Tuesday, February 26, 2008

March at Miami Beach Cinematheque

MARCH
at MBC!
T H E M I A M I B E A C H C I N E M A T H E Q U E
The on-going film festival where you don't just watch films, you experience them!
512 Española Way at Plaza de España (305) 67-FILMS (673-4567) www.MBCINEMA.com





“Cinema and Beyond: Peter GREENAWAY”
A Retrospective in 92 ½ Parts. . .

The March MBC “Great Director” is the extraordinarily

independent British Director Peter Greenaway. His complex work as an artist is seen in his

stunning perfectionism in visual and conceptual style, displayed in his eccentric and controversial

cinematic works from his early shorts (which will screen throughout the retrospective) to the

remarkable new works in digital experimentation. At the moment when the remote control hit the

world’s living rooms (1983), he declared “the end of cinema” as we know it, and welcomed new

alternative technologies. He remains on the cutting edge of the “new cinema" and beyond, embracing

digital capacities, and the remarkable VJ experience to expand cinema horizons. The MBC

retrospective is a chance to see several decades-worth of Greenaway's legendary classic creations.



THANKS to all who made the officially sanctioned OSCAR® NIGHT a sold out success!

(and congratulations to the 2008 Oscar® Quiz winner: Wendy Mae Chambers!...

"possibly the world's foremost virtuoso of the toy piano"--New York Times)



Feb 29 FRI 8:30pm:

“Cinema and Beyond: Peter GREENAWAY”

The Falls (1980) 195min.

"I like to think of The Falls as my own personal encyclopedia Greenaway-ensis."

-Peter Greenaway




The complexity and profound intellectual stimuli found in any given Greenaway project

started as one big fat absurd kind of game (and remained that, to a degree, throughout

his career). So in order to fully understand the following Greenaway films of the MBC

retrospective (even though that is, of course, impossible) it is important to get a peek at

this root of the conceptual base (or is it the insanity?). The Falls is an epic faux-documentary

made up of 92 mini-biographies of people who are victims but survivors of the mysterious

“VUE”, or “Violent Unknown Event”. Each of the people interviewed here have last names

beginning with the letters F-A-L-L, making this investigation only part of the story, meaning

it actually could go on forever, depending on your calculations. For reasons unexplained but

exhaustively investigated, the VUE has something to do with birds, aviation, dreams about

water, and the sudden appearance of 92 new languages. So you can imagine that this

important collection of “documents” could lead to a whole host of similarly detailed films

that could not be made by anyone other than Peter Greenaway. He is the only person in the

world with the artistic audacity.

Official Selection: London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Chicago, Sydney Film Festivals.

WINNER: BFI Award, and “L’Age D’Or” Award, Brussels Int. Film Festival





01 SAT 8pm:

“Cinema and Beyond: Peter GREENAWAY”

The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982)

With Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman, Anne-Louise Lambert



Peter Greenaway was launched into the forefront of global cinema with his second full

feature film-puzzle, The Draughtsman’s Contract, an astonishingly detailed and elegant

17th-century sexual romp; a meticulous art-house costume drama with a brain, and a

sense of humor. The aristocratic Mrs. Herbert commissions a handsome but arrogant

artist named Neville (Anthony Higgins) to produce a suite of twelve drawings of her

husband’s estate, and the agreement includes something for the draughtsman besides

finances: she agrees to exactly twelve sexual favors. Hidden in the drawings are clues

to the events that follow that eventually lead to. . .you guessed it. . .murder.

Official Selection: Edinburgh, Venice, Berlin, New York, Rotterdam Film Festivals

“****What we have here is a tantalizing puzzle, wrapped in eroticism and presented

with the utmost elegance. I have never seen a film quite like it. "The Draughtsman’s

Contract” seems to be telling us a very simple story in a very straightforward way, but

after it's over you may need hours of discussion with your friends before you can be

sure (if even then) exactly what happened. His movie is like a crossword puzzle for

the senses.”—Roger Ebert



With the Early Greenaway Short Film:Intervals (1969/6min.)





MBC recommends, as a follow-up to the MBC retrospective

“The Passion of Amos GITAI”, Gitai’s latest film:

Special Discount for MBC Supporters!

01 SAT 10:15pm:

Miami International Film Festival

Regional Premiere!

Gaza (Disengagement)(Amos Gitai/2007)

With Juliette Binoche and Liron Levo


Family secrets surface when a woman (Binoche) and her half-brother (Levo)

reunite in France after years of separation. Their emotional reunion, prompted

by their father’s death, eventually leads them to Israel, where the country’s 2005

disengagement from Gaza sets the stage for the siblings’ individual journeys.

At the Colony Theater

1040 Lincoln Road

Buy Tickets HERE and enter special DISCOUNT CODE MBCAmos



Miami International Film Festival

MIFF REEL SEMINARS:



01 SAT 2-4pm:

PRODUCer Master Class

What does being a producer really mean? Learn about the process of taking material from

story to screen from one of the most experienced and prolific producers working today.

Highlights will include: choosing material, financing and selling your film.

Saturday Producer Master Class is $25 Purchase Tickets HERE

(Or MBC Members are $20 and can purchase tickets HERE)



01 SAT 4:30-6pm:

INDEPENDENT FILM FINANCING

Saturday March 1st, 4:30 – 6:00 PM

How to finance your independent feature? Listen to packaging agents, independent

producers and financiers discuss their success stories, challenges and realities in the

world of independent production today.

This REEL SEMINAR is $20 Purchase Tickets HERE

(Or MBC Members are $15 and can purchase tickets HERE)



02 SUN 2-3:30pm:

Film PUBLICITY- Case studies

Publicity is the number one vehicle to promote films. Learn from industry veterans’

about strategies that have worked and why some have failed in promoting and publicizing

theatrical release films.

This REEL SEMINAR is $20 Purchase Tickets HERE

(Or MBC Members are $15 and can purchase tickets HERE)



02 SUN 4-5:30pm:

Marketing & Distributing Foreign Language Film

Marketing and distribution executives who specialize in foreign language releases discuss

strategies and opportunities available to foreign language filmmakers. Hear their

suggestions on how to find the broadest audience for your film.

This REEL SEMINAR is $20 Purchase Tickets HERE

(Or MBC Members are $15 and can purchase tickets HERE)



04 TUE 3-4:30pm:

financing Film Abroad

In today's marketplace film financing is put together from various sources around the globe.

Learn from financiers, co-producers and sales agents about ways to access soft money,

tax-credit financing, co-productions with other countries and other creative modes

to complete a budget.

This REEL SEMINAR is $20 Purchase Tickets HERE

(Or MBC Members are $15 and can purchase tickets HERE)



05 WED 3-4:30pm:

FROM ‘GREEN-LIght’ TO ‘GO’: Techniques for INSURING,

BONDING AND BANKING IN TIME TO KEEP TALENT

Explore some of the basics for obtaining bank financing, a completion bond, and an insurance

package that satisfies the typical two-party bank and insurance transactions. Learn what

holds up the process, and what common pitfalls producers fall into which may completely

halt the process, preventing a film from being made even though it is “green lit” (i.e. the money

and talent are committed). Meet experts in insurance, bonding, film legal and production who

will take us through the process of getting a picture into production.

This REEL SEMINAR is $20 Purchase Tickets HERE

(Or MBC Members are $15. Tickets are only available at rush-line.)



08 SAT 11am-12:30pm:

US AQUISTIONS Seminar

The big question: what do acquisitions executives look for when pre-buying projects, co-

producing and acquiring completed features? Hear from the industry pros that are reading the

scripts, covering film festivals and meeting with producers as to what piques their interest

and at what stage.

This REEL SEMINAR is $20 Purchase Tickets HERE

(Or MBC Members are $15 and can purchase tickets HERE)



MIFF “ENCUENTROS”: (05-07 WED-FRI)

(not open to the public, these meetings are exclusively for invited filmmakers)



07 FRI 8:30pm:

“Cinema and Beyond: Peter GREENAWAY”

A Zed and Two Noughts (aka Zoo) (1985)

With Andréa Ferréol, Brian Deacon, Eric Deacon, Frances Barber



Peter Greenaway has always had a fascination (no, make that obsession, as in

so many other obsessions) in the cycle of life, ending of course, you know where,

in death. It is how we get there, along with the many other creatures of the world,

that is the important and fascinating thing. Here we have a decidedly bizarre and

complex (no, make that mathematically and aesthetically precise) tale that explains

all that, and more: Former Siamese twins (which explains a lot to begin with), The

Deuce Brothers, begin a detailed investigation of life and death and evolution upon

the death of their wives in a car accident at a zoo. Alba Bewick, The driver of the

car, does not die, but looses a leg in the process. She becomes not only involved with

each of the twins in a sexual relationship, but becomes caught up in the mathematical

evaluations of life along with them, and decides her life needs to be as symmetrical

as theirs. Unfortunately, life is not as perfect as we all would like it to be.

Official Selection: London, Rotterdam, Berlin, New York, Tokyo Film Festivals

“The characters in Zed aren't convincingly human, but neither are they meant to be.

If you want the human touch, go cozy up with Mike Leigh.”—Village Voice

“The BOLDEST and arguably best of Greenaway’s fiction features. . .

Definitely a one-of-a-kind movie!”—Jonathan Rosenblum, Chicago Reader



With the Early Greenaway Short Film:Windows (1974/4min.)





Miami Underground Film Festival (MUFF)



08 SAT 8pm: Craig (Kim Sonderholm/Denmark/2008) 102min

Craig is left all alone when his parents die in a fire. His world slowly becomes

unraveled when he loses his medication and starts to lose his grip on reality.

Lonliness can be a dangerous thing.



10pm: Palace of Stains (Bob Moricz/USA) 70 min

There's a new family in the town of Lydiaville. The Griepers, rich off a television

ministry, move into the house on the hill, and the Cosgraves are not too happy about it.

Meanwhile, the Cosgrave's arch enemies, the Montomerys, have lost their entire fortune.

These three warring clans fight dirty. Palace of Stain has a cast of 56 and was shot in

one wild day. And the short film by Bob Moricz: The Lives of Doris Dolores.



09 SUN 8:30pm: Underground Short Films

A collection of the craziest, most offbeat, and just about the weirest things

you have ever seen. Show up and see for yourself.







14 FRI 8:30pm:

“Cinema and Beyond: Peter GREENAWAY”

Belly Of An Architect (1987)

With Brian Dennehy, Chloe Webb, Lambert Wilson, Sergio Fantoni



Oh, the woes of cultural differences!...In fact, in particular, an American living

and working in the European system. (Have you ever tried it?). Peter Greenaway

has always directed his liberal quantities of criticisms on his own kind, the British,

but here the subject of his attacks is the Roman culture of protective artists, and in

particular, architects. Brian Dennehy is Stourley Kracklite, an American architect

supervising an exhibition in Rome in memory of his French idol, architect Etienne-

Louis Boulee. His troubles communicating and succeeding are compounded by the

competitive, carnivorous, and territorial Romans, naturally, since their history is a

bit more involved and dramatic than his. The experience manifests and becomes

obsessively centered for us as well as the character (remember, this is Peter

Greenaway) on his belly, where an unknown illness is eating away at him, just

as his ego is being taken away.

Official Selection: Cannes, Edinburgh, Montreal, New York , Chicago Film Festivals

WINNER: Best Actor, Chicago Film Festival

“Dennehy fans. . .put down that “First Blood” disk and watch this! He achieves

Brando-esque emotional power. Greenaway wisely puts him in almost every frame—

the better, perhaps, to appreciate him as art.”—Efilmcritics.com



With the Early Greenaway Short Film:H Is For House (1976/9min.)






15 SAT 8:30pm: OSCAR® SHORTS 2007!

The 2007 Academy Award nominated and winning

LIVE ACTION short films:

Miami Premieres!

Tanghi Argentini

At Night (Denmark, Oscar Nominees: Christian E. Christiansen & Louise Vesth)
Drama, 40 minutes, Danish w/ English subtitles
Three young women share their problems while spending the holidays in a hospital cancer ward.
Il Supplente (The Substitute) (Italy, Oscar Nominee: Andrea Jublin)
Comedy, 17 minutes, Italian w/ English subtitles
The arrival of an unusual newcomer galvanizes the students in a high school classroom.
Le Mozart Des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)

WINNER!

(France, Oscar Nominee: Philippe Pollet-Villard)
Comedy, 31 minutes, French w/ English subtitles
A pair of unlucky thieves find their fortunes have changed when they take in a deaf homeless boy.
Tanghi Argentini (Belgium, Oscar Nominees: Guido Thys & Anja Daelemans)
Comedy, 13 minutes, French w/ English subtitles
A man who must learn to dance the tango in two weeks asks an office colleague for help.
The Tonto Woman (UK, Oscar Nominees: Daniel Barber & Matthew Brown)
Drama, 36 minutes, English
A cattle rustler meets a woman who is living in isolation after being held prisoner for eleven

years by the Mojave Indians.





16 SUN 8pm: Cine-IMPROV!

A LIVE Comedic Jam served with cinema on the side!



photo: Greenaway's Drowning By Numbers inspires the "Model Citizens" of Cine-Improv!

Miami’s hottest improv actors Michael Murray and Sasha Weisfeld welcome some

of South Florida’s best improvisers... to perform unscripted theater based on your

suggestions, in the art of “long form improv," rather than the typical comedy you see

at the clubs and on TV. Including film dubbing, the "Armando Diaz Experience," and

a live improvised "movie" based on the life experiences of one of our audience members,

with stylistic parody, edits, comedic characters, and other scenic devices. Also featuring

a special improvised musical interlude" by the incomparable Sasha Weisfeld!

This month’s theme: GREENAWAY!





20 THU 8:30pm: Independent LENS 2007-2008

Florida exclusive previews of award winning documentaries

before they air on PBS...Presented with HANDS ON MIAMI

King Corn (Aaron Woolf, Curt Ellis, and Ian Cheney/2007)




Have you been wondering why Americans are so overweight? Or why certain foods are

so cheap? Have you heard our average life expectancy is headed down, not up? Two

college friends set out with director Aaron Woolf in search of answers to these questions

and were surprised by what they discovered. You will be too as this film follows a crop

of corn from seed to your dinner plate.

"As important as Super Size Me and An Inconvenient Truth in the recent rash of

documentaries that challenge our perceptions of daily life in America"

--The Austin Chronicle





21 FRI 8:30pm:

“Cinema and Beyond: Peter GREENAWAY”

Drowning By Numbers (1988)

With Bernard Hill, Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, Joely Richardson

This is a classic battle of

the sexes story of three generations of women: a mother, daughter, and niece

(all named Cissie Colpitts), who all decide enough is enough and kill their husbands

by drowning, all according to the rules and regulations of what comes first, second,

third, and. . .so forth, until 100 (of course). We are guided by a young innocent girl,

our navigator, who knows all the answers, influenced by old fashioned English

fables as well as Greek mythology, where air is masculine and water is feminine.

Again, this is Peter Greenaway, so we are concerned with not only each and every

detail, but the order of activities and the obsessive organization of those activities,

all for the sake of the tapestry of art, of course. Life and death is a game; at least

that is the way the English see it.

Official Selection: Cannes, Rio, Barcelona, Toronto

WINNER: Best Artistic Contribution, Cannes Film Festival

"The vistas of East Anglia provide the backdrop to a story that smacks of Agatha

Christie on LSD and a whiff of laughing gas, making this the director’s most

English film since The Draughtsman's Contract."

- Barbara Scharres Gene Siskal Center



With the Early Greenaway Short Film:Water Wrackets (1978/11min.)





22 SAT 8:30pm: ENCORE screening! “JUDAICA on Film”

An Evening with Marian Marzynski

Settlement (2008)




Ten years after the release of his classic film SHTETL, Polish filmmaker and

Holocaust survivor Marian Marzynski, who was responsible for the realist new wave

of filmmaking in Poland in the 1960’s along with others such as Roman Polanski,

returns to the subject with SETTLEMENT. This is not the story of a man discovering

his roots, but of a man connecting to his present, to a living family he knows nothing

about. Nor is it the story of the family he lost but rather of the family he never knew

he had and of his attempt, through film, to become a part of this family. This is the

story of one house in a Polish shtetl in the 1930s, a warm house of eleven children and

a thriving bakery business that vanished in the Holocaust, sending its inhabitants, those

who survived, to every corner of the earth in search of new homes. Marian Marzynski,

in the wake of his previous work, SHTETL, learned that there was indeed something to

search for, that the house of Kushner has become many houses and that he is not alone

in his search for home.

The film will be followed by a discussion with Marian Marzynski





Winter Music Conference Special Event

Presented with Power of Love Productions

26 WED 8:30pm: An Evening with Jesse Saunders

The First House Music Producer, and author/director of:

House Music: The Real Story (Jesse Saunders/2007)



Featuring Jessie Saunders, Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Larry Levan, Pete

Tong, Donna Summer, Louie Armstrong, BB King, KoKo Taylor, Chuck Berry,

Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire, The Go Go’s, Blondie, Devo, B-52’s, Madonna,

The Talkning Heads, and many more!

As first seen at PLANET HOLLYWOOD Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, this visually

dynamic documentary has captured the imagination of thousands of dance music

enthusiasts. It is an adaptation of the book House Music: The Real Story, written

by the amn who created the world’s first House record (ON & ON, 1984), Jesse

Saunders. It delves into and beyond the rave culture and where it’s left those who

were rudely put out by the passing of the Rave Act by Congress. It’s a trippy,

stimulating, visual experience (similar to attending a RAVE), mixed with DJ style

that will have you dancing in your seat.

The film will be followed by Q&A WITH JESSE SAUNDERS at MBC,

and autographed copies of his new book will be available for purchase.






28 FRI 8:30pm:

“Cinema and Beyond: Peter GREENAWAY”

8 ½ Women (2000)

With John Standing, Mathew Delamere

'If every man is supposed to think of sex once every nine minutes, what on earth does

he think of in the other eight?'

In Greenaway’s homage to

Federico Fellini, John Standing plays Philip Emmenthal, a banker who has just gained

control of some pachinko parlours in Tokyo. His odd son Storey is looking after them

in Japan, while Philip resides in his mansion in Geneva. When Philip's wife dies, he

tells Storey to return to Geneva to console him. While there, Storey takes Philip to see

Fellini's 8 1/2, and it gives them both an inspiration to use their mansion as a bordello.

They go back to Japan and bring an assortment of women back to the mansion.

Just like Guido would have.

Official Selection: Cannes Film Festival

"Peter Greenaway's masterful meditation on grief, sexual indulgence and power

might just be his masterpiece... If 8 1/2 Women isn't the best film of Greenaway's

career, it ranks with anything this obsessive and utterly distinctive filmmaker

has ever done." --Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com



And the short Greenaway film:

Dear Phone (1977)





29 SAT 8:30pm: OSCAR® SHORTS 2007!

The 2007 Academy Award nominated and winning

ANIMATED short films:

Miami Premieres!



Madame Tutli-Putli

I Met The Walrus (Canada, Oscar Nominee: Josh Raskin)
5 minutes, English, 2D Animation, Documentary
In 1969, fourteen-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room with

his tape recorder and persuaded him to do an interview.
Madame Tutli-Putli

(Canada, Oscar Nominees: Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski)
17 minutes, Silent, Claymation/CGI, Drama
A timid woman boards a mysterious night train and has a series of frightening experiences.
Meme les Pigeons vont au Paradis

(Even Pigeons Go To Heaven)

(France, Oscar Nominees: Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse)
9 minutes, French w/ English subtitles, CGI
A priest tries to sell an old man a machine that he promises will transport him to heaven.
My Love (Moya Lyubov) (Russia, Oscar Nominee: Alexander Petrov)
27 minutes, Russian with English subtitles, Drama
In nineteenth-century Russia, a teenage boy in search of love is drawn to two very

different women.
Peter & The Wolf

WINNER!

(UK & Poland, Oscar Nominees: Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman)
27 minutes, Silent, Drama
A young boy and his animal friends face a hungry wolf in Prokofiev's classic

musical piece.





30 SUN 8pm: “DOCUSPAIN”

Award winning, provocative documentaries in Spanish,

produced with Spanish support...once a month at MBC!

Presented by MAHOU, and PRAGDA Barcelona/New York,

with support from the Embassy of Spain, the Spain Foreign Cultural Corporation,

the International Documentary Association, and Tapas y Tintos restaurant.

Bars In The Memory (Rejas en la memoria)

(Manuel Palacios/Spain/2004)


This groundbreaking documentary uncovers the forgotten history surrounding

Franco’s concentration camps and prisons created to deal with the Republican

resistance fighters from the Spanish Civil War in 1936.



Every DOCUSPAIN film will be followed by an afterparty at Tapas y Tintos,

featuring LIVE Flamenco, complimentary tapas and MAHOU beer for filmgoers!





TICKETS:

FILMS: $10 or $6 MBC Members & Students

MIFF Master Class: $25 or $20 MBC Members

MIFF Professional Seminars: $20 or $15 MBC Members

MBC Filmmaking Workshop: $125 ($100 MBC Members)

Independent LENS: complimentary

Doors open 1/2 hour before screenings



T H E M I A M I B E A C H C I N E M A T H E Q U E

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