ART hound

Geneva Anderson digs into art

The strong sex: two very different films screen today at the Mill Valley Film Festival about women who survived against all odds

“Sweet Dreams,” a documentary by Lisa Fruchtman and her brother Rob Fruchtman, tells of Rwandan women, Tutsi and Hutu, who survived the 1994 genocide and now drum side by side in the country’s first female drum troupe. They have also started the first ice cream venture in Rwanda.

Now in its 6th day, the 35th Mill Valley Film Festival continues its excellent programming. A lot of the films have sold out.  Here are two films screening today (Tuesday) for which tickets are still available.

Sweet Dreams: Though the 100 days of killing that claimed an estimated 800,000 Rwandans ended 18 years ago, the genocide left the East African country paralyzed.  Thousands of women were also raped and thousands more left without family.  If ever there was need of healing, it was in Rwanda.  Lisa and Rob Fruchtman’s  Sweet Dreams (2012) tells the story of a remarkable group of Rwandan women survivors who decided to learn how to be happy through drumming and, of all sweet things, ice cream.  

Lisa Fruchtman, a Berkeley-based veteran film editor with features such as Apocalypse Now and The Godfather Part III under her belt, and an Academy Award for The Right Stuff,  travelled to Rwanda 4 times to document the story of Tutsi and Hutu women coming together to form the country’s first female drum-troupe.  She worked with her brother, producer/director Rob Fruchtman to direct, produce and edit the film.  Forbidden to even touch a drum in ancient times, the talented Rwandan women take to drumming with joyous fervor that not only helps heal their own wounds but profoundly touches others.  At the same time, in an equally bold move toward economic security, the women join forces with an American woman and entrepreneur to open an ice cream business and bring something brand new to Rwanda.  The venture is fraught with snafus along the way but these women keep their faith and have a song for everything.   This INSPIRATIONAL and humorous documentary is beautifully filmed and had Sunday’s enthusiastic audience in tears.  Filmmakers will be in attendance and available for audience Q & A after the screening. (Screens Tuesday, October 9, 7:30 PM, Rafael 3)

As the only human survivor after an unexplained global tragedy, German actress Marina Gedeck bonds tightly with her loyal dog in Julian Roman Pölsler’s “The Wall” a film that is true to Marlen Haushofer’s exceptional novel. Image: courtesy of Music Box Films

The Wall (Die Wand):  Austrian director Julian Roman Pölsler’s film is based on Marlen Haushofer’s 1962 dystopian hit novel of the same name (about to be re-printed in English later this year).  The film stars German actress Martina Gedeck from the brilliant 2006 Stassi thriller The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) and tells the story of a completely ordinary middle-aged woman (Gedeck) who is vacationing with friends in a remote mountain hunting lodge.  Her friends go out to a pub and she stays back with the dog and when they don’t come back, she makes a very creepy discovery.  She is imprisoned on the mountainside by an invisible wall, behind which there seems to be no life.  She appears to be the sole remaining human on earth, along with the dog (a red hound that will steal your heart), a cat, some kittens, and a cow, with which she forms a tight-knit family.  

The film rests entirely on Gedeck’s shoulders and she is riveting, delivering a very credible performance that will leave you shivering and running home to snuggle with your dog.  The odd beauty of this film is that this last survivor scenario may be your own romanticized idea of heaven, or hell.  Who among us hasn’t said “Fuck the world! I’m sick of people…give me just my dog!  Watching Gedeck bide her time laboring hard, protecting her pack, and introspectively processing her life, leads us to right into her moments of intensely felt angst, terror, joy and sorrow.  (Screens Tuesday, October 9, 9:30 PM, Sequoia 1)

 The festival’s homepage is here and there are three ways to purchase tickets:

Online: To purchase tickets for MVFF screenings, browse the film listings—the full schedule is online here. When you find a film you would like to see, click “buy tickets” to put the tickets in your cart. You can continue browsing, or click “check out” to complete your order. Tickets purchased online incur a $1.50 processing fee per order.

Tickets you have purchased online are available for pick-up at the Mill Valley Film Festival Box Office(s). Seating is guaranteed until 15 minutes prior to screening. No late seating.

In-Person at pre-festival Box Offices:

SAN RAFAEL TICKET OUTLET
1104 Fourth Street, San Rafael 94901
Sept. 11– 15, 4:00pm–8:00pm (CFI Members)
Sept. 16: 10am – 7pm
Sept. 17 – Oct. 3: Weekdays 4:00pm – 8:00pm, Weekends 2pm – 8:00pm
Opening Night, Oct. 4: 2:00pm – 11:00pm
Festival Hours, Oct. 5 – 14: Weekdays 3:00 – 10:00pm, Weekends 10:30am – 10:00pm
Note: Monday (10/8) & Friday (10/12) are weekend hours

MILL VALLEY TICKET OUTLET
ROOM Art Gallery
86 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley 94941
Sept. 16: 10am – 2pm
Sept. 17 – Oct. 2: 11:00am – 4:00pm
MILL VALLEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
85 Throckmorton, Mill Valley 94941
Oct. 3: 11:00am – 4:00pm
Oct.4: 2:00pm – 11:00pm
Oct. 5 – 14: Weekdays 3:00pm – 10:00pm, Weekends 10:30am – 10:00pm
Note: Monday (10/8) & Friday (10/12) are weekend hours

BY PHONE: toll free at 877.874.6833
NOTE: If you have trouble purchasing online and cannot purchase tickets in person, leave a message on box office voicemail: 877.874.6833.
All orders placed over the phone are subject to a charge of $10.00 per transaction. Tickets delivered via mail (USPS) incur a $3.50 convenience fee.

RUSH Tickets: If seats are available, tickets will be sold at the door beginning at 15 minutes prior to screening. Those tickets are cash only. No discounts.

October 9, 2012 Posted by | Film | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Pounce! General Admission tickets to the 35th Mill Valley Film Festival go on sale Sunday at 10 a.m.—-some films sold-out during member pre-sale

The 35th Mill Valley Film Festival, one of the country's top 10 film festivals, is October 4-14, 2012.

The 35th Mill Valley Film Festival, one of the country’s top 10 film festivals, is October 4-14, 2012.

Dustin Hoffman, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Hawkes, Indian film director Mira Nair, and rock angel Stevie Nicks head a list of film stars and luminaries who will attend the 35th Mill Valley Film Festival, an 11-day celebration of international cinema that is considered one of the country’s top 10 film festivals.  This year’s festival is October 4 to 14, 2012 and tomorrow (Sunday) starting at 10 a.m., general admission tickets will be on sale for its fabulous program of over 150 movies, tributes, award ceremonies, premieres, and parties.  Tickets have been on sale to festival patrons since September 11 and to CFI (California Film Institute) members since September 14 and, consequently, some of the spotlight and tributes have already sold out, along with some of the films.  ARThound will be covering the festival in depth, so stay-tuned.  If you are interested in attending the festival, don’t dally with purchasing tickets.   The festival’s homepage is here and there are three ways to purchase tickets:

Online: To purchase tickets for MVFF screenings, browse the film listings—the full schedule is online here.  When you find a film you would like to see, click “buy tickets” to put the tickets in your cart. You can continue browsing, or click “check out” to complete your order. Tickets purchased online incur a $1.50 processing fee per order.

Tickets you have purchased online will be available for pick-up at the Mill Valley Film Festival Box Office(s).  Seating is guaranteed until 15 minutes prior to screening. No late seating.

In-Person at pre-festival Box Offices:

SAN RAFAEL TICKET OUTLET
1104 Fourth Street, San Rafael 94901
Sept. 11– 15, 4:00pm–8:00pm (CFI Members)
Sept. 16: 10am – 7pm
Sept. 17 – Oct. 3: Weekdays 4:00pm – 8:00pm, Weekends 2pm – 8:00pm
Opening Night, Oct. 4: 2:00pm – 11:00pm
Festival Hours, Oct. 5 – 14: Weekdays 3:00 – 10:00pm, Weekends 10:30am – 10:00pm
Note: Monday (10/8) & Friday (10/12) are weekend hours

MILL VALLEY TICKET OUTLET
ROOM Art Gallery
86 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley 94941
Sept. 16: 10am – 2pm
Sept. 17 – Oct. 2: 11:00am – 4:00pm
MILL VALLEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
85 Throckmorton, Mill Valley 94941
Oct. 3: 11:00am – 4:00pm
Oct.4: 2:00pm – 11:00pm
Oct. 5 – 14: Weekdays 3:00pm – 10:00pm, Weekends 10:30am – 10:00pm
Note: Monday (10/8) & Friday (10/12) are weekend hours

BY PHONE: toll free at 877.874.6833
NOTE: If you have trouble purchasing online and cannot purchase tickets in person, leave a message on box office voicemail: 877.874.6833.
All orders placed over the phone are subject to a charge of $10.00 per transaction. Tickets delivered via mail (USPS) incur a $3.50 convenience fee.

RUSH Tickets:   If seats are available, tickets will be sold at the door beginning at 15 minutes prior to screening. Those tickets are cash only. No discounts.

Long time in the oven….Walter Salles’ highly anticipated On the Road reunites the same team from Salles’ Motorcycle Diaries (2004)—producers Rebecca Yeldham and Daniel Burman, screenwriter José Rivera, cinematographer Eric Gailtier, and production designer Carlos Conti. Based on Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel, On the Road, considered to the defining book of the beat generation, the movie stars Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (Kerouac’s alter ego), Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty , Kirsten Stewart as Dean’s lover Marylou, Tom Sturridge as Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg inspired) and Kirsten Dunst as Camille, Dean’s wife.

 

Dustin Hoffman makes his directorial debut in Quartet, about three aging opera singers (Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins) who are preparing for an upcoming concert in their retirement home when famous diva Jean (Maggie Smith) arrives unexpectedly. Hoffman will attend a special tribute and reception in his honor on Tuesday, October 9 at 7 p.m. at the Rafael Film Center when Quartet screens at the 35th Mill Valley Film Festival.

 

Argo, directed by Ben Affleck and starring Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin and Ben Affleck is set during the 1979 Iranian revolution and is about a last-ditch CIA plan to free six American hostages concocted.  Affleck will attend the October 5, 2012 screening at 7 p.m. the Smith Rafael Film Center.

September 15, 2012 Posted by | Film | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Film Does Make a Difference: Guatemalan Dictator is Nailed After 30 Years and Pamela Yates’ “Granito” was a decisive factor

Exactly one year after the release of Pamela Yates and Paco de Onis’ film Granito: How To Nail A Dictator at the Sundance Film Festival, General Efraín Ríos Montt, the de facto President and ex-dictator of Guatemala, was brought up on charges of genocide in a Guatemalan court and placed under house arrest last Thursday.  Granito was one of the important documentaries screened at October’s 34th Mill Valley Film Festival.  In the past year, Granito was honored in several ways.  It was the Opening Night Film at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York and it went on to screen at over 50 film festivals around the globe─from Amman to Auckland, Paris to Havana, São Paulo to Vancouver, New York to Moscow, and Geneva to Lima.  In screening after screening, audiences connected to the theme of the power of collective change espoused in Granito, resonating with the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements. 

I met and interviewed Yates in 2009 when her documentary The Reckoning, which addressed the future of the ICC (International Criminal Court) and its war crimes prosecution efforts, screened at the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival.   Yates, now in her fifties, found her passion for intrepid reporting right after she graduated from college.  She has produced several important films on human rights issues and the quest for justice including When the Mountains Tremble (1984).  Shot thirty years ago, at the peak of Ríos Montt’s despotism, the film is one of the only documentary records of Guatemala’s brutal civil war and captures the chaos from the vantage point of both the U.S.-backed military leaders and the indigenous peasant revolutionaries trying to unseat them who were systematically killed in a scorched earth campaign.  Yates observed first hand that a few top generals, notably Efraín Ríos Montt and Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García, were behind that slaughter of an estimated 200,000 Mayan and the disappearance of another 40,000 indigenous persons and Ms. Yates interviewed these leaders in 1982.  

Filmmaker Pamela Yates whose documentary “Granito” helped bring the Guatemalan dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt to court and ensure that he will be held accountable for his crimes against the Guatemalan people some 30 years ago. Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images North America

Granito tells the story of how some 25 years later, Yates was asked to join a team of forensic experts and lawyers and Mayan survivors in a human rights case against Guatemala’s former juntas and how her first film footage became the evidence that led to the indictment of Montt in Spain’s national courts for his attacks on Maya. (This is the same Spanish court that indicted Chile’s General Augusto Pinochet for human rights violations war in October 1998.)  The powerful film uses the connected stories of eight people─they are the “granito,” or tiny pieces of sand─whose destinies all collide around that distant Guatemalan war, to weave an epic tale of justice.   The film also chronicles Yates herself, who has had a remarkable impact as a filmmaker, and looks back on one of her earliest reporting experiences.  It shows her in remote mountain areas of Guatemala in 1982 attending meetings with the guerilla revolutionaries and recording stories of mass murder and forging connections with survivors who later became activists.  She takes a big risk and boards a plane with high-ranking Guatemalan military officers and shoots a fly-over at a remote village they had decimated just days earlier….vital footage which became integral years later in the making of Granito.   

Emerging out of the historical footage are the remarkable stories of the granitos.  One of these is Fredy Pecerelli, Director of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthro­pology Foundation, which since the mid-1990s has led efforts to exhume the mass graves of victims of Guatemala’s civ­il war.   Pecerelli’s father was a law student in the early 1980′s and packed up his family and left for New York after receiving death threats from the Guatemalan death squads in the capital, Guatemala City.  Pecerelli now devotes his full time to exhuming corpses and corroborating the brutal massacres that occurred.  

“Granito’s release added its ‘grain of sand’ to the tipping point for justice reached in Guatemala this year,” said Yates, “where more perpetrators of the genocide against the Maya people have been arrested, tried and convicted  than in the previous 30 years since we released When the Mountains Tremble.”

 Many of us were hopeful that Granito would be shortlisted for the Oscar documentary nomination and that, in front of a captive audience of some 40 million viewers, the message of collective change that Granito embodies could be conveyed─but it was not selected.   How gratifying it is to see that, in the real world, this film has served its purpose─nailing a dictator─and will live on to educate about the abuses of power.

Ríos Montt’s Trial in Guatemala utilizes Granito:  The culmination of three decades of work by human rights advocates, forensic scientists and survivors of the Guatemalan genocide forced former dictator General Efraín Ríos Montt to appear in court last Thursday after 30 years of impunity, for a hearing (that ran 11 hours) to decide whether there was enough evidence to take him to trial on charges of genocide.  This was a major event in Guatemala with hundreds of Maya people coming down from the highlands to gather in front of the courthouse, holding a candle vigil for the their murdered family members. Ríos Montt is the first high-ranking Guatemalan official to be brought to trial.   (Read The Guatemala Times coverage here.) (Read the New York Times coverage here.)

The prosecution spent hours presenting overwhelming evidence in the form of military documents, exhumation reports, photos and footage from Yates’ film Granito: How To Nail A Dictator, which links Ríos Montt directly to hundreds of deaths and disappearances. Surviving family members, Ixil Maya in traditional dress, crowded the standing room only courtroom in stunned silence. Some wept. Outside the courthouse, in an open area now named Human Rights Plaza, hundreds more watched the proceedings on a huge screen.
The defense argued that Ríos Montt did not have command responsibility over his Army officers in the highlands, and that he was not responsible for the massacres.  This is negated by a clip from Granito that the prosecution and the Guatemalan media used to show the general taking command responsibility, saying that “If I don’t control the army, then who does?”

Judge Carol Patricia Flores deliberated for hours and returned her decision to prosecute Ríos Montt on charges of genocide, place him under house arrest, and set bail for USD $65,000. People hugged, cheered and set off firecrackers outside when the Judge read her decision stating that “the extermination of the civilian population was the result of military plans, and that these plans were executed under the command of Ríos Montt.”

More on Ríos Montt:  During the 17 months of Mr. Ríos Montt’s rule in 1982 and 1983, the military carried out a scorched-earth campaign in the Mayan highlands as soldiers hunted down bands of leftist guerrillas.  Survivors have described how military units wiped out Indian villages with extraordinary brutality, killing all the women and children along with the men. Military documents of the time described the Indians as rebel collaborators.

A truth commission backed by the United Nations, set up after a peace accord in 1996, found that 200,000 people were killed or disappeared during the civil war, mostly by state security forces. The violence against Mayan-Ixil villages amounted to genocide because the entire population was targeted, the commission concluded.

The military’s actions against those communities were at the forefront of the allegations at Thursday’s hearing, as the prosecution outlined 72 separate episodes that resulted in the deaths of at least 1,771 people.

Get Involved with Granito:  To reinforce and educate about the power of the collective to make a difference, Yates and de Onis have launched a companion digital project designed to restore the collective memory of the genocide in a public online archive, described here – Granito: Every Memory Matters.  The film’s journey is reflected in the Granito Facebook page, where nearly 4,000 followers have rallied, sharing stories, news, and demanding justice.  And to get a sense of the people behind all of this, check out this slide show of photos of ‘granitos’ by renowned portraitist Dana Lixenberg.

January 30, 2012 Posted by | Film | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The 34th Mill Valley Film Festival starts Thursday, October, 6, 2011—ARThound looks at the lineup

Glenn Close opens the acclaimed Mill Valley Film Festival this Thursday in “Albert Nobbs,” where she tackles the role of a woman who has skirted poverty in mid-19th Century Dublin by dressing and working as a man. Close is also the subject of a festival Tribute event on Saturday night. Photo: Patrick Redmond

In the world of film and film festivals, each season has its delights.  While there may be as many as a dozen mini-fests set to launch in the Bay Area, October always belongs to the Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF).  Now 34 and considered in the top lists of festivals worldwide, its organizers and programmers —Mark Fishkin, Zoë Elton, Janis Plotkin (to name a few)—have hit on a winning formula.   The 11 day festival will  present some 120 films that include Academy Award hopefuls, tributes, emerging talents, documentaries, children’s programming, and world cinema.  MVFF34 all takes place north of the Golden Gate at CinéArts@Sequoia, Mill Valley, and Christopher B, Smith Rafael Film Center, San Rafael, and other convenient Marin locales.

Singing the Praises of WOMEN—actresses, directors, thematically

“When we looked at what seemed strong, it became quite apparent at Cannes that there was an incredible wealth of excellent performances by women,” said Zoë Elton at the festival’s September press conference.  “We have a lot of these Oscar worthy women in the festival.”   The lineup includes films featuring Glenn Close, Michelle Yeoh, Tilda Swinton, Susan Sarandon, Ellen Barkin, Michelle Williams and emerging actresses like Elizabeth Olsen and Antonia Campbell-Hughes.  Ironically, one of the two opening night films, Albert Nobbs, is a gender-bender drama starring Glenn Close as a woman who has skirted poverty in mid-19th Century Dublin by dressing and working as a man—a shy butler.  Close, well-known for her performances in films such as Fatal Attractions (1987) and Dangerous Liaisons (1988) is attending the festival and is the subject of a special Tribute event on festival’s second night.

The programming also reflects a strong interest in the portrayal of women in various cultures.  A number of films weave mythology and ritual with the complex contemporary reality of women’s lives. Moroccan director Mohamed Mouftakir won the Golden Stallion (top prize) at this year’s FESPACO (2011) for Pegasus, the story of a young Moroccan woman (Sadia Ladib) who is found on the streets, wounded and with no memories of her past–but with visions, flashbacks, evidence of trauma, and the belief that she has been impregnated by “The Lord of the Horse.”  The fragmented plotline which echoes David Lynch and Iranian director Mohammad Rasolof  (The White Meadows, 2009), weaves her journey to self with the experiences of her therapist, Dr. Zineb, who is treating her and on her own psychic quest. (Screens Friday and Sunday)

SEPCIAL DAYS:  OPENING NIGHT

The festival opens Thursday evening with two films that are sure bets to be included among the top independent releases of 2011.  Albert Nobbs, starring Glenn Close, who will attend, will be screened at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center at 7 p.m.  Jeff  Who Lives at Home will have its U.S. premiere at CinéArts@Sequoia in Mill Valley at 7 p.m. and 7:15 p.m.  This film, which won’t hit the theatres until March 2012, stars Jason Segal and Ed Helms with Susan Sarandon and Judy Greer.  It is the story of Jeff, a sympathetic 30-year old unemployed pot head who lives in his mother’s (Susan Sarandon) basement and rewatches Signs while nurturing anxiety about clues the universe is dropping about his destiny.  The story all transpires over an afternoon of misadventures culminating in a fate-directed universe rattling ah-hah moment.  Directors Jay and Mark Duplass will also be in attendance.  After the screenings, the Opening Night Gala kicks off at the Mill Valley Community Center at 9 p.m. and goes until midnight.

CLOSING NIGHT

Closing Night will feature a special screening of The Artist starring Jean Dujardin (Cannes Best Actor),  Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller and Missi Pyle. Directed by Michael Hazanavicius, who is expected to be in attendance, The Artist is an endearing black and white homage to the world of silent film that tells the story of a silent-film star resisting the transition to sound set in 1927 Hollywood.  Just as his star wanes, another’s starlet’s rises who represents Hollywood’s new direction.  After the film, the Closing Night Party will take place at Albert Park/San Rafael Community Center from 7-10 p.m. 

Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis in “The Lady,” which screens this Saturday at the 34th Mill Valley Film Festival. Yeoh plays Myanmar prodemocracy activist and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and will be the focus of a special Spotlight program. Photo: Magali Bragard © 2011 EuropaCorp – Left Bank Pictures – France 2 Cinéma

TRIBUTE AND SPOTLIGHT EVENTS

In addition to honoring Glenn Close’s career, MVFF34 is celebrating actress Michelle Yeoh and West African director Gaston Kaboré.  On Saturday, October 8 at 7:30 p.m. a Spotlight honoring Michelle Yeoh, one of Asia’s best known actresses, will take place at the Smith Rafael Film Center with a Q&A and screening of her new film, The Lady, already generating quite an Oscar buzz.   The Lady is an intimate chronicle of the life of Myanmar prodemocracy activist and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi who spent 15 years under house arrest before her release last year.  The Lady follows Suu Kyi starting in 1988 when she returned to Myanmar, formerly Burma, to care for her ailing mother and soon became iconic in the battle against the military dictatorship.  The story focuses on her family life–her marriage to British academic Michael Aris and their two sons.  Aris, an Oxford professor, strongly supported Suu Kyi’s decision to stay in Myanmar, raising their children and playing a pivotal role behind the scenes in campaigning for her Nobel Peace Prize.  This decision, for the greater good, entailed years of separation and was a tremendous burden yet it was  mutually agreed upon and seemed to cement their courageous love.  Yeoh attends MVFF with Luc Besson, the film’s internationally acclaimed director and producer.  (click here to watch trailer)  After the program, the evening will continue with dinner at Frantoio Ristorante & Olive Oil Company in Mill Valley.

The first weekend of the Festival culminates on Sunday, October 9 at 4:30 p.m., with an MVFF Tribute to West African director Gaston Kaboré, honoring his remarkable career and contribution to African film including an onstage conversation and rare screening of his 1982 classic  Wend Kuuni (God’s Gift), the endearing story of a mute boy found in the bush and adopted by Mossi villagers whose love and tenderness help restore his voice.  Afterwards, the evening continues with dinner at Acqua Mill Valley, catered by Delicious! Catering. 

ARThound’s top five:

Coriolanus:  Actor Ralph Fiennes makes his directorial debut a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s war tragedy “Coriolanus” set in war-torn Bosnia with chilling urban battle scenes.  Fiennes also stars as Caius Martius, or Coriolanus, a powerful general at odds with the City of Rome, a role that Fiennes played on the London stage.  Coriolanus is a riveting drama about the relationship of authority, power, and the emotions that drive them and should play well reconfigured in the hotbed of the Balkans.  Martius meets his old enemy Tullus Aufidius (a very macho Gerard Butler) on the battlefield and returns to Rome as a hero.  Reveling in his triumph, he is elected to the governing consul but is soon opposed by the citizenry.  His anger at the public’s disfavor leads to his expulsion, and in desperation he turns to his sworn enemy Tullus, with whom he takes revenge on the city.  Vanessa Redgrave is Coriolanus’s iron-willed mother and Jessica Chastain is his trophy wife.  Directed by Ralph Fiennes (UK, 2011) (122 minutes).   Screens: Friday, October 7, 2011 at 9 p.m. at Sequoia Theatre, 25 Throckmorton Street, Mill Valley and Saturday, October 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA.  Tickets: $13.50.   www.mvff.org

Granito: How to Nail a Dictator:   Documentary filmmaker Pamela Yates has passionately been involved in investigating genocide and war crimes for over 25 years.  Her 1984 film, When the Mountains Tremble, made when she was just out of college, is one of the only documentary records of the brutal Guatemalan civil war between the U.S.-backed military junta and the indigenous peasant revolutionaries who were systematically killed in a scorched earth campaign.  A few top generals, notably Efraín Ríos Montt and Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García, were behind that slaughter of an estimated 200,000 Mayan and the disappearance of another 40,000 indigenous persons and Ms. Yates interviewed these leaders in 1982.  Granito tells the story of how some 25 years later, Yates was asked to join a team of forensic experts and lawyers and Mayan survivors in a human rights case against Guatemala’s former juntas and how her first film footage became the evidence that led to the indictment of Montt in Spain’s national courts for his attacks on Maya.  The powerful and idealistic film uses the connected stories of five people─they are the “granito,” or tiny pieces of sand─whose destinies all collide around that distant Guatemalan war, to weave an epic tale of justice.  Though somewhat narrowly focused, the film is monumental.   It is also an inspirational look at the career of a brave filmmaker who has dedicated every ounce of her being to seeing that justice is served.  (US, 2011, 104 min)  Screens: Friday, October 7, 2011 at 6:30 p.m. at the Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA and Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 5:45 p.m. at the Sequoia Theatre, 25 Throckmorton Street, Mill Valley.  Directors Pamela Yates and Paco de Onis will be present at both screening and will conduct a post-film discussion and Q & A. Tickets: $13.50.   www.mvff.org

In Gao Xiongjie’s “The Butcher’s Wife,“ which has its North American premiere at the MVFF34, the struggle between a new-married Chinese couple about what they should expect from life is a tragic critique of China’s rapid modernization and the tremendous pressures it creates on those not living in urban areas. Image courtesy: MVFF

The Butcher’s Wife:  North American Premiere (China, 2011, 119 min)(Mandarin with English subtitles)  Epic in scale, this new drama tells the intimate story of a newly-married young couple in rural China facing big life decisions against the gripping backdrop of modernization that threatens to leave all but urban dwellers behind.  Months have passed and Liang, a kind and simple butcher, and his wife Qiao have not consummated their marriage because she fears pregnancy will squash her dream of entering college and starting a new life in the city.  She’s already failed the exam three times and feels intense pressure to start the life she imagines she will have.  Lang can’t bear the situation and wants intimacy and, humiliated, sends his wife to stay with her mother.  Qiao leaves for the big city to get her dream underway and it quickly turns into a nightmare.  The fictional film, a parable for any rapidly modernizing society, draws us into the hard and fractured lives of a young couple, both unfulfilled and both with reasonable expectations, for which there seems to be no easy answer.  Through its intimate portrayal of the aspirations and anguish of two individuals, the film asks us to consider what really matters most in this life and what it means when achieving that is not possible.  (contains graphic images of pig slaughter)  Directed by Gao Xiongjie.  (China, 2011, 119 min)(Mandarin with English subtitles) Screens: Friday, October 7, 2011 at 8:30 p.m. at the Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA and Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 3:45 p.m. at the Sequoia Theatre, 25 Throckmorton Street, Mill Valley.  Tickets: $13.50.   www.mvff.org  

Argentinean Director Paula Markovitch’s “The Prize” coaxes an emotionally rich performance from Paula Galinelli Hertzog, as Ceci, a 7 year-old girl on the run with her mother from Argentina’s repressive military regime. The film won the prestigious Silver Bear award for outstanding artistic achievement at the 61st Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival). Image courtesy: MVFF

The Prize:  Argentinean Paula Markovitch’s impressive autobiographical feature debut is about vivacious 7 year-old Cecilia, (Paula Galinelli Hertzog) who is asked to keep a big secret about her family but can’t possibly understand the implications of that secret.  It’s the 1970’s and Ceci and her mom are living out of suitcases at a desolate and ramshackle abandoned beach town, hiding from Argentina’s repressive military and what will come to be called its “dirty war.”  If asked, Ceci is instructed to tell people only that her mom is a housekeeper and her dad sells curtains.  Ceci soons befriends her schoolmate, Lucia, but it becomes very difficult for her to particpate in activities like writing a school essay about her family and, when she does, she comes close to jeopardizing everything.  Paula Galinelli Hertzog delivers an astounding performance as a young girl trying to understand what she can believe in the adult world and struggling to feel secure in the certitude of her mother’s love when everything else seems to be shifting.  (Mexico/Germany/France/Poland, 2011) (103 minutes) In Spanish with English subtitles. Screens: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 8:30 p.m. at the Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA and Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 5:45 p.m. at the Sequoia Theatre, 25 Throckmorton Street, Mill Valley.  Tickets: $13.50.   www.mvff.org

Old laws clash with the modern world in Joshua’s Marston’s “The Forgiveness of Blood” staring Albanian actor Tristan Halilaj as 17 year-old Nic who is trapped inside his home in rural Albanian because his family is embroiled in a blood feud. Beautifully photographed on location by cinematographer Rob Hardy. Image courtesy MVFF.

 The Forgiveness of Blood:  A mesmerizing drama from Justin Marston, the producer of Maria Full of Grace (2004) shot entirely on location in rural Albania that explores that small Balkan country’s insular clan culture through the story of a teenage boy and his sister.  When Mark (Refet Abazi) gets embroiled in a land rights squabble that escalates to his killing his neighbor, legal justice takes a backseat to Balkan oral code of the Kanun.  This traditional Albanian law, pre-dating the 15th century, states that when a murder is committed, the family of the deceased are warranted to get retribution by taking the life of a male in the offending clan’s family.  Mark goes into hiding but his 17 year-old son, Nik (Tristan Halilaj),  is essentially doomed to indefinite confinement at home, the only place considered safe ground.  Nic leaves his high school life of video games and flirting and becomes a volatile and stir-crazy prisoner at home while his resourceful 15-year-old sister, Rudina (Sindi Lacej), takes over her family’s bread delivery business but is soon knee deep in threats herself.   As Nic feels increasing pressure to find a solution to this blood feud, his actions escalate such that his entire family is jeopardized.  In Albanian with English subtitles, the film boldly contrasts the resurgence of antiquated traditions with the lives of young people in the country’s first post-totalitarian generation, whose bright future is put at risk by these practices.   Directed by Joshua Marston (2011) (109 minutes)  Screens: Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 4 p.m. and Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 12:15 p.m. at Sequoia Theatre, 25 Throckmorton Street, Mill Valley.   Tickets: $13.50.   www.mvff.org

Details:  Presented by the California Film Institute, the 34th Mill Valley Film Festival runs October 6-16, 2011 at the CinéArts@Sequoia (25 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley), Chrisopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center (1118 Fourth Street, San Rafael) and other venues.  Tickets are $13.50 (CFI Members, $11), unless otherwise noted, and may be purchased online at mvff.com.  Additional information:  www.mvff.com  or call 877.874.6833

October 5, 2011 Posted by | Film | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

33rd Mill Valley Film Festival, October 7-17, 2010–a stellar weekend of cinema ahead, virtually at our doorstep

In "The Debt" which closes the Mill Valley Film Festival on Sunday, Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington and Martin Csokas are Israeli Mossad agents searching for a Nazi war criminal they failed to capture 30 years earlier. Image courtesy Miramax.

There’s still time to catch the 33rd annual Mill Valley Film Festival  which runs through Sunday night with a flurry of screenings and closing events.  For those of us in Sonoma County, still reeling from the recent closure of our beloved Rialto Lakeside Cinemas, this is a fantastic opportunity to see the launch of new films that are bound to become significant and other quieter gems than will leave us basking in their glow.   Like Mill Valley itself, the 11-day festival has a laid-back vibe but is  ranked among the top 10 nationally–selling over 40,000 tickets and welcoming more than 200 top filmmakers from around the world.  This past week’s guests have included Alejandro Gonzalez Inartitu, Julian Schnabel, Edward Norton and Annette Benning.  The closing weekend promises a superb mix of dramas, comedies, compelling documentaries, programming for children, and on stage Spotlight interviews.

Last week, I spoke with co-founder Zoe Elton, who has been director of programming since the festival began 33 years ago.  Elton worked with a team who viewed film submissions from over 4o countries and whittled it down to the 143 films that are presented.   What does she look for?  “I call it ‘informed intuition,’ said Eltman.  “I have trained myself to really look at films, not in a film criticism kind of way, but I try more to see what the filmmaker’s intention is and how successful they are in fulfilling that, at getting to the core truth of what they are exploring.  When a film starts, you get an idea, a jolt, right out of the gate, whether it’s working on its own terms or not.  In terms of topics, we look at what the consensus is that is coming out of films themselves about what is important and we let that speak.  It’s fascinating how in looking at films from over 40 countries, you can actually see these connective threads of important issues.”  

Co-founder and Executive Director Mark Fishkin confirmed “We’ve been very lucky that we’ve shown really important films that date way back to (1987) “Walking on Water,”  the pre-release title for title for “Stand and Deliver,”  which went on to become the highest grossing independent film of its time and, more recently, “Precious ”—films that really established themselves in the genre.   Over the years, we have built real trust with our audience and with filmmakers.  And, in this box office return-oriented environment, the  festival becomes very significant because it allows you to see films that you might not see anywhere else.” 

Friday night kicks off of with Swedish filmmaker Stefan Jarl’s much-awaited documentary “Submission,” inspired by the results of a blood test that Jarl took that revealed an alarming number of industrial chemical toxins in his blood.   Years ago, Jarl began fascinated with shooting a documentary about how humans manipulated nature and how nature strikes back.  In “Submission,” Jarl interviews prominent scientists to find out just what problems this build-up of chemicals in the human body can cause.  He brings in his pregnant friend, the Swedish actress Eva Rose, who is also tested, to explore the lingering unknown impacts on unborn children.  American musician Adam Wiltzie from the band Stars of the Lid made the music and calls the film “a horror movie for the 21st century.”  (Friday, October 15, 6:30 PM and Saturday October 16, 4:45 PM Rafael Theatre, San Rafael)

Helen Mirren stars as the sorcerer "Prospera" in Julie Taymor's adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Tempest." Image Melina Sue Gordon, 2010 Tempet Production LLC.

Are middle-aged women invisible?  A loaded question if ever there was one. With such a concentration of accomplished and vibrant older women in the Bay Area, we sometimes seem to forget—or do we?– that, for women, aging also means negotiating many transitions related to society’s norms  about sexuality, vitality and relevance.  

“Julia’s Disappearance” (Giulias Verschwinden) is a German coming of age comedy starring actress German actress Corrina Harfouch. One the very day Julia turns 50, she suddenly realizes that things have shifted, not so much in her but in the way she is perceived and that in turn, impacts the way she acts (out).   The film has its North American premiere at Mill Valley. Subplots revolve around age– smitten teens and Julia’s rebellious 80 year old mother.  (Friday October 15, 9 PM, Rafael Theatre, San Rafael)

On Saturday’s must-see list is Director Julie Taymor’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s last play “The Tempest” starring Helen Mirren as a gender-switched sorcerer Prospera, the exiled ruler of Milan, who has been banished to an island with her daughter, Miranda.  Prospera schemes and plots revenge by conjuring up a storm that traps those who wronged her onto the island where she presides and hatches a scheme to steal back the throne for her daughter.  (Saturday, October 16, 8:45 PM, Sequoia Theatre, Mill Valley)

Ineke Houtman’s film “The Indian” (De Indiaan), has its North American premiere on Sunday and is part of the Children’s FilmFest.  It tells a (fictionalized) story close to hearts of many international adoptees and adoptive parents—how to handle the inevitable situation that emerges when your child understands that he is from another culture, is different from his adoptive parents and wants to know more about who he really is.  Eight year old Koos Steggerda desperately wants to look like his adoptive Dutch father but that’s going to be a tall order for the small dark-haired boy Peruvian boy who is Indigenous.  One day, by accident, Koos meets another Peruvian boy in the market and at that moment he meets and sees his own face, a life-changing moment for any adoptee. (Sunday 12:15 PM, Rafael Theatre, San Rafael)

Sunday also includes two important documentaries.

In Julia's Schulberg's restoration of her father Stuart Schulberg’s film "Nuremberg: Its Lessons for Today," courtroom cameras capture the very first trial of Nazis. Nuremberg introduced an explosive and controversial principle into international law: the idea that political, military and business leaders could be held personally liable for waging aggressive warfare, for murdering civilians or captured enemies, and for "crimes against humanity." Film still courtesy of Julia Schulberg.

One of the greatest real courtroom dramas in history “Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today,” shows how the international prosecutors built their case in the early 1940’s against the top Nazi war criminals using the Nazis’ own films and records.  The trial established the “Nuremberg principles,” laying the foundation for all subsequent trials for crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

The back story behind this film’s 2009 restoration is fascinating. In 2006, producer Sandra Schulberg, granddaughter of former Paramount studio chief B.P. Schulberg, got a grant to write The Celluloid Noose, a forthcoming book about her father Stuart Schulberg and uncle Budd Schulberg’s hunt for Nazi film and photo evidence that was integral to the Nuremberg trial (which convened in 1945). In 2009, she completed (with Josh Waletzky) the restoration of her father’s filmthe restoration of her father’s film and why it never released in the U.S. remains a mystery.  The Mill Valley screening will be the West Coast premiere of this critically important documentary.  (Sunday, October 17, 2 PM, Sequoia Theatre, Mill Valley)

Ever wonder how effective Peace Corps missions are over the long run?  Niger 66, A Peace Corps Diary by award-winning filmmaker Judy Irola has its world premiere at Mill Valley and looks back on a critical Peace Corps mission in Niger that Irola participated in.  In the summer of 1966, a group of 65 idealistic Peace Corps volunteers headed for Africa and landed in the dusty, heat-scorched desert of Niger.  They stayed for two years working in agriculture, digging wells and starting health clinics for women and their babies.  In 2008, five of them returned to Niger for three weeks to revisit the country and witness how their work had improved the lives of the people there.  Irola captured the poignant experience from village to village. (Sunday, October 16, 2:30 PM, Sequoia Theatre, Mill Valley)

The festival concludes on Sunday night with two screenings that will be hard to choose between.

 In “The Debt,” a group of Israeli Mossad agents– Ciaran Hinds and Tom Wilkinson and Helen Mirren–search for a Nazi war criminal

In "127 Hours," Bay Area actor James Franco plays hiker Aron Ralston who becomes pinned under a bolder while hiking solo in Southern Utah and is forced to cut off his arm. Franco, who has also been in Pineapple Express, Milk and Spider Man , will be honored in a "Spotlight presentation at the Rafael Film Center on Sunday, October 17.

they failed to capture 30 years earlier.  Mirren’s character lied about killing him so when he surfaces, she has to cover her tracks.  The unbearable weight of this secret she has carried has unforeseen consequences. The film is directed by John Madden, who achieved great success with “Shakespeare in Love.” (Sunday, October 17, 5 PM and 5:15 PM, Sequoia Theatre, Mill Valley)

In “127 Hours,” Bay Area native James Franco, plays Aron Ralston, a hiker whose solo trip in remote Southern Utah goes tragic when he is pinned under a bolder that falls on him and he decides to cut off his arm.  The film was directed by Academy Award-winning director Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”) and based on Ralston’s harrowing story Between a Rock and a Hard Place.  After the screening, Franco will take the stage for an onstage Spotlight interview with Danny Boyle.   

(“127 Hours” screens Sunday, October 16, 5 PM, Rafael Theatre, San Rafael)  Franco will be at a reception at Frantoio Restaurant & Olive Oil Company at 1:30 PM. (152 Shoreline Highway, Mill Valley)  ($85 for the reception and Spotlight interview following “127 Hours”; $30 screening and Spotlight interview)  Franco also stars in “William Vincent” about a Manhattan-dwelling outsider who slips into the shady New York crime world. (“William Vincent” screens Saturday, October 16, 9:30 PM, Sequoia Theatre, Mill Valley and Sunday, October 1617, 4:30 PM, Rafael Theatre, San Rafael)

Tickets: Prices vary for screenings and closing events.  Check for availability and additional screenings at http://www.cafilm.org

October 14, 2010 Posted by | Film | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

   

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