9th Annual ReelAbilities Festival: Diversity & Advocacy

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Friday, 24 February 2017 16:35

Written by Brad Balfour

Now in its 9th year, the New York ReelAbilities Film Festival, conducted by the Manhattan JCC, presents a wealth of films and programming emphasizing inclusion, advocacy and diversity. With screenings at venues across New York City and Westchester, the ReelAbilities film festivalpromotes awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories and artistic expressions of people with different abilities. ReelAbilities Film Festival showcases films, conversations and artistic programs to explore, embrace, and celebrate the diversity of our shared human experience.

Opening the festival is Sanctuary, directed by Len Collin, which follows a couple with intellectual disabilities looking for some alone time, and by attempting to be intimate, they’re breaking the law in Ireland. The festival concludes with the music-filled How Sweet the Sound, directed by Leslie McCleave, which follows the history of the legendary gospel quartet The Blind Boys of Alabama.

 The Reel Diversity: the Audacity of Authenticity panel discussion and screening with show the film the The View From Tall and features special guests:

• William H. Macy
• RJ Mitte
• Caitlin Parrish
• Mason Zayid

Also part of the festival is an afternoon of free, family-friendly programs, including the autism-friendly screening of Reel Spectrum, the Reel Encounters short films compilation, theater, performances, workshops, and more. Other special events include a Shabbat dinner that also screens four short films on deafness, panel discussions throughout the city, and performance art showcases.

To learn more, go to: http://newyork.reelabilities.org/

9th Annual ReelAbilities Film Festival
March 2 - 8, 2017

Various Venues in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Westchester.

Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2017: New Waves & World Wars

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 20 February 2017 19:11

Written by Jack Angstreich

The 22nd edition of the Rendez-vous with French Cinema series, co-sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and UniFrance, runs from March 1st to 12th. Notable presentations this year include a new feature by the underappreciated Pascal Bonitzer (screening on the 10th and 12th at the Walter Reade Theater), a live talk with New Wave pioneer Agnès Varda on March 10th at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and an exhibition at the Furman Gallery of recently discovered color photographs by Paul Ronald of the production of Federico Fellini's celebrated 8 1/2.

Another significant event will be the screening of the latest work by the consistently remarkable François Ozon, the moving Frantz, a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's dramatic film set in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, Broken Lullaby. Handsomely photographed in widescreen, the film beautifully oscillates between black-and -white and color while the director elicits uniformly superb performances from a cast of mostly unknowns. Elegantly crafted, this is one of Ozon's strongest works to date and fulfills much of the promise of his early efforts. Frantz will be shown on March 2nd (with a Q&A with Ozon) and 11th and will be released by Music Box Films.

Of comparable merit is the extraordinary new feature by Bertrand Bonello, the doom-laden Nocturama—which might be described as a "phenomenological" thriller for its focus on sensation and the consequent obliquity of its political commentary— about a terrorist attack in contemporary Paris staged by a multicultural group of disaffected youth. Structurally, the film exhilaratingly disorients as it elliptically crisscrosses back and forth in time in exposition of the narrative. The director confidently employs a range of techniques and devices such as the zoom, split screens, and liberal reliance on the Steadicam. The work is enhanced by a propulsive techno score composed by the filmmaker and is captivatingly animated by a compelling, attractive cast, also mostly unknowns.Nocturamashows on March 4th and 5th, with Bonello present at both screenings, and is being released by Netflix.

Considerably less rewarding was the new, bizarre opus of the fascinating Bruno Dumont, Slack Bay, a tale of cannibalism set in a small town on the coast of northern France in 1910. A few excellent stars—Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Juliette Binoche, and Fabrice Luchini in a highly exaggerated turn—can do little to redeem the general, although not entirely uninteresting, unpleasantness. One redeeming facet is the appearance of a beautiful young androgyne in one of the leading roles. The film plays on the evenings of March 9th and 11th.

Athena Film Festival Examines Lives of Women Around the World

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 06 February 2017 16:19

Written by Brad Balfour

City of Joy

A film festival with a feminist angle, the Athena Film Festival (February 9 - 12, 2017) is now in its seventh year of screening shorts, features, and documentaries with leading ladies. Held at Barnard College (3009 Broadway, New York, NY) and co-founded by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College and Women and Hollywood, the festival also features panels and workshop covering everything from the female gaze in cinema, to a crash course in camera work from B&H.

The centerpiece film of the festival is City of Joy, directed by Madeleine Gavin, a documentary on a community of women in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that also act as a shelter for victims of sexual violence. Long Way North, directed by Rémi Chayé, Ron Dyens, and Henri Magalon is a French-Danish animated film and tells the story of Sascha, a Russian teenager, who sets off on a voyage to find and recover the lost ship of her missing grandfather who disappeared on his way to the North Pole. Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds follows the strange lives of two members of “Hollywood Royalty” and their bond as mother and daughter. Closing the festival is Dolores, directed by Peter Bratt, a documentary on the life of feminist union organizer Dolores Huerta.

To learn more, go to: http://athenafilmfestival.com/

Athena Film Festival
February 9 - 12, 2017

Barnard College
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027