“The Josephine Baker Story”

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Dir. Brian Gibson (1991) 131 min.

“Before Madonna. Before Marilyn. There was Josephine.” Brian Gibson’s made-for-cable TV Emmy Award winning biography of Josephine Baker (played by Lynn Whitfield) chronicles the different stages of La Baker’s life and her rise to fame, from her days as Freda Josephine McDonald living on the streets as a school drop-out in Saint Louis, MO to her promising beginnings as a vaudeville dancer, to her journey to New York during the Harlem Renaissance where she performed at the Plantation Club and later in a number of popular Broadway revues. From there, the film depicts her arrival in Paris at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees and later to the Folies Bergeres in Paris, where she strangely found more success than in the United States. To his credit, Gibson goes beyond the rags-to-riches formula, engaging Josephine Baker’s life in politics, her role in the French Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, while broadly chronicling the relationships, experiences and circumstances that shaped Josephine Baker’s life and diverse oeuvre.

After the Movie:

Panel discussion including La Baker’s son and midtown restauranteur Jean-Claude Baker and other special invited guests.

With reception sponsored by Sugar Hill

“Black Is . . . Black Ain’t”

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Dir. Marlon Riggs (1994) 87 min.

In celebration of Harlem Pride, the screening of the beautiful and poignant Black Is...Black Ain’t represents the last in Marlon Riggs’ oeuvre. Completed posthumously by his associates, the film, which examines the complexities of black identity in America, is considered his strongest and most moving work. Patching together interviews with black intellectuals like Angela Davis and Cornel West, footage of Riggs himself speaking from his hospital bed as he fought to survive the ravaging effects of AIDS, and clips of Louis Farrakhan and Eddie Murphy exhibiting stunning homophobia, Black Is...Black Ain’t seems to bring home the point that there is no homogenous black culture in America.  This memorial to Riggs is winner of the Sundance Film Festival Trophy Award and the International Association Documentary Distinguished Achievement Award. Thomas Holden of The New York Times writes, “For all its polemics, Black Is...Black Ain’t is embracing and at moments mystical.”

After the Movie:

Patrick McGovern, CEO and President of Harlem United Community AIDS Center, will lead a conversation about the HIV/AIDS pandemic. His innovative Upper Manhattan organization provides a unique continuum of care for clients who have faced significant barriers to care due to poverty, race, HIV status, and sexual or gender identity. Reception, hosted by Harlem United, follows.


 

Flag Wars

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Dirs. Linda Goode Bryant & Laura Poitras (2003) 87 min.

Shot over a four-year period, Linda Goode Bryant’s and Laura Poitras’ Flag Wars is a poignant and very personal look at a community in Columbus, OH, undergoing gentrification. What happens when gay white homebuyers move into a working-class black neighborhood? As the new residents restore the beautiful but run-down homes, black homeowners must fight to hold onto their community and heritage. The inevitable clashes expose prejudice and self-interest on both sides, as well as the common dream to have a home to call your own. Winner of the Jury Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival, Flag Wars is a candid, unvarnished portrait of privilege, poverty and local politics taking place across America.

After the Movie: 

“The first round of gentrification is carried out by artists and gay and lesbian folks” – debate, discuss. Panelists TBA.

As I Remember It: Portrait of Dorothy West

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Dir. Salem Mekuria (1991) 56 min.

This intimate portrait of writer Dorothy West explores the forgotten role of women in the Harlem Renaissance. From the perspective of her 83 years, West relates her memories of growing up African American, privileged and enchanted by literature.

343 Malcolm X Blvd, bet. 127th & 128th Streets, $10 suggested donation

Maysles Cinema Presents: Homo-Harlem Film Series

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June 21st - June 26th, 2010

A week-long film survey of artists and personalities who’ve informed the gay aesthetic in Harlem. Co-sponsored by NY State Senator Bill Perkins, Harlem Sage, Harlem United, Men of All Colors Together, and Queer Black Cinema.

Curated by Michael Henry Adams and Valerie Jo Bradley.

 

The Polymath, or, the Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman

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Dir. Fred Barney Taylor (2007) 75 min.

Throughout this sprawling portrait of prolific science fiction author, professor and literary critic, Samuel R. Delany, one can’t help but wonder how Delany found the time--between grooming his prodigious beard, his amorous dalliances and being highly dyslexic -- to write over twenty works of fiction, eleven works of non-fiction, and two memoirs, finding his way into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.  Using a range of experimental techniques and borrowed footage from Delany’s home movies that document his life growing up in a prominent Harlem household, Taylor captures his subject’s thoughts on racism, violence and his struggles with sexual identity.

After the Movie: Conversation with filmmaker Fred Barney Taylor

Reception hosted by Café Saint Germain, JTE Spirits and Harlem Brewing Company

Special Light Brunch with Jerry "The Marble Faun" Torre

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Beales of Grey Gardens

Dir. Albert Maysles & David Maysles (2006) 91 min.

The 1976 cinema vérité classic Grey Gardens, which captured in remarkable close-up the lives of the eccentric East Hampton recluses Big and Little Edie Beale, has spawned everything from a midnight-movie cult following to a Broadway musical, to an upcoming Hollywood adaptation. The filmmakers then went back to their vaults of footage to create part two, The Beales of Grey Gardens,a tribute both to these indomitable women and to the original landmark documentary’s legions of fans, who have made them American counterculture icons.

1:00 pm

Sneak Preview: The Marble Faun of Grey Gardens

Dir. Jason Hay & Steve Pelizza, work-in-progress, 13 min.

From the filmmakers: "Jerry Torre's life story unfolds as a classic American tale. A compromising childhood, then a dash for freedom leading him indirectly to Grey Gardens, a formative event in his life. Later awakening to his sexuality in the 1970’s in New York City, going on to travel in Europe and the Middle East under unique circumstances, and sadly falling into some of the darker passions in life. Eventually pulling himself up and dusting himself off, he decides to heed a lifelong call to carve stone and discovers his love for the craft. Jerry Torre’s sculptures help free him, and he fully develops into the beloved individual he is today."

 

Following the screening, Jerry Torre will present a trailer of the film being made about his life and share his experiences with the Beales and life in the years after. One of Jerry's sculptures will be on display in the exhibition/reception space downstairs, as well.

1930's Bealian DOUBLE FEATURE:

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3:00 pm

Blonde Venus

Dir. Josef von Sternberg (1932) 93 min.

Credited with making a star out of Marlene Dietrich, Josef von Sternberg's Blonde Venus is one of seven filmic collaborations between Sternberg and Dietrich. With his signature use of lighting and soft lens, Sternberg manages to glamorize  Dietrich-his muse-and Cary Grant in this trip across Depression America. Notable is a scene of Dietrich singing "Hot Voodoo" in a gorilla suit. 

 

5:00 pm

Imitation of Life

Dir. John M. Stahl (1934) 111 min.

Based on Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel of the same name, John Stahl's film version casts Claudette Colbert as the widowed Bea Pullman, who becomes  businesswoman extraordinaire with the assistance of her black friend Delilah (Louise Beavers). From The New York Times, which called it "the most shameless tearjerker of the Fall," and wrote, "The stentorian sobbing of the ladies in the Roxy mezzanine yesterday seemed to suggest that it held a vast appeal for the matinee trade as well as for Miss Hurst's large and commercially attractive public. On the whole the audience seemed to find it a gripping and powerful if slightly diffuse drama which discussed the mother love question, the race question, the business woman question, the mother and daughter question and the love renunciation question." Warren Williams and Rochelle Hudson also star in the film.

 

7:30 pm

Dir. Robert Drew (1960) 60 min. 

Shot by Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles and edited by D.A. Pennebaker, Primary is considered a milestone in the direct cinema movement in America and a harbinger of the contemporary video reporting that would come. With their use of mobile cameras and light equipment, Leacock and Maysleswere able to achieve a level of intimacy with the film's  subjects unseen in earlier documentaries, often burdened by the big apparatus of film. The film covers the 1960 Wisconsin Primary election between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey for the Democratic Party nomination for President, with stunning black and white close-ups of both candidates on the road while campaigning, which speak for themselves.

Followed by a discussion with Filmmaker Albert Maysles

Staunch: A Grey Gardens Festival

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Grey Gardens

Dir. Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde & Muffie Meyer (1976) 94 min.

Meet Big and Little Edie Beale—high-society dropouts, mother and daughter, reclusive cousins of Jackie O.—thriving together amid the decay and disorder of their ramshackle East Hampton mansion. An impossibly intimate portrait and an eerie echo of the Kennedy Camelot, Albert and David Maysles’s 1976 Grey Gardens quickly became a cult classic and established Little Edie as a fashion icon and philosopher queen. The film and the Beales themselves have since inspired fashion lines, songs, a broadway musical, several off-broadway shows, and a 2009 HBO film.

Followed by a panel discussion with Albert Maysles, Lucy Barzun Donnelly (Executive Producer, HBO's Grey Gardens).

 

Jock Docs: Soccer **Double Feature**

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Soccer as Never Before

Dir. Hellmuth Costard (1971) 105 min.

“The real Warholian moment of football cinema is Hellmuth Costard’s film Fußball wie noch nie (Football as Never Before, 1971). A point of reference for Zidane… (…), the film takes the famously charming George Best as its subject and edits multiple camera views to produce a real-time portrait of the player singled out during the course of an entire match. Lest we miss the homoerotic subtext of football art (and football culture), the half-time interval features a cruisey bit of filmmaking as we follow Best through a narrow hallway and into what looks like the boot room. Best turns and faces the camera for nearly three minutes. He holds our gaze as long as he can, pursing his lips, looking away and then back in a seemingly overt homage to the Warholian screen test. Best strikes a deal here with the camera, inviting us to look at him when he takes the field again; shots of his socks, his shoulders and his crotch seem to go on for ever.”--Jennifer Doyle, Frieze

 

8:30pm

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

Dir. Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno (2006) 90 min.

Halfway between a sports documentary and a conceptual art installation, Zidane consists of a full-length soccer game (Real Madrid vs. Villareal, April 23, 2005) filmed entirely from the perspective of soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane.

 

DDPA Watch Group Human Rights Film Series & Jock Docs Present: Red Card

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Dir. Rudolfo Munoz (2007) 93 min.

This documentary about racism in Ecuador tells the story of Afro-Ecuadorian soccer player, Agustin “El Tin” Delgado. Arguably the best soccer player in the Ecuadorian national team, Delgado exposes the deep racial divide in this multiracial country and argues that Black Ecuadorians have been penalized both on the soccer field and in everyday life.

After the Movie: Panel discussion

Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos

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Dir. Paul Crowder (2006) 97 min.

"Giddy, gossipy and endearingly unslick, Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos chronicles the rise and fall of the most famous soccer team in the United States with slapdash glee. Fielding heroes and villains, gentlemen and rogues, booze and women, it plays like the “Dynasty” of sports documentaries. There’s even a little soccer. Via newsreels and interviews (both winking and candid) we watch a ragtag team of part-time players move from a scrubby field that had to be spray-painted green before games to a 1977 North American Soccer League championship playoff in Giants Stadium in front of 77,691 fans." — Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

Opening Night: "1st Annual NYC Revolutionary Latino Film Festival" In Celebration Of The 82nd Birthday Of Dr. Ernesto "Che" Guevara

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Featuring The Internationally Award Winning Film Written & Directed By Vagabond, El Machetero.

6:00pm

El Che

Dir. Aníbal Di Salvo & Maurice Dugowson, 1997, 83 min.

Documentary that retraces Guevara's life and political career, beginning with his youth in 1950's Argentina, when he set out on the road, writing travel diaries, poetry, and stories. His wanderings through the Andes, Patagonia, Peru, and the Chilean desert informed his identity not as a citizen of one nation but as a Latin American. Following his medical studies, he left Argentina forever, dedicating his life to fighting imperialism, poverty, and social injustice throughout the continent. 


7:30pm

El Machetero

Dir. Vagabond, 2010

Post 9/11 definitions, ideas and notions of terrorism are challenged in this controversial film. French journalist Jean Dumont (Isaach de Bankolé) interviews Pedro Taino (Not4Prophet) a “Puerto Rican Terrorist" in prison. Pedro is a self-described Machetero fighting to free a colonized Puerto Rico from the United States. Jean questions Pedro about his decision to use violence to achieve that freedom. As they speak, a ghetto youth (Kelvin Fernandez) trapped in a cycle of violence, is encouraged by Pedro and a mentor (Dylcia Pagan) from his childhood in Puerto Rico to become the next generation of Machetero. The film is structured around songs from the album, “Liberation Day” by RICANSTRUCTION and interwoven into the film as a narrative voice. RICANSTRUCTION also provides an original improvised score.

 

Praise for Machetero: 

"Machetero is riveting! A great film with a passionate statement, well written dialogue and strong music by Ricanstruction" - Chuck D, MC of Public Enemy

 

"Finally a badddasss movie with the courage to produce a really alive and resurgent revolutionary DIY message from the unconquerable urban jibaro Underground spirit. This movie is a prescripton for doing the Impossible. What a breath of fresh puerto rican beach air in these stank neoliberal US imperial times! You can smell the thick sweet scent of insurgent Libertad! A must see. No really, a MUST see" - Ashanti Alston, former Black Panther/BLA/political prisoner

 

“A powerful piece of filmmaking.” - Sam Greenlee, author of The Spook Who Sat By The Door

 

Immediately followed by a very special panel discussion and Q & A with writer, producer and director of Machetero- Vagabond, Former 20 year Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Dylcia Pagan, and other representatives from the Cuban Mission, Cuba Solidarity & the Puerto Rican Independence Movement.

The Mayor of Central Park

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Dir. John Mullen (2006) 63 min.

Alberto Arroyo, “pioneer of the jogging trend” and “Mayor of Central Park”, narrates the story of a park, a city, and a 90+ year lifetime from the jogging track around the Central Park Reservoir (dedicated in his honor shortly after his passing in 2010). While battling cancer, native New Yorker John Mullen spent his time in Central Park creating this portrait of person and place, the only film he ever conceived, shot, edited and produced on his own. Two men make an imprint of their delight for everyday life and communion as they each face their own mortality with grace and humor. 

After the Movie:

Two short memorial tributes to Alberto Arroyo and John Mullen, followed by a reception in celebration of the life and work of John Mullen.

Wine generously provided by Judith Mullen.

Life and Debt

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Dir. Stephanie Black (2001) 86 min.

Utilizing excerpts from the award-winning non-fiction text “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid, Life & Debt is a woven tapestry of sequences focusing on the stories of individual Jamaicans whose strategies for survival and parameters of day-to-day existence are determined by the U.S. and other foreign economic agendas. Life and Debt addresses the impact of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and current globalization policies on a developing country such as Jamaica.

Rezistans

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Dir. Katharine Kean (1997) 156 mins.

This award-winning film chronicles the political events and human tragedy surrounding the 1991 military coup d’etat in Haiti and the bloody dictatorship that followed. It presents a searing indictment not only of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s role in the turmoil, but also that of the powerful and reclusive Haitian bourgeoisie. Unlike the mainstream media, Rezistans does not portray the Haitian people as helpless victims. It focuses instead on their creative and courageous resistance, and the deep roots of that resistance in Haitian history and culture.

After the Movie:

Conversation with director, Katharine Kean

Masterclass: John Mullen, Editor.

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7:00 pm

H-2 Worker

Dir. Stephanie Black (1990) 70 min.

H-2 Worker is a controversial expose of the travesty of justice that takes place around the shores of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee - a situation which, until the film’s release, has been one of America’s best-kept secrets. There, for six months a year, over 10,000 men from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands perform the brutal task of cutting sugar cane by hand-a job so dangerous and low-paying that Americans refuse to do it.

After the Movie:

Conversation with Director Stephanie Black

8:30 pm

Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier

Dir. Suzie Baer (1992) 85 min.

Warrior is the true story of Leonard Peltier, the American Indian leader locked away for life, convicted of the alleged murder of two FBI agents during a bloody shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975. The film follows Peltier’s life from his childhood, to his membership in the American Indian Movement (AIM), the 1975 shoot-out on Pine Ridge, and his odyssey through the American judicial system.

After the Movie:

Conversation with Director Suzie Baer

Masterclass: John Mullen, Editor 1935-2008.

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Masterclass is a bi-monthly survey of an exemplary individual’s career in documentary film. This month, we honor editor John Mullen. Highlights include five films edited by John Mullen presented by their directors.

Wednesday June 9th, 7:00 pm

Last Train to Pittsfield

Dir. Tom Barry (1976) 32 min.

Train enthusiast Tom Barry narrates as he and camera crew record a sad event in transportation history that would otherwise have gone unnoticed – the last passenger train ride from Danbury, CT to Pittsfield, MA. What begins as the nostalgic musings of a train fanatic as a rapidly changing country passes him by turns profound as Barry reflects more generally upon the decline in public transit with the growth in car culture, stating its impact on both the environment and social interactivity. Co-filmmakers Tom Barry and John Mullen describe it best: “A film about a man crazy enough to ride last trains . . . and sane enough to want them back.”

After the Movie:

Conversation with writer/director Tom Barry

8:00 pm Beirut: The Last Home Movie

Dir. Jennifer Fox (1986) 120 min.

Beirut: The Last Home Movie chronicles three months in the life of an aristocratic Lebanese family who refuse to flee their family’s palace located in a heavily-bombed Beirut neighborhood. The film takes us beyond the facts and statistics of nightly news reports into one family’s experience of war. By capturing the visceral, subjective experience of a family living in war-torn Lebanon, Beirut: The Last Home Movie translates a baffling political crisis into its most human terms.

After the Movie:

Conversation with Director Jennifer Fox