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MYSTIC RIVER (Opening Night)
mystic river: official site
This gripping crime thriller from director Clint Eastwood, adapted from Dennis Lehane's best-selling novel by screenwriter Brian Hegeland (L.A. Confidential), tells of three childhood friends from a working-class Boston neighborhood-Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon - thrown together again as adults. When tragedy befalls one of them, questions of guilt emerge to affect the present with devastating results. As brilliant as the three male leads are, Eastwood slowly shifts his attention to his two superb supporting actresses, Laura Linney and Marcia Gay Harden, whose characters prove to be the emotional center of this complex drama. For admirers of Unforgiven, A Perfect World and The Bridges of Madison County, here is another masterly film from the senior statesman of American directors. 137 min. USA, 2003 A Warner Bros. Release
3A Fri. Oct. 3, 8:00 pm ATH
3B Fri. Oct 3, 9:00 pm AFH
PICCADILLY
PICCADILLY
is a delirious black and white spectacle of Jazz Age England. The British Film Institute, with the support of Simon Hessel, has restored and commissioned a new score for this 1929 silent - a misplaced masterpiece shot on the cusp of the silent-to-sound era. Directed by E. A. Dupont - the German-expatriate director of Varieté and the 1928 Moulin Rouge - Piccadilly features such memorable talents as Charles Laughton (in his feature debut), Cyril Ritchard and Anna May Wong who, due to Hollywood's rigid racial code, had abandoned her successful American career for more adventurous roles abroad. In Piccadilly she certainly found one: a dishwasher who becomes the toast of London, and the object of the nightclub owner's sexual obsession. The film is a thrilling cinematographic jewel and a landmark in the emancipation of nonwhite actresses. This world premiere live performance of the new score for a seven-piece ensemble is led by composer Neil Brand. 108 min. UK, 1929 A Milestone Film Release
4A Sat. Oct. 4, 2:00 pm
A THOUSAND MONTHS
Morocco, 1981, a small town in the heart of the Atlas Mountains during the month of Ramadan. Seven-year-old Mehdi is a model student, so trusted that he has the special task of guarding his teacher's highly valued chair each evening. He lives with his mother and grandfather while his father - he thinks - is off working in France; in fact his father is in prison, but the adults all do their utmost to shield Mehdi from the truth. Gradually, though, the lies and illusions that define life in this otherwise seemingly tranquil village begin to come apart. Brilliantly composing his wide, wide CinemaScope frame, Faouzi Bensaïdi, who has worked with Andre Techiné and directed prize- winning short films, makes an extremely impressive feature debut, aided immeasurably by a wonderfully layered performance by young actor, Fouad Labied. Bensaïdi creates an indelible portrait of repression while never forgetting that even under the harshest conditions flashes of joy, friendship and love can be found. 124 min. Morocco/France, 2003
4B Sat. Oct. 4, 5:30 pm
5C Sun. Oct. 5, 8:30 pm
DOGVILLE
Troubling, startling and sure to be controversial, Lars von Trier's autopsy of Americana and the roots of terrorism has its signifiers soundly in place: a stage set reminiscent of Our Town, a novel by Mark Twain, a character named Tom Edison, and a mystery woman - played with poetic aplomb by Nicole Kidman - seeking refuge in a hamlet so closed in on itself that its people virtually yearn to become a mob. Exploding the myth of bucolic American innocence, von Trier subverts the complacent self-image of the United States the way de Tocqueville once did its democracy, Upton Sinclair the malevolence of its commerce and John Steinbeck its illusions of community. The remarkable cast includes Paul Bettany, Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzara and James Caan. 178 min. Denmark/Sweden/France, 2003 A Lions Gate Films Release
4C Sat. Oct. 4, 8:30 pm
5B Sun. Oct. 5, 4:30 pm
S21: THE KHMER ROUGE KILLING MACHINE
In the mid-70s, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge converted the Tuol Sleng High School in Phnom Penh into the notorious S21 detention center. Between 1975 and 1977, roughly 17,000 people passed through its doors. Only seven survived. Filmmaker Rithy Panh, who himself spent four years in a Khmer Rouge labor camp, works with the same sense of devotion and relentless pursuit of truth as Claude Lanzmann. He accompanies the detention center's official painter, Vann Nath, on his first visit to S21 in more than 20 years, during which he confronts several of his former captors and tormentors. Like Lanzmann, Panh uses cinema to get the facts on record: the guards re-enact their former routines, victims are remembered and named, and their stories are told. And we learn that the terror of the Khmer Rouge was felt by torturers and victims alike: for four years, an entire society was held in a grip of murderous terror. Essential viewing, a potent, scrupulously constructed act of witness, and a step toward reconciliation with an unfathomable past. 101 min. France, 2003 A First Run Features Release
preceded by:
OCTOBER
Even after tragedy, life begins anew. Peter Vogt, 3 min. USA, 2003.
5A Sun. Oct. 5, 1:30 pm
MANSION BY THE LAKE
Very loosely based on Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Lester James Peries's film follows a family of formerly wealthy, expatriate Sri Lankan landowners, now impoverished, as they return from England to the magnificent country estate they left behind. Now 84, Peries has been making films in his native country since Rekawa in 1956; his newest is a deeply moving study of a caste and a country torn apart by social change, told with a sublime serenity and restraint. Peries's style remains one of unruffled classical realism, situated in an emotional territory somewhere between Satyajit Ray and John Ford. Without shock cuts or conspicuous camera movements, this lovely film creates a sense of the leisurely unfolding of time against an impassive background of tropical splendor. 106 min. Sri Lanka, 2003
6A Mon. Oct. 6, 6:00 pm
7B Tue. Oct. 7, 9:15 pm
PORNOGRAPHY
Polish author Witold Gombrowicz was one of the most remarkable writers of the 20th century; this provocative adaptation of his third novel, which he described as "a descent to the dark limits of the conscience and the body," should win him new admirers. Set in Nazi-occupied Poland, Pornography focuses on two middle-aged men: Frederic, a theater and film director, and Witold, a writer who serves as a wry commentator. The two journey out to the country estate of Hippolyte, a friend of Witold marginally involved in the resistance. There they encounter German soldiers and partisans, young lovers and even younger murderers, patriots and Catholics. Frederic will reveal an uncanny ability to hear clearly even distant and delicate sounds. Director Jan Jakub Kolski effectively finds the cinematic means to capture Gombrowicz's abrupt changes of mood and tone and almost surreal juxtapositions, while anchoring the story in a very concrete time and place. 117 min. Poland, 2003
6B Mon. Oct. 6, 9:15 pm
7A Tue. Oct. 7, 6:00 pm
YOUNG ADAM
Ewan McGregor is Joe, a charming bookish drifter who's chosen to work on a barge that travels between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Before long he's caught up in a passionate affair with the bargeman's wife (in a powerful performance by Tilda Swinton), but that is not his only dark secret: there was another woman before her, the hauntingly beautiful Cathie (Emily Mortimer), and it begins to look as if Joe may have played a role in her death by drowning. David Mackenzie has adapted Alexander Trocchi's disturbing underground classic into a film that is splendidly acted, visually striking, and morally subversive. The canals of Scotland and the back streets of Glasgow provide an impressive background to a cunningly elaborated sentimental education that leads, by a circuitous path of deception and betrayal, into the heart of a perversity that looks almost like innocence. 93 min. Scotland, 2003
preceded by:
I SPROUT
Returning to her roots, a young woman retraces a childhood journey into the interior and uncovers troubling memories. Esther Rots, 15 min, Netherlands, 2003.
8A Wed. Oct. 8, 6:00 pm
9B Thur. Oct. 9, 9:15 pm
THE FLOWER OF EVIL
Claude Chabrol's fiftieth feature is a master's summing up of all that he does best, set in a milieu that he has made his own. The distinguished facade of a wealthy French provincial family starts to crack when the wife (Nathalie Baye) ventures into local politics and a discontented son (Benoît Magimel) returns from a long sojourn in America. It isn't long before buried hints of murder, adultery, incest, and wartime collaboration are emerging into the open and disrupting the refined surfaces of a comfortably corrupt dynasty. Chabrol charts the increasingly venomous proceedings with merciless precision, an eye alert to the rituals of French political life, and a strong vein of perverse humor that blossoms in an outrageous (and unexpectedly hilarious) finale in which predictable notions of good and evil are turned neatly on their head. Suzanne Flon provides an irresistible performance as the beloved aunt who retains custody of more than one lethal family secret. 104 min. France, 2003 A Palm Pictures Release
preceded by:
LITTLE CLUMPS OF HAIR
Martin meets four twentysomething mates for a drink but things get out of hand when they expose his shocking secret. Jim Hoskings, 11min, UK, 2003.
8B Wed. Oct. 8, 9:00 pm
9A Thur. Oct. 9, 6:00 pm
GOOD MORNING, NIGHT
Revisiting the politics of his own early films, such as China Is Near (1967) and In the Name of the Father (1971), Marco Bellocchio restages one of the most notorious episodes in Italian political history: the 1978 kidnapping of President Aldo Moro (Roberto Herlitzka) by a cell of the Red Brigade terrorist group. Bellocchio focuses on the only female member of the terrorist band, Anna (Maya Sansa), as she tries to balance her revolutionary dreams with the lulling routines of everyday life. Posing as a young housewife (Moro is kept in a tiny cell built behind one of her bookcases), she finds herself increasingly alienated from her militant comrades, and begins thinking of a way to turn their prisoner free. Concerned as always with the intersection of political power and family dynamics, Bellocchio, who scored a great triumph at the 2002 NYFF with My Mother's Smile, has created another challenging and provocative film. 100 min. Italy, 2003
preceded by:
THE SHADOWS COMPANY
Feeling cut off, abandoned by those closest to you? The Shadows Company has the solution for your problem.
Christophe Perrier,
12 min. Switzlerland, 2002.
10A Fri. Oct. 10, 6:00 pm
11B Sat. Oct. 11, 3:30 pm
ELEPHANT
Working with a cast of students who collaborated on the script and making extraordinary use of an abandoned school in Portland, Oregon, Gus Van Sant has created a tender and moving picture of the life of a high school in the hours before catastrophe erupts. To call this simply a dramatization of the Columbine massacre is not to do it justice. Tracking his young characters through hallways and across athletic fields, capturing the freshness and fragility of their smallest encounters and actions, Van Sant elicits a sense of both the beauty of common experience and the festering emotions capable of sweeping it all away. The performances of the student actors are remarkable for their emotional truth, and the formally inventive juxtaposition of simultaneous events creates a haunting sense of fatality in the midst of the everyday. Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year, Elephant is both profoundly lyrical and profoundly unsettling. 81 min. USA, 2003 An HBO Films/Fine Line Features Release
preceded by
LIKE TWENTY IMPOSSIBLES
A film crew runs into trouble with an Israeli army patrol in this startling cinema vérité look at life during wartime. Annemarie Jacir, 17 min, Palestine, 2003
10B Fri. Oct. 10, 9:15 pm
11A Sat. Oct. 11, 12:30 pm
THE FOG OF WAR (Festival Centerpiece)
Errol Morris's new film is a dazzling cinematic dialogue with the conscience of Robert S. McNamara - WWII military strategist, auto executive and, most famously, Secretary of Defense during the escalation of the Vietnam War. Morris asks the question: how can a mere mortal come to terms with history, particularly one who has done so much to shape it? For the all-too-human McNamara, past haunts present, hindsight is stopped dead in its tracks by the lingering reality of military and human catastrophe, and apology and self-justification keep trumping one another. Morris appears to let his subject, over 80 but as sharp as ever, lead the way, and the filmmaker uses archival footage, visual aids and a Philip Glass score, not to mention his own fiery intelligence, to offer a subtly ironic counterpoint. What develops is a haunting, crystal-clear portrait of human error in action. A genuine tour-de-force, from a filmmaker at the top of his form. 95 min. USA, 2003 A Sony Pictures Classics Release
11C Sat. Oct. 11, 6:30 pm
12A Sun. Oct. 12, 2:00 pm
FREE RADICALS
As she's leaving the Rio airport, Manu asks some fellow travelers to snap a last photograph of her in Brazil; hours later, she's floating in the Gulf of Mexico, the only survivor after a freak tornado downs her plane. Five years later she's working as a cashier in the supermarket of a small Austrian town. How does one construct a life after such an experience, aware that seemingly arbitrary forces can suddenly rise up and decide who lives and who doesn't? Barbara Albert, whose powerful debut Northern Skirts was shown in the 2000 New Directors/New Films festival, creates an intricate portrait of Manu and her world, her family, friends and acquaintances, detailing how "causes" in one life can lead to unintended "effects" in others. Yet Albert is not interested in the notion of destiny for its own sake, but rather in how her characters learn to come to terms with it and even find their own small ways of triumphing over it. A lovely, thoughtful film from a most promising young talent. 120 min. Austria, 2003
11D Sat. Oct. 11, 9:15 pm
12B Sun. Oct. 12, 5:00 pm
BRIGHT LEAVES
How many documentaries can boast a featured appearance by Gary Cooper? In Bright Leaves, the celebrated nonfiction director Ross McElwee - filmmaker, academic and godfather to the Boston doc community - returns to his North Carolina birthplace to root out the story of his family's agricultural downfall: were the McElwees swindled out of their rightful share of America's tobacco bounty by their rivals, the unscrupulous Duke family? Is there a lesson or a legacy in all this that will be handed down to the director's own son? Did Cooper really portray a character based on McElwee's tobacco-baron grandfather? Locating the universal through the highly personal has always been McElwee's modus operandi - see such films as Sherman's March and Time Indefinite. And his technique is further distilled in this funny, leisurely, ironic trip into one man's obscure family history, and the smoky haze of a one-crop culture. 107 min. USA, 2003
THE REST OF THE WORLD
"I wonder what it would've been like to live my life differently and what it would have been like if I never knew any of the things I take for granted." Frazer Bradshaw, 6 min, USA, 2003.
12C Sun. Oct. 12, 8:15 pm
SINCE OTAR LEFT
How elaborate a fraud would we perpetrate to protect the ones we adore? There's no limit, of course, and the tangled, pan-generational web spun throughout Since Otar Left - the debut feature by Julie Bertuccelli - is all about lying for love. Eka (a wonderfully moving Esther Gorintin) lives on the morsels of communication she gets from her beloved son, Otar, who long ago left Georgia for Paris and is apparently thriving - and, just as apparently, never coming back. Eka is cared for by her daughter, Marina, who resents her mother's obsession with Otar and therefore works for her all the harder, and Marina's daughter Ada, who is suffocating in the consequent vacuum. In this tender, wire-walking family drama, Bertuccelli gives us a deftly drawn, instantly recognizable dynamic of a frustrated female clan, while never losing sight of the fact that everything that happens is born of affection. A Zeitgeist Films release. 102 min. France, 2003
preceded by:
THE TOLL COLLECTOR
In this haunting puppet animation, a lonely, leggy toll collector learns how to make her own dreams come true. Rachel Johnson, 10 min, USA/Czech Republic, 2002.
13A Mon. Oct. 13, 6:00 pm
14B Tue. Oct. 14, 9:00 pm
CRIMSON GOLD
This latest provocation by the politically courageous and visually nimble Iranian director Jafar Panahi - last seen at the New York Film Festival with 2000's The Circle - explodes off the screen without the camera ever moving. And yet the smash-and-crash jewel robbery with which the film opens is really just a scream of anguish from its chief character Hussein (Hossain Emadeddin), whose history we learn via flashback and a cleverly elegant script by Pahani collaborator Abbas Kiarostami. Pizza delivery-man Hussein - veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, victim of chemical warfare and casualty of his country's short-term memory - is a symbol for Panahi of Iran's economic stagnation, the unspoken cruelty of its class distinctions, and the embarrassments of its past. Hussein's journeys through the streets of Teheran, laden with his and his nation's checkered histories, are funny, poignant and ultimately devastating. 97 min. Iran, 2003 A Wellspring Media Release
preceded by:
BUS 44
(Dayyan Eng, China, 2003, 11 minutes). A young man boards a rural bus and, after offering a helping hand, gets more than he bargained for. Dayyan Eng, 11 min, China, 2003
13B Mon. Oct. 13, 9:00 pm
14A Tue. Oct. 14, 6:00 pm
GOODBYE DRAGON INN
It is nighttime in Taipei. Half a dozen lonely souls are watching King Hu's Dragon Inn in a local revival theater. Or rather, some of them are watching, communing with the cinema. And some are just marking time, or looking for love. Meanwhile, a silent cleaning woman is slowly prowling the backrooms and hallways, the heavy step of her bum leg echoing down the corridors. "This theater is haunted," someone says. And it is, by these people and their desire to connect. Tsai Ming-liang's new movie is his most minimal and cinematically, his most eloquent. Rarely has the experience of movie going itself been so beautifully rendered. Tsai truly understands the wonder of sitting in the darkness before those flickering images, and he endows the space itself with a ghostly poetic grandeur. Made up entirely of long takes, Goodbye Dragon Inn is a daring work and a richly rewarding experience. 80 min. Taiwan, 2003
preceded by:
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN IN THE WORLD
Once we were free to wander. Then one day we cross paths with a stranger. Alicia Duffy, 5 min, UK, 2002.
15A Wed. Oct. 15, 6:00 pm
DISTANT
From Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose Clouds of May premiered in the 2001 New Directors/New Films festival, Distant is a subtle and incisive character study of a big city photographer and his rural cousin who has come to Istanbul looking for work - hopefully on a ship that will take him away from his troubled country. The older man's disillusionment - he has been forced to abandon his artistic ambitions to concentrate on commercial jobs - provides a funny and revealing contrast to his young visitor's naiveté and enthusiasm. Shooting with a tiny, five-man crew (he is the film's director, writer, cinematographer and co-editor), Ceylan captures a profound feeling of disaffection and emptiness without losing his sense of humor or his emotional engagement with his characters. The two lead actors, Muzaffer Ozdemir and Emin Toprak, shared the best actor prize at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival; the film itself won the Grand Jury Prize. 110 min. Turkey, 2003 A New Yorker Films Release
preceded by:
URDA.BONE
The worlds of two globetrotters elide in Frankfurt in this evocative mood piece featuring the music of Sparklehorse. Charles Officer and Ingrid Veninger, 6 min, Canada, 2003.
15B Wed. Oct. 15, 9:00 pm
16A Thur. Oct. 16, 6:00 pm
PTU
One of the few personal filmmakers still at work in the commercial Hong Kong cinema, Johnnie To specializes in street-level cop films, shot with a no-nonsense authority that recalls the work of Don Siegel and Phil Karlson. PTU - the initials stand for "police tactical unit" - is To's variation on a classic film noir theme, the corrupt cop who finds he must finally take a stand. Played by the marvelous character actor Lam Suet, Lo is a tubby, chain-smoking sergeant who loses his gun in a fight with a street gang and goes to extraordinary lengths to get it back. To's natural environment is Hong Kong at night - a city of eerily deserted streets, glowing neon signs, echoing pools of darkness and a constant sense of unseen menace. Johnnie To populates his world with a range of marvelously drawn types, from sadistic petty hoods to imposing senior officers - such as the upright captain played by Hong Kong favorite Simon Yam. 85 min. Hong Kong, 2003
preceded by:
FROM HEAD TO TOE
In occupied France, a group of women cook up a form of resistance. Pascal Lahmani, 18m. France, 2003.
16B Thur. Oct 16, 9:15 pm
18B Sat. Oct. 18, 3:30 pm
RAJA
Jacques Doillon's unpredictable, multi-layered film addresses the difficult subject of two individuals trying to correct an imbalance of power. Fredérique (Pascal Greggory, in a wonderfully intricate performance) is a wealthy Frenchman who lives the life of a libertine pasha in Morocco. Raja (Najat Benssallem) is one of the fetching local girls who comes to work in his garden. They set their sights on one another, and a battle of wits, libidos and cultural perspectives ensues. Fred, the pampered, carefree imperialist, slowly begins to comprehend the hard pragmatism of Raja's life. Raja, the cunning, tough-minded journeywoman, who has learned to use her sexuality as the ultimate bartering tool, comes to understand Fred's seriousness and sense of rectitude. And the closer they get, the further away they are from one another. Doillon masterfully orchestrates this behavioral power struggle in wonderfully warm images of dappled sunlight and vibrant color, with a visual scheme that suggests Matisse. Few films have ever been sharper or more alive to the warring realities and mentalities of the post-colonial world. 112 min. France, 2003
preceded by:
ANDALUZ
Colors dance and landscapes morph to the rhythms of southern Spain in the latest work from two award-winning animators. Karen Aqua & Joanna Priestley, 6 min. USA, 2003.
17A Fri. Oct. 17, 6:00 pm
18D, Sat. Oct. 18, 9:30 pm
THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS
The characters who populated Denys Arcand's randy and argumentative 1986 hit The Decline of the American Empire are back, still contentious and still obsessed with sex, but forced to confront other issues. Rémy (Rémy Girard), the promiscuous academic who dominated the earlier proceedings, is dying, but he has no intention of going out tamely. In short order he's surrounded by a sometimes disorderly crew of family and friends, quarreling with his businessman son, and forging a friendship with the young junkie who helps him ease the pain of his passing. Arcand expertly manages the vibrant ensemble playing of his cast, establishing a mood in which broad comedy can give way to bitter truth telling, and in which even minor characters can assume center stage at crucial moments. The Barbarian Invasions is funny, discordant, and moving in its depiction of the ordinary chaos and indignity of aging and dying. 95 min. Canada, 2003 A Miramax Films Release
preceded by:
DESTINO Two legendary creative forces - master of surrealism Salvador Dali and Walt Disney - came together in 1946 to create an animated short entitled Destino.
Fifty-seven years after it was conceived, Destino has finally been bought to the screen by director Dominique Monterey and a team of 25 artists at Disney's Paris Animation Studio using Dali's original storyboards and visual development. 6m. USA/France, 2003
17B Fri. Oct. 17, 9:15 pm
18A Sat. Oct. 18, 12:00 noon
MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP
Sixties scenemaker, impresario of glitter rock, cutting-edge DJ in the era of punk and post-punk, Rodney Bingenheimer has been at the center of LA's pop music life for four decades. But what does it really mean to be at the center of a swirling and nebulous world of celebrity and publicity? George Hickenlooper's remarkable portrait of Rodney takes us on a comic and heartbreaking tour inside the rock biz. Rodney was always the person you had to see in order to see the stars, and we get flying visits here from an extraordinarily mixed bag of celebs including David Bowie, Cher, Mick Jagger, Joan Jett, Brian Wilson, Ray Manzarek, Debbie Harry, and dozens more - not to mention groupie legends Pamela Des Barres, the G.T.O.'s and notorious record producer Kim Fowley. But finally, and unforgettably, Hickenlooper leaves us with what's left after the party's over and everyone's gone home. 94 min. USA, 2003 A First Look Media/Overseas Film Group Release
preceded by:
TWINS is a revealing look at one of life's most fascinating relationships. In the summer of 2002, photographer Mary Ellen Mark was completing her two-year book project on twins at the Twins Days Festival, an annual event in Twinsburg, Ohio. Director/ cinematographer Martin Bell, Mark's husband, interviewed the twins she photographed. What is surprising (and moving) is how candid the subjects are and their insights into the complexity of rituals such as dating, picking a spouse, and dealing with separation from one another. Bell's previous films include American Heart with Jeff Bridges and Streetwise, which was shown in New Directors/New Films in 1984 and was nominated for an Academy Award that year. 16m, USA, 2003.
18C Sat. Oct. 18, 6:30 pm
21 GRAMS (Closing Night)
The title for the new film by director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga Jordán - who brought the remarkable Amores Perros to the Festival in 2000 - is the amount of weight a body loses at the moment of death. Three characters struggle emotionally and physically with that most absolute of frontiers. College professor Paul (Sean Penn) waits for a new heart while his marriage heads towards collapse. Young mother Cristina (Naomi Watts) tries to imagine a future after all she holds dear is suddenly torn away. For ex-con Jack (Benicio Del Toro), being "born again" is of little help with the daily battle to provide for his family. In an instant, these three lives will become irrevocably intertwined, but the film's dense, provocative storytelling implies that their separate stories have always been part of a larger reality. As in Amores Perros, 21 Grams weaves disparate lives into an elegant and haunting tapestry of our contemporary world. 125 min. USA, 2003 A Focus Features Release
19A Sun. Oct 19, 8:30 pm AFH
SPECIAL EVENTS: at the Walter Reade Theater
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
With its canny blend of rare TV clips, superb concert footage and revealing interviews, Jeff Stein's heartfelt celebration of The Who sets a standard for the rock documentary that has rarely been matched. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the prototype band's first recording session, THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT now has been digitally restored and re-mastered to match the director's original theatrical release. The Who has never looked nor sounded better. Plus the world premiere of a new production specially created for this year's NYFF, Quintrophenia!, a quintuple, split-screen rendition of stunning versions of "Baba O'Reilly" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" with never-before-seen footage. Produced by rock historian Martin Lewis and John Albarian. 129 min. USA, 1979/2003 A Pioneer Home Entertainment/New Concorde Release.
preceded by:
QUINTROPHENIA!
A quintuple, split-screen rendition of stunning versions of "Baba O'Reilly" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," with never-before-seen footage. Martin Lewis and John Albarian, 20 min, USA, 2003.
4V Sat. Oct. 4, 12:00 midnight
11W Sat. Oct. 11, 8:00 pm
11X Sat. Oct. 11, 11:00 pm
THE BEST OF YOUTH
Conceived as a TV mini-series but then released theatrically in Italy with great success, Marco Tullio Giordana's extraordinary chronicle offers a revealing and deeply touching look at forty years of social and political change that transformed a nation. Through the lives, loves and experiences of the Carati family - sons Nicola and Matteo, daughters Francesca and Giovanna - the film moves from labor strife in Turin to the flooding of Florence; from terrorist cells to mafia trials; from the economic boom to the revolution in mental health care. With a cast featuring many of Italy's finest young actors,THE BEST OF YOUTH brings to the fore the personal human dramas behind the ebb and flow of history. The film is presented with a 1-hour intermission. 6 hrs 6 min. Italy, 2003 A Miramax Films Release
12Y Sun. Oct. 12, 4:00 pm
STALINGRAD
Stalingrad the city may no longer exist, but for all time that name will be associated with perhaps the fiercest and unquestionably the most decisive battle of World War II. The epic confrontation between German and Soviet Russian armies - which left almost one million dead - at Stalingrad in 1942-43 not only decided the outcome of World War II but possibly the shape of the 20th century as well. Using amazing period footage, including some 8mm films shot by the soldiers themselves, as well as interviews with survivors from both sides-ranging from ordinary conscripts to officers close to the military authorities-Sebastian Dehnhardt creates a fascinating, in-depth look at the events leading up to the attack, the battle itself and its aftermath. 156 min. Germany, 2003
16Z Thur. Oct. 16, 7:30 pm
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