Ella Lemhagen’s award-winning Swedish comedy “Patrik, Age 1.5” is a crowd pleaser about a gay couple’s dream of adopting a child. Adapted from a play by Michael Druker, the story manages to mainstream this emerging issue (re-defining families in the 21st century) while providing a feel good context.When attractive couple Göran and Sven moves into their new neighborhood, their liberal neighbors seem non-plussed to learn they are gay. Eager to fit in, they tell the neighbors, most of whom have young children, that they are planning to adopt a baby. Their bid for domestic bliss takes place in a perfect…
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.
Laemmle Theatres and Outsider Films present the Latin American Showcase. The four films will each screen once a day, beginning August 13 at Laemmle Sunset 5. “Mundo Alas” will screen twice a day. The evening screening will be followed by a half-hour performance by Argentine Folk-Rock legend León Geico. León Gieco, often called the Bob Dylan of Argentina, created a touring ensemble of physically and developmentally challenged musicians, dancers, singers and painters for a tour across Argentina.Over the years Gieco often invited disabled musicians that he met on the road, onstage to perform with him. From that habit, developed the…
Directors Serge Bromberg (a famed film restorer) and Ruxandra Medrea have resurrected Henri-Georges Clouzot’s ill-fated, legendary “Inferno”.After a chance meeting in a stalled elevator, Clouzot’s widow, Inès Clouzot, gave access to all the surviving footage (15 hours). Out of this stunning, experimental, op art and early psychedelic footage, Bromberg has crafted both a demi-reconstruction and a tale of what went wrong with the production. Interviews with cast and crew, including Catherine Allégret, future director (then 1st AD) Costa-Gavras and future cinematographer (then camera assistant) William Lubtchansky detail a fascinating story of artistic hubris.Like “Lost In La Mancha”, Fulton and Pepe’s…
Circus films seem to be in vogue these days. First the documentaries “Pindorama; The True Story of the Seven Dwarves”, “Circo” and “One Lucky Elephant”, then the remarkable hybrid narrative “La Pivellina” (circus veterans are cast, playing themselves in Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s neo-neo realist delight.) Now, there’s the graceful gem,”Around A Small Mountain” by Nouvelle Vague living master, 81 year-old Jacques Rivette.Like Pirandello, Rivette has often played with the boundaries between ‘reality” and performance. “Paris Belongs to Us”, “Va Savoir” and “Out 1: Noli me tangere” are each about theatrical companies. In each he explores his obsession with…
Christian Carion’s Cold War espionage thriller “L’Affaire Farewell” brings to life the cynical hall-of-mirrors atmosphere first introduced to audiences in “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.” Sterling production design and a tight script recall the paranoid posturing of both the USSR and the US, on the brink of nuclear warfare.The astonishing true story is based on Serguei Kostine’s 2009 book “Bonjour Farewell”, which finally revealed how KGB man Vladimir Vetrov toppled the Soviet Union by leaking spy secrets to the west. Foregoing flashy stunts, Carion places historical events in their ideological context, replaying esthetics of spy films of…
Stéphane Brizé’s subtle “Mademoiselle Chambon” details the hesitant romance of an “old maid” teacher and a strapping construction builder. Brizé worked with Eric Holder adapting Holder’s 1997 eponymous novel. Set in a a town in the French provinces, the realistic film treats it’s fragile romance without excess sentiment. Brizé captures the “what if” quality of these adult lovers through the smallest of eye movements and passionate glances.Brizé builds up his story with a documentary like control, Mademoiselle Chambon fills her spinster hours dutifully grades paper or reading. Jean does his masonry thoroughly ( “to last”) and cares for his aging…
Prime Minister Berlusconi’s control of Italian media and politics has been the subject of many films. Television satirists who dared to take him on were driven from the airwaves. Marginalized by Berlusconi, Daniele Luttazzi, responded by a stage show “Bin Laden can be on TV, but I can’t.” In 2003, well-connected Sabina Guzzanti (her father, Paolo Guzzanti, is a center-Right MP) filmed a six part series for the state-owned RAI TV. Playing Berlusconi, comedienne Guzzanti quipped “Italy ranks 53rd in a worldwide index of media freedom, after Benin, Ghana and Bolivia.” Her closing remarks “See you next Sunday. Perhaps.” were…
The 16th Annual Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) has moved to it’s new Downtown digs, prepared to bring some glam to LA’s aggressive downtown revival. LAFF will present 200-plus films (narratives, docs, shorts and music videos) from more than 40 countries.The fest opens Thursday, June 17 with Lisa Cholodenko’s comedy-drama “The Kids Are All Right”, starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo (a crowd-pleasure at Sundance) and closes with the Steve Carrell animated comedy “Despicable Me” on June 27. The majority of the screenings will take place at L.A.Live’s 14-screen Regal Cinemas. REDCAT, Downtown Independent, the Orpheum and California…
Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s balanced documentary about the watershed event that kick-started the Gay Liberation Movement should be required viewing for all citizens of good will. PBS, who produced it for American Experience, clearly felt the same way. Stonewall was the gay rights equivalent of Rosa Park’s refusal to sit in the back of the bus. It’s a story aching to be told.On the hot summer night of June 28, 1968, the police raided the The Stonewall Inn, a typical low-rent mafia owned bar that offered gays a surreptitious meeting place. Repeated raids were par for the course. But…
The second annual Hola Mexico Film Festival (HMFF), the world’s largest tribute to Mexican Film wraps up a triumphant six city tour this weekend in New York at the QUAD Cinema,34 West, 13th St. Director Samuel Douek’s diverse programming celebrates Mexican Cinema in all its charm and artistry at a time when younger directors are creating a Mexican film renaissance. A MUST SEE!I was tipped to see the following titles which I missed in LA: “The Half Of The World,” Love on a WKND” and the anthology film “It Happens In One Day” which includes a short, made in 24…