FIRST POSITION

Bess Kargman (USA, 2011, HD)
OFFICIAL WEBSITE

THE TRUE STORY OF SIX ASPIRING BALLET DANCERS

SELECT OPENING WEEKEND SCREENINGS FEATURE
INTRODUCTION BY DANCE HISTORIAN LINDA SZMYD MONICH

Every year, thousands of aspiring dancers enter one of the world's most prestigious ballet competitions, the Youth America Grand Prix, where lifelong dreams are at stake.

In the final round, with hundreds competing for only a handful of elite scholarships and contracts, practice and discipline are paramount, and nothing short of perfection is expected. Bess Kargman's award-winning documentary, FIRST POSITION, follows six young dancers as they prepare for a chance to enter the world of professional ballet, struggling through bloodied feet, near exhaustion and debilitating injuries, all while navigating the drama of adolescence. A showcase of awe-inspiring talent, tenacity and passion, FIRST POSITION paints a thrilling and moving portrait of the most gifted young ballet stars of tomorrow.

VIEW TRAILER HERE

“This masterfully thoughtful documentary incisively records the trials and tribulations of getting en pointe as a career move.”
- Brandon Judell, Culture Catch

"This supremely feel-good film, not just a treat for balletomanes, benefits from the wondrously talented, likeable hopefuls."
- Doris Toumarkine, Film Journal International

IN SEARCH OF HAYDN

Phil Bradsky (UK, 2012, HD)
OFFICIAL FACEBOOK

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF
"IN SEARCH OF MOZART"
AND
"IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN"

Award-winning filmmaker Phil Grabsky (IN SEARCH OF MOZART, IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN), offers the eagerly awaited final part of his trilogy of films about the great composers, with his latest feature-length documentary, IN SEARCH OF HAYDN.

As with the two previous international hits, Grabsky’s biographical account of the life of Haydn is a visual and aural extravaganza, including breath-taking performances by some of the world’s most celebrated and contemporary musicians:

Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Roger Norrington, The Orchestra of the 18th Century with Frans Brüggen, The Endellion String Quartet, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, Ian Page and the Classical Opera Company, Ronald Brautigam, Sophie Bevan and Emmanuel Ax, amongst others.

As with Mozart and Beethoven, Grabsky’s latest film follows the same format of presenting the composer’s biography and music chronologically. Through intimate and revealing interviews with experts, and detailed extracts from Haydn’s personal letters, the audience gains tremendous insight not only into Haydn’s music, but an appreciation of the artist himself. The emphasis of the film, as with the previous films, is on the performance – and interpretation – of Haydn’s music, with performances from the world’s greatest musicians and orchestras.

VIEW TRAILER HERE

“Quietly inspiring.”
The Times

“Following his excellent films on Mozart and Beethoven, the British documentarist Phil Grabsky completes an admirable trilogy with this riveting study of Haydn.”
- The Observer UK

BLOOD SOAKED

Red Letter Cinema (USA, 2012, HD)

FREE ADMISSION WITH PURCHASE OF POPCORN

ONE NIGHT ONLY - SATURDAY MAY 26, 8:30 PM
FEATURING INTRODUCTION BY THE FILMMAKERS

Welcome to college! A freshman on her first day is seduced by an older co-ed and shares a sweaty and sleepless night in the New Mexico desert. After a run-in with road kill the morning after, the newly formed lesbian couple's maiden voyage is violently interrupted by a pair of Hitler youth sisters with a taste for G.T.A. and hate crime.

Skull-shattering horror ensues as untested Nazi science unveils a deadly secret and the sister's terrifying plans for a Fourth Reich are revealed. The couple's wits and survival skills are the only things keeping them alive as the nails approach their coffins with blinding speed…

PERFORMANCE: ERNANI (BOLOGNA)

Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Composed by Verdi
Conducted by Bruno Bartoletti
Directed by Beppe De Tomasi
Starring Roberto Aronica and Dimitra Theodossiou
Runtime TBA

PREMIERE MAY 27 - 11:00 AM
ENCORE JUNE 17 - 11:00 AM

PART OF PERFORMANCE AT THE SCREEN

Sweeping Romantic drama takes center stage in Ernani, an early Verdi gem based on a story by Victor Hugo. Three powerful men compete and conspire to win the hand of the beautiful Elvira, but in the end, duty and honor leave everyone woeful. Starring Roberto Aronica and Dimitra Theodossiou; from the Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

SURVIVING PROGRESS

Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks (Canada, 2011, 35MM)
Featuring Jane Goodall and Margaret Atwood
OFFICIAL WEBSITE

BASED ON THE RONALD WRIGHT BESTSELLER
"A SHORT HISTORY OF PROGRESS"

Technological advancement, economic development, population increase - are they signs of a thriving society? Or too much of a good thing? Based on the best-selling book A Short History of Progress, this provocative documentary explores the concept of progress in our modern world, guiding us through a sweeping but detailed survey of the major "progress traps" facing our civilization in the arenas of technology, economics, consumption, and the environment.

Featuring powerful arguments from such visionaries as Jane Goodall, Margaret Atwood, Stephen Hawking, Craig Venter, Robert Wright, Michael Hudson, and Ronald Wright, this enlightening and visually spectacular film invites us to contemplate the progress traps that destroyed past civilizations and that lie treacherously embedded in our own. Leading critics of Wall Street, cognitive psychologists, and ecologists lay bare the consequences of progress-as-usual as the film travels around the world - from a burgeoning China to the disappearing rainforests of Brazil to a chimp research lab in New Iberia, Louisiana - to construct a shocking overview of the way our global economic system is eating away at our planet's resources and shackling entire populations with poverty.

Providing an honest look at the risks and pitfalls of running 21st Century "software" (our accumulated knowledge) on 50,000-year-old "hardware" (our primate brains), SURVIVING PROGRESS offers a challenge: to prove making apes smarter was not an evolutionary dead end.

VIEW TRAILER HERE

“Powerful. One percenters won’t like what SURVIVING PROGRESS has to say. It’s jam packed with questions… confronting those questions can feel like an all-out assault on our entrenched world views, but it also feels critical to our very existence.”
- Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post

“Both brainy and light on its feet, bristling with provocative insights and probing questions, this film feels like it’s expanding your mind while you’re watching it.”
- Kenneth Turan, LA Times

TURN ME ON, DAMMIT!

Jannicke Systad Jacobsen (Norway, 2011, 35MM)
OFFICIAL WEBSITE

WINNER - BEST SCREENPLAY - 2011 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

15-year-old Alma (Helene Bergsholm) is consumed by her out-of-control hormones. She and her best friend Sara live in an insufferably boring little town in the hinterlands of Norway called Skoddeheimen, a place they loathe so much that every time their school bus passes the sign that names it, they routinely flip it off. After Alma has a stimulating yet awkward encounter with her crush Artur, she makes the mistake of telling her incredulous friends, who ostracize her at school, until Sara can’t even be seen with her. All the while Alma’s single mother is overwhelmed by her daughter’s extravagant phone bills and mood swings.

Laced with warmth and quirky humor, TURN ME ON, DAMMIT! is a light-hearted take on a story that is told so often about boys and so rarely about teenage girls.

VIEW TRAILER HERE

“Funny and poignant without ever seeming leering or exploitative. The way salty-sweet comedy TURN ME ON, DAMMIT! treats the hormone-addled turmoil of its 15-year-old heroine feels something close to revolutionary. I don't want to overburden this mild-mannered 76-minute Norwegian debut, but it's true.”
- Alison Willmore, Movieline

“Charming. The credence it gives to a young female’s sexuality is definitely refreshing.”
- Miranda Siegel, New York Magazine

PERFORMANCE: I VESPRI SICILIANI (TORINO)

Teatro Regio di Torino, Turin, Italy
Composed by Verdi
Conducted by Gianandrea Noseda
Directed by Davide Livermore
Starring Maria Agresti, Gregory Kunde and Franco Vassallo
Runtime TBA

PREMIERE JUNE 10 - 11:00 AM
ENCORE JULY 8 - 11:00 AM

PART OF PERFORMANCE AT THE SCREEN

Politics become personal in Verdi’s I Vespri Siciliani (“The Sicilian Vespers”). Based on the true story of a 13th century Sicilian rebellion against occupying French forces, this grand opera weaves military intrigue with a tale of doomed love between a French Dutchess and a Sicilian rebel. Verdi’s meaty score is sung with full-throated intensity by Maria Agresti, Gregory Kunde and Franco Vassallo, with Gianandrea Noseda at the podium. From the Teatro Regio di Torino.

COME BACK, AFRICA

Lionel Rogosin (Africa, 1959, 35MM)
OFFICIAL WEBSITE

FROM THE ACCLAIMED DIRECTOR OF "ON THE BOWERY"
PAINSTAKINGLY RESTORED IN A PRISTINE 35MM PRINT

The Screen proudly presents Lionel Rogosin’s 1959 secretly filmed COME BACK, AFRICA, a historical wonder and an honest glimpse into the harsh reality of life under the now-abolished South African apartheid government.

After witnessing firsthand the terrors of fascism as a soldier in World War II, director Lionel Rogosin vowed to fight against it wherever and whenever he saw its threats reemerging. In an effort to expose “what people try to avoid seeing,” Rogosin travelled to apartheid-struck South Africa and secretly filmed COME BACK, AFRICA, which revealed the cruelty and injustice with which black South Africans were treated.

Apartheid rule, a legal system of separation according to race, began in South Africa in 1948. This system forced black South Africans - who composed a majority of the public’s population - into crowded slums where they received poorer public services than those provided to the white minority. Before beginning the production of COME BACK, AFRICA, Rogosin spent several months touring Africa, becoming accustomed to the way of life in South Africa and acquiring a sense of the apartheid government’s sensitivity to anti-government “conspiracies” – such as the very film he wished to create.

Much of COME BACK, AFRICA was filmed in Sophiatown, a township reserved for blacks. Blacks who had been separated into urban ghettos decades before were now considered a threat to the whites in South Africa, and so previously designated “black spots” were now being demolished and their residents transported to even worse areas. The result of this policy was demolition of towns such as Sophiatown, which was being gradually destroyed during the production of the film.

A jarring view of a largely concealed environment of injustice, COME BACK, AFRICA honestly and sincerely captures images of the long faces of a people oppressed. Casting occurred before the script for the movie was written; the script itself was a vague sketch of plot points which the actors added to with their own dialogue, to make the film a more authentic representation of the living conditions of the time.

VIEW TRAILER HERE

“A heroic film... a film of terrible beauty, of the ongoing life it captured and of the spirit embodied by Rogosin and his fellow artists.”
- Martin Scorsese, filmmaker

“COME BACK, AFRICA is both history and legend, about real, ordinary people in extraordinary - and ongoing circumstances. The film remains complicated, interlacing stories and backstories, revealing at once adversities and strategies of survival.”
- Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters.com

“A timely and remarkable piece of cinema.”
- Time Magazine

“The sound of the beating of the consciousness of a waking Africa.”
- Jonas Mekas, Village Voice

REVEAL THE PATH

A Mike Dion Film (USA, 2012, HD)
OFFICIAL WEBSITE

ONE NIGHT ONLY - JUNE 15, 7:00 PM

ADVANCE TICKETS $10 - ON SALE HERE
DAY OF SHOW - $15

FEATURING INTRODUCTION AND Q/A WITH DIRECTOR MIKE DION

A visually stunning adventure by bike: REVEAL THE PATH explores the world’s playgrounds in Europe’s snow capped mountains, Scotland’s lush valleys, Alaska’s rugged coastal beaches and Morocco’s high desert landscapes.

Ride along and get lost in the wonders of the world… Enjoy the authentic locals living modest yet seemingly fulfilling lives, leading us to question what it means to live an inspired life – however humble or extravagant. Filmed across four continents and featuring Tour Divide race legends, Matthew Lee & Kurt Refsnider, this immersive film is sure to ignite the dream in you. Join in as the creators of RIDE THE DIVIDE take you on an adventure that will leave you with an eager desire to chart your own course to far away lands or simply to discover with eyes wide open what’s right around the bend.

VIEW TRAILER HERE

PERFORMANCE: ANNA BOLENA (FIORENTINO)

Teatro Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence, Italy
Composed by Gaetano Donizetti
Conducted by Roberto Abbado
Directed by Graham Vick
Starring Mariella Devia, Sonia Ganassi & Roberto Scandiuzzi
Sung in Italian with English subtitles
3 hrs 40 mins including one intermission

PREMIERE JULY 15 - 11:00 AM
ENCORE AUGUST 5 - 11:00 AM

PART OF PERFORMANCE AT THE SCREEN

Envelope-pushing director Graham Vick describes his production of Anna Bolena as “two women making use of the bed to get to the throne and a man making use of the throne to get to the bed.” The man, of course, is Henry the 8th, and the women are his doomed wives, Jane Seymour and Anne Boleyn. Don’t miss this tale of treachery and scandal, brought to life in Donizetti’s sparkling score. From the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Italy.

FROM ZIMBABWE TO SANTA FE

Cristina McCandless (USA, 2012, HD)
OFFICIAL WEBSITE - FACEBOOK

NEW MEXICO PREMIERE
ONE NIGHT ONLY - JULY 10, 7:00 PM

Q&A WITH DIRECTOR CRISTINA MCCANDLESS
AND TWO OF FILM’S HEROINES
MATRON MWEMBE & JULIANA MUSKWE

$5 FLAT ADMISSION - TICKETS ON SALE HERE

FROM ZIMBABWE TO SANTA FE chronicles the universal quest for prosperity as told by Zimbabwean village women, Matron, Gogo and Sindiso, who take us along for the ride when they set off to sell their baskets at the world’s largest folk art market – held for 3 days in Santa Fe, New Mexico. These uniquely engaging heroines stretch beyond their personal and cultural boundaries as they reach for a better life. Their creativity, persistence and humor in the face of the unexpected twists and turns along the road, inspire us to shed our stereotypes about rural African dysfunctionality and re-define our notions of sustainability, success and prosperity.

The documentary was produced and directed by New Mexico filmmaker Cristina McCandless over the past four years with the participation of many of New Mexico’s most talented documentary filmmakers including Doug Crawford, Katie Cook, Jilann Spitzmiller, David Aubrey, Jennifer Lain Johnson, Dave Marquez and the Santa Fe Community College Film Department.

VIEW TRAILER HERE

WINNER- JURORS AWARD BEST DOCUMENTARY

WINNER- AUDIENCE FAVORITE DOCUMENTARY
2012 RIVERSIDE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

WINNER – NEW MEXICO FILM OFFICE NEW VISIONS CONTRACT AWARD

PERFORMANCE: BORIS GODUNOV (TORINO)

Teatro Regio di Torino, Turin, Italy
Composed by Modest Mussorgsky
Conducted by Gianandrea Noseda
Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky
Starring Orlin Anastassov, Ian Storey and Peter Bronder
Runtime TBA

PREMIERE JULY 29 - 11:00 AM
ENCORE AUGUST 19 - 11:00 AM

PART OF PERFORMANCE AT THE SCREEN

Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov is considered the most important Russian opera ever written. Mussorgsky rejected Western conventions in classical music, instead forging a uniquely Russian style that gives Boris Godunov its arresting and unforgettable sound. Starring Orlin Anastassov as the titular Czar of Russia, Ian Storey as the Pretender to the Throne, and Peter Bronder as Prince Shuysky, with Gianandrea Noseda at the podium. From the Teatro Regio di Torino.

PERFORMANCE: NORMA (TAORMINA)

Teatro Antico, Taormina, Italy
Composed by Vincenzo Bellini
Conducted by Marco Guidarini
Directed by Enrico Castiglione
Starring Chiara Taigi, Gregory Kunde, Irina Lungu and Giacomo Prestia
3 hrs including two intermissions

PREMIERE AUGUST 12 - 11:00 AM
ENCORE SEPTEMBER 2 - 11:00 AM

PART OF PERFORMANCE AT THE SCREEN

Norma is considered Vincenzo Bellini’s magnum opus, and the apex of the bel canto operatic style. The titular high priestess is filled with treasonous desire for a Roman soldier, forcing her to choose between duty and love. Flowing, lyrical melodies – including the infamously difficult soprano aria “Casta Diva” – only add to the passion and heartbreak. Starring Chiara Taigi, Gregory Kunde, Irina Lungu and Giacomo Prestia. From stunning outdoor arena stage at the Teatro Antico Taormina, Italy.

THE LADY

Luc Besson (France, 2011, 35MM)
Starring Michelle Yeoh
OFFICIAL WEBSITE

FROM DIRECTOR LUC BESSON

THE TRUE STORY OF BURMESE FREEDOM FIGHTER
AND NOBEL PRIZE WINNER AUNG SAN SUU KYI

THE LADY is an epic love story about how an extraordinary couple and family sacrifice their happiness at great human cost for a higher cause. This is the story of Aung San Suu Kyi (Michelle Yeoh) and her husband, Michael Aris (David Thewlis). Despite distance, long separations, and a dangerously hostile regime, their love endures until the very end.

A story of devotion and human understanding set against a background of political turmoil which continues today. THE LADY also is the story of the peaceful quest of the woman who is at the core of Burma's democracy movement.

VIEW TRAILER HERE

“A deeply moving film… Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis are impressive.”
- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian UK

“The shocking injustices of the true story inevitably make it touch chords, but the emotional moments that resonate most stem from Thewlis’ tender depiction of unwavering devotion and tireless campaigning on his wife’s behalf.”
- David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

WE HAVE A POPE

Nanni Moretti (Italy, 2012, 35MM)
Starring Michel Piccoli
ITALIAN WEBSITE

NOMINATED - PALME D'OR - 2011 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

Nanni Moretti (THE SON'S ROOM, CARO DIARIO) joins forces with the great French actor Michel Piccoli (CONTEMPT, I'M GOING HOME) to tell the story of Melville, a cardinal who suddenly finds himself elected as the next Pope.  Never the front runner and completely caught off guard, he panics as he's presented to the faithful in St. Peter's Square.  To prevent a world wide crisis, the Vatican's spokesman calls in an unlikely psychiatrist who is neither religious or all that committed, played by Moretti, to find out what is wrong with the new Pope. As the world nervously waits outside, inside the therapist tries to find a solution.

But Cardinal Melville is adamant: he does not want the job, or at least needs time to think it over. What follows is a marvelous insight into the concept of a human being existing behind the title of God’s representative on Earth.  WE HAVE A POPE is the latest film by Moretti to make wonderful use of humor while dealing with serious issues and continue to showcase his deep humanism.

VIEW TRAILER HERE

“There's a sweetness to Italian director Nanni Moretti's WE HAVE A POPE that belies its seemingly unholy premise.”
- John Anderson, Newsday

“When it stays with Piccoli it's mysterious and moving, struck by the humility of a man who's not up to playing God.”
- Ty Burr, Boston Globe