june/july/august 2002 Documentary Views

Join us for two very special outdoor screenings at the OREGONIAN A&E's Front Porch Stage at this year's Waterfront Blues Festival. Admission to the Festival is free, but a $3 donation and cans of food to donate to The Oregon Food Bank are much appreciated.
SPECIAL THANKS TO IN FOCUS SYSTEMS.

JULY 5 FRI 10 P.M.
WATERFRONT PARK - REEL BLUES
MUDDY WATERS: CAN’T BE SATISFIED
US 2002
DIRECTOR: MORGAN NEVILLE, ROBERT GORDON Tonight we welcome Los Angeles filmmaker Morgan Neville, who has treated past Reel Music audiences to such fabulous films as SAM PHILLIPS: THE MAN WHO INVENTED ROCK AND ROLL and WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEIBER & STOLLER. Following Ike Turner’s live performance at the Blues Festival, Neville will be on hand to present a special screening of he and Robert Gordon’s new film on the inventor of electric blues, the great Muddy Waters. Fabulous performance footage, rare interviews and the commentary of many of the greats Waters worked with and influenced combine to tell the rich story of this towering Chicago blues legend. Look for Gordon’s companion book of the same title, the definitive biography on Water’s, on sale at the Festival and in bookstores. At the Waterfront Park, north side of the Hawthorne Bridge.
Morgan Neville will introduce the film.JULY 6 SAT 10 P.M.
WATERFRONT PARK - REEL BLUES

I WENT TO THE BALL
US 1989
DIRECTOR: LES BLANK, CHRIS STRACHWITZ The intertwined histories of Lousiana‚ French Cajun music and its Afro-American cousin Zydeco are jointly celebrated in this joyous celebration. Archival footage, vintage photographs, interviews and irresistible performances from such greats as Queen Ida, Clifton Chenier, D.L. Menard, Marc and Anne Savoy, Michael Doucet, Beausoleil, Rockin Sidney, Bois Sec Ardoin, Canray Fontentot and a multitude others provide an arresting cultural portrait, not to mention a great musical time. (84 mins.)

JULY 12 13 14 FRI 7 & 9:15 P.M., SAT 7 & 9 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE – VISITING ARTISTS
BURNING MAN:
THE BURNING SENSATION
US 2000
DIRECTOR: ALEX NOHE Whether you’re planning on attending this August’s Burning Man Festival in the Black Rock Nevada desert, just want the vicarious thrill, or already count yourself among the participants, Alex Nohe’s portrait will give you a fascinating inside glimpse of this ultimate countercultural happening. Perhaps the world’s largest public art event, Burning Man’s experiment in temporary community has captured the imagination of people from throughout the world, 25,000 of whom gather every year for a week of planned chaos, liberated artistic expression and ecstatic living. The celebration concludes with the spectacular burning of the Man, a fifty-foot tall structure that serves as an effigy, a symbol of both catharsis and celebration since the event began in the mid-1980’s as an impromptu, neo-pagan Summer Solstice ritual. Here, “baby, light my fire” is taken quite literally. (75 mins.) Alex Nohe will introduce his film.JULY 18 19 21 THU 7 P.M., FRI 7 P.M., SUN 4:30 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM - VISITING ARTISTS
A DREAM IN HANOI
US 2002
DIRECTOR: TOM WEIDLINGER In the fall of 2000, Portland’s Artist Repertory Theater embarked on an historic collaboration with the renowned Central Democratic Theater Company in Hanoi, Vietnam to stage the first performance in that country of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Traveling with ART’s staff and company members to Hanoi, Weidlinger wonderfully captures the weeks of behind-the-scenes struggles with language, culture and ideology—never mind artistic egos—to reveal the myriad rifts and frustrations that threatened to scuttle the production. As this clash of cultures and wills often humorously plays out, a shared dream emerges from the chaos and we witness not only the creation of a unique bi-lingual, bi-cultural production, but leaps in personal growth and understanding from everyone Oriental and Occidental. Here, the play may have been the thing, but so too are the players. (101 mins.)
DIRECTOR TOM WEIDLINGER, ART DIRECTOR ALAN NAUSE AND COMPANY MEMBERS WILL BE ON HAND FOR THE THURSDAY SCREENING.

JULY 21 SUN 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
KUROSAWA
BRITAIN 2001
DIRECTOR: ADAM LOW One of the world’s greatest and most influential filmmakers, Akira Kurosawa (1910 -1998) brought to the world unparalleled cinematic vision and artistic achievement. In the first major documentary made since his death, Kurosawa’s family members and colleagues are joined by Japanese and American critics and film stars in illuminating the mind and technique that brought such legendary films as RASHOMON, SEVEN SAMURAI and RAN to glorious life. (115 mins.)

JULY 25 THU 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
VINYL
CANADA 2000
DIRECTOR: ALAN ZWEIG Why collect stacks of records when you don’t have time to hear them? Because you must. Experiencing conflicting emotions over his vinyl habit, filmmaker Alan Zweig, in a Woody Allen/ Andy Rooney-esque fashion, sets out to interview other disturbed packrats, touring dingy, record-packed apartments, hoping to find answers. Featuring a cast of dozens of junkies, VINYL takes up where HIGH FIDELITY leaves off as it plumbs the psyches of collectors whose obsessions range from the desire to literally collect every single record ever made, to more modest goals like "boxed sets only" or memorizing the play list of every K-TEL album. While penetrating the compulsions of possessed discophiles, Zweig’s journey turns into a comic, first-person exploration of guilt, obsession and vinyl madness. "Very funny - this film will most please fans of Terry Zwigoff’s CRUMB and Ross McElwee’s SHERMAN’S MARCH." — EYE MAGAZINE. (110 mins.)

JULY 25 27 28 THU 7 P.M., SAT 7 P.M, SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
NIJINSKI: THE DIARIES OF VASLAV NIJINSKI
AUSTRALIA 2001
DIRECTOR: PAUL COX Vaslav Nijinski (1889-1950), known as the “God of the Dance,” was one of the most celebrated dancer-choreographers of the 2Oth century and a pivotal figure in modern ballet, if not modernism. As he did in his extraordinary VINCENT—THE LIFE AND DEATH OF VINCENT VAN GOGH, Cox has taken diaries, in this case Nijinski’s writings in 1919 when he had fled Russia to Switzerland in an attempt to escape his overbearing mentor Daighilev, to fashion a portrait of an artistic genius. Even though in the grip of madness (he spent the last 30 years of his life in an asylum) at this point in his life, Nijinski’s writings present a lucid portrait of his deep feelings and artistic passion. Utilizing existing images from the ballet Russes, recreated ballets and moments from his Nijinsk’s storied life along with the text, Cox has again created an intriguing portrait of a seminal artist. Narrated by Derek Jacobi with performances by dancers from the Australian Ballet and Leigh Warren Dancers. “Haunting and extraordinary.”—Rogert Ebert, CHICAGO SUN TIMES. (100 mins.)

JULY 26 27 FRI 7 & 9:15 P.M., SAT 7 & 9:15 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM – VISITING ARTISTS
SPELLBOUND
US 2002
DIRECTOR: JEFF BLITZ "Each year more than nine million junior high school students compete at the local and regional levels for 249 slots in the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. In this nationally televised competition, white-knuckled parents and their "logorhea" and "hypsometer" in hopes of claiming the title of America's most gifted young speller. In SPELLBOUND, filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz tracks eight students through the yearlong selection process, unveils a motley crew of young contenders, their parents, teachers and coaches. Plucked from an American melting pot in which competition, knowledge and victory intermingle, Blitz reveals a slew of real life Lisa Simpsons with a voracious capacity for rote learning threatening to compromise the notion of an idyllic youth. Engrossing, suspenseful and only slightly unsettling, SPELLBOUND limns a young America of overachievers who are innocent yet freakishly beyond their years." -TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

"Through the sympathetically told stories of these ordinary kids from diverse backgrounds, the film offers a unique window into the soul of America. What it finds there is made up of equal parts yearning for success and a desperate fear of failure. A tour-de-force of editing, SPELLBOUND so effectively conveys the mood of nail biting suspense surrounding the competition that, by the time the film ends, the viewer's nerves are nearly as frayed as the contestants."– FLORIDA FILM FESTIVAL (95 mins.)

Winner, Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature, South by Southwest, 2002 Winner, Audience Award, San Francisco Indie Docfest, 2002
Director Jeff Blitz and Producer Sean Welch will be on hand for the screenings.