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Summer Cinema:
Documentaries at Bell Auditorium
MINNEAPOLIS -- The following is a summer calendar for documentaries that will be
shown at Bell Auditorium, nation's first and only dedicated non-fiction film screen,
brought to the public by Minnesota Film Arts, a non-profit organization dedicated
to fostering an active and living appreciation of the film arts in the Twin Cities
and greater Minnesota. Bell Auditorium is located at 10 Church Street at the intersection
of 17th and University Ave. S.E. on the University of Minnesota East Bank campus
in the Bell Museum of Natural History. For more information, visit http://mnfilmarts.org/bell/
or call (612) 331-3134.
Friday, May 27 - Thursday, June 2
Mojados: Through the Night -- An eye-opening documentary filmed over the course
of 10 days that follows four men into the desperate world of illegal immigration.
Alongside Bear, Tiger, Handsome, and Old Man, director Tommy Davis takes a 120-mile,
cross-desert journey that has been traveled innumerable times by nameless immigrants
who -- like these four young migrants from Michoacan, Mexico -- all had the simple,
American dream for a better future.
Friday, June 3 - Thursday, June 9
10 on Ten -- Distinguished Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami has generously decided
to reveal his current ideas on the creative processes of his filmmaking by taking
us on a road trip to Tehran and eloquently proffering wisdom from the wheel of his
car (shot on his preferred mini DV camera). Using illustrative examples from his
feature Ten, the ten lessons of introduction, camera, topic, screenplay, locations,
music, the actor, the accessories, the film director, and the last lesson will inspire
and inform.
Friday, June 10 - Thursday, June 16
Watermarks -- The ladies of Hakoah watering hole was one of Europe's largest
athletic clubs. Founded in 1909 in response to the Aryan Paragraph banning Jewish
athletes from Austrian sports clubs, in the 1930s, its women's swimming team dominated
the Austrian national competitions and the Maccabee games. The members fled the country
when Hitler annexed Austria in 1938 and the Nazis shut down the club. Today the women
are in their 80s and scattered around the world. Director Yaron Zilberman engineers
a group swim in Vienna, their first reunion in 60 years.
Friday, June 17 - Thursday, June 23
Mclibel -- The David and Goliath story of the McLibel Two -- a postman and gardener
who took on the fast-food giant in England's longest-ever legal wrangle. This hilarious
and engrossing account of the seven years in which McDonald's attempted to extract
damages from two penniless London activists includes the appearance of McDonald's
executives, defending their fare and the bizarre transformation of the protagonists
from neophytes into seasoned cross-examiners.
Friday, June 24 - Thursday, July 7
Call Me Malcolm -- This is the story of a 27 year-old transgender seminary student
and his struggle with faith, love and gender identity. In 1977, a boy is born in
a girl's body. After several years of self-doubt and confusion, the boy learns that
he is transgendered, and finally takes the necessary steps to externally live in
the gender he'd always felt. The first of is steps was taking on his new name: Malcolm.
Friday, July 8 - Thursday, July 14
Tell Them Who You Are -- Mark Wexler's cinematic blend of biography and autobiography
centers on his relationship with his father, legendary cinematographer and filmmaker
Haskell Wexler, whose long and illustrious career is a virtual catalogue of 20th
century classics. Haskell's collaborations with such world-class filmmakers as Elia
Kazan, Milos Forman, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Mike Nichols include
such works as Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, American Graffitti, Coming Home, Bound
For Glory and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and the film features interviews with
these artists, along with such luminaries as Ron Howard, Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas
and Julia Roberts.
Saturday, July 9 & Sunday, July 10
Bus Rider's Union -- A multi-racial, grassroots movement brings the powerful
Los Angeles Metro Transit Commission to its knees, forcing the city to provide transportation
for all. Directed by Haskell Wexler, this is a compelling story of insider politics
versus outsider activism.
Friday, July 15 - Thursday, July 21
Dreams of Sparrows -- Hayder Daffar may still be a night clerk at Baghdad's Palestine
Hotel, but he's also the director behind this first Iraqi-made documentary to come
out of post-Saddam Baghdad. The film, which depicts post-war life in Baghdad, was
produced by the IraqEye Group, a collaboration between American producers and Iraqi
filmmakers whose stated mandate is to "revitalize Iraqi cinema within the international
cinema community."
Friday, July 22 - Thursday, July 28
Arakimentari -- Dubbed the Weegee of the Wedgie, Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi
Araki has made a career of walking the line between art and exploitation. Many of
his photos feature nudity and sometimes bondage, yet he is in high demand as both
a fashion and art photographer.
Friday, July 29 - Thursday, August 4
Searching For The Wrong Eyed Jesus -- Hit the road with American singer/songwriter
Jim White at the wheel of a beat-up Chevy, and embark on a meandering odyssey into
the deep South. Witness devilshly-haunting, lo-fi musical performances from The Handsome
Family, David Johansen, Johnny Dowd, Cat Power and others. From beer-bars to trailer
parks, God-bothering pentecostals mix with backsliding sinners to tell tall-tales
of murder and redemption.
JAZZ IN JUNE CINEMA
Jazz and the cinema effectively grew up together. This June, Bell Auditorium
opens its weekend afternoons to the sonorous tunes of Jazz History.
June 4 & 5
Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue -- At the Isle of Wight Festival in
the summer of 1970, Miles Davis and an electric sextet (featuring Chick Corea, Keith
Jarrett, Jack deJohnette and Dave Holland) played a riveting set consisting of one
38-minute jam. That memorable set is resurrected in impeccable sound in Murray Lerner's
film of the event, which one musician remembers as a "microhistory of jazz."
June 11 & 12
A Great Day In Harlem -- The story of the photo-shoot behind the celebrated historic
photograph, taken by Art Kane, for Esquire's January 1959 souvenir jazz issue, boasting
the century's jazz luminaries crossing the terrain of ragtime to bebop. Narrated
by Quincy Jones, the film weaves archival performance and the photo-shoot's home-movie
footage with rare interviews to impart the significance of the occasion.
June 25 & 26
Jazz On A Summer's Day -- Bert Stern stood at the forefront of New York's photographic
elite when he made this, his first -- and unfortunately, his only -- foray into filmmaking.
Stern's still images have long since become the stuff of art anthologies and gallery
exhibitions, and his single movie remains a classic to which few music festival documentaries
can hold a candle. This witty, insightful film gives us the Newport Jazz Festival
as it was celebrated in 1958, by a joyous, interracial crowd of passionate jazz enthusiasts.
Featuring: Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Chuck Berry, Dinah Washington Thelonious
Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Jimmy Giuffre, Anita O'Day, Jack Teagarden, Chico Hamilton,
Sonny Stitt, George Shearing and Big Maybelle.
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