Films
Art & Copy
Beautiful Losers
Before Tomorrow
Big Man Japan
Club Native
Daughters of Wisdom
The Dhamma Brothers
Idiots and Angels
Hot Dog
Kisses
Mohawk Girls
Native Nations: Standing Together for Civil Rights
Older Than America
Revanche
Shorts by Missy Whiteman
Sita Sings the Blues
Sugar
Tricks
Unmistaken Child
The Unwinking Gaze
Worlds Apart
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
FILMS
Before Tomorrow
Opening night to feature Before Tomorrow, winner of the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival’s Best Canadian First Feature Award.
Sponsored by the Government of Canada
Director: Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu
Country: Canada (2008)
Language: Inukitut with English subtitles
Running time: 93 minutes
Screening: Wednesday, March 25, opening night events begin at 6:30 p.m. Buy tickets now!
Set in the mid-nineteenth century, Before Tomorrow, based on well-known Danish novelist Jørn Riel’s book Før Morgendagen, tells the story of transition and transformation as a small, remote Inuit community is changed forever by its first contact with white explorers, people about whom they had only heard rumors. Ultimately, the film depicts the physical and spiritual struggles of Ningiuq, a strong woman elder, and her beloved grandson, Maniq, as they find themselves isolated and alone, thinking they are the last people of their kind on earth.
In addition to winning Best Canadian First Feature Award at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, Before Tomorrow was also recognized as best film at the 2008 American Indian Film Festival. It was an official selection at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
See a preview of Before Tomorrow.
Photo courtesy of http://www.beforetomorrow.ca/en/index.php
Sugar
Closing night to feature Sugar, official selection at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Sponsored by Minnesota Film and TV Board, The Normandy Inn & Suites
Director/Writer: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Country: US (2008)
Language: English, Spanish
Running Time: 114 minutes
Screening: Sunday, March 29, 7:00 p.m. Buy tickets now!
Writer/directors Fleck and Boden will be on hand for Q&A following the screening.
Following up on their 2006 debut of the indie hit Half Nelson, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck bring audiences the story of Miguel “Sugar” Santos, a talented baseball hopeful who journeys from a poverty-stricken village in the Dominican Republic to a minor league farm team in rural Iowa. Once there, he struggles with the language barrier, cultural differences and a growing sense of isolation, despite the well-meaning efforts of his host family. When he starts to falter on the mound, Santos questions the single-mindedness of his ambition, something that began as a drive to lift his family out of poverty. Shot on location in the Dominican Republic, Arizona, Iowa and New York City, the film, an unconventional look at one immigrant’s story, redefines what it means to chase the American dream.
“We were less interested in the stories of the superstar Dominican players we’ve all heard of,” says writer and director Fleck. “We wanted to know the stories of the guys that you’ve never heard of and you never will hear of.” Boden, co-writer and co-director, notes, “It’s not a typical story about someone trying to make good and lead the team to championship. It’s about a person trying to adjust to a totally new world. It’s a new take on the immigrant experience . . .”
In addition screening at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, Sugar was nominated for the dramatic category Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Sugar was nominated for the 2009 Independent Spirit Award’s best screenplay.
Filmmaker magazine’s Brandon Harris describes Sugar as having “a grace and tonal dexterity that is all too rare in American cinema. The supremely talented duo behind 2006’s indie hit and Academy Award-nominated Half Nelson have invented one of the most touching characters of recent memory, Miguel “Sugar” Santos.”
See a preview of Sugar.
Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics, www.sonyclassics.com/sugar/
Art & Copy
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program and an official selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
Sponsored by Go East
Director: Doug Pray
Country: U.S. (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 86 minutes
Screening: Sunday, March 29, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
Art & Copy reveals the stories behind, and the personal odysseys of, some of the most influential advertising visionaries of our time and their campaigns, including Lee Clow (Apple Computer 1984, and today’s iPod); Dan Wieden (”Just Do It”); Phyllis K. Robinson (the “me generation” with Clairol); Hal Riney (who helped President Reagan get re-elected); and George Lois (who saved MTV and Tommy Hilfiger overnight). Rare interviews with these industry legends begin to identify the elements that transform a slogan into a pop culture catch phrase.
This inspiring documentary captures the creative energy and passion behind the iconic campaigns that have had a profound impact on American culture.
Art & Copy was an official selection, and had its world premiere, at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
See a preview of Art & Copy.
Photo courtesy of www.artandcopyfilm.com
Beautiful Losers
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program.
Sponsored by Cinequipt, Frankstone Gallery
Director: Aaron Rose
Co-Director: Joshua Leonard
Country: U.S. (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 91 minutes
Screening: Saturday, March 28, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
In the early 1990s, a loose-knit group of likeminded outsiders found common ground at a little storefront gallery in New York City. Rooted in the do-it-yourself (DIY) subculture of skateboarding, surfing, punk, hip-hop and graffiti, they made art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Developing their craft with almost no influence from the “establishment” art world, this group, and the subcultures its members sprang from, started a movement that has transformed pop culture.
Beautiful Losers, celebrating the spirit behind one of the most influential cultural moments of a generation, is a fascinating documentary that speaks to what happens when the outside becomes “in.” Featuring artists Aaron Rose, Barry McGee, Chris Johnson, Ed Templeton, Geoff McFetridge, Harmony Korine, Jo Jackson, Margaret Killgallen, Mike Mills, Deanna Templeton, Stephen Powers, Thomas Campbell, Cheryl Dunn, and graphic artist Shepard Fairey, creator of the iconic “Hope” Obama presidential election poster.
See a preview of Beautiful Losers.
Photo courtesy of Sidetrack Films, www.sidetrackfilms.com/news/beautiful_losers
Big Man Japan
Our Saturday night Midnight Madness feature.
Sponsored by TC Daily Planet, The Spectacle Shoppe
Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto
Country: Japan (2007)
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Running Time: 113 minutes
Screening: Saturday, March 28, 2009, 11:30 p.m. Buy tickets now!
Living in a grim, graffiti-laced slum of Tokyo, Mr. Daisato, speaking to a documentary film crew about his mundane life, complains about his salary, his estrangement from his wife and daughter, and his aging, Alzheimer-afflicted grandfather. His life would seem unremarkable save for the fact that his job involves transforming into a giant and battling the many monsters out to destroy Japan. Plagued by an embarrassed family and an agent who insists on branding him with sponsor advertisements, Mr. Daisato faces a public increasingly dissatisfied with the noise and destruction he makes.
A wickedly deadpan spin on the giant Japanese superhero and Japanese monster movie classics, Big Man Japan, directed by and starring one of Japan’s superstar comedians, is perhaps one of the most weirdly hysterical mock documentaries out there and an outrageous comment on pop culture.
Big Man Japan has entertained audiences at the 2008 San Francisco International Film Festival, the 2008 San Diego Asian Film Festival, the 2008 AFI Dallas International Film Festival, the 2008 Independent Film Festival of Boston and many others.
See a preview of Big Man Japan.
Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures, www.magpictures.com
Club Native
Part of our “Native Voices” program and the Native American women filmmakers night.
Sponsored by the Government of Canada
Director: Tracey Deer
Country: Canada (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 78 minutes
Screening: Thursday, March 27, as part of our 6:20 p.m. program. Buy tickets now!
Director Tracey Deer will be on hand for Q&A.
In this award-winning documentary, Mohawk writer and director Tracey Deer presents both sides of the controversial “blood-quantum” line as she explores the moving stories of people from the Kahnawake reservation. This documentary investigates the legacy of the one-hundred-year-old policy that has deeply affected the fabric of the community.
Club Native has was recognized as the best Canadian film and received the Kodak-Vision Globe Award at the 2008 First Peoples Festival. It also won the Collin Low Award for best Canadian documentary at the 2008 DOXA Documentary Film Festival.
See a preview of Club Native.
Photo courtesy of Women Make Movies, www.wmm.com
Daughters of Wisdom
Part of our “Buddhist Wisdom” program.
Sponsored by the Tibetan American Foundation
Director: Bari Pearlman
Country: U.S. (2007)
Language: English
Running Time: 68 minutes
Screening: Friday, March 28, 2009, 5:30 p.m.
Bari Pearlman’s film is an intimate portrait of the 300 nuns of the Kala Rongo Buddhist Monastery in Nangchen, in remote northeastern Tibet north of the Himalayas. Here, they receive an unprecedented education and religious training in a culture in which women’s subservient roles are traditionally confined to the domestic sphere of home and family. This is the moving story of a unique and vibrant spiritual community and the remarkable women who created and continue to sustain it.
Daughters of Wisdom was the winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2008 Trento Film Festival and the Audience Award Best Documentary at the 2007 Brooklyn International Film Festival.
See a preview of Daughters of Wisdom.
Photo courtesy of www.hartleyfoundation.org/daughters-of-wisdom
The Dhamma Brothers
Part of our “Buddhist Wisdom” program.
Sponsored by The Normandy Inn & Suites
Director: Jenny Phillips
Country: U.S. (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 69 minutes
Screening: Friday, March 27, 2009, 9:00 p.m. Buy tickets now!
An overcrowded, maximum-security prison is the end of the line in Alabama’s correctional system. But some of the men there are changed forever by the influence of the ancient meditation discipline of Vipassana. Jenny Phillip’s documentary follows the transformation of 36 prison inmates who enter the arduous and intensive program, finding freedom despite their extreme confinement.
See a preview of The Dhamma Brothers.
Read about The Dhamma Brothers in the New York Times.
Photo courtesy of www.dhammabrothers.com
Dorme
Part of our Children’s Animation/Imagination Program.
Sponsored by The Normandy Inn & Suites
Director: Sylvia Binsfeld
Country: US (2007)
Running Time: 7 minutes
Screening: Saturday, March 28, 2009, part of the 11:00 a.m. program
A visual lullaby for all ages, this story is told as a boy is lulled to sleep by a captivating melody and his adventure of transformation and discovery begins. Dorme is a celebration of the wisdom of the subconscious mind and sweeps the audience away on a magical journey into the world of dreams.
An official selection at thirty film festivals, including the San Francisco Children’s Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival, Dorme was a 2008 Telly Award winner and received the 2nd Place Award at the Kid’s First Quality in Children’s Media Awards.
Hot Dog
Part of our late night Friday spotlight on the new work of Oscar-nominated animator Bill Plympton. Plympton’s 2008 animated feature, Idiots and Angels, will screen with Hot Dog.
Sponsored by The Spectacle Shoppe, TC Daily Planet
Director/Writer/Animator: Bill Plympton
Country: U.S. (2008)
Running Time: 6 minutes
Screening: Friday, March 27, 2009, directly following the 10:30 p.m. screening of Idiots and Angels. Buy tickets now!
In Plympton’s second sequel to his 2003 Oscar-nominated animated short, Guard Dog, our intrepid hero dog goes to work for the fire department, and chaos, as always, ensues.
See a preview of Hot Dog.
Still courtesy of Bill Plympton, www.plymptoons.com
Idiots and Angels
Part of our late night Friday spotlight on the new work of Oscar-nominated animator Bill Plympton. Plympton’s 2008 short, Hot Dog, will screen with Idiots and Angels.
Sponsored by The Spectacle Shoppe, TC Daily Planet
Director/Writer/Animator: Bill Plympton
Country: U.S. (2008)
Running Time: 78 minutes
Screening: Friday, March 27, 2009, 10:30 p.m. Buy tickets now!
Angel is a selfish, abusive, morally bankrupt man who hangs out at his local bar, berating the other patrons. One day, Angel mysteriously wakes up with a pair of wings on his back. The wings make him do good deeds, contrary to his nature. He desperately tries to rid himself of the good wings, but eventually finds himself fighting those who view the wings as their tickets to fame and fortune. Angels and Idiots is a dark comedy about a man’s battle for his soul.
Idiots and Angels had its U.S. premiere at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, and it was called out as a special distinction feature film at the 2008 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
See a preview of Idiots and Angels.
Still courtesy of Bill Plympton, www.idiotsandangels.com
Kisses
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program.
Sponsored by the St. Patrick’s Association, University of Minnesota Office of International Programs’ India Center
Director: Lance Daly
Country: Ireland (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 72 minutes
Screening: Saturday, March 28, 2009, 5:00 p.m.
On the fringes of Dublin, two kids, Kylie and Dylan, live in a suburban housing estate lacking life, color and the prospect of escape. Fleeing their grim and abusive homes, the two make their way to Dublin in search of Dylan’s elder brother, who had run away from home two years earlier, and the possibility of a new life.
Lance Daly’s vision of Dublin, as seen through the eyes of young Kylie and Dylan, is a kaleidoscope of magic, wonder and mystery. As the night turns dark and more sinister, the two kids must rely on each other to survive the night.
Kisses was an official selection at the 2008 Toronto, Locarno, Telluride and London film festivals, and the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. It was the winner of the Best Feature Award at the 2008 Galway Film Festival.
See a preview of Kisses.
Photo courtesy of Element Pictures Disitribution Ltd. and Fastnet Films, www.kisses.ie/Welcome.html
The Mantis Parable
Part of our Children’s Animation/Imagination Program.
Sponsored by The Normandy Inn & Suites
Director: Josh Staub
Country: U.S. (2005)
Running Time: 8 minutes
Screening: Saturday, March 28, 2009, part of the 11:00 a.m. program
The Mantis Parable is a charming tale of a humble caterpillar trapped in a bug collector’s jar and in need of a helping hand. The story unfolds when a praying mantis with some lessons to learn stumbles up him.
The Mantis Parable has won a number of important awards, including the Best Animated Short Award at the 2006 Santa Barbara International Film Festival and Staub was recognized with the Future Filmmaker Award at the 2005 Palm Springs International Short Film Festival.
Mohawk Girls
Part of our “Native Voices” program and the Native American women filmmakers night.
Sponsored by the Government of Canada
Director: Tracey Deer
Country: Canada (2003)
Language: English
Running Time: 63 minutes
Screening: Thursday, March 26, 5:00 p.m.
Director Tracey Deer will be on hand for Q&A.
With insight, humor and compassion, Mohawk director Tracey Deer provides an insider’s look at life on the Kahnawake reserve, just across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal. Its intimate and moving portraits of three young Mohawk women at the threshold of adulthood reveal both hopes and heartaches.
Mohawk Girls was awarded the Alanis Obonsawin Best Documentary Award at the 2005 Imagine Native Film and Media Arts Festival.
Photo credit: Georges Khayat
Native Nations: Standing Together for Civil Rights
Part of our Opening Night “Native Voices” program.
Sponsored by The Normandy Inn & Suites
Writer/Director: Michelle Danforth
Country: US (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 60 minutes
Screening: Opening night, Wednesday, March 25, with events begining at 6:30 p.m. Buy tickets now!
Co-producer Syd Beane will introduce the film.
Co-produced by Minnesota filmmaker and community organizer Syd Beane (Mdewakanton Dakota/Flandreau Santee Sioux), along with Frank Blythe and Michelle Danforth, Native Nations, narrated by Peter Coyote, chronicles the American Indians’ struggle for civil rights, and the creation of the National Indian Lutheran Board to raise funds and awareness for that struggle. From the 1862 controversy when 38 Dakota Sioux were executed in the largest single-day mass hanging in the United States to the confrontations of the 1960s, when many Indian tribes joined together to speak out with a unified voice, the story told by Native Nations is the story of standing together for sovereignty, justice and civil rights.
See a preview of Nation Nations.
Photo courtesy of www.ELCA.org/NativeNations
Older Than America
Part of our “Native Voices” program and the Native American women filmmakers night.
Sponsored by IFP MN, the Center for Media Arts; University of Minnesota Office of International Programs’ India Center
Director: Georgina Lightning
Country: US (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 102 minutes
Screening: Thursday, March 26, 9:00 p.m. Buy tickets now!
Director Georgina Lightning will be on hand for Q&A.
A woman’s haunting visions reveal a Catholic priest’s sinister plot to silence her mother from speaking about the atrocities that took place at her Native American boarding school. A contemporary drama of suspense, Older Than America, filmed on location in Cloquet, Minnesota, delves into the lasting impact of the cultural genocide and loss of identity that occurred at these institutions across the United States and Canada.
Older Than America was recognized as best dramatic feature at the 2008 Flyway Film Festival. The film also won the Best Director and Best Supporting Actor awards at the 2008 American Indian Film Festival.
See a preview of Older Than America.
Photo courtesy of www.olderthanamerica.com
Raven Tales: The Gathering
Part of our Children’s Animation/Imagination Program.
Sponsored by The Normandy Inn & Suites
Director/Animator: Caleb Hystad
Country: Canada (2007)
Language: English
Running Time: 26 minutes
Screening: Saturday, March 28, 2009, part of the 11:00 a.m. program
The First People return to their village, which has been destroyed by a great flood. They struggle to work, and realize that they need the help of Frog, Raven, Eagle, Sea Wolf and even the forest animals. Once the work is complete and the first snow begins to fall, the First People say good-bye to their forest animal helpers, who leave thinking that they will not be thanked. But because of the intervention of Raven, the First People eventually celebrate the first potlatch by giving gifts of food to the forest animals.
Revanche
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program. Nominated for a 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Sponsored by Club Jäger
Director: Götz Spielmann
Country: Austria (2008)
Language: German with English subtitles
Running Time: 121 minutes
Screening: Saturday, March 28, 2009, 9:00 p.m. Buy tickets now!
Two very different couples, one from the city and the other from the country, are bound together by unexpected twists of fate in this taut thriller about an ex-con, Alex, who plans to help his girlfriend, Tamara, escape from a brothel and the dark life in which they are trapped. Elegantly spinning primal elements of guilt, compassion, love, revenge, faith and redemption, Revanche asks, “Whose fault is it if life doesn’t go your way?”
Recently nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film, Revanche has been recognized with 14 other awards, including the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year Award at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Europa Cinemas Label as best European film at the 2008 Berlin Panorama, the Art-Cinéma-Award 2008 of the CICAE and the Diagonale Prize as best Austrian film at the 2008 Diagonale.
Cinema Scope’s Robert Koehler says of Revanche, “The film charts the effects of doubling in a dazzling number of ways, equating it with both a locked-in repetition and a second chance (per the title); but most dramatically of all, it charts various escape routes. In this strategy, Spielmann combines a meticulous structural form with emotional truth, a thorough poetics with a penetrating understanding of human nature.”
See a preview of Revanche.
Photo credit: Lukas Beck. Courtesy of Spielmannfilm and Prisma Film, www.revanche.at
Shorts by Missy Whiteman
Part of our “Native Voices” program and the Native American women filmmakers night. Local emerging filmmaker Missy Whiteman will share some of her newest work. Tracey Deer’s Club Native will screen immediately afterwards, and will then be followed by our Native American women filmmakers discussion panel.
Screening: Thursday, March 26, 2009, 6:20 p.m. Buy tickets now!
Sita Sings the Blues
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program.
Sponsored by IFP MN, the Center for Media Arts; University of Minnesota Office of International Programs’ India Center; Victor’s 1959 Café
Director/Writer/Animator: Nina Paley
Country: U.S. (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 82 minutes
Screening: Saturday, March 28, 2009, 6:45 p.m. Buy tickets now!
In this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana, the goddess Sita is separated from her beloved husband, Lord Rama. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this award-winning animated feature, as the film’s creator, Nina Paley, works in the collapse of her own marriage. Booked as the greatest break-up story ever told, Sita Sings the Blues is set to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw.
An official selection at over 35 recent film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, Sita Sings the Blues won Best American Feature Award at the 2008 Avignon Film Festival, the Best Feature Award at the 2008 Annecy International Animated Film Festival and received special mention at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival. Nina Paley was recently nominated for Film Independent’s Someone to Watch honor.
Karina Longworth writes in the Winter 2009 issue of Filmmaker magazine that Sita Sings the Blues is “a marvel—both biting and warm, surprisingly funny and totally uncompromising. It’s truly like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”
See a preview of Sita Sings the Blues.
Still courtesy of Nina Paley, www.sitasingstheblues.com
Tricks
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program. Minneapolis premiere!
Sponsored by Comcast
Director: Andrzej Jakimowski
Country: Poland (2007)
Language: Polish with English subtitles
Running Time: 96 minutes
Screening: Saturday, March 28, 2009, 1:oo p.m.
The charming, bittersweet narrative unfolds from siblings Stefek, 6, and Elka, 18, and Elka’s car mechanic boyfriend during a sun-drenched summer in a provincial Polish town. The siblings live with their shopkeeper mother, whose husband dropped her for another woman years earlier, and Stefek’s worldview is shaped by his sister’s bargaining with destiny. When Stefek notices a commuter in the train station who reminds him of his father, he begins to trick fate in order to keep the man in town and reunite his family.
An official selection at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival, Tricks is Poland’s candidate for this year’s foreign-language film Oscar. Winning awards at more than 20 film festivals, Tricks premiered in 2007 at Venice Days where it won the Prix Europa Cineamas Award for best European film as well as the Laterna Magica Award. The 2008 Miami International Film Festival awarded Tricks its Grand Jury Prize, as did the 2008 New York Polish Film Festival.
See a preview and film clips of Tricks.
Photo courtesy of http://www.m-appeal.com/M-Appeal.com/our_films/Seiten/TRICKS__.html
Unmistaken Child
Part of our “Buddhist Wisdom” program. The Beyond Borders Film Festival screening will be the U.S. premiere of Unmistaken Child.
Sponsored by The American Jewish World, Ciranda, the Tibetan American Foundation
Director: Nati Baratz
Country: Israel (2008)
Language: Tibetan, Nepali, Hindi, English
Running Time: 102 minutes
Screening: Friday, March 27, 2009, 7:00 p.m. Buy tickets now!
In 2001, when his master Lama Konchog passed away, Tenzin Zopa, Lama Konchog’s disciple of 21 years, was bereft. At the instruction of the Dalai Lama, Zopa searches for his master’s reincarnation, expected to be embodied in a little boy who might be anywhere in the world. This “unmistaken child” must be found within four years, before it becomes too difficult to remove him from his parents’ care.
Visually stunning and emotionally gripping, Unmistaken Child, featuring the Dalai Lama, is the first real time documentation of the search for a reincarnated master revealed through the eyes of a sincere, unwavering Buddhist disciple.
Unmistaken Child will have its U.S. premiere at the Beyond Borders Film Festival. It was an official selection at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, and recently screened at the 2009 Berlin Panorama.
See a preview of Unmistaken Child.
Photo courtesy of www.fortissimo.nl/catalogue/title.asp?filmID=378
The Unwinking Gaze
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program.
Sponsored by the Minneapolis Shambhala Center
Director: Joshua Dugdale
Country: U.K. (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 69 minutes
Screening: Sunday, March 29, 2009, 11:00 a.m.
Filming over a period of three years, Joshua Dugdale gained exceptional access to the daily agonies of the Dalai Lama, showing audiences the revered Tibetan leader’s attempts to strike a balance between his Buddhist vows and the realpolitik needed to reach a peaceful resolution with China.
The Unwinking Gaze reveals the tensions inherent in the play between the world’s emerging superpower and the Dalai Lama, one of the great spiritual and political leaders of the modern world, as they struggle over an issue of global importance.
See a preview of The Unwinking Gaze.
Photo courtesy of www.unwinkinggaze.com
Worlds Apart
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program.
Sponsored by The Spectacle Shoppe
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Country: Denmark (2008)
Language: Danish with English subtitles
Running Time: 108 minutes
Screening: Sunday, March 29, 2009, 1:00 p.m.
Sara and her family proudly belong to Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the local community, they go from door to door and preach about Judgment Day and the eternal salvation for Jehovah’s chosen ones. But when Sara falls in love with Teis, she is confronted with her most difficult choice in life. Teis is not a Witness, yet their love grows through stolen, secret meetings. Sara is torn between her conscience, faith and passion, forced to make a choice between her love and her family.
See a preview of Worlds Apart.
Photo credit: Jens Juncker-Jensen. Courtesy of www.dfi.dk/english/Danish+films/FeatureFilmsByYear/filmFact.htm?FilmID=20422
Visit the film’s website.
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program.
Sponsored by Victor’s 1959 Café
Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Country: U.S. (2008)
Language: French, English
Running Time: 102 minutes
Screening: Sunday, March 29, 2009, 5:00 p.m.
Senegalese pop sensation Youssou Ndour has spent the last 20 years in the spotlight as a world-renowned musician and the iconic representative “voice of Africa.” At the height of his career, Youssou became frustrated by the negative perception of his Muslim faith and composed Egypt, a deeply spiritual album dedicated to a more tolerant view of Islam. It was a critical and career-defining moment. Ndour’s brave musical message was wholeheartedly embraced by Western audiences, but ignited serious religious controversy in his homeland of Senegal.
With images of Senegal’s most sacred Muslim rites, vibrant concert performances and intimate portraits of Ndour and his family, I Bring What I Love chronicles the difficult journey Youssou must undertake to assume his true calling. His is a voice of hope and tolerance, and he is a modern day moral and political leader whose message transcends music but remains grounded in the universality of faith.
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love was an official selection at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. It won the Audience Award for Foreign Documentary at the 2008 São Paulo International Film Festival.
See a preview of Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love.
Photo courtesy of www.celluloid-dreams.com/current_slate/all_films/youssou_ndour_i_bring_what_i_love/
Indiewire's Peter Knegt brings attention to Oscilloscope's acquisition of North American distribution rights to Unmistaken Child, which has its US premiere at the Beyond Borders Film Festival on Friday, March 27, 2009, at 7:00 pm. Knegt quotes Oscilloscope Laboratories' head, Adam Yauch, as saying, "One can glean more about the subtlety of Tibetan culture by watching. . . than you could by… 
Le Monde calls Tricks, which makes its Minneapolis premiere at the Beyond Borders Film Festival on Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 1:00 p.m., a movie that savors life, like "biting into a ripe watermelon," and celebrates "the invincible faith of a child" with charm. Le Figaro describes Tricks as envisioning the magic of childhood "not [as] a moment of life. It is a way of… 
About Jenny Phillip's self-produced documentary, The Dhamma Brothers, Oprah Winfrey says, "I was fascinated by this story . . . hardened criminals . . . murderers, drug dealers, men who will spend most of their lives locked up dedicated themselves to a controversial, intensive meditation program. Yes, that's right. Prisoners meditating. The goal was to help them live peacefully behind bars… 
In the Winter 2009 issue of Cinema Scope, writer Robert Koehler brings his philosophical eye to Beyond Borders Film Festival's Saturday 9:00 p.m. feature, Revanche. Koehler writes of the Academy Award-nominated film, "The film charts the effects of doubling in a dazzling number of ways, equating it with both a locked-in repetition and a second chance (per the title); but most dramatically of… 
Art & Copy, Doug Pray's 10th documentary feature, is about more than just a few recent ad campaigns we all recognize. It's about influential visionaries who feel passionately about the power of images and ideas to change how people feel.
Dough Pray, whose past work includes Hype!, a candid look at the emergence and explosion of the Seattle rock scene, and Scratch, an… 
Karin Schiefer, from Austria's Film Commission, recently interviewed Göetz Spielman about his 2009 Oscar-nominated film, Revanche. Revanche screens at the Beyond Borders Film Festival on Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 9:00 p.m.
KS: The title Revanche clearly reflects the theme of your new film. Should we expect a classic story of revenge?
GS: Possibly classic, but not in the sense of genre cinema… 
In 2004, filmmaker Bari Pearlman was invited by Lama Norla Rinpoche, an abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in New York, to visit Nangchen, a remote region of northeastern Tibet that was Norla Rinpoche's homeland. The Tibetan master hoped that Pearlman would document his people's way of life before it disappeared altogether. As Pearlman says, "with my bag full of protein… 
His cartoons and illustrations have appeared in major magazines and newspapers across the country for decades. His animated short Guard Dog was nominated for an Academy Award, television junkies have seen his animation on MTV and a 20-year retrospective of his work was held at Paris' 
A lifelong baseball fan, Sugar writer and director Ryan Fleck was sure he knew everything there was to know about the game. He knew that the small Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic had been the home of many of the game's most talented players. But he didn't know why. That's when he and his talented partner, writer and director Anna…