Major OOOPS!!! I left off the list of films.
BTW, I watched "HOCHELAGA, LAND OF SOULS" yesterday. I did learn that
Hochelaga refers to the fortified Iroquois Indian village Jacques Cartier
encountered when he first arrived at what is now Montreal. It does have some
interesting and quite impressively mounted re-enactment vignettes, but I'm
not sure how satisfying they would be in helping someone better understand
or find Canadian (specifically Montreal's) history interesting. The
filmmaker made a special point to keep repeating certain surnames from the
vignettes into contemporary Montreal. The message seemed to be that most
Canadians (and also Americans) have come from somewhere else and our pasts
have had numerous difficulties and have been intertwined. A good message,
but did we really need a rather wild, unbelievable set-up and all these
vignettes that seem to end about the time one might have become interested
in seeing what the rest of the story was? I think this joins Bob's
assessment which I think he would probably characterize as underwhelmed.
Joel
From: Joel Johnson <joel_johnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2018 2:38 PM
To: cinemaexp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: FW: Possible Candidates for Film Series//Updates from Yesterday's
CINEMA EXPLORATIONS Meeting
To Clif and anyone else who might be looking for these screeners from
FilmMovement:
Yes, all of the links were from vimeo. Below is the e-mail I got back from
them.
We have formally eliminated "THE CHARMER," "EGON SCHIELE: DEATH AND THE
MAIDEN," "FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK," and then pretty much ruled
out "STYX" since it was such a hard-hitting dark movie. We have had
discussion about several of the other FilmMovment films though we only group
screened "ICEMAN" and I'm not sure how many have seen some of the others
like "RAFIKI" and "THE SOWER."
The recommendation of those present (and there were only three of us) at
yesterday's meeting was to remove several films from consideration: "GENESIS
2.0," "CUBAN FOOD STORIES," "TVTV: VIDEO REVOLUTIONARIES," and "LOVE,
GILDA." "CHINA HUSTLE" is also an older documentary that is available for
streaming for $3.99 through Amazon Prime Video. "LOVE, GILDA" is available
from Amazon Prime Video for 6.99. That availability for streaming was part
of the rationale for taking "LOVE, GILDA" off the list. If that availability
is problematic, then we should get rid of both of those documentaries.
We had a difficult screening with "LIFE AND NOTHING MORE." It started
getting a little jerky about 15 or 20 minutes in. This is a film about life
in the black underclass in Florida. This was the reverse of last week's film
"GENEISIS 2.0" which was a documentary that often seemed like a narrative.
This was a narrative that looked like a documentary. The characters often
use non-standard English making it challenging just to understand the
dialogue. The documentary-style kept the viewer at a distance and made it
difficult to connect with the characters-this was a problem for us for as
long as we continued to watch it. After about 30-35 minutes we gave up as
the film wasn't connecting with us and one or two were starting to feel
queasy. The film has strong critical support so it apparently must coalesce
into a fairly meaningful narrative-at least for critics. Unfortunately, it
was pretty much three thumbs down from us based on that compromised
half-hour + viewing. "LIFE AND NOTHING MORE" is a fairly long movie at
nearly two hours which wouldn't really allow much time for a post-film
discussion. We do not have a screener, but I would suggest that we might
want to look at the trailer and check out the reviews for "HALE COUNTY THIS
MORNING, THIS EVENING" from the Cinema Guild. This also addresses
contemporary African-American life in the South (Alabama). It is a
documentary which also has strong critical support. It is a shorter film at
76 minutes which would allow much more time for a post-film discussion. Does
Colby have a Black or African-American Studies program?
We have some favorable opinions expressed recently re: "RAMEN SHOP", "UN
TRADUCTOR (A TRANSLATOR)", "LA FAMILIA", and "ANTONIO LOPEZ: SEX FASHION &
DISCO."
We have a number of films on our list that have Jewish content as noted by
the (J). Of those that I discussed with Barbara Merson of MJFF, it would
appear that the documentary "THE WALDHEIM WALTZ" and the narrative "THE
INTERPRETER" would seem to be the best. However, a case could be made for
each of the others. While we don't have to work with MJFF, I do think the
options available represent quality to films that have been selected for
inclusion in their festival. We got a very high-quality film last year in
our collaboration and probably would be quite pleased with whatever choice
we made from what they are showing.
We made a decision on "WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD?" as our classic with a back-up
of Ingmar Bergman's "WILD STRAWBERRIES." While I had earlier been somewhat
negative about the Bergman documentary "SEARCHING FOR INGMAR BERGMAN," it is
worth noting that it has a Metacritic score of 70 which is quite good. If we
do want to recognize Ingmar's centenary, we might opt for showing that.
Let me know if there are any other links that you are missing. I will append
the latest listing of films. Those that have an (s) before the title have
sent a link that connects to a screener. You will also note that I have
floated an alternative schedule to what we had previously discussed since
the earlier schedule would have our 2nd screening on the same day as the
Women's Protest March on 1/19/19.
Joel
From: Maxwell Wolkin <maxwell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:maxwell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2018 10:29 AM
To: Joel Johnson <joel_johnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:joel_johnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >
Subject: RE: Possible Candidates for Film Series
Hi Joel,
Can you use Vimeo screeners? I'm not sure we have all these in DVD. If so,
please see below -
ANTONIO
url: https://vimeo.com/253843122 ;
pw: MayIdrawyou?
CHARMER
url: https://vimeo.com/235004728 ;
pw: Almacinema
EGON
url: https://vimeo.com/162541341 ;
pw: eGONsCHIELEpti
FAMILIA
url: https://vimeo.com/271901886 ;
pw: CaracasinCannes
FRANTZ
url: https://vimeo.com/290565056 ;
pw: BSWM123
ICEMAN
url: https://vimeo.com/252204021 ;
pw: Otzi_unearthed
RAFIKI
url: https://vimeo.com/266873822 ;
pw: RaFiKi_MPM-PrEmIuM270598
SOWER
url: https://vimeo.com/273705681 ;
pw: LerevedeViolette
STYX
url: https://vimeo.com/284992243 ;
pw: hellishwater
TRADUCTOR
url: https://vimeo.com/291755925 ;
pw: 1234
Best,
Maxwell Q. Wolkin
Director of Non-Theatrical Sales
FILM MOVEMENT
237 W 35 St, Suite 604
New York, NY 10001
P: 212.941.7744 x211
Direct: 212.941.7647
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