November 9 (Tuesday) 9 pm
Tenth Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Directed by Ross
McElwee and Marilyn Levine
USA 1990, color, 16mm, 88 min.
Framed by his personal recollections of growing up with the Cold War and the Berlin Wall, filmmaker Ross McElwee documents a cautious farewell to Checkpoint Charlie. The film portrays one neighborhood in the American sector of Berlin during two contrastive time frames: 1986, when the Wall was very much intact, and then again in 1989, when the Wall and the Cold War were suddenly in the midst of being dismantled. In this simply made cinema verité–style film, McElwee and co-director Marilyn Levine successfully point out that while history recounts the acts of statesmen and great events, it is also about everyday people and the impact those events have on their lives.
November 16 (Tuesday) 9 pm
From the release of her
first student film, Tables of Content, in 1986 to her most recent work, When the Day
Breaks (co-directed with Amanda Forbis), which was awarded the Palme D’Or for short
films at the Cannes International Film Festival and the Grand Prix and Critics Prize at
the Annecy International Animation Festival, Canadian animator Wendy Tilby has enjoyed
international critical acclaim. In addition to her own three works, Wendy will present a
selection of Canadian animated films which she admires, has been influenced by, or wishes
she had made.
Directed by Jacques Rivette
France 1974, 35mm, color, 193 min.
With Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Barbet Schroeder
French with English subtitles
Directed by Ann Marie
Fleming
Canada 1987, color, 16mm, 5 min.
Directed by Christopher
Hinton
Canada 1991, 5 min.
Directed By Wendy Tilby
Canada 1991, 10 min.
Directed by Eugene
Fedorenico and Rose Newlove
Canada 1999, 11 min.
Directed by Caroline
Leaf
1977, 10 min.
Directed by Ed Ackerman
and Collin Morton
Canada 1988, 3 min.
With poem by Kurt Schwitters
November 16 (Tuesday) 9 pm
Directed by Wendy Tilby
and Amanda Forbis
Canada 1999, color, 35mm, 10 min.
When the Day Breaks is an exquisite and compassionate ode to the importance of life’s little moments in the face of tragedy. Ruby is a gentle pig who, after witnessing a fatal accident, searches for comfort and understanding in her urban environment. The film’s beautiful animation, endows inanimate objects with a visceral power and farm animals with great humanity.
Harvard Film Archive is a division of Fine Arts Library of the Harvard College Library.
Copyright © 2006 President and Fellows of Harvard College.