Otherworldly tomb treasures—new Han Dynasty Discoveries from Ancient China at the Asian Art Museum

Gilded bronze lamp in the shape of a deer unearthed from Tomb 1, Dayun Mountain, Xuyi, Jiangsu, Western Han period, 2nd century, BCE. On loan from the Nanjing Museum and on display in “Tomb Treasures: New Discoveries from China’s Han Dynasty,” at the Asian Art Museum. The exhibition features over 160 rare selections from recent excavations in China’s Jiangsu province and runs through May 28, 2017.

Among the 160 Han artifacts on display at the Asian Art Museum’s dazzling new exhibit “Tomb Treasures: New Discoveries from China’s Han Dynasty,” many of objects in wood, bronze, and jade representing animals and mythical beings tap into powerful primal impulses and mythological associations we carry from many cultures, not just Chinese. In the Asian’s Osher Gallery, a bronze oil lamp in the naturalistic form of a crouching deer with its head raised to the heavens (2^nd century BCE) seems deeply familiar. With its front mane extending almost all the way to ground and curved tail, this splendid creature evokes earlier heavily stylized Scythian deer except for the absence of looped antlers. We are left to ponder the influences of art created by early Eastern Eurasian nomadic tribes on Chinese art and what exactly is uniquely Chinese in this creature. The deer is an important motif for the Chinese, symbolizing longevity and wealth and this lamp is one of many examples of oil lamps with animal-like motifs from the Han era found in Han tombs. These exquisite lamps also played an important role in court life. Aside from their decorative allure, they provided illumination and, with better light in the evenings, people were able to extend their period of activity and entertainment began to thrive.

A Western Han period, 1st century BCE, carved wooden Cavalry figurine unearthed from Yandai Mountain (Yizheng, Jiangsu) represents the perfect marriage of material and subject. Both the form of horse and rider are carved exquisitely in an abstract manner allowing the natural grain of the wood to complete the idea. The end result is anything but simplified—highly stylized figuration. Many such figurines were finely carved and then painted to take on the attributes of their real-life counterparts; this one is more roughly carved. This work was excavated from a large tomb possibly belonging to a high ranking royal member of the Guangling kingdom. Among some 400 burial objects unearthed were 126 wooden figurines of warriors and attendants that formed a long procession. Just ten cavalry figurines were mounted on horses making this piece exceptionally rare. On loan from the Yizheng Museum.

China’s Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), like the Roman Empire, forged one of the most powerful, advanced civilizations of the ancient world. Ruled by 29 emperors for over 400 years, the Han dynasty represents the first “golden era” of development in Chinese history, a time when China’s diverse ethnic groups experienced relative stability, social development and harmony. Tomb excavations are ongoing in China and, every so often, they unearth a major find. In 2014, Chinese archaeologists in Jiangsu province, Eastern China (somewhat near Shanghai), unearthed more than 10,000 objects from a cluster of more than 100 Han tombs, untouched for some 2,000 years. Jiangsu was the birthplace of Liu Bang (Emperor Gaozu, reigned 202-195 BCE), the founding emperor of the Han dynasty and Jiangsu was a center of concentrated wealth and culture. There, Han royalty lived extravagantly. They perceived of the afterlife as a form of existence much like their earthly one, requiring that basic subsistence needs be fulfilled as well those for spiritual enlightenment and entertainment. Many of the most fascinating possessions from this rich find and earlier Han excavations are on display at the AAM.

Co-curated by Jay Xu, director and CEO of the AAM, and Fan Jeremy Zhang, the museum’s senior associate curator of Chinese art, the Asian has outdone itself again offering three galleries of tomb treasures, many of which have never traveled outside of China. The show’s opulent lay-out, though, has people buzzing about its sheer design beauty. Marco Centin, Director of Exhibition Design, has placed these many of these precious objects in cases which afford 360 degree viewing and against rich Chinese red backdrops, symbolizing prosperity and good fortune.

The exhibition is organized into three areas themed according to popular Han-era adages found on various artifacts:

Everlasting happiness without end (長樂未央): Luxurious life and palatial entertainment. Daily life, banquets and pastimes of the Han elites are accompanied by the music and dance of the court.
Eternal life without limit (長生無極): Worship of jade and search for immortality. A tomb-like atmosphere allows visitors to explore ancient ideas about the afterlife.
Enduring remembrance without fail (長毋相忘): Private life and intimacy at the court. Affairs of the heart expose secrets from the innermost chambers of men and women fascinated by pleasure.
Jade suit on view in the Asian Art Museum’s Hambrecht Gallery, unearthed from Tomb 2, Dayun Mountain, Xuyi, Jiangsu, Western Han period (206 BCE-9 CE), 2nd century BCE. Jade and gold. Nanjing Museum. Photo: courtesy AAM.

There seems no limit to the Chinese mastery of jade and Han royalty took ancient China’s fascination to extreme belief that jade, a kind of amour for the afterlife, could protect human flesh from decomposition. The Hambrecht Gallery has transformed into a tutorial on Chinese Han burial culture and front and center is an an extremely rare jade burial suit fashioned for a ruler from over 2,000 linked rectangular jade tiles joined together with gold thread and affixed to a silk backing, a project that would have taken the most skilled jade smith over a decade to create. The suits are so rare because tomb looters would burn the suits to retrieve the gold.

Also on display is a huge coffin, thought to be the largest jade coffin the world, that was excavated recently at Dayun Mountain and reconstructed. This coffin has a patterned jade lining on its inside to protect the deceased. This stands in contrast to a similar coffin that was discovered some 20 years ago in the Jiangsu region’s Chu mausoleums which had elaborate patterned jade on its exterior. An “inside or outside” debate has raged among scholars as to whether the use of jade was consistent or different due to regional variations in coffin construction. In the same gallery, there are also evocative smaller jade dragon pendants which would have adorned the coffins of elite rulers.

In the Lee Gallery, the exhibit explores the interior spaces of the Han court and its plush amenities for personal hygiene including a toilet found in the Tuolan Mountain mausoleum and intriguing strap on bronze phalluses.

Free Performances: Music for the Afterlife

In celebration of Tomb Treasures, local instrument inventor group Pet the Tiger will team up with Gamelan Encinal, a musical ensemble, for a presentation featuring three centuries of instrument building. Custom-built instruments by musician Bart Hopkin, designed with the same tuning as the Han dynasty Bianzhong bronze bells, create a contemporary “orchestra” (or “gamelan”).

Each performance features percussion and wind instruments in rearrangements of traditional gamelan melodies, the graphic score of “Yantra Meditation” by local composer David Samas, and new compositions for special guest artists.

On March 19, at 12 noon and 2 PM, in the North Court, local instrument inventor Peter Whitehead performs haunting melodies for voice and overtone flute.

On April 16, Pet the Tiger and Gamelan Encinal perform new works for pipa (Chinese flute) and the Han bronze bells by Sophia Shen and Stephen Parris, with Ms. Shen as pipa soloist.

On May 7, the two ensembles will join forces with the Cornelius Cardew Choir to perform composer Brenda Hutchinson’s work “Last Words,” an inquiry and meditation that asks what we want to take with us to the afterlife — and what we want to leave behind. Guests of all ages are invited come early to so that they can join the orchestra by building their own instruments from everyday objects in the Education Studios: You can construct a soda straw oboe or boba straw pan pipes that can be tuned to the ancient scales of the bronze bells.

青銅編鐘盱眙大雲山1號墓出土西漢早期。南京博物院版權所有。 Bell set, unearthed from Tomb 1, Dayun Mountain, Xuyi, Jiangsu. Western Han period (206 BCE–9 CE), 2nd century BCE. Bells: bronze; stands: lacquer and silver. On loan from Nanjing Museum. Photograph © Nanjing Museum.

Bell set, unearthed from Tomb 1, Dayun Mountain, Xuyi, Jiangsu. Western Han period (206 BCE–9 CE), 2nd century BCE. Bells: bronze; stands: lacquer and silver. On loan from Nanjing Museum. Photo: Nanjing Museum.

Details: Tomb Treasures: New Discoveries from China’s Han Dynasty closes May 28, 2017. The AAM is located at 200 Larkin Street near Civic Center. Parking is easy at Civic Center Plaza garage which offers a discount with your validated AAM ticket. (Get it stamped upon entry to the museum.) Hours: Tues-Sun: 10-5; Thursdays until 9 (end Oct 8); closed Mondays. Admission: General admission $20 weekday, $25weekend; Seniors, students, youth (13-17) $15 weekday, $20 weekend; 12 & under are free. 1^st Sundays are free thanks to Target. You can pre-purchase your tickets, with no processing fee, online here.

Havana’s 38th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, so much to see!

Argentinean directing partners Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn’s comedy, “El ciudadano ilustre” (The Distinguished Citizen), opened the 38th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema at Havana’s Karl Marx Cinema on December 8, 2016. The film stars Oscar Martinez as Daniel Mantovani, a cosmopolitan Noble Prize-winning Argentinean author who returns to the village of his birth for the first time in 40 years. The film picked up a Coral award for best screenplay at the close of the ten day festival and was Argentina’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film.

Havana’s renowned International Festival of New Latin American Cinema—December 8-18, 2016—is a ten day extravaganza that gives attendees a chance to roam widely through an immense selection of cinema and spend time in fascinating Havana. My second experience of this wonderful festival, the 38th edition, was even more rewarding than the first, which was in 2015. The festival is one of the Havana’s and Latin America’s most anticipated annual events, offering the best and latest in Cuban, Latin American and world film—roughly 440 features, documentaries, fiction, animation, and archival gems from roughly 50 countries.

Due to bad weather in Miami and delayed flights stateside, I arrived two days late and missed opening night, which drew hundreds to Teatro Karl Marx in Havana’s Miramar district. Festival director Iván Giroud dedicated the evening to Fidel Castro and to Julio García Espinoza, whose his acclaimed film school, EICTV, was celebrating its 30th anniversary. The Argentinean drama, The illustrious citizen, directed by Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn, was the opening night film.

Last December, the 30 minute (9 mile) cab ride from the José Marti International Airport in Boyeros to downtown Havana was marked by banners and billboards commemorating Fidel Castro’s life and influence, some had been there for years and others put up in response to his recent death. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Overshadowing the 38th festival was Fidel Castro’s recent death, of natural causes, on the evening of November 25, 2016. Castro, whose health had been failing for years, had held onto power from 1959-2008. Gradually, he had turned things over to his brother, Raúl Castro, who is now nearing the end of his second five-year term and will step down from the presidency in 2018 when a new ruler will elected by the National Assembly. A large part of Cuba’s attraction, festival aside, is exploring Castro’s complex legacy. His death took place amidst an undeniably cinematic moment—Cuba’s rebirth. Everywhere you go in Havana these days, architecture and attitudes are in flux and Capitalist consumption is perched to spread like wildfire. In a society that has long touted the ideals of social equality, there’s a feeling both of hopefulness and of anxiety over being left behind. Not surprisingly, the motif of nostalgia and change permeated the Cuban films I saw as well.

My goal for my 8 day stay was to see as many films as I could and to hit Havana’s rustic streets and start exploring the changes firsthand. Using my hotel, the Hotel Nacional, as a base, I walked to as many of the 14 screening venues as possible and to tried to take different routes each time. In all, I saw 48 films during my 8 day stay, usually 5 to six films daily, from 10 AM to midnight, and I covered a lot of downtown Havana.

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba is the festival’s hub and main host hotel. Built in 1930, the beloved five-star hotel is situated on a hill in Vedado just a few meters from the sea; it has a fabulous outdoor bar facing the water that is the perfect spot for an interview and a cocktail. Guests have included Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner. Photo: Geneva Anderson

A ride in a taxi colectivo (shared taxi) is a cliche waiting to to be exploited: it’s cheap, about 30 cents in Cuban “CUP” (the national coin used by Cubans), and fun. Most tourists use Convertible pesos or “CUC” and pay the equivalent of US $5 to $10 dollars to go from venue to venue in some form of private taxi. The locals all use buses or taxi colectivos—big classic cars from the 1950’s—which serve as shared taxi’s and go just one way, up or down Havana’s long boulevards. People cram in like sardines and hop in and out. Photo: Geneva Anderson

The festival catalogue, mi rollo, my película (mi role my film) offered 231 pages of films, with all program information in Spanish. About a third of the films were subtitled, mainly in English, but also in German or French. Immediately evident is the depth of the programming, a challenge that Programming Director, Zita Morriña and her small staff revel in. (Read my 2015 interview with her here.) The festival receives well over a 1,000 film submissions directly and seeks out prizewinners from Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto. It acknowledges talent across the board, offering juried competitions in eight areas and numerous awards, including best unrealized screenplay and even one for the best artistic design of the festival’s poster.

Every morning at 9 a.m., the 8-page daily festival newspaper, Diario del Festival, arrived hot off the press, listing screening times and venues for the current day and the next day, and whether a film was subtitled. The Nacional’s lobby and breakfast room came alive with discussions of what to see, how to get there.

The “Diario del Festival,” the festival’s daily newspaper (entirely in Spanish), is indispensable for scheduling and the latest festival news. Photo: Geneva Anderson

One can’t help but be swept up in the moment—the excitement of the crowd, the lines, the impassioned conversations, the glory of stepping into these historic cinema houses— Infanta, La Rampa, America, Yara, Charles Chaplin and 23Y12. Most Cubans have not traveled or been able to surf the web much but they are voracious cinephiles and will wait in lines that stretch on for blocks to see a film that generated a buzz abroad. Seeing Latin American and Cuban films on native soil with such an energetic audience added tremendously to my experience.

This year, the festival flew in Sonia Braga, Oliver Stone and Brian De Palma. Over the years, a good number of Hollywood stars have attended—Jack Lemmon, Gregory Peck, Robert DeNiro, Chris Walken, Annette Bening, Spike Lee, and others. I was equally delighted to see the many Cuban and Latin American directors and actors and full productions team that participate, taking the stage for brief conversations and rounds of applause.

Cine Yara, on Calle 23 in Havana’s Vedado district, is one of the main venues for Havana’s International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. A key example of Cuba’s “Modern Movement” in architecture, it opened in 1947 as “Teatro Warner Radiocentro” with 1,650 seats, and was operated by Warner Bros. In 2015, it became one of Havana’s first cinemas to embrace digital projection but retained a 35 mm projector to allow screening of classic films. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Cine Yara is huge inside but its narrow spacing of rows makes for slow entry and exit. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Cine Riviera in Havana’s Vedado district is immediately recognizable by its blue and white motif. Built in the early ’50s on the site of the previous 1927 Rivieria Theatre, it became the first “atmospheric” cinema in Cuba—its walls were once painted with imitation Spanish facades creating the illusion of being outdoors. Currently, it seats 1,200 and also functions as venue for contemporary music. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Contemporary Cuban movie posters, with their bold and saturated colors, are masterpieces of graphic design which tend to focus on concepts in the film, not on the actors. They are sold at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, and displayed and sold at most of the festival’s screening venues.

If you’re looking for perfect screening conditions, creature comforts, or envision sipping a mojito during a screening, Havana is not for you, at least not yet. There were some technical issues, primarily with sound or films that would not play, and, a few times, there were no subtitles. Substitutions were made on the spot. As for fuel, there is no “to-go” coffee but basic inexpensive snacks—chips, cups of popcorn, nuts, candies and fruits—are sold outside the theaters in huge shopping carts. One mitigating delight is that each theater displays and sells wonderful movie posters, very artfully designed, and t-shirts for a song and you’ll be tempted to stock up.

38th edition highlights:

exploring depths of the Latin American psyche:

Mexican actor Gael García Bernal appeared in two big films in Havana, Pablo Larraín’s “Neruda” and Jonas Cuarón’s border drama, “Desierto.”

For those intrigued by the lyrical, the sinister and the outrageous factors that have come to shape Latin American identity, they need look no further than Chilean director Pablo Larraín, whose work is deeply appreciated in Cuba. In 2012, his No won the top award for fiction film. In 2015, his The Club won the Coral Prize, the festival’s top prize. For the 38th festival, Larraín screened his new films Jackie, starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy in aftermath of her husband’s assassination, and his semi-fictional Neruda, starring Mexican actor Gael García Bernal and Chilean actor, Luis Gnecco, who first appeared together in Larrain’s No.

Neruda lays out the struggle between political authority and the creative impulse in a detective story about the 1948 political exile of the Nobel-Prize winning poet and Chilean Communist Party Senator, Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco), who lived in hiding in Chile before fleeing to Argentina and then on to France. Bernal plays the obsessive detective, Peluchonneau, who is hot on Neruda’s trail but instead is undone by the chase. Neruda, embodied brilliantly by Gnecco, is a complex, hedonistic larger-than-life figure whose identity is fueled by his own mythology. Everything about this philosophical drama played well in Havana. The audience was familiar with both Neruda’s poetry and his January 6, 1948 denouncement of Chilean President Gabriel González Videla which made Neruda a target of the same anti-repressive policies he was fighting as a senator.

A scene from Colombian director Víctor Gaviria’s “La Mujer de Animal” which uses graphic violence to denounce violence.

Looking beyond those films that had big splashes at European festivals was eye-opening. The violence in several films that came highly recommended was hard to stomach. Columbian director Víctor Gaviria’s La Mujer de Animal (The Animal’s Wife, 2016) was most extreme in depicting the utter terror of living with unrelenting domestic violence. The abuser is Animal (Tito Alexander Gómez), a revolting, rage-filled criminal who dominates the shantytown he lives in and abuses everyone he comes in contact with. When he becomes obsessed with innocent 18 year-old Amparo (Natalia Polo), he kidnaps her, rapes her, forces her to marry him, and soon impregnates her. Powerless, she becomes his whipping post and the entire community, out of fear, turns a blind eye to his horrific abuse which escalates after their daughter is born. Had I seen this in the States, I would have had my fill and walked out. In Havana, despite being numbed out, I opted to stayed for some insight into the context—the dire and marginalizing poverty—that had bred such evil and complicity. Cringing in my seat, I waited to see if she would muster the strength to retaliate and kill this monster. To my surprise, Gaviria walked away with the festival’s award for best director. After a chat with a Colombian sociology student about the aesthetics and complex role of violence in Latin American cinema, I saw the film differently but would hesitate to recommend it.

Another soul-crushing domestic violence drama was Brazilian director Marco Dutra’s Era El Cielo (The Silence of the Sky, 2016). The violence in this one was easier to stomach but its psychological chill lasted for days. Set in an entirely different economic strata—a gorgeous middle class home in Montevideo, Uruguay—the story presents a husband’s unexpected response to his wife’s brutal rape. The film takes a captivating twist into his obsession and the rape becomes more about him than her.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (L) and Gael García Bernal (R) in a scene from Mexican director Jonas Cuarón’s border drama “Desierto” (2016), awarded the festival’s top prize.

The premiere of Mexican director Jonas Cuarón’s border thriller, Desierto, earlier in the year had coincided with Donald Trump’s anti-immigration campaign rhetoric and it became a film of note at several festivals. The plot is conventional and straightforward: it takes a truck full of Mexican migrants attempting to cross the US border illegally and introduces a crazed racist vigilante sniper, Sam (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who along with his vicious dog, is ready for a slaughter. Most of the people are killed off early in the film but Moises (Gael García Bernal) becomes Sam’s primary target and a chilling game of cat and mouse ensues in the desert. This was Mexico’s Foreign Language submission to the 89th Academy Awards and it won the festival’s top prize, the Coral for best film. Seeing it in Cuba with a very sympathetic audience still didn’t convince me that it was anything more than an excuse to make a chase film with excessive gore.

Docs from far-flung corners:

A scene from Czech director Helena Třeštíková’s documentary “Marcella” (2007), a quiet masterpiece that feels like stepping into a memory of a family and a specific culture.

Exploring this festival’s broad selection of documentaries is always a pleasure. I had never heard of Czech director, Helena Třeštíková, who was a special honoree this year. She is legendary for Marriage Stories, her series of documentary films which explored 25 years of Czech society through the lives of six married Czech couples. The series screened on Czech television and elicited rave reviews. How wonderful to meet her in person in Havana and watch two of her insightful films.

Marcella (2007) begins with commonplace Marcella marrying Juri and it follows her for the next 26 years as she navigates her crumbling marriage and the agony and joy of raising a daughter who is developmentally challenged in a society that is churning in all directions as it emerges from an era of communist rule. Shot incrementally, Třeštíková gives us everyday occurrences as well as milestones (the birth and then tragic death of Ivanka, Marcella’s daughter, moving to another apartment) and weaves it all together with an incredible fluidity and empathy. By the end of the film, we see Marcella as anything but commonplace, because we have witnessed the molding and emergence of her true self. As for marriage, we witness that in the Czech Republic, in those pre-Velvet Revolution days, it required a team to function and going it alone was next to impossible. The decision to choose a mate was also pragmatic. When you consider that Třeštíková was creating six of these marriage portraits simultaneously, you get a real sense of her artistry as well as her powers of organization, collaboration and patience.

The processing of historical memory and documentation of atrocities is an essential role of Latin American film and the festival always honors this with outstanding examples. El Salvadorian journalist and director Marcela Zamora Chamorro’s sensitive documentary, The Offended (Los Offendios, 2016), offers poignant insight on the 12 year-long Salvadorian civil war in which 75,000 civilians died at the hands of government forces. Through interviews with several victims of torture and imprisonment who tell their stories in their own words, some for the first time, a pressing narrative of El Salvador’s ongoing struggle for truth and justice emerges. Chamorro’s father, Rubén Zamora, led the Revolutionary Democratic Front during the war, went into exile, and was tortured by the Salvadorian National Police and his articulate and detailed re-telling of these events is the focal point of the film.

Andreia Horta is Brazilian legend Elis Regina in Hugo Parto’s bio-pic “Elis” (2106).

It’s not all heavy. The festival introduces talented Latin celebrities who are not well known in the States, both as subjects of films and as actors. Brazilian director Hugo Prata’s musical bio-pic, Elis (2016), introduced me to Elis Regina (1945-82) one of the biggest Brazilian singers of all times. The film balances her singing career with her tumultuous personal life. Brazilian actress Andreia Horta’s dynamic performance as this velvet voiced bossa nova and suadade powerhouse could not have been more captivating.

Special Guests

Brazilian actress Sônia Braga at a press conference for “Aquarius” at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. In “Aquarius,” Braga plays Clara, a retired music critic, and widow, who is striving to hold on to her beachside apartment in upscale Recife, Brazil. When developers buy up all the apartments in the 1940’s-built complex with the intent of bashing it down, Clara holds her ground. A stand-off ensues with the developers and her children both pressuring her to sell. The film is a metaphor for present day Brazil with Braga as its inspirational and unshakable heroine. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Afternoon press conferences with Oliver Stone and Sônia Braga at the Hotel Nacional were packed and included lengthy and enjoyable Q & A’s with the celebrities. Oliver Stone spoke passionately about his bio-pic, Snowden (2016), pointing to the villainy of the US intelligence community and Snowden’s heroic outing of our appalling post-9/11 lack of privacy. Experiencing Stone slickly field questions from the impassioned journalists in attendance, many from countries who had been the puppets of US policy, was an unforgettable experience.

Snowden’s gala screening at Cine Yara was packed with an audience eager for a hefty exposé. Sorely missing in the evening was an in-depth on-stage conversation with the multi Oscar-winning Stone, who had also had extensive interaction with Fidel Castro, the subject of two of his films.

Brazilian actress Sônia Braga captivated journalists at her press conference for Aquarius, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s new film that has garnered numerous festival awards the world over. She told journalists that she identified deeply with her character, Clara, because “she expresses much of what I need to say as a citizen” and the film “is a metaphor for both Brazilian and international resistance against global dynamics which bolster the wealthy.” At the festival awards ceremony, Braga was honored with the Award for Best Female Performance and Aquarius went on to receive the Signis Award, granted by the World Catholic Association for Communication, and the Fripresci Award, of the International Federation of Movie Critics.

Cuban Film

The festival’s vast selection of Cuban cinema was enticing—85 films! I got my list of must-sees from Cuban editor Nelson Rodríguez who, since the 1960’s, had worked with all the leading Cuban directors and several prominent Latin American directors. He steered me first towards the four classics in the festival’s new “Restored Classics” programming. Three of these were directed by Tomás Gutierrez Alea (1928-1996), Cuba’s most influential director who was largely responsible for catapulting Cuban cinema into the international limelight. Rodríguez explained that, even 20 years after his death, Alea still permeates Cuban film culture. He walked the line with his witty, allegorical portraits of Cuba and his gaze reflected both a dedication to the revolution and a critique of how contemporary society measured up. I attended all the screenings in this category. The theaters were packed and the audience enthusiastically cheered the cast and creative teams who came on stage and spoke about their experiences.

Memories of Underdevelopment (Memorias del Subdesarrollo, Tomás Gutierrez Alea, 1968)

Sergio Corrieri as Sergio in a scene from Cuban director Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s fifth film ” “Memories of Underdevelopment” (1968), one of Cuba’s most important and beloved films. Recently restored via the collaboration of several global film foundations. Sergio’s family flees to Miami shortly after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion but he chooses to stay in Havana. The plot follows Sergio’s thoughts and experiences as he is confronted by the new reality. He lives as an alienated outsider, disdainful of his bourgeois family and friends and highly skeptical of those who believe naively that everything in Cuba can be transformed suddenly. He sustains himself as a rent-collecting property owner and chases women until he is accused of rape.

The Survivors (Los Sobrevivientes, Tomás Gutierrez Alea, 1979)

A scene from Cuban director Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s “The Survivors” (1979), a biting portrait of a clan of Cuba’s pampered and childish aristocrats, set in post-revolutionary 1960’s Cuba. In order to evade the contamination that has befallen society, an extended family decides to hole up from the outside world (with their servants) in total isolation in their large villa and live the good life. Over time, the family experiences a total reversal of fortune corresponding to the phases of capitalism. They begin their exile in capitalism which degenerates to feudalism, then to slavery, and in the end, all out barbarism.

The Cuban classic films were restored in collaboration with Cinema House of Cuba and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) and with the financial and technical assistance of several international film foundations and dedicated individuals. Representatives from these organizations participated in the festival’s well-attended informative public symposium on restoration, an issue of importance throughout Latin America. Cuba’s problem: the island’s humidity is hell on celluloid and many important Cuban films have deteriorated entirely and many more are in jeopardy, each a vital chunk of Cuba’s cultural heritage. Cuba needs both money and technical experience to preserve these films. Using Memories of Underdevelopment as the main example, but drawing on other films too, panel members spoke of their painstaking involvement with the film’s restoration and issues associated with digitization and audiovisual patrimony.

contemporary Cuban film: It’s Not Like Before (Ya no es antes, Lester Hamlet, 2016)

In Lester Hamlet’s “Ya no es antes,” seasoned Cuban actors Isabel Santos and Luis Alberto García play former lovers Mayra and Esteban who are in the second halves of their lives and are grappling, very awkwardly, with how to let down their guards and explore their feelings for each other. Separated since their teen-age years by immigration, they meet again in Cuba four decades later when Mayra comes back from the States and meets Esteban, who remained in Cuba. The tender drama is an adaptation of Cuban writer Alberto Pedro Torriente’s’ beloved play from the 1980’s, “Weekend in Bahia.” It explores a question very relevant in today’s Cuba—is it possible for people with different world views and life experiences to put all that aside and take a chance on love? The wonderful chemistry of this Cuban duo, especially in their neurotic freak-outs, evoked belly laughs and tears. The film won the festival’s Popularity (People’s Choice) Prize and Luis Alberto García was awarded festival’s Best Actor prize.

For the past ten years, the festival’s experimental film section, “Cine Experimental” has been in the hands of San Francisco experimental filmmaker, Dominic Angerame, who has rigorously taken his enthusiastic audiences through the history of experimental cinema, showing them important gems they would have never encountered in Cuba were it not for his dedication. This year, celebrating his decade of Havana programming, he outdid himself with eight separate programs featuring dozens of important experimental and avant-garde films. I spent an afternoon catching the lyrical “Programa No.5” that featured 15 films, six of which were by Guggenheim Film Fellowship winner Lynne Sachs, working solo or in collaboration with Mark Street, or Noa Street. The high-point of the afternoon was seeing one of Angerame’s vintage experimental films shot in Havana some 20 years ago.

Details: The 39^th Festival of New Latin American Cinema is December 8-17, 2017 in Havana. Click here for information. Plan on securing plane and hotel reservations well in advance of the festival. Once in Havana, festival passes can be purchased at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, where the festival is headquartered, or, individual tickets can be purchased at various screening venues. Due to the immense popularity of the festival, and to avoid long lines, purchasing a festival pass is advised.

February 12, 2017 Posted by genevaanderson | Film | 23Y12, 38th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Alberto Pedro Torriente, Andreia Horta, Aquarius, Cinema House of Cuba, classic Cuban film, Cuba travel, Cuban CUC, Cuban CUP, Cuban film, Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, Desierto, Diario del Festival, Dominic Angerame, EICTV, El ciudadano ilustre, El Salvador, Elis, Elis Regina, Era El Cielo, experimental film, Fidel Castro, film restoration, Fripresci Award, Gabriel González Videla, Gael García Bernal, Gastón Duprat, Havana Film Festival, Havana travel, Helena Třeštíková, Hotel Nacional de Cuba, Hugo Prata, ICAIC, Infanta, International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Isabel Santos, Iván Giroud, Jackie, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jonas Cuarón, José Marti International Airport, Julio García Espinoza, Karl Marx Theatre, Kleber Mendonça Filho, La Mujer de Animal, La Rampa, Lester Hamlet, Los Offendios, Los Sobrevivientes, Luis Alberto García, Luis Gnecco, Lynne Sachs, Marcela Zamora Chamorro, Marcella, Marco Dutra, Mariano Cohn, Mark Street, Memorias del Subdesarrollo, Memories of Underdevelopment, mi rollo, my película, Natalia Polo, Natalie Portman, Nelson Rodríguez, Neruda, Noa Street, Oliver Stone, Pablo Larraín, Raúl Castro, Riviera, Rubén Zamora, Sônia Braga, Sergio Corrieri, Signis Award, Snowden, taxi colectivo, Teatro Karl Marx, The Offended, The Silence of the Sky, The Survivors, Tito Alexander Gómez, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Víctor Gaviria, Vedado Havana, Weekend in Bahia, Ya No Es antes, Yara, Zita Morriña | Leave a comment

Free Russian Holiday Bell Concert with SFS percussionist Victor Advienko, Saturday, December 24, at Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Public Library

December 21, 2016 Posted by genevaanderson | Classical Music, Uncategorized | Blogovest Bells, holiday concert, International Center of San Francisco, Mark Galperin, Russian bells, San Fancisco Public Library, Victor Avdienko | Leave a comment

Camera Obscura, an experimental cinema salon, at Hotel Petaluma all weekend

Canadian film director Michael Snow with the machine he and engineer Pierre Abeloos designed to film Snow’s 180 minute long experimental film La Région Centrale (1971) which was set and filmed on a mountaintop in a remote locale in northern Quebec. The film screens Saturday at noon at CAMERA OBSCURA Second Annual Report at the Hotel Petaluma. The photo was taken by Joyce Wieland in October 1969 on the fifth and final day of the crew’s presence on the mountaintop. Considered a masterpiece for its exploration of camera movement, the film will be introduced by Antonella Bonfanti, director Canyon Cinema. Photo: Joyce Wieland, production still, 1969

Canadian film director Michael Snow with the machine he and engineer Pierre Abeloos designed to film Snow’s 180 minute experimental film “La Région Centrale” (1971), which was set and filmed on a mountaintop in a remote locale in northern Quebec. The film has it world premiere Saturday at noon at CAMERA OBSCURA Second Annual Report at the Hotel Petaluma. Canyon Cinema will supply the 16mm projector necessary to screen the film, which does not exist in digital form. The production still was taken by Joyce Wieland in October 1969 on the fifth and final day of the crew’s presence on the mountaintop. Considered a masterpiece for its exploration of camera movement, the film will be introduced by Antonella Bonfanti, director Canyon Cinema. Photo: Joyce Wieland, 1969

For film programmer and curator Amanda Salazar of the San Francisco Film Institute and Petaluman Jonathan Marlow, FANDOR co-founder and currently chief strategy office of Kanopy, the on-demand streaming video service, it was their mutual love of experimental film and making it more accessible to audiences that led them to look back in time to the CAMERA OBSCURA Film Society (COFS). This eclectic organization was founded in the late 1950’s by Lawrence Jordan and Bruce Connor, together with a handful of other artists, and presented pop-up experimental cinema programs throughout San Francisco until 1962. Salazar and Marlow picked up the mantel and contacted Lawrence Jordan, who happens to live in Petaluma now, and got his permission to revitalize the organization. They will be presenting The Second Annual report of the reconstituted CAMERA OBSCURA over the weekend at Hotel Petaluma’s art gallery which has been converted into a pop-up screening room that seats 50. Lawrence Jordan will be in attendance on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. for the world premiere of his 2016 film Night Light , shot on film, and to introduce Werner Herzog’s short, Lessons of Darkness (1992), which screens before Night Light. The event kicked off on Friday evening (November 18, 2016) and picks up at noon on Saturday and runs through late-night Sunday. “Our intent,” says Amanda Salazar “is to create a salon and to start a dialogue about where cinema is at, where it is going, and its relevancy. We want people to feel free to drop in and see one film or to spend the weekend with us. ”

CAMERA OBSCURA day I : Friday, Nov 18

OPENING NIGHT: 7:00pm

CAMERAPERSON (2016) dir. Kirsten Johnson

– preceded by the short film – SPEAKING IS DIFFICULT (2016) dir. AJ Schnack

[feature courtesy of Janus Films | short courtesy of the filmmaker and Field of Vision]

— followed by —

opening night reception [Hotel Petaluma ballroom]

CAMERA OBSCURA day II : Saturday, Nov 19

12:00pm | [introduced by Canyon Cinema Director Antonella Bonfanti]

LA REGION CENTRALE (1971), dir. Michael Snow

– preceded by the short film –

THE WATERSHOW EXTRAVAGANZA (2016) [U.S. premiere], dir. Sophie Michael

[feature courtesy of Canyon Cinema | short courtesy of the filmmaker

— followed by —

4:00pm | [introduced by Camera Obscura Film Society co-founder Lawrence Jordan]

LESSONS OF DARKNESS (1992)

dir. Werner Herzog

– preceded by the short films –

NIGHT LIGHT (2016) [world premiere] dir. Lawrence Jordan [in attendance]

EDGE OF ALCHEMY (2016) [work-in-progress screening] dir. Stacey Steers

[feature courtesy of WHF GmbH | shorts courtesy of the respective filmmakers]

— followed by —

7:00pm | THE SON OF JOSEPH [LE FILS DE JOSEPH] (2016) [regional premiere] dir. Eugene Green

– preceded by the short film –

OH WHAT A WONDERFUL FEELING (2016) [regional premiere] dir. Francois Jaros

[feature courtesy of Kino Lorber | short courtesy of La Boîte à Fanny]

— followed by —

10:00pm | [introduced by Alamo Drafthouse SF Creative Manager Mike Keegan]

THE ASTROLOGER (1975) dir. Craig Denny

– preceded by the short film –

PLENA STELLARUM (2016) [regional premiere] dir. Matthew Wade

[feature courtesy of AGFA | short courtesy the filmmaker]

CAMERA OBSCURA day III : Sunday, Nov 20

1:00pm | IN PURSUIT OF SILENCE (2015) dir. Patrick Shen [prod. Brandon Vedder in attendance]

– preceded by the short film –

FLOWERS OF THE SKY (2016) [regional premiere] dir. Janie Geiser

[feature courtesy of the Cinema Guild | short courtesy the filmmaker]

— followed by —

4:00pm | Sunday SEA TO SHINING SEA (2016) [work-in-progress screening] dir. Maximon Monihan [in attendance]

– preceded by the short film –

EXILE EXOTIC (2015) [regional premiere] dir. Sasha Litvintseva

[feature courtesy of Bricolagista | short courtesy the filmmaker]

— followed by —

CLOSING NIGHT: 7:00pm | DARK NIGHT (2016) [regional premiere]dir. Tim Sutton

– preceded by the short film –

[TBA] (2016) [work-in-progress screening]

dir. ——– [in attendance]

[feature courtesy of Cinelicious Pics | short courtesy of the filmmaker]

— followed by —

closing night party [secret location TBA]

Details: Camera Obscura Second Annual Report is Friday through Sunday, November 18-20, 2016 at the art gallery of Hotel Petaluma, 106 Washington Street, Petaluma, CA, approximately 1.5 hours north of San Francisco. Screenings (“events”) are for members only. A single screening is $20; a full day membership is $50 and the full weekend, including a one year membership and subsequent Quarterly report screenings) is $100.

For more information: www.cameraobscurafilmsociety.com

Kid friendly alert: the programming is intended for adults

November 18, 2016 Posted by genevaanderson | Uncategorized | Amanda Salazar, Antonella Bonfanti, Bruce Connor, Camera Obscura, CAMERA OBSCURA Second Annual Report, Jonathan Marlow, Lawrence Jordan | Leave a comment

The 8th Annual Petaluma International Film Festival kicks off Friday, October 28th, and offers a weekend of exciting cinema

If you see just one Kazakh wife-stealing comedy this year, make it Yerlan Nurmukhambetov’s “Walnut Tree,” which screens Saturday at the 8th Petaluma International Film Festival. The 81 minute drama is a beautifully rendered portrait of Kazakh identity with breathtaking cinematography. This year’s festival showcases 40 independent features and shorts from 18 countries with a special program devoted to Sonoma Filmmakers.

If you see just one Kazakh wife-stealing comedy this year, make it Yerlan Nurmukhambetov’s “Walnut Tree,” screening Saturday at the 8th Petaluma International Film Festival. In addition to its humor, the 81 minute drama is a beautifully rendered portrait of Kazakh identity with breathtaking cinematography. PIFF8 is October 28-30, 2016 at Petaluma’s Boulevard Cinemas.

With 40 independent films from 18 countries, the 8^th Annual Petaluma International Film Festival (PIFF8) offers line-up of new independent films from the remote corners of the globe to homey Petaluma. This year’s festival is Friday through Sunday at Petaluma’s Boulevard 14 Cinemas and offers 15 full-length films and 25 shorts and the popular Sonoma Filmmakers Showcase with several filmmakers in attendance. There’s also Running Wild, Alex Ranarivelo’s new horse drama that was co-produced by Petaluma’s Ali Afshar and was shot in 2015 all around Sonoma County.

Organized by Saeed Shafa who founded the popular annual Tiburon International Film Festival in 2002, PIFF was created to support new indie filmmakers, great storytelling and international points of view. Since most filmmakers start our their careers by making a short film, Shafa has purposely paired all the feature films with at least one short film to demonstrate to the audience that short stories can be highly effective and so can new filmmakers.

Friday’s Opening film:

A scene from award-winning filmmaker Hilary Linder’s documentary “Indivisible” (2016) showing a meeting at the US-Mexico border between children and their parents. The parents were deported to Mexico and the children stayed behind in the US.

The festival kicks off Friday at noon with Hilary Linder’s compelling documentary, Indivisible (2016), which showcases real people at the heart of our country’s immigration debate and the Dreamer movement for immigrant rights. In a year in which election theatrics have supplanted substantive debate on the pressing issue of immigration reform, Linder gives us a a very relevant story that tracks three children who were been separated from their parents by deportation and became stuck in redtape which prohibited them from visiting their parents and their parents form visiting them. Against all odds, these kids remain hopeful and are working to promote reform. Screens with shorts “The Silence” and “Between the Lines.”

Saturday and Sunday evenings—Sonoma Filmmakers Showcase:

Now in its fourth year, the festival’s popular Sonoma Filmmakers Showcase has expanded to both Saturday and Sunday evenings. The program reflects Shafa’s commitment to our community’s talented independent filmmakers. The evenings allow the community to gather to meet these filmmakers and to see a number of short films all at once. This year, the program starts on Saturday with Alex Ranarivelo’s new feature length drama, Running Wild (2016), starring Oscar-nominated Sharon Stone. The film was co-produced by Petaluma’s Ali Afshar and was shot in 2015 in Petaluma, Tomales, Santa Rosa and Glen Ellen. The story revolves around the plight of wild horses during the drought. Recently widowed Stella Davis (Dorian Brown, FX’s “Wilfred”) faces foreclosure of her Double Diamond Ranch and works with convicts to rehabilitate a herd of wild horses that has wandered onto her ranch. The film screens Saturday at 6:15 PM with director Alex Ranarivelo and actress Dorian Brown in attendance.

Sunday Afternoon: Focus on Dance and Music

A scene from Randy Valdes’ “A Todo Color” (2015).

Randy Valdes was born in Cuba in 1986 and then relocated to Miami at age eight. His documentary A Todo Color (2015) tells the story of how, in the 1990’s, young Cubans turned to music as a source of inspiration and how Cuban musicians managed to disseminate their art and truths beyond Cuba. Through intimate interviews and fabulous concert scenes, the film explores the artists’ personal and creative journeys, how their influence defines the artistic language of the Cuban cultural Diaspora, and how each incorporates the influences of their newly adopted cultural environments into the ever-evolving phenomenon of World Cuban Music. Screens Sunday, 2PM with shorts Body & Sound (4 min) and State of Grace (5 min)

Bardroy Barretto’s musical feature Let’s Dance to the Rhythm (2015) brings some 20 legendary songs from the 60’s and 70’s to life in a spectacular tribute to Goan music that unfolds as a love story between a composer-musician, Lawtry (Vijay Maurya), and his protégé, Dona (Palomi Ghosh). Set against the backdrop of the jazz clubs of Bombay and Goa’s vibrant 60’s generation of musicians, the film is loosely based on a true story. Goan musicians contributed greatly to Bollywood’s melodious songs and compositions and this film gives these unsung heroes their due. Screens Sunday at 4 PM. (In Konkani with subtitles)

PIFF Details:

The 7^th Petaluma International Film Festival is Friday, October 28, through Sunday, October 30, 2016 at Petaluma’s Boulevard Cinemas, 200 C Street, Petaluma. Tickets: All screenings $12; buy tickets during the festival at Petaluma’s Boulevard Cinemas or online (click here) with a handling fee. Passes: All inclusive festival pass is $180 and a day pass is $60. (click here to purchase)

For full schedule and more information, click here.

October 26, 2016 Posted by genevaanderson | Film, Uncategorized | 8th Petaluma International Film Festival, Alex Ranarivelo, Ali Afshar, Bardroy Barretto, Danielle Mandella, Dreamer movement, Hilary Linder, immigration reform, Indivisible, Jeremiah Johnson, Kazakh film, Lauren Michele, Let’s Dance to the Rhythm, Maya Neumeier, Paul Zehrer, Petaluma International Film Festival, S. Kramer Herzog, Seth Coltan, Sharon Stone, Walnut Tree, Yerlan Nurmukhambetov, Zach Berlin | Leave a comment

Russian Bells will clang at Fort Ross’ Harvest Festival in a special Russian Bell concert with Percussionist Victor Avdienko—Saturday, October 15, 2016

San Francisco Symphony percussionist Victor Avdienko will play a “peal” or set of authentic Russian bronze bells in America’s Second Secular Russian Bell Concert at Fort Ross on Saturday, October 15, 2106 as part of the 4th Annual Fort Ross-Seaview Harvest Festival. The 6-bell peal was cast in 2014 in the Urals by Pyatkov & Co., a famous modern Russian bell foundry in Kamensky-Uralsy. Blagovest Bells of Novato, California, the sole promoter of Russian bells and bell-ringing in the U.S., made the zvonnitsa (support structure) in 2015. The program will include several tradition zvons and a few contemporary zvons, along with some improvisations. Photo: courtesy Blagovest Bells

The majestic sound of Russian bells will fill the air at historic Fort Ross this Saturday as San Francisco Symphony Percussionist Victor Avdienko performs a special concert for the 4th annual Fort Ross-Seaview Wine and Harvest Festival. Since the founding of Fort Ross in 1812 by the Russian-American Company, a trading and fur trapping firm, Russian bells have had a place of prominence. They were utilized both as signal bells at the fort’s two sentry boxes located diagonally in its Northern and Southern corners and, after 1824, as church bells in the belfry of the fort’s Holy Trinity–Saint Nicholas Chapel. On Saturday, the peal of six Russian bells will serve a purely musical purpose in America’s Second Secular Russian Bell Concert which will take place at the Visitor’s Center at 1:10 pm. The concert is produced by Mark Galperin, General Manager of Blagovest Bells of Novato, the sole promoter of Russian bells and bell-ringing in the U.S.

The program will include a mix of traditional liturgical and contemporary secular “zvons” (peals) and improvisations—

“Perezvon”– a chain peal, from largest bell to smallest in order, used at the Blessing of the Water

Traditional Trezvons (three-part Russian bell peals)

“Festal Lenten Zvon”– a traditional Russian Peal from the famous belfry of the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin of the Rostov Veliky, Yaroslavl Region, Russia

“Optina Zvon”– a peal from Optina Pustyn, the famous Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple Monastery for men near Kozelsk, Kaluga Region, Russia

“Krasnyj Zvon” by Vladimir Petrovsky

Improvisational Trezvons

Mark Galperin of Blagovest Bells, Marin, at Fort Ross. Galperin is North America’s foremost expert on Russian bells and the producer of Saturday’s concert at Fort Ross. Galperin is a former physicist who immigrated to Marin in 1995. In 1998, he began collaborating with Father Stephan Meholick of San Anselmo’s St. Nicholas Orthodox Church to build a bell collection for the church. These bells were the first authentic Russian bells that SFS percussionist Victor Avdienko ever heard played live. Photo: Blagovest Bells

Mark Galperin of Blagovest Bells at Fort Ross. Galperin is North America’s foremost expert on Russian bells and the producer of Saturday’s concert at Fort Ross. Galperin is a former physicist who immigrated to Marin in 1995. In 1998, he began collaborating with Father Stephan Meholick of San Anselmo’s St. Nicholas Orthodox Church to build a Russian bell collection for the church. These bells were the first authentic Russian bells that SFS percussionist Victor Avdienko ever heard played live. Photo: Blagovest Bells

Percussionist Victor Avdienko has performed, recorded, and toured with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) for 20 years. He was brought up in San Francisco’s Holy Virgin Cathedral Russian Orthodox Church on Geary Street but, during those days, he never heard authentic Russian bells played live there. Instead, he heard plenty of recordings of majestic Russian bells which always fascinated him. His performance of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” with the San Francisco Symphony in the summer of 2014 was the first time authentic Russian bells were ever used for that very popular piece in the United States. Galperin organized the loan of those bells to SFS from San Anselmo’s St. Nicholas Orthodox Church. He had also lent Blagovest Bells’ 5-bell Russian demo peal to SFS for its Keeping Score Summer Institute in June 2009. The friendship between Galperin and Avdienko was solidified over their mutual love of bell music. Avdienko and Galperin’s first independent concert, America’s First Secular Russian Bell Concert was held at Fort Ross during the 3^rd Fort Ross Harvest Festival.

Saturday’s outdoor concert at Fort Ross will occur rain or shine. In addition to Russian bells, the folk group Dolina will also be performing a number of traditional Russian and Cossak folk dances throughout the day.

To read ARThound’s 2014 feature article on SFS percussionist Victor Avdienko and the first Russian bells to play at Green Music Center’s famed Weill Hall, click here.

Details: The bell concert is 1:10 PM on Saturday, October 15, 2016 at the Fort Ross Visitor Center, Fort Ross State Historic Park. The concert is free but visitors must pay park admission of $20/car which includes entrance to the Fort Ross Harvest Festival. Fort Ross, is located 11 miles north of Jenner on Highway One and is the main tourist attraction between Bodega Bay and Fort Bragg.

The Fort Ross Harvest Festival is Saturday, October 15, 2016 from 10AM to 6PM and offers a full day of world-class wine tasting, a wine seminar featuring rare wines grown in the remote steep mountain top Seaview region, apple picking in a historic apple orchard, delicious local foods, historic crafts and music and Russian dancing, all set on the spectacular Sonoma Coast at Fort Ross State Historic Park. Entrance to the festival is $20/car and wine tasting tickets range from $40 to $90 depending on category of wine tasting.

October 12, 2016 Posted by genevaanderson | Classical Music, Food, Green Music Center, Symphony | 4th Fort Ross-Seaview Harvest Festival, Blagovest Bells, Dolina, Fort Ross Harvest Festival, Mark Galperin, Pyatkov & Co. Bell foundry, Russian bells, Victor Avdienko | 1 Comment

The 39th Mill Valley Film Festival is October 6-16 and it’s a very good year

Ethiopian writer-director Yared Zeleke’s feature debut film, “The Lamb” (2015) will screen twice at the 39th Mill Valley Film Festival, and the filmmaker will attend both screenings and participate in an audience Q & A. “The Lamb” wasthe first Ethiopian film ever named an official Cannes selection, made a huge splash at Cannes in 2015. This drama, which unfolds in Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, is the story of a young boy, Ephriam (Rediat Amare), who, after his mother’s death, is left to live with his cousins while his father heads off to Addis Abba in search of work. He becomes attached to a goat, Chuni, and when his relatives make plans to sacrifice the goat, he and Chuni go on the run. Much of the film is an exploration of family life in Ethiopia, a land of stunning landscapes and drought-stricken arid areas, where the labor-intensive electricity-free lifestyle is far removed from that in the West. The film is especially recommended for families. Image: MVFF

Ethiopian writer-director Yared Zeleke’s feature debut film, “The Lamb” (2015) screens twice at the 39th Mill Valley Film Festival, and the filmmaker will attend both screenings and participate in audience Q & A’s. The first Ethiopian film ever named an official Cannes selection, “The Lamb” made a huge splash at Cannes. This drama, which unfolds in Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, is the story of a young boy, Ephriam (Rediat Amare), who, after his mother’s death, is left to live with his cousins while his father heads off to Addis Abba in search of work. He becomes attached to an endearing goat, Chuni, and when his relatives make plans to sacrifice the goat, he and Chuni go on the run. Much of the film is an exploration of family life in Ethiopia, a land of stunning landscapes and drought-stricken arid areas, where the labor-intensive electricity-free lifestyle is far removed from that in the West. The film is especially recommended for families. Image: MVFF

With the onset of fall, Bay Area moviegoing options start to multiply like crazy. The Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF), October 6-16 2016, is hard to beat. The 39^th edition offers a line-up of 200 films—winners from Cannes, Berlin, and Toronto as well as an eclectic mix of features, documentaries, shorts, world cinema and films with a Bay Area stamp—all selected for our discriminating Bay Area audience by programmer Zoe Elton and her seasoned team. The legendary festival kicks off on Thursday evening, October 6, with two of Hollywood’s hottest fall films—La La Land, Damien Chazelle’s (Whiplash MVFF 2014) love letter to dreamers, artists, and Hollywood with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone and Denis Vileneuve’s (Sicario) riveting and thoughtful drama, Arrival, starring five time Oscar-nominee Amy Adams as a linguistics professor who communicates with aliens in a bid to save the planet. Actually, in a move to satisfy everyone’s tastes, there are four films screening on Thursday evening, so add Mick Jackson’s Denial starring Rachael Weiss and Rob Nilsson’s Love Twice to the mix but they are not being billed as opening nighters. Special Tributes will honor Academy Award winning actress Nicole Kidman in a program that includes a screening of her new film with Dev Patel, Lion, and acclaimed filmmaker and author Julie Dash, who will appear in conversation following a screening of her recently restored Daughters of the Dust (1991). The festival closes with Jeff Nichols’ Loving, which tells the real life story of the struggle, imprisonment and 1960’s Supreme Court battle Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga) Loving experienced in one of America’s early interracial marriages.

The festival unfolds in San Rafael, Corte Madera, Larkspur and Mill Valley. For North Bay residents, getting there and parking is considerably more time efficient and cheaper than it is in San Francisco. If you want to go, pre-purchase your tickets now as this popular festival tends to sell out before it starts. There is ample choice right now but not for long. I recommend seeing films where the filmmaker or actors will be in attendance. Also, check the new program guide for Smith Rafael Film Center. Several of the festival films are screening there within the next two months and it doesn’t make sense to pay a premium to see them at the festival and wait in long lines unless there are special guests attending that make it worthwhile.

ARThound’s top picks:

Neruda/Spotlight Gael Garcia Bernal—Mon, Oct 10

Actor Gael García Bernal stars in director Pablo Larraíns new film, "Neruda."

Actor Gael García Bernal, the focus of a MVFF Spotlight, stars in director Pablo Larraíns new film, “Neruda.”

The foreign film line-up is especially strong this year. Chilean Director Pablo Larrain’s Neruda, Chile’s foreign language Oscar nominee, takes center stage in a special Spotlight presentation honoring Mexican actor-director-producer Gael Garcia Bernal. The drama is set in 1948 and Bernal plays a police inspector who is charged with finding the fugitive Communist politician and poet, Pablo Neruda, when he goes underground. In Larrain’s capable hands, the film morphs into a soulful exploration of Chile’s historical dance with heroes and villains and Bernal as the inspector becomes a key figure, obsessed with finding Neruda who has managed to make him his pawn. Bernal will appear in an onstage conversation covering his extensive career.

***The Salesman*—Fri, Oct 7 and Wed, Oct 12**

Shahab Hosseini (L) and Taraneh Alidoosti in a scene from Ashgar Farhadi’s “The Salesman.”

I can’t remember when the festival last hosted an Iranian filmmaker but, over the year’s, we’ve reveled in their creativity, courage and unparalleled story-telling. This year, acclaimed Academy Award and Golden Globe winning writer-director Ashgar Farhadi (A Separation) will appear in person to answer questions after the two screenings of his new Tehran-set drama The Salesman. The film picked up Best Screenplay and Best Actor awards at Cannes and was selected as the Iranian nominee for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. The Salesman is the suspenceful story of a young Persian couple who are part-time actors in Tehran in the Arthur Miller play Death of a Salesman. Their relationship is strained after they move into a new flat and the wife is attacked while she is taking a shower. The flat’s previous occupant, a woman who was allegedly involved in prostitution, is never seen but her presence grows as the film progresses. At Cannes, Shahab Hosseini, the husband, won the award for Best Actor.

***Lamb*—Sat, Oct 8 and Tues, Oct 11**

A scene from Yared Zeleke’s “Lamb.”

A rarity for MVFF is an Ethiopian film, in Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia. Writer-director Yared Zeleke’s first feature, Lamb, was the first Ethiopian film ever named an official Cannes selection. The 37 year-old director made Variety magazine’s “10 Screenwriters to Watch” list for 2015. The story revolves around an Ethiopian boy who loses his mother and moves in with relatives and becomes attached to a pet lamb, Chuni, as a way of dealing with loss and grief. He also takes up cooking which is unacceptable to his uncle who considers it girl’s work. The story hits close to home for the director. When he was just 10, Zeleke’s own father was imprisoned by the Derg regme (the ruling military Communist regime that was in power in Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987) and his mother remarried and he went to live with his grandmother. Ultimately, Zeleke was reunited with his father and they lived together in the US but the happy days he had with both loving parents together were long gone. Filmmaker in attendance for both screenings.

***Frantz*—Fri, Oct 7 and Fri, Oct 14**

Paula Beer and Pierre Niney in a scene from François Ozon’s “Frantz.”

French director François Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women, Under the Sand) always stirs me with subtle demonstrations of his artistry and deep understanding of human nature. His latest film, Frantz, a romantic drama set in the aftermath of WWI in the small German town of Quedlingburg, is a layered portrait of grief. The story evolves from a strange graveside encounter between a young German woman (Paula Beer) grieving her fiancé and a Frenchman, Adrian (Pierre Niney), who also visits the fiancé’s grave to leave flowers. He claims to have been friends with her fiancé and, slowly, she begins to develop feelings for him. Shot in black and white, with brief interludes of color, the film is a loose adaptation of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 drama Broken Lullaby which itself was based on a play by French playwright Maurice Rostand. Niney, whose elegant face would have inspired Michelangelo, won a Cesar award for his outstanding performance in Jalil Lespert’s Yves Saint Laurent (2014).

***Mom and Other Loonies in the Family*—Sat, Oct 15 and Sun, Oct 16**

Eszter Ónodi (seated) in a scene from Ibolya Fekete’s “Mom and Other Loonies in the Family.”

Hungarian director Ibolya Fekete’s Mom and Other Loonies in the Family revolves around a 94 year-old grandmother with dementia who relates her life story to her daughter. It’s a heartwarming recounting, told through flashbacks over four generations of crazies. She was a mother on the run who moved twenty-seven times—and the film spans all of the 20^th century, meandering through epic moments in Hungarian and world history. Her “present” is a time that is infused with struggles, declining health and the confusing intervention of past events. Her past was committed to keeping the family together at any cost. The story is based on the filmmaker’s own family and stories related to her by relatives. Characters appear in archival footage and in well-known Hungarian films as if they were actually in those films. Eszter Ónodi shines as the reliable yet somewhat whimsical woman who moved too many times and just wants to stand on her own two feet. Her ninety four-year old demented self is played by Danuta Szaflarska who credibly plays the role by reverting to childlike responses.

***Green is Gold*—Sat, Oct 8 and Sun, Oct 9**

Jimmy Baxter (L) and Ryan Baxter (R) in a scene from Ryan Baxter’s “Green is Gold.”

I have a weakness for films that are set in Northern, California, where I grew up. Sonoma State University graduate Ryan Baxter’s first feature, Green is Gold, is set in rural Sonoma County and is a family bonds over pot business story that picked up the Audience Best Fiction Film award at the Los Angeles Film Festival for its poetic filmmaking and emotional truth. Ryan Baxter, the writer, director, editor and star, plays the older brother, Cameron, a black market potrepneur ( a real word I picked up at the Heirloom Festival) who is forced to take care of his younger brother, Jimmy (his real life brother, Jimmy Baxter) when their dad is imprisoned. Cameron tries to put some distance between the kid and the cannabis business, which involves considerable risk but high payoffs, but, soon Jimmy is knee deep in buds and the two find themselves embarking on a dangerous pot delivery journey that will either leave them rolling in dough or six feet under. Ryan Baxter, actor Jimmy Baxtor, and rest of cast and crew in attendance at both screenings.)

***Unleashed*—Wed, Oct 12 and Thurs, Oct 13**

A scene from Finn Taylor’s “Unleashed,” with Kate Micucci (L) and Justin Chatwin (R) who was once her energetic dog, Summit, and has reentered her life as a full grown man. The film screens twice at MVFF with filmmaker, producer and Kate Miccuci in attendance.

What if your pets turned into full-grown men? I couldn’t resist the whacky premise behind Finn Taylor’s Unleashed, which has a thirty-something software app designer Emma (Kate Micucci) settling into her life in San Francisco when her cat, Ajax, and her dog, Summit, disappear only to reappear in her life as full-grown men (Steve Howet and Justin Chatwin). All their four-legged memories are fully intact and they vie for her affection in their very specific cat and dog styles.

Details MVFF 39:

The 39^th Mill Valley Film Festival opens on Thursday, October 6 and runs through Sunday, October 16, 2016. Buy tickets online now at http://www.mvff.com/. Most tickets for films are $14 and special programs starts at $25.

October 1, 2016 Posted by genevaanderson | Film, Uncategorized | Amy Adams, Arrival, Ashgar Farhadi, Daighters of the Dust, Damien Chazelle, Danuta Szaflarska, Daughters of the Dust, Denial, Denis Vileneuve, Dev Patel, Emma Stone, Ernst Lubitsch, Eszter Ónodi, Finn Taylor, François Ozon, Green is Gold, Ibolya Fekete, Iranian film, Jalil Lespert, Jalil Lespert’s, Jeff Nichols, Jimmy Baxter, Joel Edgerton, Julie Dash, Justin Chatwin, Kate Micucci, La La Land, Lion, Maurice Rostand, Mick Jackson, Mill Valley Fim Festival, MVFF, MVFF 39, Nicole Kidman, Paula Beer, Pierre Niney, Rachael Weiss, Ruth Negga, Ryan Baxter, Ryan Gosling, Steve Howet, The Salesman, Yared Zeleke, Zoe Elton | Leave a comment

Interview: Zita Morriña, Programming director, Cuba’s International Festival of New Latin American Cinema

Zita Morriña, Programming director, Havana’s Festival of New Latin American Cinema. The 38th edition of this popular festival is December 8-18, 2016.

As I travelled to sunny Havana, Cuba last December for my first visit to theInternational Festival of New Latin American Cinema, I had a myriad of questions about what goes on behind the scenes to bring over 650 films from 49 countries to Havana. Virtually unknown to most Americans, this 10 day festival, which is always held in the first two weeks of December, keeps getting bigger and better each year and is one of Havana’s and Latin America’s most anticipated annual events. I spoke with festival Programming Director, Zita Morriña, who has handled programming for the past 37 years.

The 37^th edition of the festival received roughly 1500 films that were submitted from the region for consideration, the biggest year ever. The festival also seeks out prizewinners from Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto. Morriña and her team of four energetic programmers turn all of this into a 10-day program that runs in 14 historic theaters all across Havana. They also organize the festival’s awards program which involves juried competitions in eight areas and numerous awards, including best unrealized screenplay and even one for the best artistic design of the festival’s poster. I meet with Morriña mid-way through last December’s festival in a large house in the Havana suburbs, owned by the festival; it was raining cats and dogs and the place was absolutely chaotic, with a stream of very wet people coming and going. Confident at the helm, Morriña gave me the lay of the land.

What is the philosophy of programming? How many submissions do you get and what are your standards for what you accept?

Zita Morriña: This year, we had over 1500 submissions. Every year, we usually get over 1000 but after the digital system of film became more popular, we started getting many more submissions from all over the world. Our philosophy is to emphasize Latin films so the areas of competition are only open to Latin American films. Some are submitted and some are by invitation. We always open our submissions in January or February. Including me, We have five programmers here and we have a budget for travel that’s not very big, but allows us to go to the big festivals—Berlin, Cannes, San Sebastian, Rotterdam—and some that are not so big but which are important for Latin film. We go to the principal countries—Argentina, Chile Brazil Venezuela and sometimes Colombia—and then we will go to a festival in Lima, Peru, and two to three festivals in Brazil. We’ve also attended Bogota Audiovisual Market (BAM) where they screen films. We invite the films that win the awards and get recognition. It’s always a combination of films we want and films they send us. This year, the majority is by submission not invitation.

How has the festival grown over the years in terms of participants?

Zita Morriña: In the beginning, the festival was more Latin American than international. In Latin America, almost all the countries have participated and that has just solidified and broadened. In the beginning, everything was in the contest. That worked for awhile but then it grew so much that the jurors couldn’t watch 40 or 50 films, so we decided to have separate contests and limit the number of films. We started with the fiction film category for the contest and, within that, created a prize for the first fiction film and the best short film. As we grew, and first films became more important, we created the contest for first films. This year, we have over 21 films full-length feature films, 21documentaries, 21 shorts, 21 first films, 21 animation and over 40 long and short features in fiction. We also have a script contest and we receive more than 100 every year.

Are you free to accept films of any subject matter?

Zita Morriña: Not for the contest. We decided that it would only for Latin American films or films with Latin American subjects. Outside the contest, we accept everything.

How is the jury selected?

Zita Morriña: It varies but it’s always a different jury each year. Sometimes, we select filmmakers who have received the award in the past. We try to make each jury a composition of many countries so there is balance.

What are you most proud of about this festival?

Zita Morriña: Our programming. We show the very best films produced in Latin America. This year in our “Gala” section we have a few films produced by Latin American directors that do not have a Latin American theme or subject per se, but we feel they are so relevant that they have to be shown. Our “First Film” category keeps better each year. These films are as good as or better than the other films we are showing. Over the years, we have had 500,000 people attending this festival and that’s very gratifying, very good.

Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas’ “Desde Allá” (“From Afar”, 2015) picked a Coral award for best “Opera Prima” “debut film” at the 37th Festival of New Latin American Cinema. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, this richly textured first feature explores the relationship between a lonely middle-aged man (Chilean actor Alfredo Castro) who trolls the streets of Caracas looking for young men for sex and meets his match in a young bi-sexual hustler (Luis Silva) who has a girlfriend. The young man manages to shift the balance of power between the two and the story takes unexpected twists as their emotional baggage is laid out.

Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas’ “Desde Allá” (“From Afar,” 2015) won a Coral award for best “Opera Prima” (debut film) at the 37th Festival of New Latin American Cinema. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, this richly textured first feature explores the relationship between a lonely middle-aged man (Chilean actor Alfredo Castro) who trolls the streets of Caracas looking for young men for sex and a young bi-sexual hustler (Luis Silva) who becomes much more than a hook-up. The young man manages to shift the balance of power between the two and the story takes unexpected twists as their emotional baggage is laid out.

This year, there are a lot of films addressing sexual and gender orientation. Is this intentional, to use film as a vehicle to explore these topics in Cuban society?

Zita Morriña: For the past five years, these themes have been very present in all the films throughout the world but, in Latin American films, we’ve have about 10 to 15 films that deal with homosexuality, trans, so forth. This is not a theme we are seeking; it comes to us. Our criteria has always been if the film is good we take it, never mind the topic. But, in our large panorama of subjects/categories, we do have one for diversity. There, we show films that address all sorts of topics beyond sexual and gender orientation like albinism.

I’ve seen an uncanny number of psychologically intense and dark films at this festival. Is this a characteristic of current Latin cinema?

Zita Morriña: Right now, yes it is. I think it’s a reflection of the social and political situation in Latin America right now that has given rise to this type of story. They are moving from the militant films that we saw up until the 1990’s to films that are more socially engaged and delve into heavy psychological issues that are often the result of the environment in these countries or of events in history.

Argentina’s Oscar entry and its box office sensation “El Clan,” directed by Pablo Trapero, was the opening night film for the 37th International Festival of New Latin Cinema, December 3-13, 2015, in Havana, Cuba.

Argentina’s Oscar entry and Latin box office sensation “El Clan,” directed by Pablo Trapero, was the opening night film for the 37th International Festival of New Latin Cinema, December 3-13, 2015, in Havana, Cuba.

Has new film technology presented any special problems here in Cuba? I attended about five screenings here where the audio did not work correctly or where they had to switch the film and show another that wasn’t scheduled due to technical issues. How are you tackling these issues so that the people are not disappointed?

Zita Morriña: Technology is one of our greatest challenges that will be solved only by time and money. Until about two years ago, cinemas in Cuba only screened 35mm and Blu-ray because we didn’t have any digital projectors. Last year, 2014, we introduced this technology in two theaters—Charles Chaplin and Yara. This year, we have fve theaters but, on the human side, we need to train our projectionists and technicians. Also, we need to improve film transport for receiving the films. There’s no Fed Ex here in Cuba; the films still have to come by DHL, which can take 10 to 15 days. Right now, a week into this festival, we are missing a film from the Dominican Republic, which is just 200 miles away but I still don’t have the film. And on the new technology side, there are problems everywhere but, here in Cuba, it’s triple. We have a film from Mexico, Gabriel Ripstein’s 600 Miles, a very good film about the Mexican cartels, which we can’t get to open and play, so we can’t screen it. Naturally, we always ask that films be sent ahead of time so we can work these things out but sometimes they tell us that the only copy they have is at another festival and they end up carrying the film with them when come. Also, we don’t pay any fees for films and charging a fee is very common nowadays so we have to deal with that money factor which gives us a lower priority.

Costa Rican director Esteban Ramírez Jiménez’s “Presos” (“Imprisoned,” 2014) is Costa Rica’s foreign language Oscar submission and picked up numerous awards at Latin American film festivals. The director is known for tackling social issues and this subtle thriller is about a naïve young woman (Natalia Arias) from a traditional family who is engaged but embarks on a clandestine relationship with a prison inmate. The film was inspired by a 1973 documentary of the same name about prison conditions in Costa Rica that was filmed by the director’s father, Victor Ramírez. This is Esteban Ramírez’s second film to become Costa Rica’s nominee for an Academy Award. In 2005, his “Caribe” was the country’s first entry.

What are the awards─are they money or recognition?

Zita Morriña: Just recognition. One of our awards, however, a script award, has financial support from Spanish institutions so that we can give money to the writer so to develop their idea. There’s also a post production award we give that supports films that are already done but need to be finished, so we do give some money for that.

The Cuban cinema here has been fantastic. Does the festival, extend financial support through the Cuban Institute for Cinema, to commission any films?

Zita Morriña: No.

For the past ten years, San Francisco filmmaker Dominic Angerame has presented an important experimental and avant garde film program at the festival. He started with a historical retrospective of experimental films from the 1920’s and, covering a decade each year, has worked his way up to contemporary experimental filmmakers. “Cuban audiences are in awe of avant garde film, “ says Angerame. “They want to understand how certain things are done and have been eager to explore cinema as an art form,” says Angerame. Photo: Dennis Letbetter

How does the festival survive financially?

Zita Morriña: (Outburst of laughter) We have this house, which is ours and a small full-time staff which is here year round. We have about 20 people including four programmers, the director and we have economic and administrative staff and maintain a video-library with copies of all the films that have been in the festival.

I met the American experimental filmmaker, Dominic Angerame from San Francisco and he told me that he’s been bringing films here for the past 10 years. How has it been collaborating with American’s over the years?

Zita Morriña: It’s been very easy. You know in our 7^th festival, some 30 years ago, we had Jack Lemmon here and we opened our festival with Costa Gavras’ Missing (1982) about Allende and the missing or disappeared people. We awarded Jack Lemmon the Coral of Honor, so we have always been there collaborating and communicating. So now, let’s say, it is legal. The Academy (Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences) has been sending delegations here for years. Annette Bening came in 2010 with The Kids Are All Right. We’ve had Gregory Peck, Robert DeNiro, Chris Walken, Milos Forman and Spike Lee. Harry Belafonte came many times. The former president of the Academy, Sid Ganis, was here and was very supportive.

Are you ready for the onslaught of Americans that will want to attend this festival?

Zita Morriña: We are more or less ready but I’m not so sure about the country.

To read ARThound’s previous coverage of the 37th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema (Dec 3-13, 2015), click here.

Details: The 38^th Festival of New Latin American Cinema is December 8-18, 2016 in Havana. Click here for information. Plan on securing plane and hotel reservations at least 2 to 3 months in advance of the festival. Once in Havana, festival passes can be purchased at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, where the festival is headquartered, or, individual tickets can be purchased at various screening venues. Due to the immense popularity of the festival, purchasing a festival pass is advised.

September 15, 2016 Posted by genevaanderson | Film | 37th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Alfredo Castro, Annette Bening, Christopher Walken, Costa Gavras, Cuban film, Dominic Angerame, Esteban Ramírez Jiménez, Gabriel Ripstein, Gregory Peck, Havana Film Festival, International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Latin American cinema, Lorenzo Vigas, Luis Silva, Milos Forman, Natalia Arias, Robert DeNiro, Sid Ganis, Spike Lee, Zita Morriña | Leave a comment

“Emperors’ Treasures”─quiet masterpieces─ at the Asian Art Museum through September 18, 2016

Copper vessel in the shape of a xizun, an ox-like mythical beast, by the Imperial Workshop, Beijing, Qing dynasty, reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736–1795). Modeled after a classical Bronze Age ritual wine-serving vessel. Qianlong court documents reveal that it was set on an altar in the main hall of the Imperial Ancestral Temple. The stylized floral patterns, filled with multicolored enamel cloisonné, represent the fine level of enamel inlay during the mid and late Qing dynasty. The beast displays design elements commonly found in Persian objects. National Palace Museum, Taipei. Photograph © National Palace Museum

A palm-sized white ceramic cup with two fine blue lines encircling its rim depicts colorful chickens tending their chicks and proud roosters amidst groups of rocks and flowers. At first glance, the cup appears to be a run-of-the-mill item that someone who liked chickens might pick up at a charity thrift shop and place in their kitchen window. But this is the renowned “chicken cup,” the most extraordinary type of early Ming multicolor porcelain in existence, which for centuries has been coveted by emperors, literati collectors and connoisseurs of Chinese art. It bears an imperial seal in a cobalt blue underglaze on its bottom indicating it was created during the reign of Ming Emperor Chenghua. Of course, it’s impossible to put a price on the priceless, but the 500 year-old Meiyantang Chenghua chicken cup, very similar, sold at auction in 2014 for $36.3 million. For the untrained eye, such are the surprises that await in the 150 objects on display at the Asian Art Museum (AAM) in their summer show, Emperors’ Treasures: Chinese Art from the National Palace Museum (June 17-Sept 18). Those more grounded in Chinese art will revel in the nuances of the crème de le crème of Chinese Imperial art selected by Jay Xu (AAM director) and Li He (AAM associate curator), co-curators of this show.

Considered the world’s top collection of Chinese art, the National Palace Museum was founded in 1965 and contains hundreds of thousands of the Imperial family’s extensive collections of artworks, artifacts and palatial treasures. In order to protect them from the ravages of war, these treasures were relocated to Taiwan from the National Palace Museum, in the Forbidden City, Beijing, in 1947 and from other hiding places in China at other dates. The collection rarely travels outside Asia and roughly 100 of the paintings, calligraphy, ceramics, jades, bronzes and textiles have never before been seen in the United States. The other 50 were shown at the Metropolitan Museum in the spring of 1996 when Jay Xu was a young curator there.

AAM Emperors' Treasures Cup with chicken design EX2016.3.91_01

Ming dynasty “chicken cup,” from Ming imperial shop, Jingdezhen, China, created during Chenghua reign (1465-87). Its subtle “doucai” color scheme (contrasting, interlocking, joined or dovetailed colors) was achieved by double firing. An outline of the composition was made in cobalt on raw clay and the cup was glazed and fired (underglazing). The resulting blue outlines were filled in with numerous colors on top of the glaze and then the object was fired again (overglazing). Nobility, wealth and fortune are suggested by two chicken families gathering near alternating rock and orchid and rock and peony compositions. The Imperial seal of Emperor Chenghua (1465-87) is on the underside. So beloved was this cup that it was copied by Manchu emperors in the Qing Imperial Workshop in the eighteenth century. National Palace Museum Taipei. Photograph © National Palace Museum

The exhibit spans 800 years of Chinese history, covering Han Chinese, Mongol and Manchu periods from the early 12th century Song dynasty though the Yuan, Ming and early 20^th century Qing dynasties. The structure is chronological, following the reigns of nine monarchs, eight male and one female, each of whom heavily influenced the artworks of their respective eras. The team at the Asian, in close collaboration with Taipei, has done a wonderful job presenting the many aesthetic currents that ran through Chinese imperial art as Chinese emperors expressed their personal tastes and embraced various foreign innovations and influences. Wall placards provide rich context and full Chinese translations, while the audio-guide and catalog provide even more information.

“This is not a typical blockbuster art show in its scale,” says Dr. Richard Vinograd, Christensen Professor in Asian Art, Stanford, “but it’s very rich in terms of objects and art forms that are included over a very broad span of time. The value of these objects can be distinguished between their pure artistic value and connoisseurs’ or collectors’ values, which are attached to Imperial patronage, transmission, and technical innovations embodied in the works.” Indeed, some of these artworks are like people you meet who, initially, may not seem very interesting but once you get to know them, become thoroughly engrossing.

Exhibition Highlights:

Innovative Calligraphy

Grotesque Stones, by Emperor Huizong (Zhao Ji, Chinese, 1082–1135). Northern Song dynasty. Album leaf, ink on paper. National Palace Museum, Taipei, Photograph © National Palace Museum.

Emperors’ Treasures opens with an exploration of Emperor Huizong (r.1101-1125 AD), who sought escape from the affairs of state through the arts and letters. His connoisseurship had a formidable impact on the study of antiquities in China and he collected over 6,000 paintings, thousands of antiquities and bronzes, many of which were lost when the Jin army, which he was once in alliance with, invaded in 1127. A brilliant and dedicated calligrapher, Huizong invented the “Slender Gold” style of calligraphy, unlike anything that preceded it, which had such unique energetic brushstrokes that they are often described as the legs of dancing cranes. Huizong was enamored by anthropomorphic rocks and stocked his imperial garden with them, giving them names which were engraved on them. A Daoist poem he composed, which is in the show, praises the form of a particularly unique rock. Equally fascinating is Huizong’s back story: he sired over 65 children.

Ma Yuan, “Walking on a path in spring,” Southern Song dynasty reign of Emperor Ningzong (1195-1224), album leaf, ink and color on silk, calligraphy attributed to Ningzong. The relationship between poem in the upper right corner and the ink drawing is one of ongoing scholarship. Both the drawing and poem are lyrical, addressing the intersection of stillness and activity. The poem alludes to the sleeves of the individual’s garment brushing against the flowers and making them move. The second line refers to the birds; disturbed, they flee and cut short their songs.

The well-known but quiet Southern Song dynasty painting “Walking on a Path in Spring,” illustrates important unresolved issues that apply to many paintings of the Song period and beyond. This ink drawing on silk is by Ma Yuan, one of the more famous court-affiliated artists of the fourth Southern Song dynasty emperor, Ningzong (r. 1195-1224). It depicts someone strolling and twisting his beard, his view extending into a misty void. A smaller figure (lower left) seems to be following him and carrying something. A bird sits on a branch and another is in flight, directing the viewer’s eye to the imperial couplet in the upper right, for which there are a variety of translations.

“The most interesting question is: what is the relationship between the poem and the painting and which came first?,” says Richard Vinograd. Even for the painter Ma Yuan, whose work is well known, very little is known about his life or about the status of court-affiliated artists during this period, explains Vinograd. “We do know that Ma Yuan had a big impact with his own work and was part of a multi-generational family of artists that were active in the Song Dynasty. Their stylistic mode was important for centuries thereafter as a model for later artists to refer to or imitate.” Vinograd will speak about the exhibit at the Asian Art Museum on Saturday, August 25, and will further explore the relationship between painting and calligraphy appearing in early paintings.

Imperial Portraits

Portrait of Kublai Khan as the First Yuan Emperor, Shizu. Yuan dynasty. Album leaf, ink and color on silk, H 59.4 cm x W 47 cm. National Palace Museum. Photograph © National Palace Museum, Taipei.

Emperors’ Treasures gives ample evidence of the great diversity of Chinese culture, highlighting non-Chinese rulers who were exceptional leaders and introduced new practices. The Mongol, Kublai Khan, grandson of Gengis Khan, become China’s first non-Chinese emperor in the late 13^th century and founded the Yuan dynasty. The history is fascinating: the Mongols came in from the northwestern steppes around 1237 and finally overtook China in 1276, toppling the Song dynasty in the South. They also invaded what was then Iran, so the world’s two oldest cultures were under one rule. This expansion and unification of China led to a massive influx of artisans and craftsmen from all over the vast Mongol empire and great cross-pollination which had reverberations even in Italian art of the fourteenth century. Unlike other emperors in the exhibit who created art, Kublai expressed his taste through administrative acts that supported the arts. His unsigned bust portrait, likely produced by a court painter, is executed in the style of most all Imperial portraits: it depicts a flat two-dimensional, forward facing, remote leader. In plain Mongol dress and headdress, with a hairstyle of three braided loops hanging from behind the ear, Kublai is presented unambiguously as the emperor of China but as something foreign at the same time.

Porcelain

Yuan dynasty porcelain cup and saucer with cobalt blue glaze and gilt decoration. Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), National Palace Museum, Taipei, Photograph © National Palace Museum.

Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) porcelain reflected the craze for fine cobalt blue pigment which came from Iran and was used prevalently in Islamic art. Another quite ordinary looking treasure, important not for its style but for its exquisite deep blue color, this rare wine cup and saucer set came from the porcelain center in Jingdezhen. There, artisans mastered the use of cobalt for monochrome glaze and underglaze decoration and developed a new decorative element which involved applying gold over the vivid blue. Originally, the cup and saucer were decorated with gold motifs which have long since fallen away. Residue reveals that plum branches surrounded the exterior of the cup; these were a symbol of faith and self-esteem and were an important motif in Yuan art.

The use of cobalt would reach new heights during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) as would the fineness of porcelain explaining the enduring craze for Ming. Innovation in clay recipes allowed for vessels to become thinner and thus lighter. New body and glaze recipes produced a purer, more translucent white and a glossier finish which were even softer to the touch. The variation of shapes expanded too and Islamic influences crept into bottles, flasks, jugs, candleholders and boxes. Aside from the palm-sized chicken cup, several exquisite examples are in the exhibit, including a very large celestial globe vase with an imposing three-clawed, heavily-scaled flying dragon encircling the vase’s body. The vase’s neck and background are of delightful array of lotus flowers and leaves.

The richest art collection in Chinese history

Of the nine Imperial rulers covered in the exhibition, a stand-out is the fifth emperor of the Qing dynasty, Qianlong (r.1736-1795), a contemporary of George Washington. He reined for 60 years and together with his grandfather, Emperor Kangxi, and his father, Emperor Yongzheng, created the last and most prosperous of Chinese feudal dynasties. Even though Emperor Qianlong was thoroughly versed in Chinese and composed some 40,000 poems and enjoyed calligraphy, he was not Chinese but was a Manchu, like his father and grandfather. All were masters at deploying culture through patronage but Qianlong became the greatest art collector in Chinese history, amassing a collection of art and jewels that had been acquired by China’s leaders since the first century BC. There is no agreement by scholars about the exact size of his collection but the catalog (p.16) gives one estimate of 490,000 by Tsai Mei-Fen, the chief curator of the Object Division of the National Palace Museum.

AAM Emperors' Treasures Vase with revolving core EX2016.3.106

Vase with revolving core and eight-trigram design, approx. 1744. Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, Qing dynasty, reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736–1795). Porcelain with golden glaze, multicolor decoration, and appliquéd sculpture. National Palace Museum, Taipei, Photograph © National Palace Museum.

“If you look over the broad span of this exhibit,” says Richard Vinograd, “the later examples of porcelains or objects from the 18^th century Qing dynasty are often tour de force examples of structure or interesting enamel decoration. Their innovative shapes begin to reference other kinds of objects and are quite interesting historically.”

During Qianlong’s reign, revolving vases appear to have been introduced under the supervision of Tang Ying, the gifted director of the imperial factory. The yellow reticulated vase with revolving core and eight-trigram design in Emperors’ Treasures is one of the most complicated pieces of porcelain produced in Jingdezhen, a feat of artisanship and technical virtuosity. Each component was fired individually to create an inner vase of exquisite design which rotates when the neck of the exterior vase is turned.

AAM Emperors' Treasures Vase with Emperor Qianlong’s poem EX20

Interestingly, Quianlong’s seals and poetry appear on a number of objects from different eras in the exhibition. A short poem dated fall 1776 and his Imperial seals “be virtuous” and “eloquent and fluid” are carved on the base of a deep blue Song dynasty ceramic pillow, called a “ruyi,” (wish-granting wand) referencing its graceful mushroom-shape and the magical powers of mushrooms. There’s no easy re-write when it comes to composing on a ceramic pillow but Qianlong made an error that has become permanent─he misidentified the pillow as coming from the Ru kiln and it did not, proving that he was misinformed. He also carved an eight-line poem on the base of a particularly gorgeous celadon glazed ru-ware vase from the Northern Song dynasty praising its “fresh blue” glaze, its tiny “nail like” spur marks, its “radiating fragrance even with no flowers present,” and its ceremonial function of the Hall of Ancestral Worship. One of his beloved personal objects, a stacking, multi-storied red-lacquered box of treasures, with special compartments for 44 of his prized objects, is a design feat. It is small enough to be carried and yet contains an ingenious series of compartments and drawers, nineteen of which housed special pieces of jade dating from ancient times as well as a compartment for its own small catalogue recording the contents and their location within.

After closing in San Francisco, the exhibition will travel to Houston Fine Arts Museum, with a slightly different set of treasures.

Richard Vinograd lecture, August 27, 10:30 – noon: “Emperors as Patrons, Participants, and Producers of Paintings” Richard Vinograd, Christensen Fund Professor of Asian Art, Dept. of Art and Art History, Stanford University and an advisor to the AAM’s Society for Asian Art will explore Emperor’s Treasures by examining the relationship between painting and calligraphy in early paintings, examining ways that painting can be said to have poetic qualities or to be illustrating poetry, an unresolved issue which has led scholars to propose many answers. Through case studies of several of the rulers and works represented in the exhibition, he will explore the sponsorship, design and fashioning of paintings from the 11^th through 18^th centuries. Dr. Vinograd completed his dissertation at U.C. Berkeley in 1979 on the Yuan dynasty artist Wang Meng (1308-85) whose scroll “Thatched House on the East Mountain” (1343), is part of the exhibition. He spent two years in Taipei (1972-74) studying Chinese and combing the archives of the National Palace Museum. $20 general public; $15 Society members (after Museum admission). Register online here to be guaranteed a place, or pay when you arrive.

Exhibition catalogue: A 272 page catalog, edited by Jay Hu and He Li accompanies the exhibition. Each of the essays by leading scholars in Chinese art and history stands on its own. Extensive object descriptions by AAM associate curator He Li constitute an easily understood and enjoyable journey into Chinese dynastic and visual culture.

Details: Emperors Treasures: Chinese Art from the National Palace Museum, Tapei closes September 18, 2016. The AAM is located at 200 Larkin Street near Civic Center. Parking is easy at Civic Center Plaza garage which offers a discount with your validated AAM ticket. (Get it stamped upon entry to the museum.) Hours: Tues-Sun: 10-5; Thursdays until 9 (end Oct 8); closed Mondays. Admission: General admission $20 weekday, $25weekend; Seniors, students, youth (13-17) $15 weekday, $20 weekend; 12 & under are free. 1^st Sundays are free thanks to Target. You can pre-purchase your tickets, with no processing fee, online here.

August 21, 2016 Posted by genevaanderson | Art, Asian Art Museum | Asian Art Musuem, Emperor Chenghua, Emperor Kangxi, Emperor Ningzong, Emperor Qianlong, Emperor Yongle, Emperor’s Treasures: Chinese Art from the National Palace Museum, Han, Jay Hu, Jingdezhen porcelain, Li He, Ma Yuan, Manchu, Ming dynasty, Mongol, National Palace Museum, Qing dynasty, Richard Vinograd, Society for Asian Art, Song dynasty, Tsai Mei-Fen, Yuan dynasty | Leave a comment

interview: curator Karin Breuer─“Ed Ruscha and the Great American West,” at the de Young through October 9, 2016

The de Young Museum’s “Ed Rusha and the Great American West,” through October 9, 2016, is chock-full of Ruscha’s visual poetry. Sure to put smiles on Bay Area faces is “Honey….I Twisted Through More Damn Traffic To Get Here.” 1984, 76 x 76 inches, oil on canvas, on loan from private collection, © Ed Ruscha.

The de Young Museum’s newest exhibit, “Ed Rusha and the Great American West,” through October 9, 2016, is chock-full of Ruscha’s visual poetry. Sure to put smiles on Bay Area faces is “Honey….I Twisted Through More Damn Traffic To Get Here.” 1984, 76 x 76 inches, oil on canvas, on loan from private collection, © Ed Ruscha.

Sixty years ago, Ed Ruscha, moved across country from Oklahoma to Los Angeles to study art at what would become Cal Arts. Ever since, the celebrated artist, now 78, has been exploring the West’s expansive cultural and physical landscape. “Ed Rusha and the Great American West,” at the de Young Museum through October 9, 2016, examines Ruscha’s fascination with the Western United States, shifting emblems of American life, and the effects of time on this restless landscape. Ninety-nine of the artist’s prints, photos, paintings, and drawings fill the de Young’s Herbst exhibition galleries on the bottom floor, giving us an opportunity to see the originals of artworks we all know from prints and posters, including his mythic Hollywood signs and Standard gasoline stations.

“Ed Ruscha defies easy categorization,” says Karin Breuer, who curated the show and is curator in charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, where she has worked for over 25 years, succeeding Robert Flynn Johnson. “He’s known as a pop artist, conceptual artist, surrealist and, early on, was identified with the West Coast pop movement, the so-called “cool school” of art. He’s adept at painting, photography, printmaking and has created wonderful artist’s books. He’s well known for using words as subjects in his imagery and letter forms.”

At the show’s press conference, I spoke with Breuer about Ed Ruscha and her framing of this expansive exhibit and our interview is below. I also spoke with Max Hollein, FAMSF’s new director, who headed Frankfurt’s Städel Museum and the Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection (2006-16) and the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2001-16). After 15 years in Deutschland, this German headed West to helm FAMSF, the largest public arts institution in Northern California, and officially began work on June 1. His impressive skill packet includes overseeing the Städel Museum’s expansion and its digital initiatives platform which entailed collaborating with the tech industry to make the museum’s collections fully and pleasantly accessible online. Naturally, he’s quite interested in working with the Bay Area’s tech industry as well. I asked him what attracted him to the Bay Area─

San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and, right now, it’s filled with so much energy. There’s a real transformation occurring as it moves to an even higher level and our two museums will be a part of this rising tide. Basically, museums are not places that you visit; they are gathering places. I want to make our museums even more welcoming and relevant and part of that is making our education efforts even stronger and more connected to the contemporary culture.

There’s no better welcome to the Bay Area for Hollein, who says he has loved Ed Ruscha’s Hollywood signs “for ages”, than a huge show exploring Ruscha’s wry and poetic take American contemporary culture.

Karin Breuer, curator of “Ed Rusha and the Great American West” and curator in charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, pictured with Ed Ruscha’s “Coyote,” a 1989 lithograph in the FAMSF collection. Photo: Geneva Anderson

Here is my conversation with the savvy Karin Breur whose long-standing dialogue with Ruscha and hard work have produced a show with depth that is a delight to behold─

Why frame this show around the “Great American West”?

Karin Breuer: It was an easy and purposeful decision. I wanted to reverse a trend I’ve observed in exhibits with artists of Ed’s caliber─staying away from their ‘regionalism’ for fear that leads to a provincial look at an artist’s work. Instead, I thought, why not examine this. He’s been an artist who by choice went to school in Los Angeles and has lived there for 60 years and has depicted aspects of the West often in his work. As I kept looking more and more at the work, I realized there’s a story there from the very beginning, when he came out to art school at the age of 18 and traveled West from Oklahoma, all the way up to today where he’s looking at his Western environment and observing change. The show contains works from 1961 to 2014, a huge expanse of time, but it’s not a catch-all retrospective.

Has he drawn on the Bay Area at all?

Karin Breuer: No, not at all; it’s mostly the Southwest that has been his focus and stomping ground. Last night, however, I heard him say that it’s only recently that he’s come to appreciate San Francisco and the Bay Area. He’s decided that it’s the most beautiful city in the world but, he said, it may be ‘too beautiful’ for him to handle as subject in his art. There was kind a stay-tuned aspect to that though. He’s created a very interesting portfolio of prints called “Los Francisco San Angeles” where he combines street grids from both cities into one image and I think that’s the one effort that he’s made so far to connect the two cities. These are not in the exhibit.

Ed Ruscha, “Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas,” 1963. Oil on canvas, 64 7/8 x 121 3/4 inches, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College.

Do you have a personal favorite?

Karin Breuer: I always thought I did but, every time I walk into the galleries, I seem to change my choice. I’m still very much in love with “Pyscho Spaghetti Western” and it’s because it depicts a roadway with a lot of garbage, trash, and debris that he has treated as beautifully as a still life. I find that so evocative of not only his quirky subject matter but also of the West and how it’s changed since he first took to the open roads in 1956.

Ed Ruscha, “A Particular Kind of Heaven,” 1983. Oil on canvas, 90 x 136 1/2 inches. FAMSF © Ed Ruscha.

What is the FAMSF’s collecting relationship with Ruscha? When did you really start building the collection?

Karin Breuer: Our relationship goes back to 2000, when we acquired Ruscha’s print archive and we came into a collection of over 350 prints at that time. He continues to contribute to this: each time he makes a print and it’s published, we get an impression of that print. He’s very prolific and we love that. We now have about 450 prints, one drawing, and one beautiful painting. For the new de Young building, we commissioned Ed to create a tripych─two panels that would be added to his 1983 painting “A Particular Kind of Heaven,” which we already had in our possession. You will see a lot of these works in the galleries.

What was his reaction to the show’s concept?

Karin Breuer: I pitched it to him early on and he liked it and he lent us works from his personal collection and helped facilitate loans from private collectors. Now that the show is up, he’s been very positive. This is a very appropriate time for this show as its Ed’s 60^th anniversary in California.

“Rodeo,” 1969. Color lithograph, 17 x 24 in. Published by Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles. FAMSF © Ed Ruscha

Do you know if he has a favorite word?

Karin Breuer: No, and I think if you ask him, you won’t get a straight answer either. There are some words that appear in different forms. The word “adiós,” for example, also “rancho” and “rodeo”…those are three words that appear in different forms in my show, that he took on the in the 1960’s. I wouldn’t say that he continues to use them but they percolate in his vocabulary.

When did his fascination with words begin?

Karin Breuer: I know that in college, he had a job in a topography workshop and later he worked as a graphic designer, so words have been a part of his thinking for a very long time. He keeps lists of words that have captured his attention in notebooks and has said that words have temperatures and when those words become really hot that’s when he uses them in his art.

Ed Ruscha, “Hollywood,” 1968, color screenprint, 171/2 x 44 7/16 inches, published by the artist, FAMSF © Ed Ruscha

Now that you’ve spent a lot of time with his work, what makes it so powerful for you?

Karin Breuer: I think it’s the sense of humor that is in almost every single image; it’s wonderful─very dry, very laconic. He’s that kind of a personality too. I never cease to be amazed when I see something new coming from him─he’s got such a fertile mind, always thinking, always looking and discovering, and then reacting. Some of his latest paintings feature exploded tire treads that are called ‘gators’ by truckers. He treats these as beautiful objects and they almost look like angels’ wings. I just think to myself, that’s really unexpected, brilliant.

What sparked your interest in becoming a curator?

Karin Breuer: I’m the curator of prints and drawings and the inspiration came in college. I was a college as an art history student during the Vietnam War and there was a lot of social protest on campus. I was scratching my head thinking what does art history have to do with this? The world is changing, am I doing the right thing? A beloved professor of mine showed slides of Goya’s “Los Caprichos” and “The Disasters of War” and the light bulb went off. I said to myself ‘prints!’…they can have a political impact and everyone can afford prints…this is a very democratic medium. So, I went to graduate school to focus on prints and drawings, a realm of socially relevant art history.

“The End, 1991,” Lithograph, 26 3/16 x 36 13/16 in. Published by the artist. FAMSF © Ed Ruscha

What about your career at the de Young?

Karin Breuer: I’ve been here 31 years. When I joined in 1985 as an assistant curator, it was a pretty sleepy institution, as many museums were back in the day. I stayed on and worked my way up, which is kind of unheard of in the younger generations now days, but the Achenbach has only had three professional curators (E. Gunter Troche (1956-71); Robert Flynn Johnson (1975-2007), including myself. We’ve changed dramatically and dynamically and I have to say that I am absolutely thrilled about Max Hollein’s arrival here. Already, his energy and enthusiasm are having an impact on us.

Details: “Ed Rusha and the Great American West” closes October 9, 2016. Hours: The de Young is open Tues-Sun 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. and on Fridays (through November 25) until 8:45 p.m. Admission $22; with discounts for seniors, college students. Audio guides: $8. The de Young Museum is located in Golden Gate Park at 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. Street parking is available for 4 hours and there is a paid parking lot with direct access to the museum.

August 17, 2016 Posted by genevaanderson | Art, de Young Museum | de Young, De Young Museum, Ed Ruscha, Ed Rusha and the Great American West, FAMSF, Goya, Karin Breuer, Max Hollein | Leave a comment

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Geneva Anderson digs into art

Free Performances: Music for the Afterlife

38th edition highlights:

exploring depths of the Latin American psyche:

Docs from far-flung corners:

Special Guests

Cuban Film

CAMERA OBSCURA day I : Friday, Nov 18

CAMERA OBSCURA day II : Saturday, Nov 19

CAMERA OBSCURA day III : Sunday, Nov 20

Friday’s Opening film:

Saturday and Sunday evenings—Sonoma Filmmakers Showcase:

Sunday Afternoon: Focus on Dance and Music

PIFF Details:

ARThound’s top picks:

Neruda/Spotlight Gael Garcia Bernal—Mon, Oct 10

The Salesman—Fri, Oct 7 and Wed, Oct 12

Lamb—Sat, Oct 8 and Tues, Oct 11

Frantz—Fri, Oct 7 and Fri, Oct 14

Mom and Other Loonies in the Family—Sat, Oct 15 and Sun, Oct 16

Green is Gold—Sat, Oct 8 and Sun, Oct 9

Unleashed—Wed, Oct 12 and Thurs, Oct 13

Details MVFF 39:

To read ARThound’s previous coverage of the 37th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema (Dec 3-13, 2015), click here.

Exhibition Highlights:

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***The Salesman*—Fri, Oct 7 and Wed, Oct 12**

***Lamb*—Sat, Oct 8 and Tues, Oct 11**

***Frantz*—Fri, Oct 7 and Fri, Oct 14**

***Mom and Other Loonies in the Family*—Sat, Oct 15 and Sun, Oct 16**

***Green is Gold*—Sat, Oct 8 and Sun, Oct 9**

***Unleashed*—Wed, Oct 12 and Thurs, Oct 13**