Opening: July 1
Venue: Film Forum/New York City
Film: The Beaches of Agnès
Dir./Prod.: Agnès Varda
Distributor: Cinema Guild
http://www.cinemaguild.com/beachesofagnes/
A magnificent new film from Agnès Varda (2002 IDA Pioneer Award honoree), The Beaches of Agnès is a richly cinematic self-portrait, a reflection on art, life and the movies.
Opening: July 3
Venue: Starz Media Center/Denver
Film: An Unlikely Weapon
Dir.: Susan Morgan Cooper
Prods.: Susan Morgan Cooper
Distributor: Julesworks Releasing
http://www.anunlikelyweapon.com/
Eddie Adams photographed 13 wars, six American Presidents and every major film star of the last 50 years. History would be changed through his lens. But the photo that made Eddie famous would haunt him his entire life. In 1968, he photographed a Saigon police chief, General Nygoc Loan, shooting a Vietcong guerilla point blank. The photo brought Eddie fame and a Pulitzer Prize, but he was haunted by the man he had vilified. He would say, "Two lives were destroyed that day-the victim and the general." Others would say three lives were destroyed.
Opening: July 3
Venue: Museum of Modern Art/New York City
Film: Nollywood Babylon
Dirs.: Ben Addelman, Samir Mallal
Prods.: Ben Addelman, Samir Mallal, Adam Symansky
Distributor: Lorber HD Digital/Alive Mind
http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/nollywood-babylon/
Nollywood Babylon chronicles the wild world of "Nollywood," a term coined in the early ‘90s to describe the world's fastest-growing national cinema, surpassed only by its Indian counterpart. The film delves first-hand into Nigeria's explosive homegrown movie industry, where Jesus and voodoo vie for screen time. Among the bustling stalls of Lagos' Idumato market, films are sold, and budding stars are born. Creating stories that explore the growing battle between traditional mysticism and modern culture, good versus evil, witchcraft and Christianity, Nollywood auteurs have mastered a down-and-dirty, straight-to-video production formula that has become the industry standard in a country plagued by poverty. This burgeoning Nigerian film industry is tapping a national identity where proud Africans are telling their own stories to a public hungry to see their lives on screen. Peppered with outrageously juicy movie clips and buoyed by a rousing score fusing Afropop and traditional sounds, Nollywood Babylon celebrates the distinctive power of Nigerian cinema as it marvels in the magic of movies.
Opening: July 10
Film: Soul Power
Dir.: Jeffrey Levy-Hinte
Prods.: David Sonenberg, Leon Gast
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
http://www.sonyclassics.com/soulpower/
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In 1974, the most celebrated American R&B acts of the time came together with the most renowned musical groups in Africa for a 12-hour, three-night-long concert held in Kinshsha, Zaire. The dream-child of Hugh Masekela and Stewart Levine, the music festival became a reality when they convinced boxing promoter Don King to combine the event with "The Rumble in the Jungle," the epic fight between Muhammed Ali and George Foreman, previously chronicled in the Academy Award-winning documentary When We Were Kings.
Soul Power is a vérité documentary about this legendary music festival (dubbed Zaire '74), and it depicts the experiences and performances of such musical luminaries as James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz and others. At the peak of their talents and the heights of their careers, these artists were inspired by this return to their African roots, as well the enthusiasm of the Zairian audience, to give the performances of their lives. This concert has achieved mythological significance as the definitive African-American music event of the 20th century.
Opening: July 10
Film: Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Dir./Prod.: Aviva Kempner
Distributor: International Film Circuit
http://www.mollygoldbergfilm.org/
Before The Cosby Show, The Jeffersons, Good Times, or even I Love Lucy, there was The Goldbergs. Yet most likely you have never heard of this show. From 1929 until 1955 The Goldbergs was one of the most popular shows on radio and television. At the center of the show was Gertrude Berg, or as most of the country knew her Molly Goldberg. Each week Molly would come into our homes dispensing advice with exasperation love and wisdom while nurturing her family.
From the award-winning producer and director of The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg and producer of Partisans of Vilna, comes a new documentary on America's favorite radio and television personality. Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg is a 90-minute documentary on an American Jewish heroine who emerged during the most difficult years for American Jews.
Opening: July 17
Film: The Queen and I
Dir./Prod: Nahid Persson Sarvastani
Distributor: 7th Art Releasing
http://www.7thart.com/joomla/
When Nahid Persson Sarvestani, an Iranian exile, set out to make a documentary about Farrah, the wife of the Shah of Iran, she expected to encounter her opposite. As a child, Persson Sarvestani had lived in dire poverty, watching Farrah's wedding as if it were a fairy tale. As a teenager, she joined the Communist faction of Khomeini's revolution that deposed the Shah, sending him and his family volleying from country to country. When Khomeini betrayed his promise for democracy, imposing more violent measures than the Shah had, Persson Sarvestani was also forced to flee.
Thirty years later, she needs key questions answered and goes directly to the source. Surprisingly, Queen Farrah welcomes her as a fellow refugee from their beloved homeland, granting unprecedented access. Over the next year and a half, Persson Sarvestani enters the queen's world, planning to challenge the Shah's ideology; instead, she must rethink her own. When Persson Sarvestani's prior opposition to the Shah surfaces, the Queen shuts down filming. Yet, in the struggle to understand each other's experiences, an unlikely friendship has blossomed. Confronting Farrah about the Shah's repression has become not only a political conflict but a personal one, and Persson Sarvestani's objectivity is shaken. In this gripping, poignant consideration of subjectivity as truth, we learn that people write history. And can also heal it. The Queen and I couldn't be more relevant as we reach across our own political aisles.
Opening: July 17
Film: The Way We Get By
Dir.: Aron Gaudet
Prod.: Gita Pullapilly
Distributor: International Film Circuit
http://www.thewaywegetbymovie.com/
The SXSW Special Jury Award-winning The Way We Get By is a deeply moving film about life and how to live it. Beginning as a seemingly idiosyncratic story about troop greeters--a group of senior citizens who gather daily at a small airport to thank American soldiers departing and returning from Iraq--the film quickly turns into a moving, unsettling and compassionate story about aging, loneliness, war and mortality.
When its three subjects aren't at the airport, they wrestle with their own problems: failing health, depression, mounting debt. Joan, a grandmother of eight, has a deep connection to the soldiers she meets. The sanguine Jerry keeps his spirits up even as his personal problems mount. And the veteran Bill, who clearly has trouble taking care of himself, finds himself contemplating his own death. Seeking out the telling detail rather than offering sweeping generalizations, the film carefully builds stories of heartbreak and redemption, reminding us how our culture casts our elders, and too often our soldiers, aside. More important, regardless of your politics, The Way We Get By celebrates three unsung heroes who share their love with strangers who need and deserve it.
Opening: July 24
Film: The English Surgeon
Dir./Prod.: Geoffrey Smith
Distributor: IndiePix
http://www.theenglishsurgeon.com/
What is it like to have God-like surgical powers, yet to struggle against your own humanity? What is it like to try and save a life, and yet to fail? This film follows brain surgeon Henry Marsh as he openly confronts the dilemmas of the doctor-patient relationship on his latest mission to Ukraine.
Opening: July 31
Film: The Cove
Dir.: Louis Psihoyos
Prods.: Paula DuPre Presman, Fisher Stevens
Distributors: Lionsgate/Roadside Atrractions/Participant Media
http://thecovemovie.com/
The Cove begins in Taiji, Japan, where former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O'Barry who captured and trained the five dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation Flipper.
But his close relationship with those dolphins--the very dolphins who sparked a global fascination with trained sea mammals that continues to this day--led O'Barry to a radical change of heart. One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures so beautifully adapted to life in the open ocean must never be subjected to human captivity again. This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast.
But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and "Keep Out" signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling--and the consequences are so dangerous to human health--they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.
Undeterred, O'Barry joins forces with filmmaker Louis Psihoyos and the Oceanic Preservation Society to get to the truth of what's really going on in the cove and why it matters to everyone in the world. With the local Chief of Police hot on their trail and strong-arm fishermen keeping tabs on them, they will recruit an "Ocean's Eleven"-style team of underwater sound and camera experts, special effects artists, marine explorers, adrenaline junkies and world-class free divers who will carry out an undercover operation to photograph the off-limits cove, while playing a cloak-and-dagger game with those who would have them jailed. The result is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery that adds up to an urgent plea for hope
Opening: July 31
Venue: Beekman Theater/New York City
Film: Gotta Dance
Dir./Prod: Dori Berinstein
http://www.gottadancethemovie.com/
Who says you can't hip-hop if you're 80 years old? Who says your days as a performer are long gone? Who says you can't shake things up and light up a jam-packed sports arena with your hot moves and cool attitude?
Gotta Dance chronicles the debut of the New Jersey Nets' first-ever senior hip-hop dance team--12 women and one man, all dance-team newbies, from auditions through to center-court stardom. Despite swollen ankles, exhausting rehearsals, fashion clashes and seemingly impossible dance steps, the NETSational Seniors go for it, spreading joy, inspiration and cool dance moves as they hip-hop their way into the hearts of Nets fans and beyond.
Opening: July 31
Film: Not Quite Hollywood
Dir.: Mark Hartley
Distributor: Magnet Releasing
http://www.notquitehollywood.com.au/
The much mythologized Australian film renaissance of the 1970s has been well documented. It was an era that produced such seminal films as Sunday Too Far Away, Picnic At Hanging Rock and My Brilliant Career.
But do we know the whole story?
Not Quite Hollywood looks at a period when a lifetime of savage-censorship suddenly ended. Australian cinema broke the shackles of a staid, highly conservative society and started producing films dedicated to entertaining a mass audience.
An abundance of free-wheelin sex romps, blood-soaked terror tales and high-octane action extravaganzas were released and found enthusiastic audiences around the world.
Jam-packed with outrageous anecdotes, lessons in guerrilla-style filmmaking, a smattering of international names (including Ozploitation devotee Quentin Tarantino) and a genuine, infectious love of Australian cinema, Not Quite Hollywood is a pacy, entertaining, journey through a forgotten cinematic era unashamedly packed full of boobs, pubes, tubes and a little kung fu.