Distributing innovative and provocative documentary films from independent producers around the world
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Icarus Films Weblog
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
MALLS R US at MoMA
MoMA's annual showcase of Canadian Cinema, Canadian Front, will feature one of Icarus Films' latest releases, MALLS R US.
From impressive architectural projects to environmental and social concerns, MALLS R US unveils everything you have always wanted to know about shopping centers from Canada to the US to Dubai and India.
Screenings will be held on March 21st and 23rd. Do not miss this US premiere!
For more information, please visit the MoMA website.
THE SUGAR CURTAIN to be shown at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City on March 15
The 3-day international symposium “A Changing Cuba in a Changing World” will feature a free screening of THE SUGAR CURTAIN by Camila Guzmán Urzúa on Saturday March 15th at 10:45am at the Elebash Recital Hall of the CUNYGraduateCenter in Manhattan.
In this revealing autobiographical portrait, the filmmaker returns to Havana to reflect on her childhood and adolescence during the "golden years" of the Cuban Revolution.
"Highly recommended... An endearing and intimate reverie... distinguished by its refusal to conclude or preach... it helps the audience contemplate mixed and multiple Cuban realities."—Holly Ackerman, Educational Media Reviews Online
2 FRIF Films to be shown at MoMA's Documentary Fortnight Festival
This year's Documentary Fortnight Festival at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City looks to be an interesting program, incorporating films on a wide array of subjects and from a variety of countries.
Included in the programs are THE PRIZE OF THE POLE on Wednesday February 27th at 6 pm (to be followed by a discussion with the Director of the Margaret Mead Film Festival, Elaine Charnov) and TEETH in a double-billing with EXPOSED on Friday, February 15th at 6pm.
LOSERS AND WINNERS at the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival
Two cultures collide when 400 Chinese workers move to Germany for a year and a half to take apart an entire gigantic modern coke factory—and ship it back to China. Tensions quickly become evident between the Germans and Chinese over workplace issues, especially the Germans' concerns about safety measures and environmental issues, and the Chinese indignation over their hosts' cultural condescension and criticism of the lazy work habits of the "old foreigners." In providing a human view of the effects of globalization, LOSERS AND WINNERS reveals the ironies and ambiguities inherent in global economic changes, the respective sensations of loss and accomplishment, and of differing personal prospects for the future.
In 1965 Yash Pal Suri, a young doctor, left India for the U.K. with hopes of improving his family's life. Over the next forty years, through regular mailings of his Super8 films and taped thoughts and observations, he shared his new life abroad with family members back home, providing a unique record of the eccentricities-and occasional racism-of his new English hosts. Back in India, his relatives, in turn, responded with their own Super8 "cine-letters," sending tales of weddings, festivals and village life, along with impassioned pleas for his return.
By the end of the film,I FOR INDIA becomes not only a bittersweet time capsule of cultural alienation, discovery, racism and belonging, but also a contemporary exploration of universal, emotionally compelling themes of family separation and the quest for personal happiness, wherever it may take you.
In its US theatrical premiere, I FOR INDIA will play at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in New York City from Wednesday, November 14th until Tuesday, November 20th.
Today is the US Theatrical Premiere of Heddy Honigmann's lustrous new film FOREVER. Paris' famed Père-Lachaise Cemetery comes alive through the stories of its visitors. It is not only a place to mourn the loss of loved ones, it is also a unique place where the living connect to the immortal power of art by remembering the artists buried there. The graveyard gradually reveals itself not only as a resting place for the dead, but also as a source of peace and inspiration for the living. For a beautifully written review, check out Stuart Klawans "Grave Thoughts" for The Nation.
The film screens daily until September 25. Go to Film Forum for times, tickets and directions.
Panel Discussion about Chilean Filmmaker Patricio Guzmán
As part of the unique series of films by Patricio Guzmán that chronicle the political history of Chile over the past 35 years, including the New York theatrical premiere of SALVADOR ALLENDE and beginning today at NYC's Anthology Film Archives, New York University’s King Juan Carlos I Center will host a panel discussion about Guzman and his films. The panel will feature Amalia Córdova (National Museum of the American Indian), Jonathan Kahana (New York University) and Jerónimo Rodríguez Naranjo (NY1 News/Notícias).
The panel will be held on September 7 at 6:30 PM at NYU's King Juan Carlos I Center (www.nyu.edu/kjc/) located at 53 Washington Square South, Suite 201. Free and Open to the Public.
Chris Marker Photography Exhibit & Screenings in NYC
The Peter Blum Gallery will be hosting an exhibition of photography by Chris Marker: Staring Back. The exhibit is almost 200 photographs taken over the course of six decades by the enigmatic and influential French filmmaker. This show, organized by Bill Horrigan at the WexnerCenter for the Arts, is the first exhibition of Marker's photographs, and consists of images selected by the artist himself from his own archive, including black-and-white portraits of individuals that Marker has encountered during the course of his world travels.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the gallery will present a selection of Chris Marker films, including THE CASE OF THE GRINNING CAT, on October 4, 11 and 18 at 7pm in their Chelsea gallery location.
In this autobiographical portrait, Camila Guzmán Urzúa returns to Havana where she grew up during the “golden years” of the Cuban Revolution to reflect on her childhood . Through the intimate personal experiences of a disillusioned but nostalgic generation, THE SUGAR CURTAIN offers a provocative historical perspective on one of the most significant turning points in 20th-century world history. The film has screened at Toronto, Berlin and Tribeca, and won prizes at Buenos Aires and Cinéma du réel festivals. Times and ticket information at Two Boots Pioneer website. One week only!
Tickets are available now for the upcoming limited engagement of LOOKING FOR AN ICON screening with THE DAY YOU'LL LOVE ME (El Dia Que Me Quieras). Both films examine the significance, from historical to emotional, behind iconic photographs of the last century. CBC News said of ICON, "Much more than the story of four photographs... It is also an exploration of the meaning and importance of photojournalism itself." The two-week run begins on May 9 at New York City's Film Forum.
This 2006 selection from the Sundance Film Festival traces the life and impact of errant monk Gendun Choephel (1903-1951), who left Tibetan monastic life in 1934 and traveled in search of alternatives to the traditions of his homeland. ANGRY MONK: Reflections on Tibet begins a limited engagement on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 at 7:00 PM at New York City’s Rubin Museum of Art. The opening screening will be followed by a discussion with director Luc Schaedler, Gehlek Rimpoche, and Prof. Donald Lopez, moderated by James Sheehan, publisher and editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.
Two award-winning films will premiere at New York City's Film Forum on March 14, 2007. Both films use found footage and photographs to reconstruct the World War II experience in Russia. Called “Absorbing... poignant viewing!” by Variety, BLOCKADE (2005, 52 min.) reconstructs the siege of Leningrad in 1941 as life turns to death in the city's streets when no supplies can move into the country. On the other side of the battle, a German soldier chronicles his daily life as a soldier in the Nazi army as they invade Russia. AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER (2004, 26 min.) is the life of one soldier captured in his personal diaries and photos. Tickets are available online beginning March 7 at www.filmforum.org.
US Premiere of NOTES ON MARIE MENKEN in NYC, Feb. 9!
NOTES ON MARIE MENKEN tells the story of this legendary artist (1909—1970), a Lithuanian immigrant who became one of New York's outstanding underground experimental filmmakers of the 1940’s through the 1960’s, inspiring artists such as Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas, Kenneth Anger and Gerard Malanga. The film will kick off a series celebrating this avant-garde pioneer at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City from February 9 – 18, 2007.
Variety calls the film "a handsome tribute," NOTES ON MARIE MENKEN features interviews with the filmmaker’s friends, relatives and colleagues, as they discuss her distinctive film technique, artistic struggle and personal life, and provide colorful reminiscences of both Menken and the New York art scene of the era. Composer and musician John Zorn contributes a wonderful film score for this revealing documentary.
Maria Ramos' critically-acclaimed film JUSTICE, winner of several international prizes, premieres at Film Forum in New York on October 18, 2006. The early reviews of this searing vérité look at Brazilian Criminal Courts have been great, with Time Out giving it four stars, and comparing Ramos to Wiseman and Ozu, and New York Magazine hailing it as, "a detailed blueprint of the favelas’ justice system...with artful character studies that reveal complicated motivations." JUSTICE plays for one week only, so buy your tickets online now!
We're very pleased to announce that the feature documentary OUR DAILY BREAD has been selected to screen at the prestigious New York Film Festival. This acclaimed, international prize winning film reveals the little-known world of high-tech agriculture. In a series of visually stunning, continuously tracking, wide-screen images that seem right out of a science-fiction movie, we see the places where food is cultivated and processed: surreal landscapes optimized for agricultural machinery, clean rooms in cool industrial buildings designed for maximum efficiency, and elaborate machines that operate on a 'disassembly line' basis.
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