Films & Schedules - R

In this companion piece to Nightwatching (PIFF 32), Greenaway, a former painter, deconstructs Rembrandt's The Night Watch and examines it in terms of the time and place it was completed, and the controversy surrounding its accusation of murder.

In Rembrandt’s J’Accuse, Greenaway deconstructs The Night Watch, the greatest of the Dutch master’s portraits of Holland’s 17th-century militias. Greenaway, who began his career as a painter, takes the painting apart plane by plane and reads it the way it was read in 1642 after Rembrandt completed it: as an outrageous piece of theater in which the painter bit the aristocratic hand that fed him by embedding within the painting a sensational charge of murder. “A scholarly yet broadly accessible illustrated lecture that examines the Dutch master’s most famous painting for proof that it was responsible for his dramatic fall from grace. A companion piece to Greenaway’s Nightwatching [PIFF 32], this film brims with juicy conspiracy theories and forensic investigations worthy of top-tier TV crime drama.”—Variety. “Just because you have eyes does not mean you can see.”—Peter Greenaway.

Selected Filmography: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife (89), Pillow Book (96), Nightwatching (07).

Sponsored by Southpark Seafood Grill.

86 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: Documentary Views, Art.

Reporter, a feature documentary about Nicholas Kristof, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, reveals the man and his methods, and just how and why real reporting is vital to our democracy, our world-awareness, and our capacity to be a force for good.

Old-fashioned investigative journalists who rely on a unique synthesis of persistence, guile, courage, curiosity, and very thick skins to break the news are increasingly in short supply. One such rare creature is New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. Kristof’s columns have earned him two Pulitzer Prizes, convinced Bill Gates to significantly increase his charitable donations, introduced the world to places like Darfur and arguably changed the tide of history. Filmmaker Metzgar trailed after Kristof when he took off to pay a visit to rebel warlord General Nkunda in the middle of a Congolese jungle in 2007. What Reporter reveals is the dangerously high price of reporting on world events at a time when the translation of complex facts half a world away into meaningful, impelling stories has never been as necessary nor as urgent.

Filmography: The Chances of the World Changing (07), Life. Support. Music (08).

92 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: Documentary Views, Global Classroom, History.

A darkly comic story of three generations of Polish women and the mysterious young man whose presence sparks a series of surprising events that change all of their lives.

Lankosz’s darkly comic film tells the story of three generations of women living together at the peak of Stalinist terror in 1950s Poland. In the middle of the capital, the foundations of the Palace of Culture are being raised. Sabina has just turned 30 and her mother is trying to find her a husband. Her grandmother has rated the candidates, yet Sabina isn’t interested in any of them. One day, under dramatic circumstances, she meets Bronislaw, a young man with the looks of a peasant movie star. Though Bronislaw is vulgar, Sabina can’t help but fall for him, and thus sets in motion a series of surprising events that will change the lives of all three women and reveal the darker side of their natures.

First Feature Film.

Winner of the Best Film and Audience Awards at the Gdynia Polish Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Critics Award at the Warsaw Film Festival. This year’s Polish submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Sponsored by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland, Los Angeles.

101 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions.

Financial concerns tempt an ex-con to return to his smuggling ways in this taut psychological thriller.

Ex-con Kristófer, recently released from a jail term for smuggling alcohol while working on a freighter, now works as a lowly-paid security guard. Bored with his dreary existence and struggling to support his family, he is tempted when his friend Steingrímur offers to help him get back his old job on the ship—which would provide the opportunity to do one last smuggling job on a freighter between Reykjavik and Rotterdam. Contending not only with the suspicious local police, but also with a captain who mistrusts him and a psychopathic Dutch criminal, Kristófer sets out on his mission to solve his financial woes. Reykjavik-Rotterdam’s gritty naturalism is evocatively realized by the work of Jar City cinematographer Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson and hardened performances from a fine cast.

Filmography: SLC-25 (90), Remote Control (92), Pearls and Swine (97).

This year’s Icelandic submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

88 Minutes    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Narrative Feature.

Room and a Half portrays the life of Nobel prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky, who was forced into American exile in 1972.

Exiled to the United States in 1972, the famous Russian poet Joseph Brodsky always wanted to return anonymously to St. Petersburg, the city of his youth. Through a variety of imaginative techniques, 69-year-old animator Andrey Khrzhanovsky has made the Nobel Prize winner’s wish come true in Room and a Half. A fictional Brodsky narrates this nostalgic fantasy on board a cruise ship destined for Russia. Through a series of flashbacks he recalls his childhood, in particular the return of his father, laden with gifts, from World War II, and his parents’ affectionate reunion. It appears an idyllic time for the budding scribe who “live[s] in a city whose color [is] fossilized vodka.” Through the seamless fusion of documentary footage, classical Russian music, still photography, recordings of Brodsky reading his work, and beautiful, dreamlike animation, Khrzhanovsky has created a film as poetic as his subject matter.

First Feature Film.

130 Minutes    

Interests: New Directors, Narrative Feature, Animation, Literature.