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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > June > 08 > Entry
Blanton launches film series
Sweet — a great way to beat the heat this summer. Head for a film series in the cool in the Blanton’s new auditorium that feature stadium seating,
The Blanton Museum of Art is teaming up with the Austin Film Festival for the ‘New Directions Film Series.’ The series features five emerging independent filmmakers, highlighting diverse perspectives and destinations around the globe. Stories range from the drama of American youth, to the struggles of art making in North Korea, to the vivacious growth of the Nigerian film industry, and more.
All films will be screened at the Blanton’s new auditorium on select Thursdays and Sundays through July 19.
Cost: $3 for AFF members, Blanton members, UT faculty and students; $5 for general public.
www.blantonmuseum.org
Gretchen (2006) 98 min.
Dir. Steve Collins, U.S.
7 p.m. June 18 and 3 p.m. June 21
Gretchen has bigger problems than abysmal fashion sense: She’s 17, painfully awkward and stuck in the most unforgiving place on earth - high school. When her obsession with school bad boy Ricky gets out of hand, her mother sends her to an emotional treatment center to recover. She has to travel elsewhere, however, to truly begin to understand why she fixates on the wrong kind of guy. Starring Courtney Davis as the perpetually uncomfortable Gretchen, Steve Collins’ first feature is a humorously deadpan yet poignant reminder of how the smallest moments can lead to extreme adolescent drama.
Silent Light (2007) 135 min.
Dir. Carlos Reygadas, Mexico
3 p.m. June 28
Set in a Mennonite community in Mexico, ‘Silent Light’ quickly establishes the importance of nature in setting the rhythms and routines of the religious, rural lives at the film’s center. Its lauded opening shot chronicles a starry sky slowly giving way to breaking dawn as the cacophonous chatter of crickets chanting, dogs barking, and roosters crowing fills the soundtrack. From here on, birdsong is nearly constant, and images of land and sky frequently hold the camera’s attention for extended durations.
But amidst this pastoral setting, a disturbance is apparent from the outset. A cut from the heavenly curtain-raiser takes us into the home of Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr) and Esther (Miriam Toews), where a circulating camera catches static portraits around the kitchen table and introduces us to the couple and their numerous children, the silence broken only by the unnerving tick-tock of a clock until an “Amen” frees the family to eat breakfast. In the somewhat stilted manner between husband and wife, not simply the result of the director’s characteristic use of nonprofessional actors, festering emotions are legible.
The Juche Idea (2008) 62 min.
Dir. Jim Finn, U.S.
3 p.m. July 12
Roughly translated, Juche, the official North Korean religion and political ideology, means self-reliance. But the official text on the state-sponsored philosophy, written by Kim Jong-il, leaves final authority over interpretation of Juche to the Dear Leader, himself. ‘The Juche Idea’ tells the story of a South Korean video artist (Kim Jong-il loves movies!) who takes a residency in North Korea. She becomes inspired by the Juche concept of revolutionary art, and intent to further adapt the ideology to modern cinematic practices. The film is partly told through some of the projects she makes while at the residency-The Small Little Teeth of America: The Tiny Dentures of Imperialism; Flesh Ring in the Sea of Blood; and The Winter of Abundance: Our Hope is the Juche State. As in his earlier films ‘Interkosmos’ (Opening Night, 2006) and ‘La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzal’o (NYUFF 2007), Finn’s signature tone is in full effect. ‘The Juche Idea’ is a deadpan yet poetic look at the relation of image to idea, and an investigation into the role of propaganda and politics in the creation of art.
Shotgun Stories (2007) 92 min.
Dir. Jeff Nichols, U.S.
7 p.m. July 16
‘Shotgun Stories’ tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father, a man that never bothered to give his children proper names. He left the three brothers, Son, Boy and Kid, when they were young. Their last impressions were of a violent drunk who never hesitated to put his own needs ahead of his family. The brothers were left to be raised by their mother, a hateful woman, who to this day blames her children for the life she’s been left with and the man she could not keep.
Their father, having left the memory of his children as completely as he left their home, managed to move on and put his life back together. He sobered up, became a devout Christian, married a wonderful woman, and fathered four new sons. All of who received proper names. His life became a model that most would aspire to, a man successful in business, community and family. His only true failing being the sons he turned his back on. At the beginning of the film, we find Son, Boy and Kid as grown men. The three brothers’ lives progress and their futures play out, but their past inevitably comes to claim them. Following a dispute at their father’s funeral, a feud begins to simmer between these sons and the new young men their father has raised. It is an anger that has always rested uncomfortably in the background of their lives. However now, it is a thing that will rise up to overtake them all. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.
Welcome to Nollywood (2008) 80 min.
Dir. Jamie Meltzer, U.S.
3 p.m., July 19,
Nigeria’s Nollywood is now the world’s third largest film industry after Hollywood and Bollywood. Peace Mission is a guided tour from one of the industry’s major players: producer, filmmaker and founder of the African Movie Academy Awards, Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima. Fitting interviews in between conference calls, parties, and meetings, we get to know something about this thriving and surprising industry through the eyes of a woman determined to see the development of her continent through film.
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