Arts & Lectures
2001-2002 Season Film Series News Release
For Immediate Release

August 27, 2001
Contact: Roman Baratiak
(805) 893-2078
e-mail: baratiak-r@sa.ucsb.edu

UCSB Arts & Lectures Fall Cinema 2001
features 14 entertaining, thought provoking films

Summary Facts:

UCSB Arts & Lectures Fall Cinema 2001 takes on a decidedly international flavor, featuring eight Santa Barbara area premieres. Films hail from the United Kingdom, Brazil, Cape Verde, China, Spain, Iran, Germany, India and Nepal. Three special events also highlight this schedule. On October 29 director William Friedkin will present the director’s cut of his horror classic The Exorcist; on November 1 pianist/composer Michael Mortilla will accompany a silent film screening of F.W. Murnau’s Faust; on December 1 a live Bharata Natyam performance by Alka Shah and Dancers will follow a screening of The Cosmic Dance of Shiva.

The series begins on Thursday, September 27 with Monty Python and the Holy Grail (screening at 7:30 and 9:30 pm), in a special re-released print with a restored soundtrack and missing footage. The storied comedic troupe’s first film gleefully trashes Arthurian legend. This is a chance to revisit favorite characters, like the Knights Who Say “Ni!,” the Guard Who Doesn’t Hiccough but Tries to Get Things Straight, and local hero John Cleese as a Quite Extraordinarily Rude Frenchman. Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. (1975, 90 minutes)

On Sunday, September 30, what is sure to become another enduring favorite receives an encore Santa Barbara presentation when Arts & Lectures screens Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Winner of four Academy Awards including Best Foreign Film, director Ang Lee’s movie blends the thrill of Hong Kong martial arts pictures with the keen character insight one expects from the creator of Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm. The film stars Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun Fat and signals the ascent of Zhang Ziyi into international superstardom. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (2000, 119 minutes)

Director Fernando Trueba (Belle Epoque) explores musical stardom in his exhilarating documentary Calle 54, which will be screened on Thursday, October 4. Trueba overviews the Latin jazz milieu, tracking down performances from Europe to New York. Sizzling music from the likes of Bebo and Chucho Valdés, Chico O’Farrill, Paquito D’Rivera, Gato Barbieri and the late Tito Puente make this film an elating experience. In French, Spanish and English with English subtitles. (2000, 105 minutes)

Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi’s Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, Arts & Lectures’ film on Sunday, October 7, explores profound questions of faith, life and death. Zanussi spied the film’s title as graffiti, but the film’s story seems out of Ingmar Bergman, as overseen by the steely moral gaze of Poland’s celebrated director Krzysztof Kieslowski. An elderly doctor (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz) learns he has terminal cancer, and his struggle to make sense of life is a sober, yet never solemn, journey to redemption. Also starring Krystyna Janda (The Decalogue, Man of Iron). In Polish and French with English subtitles. (2000, 99 minutes)

The Gleaners and I, a documentary of a very different sort than Calle 54, screens on Thursday, October 11. French New Wave veteran Agnes Varda’s film was one of the hits of the 2001 Santa Barbara International Film Festival and winner of the French Union of Film Critics’ Mèliès Prize for Best French Film. Varda examines all sorts of people who turn others’ trash into their treasure, from the homeless scrounging for meals to a Michelin two-star chef foraging for herbs. This slyly profound film ultimately questions not just worth but art itself. In French with English subtitles. (2000, 82 minutes)

Lumumba, the first of eight Santa Barbara premieres, screens on Thursday, October 18. Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan extolled this biopic about African freedom fighter Patrice Emery Lumumba, first head of the independent state of the Congo, as “complex, powerful, intensely dramatic.” Director Raoul Peck wisely presents history without clear-cut saints or sinners, and is abetted by the riveting performance by Eriq Ebouaney as Lumumba, who was hailed as “the Elvis Presley of African politics.” In French and Lingala with English subtitles. (2000, 115 minutes)

On Sunday, October 21, the series continues with the controversial The Circle, a film that has yet to be screened in Iran, the country of its origin. Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon) has directed this courageous film that unflinchingly explores what it means to be a woman in modern day Tehran. The narrative shifts from story to story, adding to the cumulative power of oppression and the Iranian women’s struggle for even the most basic of rights. Winner of the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice International Film Festival, The Circle has been praised widely, from Richard Corliss in Time to Susan Sontag in Artforum. In Farsi with English subtitles. (2000, 91 minutes)

William Friedkin, the Oscar-winning director of The French Connection, will present the director’s cut of his horror classic The Exorcist on Monday, October 29. The all-time horror box office champ until recently being dethroned by The Sixth Sense, The Exorcist set the standard for scares as the devil took possession of poor Linda Blair. The re-released version includes 12 minutes of new footage (including the infamous “Spider Walk” sequence) and a digitally re-mastered soundtrack, all the better to relish Mike Oldfield’s creepy “Tubular Bells.” Friedkin will introduce the film and then answer questions afterward in a session moderated by UCSB Film Studies professor Constance Penley. (1973/2000, 132 minutes)

Germany’s F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu) brought Goethe’s enduring classic Faust to the screen in a visual tour-de-force. Arts & Lectures will present the silent film will live piano accompaniment by Michael Mortilla on Thursday, November 1. Faust sells his soul for eternal youth, and a most memorable Emil Jannings as Mephistopheles is devilishly good amidst the high Expressionist visuals. Film preservationist David Shepard will introduce this sumptuously restored print, which will be projected at the proper film speed, thereby preventing the jerky pixillation that mars many silent film screenings. (1926, 116 minutes)

Visually lush and emotionally potent, The Last Dance (Vânaprastham) will screen on Sunday, November 4. Director-cinematographer Shaji Karun presents this tale of forbidden love set amidst the entrancing backdrop of the South Indian (Kerala) art form of Kathakali, which combines dance, music, sung dialogue and pantomime. The film features stunning South Indian superstars Mohanlal and Suhasini and an entrancing score by tabla player Zakir Hussain (who will perform with sitarist Shujaat Khan on Wednesday, November 7 in UCSB Campbell Hall). In Hindi and Malayalam with English subtitles. (1999, 119 minutes)

The surreal comedy to be screened on Thursday, November 8, Testamento (O Testamento do Senhor Napumoceno) prominently features the music of another Arts & Lectures’ performer, Cesaria Evora (Saturday, October 13 in UCSB Campbell Hall). Adapted from a novel by Cape Verdean writer Germano Almeida, the film is structured around the mystery of its hero’s death. Nelson Xavier, in a bravura performance compared to those by Roberto Benigni, plays Araujo, a man made rich by the fortuitous importing of umbrellas to the usually dry islands. Discovered in 1462 and settled before Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, the arid Cape Verde archipelago is home to the oldest, most thoroughly Creole culture in the world. Directed by Francisco Manso, the film is in Portuguese with English subtitles. (1998, 110 minutes)

A puckish Brazilian sex comedy that sets mature sexuality to a percolating Gilberto Gil score, Me You Them (Eu Tu Eles) screens on Sunday, November 18. This film stars the seductive Regina Casé as a peasant whose earthy eroticism lands her three husbands—simultaneously. Director Andrucha Waddington was so struck by a TV special about a woman who had lived for 10 years with three husbands that she was inspired to make this film. Gil’s soundtrack has earned him a Latin Grammy nomination. In Portuguese, with English subtitles. (2000, 107 minutes)

A special film presentation and dance performance will bring the art of Bharata Natyam—characterized by graceful eye, face and body movements, combined with intricate, percussive footwork—to UCSB. The Cosmic Dance of Shiva (1992, 57 minutes) will screen on Saturday, December 1, followed by a live performance by Alka Shah & Dancers. The film, shot by Indian folklorist Deben Bhattacharya, features the dance of Shiva, lord of both reproduction and destruction. Alka Shah and her dancers—Doli and Jahnvee Bambhania and Sriyani DeSilva—will portray emotions ranging from the first love experienced by a young maiden to the anger of Lord Shiva that can destroy the world. The performance will be 75 minutes in length. Presented with the India Association of Santa Barbara and the UCSB MultiCultural Center.

Arts & Lectures’ fall films conclude on Sunday, December 2 with a screening of the rousing Himalaya. The remarkable directorial debut of Eric Valli, documentarian and National Geographic photographer, Himalaya earned a Best Foreign Film Academy Award nomination. Set in the rugged grandeur of the mountainous Dolpo region of Nepal, the film concerns a generational power struggle for leadership of a tiny mountain village. Valli’s largely nonprofessional cast adds authenticity. In Tibetan with English subtitles. (1999, 104 minutes)

All film screenings begin at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall, except for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which screens at both 7:30 and 9:30 pm. Tickets for all films are available in advance at the UCSB Arts & Lectures Ticket Office (893-3535) and may be purchased in person or charged by phone. Tickets can also be bought at the door, if available, starting at 6:30 pm. All tickets are $6 for general public and $5 for UCSB students, except for the special film and dance performance event The Cosmic Dance of Shiva, followed by a live performance by Alka Shah & Dancers on Saturday, December 1. Tickets for that event are $10 for the general public and $8 for UCSB students.

Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, these films are sponsored by The Santa Barbara Independent, KCSB, Blue Agave and The Daily Nexus. For The Gleaners and I, support provided by Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the Cultural Ministry of France. Testamento and Me You Them are presented as part of the Luso-Brazilian film series at UCSB; for information call 893-5760.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Roman Baratiak at (805) 893-2078.

©2001 UCSB Arts & Lectures, University of California, Santa Barbara