Long-Running German Film Festival KINO! Reboots This June in New York

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Published on Friday, 13 June 2014 14:33

Written by Brad Balfour

West

After 35 years of bringing the latest in German cinema to New York audiences at the Museum of Modern Art, KINO! reboots at two new locations this year: The Museum of The Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave, New York, NY 11106) and The Quad Cinema (34 W 13th St # B, New York, NY 10011). This long-running fest presents 10 films — four of them North American premieres — to screen daily at the Quad from June 13-19, 2014.

Programmed by an independent jury of New York industry pros — Denise Kassell, Ian Stimler and Karl Rozemeyer — and organized by Munich-based German Films Service + Marketing GmbH, the national information and advisory center for the promotion of German films worldwide. It was established in 1954 under the name Export-Union of German Cinema as the umbrella association for the Association of German Feature Film Producers, the Association of New German Feature Film Producers and the Association of German Film Exporters.

KINO! kicks off with the June 12 opening night gala screening of West by the critically acclaimed director Christian Schwochow at the Queens Museum of Moving Image. Director Christian Schwochow will be present at the screenings.

Having won the FIPRESCI award and the Best Actress award at the Montreal World Film Festival, West has been picked up for theatrical distribution by Main Street Films and will be released later this year.

KINO! introduces new elements to the fest such as a last minute surprise film and a theatrical run of Nan Goldin – I Remember Your Face, a documentary by Sabine Lidl about the New York photographer, which will have daily screenings in Manhattan’s Quad Cinema.

Other films at the festival include:

• Anywhere Else, by Ester Amrami
• A Pact, by Denis Dercourt
• Art War, by Marco Wilms (Director Marco Wilms will be present at the screenings.)
• Banklady, by Christian Alvart
• Finsterworld, by Frauke Finsterwald (Director Frauke Finsterwald and author Christian Kracht will be present at screenings. )
• Hanna’s Journey, by Julia von Heinz (Director Julia von Heinz will be present at the screenings.)
• Whispers Behind The Wall, by Grzegorz Muskala
• The Woman Who Dares, by Marc Rensing

For more information, go to: www.kinofestivalnyc.com , @kinofestivalnyc

KINO! Festival of German Films in New York
June 13 - 19, 2014

The Museum of The Moving Image
36-01 35th Ave
New York, NY 11106

The Quad Cinema
34 W 13th St # B
New York, NY 10011

Italian Cinema Exposed Again at 2014 Open Roads Fest

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

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Published on Monday, 02 June 2014 11:43

Written by Brad Balfour

Those Happy Years

Open Roads has served as the leading North American showcase of contemporary Italian cinema for the past 13 years. Organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center with Istituto Luce-Cinecittà-Filmitalia and in collaboration with New York’s Italian Cultural Institute — this diverse series takes place from June 6th - 12th, 2014. Screenings are scheduled at the Film Society's Walter Reade Theater (165 W. 65th Street).

This long running overview includes the latest work from established veterans (Gianni Amelio, Roberto Andò, Daniele Luchetti) and top award winners, as well as promising new talents from both the commercial and independent film world.

This year’s festival highlights the emergence of new works by Italian documentarians, and explores the trend towards rich and fascinating hybrids of documentaries and fiction, with more than a third of the films to be shown focused on the medium.

This year’s lineup explores the evolution of Italy’s political transformation spotlighted by the opening-night selection — Luchetti’s Those Happy Years. This charming, coming-of-age autobiographical tale tells of the director’s childhood as a budding filmmaker growing up in Rome during the 1970s — a particularly radical, transformative period in Italy. A revealing, sometimes humorous look at the period and its contradictions, this film highlights the past but looks at it with contemporary perspective.

Renowned TV host and political comedian Pierfrancesco Diliberto wrote, directed, and stars in The Mafia Only Kills in Summer, his feature debut. About a young boy and his obsession with the Mafia’s presence in his city, the film effectively blends and both an ironic and sentimental view of the past and Italy criminal class. The movie is alsostory of the boy’s obsession with a beautiful schoolmate who remains his love interest until adulthood. Set against a backdrop of some of Italy’s most tragic past criminal events, the film offers a striking look in the Italian mindset.

Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro GRA -- the first documentary to win the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival — explores Rome’s 43.5-mile highway Grande Raccordo Anulare that encircles the city by focusing on absorbing, moving individual portraits that emerge from the areas drivers pass through but never see, to reveal a different side of the bustling city’s inhabitants. Though an interesting experiment, this sort-of travelogue is more visually compelling than narratively coherent.

Other documentaries include Vincenzo Marra’s Naples-set The Administrator, which looks at a building administrator’s dealings with his larger-than-life tenants, providing a tough-minded yet affectionate portrait of an Italy mired in crisis. Gianni Amelio’s Happy to Be Different is a moving, enlightening work of oral history of gay life in Italy from the fall of Fascism through the early 1980s.

Alberto Fasulo’s docudrama debut Tir won the top prize at the Rome Film Festival and follows a former teacher from Bosnia who takes a job driving a tractor trailer (“tir”) through Europe. Combining professional actors and real truck drivers, Fasulo has created a striking film about what life is really like on the road—one that simulates a documentary.

Politics and social issues facing Italians also play a role in Gianni Amelio’s A Lonely Hero, starring comedian and actor Antonio Albanese, whose character learns to reinvent and adapt himself to any job as a professional substitute (train conductor, fishmonger, tailor, etc.), as a result of the country’s unstable unemployment crisis.

Roberto Andò’s Long Live Freedom is a scathing critique of Italian political dynamics and stars Toni Servillo as a seasoned politician navigating the decline of his party by fleeing to Paris and hiding out at the home of his ex-girlfriend.

Edoardo Winspeare’s Quiet Bliss follows three generations of women who seek refuge in their family’s olive grove after their small textile business collapses and their efforts to revive their lives in the wake of economic catastrophe and the recession.

Giovanni Veronesi’s The Fifth Wheel is a humorous tale that takes audiences on a journey of a half-century of pivotal political events through the eyes of actor and screenwriter Ernesto Fioretti.

During the initial weekend there will be in-person appearances of directors, actors and producers at many of the screenings.

For more information, go to: filmlinc.com/openroads.

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema
June 6th - 12th, 2014

Film Society of Lincoln Center

Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St.
(Btwn Broadway & Amsterdam Av.)
New York, NY 10023

Rainer Werner Fassbinder - The Romantic Anarchist Enjoys A Retrospective (Pt. 1)

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Published on Wednesday, 14 May 2014 13:49

Written by Jack Angstreich

From May 16th through June 1st, 2014, the Film Society of Lincoln Center will be running the first part of a major retrospective of the late great German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982), including all of his theatrical features as well as many of his television films, along with several films influenced by the director. The second half of the series will begin in November 2014. 

• Friday, May 16th
• Saturday, May 17th
• Monday, May 19th