Over the last handful of years, immigration has become not only a hotly contested political issue, but one that has birthed nationalist movements globally. Subsequently giving rise to an expansion of these parties and movements, immigration is only increasing in political discussion. And even some film programmers are seeing this as the most important moment to contextualize cinema’s relationship with this issue.
At the newly refurbished Quad Cinema in New York City, the theater and its programmers have collected roughly two dozen films ranging from comedies to historical epics for a new series entitled Immigrant Songs. Shining a light on some of the great unsung immigrant stories from the likes of Jonas Mekas while setting them alongside masterpieces like Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant (which sees its centennial anniversary this year), this series is a direct response to current political climates across the world and hopes to give context to the immigrant experience globally.
At the newly refurbished Quad Cinema in New York City, the theater and its programmers have collected roughly two dozen films ranging from comedies to historical epics for a new series entitled Immigrant Songs. Shining a light on some of the great unsung immigrant stories from the likes of Jonas Mekas while setting them alongside masterpieces like Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant (which sees its centennial anniversary this year), this series is a direct response to current political climates across the world and hopes to give context to the immigrant experience globally.
- 5/19/2017
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Metrograph
“Queer ’90s” continues with the likes of Basic Instinct, The Crying Game, and Priscilla.
Films from George Cukor and Azazel Jacobs can be seen on Friday.
The Disney documentary Oceans plays this Saturday; Allan Dwan’s The Inside Story screens this Sunday.
Anthology Film Archives
A series on voyeurism and surveillance brings Citizenfour, Haroun Farocki’s Prison Images,...
Metrograph
“Queer ’90s” continues with the likes of Basic Instinct, The Crying Game, and Priscilla.
Films from George Cukor and Azazel Jacobs can be seen on Friday.
The Disney documentary Oceans plays this Saturday; Allan Dwan’s The Inside Story screens this Sunday.
Anthology Film Archives
A series on voyeurism and surveillance brings Citizenfour, Haroun Farocki’s Prison Images,...
- 10/14/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
I’ve spoken to many accomplished artists, but there are perhaps none who bear the same extent of experience as Kirsten Johnson. Don’t worry if the name doesn’t ring any bells: she’s built her repertoire as a documentary cinematographer by working with and for the likes of Michael Moore, Laura Poitras, and Jacques Derrida, and the things she’s seen have been funneled into Cameraperson, a travelogue-of-sorts through Johnson’s subconscious.
Her time as an interviewer, or at least a companion to interviews, came through when we sat down together at Criterion’s offices in New York last month. Never have I been more directly forced to think about my work than when she turned the tables on me — all of which started with some complementary danishes left for us in the room. It’s a level of engagement that befits one of this year’s greatest films,...
Her time as an interviewer, or at least a companion to interviews, came through when we sat down together at Criterion’s offices in New York last month. Never have I been more directly forced to think about my work than when she turned the tables on me — all of which started with some complementary danishes left for us in the room. It’s a level of engagement that befits one of this year’s greatest films,...
- 9/8/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
In the 98 minutes of “I Had Nowhere to Go: Portrait of a Displaced Person,” there are about 10 minutes of visuals. The rest of the experience takes place on a black screen as accompanying audio tracks doing the legwork. It’s a bold gamble by director and veteran artist Douglas Gordon that doesn’t always pay off, but a big part of the experience stems from the ever-engaging storytelling at its center. Narrated by legendary avant-garde film diarist Jonas Mekas, now 93 and livelier than ever as he recollects his wartime experiences, “I Had Nowhere to Go” attempts to capture the journeys of a man known for capturing images through their absence. Though not always the sum of its compelling ingredients, “I Had Nowhere to Go” applies an appropriate degree of cinematic innovation to one of the medium’s greatest advocates.
See MoreAvant-Garde Legend Jonas Mekas Offers Filmmaking Advice in New Book...
See MoreAvant-Garde Legend Jonas Mekas Offers Filmmaking Advice in New Book...
- 8/5/2016
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Jonas Mekas, 'the godfather of avant-garde cinema', talks to Sean O'Hagan about working with Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Jackie Kennedy
Jonas Mekas, who will be 90 on Christmas Eve, has an intense memory of sitting on his father's bed, aged six, singing a strange little song about daily life in the village in which he grew up in Lithuania.
"It was late in the evening and suddenly I was recounting everything I had seen on the farm that day. It was a very simple, very realistic recitation of small, everyday events. Nothing was invented. I remember the reception from my mother and father, which was very good. But I also remember the feeling of intensity I experienced just from describing the actual details of what my father did every day. I have been trying to find that intensity in my work ever since."
We are sitting at a table in...
Jonas Mekas, who will be 90 on Christmas Eve, has an intense memory of sitting on his father's bed, aged six, singing a strange little song about daily life in the village in which he grew up in Lithuania.
"It was late in the evening and suddenly I was recounting everything I had seen on the farm that day. It was a very simple, very realistic recitation of small, everyday events. Nothing was invented. I remember the reception from my mother and father, which was very good. But I also remember the feeling of intensity I experienced just from describing the actual details of what my father did every day. I have been trying to find that intensity in my work ever since."
We are sitting at a table in...
- 12/2/2012
- by Sean O'Hagan
- The Guardian - Film News
The Montreal International Documentary Festival (Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal – Ridm) starts on Wednesday, November 7th. My Dad worked for the National Film Board for 30 years in Montreal, Ottawa, Fredericton, Halifax and Montreal (again). Growing up as an Nfb brat was to grow up breathing the language of cinema and to believe passionately that the divisions between animation, documentary, short films and features were artificial – like pretending that vanilla ice cream and chocolate ice cream weren’t different flavours, but completely different species of frozen milk-based desserts.
That said, there is no denying that the general public believes in that artificial division and that documentary film suffers from it, so Ridm, Québec’s only documentary film festival is our best local opportunity to show some love to documentaries. I would urge anyone in Montreal to take a chance and check out some of the films that Ridm is programming.
That said, there is no denying that the general public believes in that artificial division and that documentary film suffers from it, so Ridm, Québec’s only documentary film festival is our best local opportunity to show some love to documentaries. I would urge anyone in Montreal to take a chance and check out some of the films that Ridm is programming.
- 11/4/2012
- by Michael Ryan
- SoundOnSight
Following rampant Internet speculation, Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film has received official confirmation and lots more detailed information regarding the films of Jonas Mekas that will be released on DVD in 2012.
Mekas’ films will indeed be released by a trio of Paris-based organizations — fashion icon agnes b., DVD distributor Potemkine and avant-garde film distributor Re:Voir — and are scheduled to come out in November. A box set collection, pictured above, will only contain a selection of Mekas films: Lost, Lost, Lost; The Brig; Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania; Walden; As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty; and a DVD of Mekas’ shorter films.
However, the DVDs will also be sold separately and several other films will also be made available through Re:Voir, including Guns of the Trees, Mekas’ first film.
Most exciting, though, is that all the DVDs will be released as Region...
Mekas’ films will indeed be released by a trio of Paris-based organizations — fashion icon agnes b., DVD distributor Potemkine and avant-garde film distributor Re:Voir — and are scheduled to come out in November. A box set collection, pictured above, will only contain a selection of Mekas films: Lost, Lost, Lost; The Brig; Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania; Walden; As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty; and a DVD of Mekas’ shorter films.
However, the DVDs will also be sold separately and several other films will also be made available through Re:Voir, including Guns of the Trees, Mekas’ first film.
Most exciting, though, is that all the DVDs will be released as Region...
- 7/17/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
It was only through an enigmatic public Facebook post that it was revealed that a nearly comprehensive DVD box set of the films of Jonas Mekas was in the works. The post only showed the above image with the words “Coming Soon!” But, coming soon from whom and for where?
On Facebook, there was also a link to a DVD page on Mekas’ official website that offered a bit more clues. The release appears to be a collaboration between the French fashion designer agnes b., the French independent DVD label Potemkine and the French distributor Re:Voir, which has released Mekas’ work on VHS for years.
The Potemkine website lists Mekas’ films as individual upcoming DVD releases with no set dates. There appears to be no listing for the box set image that was posted to Facebook.
Most disappointingly, though, is that the Potemkine product pages indicate that the DVDs will be Zone 2, i.
On Facebook, there was also a link to a DVD page on Mekas’ official website that offered a bit more clues. The release appears to be a collaboration between the French fashion designer agnes b., the French independent DVD label Potemkine and the French distributor Re:Voir, which has released Mekas’ work on VHS for years.
The Potemkine website lists Mekas’ films as individual upcoming DVD releases with no set dates. There appears to be no listing for the box set image that was posted to Facebook.
Most disappointingly, though, is that the Potemkine product pages indicate that the DVDs will be Zone 2, i.
- 7/13/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
You might not expect it from the whimsical, episodic structure, or the convivial air promised by the retinue of famous and semi-famous faces, but Jonas Mekas’ Sleepless Nights Stories is downright creepy. Opening with an insomniac Mekas wandering about his new apartment at 4 am bemoaning a life packed away in cardboard boxes, it blossoms into a peripatetic nocturnal diary, told via chance meetings, literary references, and typewritten inter-titles, a collection of stories bound thematically by invocations of Dante, The Arabian Nights and Japanese haiku.
It’s a midnight ramble that, despite quotations from peaceful, naturist haikus by Bashō and Kobayashi Issa, has one foot in the demon-infested world of Japanese folk legends, where literal manifestations of doom creep at every turn. The film’s shadowy atmosphere, playing out in crowded bars, gallery openings and friends’ apartments, shifts from crepuscular to spooky because these encounters, through their stories, imagery or simply...
It’s a midnight ramble that, despite quotations from peaceful, naturist haikus by Bashō and Kobayashi Issa, has one foot in the demon-infested world of Japanese folk legends, where literal manifestations of doom creep at every turn. The film’s shadowy atmosphere, playing out in crowded bars, gallery openings and friends’ apartments, shifts from crepuscular to spooky because these encounters, through their stories, imagery or simply...
- 12/16/2011
- MUBI
Avant-garde director best known for Hallelujah the Hills
Adolfas Mekas, who has died aged 85, was the director of Hallelujah the Hills (1963), perhaps the most light-hearted, amusing, innovative, allusive and freewheeling film to come out of the New American Cinema Group established in 1962. One of the clauses in its manifesto reads: "We believe that cinema is indivisibly a personal expression. We therefore reject the interference of producers, distributors and investors until our work is ready to be projected on the screen." Mekas, his older brother Jonas, and other avant-garde members of the group, such as Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, Shirley Clarke and Gregory Markopoulos, lived by this doctrine in all their film-making.
Shot in black and white in 16mm, Hallelujah the Hills, which cost only $75,000 from concept to can, was directed, written and edited by Mekas, with Jonas as assistant; a young friend, David Stone, as first-time producer; Stone's wife, Barbara,...
Adolfas Mekas, who has died aged 85, was the director of Hallelujah the Hills (1963), perhaps the most light-hearted, amusing, innovative, allusive and freewheeling film to come out of the New American Cinema Group established in 1962. One of the clauses in its manifesto reads: "We believe that cinema is indivisibly a personal expression. We therefore reject the interference of producers, distributors and investors until our work is ready to be projected on the screen." Mekas, his older brother Jonas, and other avant-garde members of the group, such as Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, Shirley Clarke and Gregory Markopoulos, lived by this doctrine in all their film-making.
Shot in black and white in 16mm, Hallelujah the Hills, which cost only $75,000 from concept to can, was directed, written and edited by Mekas, with Jonas as assistant; a young friend, David Stone, as first-time producer; Stone's wife, Barbara,...
- 6/8/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
First the history, then the list:
In 1969, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas decided to open the world’s first museum devoted to film. Of course, a typical museum hangs its collections of artwork on the wall for visitors to walk up to and study. However, a film museum needs special considerations on how — and what, of course — to present its collection to the public.
Thus, for this film museum, first a film selection committee was formed that included James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, plus, for a time, Stan Brakhage. This committee met over the course of several months to decide exactly what films would be collected and how they would be shown. The final selection of films would come to be called the The Essential Cinema Repertory.
The Essential Cinema Collection that the committee came up with consisted of about 330 films.
In 1969, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas decided to open the world’s first museum devoted to film. Of course, a typical museum hangs its collections of artwork on the wall for visitors to walk up to and study. However, a film museum needs special considerations on how — and what, of course — to present its collection to the public.
Thus, for this film museum, first a film selection committee was formed that included James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, plus, for a time, Stan Brakhage. This committee met over the course of several months to decide exactly what films would be collected and how they would be shown. The final selection of films would come to be called the The Essential Cinema Repertory.
The Essential Cinema Collection that the committee came up with consisted of about 330 films.
- 5/3/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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