march/april/may 2002 Oscar Shorts and Documentaries

Chances are, your wild guess as to which films would win Oscars in the Short Wild Action, Aninmated and Documentary catagories was wrong! Now that you know who the winners are, here’s your opportunity to also see who you voted for, see where the bar is set, and discover some wonderful films. Sponsored by HBO.

APRIL 5 6 7
FRI 7:30 P.M., SAT 7 & 9 P.M., SUN 7 P.M
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
OSCAR NOMINATED SHORTS
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM NOMINEES

THE ACCOUNTANT US 2001
DIRECTORS: RAY MCKINNON, LISA BLOUNT Two brothers whose farm is on the brink of bankruptcy consult an accountant who has some highly unconventional moneymaking suggestions. (38 mins.)

COPY SHOP AUSTRIA 2001
DIRECTOR: VIRGIL WIDRICH A man working in a copy shop photocopies his hand one day with Kafkaesque results.
(12 mins.)
GREGOR’S GREATEST INVENTION GERMANY 2001
DIRECTOR: JOHANNES KIEFER Gregor’s grandmother faces life in an old folks’ home unless he can come up with an invention to compensate for her weakening legs.
(11 mins.)

A MAN THING POLAND 2001
DIRECTOR: SLAWOMIR FABICKI A 13-year-old Polish boy, whose closest emotional bond is with a stray dog, attempts to hide the fact that his father beats him. (26 mins.)

SPEED FOR THESPIANS US 2001
DIRECTORS: KALMAN APPLE, SHAMEELA BAKHSH Actors board a New York City bus and begin performing Chekhov’s “The Bear,” interacting with the surprised passengers.
(29 mins.)

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM NOMINEES

FIFTY PERCENT GREY IRELAND 2001
DIRECTORS: RUAIRI ROBINSON, SEAMUS BYRNE Sergeant wakes up alone, with only a big-screen TV for company, in a setting designed to offer him eternal peace and tranquility. (3 mins.)

FOR THE BIRDS US 2001
DIRECTOR: RALPH A flock of small birds perched on a wire finds its delicate balance upset by the arrival of a larger bird. (3 mins.)
GIVE UP YER AUL SINS IRELAND 2001
DIRECTOR: CATHAL GAFFNEY, DARRAGH O’CONNELL A television crew visits a Dublin classroom and records a little girl’s version of the story of John the Baptist. (5 mins.)

STRANGE INVADERS CANADA 2001
DIRECTOR: CORDELL BARKER Roger and Doris are a childless couple who get more than they bargained for when a strange child appears at their door one day. This is the second Academy Award nomination for Cordell Barker. He was previously nominated for The Cat Came Back (1998). (9 mins.)

STUBBLE TROUBLE US 2001
DIRECTOR: JOSEPH E. MEREDITH Og longs for love, but his rapidly growing beard thwarts him in his search.
(4 mins.)
APRIL 11 13 THU 7 P.M., SAT 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE

OSCAR SHORT DOCUMENTARY NOMINEES

ARTISTS AND ORPHANS:
A TRUE DRAMA
US 2001
DIRECTOR: LIANNE KLAPPER MCNALLY The Republic of Georgia (former USSR) officially has no orphans. But a troupe of American actors, performing for a theatre festival, walk off the stage and into a real-life drama peopled by a young nun, a gruff schoolteacher, and 116 abandoned children facing the brutal Georgian winter without food, heat, lights or water. What follows will break your heart. (44 mins.)

WITH

SING!
US 2001
DIRECTOR: FREIDA LEE MOCK Freida Lee Mock’s (MAYA LIN: A STRONG CLEAR VISION, RETURN WITH HONOR) energetic new film introduces a group of students for whom Placido Domingo rules rather than Britney Spears. The young members of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, a community-based, multi-ethnic choral ensemble are testimony to the transformative power of the arts and song. (36 mins.)

WITH

THOTH
US 2001
DIRECTOR: SARAH KERNOCHAN Vocalist, violinist, dancer, "prayformance" artist. Street performer S.K. Thoth is all these and a bit more. Think Yma Sumac meets Paganini meets a tribal dancer to get a partial bead on this energetic and original performer, whose "soloperas" in Central Park’s Angel Tunnel are part of a mission to heal human disunity. Sarah Kernochan’s (MARJOE) portrait is entertaining and intimate as it tries to bottle a very complex spirit. (42 mins.)

APRIL 12 14 fri 7 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
PROMISES
ISRAEL 2000
DIRECTORS: JUSTIN SHAPIRO, B.Z. GOLDBERG, CARLOS BOLANO Rather than focusing on current events or “hard news,” PROMISES offers a surprisingly fresh insight into the Middle East conflict as filmmaker B.Z. Goldberg returns to his hometown of Jersualem to see what seven children—both Palestinian and Israeli— think about war, peace and just growing up. Filmed over two years, each child offers a dramatic, touching and sometimes hilarious insight into the conflicts and the experience of living in the charged and complex city of Jerusalem. Though they all reside within miles of one another, these children exist in completely separate worlds. Though their neighborhoods are close, the physical, historical and emotional obstacles between them run deep. Yet, in exploring this legacy of distrust and bitterness, signs of hope emerge when some of the children dare to cross checkpoints to meet one another. (108 mins.)

APRIL 19 21
FRI 8:30 P.M. WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
SUN 5 P.M.
GUILD THEATRE
WAR PHOTOGRAPHER
SWITZERLAND 2001
DIRECTOR: CHRISTIAN FREI “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough” is the motto of photographer James Nachtwey. Nachtwey has been close enough for 20 years, and his pictures show it. Director Christian Frei followed Nachtwey for two years —in Kosovo with houses ablaze; in Indonesia, where a family of beggars lives among the railway lines; and in Palestine, between the tear gas and the young rock throwers. Thanks to the miniature film camera Frei attached to Nachtwey’s camera, we watch and think as the shutter clicks, almost becoming his camera. Working with single-minded determination, unobtrusive, calm circumspection and an utter lack of cynicism, Nachtwey is widely recognized as the bravest and best war photographer alive. In the end, his photographs are not a purpose, but a means. He is not a war photographer, but an anti-war photographer. (96 mins.) Special thanks to First Run - Icarus Films and HBO.

APRIL 20 21 SAT 7:30 P.M., SUN 4:30 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
CHILDREN UNDErGROUND
US 2000
DIRECTOR: EDET BELZBERG During Nicolai Ceaucescu’s regime in Romania, contraceptives and abortion were outlawed in the name of increasing the work force. The legacy: Today, 20,000 unwanted children roam the streets of Bucharest. Cinéma vérité at its most challenging and controversial, CHILDREN UNDERGROUND, filmed over four years, rawly presents a portrait of five of these children, a pseudo-family of the homeless, scrounging for food and enough money for Aurolac, a paint thinner strong enough to make them forget their life in a subway station. Ages 8 to 16, they play, fight, spit at subway windows, and fantasize; the crew, with them 18 hours a day, merely films. Candid to the point of brutality, Edet Belzberg's camera captures a world of shocking chaos and casual fascism, where the smallest fight the hardest and all social order has long since dissipated. A truly disquieting, unforgettable work, it questions not only the world it displays, but also the queasy morality of its own steadfast, unblinking gaze. (105 mins.)

APRIL 24 27 wed 7 P.M., Sat 8:45 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
MURDER ON A SUNDAY MORNING
US 2001
DIRECTOR: JEAN-XAVIER DE LESTRADE On May 7, 2000, at a Ramada Inn in Jacksonville, Florida, 65 year-old Mary Ann Stephens is shot in the head before her husband’s eyes. Two and a half hours later, 15 year-old Brenton Butler is arrested when he is identified as the murderer by Mr. Stephens and signs a confession. For the investigators and the media who cover the story, it is just another messed-up youth, just another wasted life. Everyone involved—police, media and public opinion—is ready to sentence Brenton Butler before he even gets to trial. But not Patrick McGuinness and Ann E. Finnell, the public defenders assigned to represent him. In their own examination of the case, McGuinness and Finnell uncover startling evidence that raises doubts about the entire police investigation and disturbing questions about race and the American justice system. (88 mins.)

APRIL 27 28 SAT 7 P.M., SUN 4:30 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
LALEE’S KIN
US 2001
DIRECTORS: SUSAN FROEMKE, Deborah Dickson, Albert Maysles "I hate cotton," says Laura Lee (LaLee) Wallace, one of two major figures in this unblinking, cinema verite examination of life in one of the poorest parts of the country, Tallahatchie County Mississippi. And well she might. That fiber symbolizes a legacy of slavery, racism, share-cropping and poverty that has left 62-year-old LaLee, a mother of 11, grandmother of 38, and great-grandmother of 15, struggling to provide for a number of those grand- and great-grandchildren whose parents are nowhere to be seen, on a monthly disability check. That same legacy confronts Reggie Barnes, superintendent of the West Tallahatchie School District, trying to raise the test scores of his desperately poor students to get the district off state probation, when his schools are too poor to provide even the most basic supplies. Delving deeply into a world most would prefer not to recognize as American, LALEE’S KIN finds that love, hope and spirit survives in the most despairing of circumstances. (88 mins.)