MEDIA CONTACT: Judy Moore at 847-491-4819 or jkm229@northwestern.edu

March 31, 2005

April 2005 Film Calendar

This April, Block Cinema, a collaboration of the Northwestern University School of Communication and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston campus, will present films that are part of the “Chicago Latino Film Festival” as well as movies directed by Samuel Fuller, and films from Africa. (For more information about the 2005 Chicago Latino Film Festival visit http://www.latinoculturalcenter.org/Filmfest/.)

Several special events, including a regional premiere and a world premiere screening and a writing panel on a career in television writing, also are scheduled.

On April 6 and 8, Block Cinema will host the Chicago International Documentary Festival. Ticket prices for those two dates are $8.50 for general admission and $7 for students and seniors. For more information, visit http://www.chicagodocfestival.org/.

Admission is $6 for the general public and $4 for Northwestern faculty, staff and students, or as noted below. A spring season pass is $20. Special events are $10.

For more information, call the Block Cinema Hotline at (847) 491-4000 or go to the Block Cinema Web site at http://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/blockcinema.

Fuller, “The Steel Helmet,” 8 p.m. Friday, April 1 (Samuel Fuller, 1951, United States, 84 minutes, 35 mm). An American army sergeant leads a South Korean orphan, an African American medic, a Japanese-American soldier and a group of survivors through the jungle to the American lines during the Korean War. The film gives viewers an intimate look at the fighting that would last for two years after the film’s release.

Special Event, “Blackmail,” 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 5 (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929, United Kingdom, 96 minutes, 35 mm). Alice White (Anny Onga) is a fun-loving young woman who ditches her hardworking police detective boyfriend to go out with an artist. After the date goes horribly wrong and she kills the man in self-defense, she must maneuver her way around her boyfriend, the murder investigation and a vicious blackmailer. Presented in its silent version, “Blackmail” mixes suspense with a wry sense of humor. The film will be screened with live music accompaniment and an original score by the Alloy Orchestra.

Chicago International Documentary Festival (two films), “Muhammad and Larry,” 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 6 (Albert Maysles and David Maysles, 1980, United States, 26 minutes, 16 mm). This film is a portrait of the boxing legends and former sparring partners Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes. The camera follows the athletes as they prepare for their World Heavyweight Boxing Championship match -- from practice to private moments at home. “Christo in Paris,” (Albert Maysles, 1990, United States, 58 minutes, 16 mm). Rich in political intrigue and artistic debate, this film follows Christo’s escape from Bulgaria, his early years as a struggling artist, his romance with wife Jeanne-Claude and the fulfillment of a 10-year obsession: the wrapping of the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris.

Chicago International Documentary Festival, “Golub: Last Works are Catastrophes,” 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 6 (Jerry Blumenthal and Gordon Quinn, 2004, United States, 80 minutes, DVcam).

The American painter Leon Golub was born in 1922 in Chicago. In the 1950s, when abstract expression was the prevailing style, Golub caused a stir with his figurative paintings based on Greek and Roman sculptures. In 1969, he started his “Napalm Paintings,” based on press photos of people with napalm wounds. The film is based on Golub’s last exhibition when he returned to his starting point.

Chicago International Documentary Festival, “The Last Mogul,” 9:15 p.m. Wednesday, April 6 (Barry Avrich, 2005, Canada, United States, 103 minutes, DigiBeta). This provocative film chronicles the meteoric rise of Hollywood über-agent Lew Wasserman. When he arrived in California, his only two clients were Ronald Reagan and Hattie McDaniel. When he finished, his company, Music Corporation of America (MCA), had bought Universal Studios, and he had established the careers of many filmmakers, most notably Steven Spielberg. It features commentary from Wasserman’s friends and associates including Syndey Pollack, Robert Evans and Jack Valenti.

Chicago International Documentary Festival, “Out of Forest,” 6 p.m. Friday, April 8 (Limor Pinhasov Ben Yosef and Yaren Kaftori Ben Yosef, 2004, Israel, 93 minutes, 35 mm). The film’s title are the opening words of the diary of Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Pole who lived in Ponar, a Lithuanian city in which, from 1941 to 1944, more than 100,000 people, most of them Jews, were killed. Sakowicz wrote down what he heard and witnessed, ultimately documenting 835 days of the genocide. Using his diary as a primary source, the filmmakers tell the story of Ponar by using accounts of local Poles, Lithuanians and Jews and the testimonies of survivors, along with images of Ponar today.

Chicago International Documentary Festival, “14 Episodes,” 7:45 p.m. Friday, April 8 (Murad Mazaev, 2004, Ukraine and the Netherlands, 9 minutes, DVD). “14 Episodes” is a series of shocking images from the first and second Russian-Chechen wars. It features nearly nine minutes of bombings, people fleeing, and countless dead and wounded. The film won the Amnesty International Prize at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam. “Fighting for Life in Death-Belt” (Jeff Marks and Adam Elend, 52 minutes, 2005, United States, DigiBeta). This crusading film looks at capital punishment in America through the eyes of Stephen Bright, the nation’s leading anti-death penalty lawyer. For 20 years, Bright has defended death row inmates in the Southeast, where 90 percent of all executions occur and where he has built one of the most renowned public interest law firms in the nation, the Southern Center for Human Rights. Attorney Steve Bright and the documentary’s directors Jeff Marks and Adam Elend will be present for a discussion after the screening.

Chicago International Documentary Festival, “Rhythm Is It!” 9:15 p.m. Friday, April 8 (Thomas Grube and Enrique Sanchez, 2004, Germany, 100 minutes, 35 mm). Sir Simon Rattle, the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, believes “Music is not a luxury, but a need, like the air we breathe or the water we drink.” True to his word, Rattle and the orchestra recently collaborated with 250 young people, drawn from disadvantaged neighborhoods in Berlin, to create a dance spectacle based on Igor Stravinsky’s groundbreaking “The Rite of Spring.”

(Free) Chicago Latino Film Festival, “Mission the Movie,” (“Una Película de la Misión) 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 13 (Lisa Swenson, 2004, United States, 95 minutes, DVD). The film explores daily life in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood -- home to a large number of Latinos. Among the neighborhood characters are Mark, an Anglo artist who is painting a mural; undocumented workers who hold three jobs; Anglo roommates facing eviction; and lovable child troublemakers. Roger/Rogelio serves as a mediator in all the troubles and mishaps.

Reeltime, “Army of One,” 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 13 (Sally Goodman, United States, 2003, 70 minutes, DVD). In the wake of September 11 World Trade Center attacks, three young Americans -- a dancer, a stockbroker and a high school dropout -- join the United States Army. In an intimate and honest account of their two-year journey through basic training, this documentary examines how their dreams of valor and heroism clash with the realities of military life. The screening will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Sarah Goodman and Thaddeus Ressler, one of the featured soldiers.

Fuller, “Fixed Bayonets,” 8 p.m. Thursday, April 14 (Samuel Fuller, 1951, United States, 92 minutes, 35 mm). In the heat of the Korean War, an American platoon is stuck behind enemy lines in a snowbound cave. As soldiers are killed, one by one, tensions and tempers build among commanders. James Dean appears in his first onscreen role.

Double Feature, Fuller, “Pickup on South Street,” 7 p.m., Friday, April 15 (Samuel Fuller, 1953, United States, 80 minutes, 35 mm). This complex Red Scare movie, perhaps Fuller’s best, follows subway rider Candy (Jean Peters), an easy mark for pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark). Unbeknownst to both, Candy’s purse contains a strip of microfilm bearing confidential U.S. secrets. Soon both federal agents and the communists are after Skip, while he and Candy try to figure out who is conning whom. Fuller, “Forty Guns,” 8:30 p.m. Friday, April 15 (Samuel Fuller, 1957 United States, 80 minutes, 35 mm). In this classic Cinemascope western, Barbara Stanwyck is the sizzling cowgirl queen ruling 40 hired hands. Harry Sullivan is the only man in town who can stand up to her. The film’s perverse black and white chaos marks a turning point in Fuller’s career because he became a hero for the French New Wavers and an outcast in Hollywood.

(Free) Chicago Latino Film Festival, “Boricua,” 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 20 (Marisol Torres, 2004, United States, 108 minutes, DVD). Viewers share the lives and dreams of various Puerto Rican young people in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. Tata is a beautician obsessed with winning the contest for Queen of the Puerto Rican Day Parade in Chicago. Willy hangs out in the streets and deals marijuana. Lola is a college student linked to the barrio life. German is a go-getter who has been hired by an aggressive downtown real estate development firm and is learning how to succeed in the field. (“Boricua” is a term many Puerto Ricans use to identify themselves. For more information about the film “Boricua” visit www.boricuamovie.com).

Fuller, “House of Bamboo,” 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 20 (Samuel Fuller, 1955, United States, 102 minutes, 35 mm). U.S. Army operative Eddie Kenner (Robert Stack) is sent to Japan undercover to investigate the ringleader and former G. I. Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan). “House of Bamboo” was the first American-made film to be shot in Japan after World War II. The location is fully utilized with striking images of an early modern Tokyo.

(Free) African, “Threads,” 5 p.m., Thursday, April 21 (Hakim Belabbes, 2003 Moracco, 92 minutes, 35 mm). Recently screened at film festivals worldwide, “Threads” has won acclaim for its interweaving narrative voices and ingenious juxtaposition of images of the past and present. It tells the story of Mehdi, an aging and ailing man, who returns to his hometown to die. His American-born daughter who does not speak Arabic accompanies him. His reentry into his native country prompts a reflection upon the future of the next generation and their struggles for self-definition. A discussion with director Hakim Belabbes will follow the screening.

Time Travel, “Donnie Darko,” 8 p.m. Thursday, April 21 (Richard Kelly, 2001, United States, 113 minutes, 35 mm). Teen angst, time travel and 1980s pop culture collide in this mind-bending, genre-mixing film. A foreboding giant bunny visits high school student Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhal) and tells him that the world is going to end.

World Premiere, “The Whole World is Watching,” 7 and 9 p.m. Friday, April 22 (Emir Eralp, 2004, United States, 56 minutes, BetaSP). The 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City drew some of the biggest protest crowds in recent years. This Northwestern student-produced documentary captures the diversity and creativity of the week-long protests as well as the protesters’ frustration with the mass media coverage they received, juxtaposing interviews from protesters, organizers, delegates and observers with network TV news coverage of the events. Campus events sponsored by Passenger Magazine will accompany the screening; visit www.jamthepassenger.com for ticket prices and more information. A discussion with director Emir Eralp will follow both screenings.

(Free) Africa, “Sambizanga,” 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 27 (Sarah Maldoror, 1972, Angola, 102 minutes, 16 mm). Co-scripted by a resistance leader, “Sambizanga” is considered one of the most important films on black resistance in Africa. Set just before the 1961 uprising against the Portuguese colonialists, the story centers on a young woman’s search for her jailed husband. The film is a poetic tale of separation and brutality. Sponsored by Northwestern University’s Program of African Studies.

(Free) TV, “60s TV and the Beat Generation” with Professor Lynn Spigel, 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 27. During the 1960s, television became a “cool medium” with hip heroes that rivaled the homebody sitcom dads of the 1950s. Shows such as “Route 66,” “Johnny Staccato” and “77 Sunset Strip” began to figure a new kind of male hero who was hip, young and single -- and who often dabbled in counter culture lifestyles associated with the Beat Generation. Northwestern Professor Lynn Spigel will show rare clips from the era and discuss why the square medium turned “cool” in the 1960s. The discussion will be followed by two screenings, the rarely seen “Johnny Staccato,” created by and starring independent film director John Cassavetes, and “Route 66,” featuring two young hipsters who rode around the country in their sporty Corvette.

Fuller, “Park Row,” 8 p.m. Thursday, April 28 (Samuel Fuller, 1952, United States, 83 minutes, 35 mm). In the 1880s New Yorker Phineas Mitchell (Gene Evans) sets up his own newspaper as a rival to the biggest paper in town. The corporate feud takes a romantic turn when the rival newspaper’s editor-in-chief turns out to be a woman. Chicago Reader film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum will introduce the film and lead a discussion after the screening.

(Free) TV Writing Panel, “A Career in TV Writing,” 7 p.m. Friday, April 29. A panel of five television writers from shows that include “Alias,” “Scrubs,” “Boston Legal,” “Malcolm in the Middle” and “The Late Show with David Letterman” will each screen a segment of an episode they have written. The panelists also will discuss their writing -- from conception to production. Sponsored by Northwestern University’s Creative Writing for the Media Program, the radio, television and film department, and the Dean’s Office of the School of Communication.