Latest news with #Cinematheque
Korea Herald
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Award-winning Korean short films set to screen at Paris cinematheque
Busan International Short Film Festival winners bring contemporary Korean cinema to Paris landmark Four award-winning Korean short films from the 41st Busan International Short Film Festival will screen at the prestigious Cinematheque Francaise in Paris, festival officials announced Monday. Scheduled for Monday at 7 p.m., local time, the special program marks the third consecutive year the festival has been invited to present its selections at the renowned Paris venue. The screening will take place in the Cinematheque's Jean Epstein room, named after the French avant-garde cinema pioneer. Leading the lineup is "My Mother's Story," the Grand Prix winner by directors Kim So-young and Jang Min-hee. The 15-minute animated short follows an elderly woman who fled her village during the Japanese occupation and the Korean War, with her daughter bringing her memories to life through animation. The jury lauded the film for turning a potentially tragic tale into one of resilience and hope. Kim Min-seong's "Summer Vacation" earned the Excellence Award for its exploration of family tensions on the 10th anniversary of a mother's death. The 27-minute drama centers on the fraught relationship between a young woman and her stepmother, and has drawn praise for its emotional depth. "Slaughter," directed by Yun Do-yeong, received the Jury Award for its take on ethical compromise and economic hardship. The 26-minute film follows Sangwoo, a young man working at a slaughterhouse, as he grapples with the moral costs of survival. The jury highlighted its naturalistic dialogue and sharply drawn characters. Rounding out the program is Lee Ha-no's "No Hair," which earned a Special Jury Mention for its comedic spin on body image insecurities. The 29-minute film explores fears about hair loss through what the jury called a 'simple and jovial narrative' that struck a chord with audiences. Founded in 1936 by film preservationist Henri Langlois, Cinematheque Francaise was instrumental in shaping the French New Wave. It remains a landmark of global cinephilia, hosting retrospectives and international programs year-round. Following the screening, BISFF artistic director Lee Sang-hoon will introduce the featured works and speak to the audience about the state of Korean short filmmaking today. Founded in 1980 as the Korean Short Film Festival, BISFF has since grown into one of Asia's premier showcases for short-form cinema. Backed by the city of Busan and operating independently from the Busan International Film Festival held each fall, the festival exclusively presents films under 30 minutes. BISFF is also a significant gateway to major awards. Winners may qualify for consideration in Academy Awards categories, as well as BAFTA and Canadian Screen Awards. 'BISFF remains the only short film festival in the world to hold regular screenings at the Cinematheque,' Lee said. 'It's a rare and meaningful platform, and we'll continue working to expand the reach of Korean cinema to audiences around the world.'
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The American Cinematheque, L.A.'s Year-Round Film Festival, Celebrates 40 Years of Movies
The American Cinematheque, L.A.'s Year-Round Film Festival, Celebrates 40 Years of Movies originally appeared on L.A. Mag. Film festivals have been bumming around Los Angeles since the dawn of the movie industry. The 1923 Motion Picture Exposition brought movie stars, wrestlers and stuntmen to an empty field near the Coliseum to drum up interest in silent movies. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unspooled the 1916 film Intolerance for the public in 1940. During World War II, the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax began showing vintage films year-round. More comprehensive programming started when LACMA came to Wilshire Boulevard — and when student director Gary Essert started scheduling films at UCLA in 1964. Four years later, the twentysomething Essert leased an abandoned nightclub in Hollywood to create a new kind of venue he called Kaleidoscope. 'We had hundreds of people sitting on the floor at the old Earl Carroll Theatre,' Essert's onetime colleague Marc Wanamaker says. 'We had a professional light show and then the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane would play, and then we'd show films on a big Cinemascope screen we made. It was a film orgy for 72 hours straight.' Essert's Kaleidoscope evolved into the Los Angeles International Film Exposition, recruiting luminaries like George Cukor and Rosalind Russell to serve on its board. Filmex premiered The Last Picture Show at Grauman's Chinese in 1971, with Groucho Marx and Andy Warhol in the audience. By 1985, Essert was ousted from Filmex but, with help from filmmaker Sydney Pollack, turned his attention to building a permanent home for revival film; he called it the American Cinematheque. Inspired by European temples to film, the complex included plans for three theaters, a cinema bookstore, shops and restaurants at the base of a luxury hotel built around the landmark Pan-Pacific Auditorium in the Fairfax District. But years of planning, fundraising and politicking went up in smoke, along with the building, at the end of the 1980s. The group tried to resurface at the old Kaleidoscope (by then the Aquarius Theatre), as well as what's now Harmony Gold and the Montalbán, before settling on a former dance school next to the Hollywood Roosevelt. Soon, Essert and his boyfriend and business partner Gary Abrahams succumbed to AIDS. 'They died around the same time,' Wanamaker says. 'It left a big void, and the Cinematheque also died for a while. Barbara Smith was our box office manager and nursed [Essert] in the end. It was in his will that she continue the Cinematheque, and a year or two after he died, she got it going again.' Smith was at the helm when the group purchased the earthquake-ravaged Egyptian theater for $1. She ran the restored movie palace for two decades before retiring in 2018. Two years later, the nonprofit sold the building to Netflix but continues programming on weekends. Today, the Cinematheque also operates the Aero and a screen at the Los Feliz 3, selling out noir nights, Hitchcock revivals and glamorous premieres just as it did decades ago. 'Gary was a showman, a Barnum,' Wanamaker recalls. 'He would have been extremely pleased.' This story was originally reported by L.A. Mag on Jun 13, 2025, where it first appeared.
Winnipeg Free Press
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Tribute to famous festival in denim, long hair, old footage
From local filmmaker Kevin Nikkel and the late Dave Barber, Cinematheque's longtime programmer, this new documentary is a suitably shaggy, grainy and low-key look at the early years of the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Now one of the longest-running folk fests in North America, this dearly loved four-day weekend is a highlight of our town's cultural calendar. There's a lot of information here, but mostly this doc catches a mood, a feel, immersing us in a totally 1970s scene of denim and long hair, mandolin players and barefoot dancers, tired toddlers and happy dogs. SUPPLIED The doc is a suitably shaggy look at the soon-to-be summer tradition. Put together from Super 8 footage shot in 1975 for a Winnipeg Film Group project that was shelved because of technical issues, When We Became Folk Fest incorporates scenes of performances, workshops and festival crowds, mixing in sound recordings from the Folk Festival collection and audio overlay of later conversations with musicians, volunteers and staff. Nikkel and Barber worked with sound designer Andy Rudolph and John Prentice, who was part of the original '75 crew. Perhaps picking up on the co-operative ethos of its subject, the film's opening credits also cite the contributions of 'a lot of good folks.' Nikkel has done evocative work engaging with archival material in films such as On the Trail of the Far Fur Country. While working within the limitations of this found footage — and the visuals can feel a little repetitive — he and Barber still manage to put a distinctive and contemporary spin on the material. There isn't a strong narrative line — it's more about vibes — but the doc gently touches on a cluster of related ideas. First off, there's an indirect but still vivid portrait of the late Mitch Podolak, who founded the fest in 1974 along with Colin Gorrie and Ava Kobrinsky. The film starts with a printed quotation from former Free Press writer Ted Allan, who calls Podolak 'a transcontinental telephone screamer and cajoler … a strategist, romantic and catalyst for an event that has become a North American institution.' From some footage of the man himself, as well as interviews with friends and colleagues, we get a sense of the tenacity and ingenuity needed to keep any grassroots not-for-profit arts organization going. 'First you tell the lie, then you have to make it happen,' says one commentator, describing Podolak's idiosyncratic, audacious and seat-of-the-pants approach in those tricky early years. The inaugural fest was a free three-day event at Birds Hill Park in 1974, made possible by the abundant funding around Winnipeg's centennial celebrations. BETSY THORSTEINSON PHOTO The footage captured by the Winnipeg Film Group in 1975 suffered the then-fatal flaw of out-of-sync images and sound: today's technology was able to save it. A cranky Winnipeg Tribune columnist suggested the festival was fine as a one-off, but it would be 'folly' to run it as an annual event. Fortunately, Podolak and his dedicated collaborators had other ideas. While some outsiders wondered why the festival was located seemingly in the middle of nowhere — Podolak told American musicians who didn't know where Winnipeg was to head to North Dakota and then keep going — it turned out there was an advantage in being far from the big centres. With its homegrown scrappiness and strong community feel, our underdog music festival became influential, with festivals following in places such as Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, eventually forming a western circuit. Folk music and money aren't an easy fit, the documentary suggests. There was initially a lot of debt, and cash crunches might be solved by bottle drives or emergency pass-the-bucket appeals. And once the festival started charging for admission, the organizers needed to be able to fence off the site. Volunteer Lorna Hiebert recalls trying to dissuade fence-jumpers with moral arguments. The following year they hired a wrestling team to patrol the perimeter. There's also plenty of talk about the bugs, the heat and the rain (cue extensive footage of soggy music fans wrapped in plastic tarps). As Podolak says, 'Weather is weather.' Other commentators suggest bad weather could even be a good thing: people found solidarity in surviving a big old Prairie thunderstorm together. The sound system could be iffy in those early years, as a few people point out, but there was a real sense of intimacy and connection. Stages were low, maybe a metre off the ground, with the audience starting a metre or two away. And maybe even more important than the performances were the workshops, the impromptu jamming and the casual conversations. John Bachmann photo Performances at the inaugural folk festival were intimate affairs. There are questions about how to define folk music, how to promote it, how to convince funders it is a worthwhile artform. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. We hear Indigenous music, Celtic music, bluegrass, Mississippi blues, protest and union songs. We see footage of Tom Jackson, Sam Chatmon, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Floyd Westerman, Cathy Fink and Duck Donald. This isn't really a performance film, though. Fundamentally, it's a lovely and life-affirming tribute to a temporary town created for one weekend a year. As Hiebert suggests, the Winnipeg Folk Festival is about 'people looking for a beautiful world.' That makes this documentary just as necessary now as it was in 1975 — maybe even more so. The 7 p.m screening tonight (Friday, July 13) features a Q&A with filmmakers Kevin Nikkel and John Prentice, moderated by John Einarson. Alison GillmorWriter Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto's York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Axios
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Celebrating Cleveland Cinemas' 1980s series with our favorite movies
Cleveland Cinemas is launching its totally tubular "I Love the '80s" film series this weekend with screenings of 1985's"Pee-wee's Big Adventure." State of play: The series continues through mid-December with movies like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "The Lost Boys," "Gremlins" and more. Tickets are just $5. 👋🏻 Sam and 👊🏾 Troy are so psyched about this radical series, they couldn't help but offer their wicked '80s movies outside of the ones being shown in the series. Sam: Rob Reiner's "When Harry Met Sally" (1989) is probably my favorite all-time rom-com. Among other things, it's a showcase for aspirational late 80s fashion. Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" (1982) is in the sci-fi pantheon for me, a triumph of literary adaptation with one of the decade's seminal scores by Greek soundtrack god Vangelis. Between the lines: How about a round of applause for my guy Werner Herzog, whose epic "Fitzcarraldo" (1982) is surely one of the most outlandish films of the decade. Though not especially "80s" in vibe, it's the perfect marriage between a madman director and a madman protagonist. The latest: I got a chance to see John Sayles' "Matewan" (1987) at the Cinematheque last year and was absolutely floored. It's an immersive labor organizing flick set in 1920s West Virginia coal country and is one of the most riveting, quotable movies I've seen from any decade. Troy: I routinely watch the last 20 minutes of "Purple Rain" (1984) to remind myself what true talent is. The 1980s featured my favorite romantic comedy of all-time in "Broadcast News" (1987) and my favorite sports movie, "Field of Dreams" (1989). Between the lines: I'm pretty sure the first movie I ever saw in a theater was "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" (1989). The latest: I recently rewatched "Vision Quest" (1985) in honor of its 40th anniversary.
Los Angeles Times
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Two local festivals launch for their second year, plus the week's best films in L.A.
Hello! I'm Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies. The Los Angeles Festival of Movies launched its second edition on Thursday with the West Coast premiere of Amalia Ulman's 'Magic Farm,' starring Ulman, Chloë Sevigny and Alex Wolff. The festival runs through Sunday with events at venues all east of Hollywood. Though there are several new films in the lineup, including Andrew DeYoung's 'Friendship' starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, Neo Sora's 'Happyend,' Grace Glowicki's 'Dead Lover' and Charlie Shackleton's 'Zodiac Killer Project,' I wrote something focused on the two restorations in the lineup, both from 1981, Jessie Maple's 'Will' and Robina Rose's 'Nightshift.' Maple was among the first Black women to direct an independent feature film. 'Will' is a powerfully direct drama about a former all-American basketball player (Obaka Adedunyo) attempting to move forward in his life from drug addiction, in part through the support of his wife (Loretta Devine) and a local boy (Robert Dean) he takes in and calls 'Little Brother.' 'Nightshift' is based on Rose's own experiences working at a West London hotel, where overnight events could be unpredictable. Shot at the Portobello Hotel for a few days over a Christmas break, the film takes on a fantastical quality, exploring the zone between waking and dreaming. Both films fit right in alongside the festival's other offerings, signaling a connection to previous notions of counterculture and alternative methods of production and distribution. As the festival's artistic director and co-founder Micah Gottlieb put it, 'With revivals, we're trying to make an implicit argument that these independent films — each of them a triumph of strong vision and limited resources — should also be more widely recognized and seen as part of a broader tradition of bold and visionary work.' Also in its second year will be American Cinematheque's 'This Is Not a Fiction' documentary series, launching Wednesday with the world premiere of Season 2 of the travel series 'Conan O'Brien Must Go.' By spotlighting television work made with a documentary sensibility alongside more conventional documentary features, the festival expands the definition of nonfiction filmmaking. 'It's not a traditional documentary festival,' said Chris LeMaire, senior film programmer at the Cinematheque and co-founder of the festival with Cindy Flores. 'We really think of what are the different forms of nonfiction and then when you get to those boundaries of what nonfiction is, I think that's when fun things can happen.' Among the series highlights will be two 2024 films from Radu Jude, 'Eight Postcards From Utopia' and 'Sleep #2.' There will be a 35mm screening of Godfrey Reggio's 1982 'Koyaanisqatsi,' as well as the L.A. premiere of the 4K restoration of Charles Burnett's 'Killer of Sheep.' Alek Keshishian's 1991 tour film 'Madonna: Truth or Dare' will play at the Egyptian, while the Los Feliz 3 will host a double bill of John Heyn and Jeff Krulik's 1986 'Heavy Metal Parking Lot' and Todd Phillips' 1993 'Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies.' Errol Morris will be present at screenings for a number of his movies, including a double bill of 1978's 'Gates of Heaven' and 1981's 'Vernon, Florida' with a Q&A moderated by Bill Hader. Morris will also be at a double bill of 1988's 'The Thin Blue Line' and 1991's 'A Brief History of Time' as well as at a screening of his recent 'Chaos: The Manson Murders.' Elsewhere during the week, he'll introduce a screening of Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho.' Following a screening of Kazuo Hara's 1987 'The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On,' Morris and Hara will appear together for a Q&A. Also as part of the festival's consideration of work made for television, there will be tribute to the reality TV show 'Survivor' featuring host Jeff Probst, and a 10th anniversary event for the show 'Documentary Now!' with Hader, Fred Armisen and other collaborators on the series that affectionately spoofs famed documentaries. The festival's closing night on April 17 will feature the L.A. premieres of Richard Green's 'I Know Catherine, the Log Lady,' about 'Twin Peaks' icon Catherine Coulson, Season 3 of '100 Foot Wave' and Courtney Stephens and Michael Almereyda's 'John Lily and the Earth Coincidence Control Office.' 'It's such a huge lineup,' said LeMaire. 'We also really wanted to make sure we had something that would interest everyone. There's a certain preconceived idea often with traditional documentary what that means in terms of a specific form of storytelling and a specific form of delivering information. Which we really appreciate and give space to in this festival, but we also really want to make it seem exciting and fun across the board, something that feels very different going on every night and at opposite venues too. So we're proud of it and I think we really took it to the next level in year two.' On Sunday the UCLA Film and Television Archive will launch a new series called 'Beyond Barbie' that will run through early June. Opening with Ana Rose Holmer's 2015 film 'The Fits,' the series will look at recent depictions of adolescent girlhood from around the globe. Holmer and editor Saela Davis will be there for a Q&A, and the evening will have an introduction from writer-director Natalie Jasmine Harris, represented by the 2024 short 'Grace.' Programmer Beandrea July explained the double meaning of the series' title, saying in an email, 'Yes, it's definitely a nod to the 'Barbie' movie — undeniably one of the biggest box office events related to girlhood in recent years. While the film isn't exactly about adolescent girls, it has become emblematic of mainstream feminist storytelling and sparked a wave of cultural conversation. 'That said, I also felt like some of those conversations were limiting. 'Barbie' brought these ideas into the spotlight, but the series is an opportunity to go deeper. The title is a little tongue-in-cheek, but it also signals that we intend to engage with some of the same questions in a more expansive and textured way.' Other films in the series include Deniz Gamze Ergüven's Oscar-nominated 2015 'Mustang,' (with Ergüven present for a Q&A), Maïmouna Doucouré's 2020 'Cuties,' Debra Granik's 2018 'Leave No Trace' (with Granik for a video Q&A), Nora Fingscheidt's 2019 'System Crasher' and Shireen Seno's 2017 'Nervous Translation,' with Seno in person. With films from the Philippines, Turkey, Spain, Germany and France as well as the United States, the program looks at how many young women are facing similar issues that cross borders and cultures. 'Many of the most compelling films I encountered were made by non-American directors, and I wanted to reflect that,' said July. 'There's a universality to the themes these films explore — identity, self-esteem, autonomy — but each one is shaped by its specific cultural and national context. … Many of the most daring portrayals of girlhood right now aren't coming from Hollywood, and I wanted to highlight that. And that said, Debra Granik and Anna Rose Holmer are two American filmmakers in the series who both present fascinating portraits of girls that feel very fresh.' Kenneth Turan and Justin Chang talk 'Bombshell' On Saturday the UCLA Film and Television Archive will screen Victor Fleming's 1933 'Bombshell,' starring Jean Harlow, in 35mm. The event will also include a conversation between former Times film critics Kenneth Turan and Justin Chang. Before the movie, Turan will also be signing copies of his new book 'Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation.' I will also be leading a conversation with Turan at the upcoming Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 26 as part of a panel titled 'Hollywood in the Golden Age: Sex, Scandal, and the Making of an Industry' along with authors Mallory O'Meara ('Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood's First Stuntwoman') and Claire Hoffman ('Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson'). 'Bombshell' is a great jumping-off point for these conversations. The film satirizes the star-making machinery of Hollywood, with Harlow playing a popular actress attempting to find romance amid the madness of the industry that surrounds her. On Oct. 29, 1933, Norbert Lusk wrote in The Times, 'The picture is too merciless in stripping illusion from life behind the scenes of Hollywood. … In this it is represented as farce, a travesty of insincerity, and that is pretty strong fare for those who cherish illusions.' Just a few days earlier, on Oct. 27, 1933, columnist Grace Kingsley said of the film in The Times, 'If movie stars, indeed, have that turbulent time in their private lives, no wonder they get nervous breakdowns. I nearly got one just watching it. Everything that ever happens to a film celebrity happens to Jean in 'Bombshell.' … But it's all in fun, and you're going to have a gay time seeing it.' 'Play It as It Lays' in 4K On Sunday, the American Cinematheque will host the L.A. premiere of the new 4K restoration of Frank Perry's 1972 'Play It as It Lays' with an introduction from screenwriter Larry Karaszewski, an avowed Perry fan. One of those films that for too long was very difficult to see in any format, the movie was adapted from the Joan Didion novel of the same name by Didion herself and her husband, John Gregory Dunne. 'Play It as It Lays' is likely the best cinematic distillation of Didion's distinctive sensibility and perspective on Los Angeles. Tuesday Weld plays a woman struck by intense dissatisfaction with all the wealth and privilege her life affords her, estranged from her film-director husband and uncertain of her future. Reviewing the film in 1972, Charles Champlin wrote, 'Joan Didion's neurotic, disintegrating heroine, pacing and reminiscing through the stately grounds of a private mental institution as we meet her and leave her, is drawn from a sub-sub-culture. She is from a rarefied part of Hollywood, which is rare enough to begin with and distinct from Southern California, which is in turn distinct from anywhere else. … [The world] Frank Perry has filmed with such conscientious and hard-working craftsmanship is at once so special and so confining that 'Play It as It Lays' is interesting as technique and almost wholly unmoving as documentary or drama. But women whose perceptions I admire are moved by it and find it — and Miss Weld — correlatives for their own dissatisfaction.' 'Secret Mall Apartment' The documentary 'Secret Mall Apartment' was one of my favorite films at the South by Southwest Film and TV Festival last year, and it is only now reaching theaters, playing in L.A. at the Alamo Drafthouse and Vidiots. Directed by Jeremy Workman, with Jesse Eisenberg as a producer, the film tells the saga of how a group of artists in Providence, R.I., built a secret apartment in hidden, unused space within the infrastructure of a sprawling local shopping mall. Transforming the space also changed their sense of purpose about it, as what started as a lark turned into a cherished meeting place, de facto clubhouse and indeed a living space that they maintained for years until they were eventually discovered. What might seem to be little more than an extended prank comes to take on a deeper meaning, as the apartment comes to symbolize something greater: how to live a creative life and something of a last stand against the ways in which society can crush the artistic spirit of adventure. Val Kilmer dies at 65 Even though it was widely known that actor Val Kilmer had long been battling throat cancer, there was still something quite shocking this week about the news of his death at age 65. From his debut in 'Top Secret!' to roles in 'Real Genius,' 'Top Gun,' 'Tombstone,' 'Kill Me Again,' 'The Doors,' 'Batman Forever,' 'Heat,' 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' and 'Top Gun: Maverick,' Kilmer always brought an intensity and vitality to his roles. When the documentary 'Val,' drawn largely from decades of Kilmer's own home video footage, was released in 2021, I had the opportunity to interview the actor via email. Of his reputation for being difficult to work with, he answered, 'I thought, naively, that the quality of the work would outweigh the perception of me being difficult. One can only hope, but it is the hope that 'kills' you.'
