Films & Schedules - UNITED STATES

The decades-long battle for control of the Barnes Foundation's near-priceless collection of impressionist art—as waged by the city of Philadelphia against the collection's protectors—is the riveting focus of Don Argott's documentary.

“What is art’s relationship to the public at large and who decides who gets to see it? Rarely has the City of Brotherly Love seemed so rancorous as in Don Argott’s fascinating, thoroughly researched documentary on the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. The foundation, established by Dr. Albert Barnes in 1922, boasts one of the world’s largest collections of impressionist, post-impressionist, and early modern paintings—works that Barnes wished to make accessible to serious students and everyday people. But since his death in 1951, lawyers, elected officials, and businesspeople have sought to exploit the Foundation, ignoring the express wishes of Barnes never to turn his collection into an enormous tourist attraction—and never to move it to Philadelphia, a city he despised. The Art of the Steal is filled with intrigue, conflicting reports, enormous egos, and provocative questions about money, culture, and art.”–New York Film Festival.

Filmography: Rock School (05), Head Space (06), Two Days in April (07).

101 Minutes    

Interests: Documentary Views, Art.

For the Love of Movies offers an insider’s view of the critics’ profession, with commentary from some of America’s best-regarded reviewers.

Boston Phoenix film critic Peary has crafted an entertaining and informative history of American film criticism from its raw beginnings before The Birth of a Nation to Bowsley Crowther’s 27-year reign at The New York Times; from the incendiary Pauline Kael-Andrew Sarris debates of the 60s and 70s right up to the current battle for audiences between youthful Web site populists and the veteran print establishment. Providing a unique insider’s view of the film critic’s profession are comments by some of America’s most influential film writers, including A.O. Scott (The New York Times), Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly), Roger Ebert (The Chicago Sun-Times), as well as other legends like Sarris, Janet Maslin, and Jim Hoberman.

First Feature Film.

Joining Gerald Peary after the Sunday screening will be Portland film critics Shawn Levy, D.K. Holm, Aaron Mesh, Erik Henriksen, and Eric Snider.

Sponsored by OregonLive.com.

81 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: New Directors, Documentary Views, Art.

A revelatory documentary exploring the vision of I.M. Pei, the distinguished 90-year-old Chinese-American architect as he works on his latest commission, the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, one of the most complex building projects of his long career.

One of the most distinguished architects of our time, I.M. Pei has spent his storied career creating designs for some of the world’s most treasured structures, including Paris’s Pyramide du Louvre and The National Gallery in Washington D.C. Learning From Light chronicles Pei’s adventure through a recent and historically monumental challenge: his commission to design the Museum of Islamic Art for Doha, Qatar. Traveling the Islamic world from Spain to Cairo, the 90-year-old modernist architect embarked on a journey of discovery to research the culture, history, and landscape that would inform the project. Pei searched for inspiration in the ancient origins of desert architecture and translated his findings into one of the most complex building projects of his career.

Filmography: Alan and Namoi (92), The Haunted Desert (01), The Work and the Glory (06).

Sponsored by The Nines.

84 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: Documentary Views, Global Classroom.

October Country is a beautifully rendered portrait of an American family struggling for stability while haunted by the ghosts of war, teen pregnancy, foster care, and child abuse.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for best U.S. Documentary Feature at the American Film Institute’s Silver Docs Festival, October Country is a beautifully rendered portrait of an American family struggling for stability. Dottie, matriarch of the upstate New York family, says it all in the opening sequence: “If you don’t have family, you don’t have anything.” The phrase echoes as a story rife with war trauma, teenage pregnancy, domestic and sexual abuse, and foster care achingly unfolds. Portland filmmakers Palmieri and Mosher examine intimately the forces that unsettle the working poor and the violence that lurks beneath the surface of American life. With rich visual metaphors that float through multiple storylines, they paint a portrait of a family that is unique, but also sadly representative of the struggles of many.

First Feature Film.

83 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: New Directors, Documentary Views.

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.

Strongman is a moving story of determination and heart in the face of the hard facts of life.

South Brunswick, New Jersey, is home to Stanley “Stanless Steel” Pleskun, the self-proclaimed “Strongest Man in the World at Bending Steel and Metal.” He can leg-press two-ton trucks, bend pennies with his fingers, and perform many other homemade acts of extreme strength, concentration, and focus. But Stan, now middle-aged, needs a plan, for as Levy’s affectionate portrait reveals, success—in both his professional and personal life—takes another kind of strength and savvy. Filmed over the course of several years as Stan struggles to be taken more seriously than a kids’ birthday party attraction, maintain his rocky relationship with his girlfriend, and stay on the bright side, the one thing that can’t weaken is attitude. The winner of the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Slamdance Film Festival, Strongman is a moving story of determination and heart in the face of the hard facts of life.

First Feature Film.

Sponsored by Bingo Lewis.

113 Minutes    

Interests: Documentary Views.

Sweetgrass takes on the mythology of the American West as it observes a seasonal last roundup of sheep by ranchers in Montana.

Lucien Castaing-Taylor, who teaches in Harvard’s Visual Anthropology department, and Ilisa Barbash, of Harvard’s Peabody Museum, describe themselves as “recordists” rather than filmmakers, as they capture a family and their animals in their final season herding sheep in Montana’s spectacular Absaroka-Beartooth mountain range. The herders work like cowboys out of the old West, but unlike cattle, stubborn sheep can be hilarious to watch. From the cockeyed sight of a massive sheep drive down a small town’s empty main drag, to a herder pouring his heart out on a cell phone at the top of a monumental vista, Castaing-Taylor and Barbash sharpen their sense of humor as well as their all-embracing lens to create an unforgettable cinematic experience. “A really intimate, beautifully shot examination of the connection between man and beast.”—The New York Times.

First Feature Film.

Sponsored by Alaska Airlines.

105 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: New Directors, Documentary Views, Global Classroom.

Don Hahn's engaging look at the resurgence of the Disney company's animation tradition.

By the mid-1980s, the once mighty Disney Animation Studios were in a slump. Despite a flock of eager and talented young animators, innovation at the studio was held at bay by an old guard of conservative original-era executives. By the end of the 1990s, however, Disney had produced a string of bona fide hits from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to The Lion King. What can account for this turnaround? Director Don Hahn is a 30-year Walt Disney Studios veteran, and his juicy behind-the-scenes tell-all of this transitional period is an encyclopedia of first-hand footage, drawings, and interviews detailing all the in-fights and ego trips, unequivocal failures and soaring successes, tragic lows and elating highs of the Disney renaissance.

First Feature Film.

Sponsored by Bingo Lewis.

86 Minutes     Digital    

Interests: New Directors, Documentary Views, Global Classroom, Animation, Art.