Havana Film Festival NY

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Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 06 April 2011 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

The 12th Havana Film Festival New York (HFFNY) is screening April 7 - 15, 2011 at the Quad Cinema, El Museo del Barrio and NYU's King Juan Carlos II of Spain Center in Manhattan, as well as The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, plus other venues around New York.

HFFNY presents a selection of the best features, documentaries, and shorts from all over Latin America.

Tribute to Gerardo Chijona
HFFNY honors Gerardo Chijona, the award-winning Cuban director of Adorable Lies, by screening several of his films, culminating in the New York premiere of his latest film, Ticket to Paradise.

Adorables mentiras / Adorable Lies
dir. Gerardo Chijona (Cuba, Spain)
Chijona's first feature is a black comedy. Jorge Luis, a young man with dreams of becoming a screenwriter and film director, meets the beautiful Sissy at a film premiere. In order to impress Sissy, Jorge impersonates a director looking for a non-professional actress and Sissy, who dreams of becoming a successful actress, pretends not to be interested. Thus begins a relationship where the two act as not as they really are, but how they want to be, to escape the dull reality of their lives. With Isabel Santos, Luis Alberto Garcia. Chijona will be present for Q&A.

Read more: Havana Film Festival NY

Current European Cinema Has 3d Act

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Published on Monday, 04 April 2011 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

Disappearing Act III, A Showcase of Current European Cinema is screening April 6 - 14, 2011 at Bohemian National Hall in New York City.

Disappearing Act, launched as an annual event in 2009, is a film showcase highlighting the vitality of European cinema. This year it presents 19 films that have made a name for themselves among critics and on the festival circuit, yet still remain largely unknown to American audiences.

Special guests this year:

• Srdjan Koljevic, director
• Filip Remunda, director
• Ioana Uricaru, director
• Sabine Schenk, producer
• Olga Neuwirth, composer

A traditional part of Disappearing Act is an industry panel discussion devoted to the issues facing foreign-language films and their access to American screens and audiences.

This year's panel is the Subtitled Cinema Initiative. The panelists are:
Moderator: Carlos A. Gutierrez, co-founding director of Cinema Tropical
Oana Radu, deputy director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York
Delphine Selles-Alvarez, cinema program officer of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy
John C. Woo, executive director of Asian CineVision

Some of the films being shown are:

Czech Peace / Cesky mir
dirs. Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda (Czech Republic)
followed by Q&A with director Filip Remunda
This documentary is about the Czech government's approval of the installation of a U.S. antimissile system right in the heart of the country, on a site once occupied by Soviet soldiers during the Cold War. The decision sparked the largest and most organized Czech protests since 1989.

The Happiest Girl in the World / Cea mai fericita fata din lume
dir. Radu Jude (Romania) 
In a lottery held as publicity for a soft drink, a teenager has just won a brand new car! But her overcontrolling parents want to decide what she does with it.

Come Undone / Cosa voglio di piu
dir. Silvio Soldini (Italy)
With Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino, Teresa Saponangelo, Giuseppe Battiston
A young woman who thinks she has everything she needs suddenly finds herself embroiled in a passionate love affair with a married man she meets in a restaurant where he waits tables.

The Girl / Flickan
dir. Fredrik Edfeldt (Sweden) 
With Blanca Engstrom, Tova Magnusson-Norling, Mats Blomgren
The parents of "the girl" (left nameless by the director) leave their 10-year-old daughter behind during summer vacation while they depart with their older son on a trip to Africa (to be "useful to the needy"). The aunt they call to the rescue proves to be more than unfit to care for the girl and soon also departs.

The Father of My Children / Le pere de mes enfants
dir. Mia Hansen-Love (France) 
With Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Chiara Caselli, Eric Elmosnino, Sandrine Dumas
Based on the true story of an admired French producer, the film depicts the struggles of a man devoted to his work yet beloved by his family and friends, who carry on his project when he’s unable to do so himself.

Tales from the Golden Age / Amintiri din epoca de aur
dirs. Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Hofer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu (Romania) followed by Q&A with director Uricaru
A group of shorts set in the last decade under communism.

Kill Daddy Good Night / Das Vaterspiel
dir. Michael Glawogger (Austria)
introduced by producer Sabine Schenk and composer Olga Neuwirth
With Helmut Koepping, Sabine Timoteo, Ulrich Tukur, Itzhak Finzi
A pair of onetime lovers reconnect at the whim of a woman who calls from New York to invite her friend to come from Vienna right away and help her with a rebuilding project. A sequence of events begins that will uncover secrets about the woman’s family she herself has never known. At journey's end the man must decide whether or not he can forgive a war-time criminal and reconcile with the hate he feels for his own father.

Disappearing Act III is curated and coproduced by Irena Kovarova, organized by the Czech Center New York and the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York in partnership with:

Austrian Cultural Forum New York
the Consulate General of the Republic of Croatia
the Consulate General of Sweden in New York
the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York
the Cultural Services of the French Embassy
the Goethe-Institut New York
the Hungarian Cultural Center
Instituto Cervantes – The Cultural Center of Spain in New York
the Italian Cultural Institute
the Norwegian Consulate General
the Polish Cultural Institute New York
the support of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre
the EYE Film Institute Netherlands
the Slovak Film Institute

An official project of EUNIC (European Union National Institutes for Culture) with support from the EU Delegation to the UN.

For more information, visit www.czechcenter.com.

Disappearing Act III, A Showcase of Current European Cinema
April 6-14, 2011

Czech Center New York
Bohemian National Hall
321 East 73rd Street
New York City

NY African Film Festival 2011

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

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Published on Thursday, 31 March 2011 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

The 18th New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) runs April 2 - 6, 2011 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater in New York City.

2011 is the International Year of Peoples of African Descent, as declared by the United Nations. In celebration, the 18th edition of the New York African Film Festival presents a showcase of works that speak to the realities of Africa and the Diaspora.

The Opening Night film is Kinshasa Symphony, by Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer. The film follows the determined members of L'Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste (Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra) as they overcome coups, chaos and war to celebrate life through the power of music -- even crafting their own instruments. Armand Diangienda, conductor of the orchestra, will be present.

Other screenings include:

Africa United
dir. Debs Gardner-Paterson (Rwanda/UK)
Three Rwandan children try to achieve their lifelong dream of taking part in the opening ceremony of the 2010 Football World Cup in Johannesburg.

Read more: NY African Film Festival 2011