May 27, 2003
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu
UCSB Arts & Lectures Summer Cinema 2003
features 10 films from around the globe
Summary Facts:
- UCSB Arts & Lectures Summer Cinema 2003
- A series of 10 international films, including 4 Santa Barbara premieres
- Wednesday, June 25 through Wednesday, August 27
- Silent film screening of F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise with live piano accompaniment by composer Michael Mortilla on July 9
- All screenings at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall
- General public: $6 / UCSB students: $5; except for Sunrise, for which admission is general public: $10 / UCSB students: $8.
- Tickets may be purchased in advance at the UCSB Arts & Lectures Ticket Office and at the door, if available, beginning at 6:30 pm
- Charge by phone, (805) 893-3535, or by fax, (805) 893-8637
- For tickets and information, phone UCSB Arts & Lectures: (805) 893-3535
UCSB Arts & Lectures Summer Cinema 2003, a series of ten films, features four Santa Barbara area premieres and spans both the globe and cinematic history. On Wednesday, July 9, we will present a special screening of Sunrise, winner of three Academy Awards at the very first ceremony, including the only once presented statuette for “Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production.” Composer Michael Mortilla, who has regularly regaled Arts & Lectures’ audiences with his excellent extemporaneous scores, will play live piano accompaniment for this silent F.W. Murnau film from 1927. On Wednesday, July 23 we will present a special evening with Ronald Neame. A veteran of the film industry since the 1920s, Neame has worked as a cinematographer, director and producer on numerous classic films and will present one of his , The Horse’s Mouth (1958) starring Alec Guinness.
The series begins on Wednesday, June 25 with a screening of the captivating documentary Robert Capa—In Love and War by Santa Barbara filmmaker Anne Makepeace. (Makepeace also directed Coming to Light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians, which Arts & Lectures presented in July 2000.) Hailed as “the greatest war photographer in the world,” the dashing Robert Capa captured indelible images of the Spanish Civil War and D-Day, co-founded the Magnum photo agency and hobnobbed with celebrities like John Steinbeck and Ingrid Bergman. A multifaceted portrait of a complex figure, this film biography is both a testament to great art and to battlefield horror. The Los Angeles Times calls the film, “Thoughtful, comprehensive and surprisingly emotional.” (2002, 84 minutes)
Sure to stir the emotions, but in a very different way, is Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk to Her, a film that screens on Wednesday, July 2. Winner of this year’s Best Screenplay Oscar, Talk to Her concerns two very distinct men and the women they love, who both happen to be in comas. A powerful melodrama that never plunges into excess, the film explores love, loneliness, longing and lust in moving and novel ways. Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune insists, “Great filmmakers push their ideas and characters to the limit, unafraid of consequences—which is what Pedro Almodóvar has done in Talk to Her, his latest film and, I think, his best.” The movie includes dances by German choreographer Pina Bausch and a performance by Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso. In Spanish with English subtitles. (2002, 112 minutes)
The series continues on Wednesday, July 9 with Sunrise, a film Almodóvar has called “brilliant” and his model for the lettering of the title cards of “The Shrinking Lover,” the silent film-within-a-film in Talk to Her. German director F.W. Murnau’s first American production after his successes with Nosferatu and Faust, Sunrise is often hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. The film presents the intense moral struggle of an adulterous country boy (George O’Brien) who plans to slay his sweet, loving wife (Janet Gaynor) to be with an evil temptress from the city. The Village Voice asserts, “A culmination of the silent cinema, Sunrise is a shimmering and dreamy pictorial feast.” This classic, screened in a gorgeous archival print, will feature live piano accompaniment by composer Michael Mortilla. (1927, 95 minutes)
The series dramatically shifts to present day Iran with its next film, Ten by acclaimed master Abbas Kiarostami (A Taste of Cherry, Through the Olive Trees), which screens on Wednesday, July 16. The film, shot from a digital camera attached to the dashboard, never leaves the front seat of a single automobile. It captures ten conversations between the car’s beautiful young divorcee driver and a series of passengers including her son still bitter about his parent’s splitting up, a prostitute who nonetheless wears the veil, and a young woman with boyfriend troubles who eventually provides a simple but shocking revelation. Salon.com argues that Ten goes beyond being an examination of the place of women in an oppressive theocratic society, claiming the film is “the ultimate lesson in less-is-more cinema, an intimate and revelatory character study as well as a brilliant, almost symphonic rendering of the distracted, anxious, half-alienated and half-meditative state in which we spend vast amounts of our lives.” In Farsi with English subtitles. (2002, 94 minutes)
The series next welcomes an honored guest, 92-year-old Ronald Neame, who will introduce his film The Horse’s Mouth on Wednesday, July 23. The British-born cinematographer-producer-director has just published his memoir Straight from the Horse’s Mouth (which will be available for purchase and signing), about his multi-decade career working with people such as David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, Judy Garland and on films like Great Expectations (1946), Brief Encounter (1946), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972). The Horse’s Mouth, written by and starring the inimitable Alec Guinness, is a funny and penetrating look at the 1950s London art scene, adapted from a novel by Joyce Cary. We will screen an archival print provided by director Martin Scorsese. (1958, 97 minutes)
An examination of the art world in 19th century Korea is the heart of the poignant Chi-hwa-seon (Painted Fire), screening on Wednesday, July 30. Veteran filmmaker Im Kwon-taek (Chunhyang) won the Best Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for this sumptuous look at painter Oh-won, whose revolutionary work and fiery persona changed the face of Korean art. The New York Times writes, “Im’s own aesthetic command is evident in the movie’s wealth of beautiful, perfectly framed images of nature—shots so full of passion and perception that they could almost be paintings themselves.” In Korean with English subtitles. (2002, 117 minutes)
Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, screening on Wednesday, August 6, takes music as opposed to visual art as its subject. Threading together interviews and archival clips with a percolating soundtrack, Amandla! argues for the link between the decades-long fight against apartheid in South Africa and the country’s vibrant music. A convincing testament to the resiliency of the human spirit and the revitalizing nature of song, Amandla! (“power” in Xhosa) rocks with music by artists like Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and Vuyisile Mini. In English, Xhosa and Zulu, with English subtitles, as necessary. (Lee Hirsch, 2002, 103 minutes)
On Wednesday, August 13, the series continues with Code Unknown, a film Sight & Sound hails as “the most intellectually stimulating and emotionally provocative piece of European cinema of recent times.” Directed by Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher), the film stars Juliette Binoche in a riveting performance as an actress whose intimate and casual relationships in Paris comment upon much larger ideas about the fine line between fact and fiction and connection and disconnection in modern Europe. In French with English subtitles. (2000, 117 minutes)
Rana’s Wedding, screening on Wednesday, August 20, examines issues of connection in the Middle East. Shot on location in East Jerusalem and Ramallah, this odyssey of a Palestinian girl who must find her boyfriend and marry him within 10 hours or move to Egypt with her father was a favorite at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Variety says Rana’s Wedding (whose Arabic title is Jerusalem, Another Day) is “engaging and in the end even stirring, as life and love triumph over guns and suspicion.” In Arabic with English subtitles. (Hany Abu-Assad, 2002, 90 minutes)
The series concludes on Wednesday, August 27 with the crowd-pleasing comedy Bend It Like Beckham, a British film by Gurinder Chadha, former UCSB Regents’ Lecturer and director of Bhaji on the Beach. Jess (the winning newcomer Parminder Nagra), a teenager who idolizes English soccer star David Beckham (noted for his ability to “bend” the ball around defenders), strives to be a “footballer” herself despite the concerns of her anxious, image-conscious Sikh parents, who are none-too-happy about her non-traditional, non-feminine aspirations. Filled with wonderful supporting turns by a cast including Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Juliet Stevenson, Bend It Like Beckham was called “irreverent, exuberant and exhilarating...pure, undiluted joy” by the Philadelphia Inquirer. (2002, 112 minutes)
All film screenings begin at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall. 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. Tickets are $6 for the general public and $5 for UCSB students, except for Sunrise, for which admission is $10 for the general public and $8 for UCSB students.
Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, these films are supported in part by UCSB Summer Sessions and the UCSB Summer Frosh Program and sponsored by the Santa Barbara Independent, KCSB Radio 91.9 FM, Blue Agave and the UCSB Daily Nexus. Ten and Rana’s Wedding are co-presented by the UCSB Center for Middle East Studies. The “Evening with Ronald Neame” is co-presented with the UCSB Department of Film Studies.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.