Green Mountain Film Festival 2010 March 19-28

ALEXANDRA

• Monday, March 23 8:30 pm
• Wednesday, March 25 12:00 pm
• Thursday, March 26 6:00 pm

Savoy Theater
An elderly woman travels to the Chechen war zone to see her soldier grandson in Alexander Sokurov’s powerful film. “A film of startling originality and beauty that feels like a communiqué from another time and another place…. Mr. Sokurov has said that ALEXANDRA is about the eternal life of Russia, a sentiment that might sound mawkish coming from another filmmaker. But ALEXANDRA strikes me as an enormously honest work, not just because there is palpable truth in its very location but also because of the contradictions it lays open like a wound.” (Manohla Dargis, New York Times) 95 minutes, in Russian with subtitles. Sponsored by National Life Group. Community Partners: Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Vermont Council on World Affairs, Vermont Council on Aging, Montpelier Senior Center, Peace and Justice Center. Review

ALL IN THIS TEA

• Saturday, March 21 12:00 pm

City Hall Arts Center
Directors Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht follow the American tea importer, David Lee Hoffman, to some of the most remote regions of China in search of the finest handmade teas in the world. As the Chinese open their doors to the global marketplace, Hoffman opens their eyes to their own ancient tradition that links them, and all of us, to the distant past. San Francisco Chronicle: “It brims with fascinating information about the process of growing fine tea, but the film rises to perfection as the tea becomes a kind of lens for us to consider, yet again, the fragility of our environment.” Shown with Les Blank’s WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE. Total running time, 70 minutes. Sponsored by Red Hen Bakery. Post-film event: Director Les Blank will discuss the film. Review

ANITA O’DAY: THE LIFE OF A JAZZ SINGER

• Friday, March 20 6:15 pm
• Thursday, March 26 2:00 pm
• Friday, March 27 10:30 pm

City Hall Arts Center
Anita O’Day, who debuted with the Gene Krupa Band in the 1940s and performed right up to her death two years ago, was one of the greatest of American jazz singers. This is her astonishing story—a journey of survival told in a number of frank interviews with her and with those who knew her. She was commonly regarded as one of the top female artists of her time, together with Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday. In Robbie Cavolina’s film, packed with wonderful performances, she speaks openly about how she had to overcome great adversities, including a 20-year addiction to heroin and alcohol. Friends talk about her quirky and fierce personality, while jazz critics and her contemporaries try to analyze her extraordinary talent. 90 minutes. Sponsored by The Black Door. Community Partner: Vermont Public Radio. Review or listen

AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR

• Wednesday, March 25 8:15 pm
• Thursday, March 26 12:00 pm

City Hall Arts Center
This documentary from Steve James and Peter Gilbert (HOOP DREAMS) is a personal look at the death penalty through the eyes of Pastor Carroll Pickett, who served 15 years as the death house chaplain to the infamous “Walls” prison unit in Huntsville, Texas, presiding over 95 executions. After each execution, Pickett recorded an audiotape account of his trip to the death chamber. The film also focuses on the story of Carlos De Luna, a convict Pickett counseled and whose execution troubled Pickett more than any other. He firmly believed De Luna was innocent, and the film tracks the investigative efforts of a team of Chicago Tribune reporters who have turned up crucial evidence. New York Sun: “Impressive and deeply poignant.” 90 minutes. Community Partners: American Friends Service Committee in Vermont, Peace and Justice Center.
Review

AWAKE MY SOUL

• Saturday, March 21 4:30 pm
• Sunday, March 22 10:00 am

City Hall Arts Center
Matt and Erica Hinton’s documentary explores the history, music, and traditions of the sacred harp, considered to be the oldest surviving American music style. This haunting music has survived for over 200 years tucked away from sight in the rural deep south (and since the early 1970s, in central Vermont), where in old wooden country churches, generations of devoted singers break open The Sacred Harp, a “shape note” hymnal first published in Georgia in 1844. The hymns are at times disorienting to the modern ear, and yet they are sung with such passion and force that it becomes obvious that these songs are very much alive. 75 minutes. Sponsored by Lost Nation Theater. Post-film event: Local sacred harp singers will perform at each show. Review

BLINDSIGHT

• Sunday, March 22 10:00 am
• Tuesday, March 24 12:00 pm
• Wednesday, March 25 6:00 pm
• Saturday, March 28 9:30 am

Savoy Theater
“Featuring exceptional people doing extraordinary things, BLINDSIGHT is one of those documentaries with the power to make you re-examine your entire life — or at least get off the couch. Filmed primarily in and around the cascading Tibetan Himalayas, Lucy Walker’s astonishing film follows six blind Tibetan teenagers as they attempt to scale the 23,000-foot Lhakpa Ri peak on the north side of Mount Everest. Led by Erik Weihenmayer, the only blind man to have climbed Everest itself, and accompanied by their fearless teacher, Sabriye Tenberken, the teenagers brave ravines, altitude sickness and inclement weather with the kind of fortitude only the shunned possess. When you live in a culture that believes the blind to be either sinners or inhabited by demons, a lack of oxygen is not such a big deal.” (Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times) 104 minutes. Sponsored by Washington County Youth Service Bureau. Community Partners: Vermont Association for the Blind, Green Mountain Club.
Review

THE BROTHER…

• Wednesday, March 25 6:00 pm

City Hall Arts Center
“THE BROTHER WHO SENT HIS SISTER TO THE ELECTRIC CHAIR” is the full title of this documentary, produced for French television and presented here as a world premiere, which explores the role of the enigmatic David Greenglass, whose testimony sent his sister and brother-in-law, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, to their deaths in 1953. 75 minutes. Post-film event: Robert Meeropol, son of the Rosenbergs, will discuss the film and the latest developments in the case. Community Partner: American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont. website

CLOSE UP

• Saturday, March 28 1:45 pm

City Hall Arts Center
We asked visiting critic Godfrey Cheshire to choose an Iranian film, and his pick is Abbas Kiarostami’s mock-documentary (1990), in which a film buff assumes the identity of his favorite director. The film offers an insightful look into contemporary Iran and the nature of filmmaking. Stephen Holden, The New York Times: “A transcendent humanist in the tradition of the Italian neo-realists and the Indian director Satyajit Ray, Mr. Kiarostami has made a film that looks into the heart of a man accused of a crime and, instead of evil, discovers only sweetness, longing and a sad confusion.” 90 minutes, in Farsi with subtitles. Post-film event: Critic Godfrey Cheshire will discuss the film. Review

THE COLLECTOR OF BEDFORD STREET/THE APARTMENT/BILL’S BILL

• Saturday, March 28 9:30 am

City Hall Arts Center
THE COLLECTOR (40 minutes) is an award-winning documentary about director Alice Elliott’s neighbor, Larry Selman, a community activist who has an intellectual disability. When Larry’s primary caregiver becomes unable to care for him, his New York City neighborhood rallies to protect his independence. THE APARTMENT (28 minutes), closer to home, is about a program that allows special-needs high school graduates to live independently. BILL’S BILL is a short history of special education in Vermont. Sponsored by Vermont Developmental Disability Council. NOTE: Free admission, but tickets required. Post-film event: The filmmakers of THE APARTMENT and BILL’S BILL, along with several participants, will discuss the films. Review of The Collector

CONSTANTINE’S SWORD

• Saturday, March 21 8:45 pm
• Sunday, March 22 12:00 pm
• Friday, March 27 2:00 pm

City Hall Arts Center
“At the heart of Oren Jacoby’s screen adaptation of James Carroll’s book Constantine’s Sword lies a question to which each person of faith must his find own answer: When your core beliefs conflict with church doctrine, how far should your loyalty to the church extend? At once enthralling and troubling, the film does about as good a job as you could hope of distilling a 750-page historical examination of religious zealotry and power into 95 swift minutes, while also telling the story of James Carroll’s own journey from Jesuit priest to anti-war activist and theological scholar. Carroll is our probing guide as he attempts to understand the ancient roots of anti-Semitism.” (Stephen Holden, New York Times) Sponsored by Cranbury International. Community Partner: Beth Jacob Synagogue. Post-film event: Writer-director Oren Jacoby will discuss the film after the Saturday, March 21, and Sunday, March 22, shows. Review

Conversations with GIANCARLO ESPOSITO

• Sunday, March 29 4:15 pm

Giancarlo Esposito, star of DO THE RIGHT THING, NIGHT ON EARTH, and BOB ROBERTS, will be here with his directorial debut, GOSPEL HILL.  He will also discuss his wide-ranging acting career.

Conversations with LES BLANK

• Sunday, March 22 10:00 am

Kellogg-Hubbard Library
Since his first film in 1973, Les Blank has been known as America’s most culturally curious documentarian, directing films on tex-mex music, cajun culture, the making of FITZCARRALDO, and on folk musicians from many cultures. In 1993, GARLIC IS AS GOOD AS TEN MOTHERS and in 2004 CHULAS FRONTERAS were selected by the U.S. Library Of Congress for inclusion in The National Film Registry. Blank joined Fred Wiseman and the Maysles brothers as the only documentarians to be honored with two films on the list. He will be at this year’s festival to present three films (GARLIC IS AS GOOD AS Ten MOTHERS, J’AI ÉTÉ AU BAL, and his most recent, ALL IN THIS TEA) together with several shorts, and will discuss his films with musician/folklorist Mark Greenberg.

THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE…

• Friday, March 27 12:00 pm
• Sunday, March 29 1:45 pm

Savoy Theater
Bound via marriage to the cold General André (Charles Boyer), the Comtesse Louise de… (Danielle Darrieux) pawns a pair of diamond earrings given to her by her husband in order to pay off a large debt. Discovering his wife’s act, the General buys back the earrings as a gift for his mistress, and as the jewelry moves from owner to owner throughout upper-class Europe – ending in the hands of the Baron (Vittorio De Sica), the Comtesse’s new lover – director Max Ophüls’s constantly moving camera reveals the poignant loneliness and doomed romanticism that lie under the elegant façades of his characters.  A sharp and graceful examination of love and loss, THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE… is widely regarded as one of the finest romantic dramas of all time. 105 minutes, in French with subtitles. Sponsored by Jane and Ed Pincus. Community Partner: Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Post-film event: GMFF Managing Director Donald Rae will discuss the film at the Sunday show. Review

EXAMINED LIFE

• Sunday, March 22 8:45 pm
• Wednesday, March 25 2:00 pm

City Hall Arts Center
Canadian flmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas. Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Slavoj Zizek questions current beliefs about the environment while sifting through a garbage dump. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, EXAMINED LIFE reveals philosophy’s power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it. 87 minutes. Post-film event: Philosophy instructors Michael Macomber and Mary Catherine Youmell will discuss the film after the Sunday, March 22, show. Review

FEAR(S) OF THE DARK

• Saturday, March 21 2:00 pm
• Monday, March 23 4:15 pm
• Saturday, March 28 10:30 pm

City Hall Arts Center
(Saturday, March 21)
(Monday, March 23)
Savoy Theater (Saturday, March 28)
“An emaciated French nobleman gleefully unleashes his slavering hounds on a succession of screaming victims. A traumatized Japanese girl is forced to return, again and again, to nightmares of a violent past. A socially repressed young man discovers that girls are even more terrifying when they like you than when they don’t. These tales, along with three others, make up FEAR(S) OF THE DARK, an animated anthology featuring six of today’s most talented graphic artists. Shot in luminous whites, pulsing blacks and gorgeous grays, the stories explore sexual insecurity, rural superstition and sociopolitical anxieties with an inventiveness that’s seldom scary but never less than mesmerizing.” (Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times) 85 minutes, in French with subtitles. Sponsored by Figrig Web Crafters. Community Partner: Center for Cartoon Studies. Post-film event: Writer and artist Steve Bissette will discuss the film after the Saturday, March 21, show. Review

GARLIC IS AS GOOD AS TEN MOTHERS

• Sunday, March 22 2:15 pm

City Hall Arts Center
This 1988 lip-smacking foray into the history, consumption, cultivation and culinary/curative powers of the “stinking rose” features chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and a flavorful musical soundtrack. The San Francisco Chronicle called this lively film “a joyous, nose-tweaking, ear-tingling, mouth-watering tribute to a Life Force.” The lovingly photographed documentary is an odyssey of garlic feasts alternating with unique interviews with garlic aficionados. Shown with Les Blank’s YUM! YUM! YUM!, a short guide to Cajun cuisine. Total program, 80 minutes. Sponsored by Vermont Compost Company. Community Partner: Food Works. Post-film event: Director Les Blank will discuss the films. More on Les Blank

GOSPEL HILL

• Saturday, March 28 8:45 pm
• Sunday, March 29 6:15 pm

City Hall Arts Center
In Giancarlo Esposito’s directing debut, a small South Carolina town marks the 40th anniversary of the death of a civil rights leader, summoning up unresolved issues of the past. The Hollywood Reporter: “This spare yet radiant film brims with the fears, frustrations and dreams of the town’s individuals.” With Danny Glover, Julia Stiles, Angela Bassett, and Esposito. Sponsored by Susan Ritz. Community Partner: Central Vermont Anti-Racism Study Circle. Post-film event: Director Giancarlo Esposito will discuss the film after both shows. The Hollywood Reporter

THE GROCER’S SON

• Saturday, March 21 10:00 am
• Tuesday, March 24 6:30 pm
• Wednesday, March 25 2:00 pm
• Thursday, March 26 12:00 pm

Savoy Theater
The rolling countryside of Provence may be a dream vacation spot, but it is the last place in the world that Antoine, the sullen 30-year-old protagonist of this film, would like to be. In this French variation of the fable of the prodigal son, Antoine reluctantly returns to his rural hometown after 10 years in the big city when his father has a heart attack. While his mother has minded the family’s grocery store, his father has operated a van selling produce and staples to the area’s mostly elderly inhabitants. “This small gem of a film, a surprise hit in France, is directed by Éric Guirado, who prepared for it by filming portraits of traveling tradesmen in southern and central France.” (Stephen Holden, The New York Times) 96 minutes, in French with subtitles. Sponsored by Hunger Mountain Coop. Review

HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29-29

• Monday, March 23 8:45 pm
• Saturday, March 28 4:00 pm
• Sunday, March 29 9:30 am

City Hall Arts Center
“The filmmaker Kevin Rafferty (THE ATOMIC CAFÉ) makes the case for remembrance and for the art of the story in his preposterously entertaining documentary about the famous Harvard-Yale football game of 1968, immortalized in the Harvard Crimson’s headline the next day, from which the film gets its title. Rafferty intercuts the original television broadcast of the game with lively interviews with many of the game’s participants, including Tommy Lee Jones and Yale’s quarterback Brian Dowling, who provided the model for Doonesbury’s ‘B.D.’ The game’s action connects with the personal and public passions of the day, from politics to the sexual revolution. The result is a fascinating feat of cultural anthropology.” (The New Yorker) 105 minutes. Sponsored by Onion River Sports. Post-film event: Bill Kelly, one of the Harvard heroes, will discuss the film at the Saturday, March 28, show. Review

HENRI LANGLOIS: PHANTOM OF THE CINEMATHEQUE

• Tuesday, March 24 8:30 pm

City Hall Arts Center
“For the first decades of their existence, movies were seen not as works of art deserving preservation but as disposable commodities. The notion that they might be preserved, collected and studied was in the air by the mid-1930’s, but it took the pluck and persistence of a single eccentric Frenchman, Henri Langlois — subject of this affectionate documentary directed by Jacques Richard — to make the idea a reality in the form of the Cinémathèque Française. Mr. Richard’s film makes a persuasive case for Langlois as one of the most important figures in the history of film and therefore in the history of 20th-century art. A shabbily dressed, chain-smoking walrus of a man, Langlois emerges in the course of this fascinating film as a maddening, inspiring figure, afire with intelligence and passion.” (A. O. Scott, The New York Times) In French with subtitles, 128 minutes. Sponsored by Terry Doran and Deb Richter. Community Partner: Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Review and a commentary

I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND

• Sunday, March 22 12:00 pm
• Tuesday, March 24 4:00 pm
• Thursday, March 26 8:30 pm

Savoy Theater
Jan Dite, the plucky little waiter who bounces around central Europe in Jiri Menzel’s epic comedy, has colossal ambitions. Catering to political and military fat cats at a fancy brothel in 1930s Czechoslovakia, his appetites are piqued as he observes them dandling prostitutes on their laps while washing down rich banquets with beer and brandy. I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND is Mr. Menzel’s sixth screen adaptation of the work of Bohumil Hrabal, the Czech satirist who is best known for writing the novel Closely Watched Trains and the screenplay of Menzel’s 1968 film version. “There is hardly a moment in this new film in which you are not aware that its absurdist view of the human condition was shaped by traumatic 20th-century events.” (Stephen Holden, The New York Times) 118 minutes, in Czech with subtitles. Sponsored by Sarducci’s. Community Partner: Vermont Council on Foreign Affairs. Review

IF STONE COULD SPEAK

• Sunday, March 22 6:45 pm

City Hall Arts Center
David Croce’s fascinating history tells of the scalpellini – the stonecutters who learned their skills in the famed marble quarries of northern Italy and moved to the United States in search of better wages and to escape political persecution. The sculpture-quality granite in Barre acted like a magnet for the scalpellini, and at one time there were close to 10,000 sculptors working at long wooden benches. Croce examines the lives of these immigrants in Barre and the traditions they brought, and interviews some of their descendants. Sponsored by Lost Nation Theater. Community Partners: Studio Place Arts, Barre Granite Museum, Vermont Historical Society. Post-film event: There will be a discussion with some of the participants in the film. Review

J’AI ÉTÉ AU BAL

• Saturday, March 21 6:30 pm

City Hall Arts Center
“J’AI ÉTÉ AU BAL begins as anthropology and becomes a celebration. It’s about the roots of Cajun music as it evolved in southeast Louisiana after French Acadians, exiled from Nova Scotia, settled there in the middle of the 18th century. It’s also about the roots of zydeco music, which is primarily black American, and how the two forms of music have sometimes cross-fertilized each other and yet maintained their separate identities. The anthropological part is discussed by musicians and historians, and the celebration comes with the Cajun and zydeco music that is played nearly nonstop throughout the movie, by people who talk about what they do with something of the same infectious joy and wit that their music expresses.” (Vincent Canby, The New York Times) 80 minutes. Community Partner: Vermont Public Radio. Post-film event: Director Les Blank will discuss the film. Review

KNIFE IN THE WATER

• Friday, March 27 8:30 pm
• Sunday, March 29 4:15 pm

Savoy Theater
Roman Polanski burst onto the international film world in 1962 with a brilliant psychological thriller that many critics still consider his greatest work. The story is simple, yet the implications of its characters’ emotions and actions are profound. When a young hitchhiker joins a couple on a weekend yacht trip, psychological warfare breaks out as the two men compete for the woman’s attention. With stinging dialogue and a mercilessly probing camera, Polanski creates a disturbing study of fear, humiliation, sexuality and aggression. 94 minutes, in Polish with subtitles. Sponsored by Jane and Ed Pincus. Community Partner: Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Post-film event: Film scholar Bill Morancy will discuss the film at the Sunday show. Review

KATYN

• Friday, March 20 4:00 pm
• Saturday, March 21 9:00 pm
• Sunday, March 22 4:30 pm
• Monday, March 23 12:00 pm

Savoy Theater
For master director Andrzej Wajda (MAN OF IRON), the cinema can offer an alternative vision of events to counter the “official stories” of the Polish communist regime. Perhaps the biggest deception of all was the cover-up of the 1940 massacre of almost 15,000 Polish Army officers by the Soviet Red Army. In 1943, the occupying German army discovered mass graves in Katyn Forest and elsewhere and used them as anti-Soviet propaganda. When the war ended, the Soviets denied any responsibility, attributing the massacres to the Germans—which then became the official line, despite thousands of Poles knowing the truth. Weaving together several stories of the victims and their families, KATYN is the remarkable culmination of Wajda’s lifelong wish to make a feature film on the subject; his father was one of those murdered at Katyn. 118 minutes, in Polish with subtitles. Sponsored by Richard Jenney. Community Partner: Vermont Council on World Affairs 

David Denby in The New Yorker

LEONARD BERNSTEIN ON “OMNIBUS”

• Tuesday, March 24 6:15 pm

City Hall Arts Center
Last year’s Bernstein/Omnibus selection was so popular that we are presenting another brilliant Bernstein program, this one on “The Art of Conducting.” Shown with an excerpt of the musical humorist Victor Borge on Omnibus. 65 minutes. Sponsored by Northfield Savings Bank. Community Partners: Vermont Youth Orchestra, Monteverdi Music School, Capital City Concerts. Post-film event: Richard Saudek (son of Omnibus producer Robert Saudek) and Susan Cooke Kittredge (daughter of Omnibus host Alistair Cooke) will discuss the film.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

• Friday, March 20 10:45 pm
• Saturday, March 21 6:00 pm
• Sunday, March 22 9:00 pm
• Monday, March 23 4:00 pm

Savoy Theater
Fragile and anxious, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates. The lonely boy’s wish for a friend seems to come true when he meets Eli, also twelve, who moves in next door to him. A pale, serious young girl, she only comes out at night and doesn’t seem affected by the freezing temperatures. Coinciding with Eli’s arrival is a series of inexplicable disappearances and murders. Blood seems to be the common denominator—and for an introverted boy like Oskar, it doesn’t take long before he figures out that Eli is a vampire. But by now a subtle romance has blossomed between them, and she gives him the strength to fight back against his aggressors. “Director Tomas Alfredson and screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist weave friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence.” (The New Yorker) 114 minutes, in Swedish with subtitles. Post-film event: Writer and artist Steve Bissette will discuss the film after the Saturday, March 21, show.
Review

LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER, THE MISTRESS, AND THE TANGERINE

• Tuesday, March 24 2:00 pm
• Thursday, March 26 8:30 pm

City Hall Arts Center
As an artist, Louise Bourgeois has for six decades been at the forefront of successive new developments, but always on her own powerfully inventive and disquieting terms. In 1982, at the age of 71, she became the first woman to be honored with a major retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. In the decades since, she has created her most powerful and persuasive work which has been exhibited, studied and lectured on worldwide. In this cinematic journey inside the life and imagination of an icon of modern art, we see a magnetic, mercurial and emotionally raw woman; there seems to be no separation between her life as an artist and the memories and emotions that affect her every day. 99 minutes. Community Partner: Studio Place Arts. Review

MEMORIES OF MONTPELIER

• Thursday, March 26 11:00 am

City Hall Arts Center
A special screening of this recent documentary by local filmmakers, sharing the stories of twelve Montpelier residents who as kids “prowled the streets” and made their own entertainment during the days of trolley cars and ice delivery wagons. (30 mins) Post film event: question and answer session with local historian and filmmaker Bill Doyle.

Admission free (tickets not required)

MOVING MIDWAY

• Monday, March 23 2:15 pm
• Saturday, March 28 11:30 am
• Sunday, March 29 2:00 pm

City Hall Arts Center
Godfrey Cheshire’s richly observed film about his family’s Southern plantation mansion – and the colossal feat of moving it to escape urban sprawl – is a thoughtful and witty look at the lingering remnants and still-powerful mythology of plantation culture and the antebellum South. While observing the elaborate, arcane preparations for moving a centuries-old house over fields and a rock quarry, unexpected human drama – from both the living and the dead – emerges. And a chance encounter leads Cheshire and his cousins to discover a previously unknown African-American branch of the family (who naturally have their own take on Midway and its legacy). Through the use of movies and music, and by turning the camera on himself and his family, Cheshire examines the Southern plantation in American history and culture, and how the racial legacy from the past continues into the present. Sponsored by Concept2. Community Partner: Central Vermont Anti-Racism Study Circle. Post-film event: Director Godfrey Cheshire will discuss the film at the Saturday, March 28, and Sunday, March 29, shows. Review

MY WINNIPEG

• Saturday, March 21 11:00 pm
• Thursday, March 26 4:00 pm
• Friday, March 27 10:30 pm

City Hall Arts Center
(Saturday and Thursday shows)
Savoy Theater
(Friday show only)
“After seeing MY WINNIPEG, Guy Maddin’s odd and touching tribute to his hometown, I was tempted to do some further research. For instance: Is there really a municipal law against throwing away old signs? Does Winnipeg indeed have two separate taxi companies, one working the major streets, the other confined to the back alleys? Were some of the streets named after well-known prostitutes and brothel owners? Did horses, fleeing a fire in the 1920s, actually freeze to death in the river, their icebound heads providing props for skaters? Is it true that the city fathers used to sponsor an annual treasure hunt in which first prize was a one-way ticket out of town? To be honest, I’d rather not know. The film, which combines archival documentary images with freshly shot, antique-looking passages, is more concerned with lyrical truth than with literal accuracy. Whatever its connection to the actual, transitory city, Mr. Maddin’s film is as real as any work of art can be.” (A. O. Scott, The New York Times) 80 minutes. Review

NOODLE

• Saturday, March 28 8:45 pm
• Sunday, March 29 6:45 pm

Savoy Theater
At 37, Miri is a twice-widowed, El Al flight attendant. Her well-regulated existence is suddenly turned upside down by an abandoned Chinese boy whose migrant-worker mother has been summarily deported from Israel. The film is a touching comic-drama in which two human beings — as different from each other as Tel Aviv is from Beijing — accompany each other on a remarkable journey, one that takes them both back to a meaningful life. Variety: “This feel-good crowd pleaser builds an emotional head of steam.” 90 minutes, in Chinese and Hebrew with subtitles. Sponsored by Casey Family Services. Community Partner: Beth Jacob Synagogue. Review

NUMEN: THE NATURE OF PLANTS

• Friday, March 27 6:15 pm

City Hall Arts Center
Local filmmakers Terrence Youk and Ann Armbrecht traveled across the country to explore the healing powers of plants and the natural world. The filmmakers quote Ken Ausubel, founder of the Bioneers Conference: “Our relationship with plants and our knowledge of those plants is perhaps the most important collective heritage we have…That knowledge is ultimately what is going to sustain us.” 85 minutes. Sponsored by Montpelier Pharmacy. Post-film event: the filmmakers and Rosemary Gladstar and Guido Mase, both featured in the film, will discuss the film.

PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE

• Friday, March 20 10:30 pm
• Tuesday, March 24 4:00 pm

City Hall Arts Center
This portrait of legendary singer, artist and poet Patti Smith is a plunge into the philosophy and artistry of the cult rocker. Known as the godmother of punk, she emerged in the 1970s, galvanizing the music scene with her unique style of poetic rage, music and trademark swagger. We follow the multitalented and private artist over 11 years of international travel, through her spoken words, performances, lyrics, interviews, paintings and photographs. Narrated by Patti Smith, director Steven Sebring’s documentary reveals a complicated, charismatic personality who wrestles with life’s many paradoxes, defining the human experience as an overwhelming contradiction. 109 minutes. Sponsored by Buch Spieler. Review

A SECRET

• Monday, March 23 6:15 pm
• Tuesday, March 24 2:00 pm
• Wednesday, March 25 8:15 pm
• Sunday, March 29 9:30 am

Savoy Theater
In Claude Miller’s haunting film, a Jewish boy growing up in postwar France tries to understand how his parents survived the Holocaust. “The film is called A SECRET, but the gist of this story of repression and family tragedy is that secrets are rarely singular; what is hidden from sight and excluded from discussion has a tendency to multiply and expand. Even as factual questions are answered, and the basic curiosity of both the audience and the main character is satisfied, A SECRET leaves in place a sense that something horribly and splendidly strange can lie under the surface of ordinary experience.” Starring Cecile De France and Matthieu Amalric. (A. O. Scott, The New York Times) 105 minutes, in French with subtitles. Sponsored by Washington Electric Co-op. Community Partners: Beth Jacob Synagogue, Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Review

The making of “THE SUMMER OF WALTER HACKS” – an evening with GEORGE WOODARD

• Thursday, March 26 6:30 pm

Pavilion Auditorium
Join indie-filmmakers George Woodard (writer and director) and Gerianne Smart (writer and producer) as they share the inspiring and entertaining story of the making of The Summer of Walter Hacks. See clips from the forthcoming film (to be completed later this year) and share with the filmmakers the challenges and triumphs of this truly Vermont project: from script conferences in the milking parlor of the Woodard farm during evening chores through two years of production, filmed entirely on location in central Vermont. Admission free.

SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS

• Thursday, March 26 4:00 pm
• Saturday, March 28 4:00 pm

Savoy Theater
Sergei Paradjanov’s 1964 film is a boldly conceived and astonishingly photographed blend of enchanting mythology, hypnotic religious iconography and pagan magic. Deep in the Carpathian Mountains of 19th-century Ukraine, love, hate, life and death among the Hutsul people are as they’ve been since time began. While young Ivan’s mother mourns her husband’s brutal murder, Ivan is drawn to Marichka, the beautiful young daughter of the man who killed his father. But fate decrees that the two lovers will remain apart. 97 minutes, in Ukrainian with subtitles. Sponsored by Burlington College. Post-film event: Burlington College film studies professor Barry Snyder will discuss the film after the Saturday, March 28, show.
Review

SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER

• Friday, March 27 2:00 pm
• Saturday, March 28 11:30 am

Savoy Theater
Part thriller, part comedy and part tragedy, Francois Truffaut’s 1962 film relates the adventures of mild-mannered Charlie Koller (Charles Aznavour), a former concert pianist reduced to playing honky-tonk rags in a side street bar. When his past catches up with him in the form of his wayward brother Chico, Charlie stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair with admiring waitress Léna (Marie Dubois). Both a sly tribute to American film noir and a rethinking of its key elements, Truffaut’s energetic second feature is pure “French New Wave.” 92 minutes, in French with subtitles. Sponsored by The Black Door. Community Partner: Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Post-film event: GMFF Programmer Rick Winston will discuss the film after the Saturday show. Review

THE SINGING REVOLUTION

• Friday, March 20 4:00 pm
• Wednesday, March 25 12:00 pm
• Friday, March 27 8:45 pm

City Hall Arts Center
Most people don’t think about singing when they think about revolution. But song was the weapon of choice when Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. THE SINGING REVOLUTION is an inspiring account of one nation’s dramatic rebirth. It is the story of humankind’s irrepressible drive for freedom and self-determination. “Imagine the scene in CASABLANCA in which the French patrons sing La Marseillaise in defiance of the Germans, then multiply its power by a factor of thousands, and you’ve only begun to imagine the force of THE SINGING REVOLUTION.” (Matt Zoller Seitz, The New York Times). 94 minutes, in Estonian with subtitles. Sponsored by Rubin, Kidney, Myer and DeWolfe. Community Partner: Vermont Council on World Affairs. Review

SITA SINGS THE BLUES

• Saturday, March 21 10:00 am
• Sunday, March 22 4:30 pm
• Saturday, March 28 6:30 pm
• Sunday, March 29 11:30 am

City Hall Arts Center
Nina Paley’s animated film is a one-of-a-kind knockout, winner of many festival awards. Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama; Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, SITA SINGS THE BLUES earns its tagline as “The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told.” Sponsored by Northfield Savings Bank. Post-film event: Actor Aseem Chhabra will discuss the film at the Saturday, March 28, and Sunday, March 29, shows. (creator Nina Paley is no longer able to attend)  Review

STRANDED: I’VE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED ON THE MOUNTAINS

• Friday, March 20 8:15 pm
• Friday, March 27 11:30 am
• Sunday, March 29 8:45 pm

City Hall Arts Center
It is one of the most astonishing and inspiring survival tales of all time. In 1972, a young rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, boarded a plane for a match in Chile—and then vanished into thin air. Two months later, 16 of the 45 passengers miraculously resurfaced. They had managed to survive for 72 days after their plane crashed on a remote Andean glacier. Thirty-five years later, the survivors return to the crash site—known as the Valley of Tears—to recount their harrowing story of defiant endurance and indestructible friendship. Previously documented in the 1973 worldwide bestseller ALIVE (and the 1993 Ethan Hawke movie of the same name), this shocking true story finally gets the cinematic treatment it deserves. Visually breathtaking and crafted with riveting detail by documentary filmmaker (and childhood friend of the survivors) Gonzalo Arijón with a masterful combination of on-location interviews, archival footage and reenactments, STRANDED is by turns hauntingly powerful and spiritually moving. 126 minutes, in Spanish with subtitles. Sponsored by Cranbury International. Community Partner: Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Review

TEDDY BEAR

• Saturday, March 21 2:00 pm
• Tuesday, March 24 8:30 pm
• Wednesday, March 25 4:00 pm

Savoy Theater
Three Czech childhood chums, now in their 30s, together face relationship issues in the comedy from the writing-directing team of Jan Hrebejk and Petr Jarchovsky (BEAUTY IN TROUBLE). Jirka and his wife Vanda grapple with incompatibility, the paternity of Ivan’s growing family is called into question, and Roman is forced by a shocking duplicity to seek solace at the home of his constantly bickering parents. Variety: “Immensely likable, with terrific writing…. A sparkling showcase for the best acting talent in the land that features universal truths about the relationship rollercoaster.” 98 minutes, in Czech with subtitles. Review

TORTURING DEMOCRACY

• Monday, March 23 12:00 pm
• Friday, March 27 4:00 pm

City Hall Arts Center
The film that many PBS stations were afraid to carry is a sweeping exposé of the Bush-Cheney administration’s torture policies. The film is a result of a collaborative effort by the National Security Archive (which has collected over 1,500 documents on counter-terrorism policy and filed hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests) and Washington Media (which has been conducting investigative research since the Abu Ghraib scandal) to preserve an institutional memory of how torture became an accepted weapon in the United States arsenal. 90 minutes. Community Partners: American Friends Service Committee in Vermont, American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont. Post-film event: Joseph Gainza of the AFSC will discuss the film at the Monday, March 23, show; Allen Gilbert of the ACLU will discuss the film after the Friday, March 27, show. Review

TRUMBO

• Friday, March 27 4:00 pm
• Saturday, March 28 6:30 pm
• Sunday, March 29 11:30 am

Savoy Theater
“Peter Askin’s stirring documentary gives you reasons to cheer but also to weep. It makes you lament the decline of the kind of language brandished with Shakespearean eloquence by Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter, in his witty, impassioned letters excerpted in the movie. Some of those letters, collected in the 1999 volume Additional Dialogue, are delivered as forceful dramatic soliloquies by a battery of distinguished actors including Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane, Liam Neeson, David Straithairn, Josh Lucas and Donald Sutherland. Another cause for lament is the shortness of historical memory in today’s climate of infinite distraction. If the story of the Hollywood blacklist and the lives it destroyed has been told many times before, it still bears repeating, especially in the post-9/11 climate of fear mongering, of Guantánamo, of flag pins as gauges of patriotism.” (Stephen Holden, New York Times). Sponsored by Onion River Community Access. Community Partner: American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont. Post-film event: Kate Lardner, daughter of “Hollywood 10” screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr., will discuss the film. Kenneth Turan in LA Times

TULPAN

• Friday, March 20 8:30 pm
• Saturday, March 21 12:00 pm
• Sunday, March 22 2:30 pm
• Monday, March 23 2:00 pm

Savoy Theater
Kazakh filmmaker Sergey Dvortsevoy won the Prix Un Certain Regard at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for this, his first dramatic feature. As comic and poignant as it is awe-inspiring, TULPAN is set in the vast emptiness of southern Kazakhstan’s Hunger Steppe. Having completed his military service, a young nomad named Asa returns home to his brother-in-law’s yurt with hopes of becoming a shepherd. But is such a life any longer possible in the modern world? First, Asa must win the affections of his beautiful neighbor, Tulpan. Dvortsevoy gives us the bleak beauty of the steppe’s windswept landscape: the endless sky, the camel stampedes, the raucous behavior of a reggae-loving teamster, and one of the most remarkable animal birth scenes ever captured on film. 100 minutes, in Kazakh and Russian with subtitles. Community Partner: Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Review

TUNE IN TOMORROW

• Monday, March 23 6:15 pm

City Hall Arts Center
Where can you hear interviews with Oliver North or Noam Chomsky — then a show called “Music to Go to the Dump By”? Which station on your radio dial will still interrupt music programming to tell you about a lost collie? Of course, it’s our own Waterbury-based WDEV. The tribute to Vermont’s oldest locally owned radio station is by Waitsfield filmmaker Ed Dooley, who uses interviews and historical footage to tell the story of WDEV, which hit the airwaves in 1931, when the country was still in the grip of the Depression. 56 minutes. Sponsored by Figrig Web Crafters. Community Partner: Vermont Historical Society. Post-film event: Filmmaker Ed Dooley, plus Ken Squier and Eric Michaels of WDEV, will discuss the film.

WENDY AND LUCY

• Thursday, March 26 2:00 pm
• Friday, March 27 6:00 pm
• Saturday, March 28 2:00 pm
• Sunday, March 29 8:30 pm

Savoy Theater
Wendy Carroll (Michelle Williams) is driving to Ketchikan, Alaska, in hopes of finding a summer of lucrative work at a fish cannery and the start of a new life with her dog, Lucy. When her car breaks down in Oregon, however, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart, and she confronts a series of increasingly dire economic decisions, with far-ranging repercussions for herself and her dog. Kelly Reichardt’s film addresses issues of sympathy and generosity at the edges of American life, revealing the limits and depths of people’s duty to each other in tough times. Williams has already garnered critics’ attention for her haunting performance, as she conveys “an inexorable sense of longing for something more than life has given her.” (Scott Foundas, Variety). 80 minutes. Sponsored by National Life Group. Review

WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?

• Tuesday, March 24 12:00 pm
• Wednesday, March 25 4:00 pm
• Thursday, March 26 6:00 pm

City Hall Arts Center
Although 80% of art students are female, only a small fraction of art displayed in museums is produced by women. Five female artists explore the competing demands of muse and family in Pamela Tanner Boll’s engaging documentary. They speak frankly about their artistic successes, and they also lay bare the places where they are deeply vulnerable, where the world has asked them to make painful choices. The New York Times: “It is about answering the call to self-expression in the face of biological imperatives and cultural programming.” 84 minutes. Sponsored by Vermont Women’s Fund. Community Partner: Studio Place Arts, Governor’s Commission on Women. Review

THE WINDOW

• Friday, March 20 6:30 pm
• Saturday, March 21 4:00 pm
• Sunday, March 22 7:00 pm

Savoy Theater
Carlos Sorin, Argentine director of GMFF favorites INTIMATE STORIES and EL PERRO has made his most intimate and personal film to date. Taking place over the course of one day, mostly inside a remote country house, THE WINDOW is the story of an octogenarian writer facing the end of his life. Confined to bed under doctor’s orders due to a heart complaint, he is gently nursed by two devoted women as he awaits a visit from his long-absent son. Variety: “As elegant in its storytelling as in its story, Carlos Sorin’s reflective and insightful film is a tale of age and mortality that firmly resists the ‘cute’ tag reflexively assigned to movies with old people, and mines a rich, deep vein of melancholy and humor.” 96 minutes in Spanish with subtitles. Sponsored by Sarducci’s. Community Partners: Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Vermont Council on Aging, Montpelier Senior Center.
Review