Sponsored by the Goethe Institut, Boston
September 16 (Thursday) 7 pm
September 17 (Friday) 7 pm
September 18 (Saturday) 9 pm
September 19 (Sunday) 7 pm
September 21 (Tuesday) 7 pm
September 25 (Saturday) 9 pm
Directed by Wim Wenders and his students at the Film and
Television School in Munich
Germany 1996, color and b/w, 16mm, 80 min.
German with English subtitles
Six weeks before the Lumiere brother’s legendary first public motion picture screening in Paris, three German brothers in Berlin screened eight film loops. In between the acrobatics and juggling that also occupied their life, Max, Eugen, and Emil Skladanowsky invented the bioskop. A century later, internationally renowned filmmaker Wim Wenders (Paris Texas, Wings of Desire), whose recent film The Buena Vista Social Club continues to attract attention, brings these little-known pioneers to the fore with this whimsical and touching film. With the help of students from the Munich Film Academy, Wenders spins their story with a mix of documentary and re-created footage-much of it shot silent at 18 frames per second with a vintage hand-cranked camera. For those with a deep and abiding love of cinema, this one is not to be missed!
September 20 (Monday) 8:30 pm
September 21 (Tuesday) 9 pm
September 22 (Wednesay) 7 pm
Directed by Dan Reed
UK 1999, color, video, 70 min.
Shot in the Drenica Valley of central Kosovo, British director Dan Reed’s piercing documentary explores unspeakable horror, both suffered and perpetrated, in a land where each side calls the other invader. Harrowingly graphic and light years from Peter Jennings, The Valley captures images impossible to forget: Albanian villagers digging rows of graves, wailing Serbs carrying coffins, the prayers of Orthodox nuns mingling with gunfire. Brutal and profoundly affecting.
screens with The Valley listed
above
September 20 (Monday) 8:30 pm
September 21 (Tuesday) 9 pm
September 22 (Wednesay) 7 pm
Directed by Chris Marker
France 1993, color, video, 27 min.
French with English subtitles
In the Raska refugee camps near Ljubljana, Slovenia, a group of young Bosnians present a nightly television news magazine. While unable to broadcast outside of the camp boundaries, the refugees combine their various talents to produce a newscast encompassing world and camp news, complete with anchorpersons and theme music. On July 13, 1993, legendary filmmaker Chris Marker (Sans Soleil, La Jetée) spent a day in the camp while the newscast was prepared and broadcast. Marker documented that process as well as the personal stories of these resilient young people.
September 23 (Thursday) 7 & 9 pm
September 24 (Friday) 9 pm
September 25 (Saturday) 7 pm
September 26 (Sunday) 9 pm
Directed by Hans-Christian Schmid
Germany 1998, color, 35mm, 99 min.
With August Diehl,
Fabian Busch, Dieter Landuris
German with English subtitles
Sponsored by the Goethe Institute, Boston
A mystical thriller based on true events, "23" has been described as a German Trainspotting. In a time of increasing confusion and ins stability, nineteen-year-old Karl Koch uses his talent to hack into computer networks. Fueled by his obsession with Robert Anton Wilson’s cult novel "Illuminatus!" and, in particular, its worldwide conspiracy theory, Karl’s search takes control of his life. Nothing is as it seems as Karl is swallowed by drugs and paranoia, unable to abandon his all-consuming odyssey. Authentic in its details and hypnotically told.
October 9 (Saturday) 7 pm
October 11 (Monday) 6:30 pm
October 12 (Tuesday) 8:30 pm
October 13 (Wednesday) 8:30 pm
October 15 (Friday) 6:30 pm
Directed by Robert Lepage
Canada 1998, color, 35mm, 83 min.
With Anne-Marie Cadieux,
Marie Brassard, Alexis Martin, Marie Gignac, Richard Frechette
French with English
Subtitles
Internationally acclaimed playwright and actor/director Robert Lepage’s third cinematic release is a high-energy farce about Québecois separatists and sex in Osaka, Japan. Shifting between East and West, celebration and revolution, personal conflict and social turmoil—and even black-and-white and color film stocks— Nô masterfully wraps a daring political satire within a black comedy of errors. Of his wicked take on some of his nation’s, and the world’s, most controversial political and social themes, Lepage states, "There’s something about trying to be as faithful as one can to one’s culture in a world that’s increasingly trans- and multi-cultural. That is a real challenge for an artist."
Harvard Film Archive is a division of Fine Arts Library of the Harvard College Library.
Copyright © 2006 President and Fellows of Harvard College.