Continuing the rich tradition of the city symphony and the experimental and experiential films of the city, dating back to the earliest days of film, FILMFORUM presents 6 exquisite films including a film by local master filmmaker Thom Andersen. The city itself – its people and spaces, rhythms and hustle, and the life cycles of buildings and places – are viewed and made personal through the superb craft and perceptive gaze of tonight’s filmmakers. London, San Francisco, Detroit, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, all seen in their uniqueness, while all give insight into the arcs and possibilities of all cities. Curated…
Author: Robin Menken
Robin Menken
Robin Menken Robin Menken lives in Los Angeles. She was the Artistic Director of the Second City Workshops, taught at UC Berkeley, USC, Barcelona\'s Ateneu and the Esalin Institute. She was Roberto Rossellini\'s assistant, and worked with Yevgeny Vevteshenku, Glauber Rocha and Eugene Ionesco. She sold numerous screenplays and wrote the OBIE winning The FTA SHow (touring with Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and Ben Vereen.) She was a programming consultant and Special Events co-ordinator for numerous film festivals, including the SF, Rio, Havana and N.Y Film Festivals. Her first news outlet was the historic East Village Other.
Doze Niu’s “Monga,” Taiwan’s official Oscar entry, a gangster coming-of-age story, is set in Monga the old market district (Wanhua) of Tapei, in the mid-eighties, before a famous Police sting cleaned up the interlocking gang, vice and protection rackets that controlled the area. It will play at the 2011 Palm Springs International Film FestivalMosquito (Taiwanese-Canadian pop star Mark Chao) is the new boy at school. Bullied by Dog Boy (Han-Tien Chen) and his gang of toughs at school, he fights back. A second gang, this one lead by the mullet-wearing Dragon Lee (Rhydian Vaughn-” Winds of September”), second in command…
“A Room And A Half” was on my list of Best Film of 2009. As it has never been released in the US, It’s back on my list. It is available on a Yumi DVD in the UK.”A Room And A Half” In Andrey Khrzhanovskiy’s blissfully inventive pseudo-bio, the visionary 70 year old animator blends animation and live action to illustrate exiled Jewish poet Brodsky’s dreams of returning to Russia to visit his beloved parents. Each flashback of Brodsky’s remembered life is shot in a different period genre, each more wonderful than the next. A mix of animated graphics and…
Lionel Rogosin’s “On the Bowery” startled audiences when it came out in 1957. It still startles. His remarkable portrait of skid row, well researched and intimate, is still visceral. Rogosin spent months on the Bowery, befriending many of the men he features in the film. Unsentimental Rogosin treated his new pals with respect, creating a fascinating urban history. His nonjudgmental camera savors the camaraderie of the lower depths and records the daily betrayals between men with nothing left to lose. His blunt black and white photography is of a piece with the classic photojournalists of the era.The opening sequence sets…
On January 22, 2011 at 7:30PM, les Lutins du Court-métrage 
(The Leprechauns of the Short Film) will present a selection of the best French short movies of the year with English subtitles at the Theater Raymond Kabbaz. For eleven years, les Lutins du Court-Métrage have been working to promote and disseminate short films to a wider audience. Les Lutins’s annual, cinematic Tour of France presents emerging film talent in cinemas around the country and presents a selection of these films abroad.Supported by numerous partners, including the French Ministry of Culture, the National Center of Cinematography (CNC), the Mayor’s office of…
Boasting a refreshing international art house style, Kiran Rao’s ” Dhobi Ghat” (Mumbai Diaries) is a surprisingly moving, intimate film. First time writer-director Kiran Rao’s husband Aamir Khan, a Bollywood mega- star, plays the lead role and produces. Khan who starred and directed the charming “Like Stars On Earth” (“Taare Zameen Par”) was last seen here in the hilarious “Three Idiots,” and “Lagaan” and starred in and directed the charming “Taare Zameen Par (“Like Stars On Earth.”) Kiran Rao’s story follows the twined stories of four Mumbai residents, each at an important juncture in their lives.Spoiled American investment banker Shai…
Tetsuya Nakashima directed the candy colored psychedelic 2008 fantasy “Paco and the Magical Book” and the darkly comic Pop Manga-adaptation “Kamikazi Girls.” Neither of those quirky flamboyant charmers could prepare you for the glacial elegance of “Confessions.”The film begins with a daring twenty five-minute class bound monologue, interspersed with pop tunes, teen misbehavior and flashbacks.Middle school teacher Yuko Moriguchi (Takako Matsu) calls her unruly class to order, calmly announcing she is leaving school. She knows two of her students murdered her four-year-old daughter, Manami. Rather than report them, only to watch them evade the law as minors, she has planned…
Writer director Kamen Kalev’s first feature “Eastern Plays,” Bulgaria’s official Oscar submission will play at the 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival.An official selection at Cannes, the film won awards at Sofia, Warsaw, Bratislava and Tokyo International film festivals. Kalev’s shorts “Rabbit Troubles” ” Get the Rabbit Back” and “Orphée” were festival darlings, playing Cannes, Berlin and NY Film Festival, Sarajevo.Kalev’s film became a tribute to his boyhood friend, artist and recovering addict Christo Christov, who died before the film wrapped. Christo played himself, turning in a remarkable performance that won him the posthumous Best Actor awards at the Tokyo…
In conjunction with the publication of Pacific Film Archive’s first book, Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, edited by Steve Anker, Kathy Geritz, and Steve Seid, the UCLA Film & Television Archive has partnered with the PFA, Los Angeles Filmforum and REDCAT to present a film and video series that explores the themes and movements, and traces the historic chronology of alternative film and video in the Bay Area. The history of avant-garde cinema in the Bay Area goes back to the 1940s, when surrealist-influenced films were created through San Francisco Art Institute…
Andreas Ohman’s “Simple Simon”, Sweden’s Oscar entry, successfully weaves Asberger’s Syndrome into a feel good comedy, without downplaying the challenges the syndrome presents. First time feature director-editor Ohman based his charming first film on his short “In Space There Are No Feelings” (“I rymden finns inga känslor”) using many of the same cast members.” Ohman plays a cameo as a clown in the film. Inspired by Mark Haddon’s autism novel “The curious incident of the dog in the night”, Ohman studied Aspergers, developing his own habits for Simon’s character. Simon (Stellan Skarsgard’s son Bill Skarsgard) shuts himself in a homemade…