or exotic. While the primary factors of the “erotic” are the indefinable, perhaps these reveal that the truly erotic has to take place entirely in the imagination. The Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal once said “If it’s not erotic, it’s not interesting.” We hope you find these flights of imagination of interest.
PRESENTATION OF EROTIC TALES IS SPONSORED BY TRILOGY VIDEO & DVD.

AUG 3 5 FRI 7:30 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
FRI: GUILD THEATRE
SUN: WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
EROTIC TALES 1
Nominated for an Academy Award, Seidelman’s THE DUTCH MASTER (US, 1993) is a charming fantasy following Teresa, a young dental hygienist who becomes fascinated with a beautiful young man depicted in a 17th century painting at the Met —so fascinated that she somehow manages to enter his world. In Melvin Van Peebles VROOM, VROOM, VROOM (US, 1994) a shy, horny young teenager who wants nothing more out of life than a hot motorcycle and a hot woman helps an old lady who turns out to be a witch. She grants him his two wishes—but in a most surprising way. Bob Rafelson’s WET (US, 1994) is a comic fantasy about an after-hours encounter between an upscale bathroom-fixture salesman anxious to move the merchadise and a beautiful, seductive customer who demands a working demonstration of a whirlpool bath. (90 mins.)

AUGUST 4 5 SAT 8 P.M., SUN 8:45 P.M.
SAT: GUILD THEATRE
SUN: WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
EROTIC TALES 2
Mani Kaul’s THE CLOUD DOOR (India, 1994) is a visually beautiful, exotic and enigmatic tale involving a pampered princess in ancient Rajasthan, her hilarious talking parrot, a would-be lover and a palace full of secret passages. Master of the erotic Ken Russell’s THE INSATIABLE MRS. KIRSCH (Britain, 1994) tells the story of a young male writer at a seaside resort who becomes hopelessly obsessed with an older woman. She seems to lead a very active but solitary sex life…or is it his fantasy life that has run amuck? Paul Cox’s tender and very adult TOUCH ME (Australia, 1994) chronicles the sensual awakening of Christina, who learns from her older friend Sarah what she has never discovered with her boyfriend Roderick. (90 mins.)

AUGUST 9 11 THU 7:30 P.M., SAT 8 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
EROTIC TALES 3
In Cinzia Torrini’s delightfully comic SWEETIES (Italy, 1995), a woman (Stefania Sandrelli) in the prime of life desperately tries to rekindle her husband’s desire. Finally, a fortuneteller gives her a bag of sweets, each of which will make her seven years younger. The problem is, eating one leads to another. Nicholas Roeg’s HOTEL PARADISE (Britain, 1995) finds a bride-to-be (Theresa Russell) awakening in a plush hotel with a hangover and one other slight problem: a naked stranger in the bed (Vincent D’Onofrio)— handcuffed to her. Her wedding to a Mafia boss is supposed to start in a half-hour. In Janusz Majewski’s DEVILISH EDUCATION (Poland, 1995) a young milkmaid in turn of the century Poland bathes in the river to cool off. The next day, a stranger appears to show her the painting he has done of her in the nude. Embarrassed, but not offended, she takes up with the man, much to the consternation of her mother, the church and the local doctor, who conclude, “the devil made her do it?” (90 mins.)

AUGUST 10 12 FRI 7:30 P.M., SUN 7:30 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
EROTIC TALES 4
Detlev Buck’s ELEPHANTS NEVER FORGET finds Countess Lilly von Teltow involved in a serious car accident. A small circus is passing by, and the elephant trainer, the dwarf Ramon, uses one of his elephants to rescue her from her burning car. She wants to reward him but she’s a little uneasy about his request: one night with her. In Aki Kurasmaki’s SAMBOLICO (Brazil/Finland, 1996), a conductor from cold, wintry Finland finds himself in sultry, tropical Rio de Janeiro, reveling in its beaches, nightlife and aura of excitement. The dark-eyed, voluptuous girl he meets, the proverbial damsel in distress, seems a fantasy—and, of course, no fantasy comes without a price. In Jos Stelling’s THE WAITING ROOM (Netherlands, 1996) a married man indulges his fantasies with some beautiful fellow passengers in the train station. When his wife goes to get coffee, one of them, a lovely lady in blue, even seems to be returning his interest. It must be his lucky day—or is it? (90 mins.)

AUGUST 16 18 THU 7:30 P.M., SAT 8 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
EROTIC TALES 5
In Georgy Shagelaya’s GEORGIAN GRAPES (Georgia/Germany, 1999) the days pass slowly for Lia among the vineyards of a rural Georgian village. Even her husband, Sandro, overlooks her beauty. But when Megi, the miniskirted star of a film being shot nearby, comes in to get her car repaired at Sandro’s shop, Lia learns that Sandro is quite capable of paying attention and she is quite capable of getting it. Hal Hartley’s KIMONO (US, 2000) finds a young woman in her bridal dress is kicked out of a car on a country road. She discovers an abandoned house and falls asleep, awakening to find a package on the floor. Inside is a kimono. The bride knows she is no longer alone…but should she put on the kimono? In Markus Fischer’s THE RED GARTER (Switzerland 1999) a sinister young man accosts an attractive young woman in the hallway of an apartment building. What follows is a love story—or a tale of passion and betrayal—or a game of illicit desires—or perhaps all of these and more. (90 mins.)

AUGUST 17 19 FRI 7:30 P.M., SUN 7:30 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
EROTIC TALES 6
Yannis, an architect, is getting married. His fiancee, Anna, is all a man would want in a wife. So why does he keep dreaming of another girl? In Antonis Kokkino’s DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME (Greece, 1999), Yannis’ dream comes true—but on his wedding day. In Bernd Heiber’s THE NIGHT NURSE (Germany, 2000) Konak, a cop is pained with a terrible toothache. Suddenly, he is called out to guard a gangster admitted to a hospital emergency room. It looks like Konak is in for the worst night of his life…until the night nurse shows up and nothing else matters. Without dialogue—save for some verses by John Keats— Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s ON TOP DOWN UNDER (Iceland, 1999) links the thoughts, emotions and sensual longings of two young lovers at the opposite ends of the world— separated by time, space and distance. She is bound by ice, he by the blistering heat of the Australian outback, but they are one in memory. (90 mins.)

AUGUST 23 25 THU 7:30 P.M., SAT 8 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
EROTIC TALES 7
In Rosa Von Praunheim’s CAN I BE YOUR BRATWURST, PLEASE? (Germany, 1999) a stranger (porn star Jeff Stryker) checks into a Hollywood motel and sends the owner and the other guests into a hungered frenzy when they discover his natural gifts. In Jos Steeling’s THE GAS STATION (Netherlands, 1999) a man causes a minor car accident on the freeway and the woman he meets takes it out on his car. He isn’t going to let her get away with it. Bob, a lonely 70-year-old retiree in Amos Kolleck’s ANGELA (US, 1999), would like one last fling. Maybe his shrink is right: he should place an ad in the paper and just go out and look for someone… After all, this is New York…anything can happen. (90 mins.)

AUGUST 24 26 FRI 7:30 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
EROTIC TALES 8
In Susan Streitfield’s THE SUMMER OF MY DEFLOWERING (US, 2000) a young woman (Tilda Swinton) plans to lose her virginity and to have the moment added—as the capstone—to her childhood video diary. She handpicks her mate on the web and heads to the Garden of Eden Motel, but the concierge has a warning. Pete Zeleenka’s POWERS (Czech Republic, 2000) is the amusing tale of Peter, a conjurer in a chic nightclub in Prague, who suddenly discovers he really has supernatural powers. The problem? Peter can’t control things like he used to—neither his magic act, nor his love life, nor his sister’s latest erotic fantasy. Zarah likes to have sex with Anton in daring public places—right in the midst of the bustle and the unsuspecting. In Eoin Moore’s WHY DON’T WE DO IT IN THE ROAD? (Germany, 2000), the plan is to do it on the Potsdamer Platz, the busiest corner in Berlin. This time, to heighten the fun, Zarah hits upon a special object of desire. (2 hrs.)

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