Melnitz Movies Screening: Rare Exports

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE

Tuesday, November 30 @ 7:30 PM, James Bridges Theater

“Santa is one bad mamma jamma in RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE, a yuletide fable that's equal parts sincere, silly, and scary.” – Nick Shager, SLANT MAGAZINE

It's the eve of Christmas in northern Finland, and an 'archeological' dig has just unearthed the real Santa Claus. But this particular Santa isn't the one you want coming to town. When the local children begin mysteriously disappearing, young Pietari and his father Rauno, a reindeer hunter by trade, capture the mythological being and attempt to sell Santa to the misguided leader of the multinational corporation sponsoring the dig. Santa's elves, however, will stop at nothing to free their fearless leader from captivity. What ensues is a wildly humorous nightmare – a fantastically bizarre polemic on modern day morality.

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE is a re-imagining of the most classic of all childhood fantasies, and is a darkly comic gem soon to be required perennial holiday viewing.

WINNER BEST FILM - SITGES FILM FESTIVAL 2010

"Conceived with winking humor and a terrific visual style, pic is a rare treat." - Jay Weissberg, VARIETY

"RARE EXPORTS is executed with such audacious style and with such a big vision that it's impossible to watch without a big grin spreading across your face." - Todd Brown, TWITCH FILM

Director & Writer: Jalmari Helander
Cinematography: Mika Orasmaa
Starring: Per Christian Ellefsen, Peeter Jakobi, Onni Tommila
An Oscilloscope Laboratories Release
In Finnish with English Subtitles
35mm, 77 minutes

Screening: Putty Hill **Tonight**

Event Date: November 9, 2010 - 7:30pm

Location: The James Bridges Theater, Melnitz Hall, UCLA

A very special Melnitz Movies double feature!

PUTTY HILL: Cory dies of a heroin overdose in an abandoned house in Baltimore. On the eve of his funeral, family and friends gather to commemorate his life. Their shared memories paint a portrait of a community hanging in the balance, skewed by poverty, city living, and a generational divide, united in their pursuit of a new American Dream.

"If there's an independent cinema, this movie is it, and if there's a new director, here he is." - Richard Brody, THE NEW YORKER

“Porterfield’s sophomore effort is remarkable, not least for the results it achieves from extremely modest means.... there are moments here of startling compositional grace, flashes of awkward honesty and discomforting intimacy.” – Shane Danielsen, indieWIRE

HAMILTON: Hamilton chronicles two summer days in the life of a young family: Lena, 17, and Joe, 20, two recent and accidental parents residing in a diverse suburban neighborhood in northeast Baltimore City. From this assuming situation the film builds a moving portrait of personal relationships and natural beauty.

"Astonishing in its simple beauty. The real thing." - John Waters

"A tribute to the power of observation and mood." - V.A. Musetto, THE NEW YORK POST

Director Matt Porterfield present for a Q&A in between films

Putty Hill
Director: Matt Porterfield
A Cinema Guild release
English
HDcam, 87 minutes

Hamilton
Director: Matt Porterfield
A Cinema Guild release
English
16mm, 65 minutes

News: Project Involve

Congratulations to cinematographer Roberto Gudino and directors David Martin-Porras and Anthony Onah, who were selected to participate in Film Independent's annual diversity mentorship program Project:Involve this year.

The signature program is dedicated to fostering the careers of talented filmmakers from communities traditionally underrepresented in the film industry. Writer/directors Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go, One Hour Photo), Scott Frank (Marley & Me, The Lookout), writers Michael Elliot (Just Wright, Brown Sugar), Ligiah Villalobos (Under the Same Moon), editor Augie Robles (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), Focus Features' President, Worldwide Publicity and Executive Vice President, Marketing Adriene Bowles, ITVS' Programming Manager Karim Ahmad, and Film Festival programmers Hebe Tabachnik (Los Angeles and Sundance) and Kathleen McInnis (Palm Springs Shorts) will serve as mentors and guest speakers for the 2011 Project:Involve class. Additional mentors will be announced.

The program runs annually from October through June, and selects filmmakers from diverse backgrounds and filmmaking tracks. Last year, Film Independent initiated an Industry Track that opened up the program to those planning to work in the film industry as agents/managers, development execs, acquisitions/distribution execs, and in marketing. During the nine months, participants will create a short film, receive one-on-one film industry mentors, access to production-based master workshops taught by top film professionals, career development training, and industry networking opportunities.

"The filmmakers selected for this year's program are a remarkable group of rising talent, and we're looking forward to seeing the short films they produce over the course of the program," said Josh Welsh, Film Independent's Director of Talent Development. "We're also incredibly appreciative of our Project:Involve mentors and guest speakers, who give so generously of their time and expertise."

The 2011 Project:Involve participants were selected based on the quality of their projects, their passion, vision, talent, and commitment to pursuing a career in the film industry.

Screening: White Material

Melnitz Movies and the UCLA Department of French & Francophone Studies present…

WHITE MATERIAL

A FILM BY CLAIRE DENIS

Thursday November 4 @ 7:30 PM

James Bridges Theater, Melnitz Hall

FREE ADMISSION

THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR! – Amy Taubin, ARTFORUM

Master filmmaker Claire Denis returns with this evocative African-set film starring the electrifying Isabelle Huppert (THE PIANO TEACHER) as a woman fighting to save her family plantation, and way of life, in the face of rising civil unrest. Featured in the Venice, Toronto, New York and Los Angeles film festivals, WHITE MATERIAL is an extraordinarily visceral, potent and very personal rumination on a society turned upside down. In an unnamed African country in the throes of a volatile regime change, Maria Vial (Huppert) is trying to sustain the coffee plantation she runs with her ex-husband André (Christophe Lambert), but unknown to her, he has other plans. The country is tenuously under the control of a rebel militia whose leader (Isaach De Bankolé) is on the run. With the regular army preparing to regain control, French forces have moved out, warning the remaining white residents that they’re on their own if they stay behind. However, Maria refuses to be driven off the land, continuing to run the farm as the specter of impending tragedy looms.

Official Selection New York Film Festival, Official Selection Venice Film Festival

"Spellbinding...simultaneously encapsulates both the breathtaking beauty and abject horror of the African cultural landscape." - David Jenkins, TIME OUT LONDON

"Denis has never made such a thrilling film as White Material, one condensed down to the basics of movement, washed out colors, and a sandy texture." - Daniel Kasman, MUBI NOTEBOOK

Director: Claire Denis
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Christophe Lambert, Isaach De Bankolé
An IFC Films Release
In French with English subtitles
35mm, 106 minutes

Screening and Q&A: Anvil

Screening and Q&A: River's Edge

The Crank is screening River’s Edge at 5pm tomorrow in Bridges.

Crispin Glover will introduce the film and there will be a Q & A panel immediately following.

Fujifilm Camera Competition

Barbie Film Festival

FROM TOM DENOVE, VICE CHAIR & HEAD OF PRODUCTION:

"With the support of Mattel and with the Dean's blessings, we are going to have our first annual Barbie Video Girl Film Festival. Barbie Video Girl is an actual camera that captures picture and sound in standard def. The footage can easily be edited on Final Cut Pro. Besides being a weekend of fun, we hope to bring awareness to the power of women, especially in this male dominated world of directors and cinematographers.

Details are still being worked out, but we are looking at possibly the second weekend of the winter quarter. I am assembling a student steering committee to help sort out all the logistics. I already have two cinematographers on board, looking for two or three directors to join us. Please let me know if you are interested.

In order to prepare Mattel for our camera and prop needs, please email Natasha (nblake@tft.ucla.edu) and let her know if you are interested in making a film for the festival. The maximum running time will be two or three minutes and the whole production process will be finished in a weekend. More details and/or changes will follow after the steering committee meets.

Don't underestimate the power of Barbie.

Tom"

16th Annual DGA Student Film Awards Ceremony

Congratulations to Amy Adrion (Women's Category / Jury Prize), David Martin Porras* (Latino Category / First Place) and Julio Ramos (Latino Category / Jury Prize).

*David Martin Porras won in the Latino Category last year as well; and this is the first time in the sixteen year history of the DGA Student Awards that a student has won first place two years in a row.

RECEPTION & SCREENING @ THE DGA on Wednesday, November 10, 2010

VIP Reception in the DGA Atrium: 6:30 PM
Award Ceremony: 7:30 PM
DGA Theatre 2 • 7920 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles
RSVP: 310 289-5305 or email mattg@dga.org

The DGA Student Film Awards are presented annually to encourage and bring attention to outstanding minority and women film students in California and select universities across the nation. The Directors Guild will present $2,500 to each winner, along with film product grants provided by Kodak's Worldwide Student Film Program. Please join us in congratulating these up-and-coming new directors as we screen their winning films.

Memorial Service for Professor Teshome Gabriel

Please join us to celebrate the inspiring life of Teshome H. Gabriel on Friday, November 19th at the Freud Playhouse, Macgowan Hall, on the UCLA campus.

The memorial service begins at 5:00 p.m. Reception to follow.

Teshome Gabriel was a revered faculty member in the Cinema & Media Studies program at UCLA, a pioneering scholar and activist, and an internationally recognized authority on Third World and Post-Colonial cinema. He earned his doctoral degree at UCLA in 1979. At the time of his passing Gabriel was in the process of writing a book, "Third Cinema: Exploration of Nomadic Aesthetics & Narrative Communities."

The below passage dramatizes the complexity of feeling and thought presented throughout his work:

“Movement is not just a spatial displacement, or a matter of sequence, or of a linear history. While stones are generally associated with immobility, those that tend to remain still are in fact the ones that move the most throughout history. By not moving at all, they move in other directions, in other dimensions, in their own curious and often ironic way. Pyramids would seem to be the most immobile of things, yet they have been all over the world; there is no place in the world that does not carry archival memories of pyramids, for whom the pyramid does not signify something of deep cultural importance. One can argue that the same forces are at work in the wailing wall of Jerusalem and the great wall of China, and the Kaaba/Ka’ba of Mecca. Stones, like sacred relics, travel and induce us to do likewise; they move us emotionally and spiritually.” - Teshome Gabriel (2005)

This memorial service will celebrate Teshome Gabriel’s profound influence on his discipline, as well as the inspiration he brought to those around him.

RSVP: http://legacy.tft.ucla.edu/memorial/

Cinematographers Ed Lachman & Harris Savides @ LACMA

LACMA has a great set of events starting tomorrow...

November 6 | 7 pm | Free*

Cinematographers Ed Lachman (FAR FROM HEAVEN, ERIN BROCKOVICH, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES) and Harris Savides (ZODIAC, MILK, ELEPHANT, Sophia Coppola’s forthcoming SOMEWHERE) will take part in a panel discussion.

Director Michael Almereyda (NADJA, HAMLET, WILLIAM EGGLESTON IN THE REAL WORLD) will talk to them about the relationship between film, photography, color, and influence. This free event is being presented concurrently with the exhibition William Eggleston: Democratic Camera—Photographs and Video, 1961–2008, on view now until January 16, 2011.

*Tickets required; available on the day of the event.

Screening: The Kids Are Alright & Sympathy For Delicious

American Cinematheque presents
MARK RUFFALO

You and a guest are invited to a
special double feature of

“THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT”
and
“SYMPATHY FOR DELICIOUS”

Q&A with actor/director
MARK RUFFALO inbetween the films

Friday, November 5th
7:30PM

AERO THEATRE
1328 Montana Avenue (at 14th Street)
Santa Monica

To attend, please RSVP to 818-777-3651
or TKAAR@earthlink.net

Screening: Eve's Bayou

You are invited to a screening of Eve’s Bayou with Writer/Director and UC Regents’ Lecturer Kasi Lemmons

Thursday November 18th, 2010

7 – 10 PM

The James Bridges Theater

UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television

Written and Directed by Kasi Lemmons in 1997, Eve’s Bayou became the highest grossing independent film of that year and received the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, seven NAACP Image Award nominations, and a special first time director award created just for her by the National Board of Review. Eve’s Bayou stars Samuel Jackson, Lynn Whitfield and Jurnee Smollett.

The special Directors Cut of the film will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Allyson Field, Assistant Professor in the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media.

This event is open to TFT students only.

Please RSVP at http://www2.tft.ucla.edu/rsvp/

Masterclass: Alex Cox

We are pleased to announce that TFT alumnus Alex Cox, director of such films as Repo Man, Sid & Nancy and Straight To Hell, will be our guest at the School of Theater, Film & Television.

Date: Friday, November 19th 2010

Time: 10:00am – 1:00pm

Location: Melnitz 1422

TFT Chair Barbara Boyle will facilitate a Q&A session, and is currently inviting questions from the student body.

Please RSVP if you would like to attend. Your seat will be confirmed on a first come, first serve basis. Please note that the event is limited to 50 students and the event is open to TFT students only.