DC Film Society Trailer Program Presents Summer Blockbusters Ready for Blast Off!

Just when you thought that all of the BIG summer movies had arrived…there are still LOTS MORE competing for your box office dollars. What other box office records can be broken? It's time to review the other contenders at the Washington, DC Film Society's annual Coming Attractions -- Summer 2002 trailer program. Join film critics Joe Barber and Bill Henry, and fellow film fans to discover what else is new, exciting, different, and about to take off.

Enjoy an evening of spirited discussion and venture into the world and art of movie marketing. See the trailers for the final crop of the BIG summer movies, share your opinions with fellow fans, and talk back to the critics! All while you munch on complimentary burritos from Chipotle.

Don't get left behind and miss out on your turn to be the film critic. Everything is up for grabs: we'll see and discuss trailers for Minority Report, Scooby Doo, The Powerpuff Girls, The Banger Sisters, Pluto Nash, One Hour Photo, Never Again, and Divine Secrets. Got some behind-the-scenes gossip? We'll discuss that too. There'll be something for everyone this summer at the movies: comedy, drama, adventure, romance, suspense. And lots of fun, FREE movie giveaways, including CDs, t-shirts, hats, movie posters, at the trailer program. Raffled door prizes include brunch for two at Melrose and movies on VHS tape and DVD.

Come one and all to this one-of-a-kind, one-time-only event: $5.00 for DC Film Society members and only $8.00 for non-members and guests. For ticket sales and further information as it becomes available, please call (202) 554-3263.

Current program list includes: 8 Legged Freaks, Bad Company, The Banger Sisters, Country Bears, Divine Secrets, The Good Girl, Juwanna Mann, Like Mike, Lilo & Stitch, Minority Report, Never Again, One Hour Photo, The Powerpuff Girls, Rain of Fire, Scooby Doo and Signs.

Tuesday, June 4, 2002, at 7:00 p.m.
Loews Cineplex Wisconsin Avenue 6 Theatres
4000 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.

Next Cinema Lounge

The Cinema Lounge meets Monday, June 10 to discuss the topic "Master of Disaster." Irwin Allen may have passed on, but Hollywood is keeping the disaster movie alive and well. Join us as we examine our fascination with destruction. Has recent events swayed our tastes?

Suggested viewing: Airport (1970), The Andromeda Strain (1971), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974), Towering Inferno (1974), Daylight (1996), Twister (1996), Independence Day (1997), Dante's Peak (1997), Armageddon (1998), Deep Impact (1998), Hard Rain (1998).

Cinema Lounge, a film discussion group, takes place the second Monday of every month at 7:00 PM at Borders Books, 600 14th St., NW in Washington, DC (near the Metro Center Metro stop).

Italian Film Festival in Scotland

By Jim McCaskill

EDINBURGH, Scotland. The 9th Italian Film Festival was sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh and the Italian Cultural Institute in London as well as Italia Cinema, Cincecitta Holding, the Ministero Affari Esteri and the Italian Trade Commission.

An exciting array of 50 Italian films were recently shown in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and London. The program was made up of several sections that included: Panorama, dedicated to recent box office hits of 2001; True to Life, with documentaries; and On the Threshold, showing films by some of the most promising new names in Italian cinema. In addition there was a retrospective dedicated to Anna Magnani. that revealed the depth of this superb actress. Films of hers ranged from the ground breaking Rossellini's Rome Open City to Pasolini's Mamma Roma and Visconti's Bellissima.

This new generation of Italian film makers are inspired by the neo-realism of 50 years ago. Recent films from Italy have become box office and award winning hits around the world. Nanni Moretti's The Son's Room, honored with Cannes' top award and an Academy Award nomination is just one example.

Post Word War II Neo-realism influenced a generation of film makers as Italy struggled to develop a national identify after that war had left Italy devastated. It had joined the Axis and had been ill treated and left in economic and social ruin as a result. Film was one way of regaining its identity. The war and liberation caused film makers to discover the value of the real. Rome Open City was the first in a bevy of films that did this. No subject was too prosaic, no topic too commonplace. The first films focused on the results of war: the misery, poverty of society's underclass. Neo-realism today focuses primarily on the middle class although directors such as Vincenzo Marra still look at the working under class.

Recent releases in Panorama were: Pupi Avati's The Knights of the Quest, Ettore Scola's Unfair Competition, Antonello Grimaldi's An Impossible Crime, Francesca Archibugi's Tomorrow, Wilma Labate's Domenica, Ferzan Ozpetek's Ignorant Fairies, Gisueppe Piccioni's Light of My Eyes, Antonio Capuano's Luna Rossa, Luciano Emmer's A Long, Long, Long, Night of Love and Ermanno Olmi's The Profession of Arms.

My favorites in this category and films I would urge you to see are: Light of My Eyes, Domenica, Tomorrow and Ignorant Fairies.

Light of My Eyes is the superb sixth film of director Guiseppe Piccioni and shows a sense of craft and timing that enables him to sidestep cliché pitfalls that often sink films of this nature. Luigi Lo Cascio and Sandra Ceccarelli won the Best Actor and Best Actress for this film at the 2001 Venice Film Festival. Cascio is the psychotic loner who befriends a young girl and her mother is this enthralling film. This is a love story about two lost souls in a unfriendly world.

Successful women directors Wilma Labate's Domenica and Franesca Archibugi's Tomorrow show great sensitivity and skill in their films. Domenica is aided by an outstanding performance from Domenica Giuliano as the 12-year old orphan in this complex film. Labate's film is of a Naples few tourists see, as a detective seeks to have Domenica identify the body of the man who may have assaulted her. Archibugi's take on the effects of an earthquake on a small Umbrian village results in the distressing film Tomorrow. Shared moments in a disaster bring love and friendship to strangers in this film. In lesser hands these could have become a hackneyed mess. Instead we two excellent original films.

Ferzan Ozpetek, a Turk working in Rome for the last 25 years, is back with his third successful film, Ignorant Fairies. Turkish Baths and Harem Suare were his first two and were set in his native Istanbul. Ignorant Fairies is a disappointing English title for Le Fate Ignoranti, the Italian title. It happens to be the name of a painting that plays a crucial part in this exploration of bohemian life in Rome. What do you do when you find out that your recently deceased husband has been having an affair for seven years? With a man. Margherita Buy, star of this film, discovers that about her husband and a working class man (played by Stefano Accorsi) who loved him as much as she did. Bitter at first but intrigued, she tries to make friends with Accorsi but is rebuffed. The film, in lesser hands, could have degenerated into a soap but Ozpetek shows a deft hand by making the film about feeling rather than sex. He said, "In Ignorant Fairies I pushed the boundaries just as far as the next door neighbor rather than across national boundaries. I like to play with the ambiguity of sexuality. I prefer to see it as talking about people who have a different approach to life." This is a carefully scripted, human statement.

On the Threshold was the section devoted to original, innovative work by new directors. Films included were: Marco Bechis' Garage Olimpo, Carola Spadoni's Freewheeling in Rome, Giulio Manfredonia's If I Were You, Andrea Porporati's Empty Eyes and Marra's Sailing Home. For me Garage Olimpo and Sailing Home were the most successful and both are films worth seeing.

Garage Olimpo is a harsh look at a distressing time in Argentina. Bechis is an Argentinian director working in Rome. This film casts a spotlight on the military dictatorship's rule when 25,000 political prisoners just disappeared. Beneath the commonplace streets of Buenos Aires lies a torture chamber unknown by the citizens of that city. Here unspeakable horrors take place. Sailing Home is the story of a Neapolitan crew who risk their lives each day fishing in the Mediterranean off Tunisia. An interview with the director and comments on the film were in May's Storyboard.

Calendar of Events

FILMS

American Film Institute
The AFI concludes its series of Billy Wider films with The Apartment (1959) on June 1 at 4:15pm, June 2 at 2:30pm and June 2 at 8:45pm; The Fortune Cookie (1966) on June 1 at 2:00pm and June 2 at 4:45pm. The House of Makhmalbaf series concludes with A Time of Drunken Horses (1999) on June 1 at 8:00pm; Marriage of the Blessed (1989) on June 1 at 6:30pm and June 2 at 1:00pm; and The Apple (1998) on June 2 at 7:00pm.

Freer Gallery of Art
Concluding the Silk Road film series, the Freer shows Three Brothers (Serik Aprymov, 2000) on June 2 at 2:00pm, Luna Papa (Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov, 1999) on June 7 at 7:00pm, Killer (Darezhan Omirbayev, 1998) on June 14 at 7:00pm, The Adopted Son (Adtan Abdykalykov, 1998) on June 16 at 2:00pm, and Joan of Arc of Mongolia (Ulrike Ottinger, 1989) on June 23 at 2:00pm.

National Gallery of Art
Along with the AFI (see above), the Gallery shares the House of Makhmalbaf film series. Remaining in June are Gabbeh (1996) on June 1 at 2:00pm, The Day I Became a Woman (2000) on June 1 at 4:15pm, Salaam Cinema (1995) with The Actor (1993) on June 2 at 4:00pm, Once Upon a Time, Cinema (1992) on June 8 at 3:00pm, Time of Love (1984) on June 9 at 4:00pm, and Blackboards (2000) on June 15 at 2:00pm. A lecture "Kubrick and Welles: Landscapes of Dread in the Spaces of Modernity" by Robert Kolker is on June 16 at 2:00pm, followed by the film Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) at 3:30pm. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955) is on June 23 and June 30 at 4:00pm. As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (Jonas Mekas, 2000), is on June 29 at 1:00pm. The Glassmakers of Herat (Elliott Erwin, 1979) is on June 26, 27, 28, and 30 at 12:30pm.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Saudade do Futuro (César Paes, 2000), a documentary on street life and music of São Paulo, Brazil is on June 6 and 7 at 8:00pm. Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945) is on June 20 at 8:00pm. My Journey in Italy (Martin Scorsese, 2001), a study of postwar Italian film, is on June 27 at 7:00pm.

National Museum of Women in the Arts
Films by Bette Gordon are featured in this summer. In June is Luminous Motion (1998) on June 26 at 7:00pm, with Bette Gordon in person. More are coming in July and August.

Films on the Hill
Those who saw The Cat's Meow (opening night film at FilmfestDC) about the mysterious death of Thomas Ince, may have wondered who Ince was and what kind of films he made. An evening of films from Ince's studio will be seen on June 12 at 7:00pm, including Soul of the Beast (1923), Hell's Hinges (1916), and The Clodhopper (1917), starting with A Tour of the Thomas H. Ince Studios (1920-22). The greatest of the Warner Brothers social consciousness films I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932) is on June 14 at 7:30pm, and an Errol Flynn technicolor film, Against All Flags (George Sherman, 1952) is on June 19 at 7:00pm.

DC Jewish Community Center
A documentary video, Diva: Dana International (Dror Sabo, 2000) about the trans-sexual pop star is on June 18 at 7:00pm with guest speaker Lee Walzer, author of Between Sodom and Eden: A Gay Journey Through Today's Changing Israel. Also on the program is another video, Fantasy--Another Country (Sharon Hammon and Avi Hershkovitz, 1999) about two Tel Aviv drag queens, one Arab, the other Jewish. A reception follows the screenings. For tickets, call 800-494-TIXS.

Also in June is the black comedy, The Nasty Girl (Michael Verhoeven, 1990), based on the true experience of Anna Rosmus on June 24 at 7:00pm. Special guest Anna Rosmus is scheduled to appear. Time of Favor (Joseph Cedar, 2000), winner of six Israeli Academy Awards, is on June 25 at 7:00pm. For tickets, call 800-494-TIXS.

Pickford Theater
June films at the Pickford include The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, 1962) on June 6 at 6:00pm, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936), on June 25 at 7:00pm, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958).

Goethe Institute
The Goethe Institute inaugurates its new theater with Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961) on June 26 at 6:30pm. More films made in Berlin follow in July and August.

The National Theatre
The Monday night summer series at the National Theatre begins June 17 with Oh, Brother Where Art Thou? (Joel Coen, 2000) at 6:30pm. On June 24 is Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) also at 6:30pm.

National Museum of Natural History
On June 14 at noon is The Burning Sands (2001), a segment from a documentary which looks at survival in a land of extremes. On June 21 at noon is Living Edens: Yellowstone, America's Secret Eden (2000), about the national park, and on June 28 at noon is Naim and Jabar (1974) about two Afghan boys.

Reel Affirmations
The Reel Affirmations Pride Film Festival 2002 will be held at the Lincoln Theater. Titles are: Borstal Boy on June 3 at 7:00pm, Lan Yu on June 3 at 9:00pm, Kali's Vibe on June 4 at 7:00pm, and Second Skin on June 4 at 9:00pm.

Transafrica Forum
In celebration of Caribbean Heritage Month, June 2002, is the DC Caribbean Filmfest 2002. Films include Playing Away (Horace Ové, 1986) from Trinidad and Tobago on June 5 at 6:30pm, Ogun: The Eternal Presence (1992) from Cuba, on June 12 at 6:30pm, The Journey of the Lion (1992) a docu-drama from Jamaica, on June 19 at 6:30pm, and Haitian Song (1982) from Haiti, on June 26 at 6:30pm. Locations vary, please check the website or call 202-223-1960 x137. All films are followed by a discussion led by Dr. Keith Warner, Professor of French and Caribbean studies at George Mason University and author of On Location: Cinema and Film in the Anglophone Caribbean..

Previous Storyboards

May, 2002
April, 2002
March, 2002
February, 2002
January, 2002
December, 2001
November, 2001
October, 2001
September, 2001
August, 2001
July, 2001
June, 2001
May, 2001
April, 2001
March, 2001
February, 2001
January, 2001
December,2000
November, 2000