june/july/august 2002 Special Screenings

MAY 31-JUNE 6 FRI – THUR, 7 & 9:15 P.M.;
SAT, SUN 3, 5, 7 &9 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
piff highlight/visiting artist
THE BUSINESS OF FANCY DANCING
US 2002
DIRECTOR: SHERMAN ALEXIE “Seymour Polatkin lives a dream life sharing his colonized Indian ironies with the world through poetry. He’s a rich, famous, gay and Native American-facets that make a diamond sparkle, unless you haven’t been home in almost 10 years. Renowned author and poet Sherman Alexie (SMOKE SIGNALS) taps into the Indian psyche in his directorial debut. This rich and textured narrative from the Northwest is a story of conflict about what it means to be an Indian in a modern world. Does it lie in maintaining the status quo of imposed structures that have become tradition, or in breaking free of the predetermined despair that has become the marker of indigenous identity in America? A wonderful cast led by Evan Adam and Michelle St. John takes the viewer from different places in history to a home some have loved, others have hated, and where many have never been.”—John Cooper, Sundance Film Festival. “I’m trying to think about, and edit, the film as a poem. It’s about really smart Indians falling apart in really stupid ways.”—Sherman Alexie. (86 mins.)
sherman alexie will introduce the film may 31

JUNE 7 8 FRI 7:30 P.M., sat. 7:30
GUILD THEATRE - visiting artists
BEST OF THE NORTHWEST
This year’s Best of the Northwest Film and Video Festival is packed, gassed up, and ready for its road-trip touring venues across the Northwest and beyond, showcasing 12 stellar shorts from the Festival. Highlights include the hilarious "Autographhss.com,” Chel White’s"Passage" which paints dreamy underwater portraits in spectacular hues. and our Judge's choice for "Best of the Fest,” "Populi,” a thrill-ride of exquisite mind-boggling images, and our bonus selection: "Richart,” the charming story of an obsessive and eccentric artist in Centralia, Washington.

JUNE 14 15
FRI 7:30 P.M, SAT 7:30 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
THE 40th ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL TOUR
The Film Center is pleased to present the best of the 40th ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL, one of the oldest and most respected festivals celebrating American independent film. From animation to the avant-garde, this showcase features new works by established artists and emerging filmmakers alike, providing a unique annual snapshot of the state of independent filmmaking. This year’s program of winners will be announced in early April and will be posted on the Festival’s and Film Center’s Web sites: www.aafilmfest.org and nwfilm.org

JUNE 21 22 23 FRI 7 & 9 P.M, SAT 7 & 9 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
TIME OF FAVOR
ISRAEL 2001
DIRECTOR: JOSEPH CEDAR Winner of six Israeli Academy Awards and this year’s Israel submission for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, TIME OF FAVOR is a taut thriller about love, terrorism and the political tensions within Israel. Rabbi Meltzer, the instructor at a yeshiva in the remote hills of Israel, has created a militia from his handful of students with the help of Menachem, a respected Orthodox army officer. When Michal, the rabbi’s daughter, is drawn to Menachem instead of Pini, the man her father has chosen for her, it sets off a chain of events leading to a daring plot to resume control of the Arab holy sites on the Temple Mount in the center of Jerusalem. “Melding psychological drama, love triangle, and suspense action…TIME OF FAVOR is a thought provoking exploration of the blurred line where religious devotion, political commitment and personal will collide.”
—NEW YORK TIMES. (98 minutes.)

June 27 THU 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
DECASIA
US 2002
DIRECTOR: BILL MORRISON “An irreverent elegy to Walt Disney's FANTASIA, Bill Morrison's extraordinarily mesmerizing film is a stunningly beautiful, dystopian ode to creation and decay. Set to an original symphonic score written by Bang On A Can co-founder Michael Gordon, DECASIA is a rigorous and recursive work that embodies the creative beauty of man's inevitably doomed struggle to transcend his own mortality. Contorting the form of traditional narrative structure beyond recognition, it takes place in three simultaneous acts. First, there is the photographic content of tapestry of found footage which shows creation, achievement, and man trying to master the elements to reach a higher spiritual plane. Second, there is the enthralling dance and play in patterns of decaying celluloid--bubbling strings of gaping holes, waves of warped smears, and showers of flecked ruination. Finally, there is how the primordial froth of disintegration mutates image fidelity to create new scenarios. Morrison has crafted a penetrating reminder of the fragile nature of physicality even as he celebrates the act of creation. To give oneself over to the cacophonous rules and rhythms of DECASIA is to witness the ironic beauty of death.” —SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL (67 mins.)
WITH
THE FILM OF HER
US 1996
DIRECTOR: BILL MORRISON Based on the story of a Library of Congress clerk who saved a vaultful of paper reels documenting the earliest days of cinema from the incinerator, Morrison’s film is a gorgeous tribute to the art form's origins. Drawing comparisons between the primordial ooze and the elemental flicker of a light projector, or between Lumière babies, magic á la Méliès, and the gears of industry, Morrison reminds us that even the most brilliant and brave creations begin as cherished ideas nurtured in imaginations and subjected to the whims of chance." — L.A.WEEKLY. Music by Bill Frisell and Henryk Gorecki. (12 mins.)
WITH
THE GROOVENIANS - VISITING ARTIST
US 2002
DIRECTOR: KENNY SCHARFF Tonight we welcome Los Angeles artist Kenny Scharff for the premiere of his computer animated, space age soap opera made for The Cartoon Network. It tells the fantastic and satirical story of a teenage boy’s
(Paul Reubens) escape from the boring planet Jeepers to Groovenia an exciting (and tax-free!) neverland for bohemians seeking to cultivate "love, life and art". Featuring an original theme song by the B-52's, RuPaul as a boisterious flight attendant named Champagne Courvoiser and a musical number sung by Dennis Hopper. What more can you ask for? (22 mins.)
Kenny Scharff will also be in Portland for the dedication of Jamison Square on Saturday (1-3 p.m), where his three ”Tikitotemoniki” sculptures tower over the new Park. Co-sponsored by the Pearl Arts Foundation.

JULY 10 WED 7 P.M. GUILD THEATRE
SILVER SCREEN CLUB MEMBERS PREMIERE
SUNSHINE STATE
US 2002
DIRECTOR: JOHN SAYLES Unfolding during a week-long Buckaneer Days Festival (a new "tradition" created by the Chamber of Commerce), John Sayles’ new comic drama SUNSHINE STATE is set in Plantation Island, Florida, a place where local real estate development is changing a modest beachside community (formerly a segregated all-black enclave) into an upscale resort town. The locals are divided on whether to cash in or stand their ground. Angela Bassett and Edie Falco play two hometown girls who return home after failed dreams, each finding they must wrestle with the overwhelming weight of family history and expectations. Meanwhile, the developers are closing in. Plantation Island, like it's residents, is in transition. (141 mins.)
Print courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. SUNSHINE STATE will open at the Fox Tower in July. Admission is limited to Silver Screen Members and their guests.

JULY 11 THU 7 P.M. THE GUILD THEATRE
NORTHWEST TRACKING:
A THING OF WONDER (world premiere!)
PORTLAND 2002
DIRECTORS: ROB TYLER, ADRIENNE LEVERETTE, ERIC SHOPMEYER 84 year old magician, inventor and poet, Jerry Andrus, has an insatiable appetite for uncovering the mysteries of life on the boundary between reason and illusion. Wandering through his Albany, Oregon, "Castle of Chaos," Andrus demonstrates his incredible inventions (such as the Tri-Zonal Space warper), and waxes philosophic on the subjects of reason, perception, God and what he calls the "curse of contentment." This documentary is a tribute to a man devoted equally to the science and magic of wonder. (43 mins)
WITH
DROWNINGBOY
PORTLAND 2002
DIRECTOR: ZAK MARGOLIS An animated synopsis of the filmmaker's illustrated journal interwoven with work drawn from a comic strip (about an aquaphobic boy ) that Margolis wrote simultaneously. DROWNINGBOY explores Margolis' struggles with his father's illness as well as the traditional postgraduate issues of career, money, and love. (12 mins) The Filmmaker was awarded the oregon arts council media arts fellowship 2001.
WITH
GRIDLOCKER'S PARADOX
PORTLAND 2002
DIRECTOR: SCOTT RAY BECKER The "tyranny of stuff" and the sometimes burning need to create art when the fire is unexpectedly put out smolders throughout this documentary from Portland filmmaker, Scott Ray Becker. There was no bigger fan of Stuart Buehler's art than Gallery owner, William Jamison- co-owner of the landmark Jamison Thomas Gallery in Portland and when Jamison died, overwhelming truckloads of his own artwork were returned to Buehler causing a "gridlock" in what had been an extremely prolific output. (20 mins)

JULY 13 SAT 2 PM GUILD THEATRE
26TH ANNUAL YOUNG PEOPLE’S
FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL
U.S. 2000-2002
Join us for this year’s Winner’s Program of film and video work created by youth grades K-12 living in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah & Washington. Many of the young producers will be present in this free public program of shorts, animations, dramas and documentaries recognized for their originality, artistic merit, technical achievement or conviction in investigation of subject matter. The program also includes presentation of the annual Service to Young Filmmakers Award and recognition of this year’s winners of the Northwest High School Screen Writing Competition. (120 mins.)
FREE ADMISSION

JULY 15 MON 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
SILVER SCEEN CLUB MEMBERS PREMIERE
THE FAST RUNNER
(ATANARJUAT)
CANADA 2001
DIRECTOR: ZACHARIAS KUNUK “Zacharias Kunuk's powerful and universal story is based on an ancient Inuit legend set in the Arctic at the dawn of the first millennium. Shot in the breathtaking northern region of Canada, the film features an all-Inuit cast of professional and non-professional actors. Evil in the form of an unknown shaman divides the small community of nomadic Inuit, upsetting its balance and spirit. Twenty years later two brothers emerge to challenge the evil order. The small group is pitted one against the other until finally the cycle of vengeance is broken and balance is restored. This first feature in the Inuktitut language is a thrilling visualization of an ancient oral tale in which land, sea and sky all seem to meet, illuminated by the ever-shifting Arctic light.”—New Directors, New Films. Winner of the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. (172 mins.)
Print courtesy of LOT 47 Films. THE FAST RUNNER will open at the Fox Tower July 19. Admission limited to Silver Screen members and their guests.

AUG 9 10 FRI 7:30 P.M., SAT 7 & 8:45 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE – VISITING ARTIST
MUTANT ALIENS
US 2001
DIRECTOR: BILL PLYMPTON.
We welcome former Portland animator Bill Plympton here for the premiere of his new feature length animated film, a work for which even those familiar with his past exploits will be only partially prepared for. In this outrageous 1950’s sci-fi spoof, Dr. Frubar, an evil scientist connives to conquer the world with advertising by launching a TV the size of Oregon into space. Out to stop him are the daughter of an astronaut ”accidentally” lost in the heavens by Frubar’s machinations, and five bizarre aliens who seek justice for being used as space lab experiments. A cartoon carnival of the outlandish and grotesque, MUTANT ALIENS is calculated to delight or offend with equal intensity. “Plympton creates a viable cinematic world in which sex and violence are just two of the forces that spur the good characters into orgasmic victory over evil. A triumph of unbridled imagination, the film is a welcome entry in the canon of animated films for grownups.”
—SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
(83 mins.)
Bill Plympton will introduce and discuss the film Friday evening. Plympton will also offer a workshop Saturday afternoon, 1-4 p.m. See School of Film course offerings, page 9.

AUG 20 TUE 7:30 P.M.
GUILD THEATER
PREVIEW SCREENING
THE LAST KISS
ITALY 2001
DIRECTOR: GABRIELE MUCCINO
Winner of the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and a huge hit in Italy, Gabriele Muccino’s third film weaves together a panorama of emotional entanglements and humorous romantic escapades to create a perceptive and telling look at contemporary love and sex. Giulia’s overjoyed that she’s pregnant, but her long-time partner Carlo wonders whether the impending commitment of marriage doesn’t demand one final fling before he must accept his fate. Temptation comes in the form of a beautiful 18-year-old, who seems unfazed by the attention of a 30-year old man terrified of adulthood. Meanwhile, Anna, Giulia’s mother, is having a tough time with the thought that "grandmotherhood" is upon her. Muccino reveals an original eye in his depiction of different generations and their very contradictory ideas about sex and commitment. Starring Stefano Accorsi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Stefania Sandrelli. (112 mins.) Tonight’s screening is presented with Festa Italia, a week of celebration of all things Italian, at Pioneer Square August 17-23. Print Courtesy of Think Film.