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The 21st Annual NYAFF Celebrates a Continent of Filmmaking Throughout May 2014

Details: Parent Category: Film Festivals; Category: Previews; Published on Wednesday, 07 May 2014 17:03; Written by Brad Balfour

The Film Society of Lincoln Center (FSLC) and African Film Festival Inc. (AFF) will present the 21th New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) May 7-13, 2014. Organized under the banner theme “Revolution and Liberation in the Digital Age,” the initial leg of the festival includes 11 features and eight short films from various African nations and the Diaspora.

The NYAFF continues throughout May, first heading to the Cinema at the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem May 15-18, and then, to the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcinématek.

As is the tradition, the NYAFF closes over Memorial Day Weekend May 23-26 at the BAMcinématek as part of the dance and music festival DanceAfrica.

Said AFF Executive Director/NYAFF founder Mahen Bonetti, “Today, the golden era of technology not only allows the African public to see films made about their own realities but also exhorts each generation of filmmakers to raise the bar with the stories they tell about the continent and its diaspora, resulting in a veritable digital revolution.”

Added FSLC Associate Program Director Marian Masone, “There are long and proud cinematic traditions in countries all over the African continent, and at the same time there are new voices and new means of expression. We are happy that the festival this year will be able to share the work of these artists, who are exploring both myth and modernity.

“While American cinema started from popular films and progressed to art house, film in Africa went in reverse, garnering international interest through the art house genre before moving to popular cinema. Consequently, most of the films about Africa during its ‘art house’ phase cornered African cinema into a genre in itself, one that was perhaps not easily accessible."

In celebration of the centenary of Nigeria’s unification, opening night will feature the Nollywood dark comedy Confusion Na Wa by Kenneth Gyang.

Winner of Best Picture at the 2013 African Movie Academy Awards, the film stars OC Ukeje and Gold Ikponmwosa as two grifters whose decision to blackmail a straying husband (played by Ramsey Nouah) sets in motion a chain of events that lead to a shocking conclusion. The screening will be preceded by the opening reception at 6 pm.

Before the May 16th theatrical release of the critically acclaimed film Half of a Yellow Sun NYAFF audiences will get a sneak peek. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by National Book Critics Circle Award–winning Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the film is directed by Biyi Bandele.

This Centerpiece selection stars Thandie Newton and Anika Noni Rose as glamorous twins navigating life, love and the turbulence of the Biafra civil war in 1960s Nigeria. The film also includes a powerful performance by recent Oscar-nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor. It screens with Colombite Tantalite, in its New York premiere, a short film directed by Ejiofor about a little known mineral mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that makes the western world go round — generating billions — while acting as a curse to the African nation.

Directly following the New York premiere of the film on Friday, May 9, the Centerpiece Gala will be held at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music’s Mary Flagler Cary Hall (450 West 37th St. between 9th and 10th Aves).

Regular festival prices apply for the movie, and tickets but tickets for the screening and benefit are $200 and available online at www.africanfilmny.org.

A crop of films take up this year’s theme of revolution and liberation.

In the documentary Mugabe: Villain or Hero?, director Roy Agyemang gets unprecedented access to the Zimbabwean leader and his entourage and lays bare the fight between African leaders and the West for African minerals and land.

Ibrahim El Batout’s narrative feature Winter of Discontent takes viewers inside Cairo's Tahrir Square protests that were so central to the Arab Spring.

Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine’s timely experimental short Kuhani features a conflicted priest, just as Uganda’s Anti-Homosexual Act is grabbing headlines.

As a part of this, women’s rights and issues are again in the spotlight. In her documentary Bastards, director Deborah Perkin follows a single mother, beaten and raped at 14 and discarded as she fights in Moroccan court to legitimize her sham marriage, thus ensuring a future for the daughter born out of her nightmare.

In Cameronian director Victor Viyouh’s drama Ninah’s Dowry, the title character flees an abusive marriage only to be pursued by her husband to retrieve either his property (her) or the dowry he paid.

The short Beleh, by Eka Christa Assam, turns gender roles on their head as a bullying husband gets a taste of his own medicine.

The wounded central characters in the narrative films Of Good Report by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka and Grigris by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun are allegorical to the societal shifts and legacy of post-independent Africa.

On the lighter side, the festival will also present comedies, including Confusion Na Wa and It’s Us (Ni Si Si), as well as the U.S. premiere of the short Soko Sonko (The Market King). The Tunisian short Wooden Hands, also a U.S. premiere, delights as a willful five year-old’s act of rebellion takes on a life of its own.

Additionally, writer Marguerite Abouet and illustrator Clément Oubrerie have brought their popular cartoon to life as directors of the animated feature Aya of Yop City, which follows the adventures of a 19-year-old and her girlfriends in Ivory Coast.

The Closing Night film on Tuesday, May 13, will be Sarraounia, Med Hondo’s sweeping epic based on historical accounts of Queen Sarraounia. Feared for her bravery and expertise in the occult arts, the fierce warrior leads the Azans of Niger into battle against French colonialists and enslavement at the turn of the century.

The historical drama took first prize at the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in 1987.

From May 8-13, the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery will host the exhibition Digital Africa, featuring the works of Congolese and American photographers. “Congolese Dreams” is a series of works by acclaimed photographer Baudouin Mouanda and a collective of artists, a companion to Philippe Cordey’s film of the same name, which screens during the festival.

It will be paired with Adama Delphine Fawundu’s stunning portraits capturing the residents of Tivoli Towers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn — home to more than 350 families, who are mostly of African descent — as well as portraits of young musician-activists from Nigeria and the U.S.

For more than two decades, AFF has bridged the divide between post-colonial Africa and the American public through the powerful medium of film and video. AFF's unique place in the international arts community is distinguished not only by leadership in festival management, but also by a comprehensive approach to the advocacy of African film and culture.

AFF established the New York African Film Festival in 1993 with Film Society of Lincoln Center. NYAFF is presented annually by the African Film Festival, Inc. and Film Society of Lincoln Center, in association with Brooklyn Academy of Music.

AFF also produces a series of local, national and international programs throughout the year. More information about AFF is found on the Web at www.africanfilmny.org.

All screenings take place in the Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam) and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam).

Tickets for the New York African Film Festival screenings are on sale at the Film Society’s box offices and online at www.FilmLinc.com.

Single screening tickets are $13; $9 for students and seniors (62+)
$8 for Film Society members
Discount packages start at $30; $24 for students and seniors (62+); and $21 for Film Society members.
Discount prices apply with the purchase of tickets to three films or more

For more details, visit African Film Festival online at www.africanfilmny.org

New York African Film Festival (NYAFF)
May 7-13, 2014

The Film Society of Lincoln Center

May 15-18
the Cinema at the Maysles Documentary Center
Harlem

Memorial Day Weekend May 23-26
BAMcinématek
Brooklyn Academy of Music

27th Columbia University Film Festival Takes Place May 2-8, 2014

Details: Parent Category: Film Festivals; Category: Previews; Published on Friday, 02 May 2014 21:06; Written by Brad Balfour

(Co-directors Chris Buck & Jen Lee at premiere)

Columbia University School of the Arts Film Program and the Film Society of Lincoln Center co-present the Columbia University Film Festival (CUFF) -- a week of screenings, dramatic readings and special events focused on students or graduates of Columbia's film school running from May 2-8, 2014.

The celebration continues in Los Angeles, June 17-20, 2014; events to be announced. This marks the third year that the Festival -- in its 27th edition -- is co-presented by the Film Society.

Columbia University’s School of the Arts Film Program is one of the most prestigious in the country and boasts a graduate list that includes

Jennifer Lee (Frozen, Wreck-It Ralph)
Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty)
Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said)
Kimberly Peirce (Carrie, Boys Don’t Cry)
Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia)
Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right)

Its esteemed faculty has included:

Milos Forman
Martin Scorsese
Emir Kusturica
Paul Schrader

Chair of the Columbia University School of the Arts Film Program, Ira Deutchman, stated, “Each year, the Festival is an opportunity to take a step back and marvel at the amazing body of work that has been created by our students. We are very pleased that the Film Society is co-presenting the festival with us again this year... There is no other film festival anywhere that showcases student work with such accomplishment, ambition and diversity.”

Frozen poster “Supporting emerging filmmakers is an important focus for the Film Society," said Film Society of Lincoln Center's Executive Director Lesli Klainberg. "We are delighted to welcome back the Columbia University Film Festival and their talented new student filmmakers.”

The Film Program at Columbia University School of the Arts offers students the opportunity to go to film school at one of the world’s great universities, with a faculty of working professionals esteemed in both Hollywood and the independent film community. New York City, creative capital of the United States, is its home, affording access to exceptional talent pools and locations, major research collections and the constant opportunity to see films from every country and era.

The Film MFA programs -- in Screenwriting/Directing and in Creative Producing -- are among the world’s premier training grounds for the next generation of filmmakers. Alumni of the school have won numerous awards, including top prizes at Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Berlin and the Academy Awards.

The MA Film Studies program and the undergraduate Film Studies major give students a unique opportunity to study film history and theory in the midst of an active filmmaking community. In addition to graduate degrees in Film, Columbia University School of the Arts awards MFA degrees in Theatre Arts, Visual Arts and Writing.

The School is a thriving, diverse community of artists from around the world, with a faculty composed of acclaimed and internationally renowned artists, film, and theatre directors; writers of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction; playwrights, producers, critics, and scholars.

Frozen director Jennifer Lee (’05) will receive this year’s Andrew Sarris Award, named for the late School of the Arts Film Program professor and world-renowned critic and theorist, which honors outstanding service by and artistic achievement of distinguished Film Program alumni.

Lee grew up in the 1970s and '80s in Rhode Island, surrounded by hairspray, Irocs, and heavy metal. Her love of storytelling and literature led her to the University of New Hampshire, where she earned a BA in English in 1992.

From there she moved to New York City and built a career in book publishing. Saturdays at Lincoln Center introduced her to the films of Agnès Varda, the Coen Brothers, and Atom Egoyan. Inspired, she made her first short film and fell in love with visual storytelling.

She entered Columbia University School of the Arts’ graduate Film Program in 2001. In 2002, she received the William Goldman Award for excellence in screenwriting and the Kathryn Parlan Hearst Scholarship honoring women screenwriters. Her script Hinged on Stars won top prize at the 2004 Columbia University Film Festival and launched her career. She graduated in 2005 with an MFA in Film, and in 2006 she got her first film option for her script The Way Between.

Her next film, The Roundup, was optioned by Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company, Appian Way. In 2010, she moved her family across the country to begin work on Wreck-It Ralph for Walt Disney Animation Studios with fellow Columbia graduate Phil Johnston (’04). The film went on to earn an Oscar® nomination for Best Animated Feature and won the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature Screenplay.

As she was finishing her work on Wreck-It Ralph, Jennifer was tapped to write the screenplay for Disney’s Frozen. She also directed the film with animation veteran Chris Buck. The film has earned over one billion dollars at the box office and won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award, and two Academy Awards® for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song. Lee currently lives in Los Angeles with her 10-year-old daughter, Agatha.

The annual Andrew Sarris Award winner is selected by current School of the Arts Film Program students.

Past recipients include

Adam Davidson (’91, The Lunch Date, Six Feet Under, Lost,Community)
Malia Scotch Marmo (’88, Rafina, Madeline, Hook, Once Around)
Greg Mottola (’91,Super Bad)
Albert Berger (’83, Little Miss Sunshine)
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (’95 and ’94, American Splendor)
Kathryn Bigelow (’81, The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty)
Lisa Cholodenko (’97, The Kids Are All Right)
Sabrina Dhawan (’02, Monsoon Wedding)
Simon Kinberg (’03, Sherlock Holmes)
Kimberly Peirce (’96, Carrie, Boys Don’t Cry)
James Mangold (’99, Wolverine, Walk the Line)
Nicole Holofcener (’88, Enough Said, Please Give).

Columbia Film faculty member Frank Pugliese (House of Cards) will lead a discussion on the new so-called “Golden Age of Television” and how aspiring artists can use their skills and talent to break into the world of TV.

Panelists will include accomplished Columbia alumni with a diverse range of experience working in television as writers, directors, and producers. The event, which is free to the public, will be held Tuesday, May 6, at 7pm at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and will also be streamed live.

The Festival is the annual premiere of over 40 thesis short films and feature screenplays by MFA students in the Columbia University School of the Arts Film Program. Like Adam Davidson’s film, many of the films premiered over the past 25 years have gone on to win top awards and honors at prestigious festivals worldwide.

Columbia University Film Festival
May 2-8, 2014

MoMA's "Iberoamerican Images - The State of The Art" This May 1-14

Details: Parent Category: Film Festivals; Category: Previews; Published on Monday, 28 April 2014 10:54; Written by Brad Balfour

Still from Mute.

For over 15 years, Ibermedia has been essential in the ascent of Latin American, Spanish, and Portuguese filmmaking. The intergovernmental agency began with seven member countries; today films from over 20 member countries appear on festival schedules and in cinemas the world over.

Ibermedia facilitates and finances co-productions of documentaries and fiction films between its Spanish- and Portuguese-language member countries, and grants money for international distribution and promotion. Professional film organizations from each country sponsoring a proposal select the projects to be helped by the Ibermedia umbrella, thus ensuring each project’s autonomy. Ibermedia has supported over 600 films and provided training for filmmaking professionals

No film MoMA’s fourth biannual Ibermedia -The State of The Art program offers a number of films that have U.S. distribution and/or a healthy festival run behind them. The museum will present a treasure trove of offerings from filmmakers who seldom get to show their work in the U.S.

Perhaps her most accomplished feature yet, Mercedes Moncada Rodríques' stunning, heartbreaking Magic Words (Breaking a Spell) opens the festival with a weeklong run.

Films by promising new talents from Uruguay, Cuba, and Colombia appear alongside work by seasoned filmmakers like Brazil’s Lúcia Murat, capturing a stirring picture of the state of the medium today, in all its variety and splendor.

Several filmmakers will be present to introduce their films, and on May 3, a special screening and round-table discussion takes place at New York University’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center in conjunction withthe exhibition. All films are in Spanish with English subtitles, unless otherwise noted.

The series is organized by Film Department Curator Jytte Jensen with curatorial intern Jesse Cumming. Prints courtesy the filmmakers and Films Boutique, Film Movement, Habanero Films, Memento Films, Sony Pictures Classics, Talga Films, and Urban Distribution International.

Screening Schedule

Thursday, May 1

7:00p

Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell])
2012 Mexico/Guatemala 82 min]
Written and directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez

In the vein of Chris Marker’s finest essay films, Mercedes Moncada’s Magic Words is both sweeping and deeply personal, exploring 40 years of Nicaraguan history with a voice that is equally erudite, poetic, and indignant. Tracing the fraught Sandinista revolution throughout the 1980s and its aftermath, Moncada examines the impact of grand ideologies, politics, and lingering memories on communities and individuals, in many ways still left raw and reeling. To echo a quote from Marker’s Sans Soleil, Moncada seems to demand: “Who says that time heals all wounds?” Introduced by Moncada.

Friday, May 2

4:00

El Mudo (The Mute)
2013 Peru/Mexico 90 min.
Written and directed by Daniel Vega Vidal, Diego Vega Vidal
With Fernando Bacilio, Lidia Rodríguez, Juan Luis Maldonado

Judge Constantino Zegarra has earned his name as an incorruptible stalwart with an impressive conviction rate. Impervious to sob stories and appeals, he has also earned many enemies, any one of whom could be behind a conspiracy that leaves him demoted and—after a bullet strikes him in the neck—mute. Smart and shrewd (a kind of black comedy version of Michael Haneke’s Caché), The Mute is an exciting and exceedingly fresh take on the political thriller.

7:00

Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell])

Saturday, May 3

1:30

Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell])

4:00

Yvy Maraey: Tierra sin mal (Yvy Maraey: Land without Evil)

2013 Bolivia/Mexico 107 min.

Written and directed by Juan Carlos Valdivia

Based on a story by Valdivia, Elio Ortíz.

With Valdivia, Ortíz

A well-off metropolitan filmmaker hoping to retrace the trail of an early Swedish documentarian travels to the Bolivian highlands in search of savages. Once there, however, he finds his privileged cultural position met with ire more often than awe. Including allusions to documentary classics like Nanook of the North, Valdivia’s film moves beyond the plot itself to probe larger questions of memory, the politics of representation, and the power of cinema, all with sophistication and grace. Valdivia will be present.

NYU King Juan Carlos I Center

53 Washington Square South.

Sunday, May 4

2:00

Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell])

5:00

Yvy Maraey: Tierra sin mal (Yvy Maraey: Land without Evil)

Writer/director Juan Carlos Valdivia will be present.

Monday, May 5

4:00

Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell])

Tuesday, May 6

4:00

2012 Chile/Mexico 118 min.

Directed by Pablo Larraín

Screenplay by Pedro Peirano, based on the play by Antonio Skármeta.

With Gael García Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers

Set during the 1988 Chilean referendum challenging the rule of President Augusto Pinochet, the fast-moving, entertaining (and Oscar-nominated) No concludes Pablo Larraín’s unofficial trilogy of films detailing life under the former dictator. Gael García Bernal plays René, a bright young ad man enlisted to boost the “No” campaign. To recreate the feel of the era (and seamlessly integrate actual ads and television reports), Larraín shot the film on U-matic magnetic tape.

7:00

Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell])

Wednesday, May 7

4:00

Palabras mágicas (Para romper un entendimiento) (Magic Words [Breaking a Spell])

7:00

A Memória que me contam (Memories They Told Me)

2013 Brazil/Chile 95 min.

Directed by Lúcia Murat

Screenplay by Murat, Tatiana Salem Levy

With Franco Nero, Irene Ravache, Simone Spoladore.

Though the film is set in present-day Brazil, the past hangs palpably over Memories They Told Me. With their friend and former comrade Ana on her deathbed, a group of aging revolutionaries are reunited and forced to grapple with their former accomplishments, failures, and lingering resentments. Wary of self-aggrandizing nostalgia or romanticism, Murat offers an honest, complicated look at youthful idealism and the often uneasy overlap between the personal and the political. In Portuguese; English subtitles.

Thursday, May 8

4:00

La Jaula de oro (The Golden Dream)

2013. Mexico/Spain 102 min.

Directed by Diego Quemada-Diez

Screenplay by Quemada-Diez, Lucia Carreras, Gibrán Portela

With Brandon López, Rodolfo Domínguez, Karen Martínez

One of the most promising debut features in years and winner of the Un Certain Regard award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, The Golden Dream is an assured and impressive addition to a time-honored cinematic tradition of tracing the arduous journey from Central America to “el norte.” Drawn from hundreds of real-life interviews the director conducted with past immigrants, the film balances a vital and unflinching urgency with moments of tranquil lyricism.

7:00

El Mudo (The Mute)

Friday, May 9

4:00

La Demora (The Delay)

2012. Uruguay/Mexico 84 min.

Directed by Rodrigo Plá

Screenplay by Laura Santullo

With Roxana Blanco, Néstor Guzzini, Carlos Vallarino

Forced to care for her increasingly dependent father and three children between shifts at the local textile factory, María feels the world closing in. Unable to afford professional care or secure help, she makes a rash and desperate decision as a means of escape. With an impeccable sense of detail in every shot—whether emphasizing wide-angle symmetry or tight, claustrophobic framing—The Delay is a testament to cinematic restraint and efficiency, eschewing fanfare for a lean and assured austerity. 35mm print.

7:00

No. 2012. Chile/Mexico. Directed by Pablo Larraín. Screenplay by Pedro Peirano, based on the play by Antonio Skármeta. With Gael García Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers.

Saturday, May 10

4:00

Yvy Maraey: Tierra sin mal (Yvy Maraey: Land without Evil).

7:30

La Sirga (The Towrope)

2012. Colombia/Mexico 88 min.

Written and directed by William Vega

With Floralba Achicanoy, Joghis Seudin Arias.

As the distraught Alicia arrives at her uncle’s cabin in the Colombian Andes, having escaped a war that left her home village decimated, she attempts to rebuild her life while grappling with lingering fears. With emphasis on sound and visual poetics over dialogue—recalling the hazy, languid worlds of 1970s Andrei Tarkovsky—Vega evocatively details the anxiety of negotiating an unfamiliar environment, even one where beautiful scenery still hints at a hidden menace.

Sunday, May 11

2:00

Melaza (Molasses)

2012. Cuba/Panama 80 min.

Written and directed by Carlos Lechuga

With Yuliet Cruz, Armando Miguel Gómez, Luis Antonio Gotti

With the closure of their town’s sugar mill, a young couple, Aldo and Monica, are pushed to the point of desperation as they struggle to preserve their personal passions and principles. While these are potentially the makings of an overwrought drama, director Carlos Lechuga deftly defies the film’s title and delivers a work this is neither sickly sweet nor exceedingly dark. With acutely drawn characters, a subtle wit, and an understated style that never sacrifices humanism for the cerebral, Molasses heralds the arrival of a distinct new voice in world cinema.