Documentary Fortnight
December 13–23, 2002
This two-week showcase of nonfiction film and
video provides an intense examination of recent international documentaries.
The exhibition features over thirty programs that include a variety
of shorts, feature-length documentaries, and accomplished works
by seasoned and first-time directors. A Tribute to the Director
honors Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan; also featured are a trilogy
of films by Chantal Akerman. The artists explore the documentary
in a variety of ways: in Nicaragua, young prisoners learn media
in video classes; in Harlem, students role-play against violence
in video workshops; and in Africa, compelling narrative-driven stories
and on-the-street interviews depict the lives of people coping with
HIV and AIDS. Many of these national and international directors
will be present to offer firsthand accounts of their documentary
processes.
Organized by Sally Berger, Assistant Curator,
and William Sloan, Librarian, Circulating Film and Video Library,
Department of Film and Media.
2001.
Nicaragua. Directed by Florence Jaugey. The story of ten young inmates
who participate in a video course inside Nicaragua's largest prison.
In Spanish with English subtitles. 90 min.
2002. Finland. Directed
by Anastasia Lapsui, Markku Lehmuskallio. A community of Nenets
in Yamal-Nenetsia, Siberia, strive to retain their ancient way of
life against encroaching commercial interests. In Nenets and Russian
with English subtitles. 74 min.
2002. USA. Directed by John Columbus. The filmmaker creates an autobiographical
dreamscape about his childhood on the Jersey Shore. Director present.
10 min.
2001. Japan.
Directed by Satashi Ono. This intimate and humorous study of the
filmmaker's separated parents acquaints us with the bonds and tensions
that hold a family together. In Japanese with English subtitles.
Director present. 49 min.
2002. France. Directed by Chantal Akerman. Shot in the U.S.-Mexican
border region, this film, the latest in a trilogy (all screened
here), concerns the plight of the many thousands who attempt to
migrate northward. In Spanish and English with English subtitles.
Director present. Introduction by Ivone Margulies, film scholar.
99 min.
2001. Mozambique/South Africa. Directed by Nic Hofmeyr, Gabriel
Mondlane. A migrant laborer is torn between responsibilities toward
his junior wife in South Africa and his senior wife in Mozambique,
while also facing the fact that he is HIV positive. Print courtesy
Steps for the Future. 40 min.
2001.
South Africa. Directed by Dumisani Phakathi. The filmmaker engages
his community in a discussion about relationships, sex, and love.
Print courtesy Steps for the Future. Producer Jennifer Fox, consultant
for Steps for the Future, present. 52 min.
2001. USA. Directed by Gregg Bordowitz. Recorded partly at the Thirteenth
International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, the film
documents the global scale of AIDS activism and its new priority:
access to life-saving treatments. 53 min. Director present.
1993. France. Directed by Chantal Akerman. Shot in Germany, Poland,
Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Russia in 1992 and 1993, the film
is a deliberate and continuous montage of images and sounds of people
in their daily lives; the film's impartial eye captures the personal
within a larger context. 107 min. Director present.
1999. France/Belgium. Directed by Chantal Akerman. This haunting
meditation on racial tensions concerning the hate-crime murder of
James Byrd, Jr., in Texas is "an evocation of how this event
fits into a landscape and climate as much mental as physical."
70 min. Director present.
2001. USA. Directed and produced
by Tanaz Eshaghian. Codirected by Sara Nodjoumi. Framed by the Iran
hostage crisis of 1979 and the World Trade Center attacks in 2001,
this investigation reveals how Iranians living in the U.S. are often
stereotyped, held responsible for anti-American activity, and become
victims of bias attacks. Directors present. 27 min.
2001. Netherlands. Directed
by Rada Šesic. In this triptych, three middle-class refugees
of war from Chechnya, Sri Lanka, and Burundi try to adapt to their
lives as immigrants in the Netherlands. In Dutch, Russian, French,
and English with English subtitles. Director present. 32 min.
2001. Palestine. Directed by Alia
Arasoughly. Eight Palestinian women talk about their experiences
of war. In Arabic with English subtitles. Director present. 42 min.
1999. Israel. Directed
by Ariella Azoulay. Three seemingly disparate acts of violence-an
assassination, an abuse-related murder, and a border conflict-are
interwoven in an experimental fashion. In Hebrew with English subtitles.
55 min.
2001. Israel/USA. Directed by Michal Aviad. Contemplating the safety
of her children in present day Israel, the filmmaker looks at television
news footage and reflects on the family's history of immigration.
In Hebrew and English with English subtitles. 65 min.
2001. Denmark. Directed by Sami Martin Saif, Phie Ambo. After the
death of his mother and brother, Saif, together with partner/cinematographer
Ambo, embarks on a journey to Yemen to find his father. In English
and Danish with English subtitles. 90 min.
2002. Mexico. Produced by indigenous
videomakers from the Lacandon jungle region in Southern Mexico,
this video tells the story of how reclaimed land is used to grow
vegetables and to build a new society using collective principles.
Print courtesy Chiapas Media Project. In Tzeltal with English subtitles.
19 min.
2001. Colombia. Directed
by Marta Rodriguez, Fernando Restrepo. An examination of the plight
of Colombian peasants forced off their land by bankers and drug
dealers, who are all part of a scheme to build a canal from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. In Spanish with English subtitles. Presented
by Margarita de la Vega Hurtado, film scholar. 56 min.
2001. USA. Directed by Jeff Krulik. On April 30, 1945, nineteen-year-old
American G.I. Richard Marowitz was ordered to search Adolph Hitler's
Munich apartment for military intelligence. All he found was a black
top hat. Presented in association with the Robert Flaherty Seminars.
Director present. 50 min. Rough cut.
2001. Israel/Palestine. Directed by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz. A group
of Palestinian tourists from the West Bank visit their homeland
for several weeks in 2000, and discover Israel to be both familiar
and frightening. In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles. 97
min.
2000. USA. Directed by Sharon Greytak. Confined to a motor driven
wheelchair, the filmmaker travels to Siberia, Italy, Hong Kong,
Brazil, and New York, interviewing people with disabilities. English,
Portuguese, Russian, and Italian with English subtitles. Director
present. 90 min.
2001. USA. Directed by Kristin Lucas. Along with several artists-in-residence
at the World Trade Center, Lucas investigates the culture of the
building's invisible inhabitants. 6 min.
2001. USA. Directed
by Etienne Sauret. Produced by David Carrera and Sauret. A collection
of images from the World Trade Center ruins and surrounding areas,
with a soundtrack of ambient noise and scattered conversation. Director
and producer present. 11 min.
2001. USA.
Directed by Norman Cowie. This investigation of the "war against
terrorism" is part meditation and part commentary, employing
recontextualized images, news crawls, and original footage to question
received wisdom. Director present. 30 min.
2001. USA. Directed by Greg
Allen. The search for a lost World War I memorial is invoked in
post-9/11 France. In English and French with English subtitles.
Director present. 15 min.
Total running time approx. 62 min.
2002. Iran. Directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The story of children
living in villages between Iran and Afghanistan, who are unable
to attend school. In Farsi with English subtitles. 45 min.
2002. India. Directed by Anand Patwardhan. Filmed over three years
in India, Pakistan, Japan, and the U.S., and framed by the 1948
murder of Mahatma Gandhi, the film deals with peaceful activism
in the face of global militarism and war. In English, Hindi, Japanese,
and Marathi with English subtitles. Director present. Presented
in association with the New York Film/Video Council. 148 min.
2002. USA. Directed by Jane Steuerwald. Based on a Fourth of July
weekend spent with the filmmaker's family in upstate New York, the
film captures the essence of the ties that bind a family together
across generations. Director present. 13 min.
2002. USA. Directed
by Joyce Warshow. This profile of Joan Nestle, founder of the Lesbian
Herstory Archives in New York City and lesbian activist, teacher,
and author, reveals the source of her magnetism and drive. Director
present. 52 min.
2001. USA. Directed by Rob Fruchtman and Rebecca Cammisa. A sixty-nine-year-old
Benedictine nun with a tragic past tries to help male addicts gain
a new lease on life in a halfway house. Directors present. 90 min.
An evening with the acclaimed
Indian documentarian, who will show excerpts from his work spanning
the last thirty years. Presented in conjunction with the New York
Film/Video Council. Director present.
2002. Germany. Directed by Claudia
Heuermann. This meditation about film, art, and music is centered
on the composer John Zorn. Director present. 82 min.
2001. USA. Directed by Marina Petrovskaia. The filmmaker manipulates
her aunt into confessing an untold secret about the time when Germany
invaded Russia in World War II. In English and Russian with English
subtitles. Director present. 20 min.
2001. France.
Directed by Sandra Kogut. The Brazilian filmmaker must follow a
convoluted path to reclaim her Hungarian nationality. In English,
Portuguese, and Hungarian with English subtitles. 72 min.
2001. USA. 3 min.;
2001. USA. 3 min.;
2001. USA. 3 min.;
2002. USA. 3 min.; 2002. USA.
2 min. Visual artist Jonathan Calm combines video, animation, sound,
sculpture, and drawing with documentary elements from the streets
of his Brooklyn neighborhood. Director present.
2000. USA.
Directed by Pam Sporn. An instructive film, made by eleventh-grade
video students at Thurgood Marshall Academy, on the theme "you
may be stopped if you are a person of color." 13 min.
2001. USA. Directed
by Pam Sporn. An exploration of race in the Caribbean and New York
made by twelfth-grade students in Bread and Roses Integrated Arts
High School. Director present. 30 min.
Total running time approx. 60 min.
2002. USA. Directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy. At the Manuel Dominguez
High School in Compton, Los Angeles, where the primary career option
is to play pro-basketball, a group of students put on the school's
first play in twenty-two years, their own rendition of Thornton
Wilder's Our Town. Director and film protagonist present.
76 min.
USA. Directed by Gitte Villeson.
A bikeshop in Chicago becomes a center of creative activity for
both adults and young people who work and hang out there. Single-channel
version of installation. 20 min.
2002. USA. Directed by Ben Barraud, Toby Barraud, Manny Kivowitz.
An intimate portrait of hard-core bike messengers in New York City
that follows a select group as it prepares for a number of races
unsanctioned by city officials. Directors present. 52 min.
2001. USA. Directed by Stefanie Jordan. Six female firefighters
in San Francisco talk about why they like their tough job. 54 min.
2002. USA. Directed by Tom Hansell. Built around a
day in the life of a Kentucky coal-truck driver, this film takes
a direct look at where American energy comes from, revealing the
human and environmental price paid for the national addiction to
fossil fuels. Director present. 27 min.
2002. USA. Directed
by Travis Wilkerson. The unsolved murder of union organizer Frank
Little in Butte, Montana, in 1917 provides the basis for this hybrid
essay on labor and mining culture in the U.S. in the early part
of this century. Director present. 53 min.
2001. Puerto Rico/USA.
Directed by Edin Vélez. A road movie, shot throughout Europe
and Latin America, about forgetting and being forgotten, failed
love, death, and how neither vengeance nor pardon can modify the
past. In English, Spanish, and French. 13 min.
2001. USA. Directed by Jon Alpert.
The director's elderly father has a debilitating disease, and family
members lovingly invent ways to keep his spirits up. Director present.
88 min.
2002. USA. Directed by Cynthia Madansky. Shot mostly in Poland,
the film explores the elusiveness of Jewish history as conveyed
through three capricious, interwoven voices of real and imagined
lives. 38 min.
2001. Romania/USA. Directed
by Denise Iris. This offbeat romp through post-communist Romania
follows a young man doing a survey of contemporary spirituality.
In Romanian with English subtitles. Director present. 52 min.
2001. USA. Directed by Irene Luszig. This unusual portrait of the
filmmaker's grandmother, who was sentenced to life in prison for
a controversial bank robbery in Bucharest in 1959, shows the illusory
side of people and history. Director present. 90 min.
2001. Philippines/USA. Directed by Camilla Benolirao Griggers, Sari
Lluch Dalena. A documentary based on one family's experience of
U.S. foreign policy in South-East Asia, and the events that took
place between 1899 and 1913 when over a million Filipinos died in
the Spanish-American War. Directors present. In Tagalog with English
subtitles. 63 min.
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