For the sixth year, Théâtre Raymond Kabbaz presents A Week of French Language Cinema in Los Angeles, as part of the 2015 celebration of Francophonie, with free nightly screenings.This program is presented in collaboration with the Consulates of France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada; the Quebec Government Office in Los Angeles; and TV5Monde.All movies, in French with English subtitles.Belgium: Monday March 16, Opening nightShort: “Bowling killers” by Sébastien Petit Feature :”Les âmes de papier » by Vincent Lannoo “Bowling Killers” 10 min. In this short comedy, Tony and Simon are bowling champions by passion and hit men by necessity. Before an…
Author: Robin Menken
SPECIAL EVENTS: Bank of America ScreeningCru-Narrative FeatureScreening Times: Saturday, February 7 @ 3:30pm; Thursday, February 12 @ 8:45pm; Friday, February 13 @ 9:30pmSynopsisNearly twenty years after a tragedy, the reunion of four high school friends opens old wounds, exposes long-hidden secrets and paves the road to forgiveness and redemption. Stars Keith Robinson, Richard T. Jones, Melissa De Sousa, Sammi Rotibi, Antwon Tanner, Alison Eastwood.FILMMAKER AWARDS Filmmaker Awards. Each year there are films that stand apart from the rest. PAFF-LA recognizes these films and awards them in the categories of Best Feature Narrative, Best Director-First Feature, Best Documentary Feature and Best…
The 23rd annual Pan African Film & Arts Festival (PAFF) returns to its home at the Rave Cinemas 15. PAFF, the largest Black History Month event in the United States, runs from February 5-16, 2015. Ayuka Babu and partner Asantewa Olatunji have shepherded the remarkable PAFF since 1989, when Gilbert Minot, secretary general of Syli Cinema, Guinea’s national government agency in charge of media, asked if he would be interested in helping to bring African films to the United States.Together with their team they have introduced African filmmakers to the American audience, served as true cultural ambassadors, created social and…
Who knew that the famous song that begins, TIS A GIFT TO BE SIMPLE (which was recalibrated by Aaron Copland for his Appalachian Suite) could lead lyrically into such “love and delight.” The Shakers knew.Certainly the spirit of the Shakers was channeled Thursday night at Los Angeles’ REDCAT Theater. in the movements of New York’s famed Wooster Group. Their interpretation of a Rounder record album EARLY SHAKER SPIRITUALS (1976) included with Shaker songs monologues as well as marches and dances inspired by research and early photographs.Are there Shakers anymore?The only remaining active Shaker community in the United States is Sabbathday…
Andrea Sedláčková’s “Fair Play” the Czech Republic’s Foreign Oscar submission, uses sports competition as a lens to examine Soviet era repression in its satellite states.There isn’t a lot of morale ambiguity in this tale of totalitarianism’s incursion into private lives, but Andrea Sedlackova’s realist narrative engages us.Slovak actress Judit Bárdos plays Anna, a talented teen sprinter living with her mother Irena (Anna Geislerová), a onetime tennis champ. When Anna’s father fled to the West authorities quashed her dissident mother’s sports career; now they are putting pressure on her to comply with covert experimental performance doping, (long before civilian had ever…
Isa Qosja’s restrained drama “Three Windows and a Hanging” (Tri Dritare dhe një Varje) is Kosovo’s first-ever Foreign Oscar Submission.Veteran director Isa Qosja (“ojet e mjegulles”, “Proka”) tackles a tough subject, the rape of women by Serb forces during the 1998-99 Kosovo war, and the traditional culture’s inability to accept a woman who’s been “sullied.”Qosja’s 2005 award-winning blackly comic “Kukumi” was the first film from Kosovo since it was declared a UN-protected “mission”. The film, set in the fictional mountain village a year after the 1999 war, examines the inflexible issue of “honor” in Kosovo’s patriarchal Albanian society.The film feels…
Peter Chelsom’s dramedy “Hector and the Search for Happiness” joins the short list of life- changes films: ‘Eat, Pray, Love”, “The Bucket List”, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”.Privileged bourgeois adults, who’ve missed their Junior Year Abroad, take a mid life journey of discovery. While it asks the sort of philosophical questions made popular in the 60’s, these rebels bring their message home, Instead of dropping out of the soul-deadening rat race, they re-up, with a new lease on life.The delightful Simon Pegg plays Hector, a smug London psychiatrist, who lives the most orderly life imaginable, cosseted by his patient…
(70 min., 2014, Kino Lorber) At last, Jean-Luc Godard’s highly anticipated Cannes Film Festival Jury prize winner hits the big screen in a rare American Cinematheque theatrical run! The protean French director’s latest (43rd film) is a vibrant visual essay as well as a narrative – a married woman’s relationship with a single man (and Godard’s dog, Roxy) is just the jumping-off point. Both beautiful and mischievous, this Godard masterpiece is bold in its disregard for the conventions of 3-D filmmaking, challenging the audience to discover hidden layers of imagery, and making this a unique film that can only be…
Presented by the American Cinematheque and the Consulate General and Promotion Center of the Argentine Republic in Los Angeles.Southern Californian film buffs look forward to the annual Argentine: New Cinema series with gusto.Following the success of previous years, our Argentina: New Cinema series returns with some of the best films to emerge from Buenos Aires and beyond in 2013 and 2014. The annual event always draws large crowds from both the local Argentine community and foreign-language film fans, and the 13th installment promises to be no different, with an impressive lineup including several Los Angeles premieres.This has been a very…
Cinema Italian Style, 2014 returns to the American Cinematheque Nov 13-28, 2014, Egyptian and Aero Theatres.This annual celebration of Italian cinema, opens with Italy’s official Oscar submission for Best Foreign-Language Film, Paolo Virzì’s masterful HUMAN CAPITAL, a sharp social critique cloaked in an engrossing neo-noir mystery. Virzì’s David di Donatello winner is set among the upper-class enclaves of Northern Italy, while the family that’s the focus of director Alice Rohrwacher’s impressionistic THE WONDERS has moved to the central heartland for a simpler life as farmers. Francesco Munzi’s gripping BLACK SOULS is set in Calabria, where three brothers are caught in…