FLEFF Silent Films for 2009!

 FLEFF 2009 continues its trademark original music commissions with silent films and multimedia projections. Check out this section of our website for announcements about titles, venues, dates and shows.

Not to be missed---it's the FLEFF experience par excellence!This year, we'll have three shows downtown at Cinemapolis.

Friday April 3 Cinemapolis 7:00 pm An journey into toxins

NOSFERATU, A SYMPHONY OF HORROR (F.W. Murnau, Germany, 1922)

An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nosferatu is the quintessential silent vampire film, crafted by legendary German director F. W. Murnau (Sunrise, Faust, The Last Laugh).Rather than depicting Dracula as a shape-shifting monster or debonair gentleman, Murnau's Graf Orlok (as portrayed by Max Schreck) is a nightmarish, spidery creature of bulbous head and taloned claws -- perhaps the most genuinely disturbing incarnation of vampirism yet envisioned.

Nosferatu was an atypical expressionist film in that much of it was shot on location. While directors such as Lang and Lubitsch built vast forests and entire towns within the studio, Nosferatu's landscapes, villages and castle were actual locations in the Carpathian mountains. Murnau was thus able to infuse the story with the subtle tones of nature: both pure and fresh as well as twisted and sinister.

With live original improvised experimental music based on German expressionist musical forms, performed by Rick Faria, clarinet, Nicholas Walker, double bass, and John Stetch, piano

Tickets are $8.50

Saturday April 4, Cinemapolis 2:30 PM A rollicking ride into the world of trade

THE BLACK PIRATE ( Albert Parker, USA 1926, starring Douglas Fairbanks)

"One of the silent era’s most spectacular action blockbusters, THE BLACK PIRATE also boasts an experimental early Technicolor process, making it one of the only color silent films. Douglas Fairbanks Sr. stars as a nobleman who is the sole survivor of a ship seized by pirates who blow up the ship, killing everyone on board, including Fairbanks’ father. Fairbanks vows revenge and subsequently joins the pirate crew, walking a fine line by seeming to aid the pirates while actually protecting potential victims and plotting the pirates’ ultimate downfall.                                                                                                                                                               "The film doesn’t sanitize its violent villains or gloss over their bloodthirsty ways: In the opening scene, one prisoner furtively swallows a ring to try to keep it from the pirates — but the pirate captain notices and sends a man with a knife to gruesomely retrieve it offscreen. And when a beautiful lady (Billie Dove) from a captured ship falls into the pirates’ hands, there’s no doubt of the gravity of her peril — until Fairbanks’ bold intervention on her behalf.   Fairbanks’s astonishing acrobatics remain dazzling today, and the climactic battle includes some great underwater footage of an aquatic assault on the pirates. This film includes Fairbanks’ most famous and widely copied stunt, riding down a sail on the edge of a knife; but my favorite is the scene in which he cuts loose the corner of a billowing sail and then holds on as the wind carries him up off the deck of the ship and high into the rigging." (Stephen Greydanus)

With a live jazz score performed by Fe Nunn and Friends, with some other surprises along the way. This show is perfect for the family!

Tickets are $7.00

Sunday April 5, Cinemapolis 7:00 PM An exploration of cinematic and sexual spice

THE WILDCAT (Die Bergkatze, Ernst Lubitsch, Germany, 1921, staring Pola Negri)

Ernst Lubitsch has long been recognized as the director of some of Hollywood’s greatest comedies, including Trouble in Paradise (1932) and Ninotchka (1939). However, he made one of his best films while he was still an emerging filmmaker in his native Germany. The Wildcat, which was never released in the U.S., is a playfully subversive satire of military life that makes Robert Altman's M*A*S*H look positively tame by comparison. It's also a rarity: a German Expressionist comedy!

The Wildcat (aka Die Bergkatze) not only looks ahead to Lubitsch's later comedies, but can also be seen as an ancestor to Monty Python and the early, anarchic films of Woody Allen. The film’s refreshingly unhinged approach is also reflected in its visual style, including a fortress that looks like a giant toybox and even the film's frame, which continuously changes size and shape. In Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise, Scott Eyman states, "In style, it is like nothing else committed to film," and ultimately dubs it "an exercise in riotous artifice, as much pure fun as anything in Lubitsch's canon."

With an original experimental soundscape by Robby Aceto, color guitar, Peter Dodge,, percussion and keyboards, and Chris White, cello

Tickets are $8.50

AT THE TOP OF MY VOICE: (Larry Kamerman, Sudhir Venkatesh, United States, 2009; 60 min.)  Sunday 1:00 PM, Fall Creek, with subjects Irakli Kakabadzeand Ana Dolidze

A verité documentary about two Georgian activists fighting for democracy and human rights in their home country, At the Top of My Voice is one story of those who struggle for free thought and expression. Set against the backdrop of the 2007 crackdown on democracy in the Republic of Georgia, the film follows activists Irakli Kakabadze and Anna Dolidze as they return to their native country to shine a light on the violence and corruption of President Saakashvili's regime and take part in monitoring his controversial reelection. (Screening will feature poetry readings/performance with Irakli Kakabadze and Anna Dolidze.)

THE BETRAYAL (Ellen Kuras,Thavisouk Phrasavath, United States, 2008; 95 min.)
Sunday 4/5 at Cinemapolis, 4:35 pm

A Lao prophecy says, "A time will come when the universe will break, piece by piece, the world will change beyond what we know." That time came for the small country of Laos with the clandestine involvement of the United States during the Vietnam War. By 1973, three million tons of bombs had been dropped on Laos in the fight to overcome the North Vietnamese, more than the total used during both world wars. With the rise of a Communist government in Laos, killings and arrests became common among those affiliated with the former government and the Americans. In a collaboration spanning more than 20 years, Ellen Kuras works with Laotian co-director Thavisouk Phrasavath, the main subject of the film. Phrasavath takes us through his youth, his escape from persecution and arrest in Laos, his family's reunion and their journey as immigrants to America, and the second war they had to fight on the streets of New York City.

THE BLACK PIRATE (Albert Parker, United States, 1926; 88 min.) Saturday 2:30 PM at Cinemapolis.

In the first grand-scale epic shot entirely in Technicolor, the sole survivor of a ship pillaged by buccaneers poses as the mysterious Black Pirate and infiltrates the nest of bandits. Michel (Fairbanks) mounts an elaborate ploy to recover the brigands' treasure, reclaim the ship and rescue the divine Princess (Billie Dove) held captive there. Featuring live music by Fe Nunn and Friends, and Spoken Word with Michelle Berry

CALL + RESPONSE (Justin Dillon, United States, 2008; 86 min.) Friday April 3, 7:00 pm, Fall Creek Pictures

This is a first of its kind feature documentary film that reveals the world’s 27 million dirtiest secrets: there are more slaves today than ever before in human history. Call + Response goes deep undercover where slavery is thriving from the child brothels of Cambodia to the slave brick kilns of rural India to reveal that in 2007, slave traders made more money than Google, Nike and Starbucks combined. Luminaries on the issue such as Cornel West, Madeleine Albright, Daryl Hannah, Julia Ormond, Ashley Judd, Nicholas Kristof, and many other prominent political and cultural figures offer first hand accounts of this 21st century trade. Performances from Moby, Natasha Bedingfield, Cold War Kids, Matisyahu, Imogen Heap, Talib Kweli, Five For Fighting, Switchfoot, members of Nickel Creek and Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, Rocco Deluca move this chilling information into inspiration for stopping it.

CHE (Steven Soderberg, United States, 2008; 258 min.) Friday April 3, Part 1 at 7:00, Part 2 at 9:35; Saturday April 4 Part 1 at 7:00, Part 2 at 9:35; Sunday April 5 Part 1 at 2:00 pm, Part 2 at 4:35--all at Fall Creek Pictures. (CHE's run will continue at least until April 9.) There is an intermission between Parts 1 and 2. Tickets for both parts: $12 (matinees $10); tickets for each part $8.50 (matinees $7.00)

In two Parts: Part 1: On November 26, 1956, Fidel Castro sails to Cuba with eighty rebels. One of those rebels is Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine doctor who shares a common goal with Fidel Castro - to overthrow the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Che proves indispensable as a fighter, and quickly grasps the art of guerrilla warfare. As he throws himself into the struggle, Che is embraced by his comrades and the Cuban people. The film tracks Che’s rise in the Cuban Revolution, from doctor to commander to revolutionary hero. Part 2: After the Cuban Revolution, Che is at the height of his fame and power. Then he disappears, re-emerging incognito in Bolivia, where he organizes a small group of Cuban comrades and Bolivian recruits to start the great Latin American Revolution. The story of the Bolivian campaign is a tale of tenacity, sacrifice, idealism, and of guerrilla warfare that ultimately fails, bringing Che to his death.

A CLASS APART (Carlos Sandoval and Peter Miller) Saturday April 4, 3:00 PM, Fall Creek

In 1951 in the town of Edna, Texas, a field hand named Pedro Hernández murdered his employer after exchanging words at a gritty cantina. From this seemingly unremarkable small-town murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that would forever change the lives and legal standing of tens of millions of Americans. A team of unknown Mexican American lawyers took the case, Hernandez v. Texas, all the way to the Supreme Court, where they successfully challenged Jim Crow-style discrimination against Mexican Americans.
A Class Apart was directed by  the award-winning producers Carlos Sandoval (Farmingville), and Peter Miller (Sacco and Vanzetti, The Internationale). The one-hour film dramatically interweaves the story of its central characters— activists and lawyers, returning veterans and ordinary citizens, murderer, and victim — within the broader story of a civil rights movement that is still very much alive today.  With Kathy Luz Herrerra, Tompkins County Legislator, and daughter of one of the three Hispanic-American lawyers who argued the case all the way to the Supreme Court

FLEFF LAB: How Movies Get Made, From Conception to Completion to Distribution  Panel Discussion Saturday April 4, 11:00 AM, Cinemapolis

THE GARDEN (Scott Hamilton Kennedy, United States, 2008; 86 min. Sunday April 5, 2:30 pm, Fall Creek

The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Starting as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis.The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. We watch these people, mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, organize, fight back, and demand answers.

GOODBYE SOLO (Ramin Bahrani, United States, 2008; 91 min.) Saturday April 4, 1:00 PM and 3:15 PM, both at Fall Creek

GOODBYE SOLO got 90% favorable reviews as compiled by metacritic.com

"Ramin Bahrani's brilliant follow-up to "Man Push Cart" and "Chop Shop"   (both films brought to last year's  FLEFF by the thirty-three-year-old director) , concerns a Senegalese taxi driver in Winston-Salem, N.C., and a taciturn old loner who hires the cabbie to drive him to his jumping-off point. Utterly engrossing dual-character study, unfolding with a serene disregard for indie quirkiness, "Goodbye Solo" radiates authenticity, as much in the town's unmistakable tobacco towers as in the characters' mindsets. " (Variety)

ICE BEARS OF THE BEAUFORT (Arthur Smith, United States, 2008; 55 min.) With directors Arthur and Jennifer Smith.  Saturday April 4, 1:00 pm at Cinemapolis; Sunday April 5, 3:00 pm at Cinemapolis

The film documents a tragedy unfolding right before the camera. With subjects oblivious to the impending loss of their arctic sanctuary, the film shows a thriving polar bear society on the edge of survival. In 2008, the State of Alaska leased for offshore oil development the very region in which this film was shot. At the same time, the federal government must designate "critical habitat" for America's polar bears, who were listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act in May, 2008. This documentary bears witness to Alaska's Beaufort Sea coast as critical polar bear habitat. Five years in the making by a single resident of an Inupiat Eskimo village, Ice Bears of the Beaufort is a color-intense, cinematic family portrait of Alaskan polar bears never before captured on film.

IN A DREAM (Jeremiah Zagar, United States, 2008; 80 min.) Sunday 8:30 pm, Fall Creek Pictures Over the past four decades, artist Isaiah Zagar has covered more than 50,000 square feet of Philadelphia with stunning mosaic murals. In A Dream is a documentary feature film that chronicles his work and his tumultuous relationship with his wife, Julia. It follows the Zagars as their marriage implodes and a harrowing new chapter in their life unfolds. An exploration of the fallout that ensues when the line between art and life is blurred beyond

NOSFERATU (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens) (F.W. Murnau, Germany, 1922; 84 min.)  Friday April 3, 7:00 pm, Cinemapolis, with live music

An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nosferatu is the quintessential silent vampire film, crafted by legendary German director F. W. Murnau. Rather than depicting Dracula as a shape-shifting monster or debonair gentleman, Murnau's Graf Orlok (as portrayed by Max Schreck) is a nightmarish, spidery creature of bulbous head and taloned claws -- perhaps the most genuinely disturbing incarnation of vampirism yet envisioned. Nosferatu was an atypical expressionist film in that much of it was shot on location. Murnau was thus able to infuse the story with the subtle tones of nature: both pure and fresh as well as twisted and sinister. With live original improvised experimental music based on German expressionist musical forms, performed by Rick Faria, clarinet, Nicholas Walker, double bass, and John Stetch, piano

NUESTROS DESAPARECIDOS (OUR DISAPPEARED) (Juan Mandelbaum, Argentina/United States, 2008; 99 min.) Saturday April 4, 4:35 PM and 9:00 PM, both at Cinemapolis, with director Juan Mandelbaum

Through a casual Google search director Juan Mandelbaum finds out that Patricia, a long lost girlfriend from Argentina, is among the thousands who were kidnapped, tortured and then “disappeared” by the military during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. Juan embarks on a journey to find out what happened to her and others he knew who disappeared and re-examines his own choices. Using rare archival footage he evokes the dreams for a revolution that would transform Argentina and shows that when brutal regimes attack the fabric of a country with great impunity, the suffering lasts for generations.  

LA ONDA CHICANA (The Chicano Wave) (John Valadez, Mexico/United States, 2008; 52 min.) Saturday April 4, 7:00 pm, Cinemapolis and Sunday April 5, 7:00 pm at Fall Creek. With director John Valadez

From the birth of Tejano music through the musical innovations that would galvanize the Chicano movement, to the top of the charts with Ritchie Valens, Freddy Fender, Los Lobos, Linda Ronstadt and Selena, La Onda Chicana/ explores the evolution of Mexican-American music as Chicano artists struggle against discrimination and move from the fringes of American society to the national stage.

SCROLL ON: THE TITLE DESIGNS OF DAN PERRI(program
running time 80 min., 35mm/digital projection) Sunday April 5 1:00 PM, Cinemapolis

The credit sequences of
Dan Perri are like preludes to an orchestral movement -- they set the
tone, establish a mood, and give the audience goose-bumps for what
they're about to experience. Perri is a graphic designer at heart, with
a flair for movement, tempo and typography; his "credits" include Star
Wars, Taxi Driver, The Exorcist, 3 Women, Nashville, Close Encounters
of the Third Kind, All the President's Men, Raging Bull, Nightmare on
Elm Street, Days of Heaven, Raising Arizona and The Aviator. Perri will be with us in person to present a selection of clips and discuss his career in movies

THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN (Abdel Kechiche, France, 2007; 148 min.) Saturday April 4, 6:45 at Fall Creek

Set in the rustic French port of Sete, The Secret of the Grain follows Slimane, whose growing dissatisfaction with the shipyard job he's had for the last 35 years prompts him to try to open his own couscous restaurant. His dream seems unbelievable, but his contagious conviction and persistence work their way into the hearts of his loyal but dispersed family; the four children from his first marriage, his ex-wife, current girlfriend and her bright, outspoken daughter, Rym.

STRANDED: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (Gonzalo Arijon, France, 2008; 113 min.) Friday April 3 9:35 pm, Fall Creek; Sunday April 5, 4:00 pm Fall Creek

In October 1972, a plane carrying a team of young rugby players from Montevideo, Uruguay, went down in a snow-covered valley in the Andes. The dramatic tale of the survivors' struggle to stay alive. The dramatic tale of the survivors' struggle to stay alive and be rescued, already told in a bestselling book and feature film, finds new depth and resonance in Stranded, which has won awards at film festivals all around the world, is an unforgettable documentary about an unforgettable story.

TORTURING DEMOCRACY (Sherry Jones, United States, 2007; 90 min) Saturday April 4, 1:00 pm Fall Creek

TORTURING DEMOCRACY investigates U.S. detention and interrogation practices in the “war on terror.” The 90-minute documentary examines how coercive interrogation methods were used by the CIA and then transferred to military interrogations at Guantánamo Bay and Iraq. It carefully presents evidence that the Bush administration promoted these methods and developed legal justification for the practice. The film features in-depth interviews with senior military and government officials who fought the policy and former Guantánamo detainees who experienced it, and uncovers the origins of the tactics the White House calls “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

THE WILDCAT (Die Bergkatze) (Ernst Lubitsch, Germany, 1921; 82 min.) Sunday April 5 7:00 PM, Cinemapolis, with live music

Ernst Lubitsch has long been recognized as the director of some of Hollywood’s greatest comedies. However, he made one of his best films while he was still an emerging filmmaker in his native Germany. At a remote fort, the commander awaits the arrival of a new lieutenant, who is captured en route by a band of outlaws that roam the nearby, snow-covered mountains. But the daughter of the bandits’ leader quickly falls for the young officer, thus setting in motion an outrageous farce that is Lubitsch at his most unrestrained. Peter Bogdanovich has described The Wildcat as "an uproarious, hard-edged anti-military spoof," and ranks the film among the five funniest movies he’s ever seen (along with another early Lubitsch comedy, 1909’s The Doll.  With an original experimental soundscape by Robby Aceto, color guitar, Peter Dodge,, percussion and keyboards, and Chris White, cello

 "Written and directed by Aditya Assarat, this lucid debut unfolds in a comfy patch of southern Thailand nestled in a lush green valley near the sea. Takua Pa, the place is called, and a woman named Na (Anchalee Saisoontorn) calls it home. Na works at a rundown but well-scrubbed hotel that doesn’t see many guests these days until the arrival of Ton (Supphasit Kansen), a handsome young architect overseeing a beachfront development. Mr. Assarat shelters this budding romance with surpassingly lovely filmmaking. His frames are meticulous without being fussy and his camera movements suave and suggestive, delineating the sentiment of the moment with precision and grace." But Na and Ton are not living in paradise; they are living in the psychic and physical aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, which killed thousands of  residents of Takua Pa and left the remaining townspeople adrift. A crew of disaffected teenagers, prowling the town on motorcycles, singles out the stranger for their resentment and suspicion. "It’s no small feat to pull off as sweet and sensitive a romance as that between Na and Ton, and something rarer yet to suffuse such affections into a poem of wounded landscape. " (Quotes from Nathan Lee, NYT)