HAPPY HERE AND NOW
DIRECTOR: MICHAEL ALMEREYDA
US 2002

SAT NOV 6 5 PM
Guild Theatre

In Almereyda’s (NADJA, HAMLET, WILLIAM EGGLESTON IN THE REAL WORLD) internet, sci-fi thriller, set in the near future, Amelia (Liane Balaban), travels to New Orleans to look for her missing sister Muriel, helped by Bill (Clarence Williams III), a former secret agent and computer expert. On Muriel’s (Shalom Harlow), hard drive, he finds traces of chat sessions with a man calling himself Eddie Mars. Almereyda’s haunting drama soon leads Amelia and Bill into a complex web buried deep in the funky underground of a mysterious and sometimes menacing city. Contrasting the grainy, b&w, pixelvision-shot, web cam sessions with color saturated 35mm images that portray the real world, HAPPY HERE AND NOW is a story less about the missing than about the possibility of changing your identity with one press of the button, the way that our experience of reality can change quickly and a cautionary reflection on the nature of avatars in the age of technological isolation. (89 mins.)
MICHAEL ALMEREYDA IS THE JUDGE OF THIS YEAR’S NORTHWEST FILM &
VIDEO FESTIVAL AND WILL BE ON HAND TO INTRODUCE THE FILM.

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SILVER SCREEN CLUB PREVIEW
WALK THE LINE
DIRECTOR: JAMES MANGOLD
US 2005

WED NOV 16 7 PM
Whitsell Auditorium

In 1955 Johnny Cash, like Elvis before him, found his way to the studios of Sun Records in Memphis. Producer Sam Phillips turned Cash from gospel toward the hybrid rock‘n’roll that would make Sun famous, and set him on a meteoric road to become a music legend who blurred the lines between blues, folk, gospel, rockabilly and country. James Mangold’s new film, co-written by Portland screenwriter Gill Dennis, chronicles the first half of Cash’s life, from Arkansas cotton picker to the historic Folsom prison concert in 1968, which along the way crossed paths with his love and salvation, June Carter Cash. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon provide stellar performances that not only celebrate and recreate incredible musical lives, but also capture the spark and eventual fire of one of America’s greatest true life love stories. (135 mins.)
TONIGHT’S SCREENING IS OPEN TO SILVER SCREEN MEMBERS ONLY.
PRINT COURTESY OF 20TH CENTURY FOX.
DIRECTOR AND SCREENWRITER GILL DENNIS, WHO HAS TAUGHT AT THE FILM CENTER AND IS CURRENTLY MASTER FILMMAKER IN RESIDENCE AT THE AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE, WILL INTRODUCE TONIGHT’S SCREENING.

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HENRI LANGLOIS: PHANTOM OF THE CINÉMATHÈQUE
DIRECTOR JACQUES RICHARD
FRANCE 2004

FRI NOV 18 8 PM Whitsell Auditorium
SAT NOV 19 7 PM Whitsell Auditorium
SUN NOV 20 2 PM Guild Theatre

Seven years in the making, Richard’s valentine to Henri Langlois brings one of the most important chapters in film history to vivid life. Langlois was the co-founder of the Cinématheque Française in Paris in 1936. The world’s first film archive, the Cinématheque elevated the film from its status as disposable entertainment to important art form and cultural record. In the process Langlois made Paris the center of world film culture. Langlois was the quintessential aficionado who, with the equally obsessed Mary Meerson, saved everything. Over the course of 40 years he hid thousands of films from the Nazis, championed the work of once-forgotten stars like Louise Brooks and Gloria Swanson, American genre directors like Howard Hawks and Nicholas Ray, and schooled Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer and Chabrol (all seen onscreen), and other founders of the French New Wave. “A moviegoer’s treat and a cinephile’s delight.”—Michael Wilmington, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE. “Irresistible. A saga of an extraordinarily influential, controversial and eccentric life”– Kenneth Turan, LA TIMES. (128 mins.)

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SAMAURAI REBELLION
DIRECTOR: MASAKI KOBAYASHI
JAPAN 1967

FRI NOV 25 7 PM
SAT NOV 26 7 PM
Whitsell Auditorium

Kobayahi’s samurai classic, set in 18th-century Japan stars the magnificent Toshiro Mifune as Isaburo, a renowned swordsman who takes a heroic but deadly stand for individual freedom. Isaburo is the essence of samurai loyalty until his daughter-in-law is commandeered as mistress for his overlord. The injustice moves him toward a revolt raging with power and emotion. “. . .everything builds to a climactic bloodletting, and the point of the violence is not so much its kinetic exhilaration as its tragic inevitability. Travis Bickle might well recognize the profoundly alienated warrior as his ancestor.”—Terrence Rafferty, THE NEW YORK TIMES. "Filming in deep-focus, Kobayshi utilizes the natural aesthetics of Japanese architecture to create symmetrical, ordered spaces . . .highlighting the sterility and confinement within which Isaburo and his family must dispassionately accept the offenses heaped upon them.”—Patrick Galloway. Kinema Jumpo Award for Best Japanese film of 1967. (121 mins.)
PATRICK GALLOWAY, AUTHOR OF THE NEWLY RELEASED “STRAY DOGS & LONE WOLVES: THE SAMURAI FILM HANDBOOK,” WILL INTRODUCE THE SATURDAY SCREENING AND SIGN COPIES OF HIS BOOK.

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SARABAND
DIRECTOR: INGMAR BERGMAN
SWEDEN 2004

SUN NOV 27 4:30 & 7 PM
Guild Theatre

In what he has said is the coda to his unparalleled career, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson star as Marianne and Johan, characters they portrayed in Bergman’s SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. It has been 30 years since they’ve seen each other, and Marianne impulsively visits her former husband at his secluded countryside estate. However, Johan has other guests: Henrik (Börje Ahlstedt), his son from a marriage before Marianne, and Karin (Julia Dufvenius), Henrik’s 19- year-old daughter. Henrik is haunted by the death of his wife Anna and is determined to keep Karin, a talented cellist, close at hand. Not surprisingly, Marianne finds herself drawn into a bitter battle of wills that will leave no one unscathed. The intense, intimate narrative unfolds in ten episodes, and the four characters interact only in pairs, as though partners in the ritualistic dance suggested by the title. At the age of 86, Bergman demonstrates undiminished power to lay bare the emotions underlying intimate relationships. (107 mins.).

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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FRIDA KAHLO
DIRECTOR: AMY STECHLER
US 2004

SUN DEC 4 4:30 PM
Whitsell Auditorium

The great Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907– 1954) gracefully balanced a private life of illness and pain against a public persona that was flamboyant and irreverent. Kahlo was an eyewitness to a unique pairing of revolution and renaissance that defined the times in which she lived. Through the prism of Kahlo’s life and art, Stechler explores the ancient culture of Mexico, Mexican Revolution, the popularity of Latin American communism and the innovators in painting, photography filmmaking, writing and poetry who congregated in her Kahlo’s famed yellow kitchen. Kahlo is best known for dozens of self-portraits through which she told the story of a dramatic and passionate life that included a turbulent marriage to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. (90 mins.)

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2004 BRITISH ADVERTISING AWARDS
DIRECTORS: VARIOUS

FRI DEC 2 7 PM
SAT DEC 3 7 PM
SUN DEC 4 2:30 & 7 PM
Whitsell Auditorium

Take a break from the rigors of feature films. Commercials possess not only the power of suggestion, but at their best have the power to entertain and inform, provoke reflection, motivate action and reveal consummate filmmaking skill. The commercials in the annual BRITISH AD AWARDS achieve the above by combining essential doses of uniquely British humor and visual creativity, oftentimes with an edge that rarely appears in politically correct American advertising. Drawn from over 1,000 entries, this year’s survey showcases award winning works that don’t just sell, but spark your imagination. (90 mins.)

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ELECTRIC EDWARDIANS: THE FILMS OF MITCHELL AND KENYON
DIRECTORS: SAGAR MITCHELL AND JAMES KENYON

FRI DEC 9 7 PM
SAT DEC 10 7 PM
SUN DEC 11 4 PM
Whitsell Auditorium

Similar to the “actualities” made by the Lumiere brothers at the turn of the century, the films of the Mitchell & Kenyon Company were screened by touring showmen in the days before real movie theaters. Shot mostly between 1900– 1913 in the North of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, they were advertised as “local films for local people” and screened at town halls, village fetes and local fairs. Culled from more than 28 hours of films recently found in a Blackburn, England basement, the British Film Institute has restored a program of highlights accompanied by a specially commissioned score. Providing an unparalleled visual record of Edwardian Britain, the films are a moving testament to the lives of all classes of people at work and play and are, even more than they were then, wildly entertaining and astonishing. (81 mins.)

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DUTCH LIGHT
DIRECTOR: PIETER-RIM DE KROON
NETHERLANDS 2004

SUN DEC 11 2 PM Whitsell Auditorium
THU DEC 15 7 PM Guild Theatre

There is a long-held idea that the light in Holland is unique, and that special quality of “Dutch light” was discovered by the old Dutch Masters and celebrated in their work. But has the light that Vermeer and Rembrandt so memorably captured in their paintings literally disappeared due to mankind’s industry? German artist Joseph Beuys, among others, theorized that Dutch light lost its radiance after the reclamation of large parts of the Zuyder Zee in the mid-50s, the land replacing the reflective water. De Kroon enlists a range artists, art historians and scientists into the debate, drawing the viewer into a maelstrom of ideas and theories that explore color, images, landscapes and the impact of light in different parts of Europe. There may be no final answers, but as the discussion roams, anyone with a love of painting will find the meditation illuminating. “If we can make people aware of light and aware of the way they look at things, we will have achieved what we set out to do.”—Pieter- Rim de Kroon. Winner of a number of international awards including Best Cinematography at the Festival di Palazzo Venice and Best Documentary at the Netherlands Film Festival (94 mins.)

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THE HERO
DIRECTOR: ZÉZÉ GAMBOA
ANGOLA 2004

THUR DEC 15 7 PM
SAT DEC 17 7 PM
Whitsell Auditorium

Screened at last February's PIFF and subsequently chosen to open MOMA's New Directors series, Gamboa’s film is a subtle exploration of the tormented social and economic political situation in a country ravaged by a war. Vitório, a 35-year-old soldier, is discharged from the Army after stepping on a landmine and losing his leg. Returning to Luanda after 20 years of fighting, he finds himself destitute in a city still littered with memories of the war. Forced to live on the streets, he dreams of having a family of his own as others search for loved-ones lost to decades of violence. When he meets Joana, a flirtatious schoolteacher who has connections with the government, Vitório begins to believe that not all hope is lost. Grand Jury Prize, World Dramatic Competition, Sundance Film Festival. (97 mins.)

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I AM CUBA
DIRECTOR: MIKHAIL KALATOZOV
USSR / CUBA 1964

FRI DEC 16 7 PM
SUN DEC 18 4 & 7 PM
Whitsell Auditorium

Jointly resurrected by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, I AM CUBA is one of the fascinating rediscoveries in cinema. Designed to be Cuba’s answer to both Sergei Eisenstein’s propaganda masterpiece, POTEMKIN, and Jean-Luc Godard’s freewheeling romance, BREATHLESS, I AM CUBA, turned out to be something quite unique—a wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist kitsch mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality. Feverishly exploring the seductive, decadent world of Batista’s Cuba—the various plots juxtaposing images of rich Americans and bikini-clad beauties sipping cocktails poolside with scenes of ramshackle slums filled with hungry children and gaunt old people— while successfully exploring the innermost feelings of the characters and their often desperate situations In English, Spanish, and Russian with English subtitles. “One of the most deliriously beautiful films ever made.”—L.A.WEEKLY. “Spectacular! Visually Stunning.” — Stephen Holden, THE NEW YORK TIMES. (141 mins.)

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