| At
Large Business Briefs Cartoons District Court Report Editorial Gone Fishin' Letters to the Editor Real Estate Transactions Sports Sports Highlights |
| Art Bestsellers Dance Edibles Film In Print Music Theater |
| This
Week's Happenings Save
That Date Ongoing Events Groups Libraries Museums and Tours Children's Resources Hotlines 12-Step Programs Religious Services Volunteer Opportunities |
| Achievements Astrology Birds Births Community Shorts Dean's List Engagements Garden Notes Honor Roll Obituaries Off North Road Short Subjects Town Meetings Visiting Vet Weddings |
| Aquinnah Chilmark Edgartown Oak Bluffs Tisbury West Tisbury |
The
Martha's Vineyard Times is a weekly publication.
March 31 - April 6, 2005 Edition
Web
Comments
- Email Submissions
|
FILM Winning films on local screen March 31, 2005 By Brooks Robards
On Friday, April 1, the top 10 short films from the Seventh Annual Manhattan Short Film Festival (MSFF) are featured. “Iron Jawed Angels,” an HBO film starring Oscar-winning Hilary Swank, narrates the drive to win the vote for women and will be shown Saturday, April 9, as a fundraiser for the new Island chapter of N.O.W. Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's powerful and disturbing film about the impact of pedophilia, “Bad Education,” will appear Saturday, April 16. All three will be shown at 7:30 pm in the Katharine Cornell Theatre on Center Street in Vineyard Haven. Presentation of the Manhattan Short Film Festival (MSFF) films marks the beginning of a new collaboration between SSFS and the Festival. Through the Silver Screen Society, the Vineyard will become a screening site for MSFF's 2005 short films. The new top 10 will be chosen by the Vineyard audience and others across the U.S. The 2004 winners that will be screened April 1 range in origin from Serbia to Belgium, although the majority comes from the United States. Such a medley of high-quality short films exposes the audience to a wide cross-section of talent and innovation at one sitting. The best of the best includes “Razor's Edge,” by American director Lorenzo Benedick. In 12 minutes, it offers an eerie and compelling character study with a surprise ending. Serbian director Milos Radovic's “My Country” turns an 11-minute sight gag into a microcosm of a country curdled by unresolved hostilities. Adolfo Doring's documentary “Karaoke Men” gives a unique voice to the kind of street music found in New York and other big cities. Another American short, this time by Charlie Call, “Peep Show” turns conventional porn expectations upside down with hilarious results. The April 9 full-length feature, “Iron Jawed Angels,” directed with considerable skill by Katja von Garnier, had a brief run on HBO last year. It maps out the struggle to pass the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote and does so with vitality and intelligence. Von Garnier bends over backward to keep historical figures like Alice Paul (Swank), Carrie Chapman Catt (Anjelica Huston), and Lucy Burns (Frances O'Connor) from seeming dull or self-righteous. If anything, they're a little too hip - puffing on cigarettes, using makeup, flirting and primping, as if to make sure the post-feminist generation feels comfortable with old-line feminist types. Yet as the movie hits its stride, the storytelling becomes increasingly powerful. Screenwriter Sally Robinson manages to pack a great deal into a complex chunk of history: conflict between generations of suffragists; an important racial dimension; the role of Woodrow Wilson's liberal but anti-suffrage politics; the contextual implications of World War I. Saddled with a somewhat unfortunate title, “Iron Jawed Angels,” offers a primer on activist strategies. Paul organizes a Washington march to call attention to women's suffrage; next she stages pickets outside the White House; once jailed, she starts a hunger strike. The film is especially effective at showing what these women were up against and the struggle it was to win the vote, something other nations had long ago adopted. Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar's films - from “Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down,” to “All About My Mother” - have built him a reputation as one of the world's foremost directors. His latest movie, New York Film Critics Circle award-winning “Bad Education,” is both timely in topic and challenging in technique. The film-noir story takes off from the lives of two boys who became friends in Catholic boarding school and reunite as adults. Enrique (Fele Martinez) is a successful filmmaker, while Ignacio (Gael Garcia Bernal) may be a struggling actor with a script for his old friend. A key figure in both of their lives is the pedophile priest who was their teacher. A mysterious cross-dresser also plays an important role. Almodovar moves his characters back and forth through time in a hunt for what seems to be the truth, at least an artistic truth, and who has it. Known for his explorations of sexual identity and a love of melodrama, Almodovar has created a fascinating maze in “Bad Education.” “Best of the Seventh Manhattan Short Film Festival, Friday, April 1; “Iron Jawed Angels, Saturday, April 9; Bad Education, Saturday, April 16 at 7:30 pm. Tickets for Manhattan Short Film Festival and Bad Education, $6, $4 for society members; “Iron Jawed Angels” $10, $8 for society members. All at Katharine Cornell Theatre, Spring Street, Vineyard Haven. |
|||
| Send this page to a friend: | |||
|
©The
Martha's Vineyard Times 2004 - www.mvtimes.com
|
|||
