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Previews
Kino! 2012: New Films from Germany at the MoMA
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Monday, 30 April 2012 19:08
- Written by Joanne Choi
Opening April 25-May 2 2012, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presents its 34th annual film segment, Kino! 2012: New Films from Germany, with a fresh new outlook at some of the emerging artists in film. KINO brings you the latest news in German films. This year’s event will be celebrating two very special occasions: the 100th birthday of the world-famous Studio Babelsberg and the 50th anniversary of the Oberhausen Manifesto. The celebration of Studio Babelsberg’s 100th birthday will be held at MoMa with screenings prior to the Kino! 2012 event. On the other hand, the 50th anniversary of Oberhausen Manifesto will resume at a later date showcasing four of Manifesto’s signature films.
Studio Babelsberg has produced several works of Weimar film classics as F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (starring Marlene Dietrich), in concordance with some recent films: Roman Polanski's The Pianist and The Ghost Writer, Tom Tykwer’s The International, and Roland Emmerich's Anonymous. MoMA’s salute to Babelsberg will include a rare screening of one of its earliest worldwide successes, Stellan Rye's The Student of Prague (1913).
Furthermore, incorporated in this year’s schedule will be Next Generation Short Tiger 2011 screening various student films based in Germany. Six new features will be included at the festival such as the opening-night film, Zieska Riemann's Lollipop Monster, which fuses two very different worlds in a bizarre yet intriguing way. The following three films deals with intricate relationships in humanity: Carsten Unger's Bastard, Leo Khasin's social drama Kaddish for a Friend and Stephan Rick's The Good Neighbor. Andres Veiel's debut feature, If Not Us, Who? takes politics and romance to the next level. Miguel Alexandre's epic The Man with the Bassoon (from a book by and starring Udo Jürgens) travels through time between Russia and Germany. Written and directed by Andreas Dresen, the filmmaker returns to Kino once again with a heart wrenching human drama, Stopped on Track, which includes both professionals and non-actors creating realism.
All films will be presented in its original language with English subtitles. Screenings will take place in various theaters.
For more information on the event and detailed schedule visit: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1265 or http://www.german-films.de/
Kino! 2012: New Films from Germany
April 25-May 2 2012
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
11 West 53 Street New York, NY 10019
Joyless Street: What's with Women? Strong Directors, Masochistic Characters
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Sunday, 22 April 2012 11:42
- Written by Marjorie Rosen
This may be the brave new era of Hollywood’s The Hunger Games, the hugely successful saga honoring a young woman’s courage and nobility in the face of death. Still, it’s worth noting that two modest and fascinating 2012 New Directors/New Films selections, written and directed by women, deal not with outsized dystopian adventure or female bravery, but with heroines who choose to act out a discomforting sexual masochism within the framework of their own emotionally impoverished lives.
First is the Russian movie, Twilight Portrait, which marks the directing debut of Angelina Nikonova, who also co-wrote and co-produced it. The title refers to a setting on a still camera, but it also allegorizes Russian society and signifies the twilight of civility in the former Soviet Union. Against the background of a brutal and brutalized post-Cold-War Moscow, where apathy is superseded only by thuggishness among its men, and especially the police, Marina, a young middle-class woman of remarkable grace and beauty, struggles to find connection in her life.
Nanni Moretti Retrospective Includes His Latest, "We Have a Pope"
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Thursday, 29 March 2012 10:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
In his new film, We Have a Pope, veteran Italian actor Nanni Moretti plays 
Brezzi, a psychoanalyst called on by a desperate college of cardinals to convince the reluctant Holy Father-elect (a magnificently befuddled Michel Piccoli) to accept his new position. In typically understated Moretti style, the good doctor -- a divorced unbeliever, unsurprisingly -- never gets to the heart of the former Cardinal Melville’s difficulties, instead organizing a Vatican volleyball tournament that’s suspended before the finals when the group has to return for another conclave.
IAAC Bring Indian Art and Theater to New York
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Previews
- Published on Monday, 12 March 2012 17:25
- Written by Renzo Adler
Since 1998, the Indo-American Art Council (IAAC) has been unifying the arts of traditional, modern, and immigrant Indian culture in New York. This March, they have two special events, Erasing Borders Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora 
(March 17- April 20, Crossing Arts Queens 136-17 39th Ave, Flushshing ) and Parts of Parts & Stitches (March 15-31, The Theater at 14th St Y, 334 East 14th Street, New York, NY). Erasing Borders is an innovative art exhibition that looks at where Indian-Americans are today and where they are going, and Parts of Parts is a play that looks at where they have come from and struggles that persist. The IAAC is a not-for-profit secular arts organization passionately dedicated to promoting, showcasing and building an awareness of artists of Indian origin in the performing arts, visual arts, literary arts and folk arts.
Parts of Parts & Stitches is set against the backdrop of a wedding on the eve of the 1947 Partition between India and Pakistan. Two families in the Punjab region eagerly await the marriage of a loving couple, Yamuna and Jiwan, but they now must deal with the bloody conflict between Hindus and Muslims and the fall out of India without Great Britain. Yamuna must now pull her life back together in a world torn asunder by conflict. Performed in conjunction with Maieutic Theater Works, an award winning not-for-profit theater company, Parts of Parts is written by Riti Sachdeva directed by Cat Parker.
The Erasing Borders Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora deals with many of the issues that Indian immigrants deal with today such as sexuality, terror, disease, the environment, racial and sectarian politics. With over 35 participating artists, Borders combines Indian aesthetics with Western elements and utilizes a wide range of mediums. Artists include Mustafa Faruki, Mansoora Hassan, Pritika Chowdhry, and Tara Sabharwal. This is the eighth year of the Erasing Borders show and it is free and open to the public.
These two events are an excellent look into the world of modern and traditional Indian art, as well as a thoughtful examination of politics and conflict between cultures.
To learn more about Erasing Borders and Parts of Parts, go to http://www.iaac.us
Erasing Borders Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora
March 17-April 20
Crossing Art Queens
136-17 39th Avenue (at Main Street)
Ground Floor Flushing, NY 11354
Parts of Parts & Stitches
March 15-31
The Theater at 14th St Y
334 East 14th Street
New York, NY 10009
