Dear friends,
Our next meeting is on Thursday, October 19th. At present we do not have a
candidate for a screening, so I am hopeful that starting the meeting at
10:00 am will meet with everyones approval.
Some of you were unable to be at the meeting on October 9th. I will begin by
reviewing our progress at that meeting. Much of our time was devoted to
discussing the options for showing films from Quebec. Laurie, as you may
recall, had suggested some additional candidates prior to this meeting.
These came from a group of her friends who share an interest in
French-Canadian heritage.
We decided at the meeting that HOCHELAGA, LAND OF SOULS and THE ROCKET
could be removed from our list. HOCHELAGA is a Foreign-language Oscar
submission which is likely to complicate and make more expensive any attempt
to show it as part of CINEMA EXPLORATIONS 2018. Currently, it does not have
US distribution and, in my opinion, is somewhat unlikely to receive US
distribution. However in that it does document the history of Montreal and
its existence both before and after the arrival of the French led by
explorer Jacques Cartier, this film should be of interest to anyone
interested in history and, especially, those with French-Canadian roots.
This may be an interesting film to look at next year. THE ROCKET is about
hockey great Maurice The Rocket Richard who played for the Montreal
Canadiens from the 1940s to 1960. Its a very good film with both sports
and political storylines. It showed at MIFF probably in 2007. It is
available on DVD and streaming through Amazon as well as some other online
services.
These were the Quebec films we left on the list in consideration and on
which I have done some additional research:
MON ONCLE ANTOINE https://www.nfb.ca/film/mon_oncle_antoine/ We have
discussed this film as a possibility for the last three years (and I believe
everyone has seen it either as part of those earlier considerations or at an
earlier viewingyou can watch it online using this link if you havent seen
it) and usually not gotten beyond the confusion about the apparently lapsed
US theatrical rights. I now have a contact at the National Film Board of
Canada who is prepared to assist us in booking this film. They have a DCP
with English subtitles. This film would be a classic film as well as a film
from Quebec.
KAMOURASKA is a film, like MON ONCLE ANTOINE, by Claude Jutra. It is
based on a true story set in mid-19th century Kamouraska on the southern
shore of the St. Lawrence River downstream from Quebec City which was the
basis of a novel by Anne Hébert who then collaborated on the screenplay
adaptation with Jutra. Genevieve Bujold is the focal point of a love
triangle. She colludes with her lover who kills her abusive and mentally
unstable first husband. This plays out in reminiscences by Bujolds
character who is maintaining a death vigil for her second husband. The film
has two versions. The original release was a little over two hours and one
reviewer described it as a mutilation. This showed in French Canada and
had a limited US release in the mid-1970s. Several years later a directors
cut was released on Canadian TV and on video. This was 174 minutes. There
are very few critical reviews. Unfortunately, theyre not particularly
glowing. The film is available on some streaming platforms, but it is the
longer version. We might consider a slight alteration of our start-time for
the original 124 minute running time, but theres just no way to accommodate
the longer running time. This combined with a murky US rights situation and
questionable quality makes the film perhaps much too challenging to pursue
with such an uncertain result.
LES BONS DÉBARRAS is considered one of Quebecs best films. It showed at
Railroad Square in the early 1980s. Quite a bit of background on the film
is told in this article:
http://cinema-scope.com/columns/columns-canadiana-good-riddance-to-myth-fran
cis-mankiewiczs-les-bons-debarras/ This film addresses small-town rural
life, but clearly shows a family struggling economically and to meet the
emotional needs of its members. The film is available on iTunes and on
Canadian streaming services. There was a US distributor, but it is not clear
who may hold the rights presently as that company does not appear to be
active. However, we could be catching a break as the film has been digitally
restored and will have a special screening in Toronto through TIFF in
November: http://www.tiff.net/films/les-bons-debarras/ and
http://www.tiff.net/events/les-bons-debarras-introduced-by-claude-fournier-a
nd-marie-jose-raymond/ This restoration could make the film more easily
available in future years even if we didnt decide to pursue it this year.
MY INTERNSHIP IN CANADA (2015). This is about a young Haitian who accepts
an internship with a Quebec politician and becomes exposed to the needs of
the rural district while at the same time his boss becomes a pivotal vote in
a controversial political battle. It does not yet have US distribution.
World-wide rights are owned by Films Distribution/Playtime and the films
additional details link goes to:
https://www.thefilmcatalogue.com/films/my-internship-in-canada ;
OUR LOVED ONES This film is about a family coping with a suicide that was
covered up and withheld from some of them. How do they heal and move on.
World-wide rights seem to be owned by
https://www.widemanagement.com/our-loved-ones Canadian rights belong to Les
Films Séville (AKA Entertainment One) https://www.filmsseville.com/ ;
HENRI HENRI bears some resemblance to the French film AMELIE. Alas, the
film does not feature Audrey Tautou. It apparently had a relatively short
life on the festival circuit though it did show at a couple of fairly
prominent film festivals in Seattle and Palm Springs. It does not have a US
distributor. It looks like all rights are retained by Seville International:
http://www.sevilleinternational.com/film/ This was the webpage on which
HENRI HENRI appeared, but if it doesnt directly go to that film be sure
to query for it.
BON COP, BAD COP is a mismatched buddy picture pairing a Quebec cop and an
Ontario cop together. The set-up is somewhat similar to the television
series The Bridge versions in Scandinavia and on the US-Mexico border as
well as British-French version (The Tunnel), but this film predates those
television programs. However, comedy appears to play a fairly big role in
the film. Netflix is a distributor for the film, though it is not clear if
they only own the streaming and/or DVD rights to the film. It is also not
clear when it has been available through Netflix since Netflix rotates films
regularly. Otherwise, the rights are probably with Seville International:
http://www.sevilleinternational.com/film/ ;
We did have some discussion on some of our other films:
Mike informed us that MAYA DARDEL will be coming to Railroad Square so we
removed that film from consideration.
We decided to remove WHOSE STREETS? from the list. We felt its message
might be too confrontational or heavy-handed. There does seem to be quite a
disparity between how audiences (3.8 on IMDb) and critics view the film (81
on Metacritic). It is or will be available on DVD and streaming through
Amazon and other streaming services before our series will begin.
We decided to remove BRIMSTONE & GLORY from consideration thinking that a
Mexican documentary on fireworks in Spanish might not be a subject that our
audience might find attractive though its potential to keep our audience
awake might be higher than some other films.
With the obvious exception of MAYA NARDEL, the films that we have removed
from consideration could be resurrected if someone wants to advocate for a
particular film.
Films that have garnered favorable conversation from the group at meetings
and in e-mails are FACES PLACES, OTHER SIDE OF HOPE, KILLS ON WHEELS,
LIBERATION DAY, BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LEMARR STORY, ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT
ALONE, THROUGH THE REPELLANT FENCE, and the INDIVISIBLE documentary.
This should not be considered an exhaustive list since I may have overlooked
someones comments nor have we really addressed more than a handful of films
on the list.
There was some expression of irritation about WASTED! THE STORY OF FOOD
WASTE because of Anthony Bourdains involvement with the film. He is an
executive producer of the film and is one of the chefs and other
commentators involved in the film. It does have a fairly powerful story to
tell that might be bigger than one may tend to expect of a story about
wasted food (see trailer on IMDb). On the other hand, its US release was
10/13/17 and it is already available through Amazon Video.
I was asked at our last meeting about films on the list that I think may
deserve more attention from the group than they have heretofore received in
our discussions. These films piqued my interest, but by no means are they
especially more suitable than many of the other films on the list and some
of you may have other films that you find compelling. At the meeting I
mentioned drama 1945 from Hungary and the documentary AIDAS SECRET.
These are both Holocaust-related films. I think 1945 has similarities to
Oscar-winner IDA from Poland in that its focus is not solely on what the
Nazis did, but on how some people took advantage of what they were doing.
AIDAS SECRET is about a family mystery that unfolds decades after the
Holocaust about how people coped with what was happening and what they did
for survival. I didnt mention these at the meeting, but there are a few
others for which I have a soft spot. I am curious about THE LONG NIGHT OF
FRANCISCO SANCTIS. This is an Argentine film that addresses the time in the
1970s and 1980s when that country was ruled by a military junta and
suspected political dissidents disappeared. The film presents us with the
moral dilemma of how would we respond if we had the opportunity to
intervene. This is one
(http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-the-long-night-of-f
rancisco-sanctis-1201781815/ ) of several reviews that you can reach from
the films IMDb webpage. Many of them are in foreign languages. While I find
this film intriguing, I dont know that addressing Argentine injustice from
40 years ago would be especially alluring for our potential audience. Aside
from two or three Quebec films, the only classic film on the list is HEAT
AND DUST (1983). It is a Merchant-Ivory filman imprimatur that graced
Railroad Square Cinema multiple times in the 1980s and 1990sand I
remember really liking it (Could the fact that the film features Julie
Christie and Greta Scacchi in the two time-periods addressed by the film
have been a factor?). It does exceed the two-hour window we impose on most
of our films at 133 minutes. If we have a particularly attractive or
important film, we might be justified in adjusting our start time to show it
since Ken is adamant that he wants to be able to start all the regular films
at noon to maximize the exposure of the many Oscar contenders showing at the
time our series runs. A change in start time will, no doubt, create some
confusion and reticence in a segment of our audience. I am quite interested
in the documentary INTENT TO DESTROY. The Armenian genocide during World
War I is a historical event for which there continues to be a cover-up by
the government of Turkey. The documentary addresses the effect of the
continuing cover-up on filmmakers who have tried to bring the story of the
Armenian genocide to the screen. In this case the cover-up is probably not
worse than the original crimes, but the two-pronged approach makes the film
more interesting to me than a straight history of the genocide.
I have previously forwarded to you several film distributor websites. Many
of these are the distributors for the films on our list and have things like
trailers, press quotes, press kits, etc. that may be helpful. However, some
of these distributors are also distributing other films that did not fall
into the New York Times Fall Movie Release Schedule officially coming out
earlier or perhaps not yet. There are some films that I am looking forward
to seeing, but in general there were not any that I felt would likely be
especially attractive to our audience. If you think there are, it would
probably be helpful to put these out on the table for consideration. I did,
however, come across two documentaries from a small distributor called
Vitagraph Films (http://vitagraphfilms.com/ ;). I had apparently overlooked
the film FOR AHKEEM on the Fall Movie Release Schedule. It is about a
black teenaged girl coming of age in St. Louis. The filming overlaps the
time of the Michael Brown shooting in nearby Ferguson, but the focus is on
one young girl and her navigating life in her community. It likely touches
on some of the issues in WHOSE STREETS?, but hopefully in a less direct
and heavy-handed way. Vitagraph is also distributing a documentary called
LETTERS FROM BAGHDAD about Gertrude Bell. She spent much of her life in
the Middle East and had her own ideas about the region that was carved up by
Britain and France at the conclusion of World War I. What happened then
sowed the seeds for what has happened since and wethe United Stateshave
become very involved as a result in dealing with that part of the world. You
may recall that Nicole Kidman starred as Gertrude Bell in a film called
QUEEN OF THE DESERT by director Werner Herzog. Unfortunately, the film did
not get good reviews and fairly quickly disappeared from theaters. Gertrude
Bell was a very liberated woman during a time when most women definitely
werent liberated. The film is a documentary, but the film has used actors
to speak as Bell and her contemporaries while also using archive footage
from the early 20th century.
With the two films that I just added and the others that were removed, we
have 54 films on the CINEMA EXPLORATION 2018 list on IMDb
(http://www.imdb.com/list/ls020109024/ ;). I have also updated the Thematic
Grid for those films and that is attached. I dont know to what extent we
are ready to make decisions to book particular films, but we do have some
films for which we would seem to be or could be close to taking that step.
We may also have some films that we may quickly reach some consensus as to
how they do not fit or are problematic. Decisions to book would allow us to
exclude the other films in that category. Excluding some films on the basis
of less appealing subject matter, excessive length, or being a current Oscar
submission could eliminate several films and possibly more.
Joel
Attachment:
THEMATIC FILM GRID FOR CINEMA EXPLORATION 2018 LIST.docx
Description: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
