Event
smARTfilms: FOREIGN FILM SERIES - Personal Stories from Around the World
Curated & Hosted by tj faddis
Join us for another trip around the globe as we explore other cultures and peoples stories through contemporary film here at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art Auditorium. This month we have a film each from Russia, Norway, Saudi Arabia and Israel. All films are subtitled. Well feature a short introduction before each film and host a post-film discussion with the audience. Please note the BIMA Bistro will not be open for dinner; however, we can purchase beverages (and beer & wine) - which we can take into the auditorium to sip as we watch the world unfold.
Auditorium opens at 7:00
Movie starts at 7:30
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HIPSTERS (2008) - shows September 7 - Russia - 115 minutes - Musical
Once upon a time in 1955 Moscow, there two cultures: the hip and the square. The hip minority could be found in smoke-filled lairs where flashily attired hepcats jived to the subversive honk of jazz & boogie. The gray-faced square majority, alarmed by the infiltration of Western decadence, relentlessly stalked these rebels. Armed with scissors, they forcibly trimmed their hair and slashed their brightly checkered American outfits. Based on Yuri Korotkovs book Boogie Bones, the story follows the personal revolution of 20-year-old Mels from upstanding member of the Young Communist League to hipster - while finding his identity and absorbing the consequences. Director Valery Todorovsky keeps the film moving by balancing its more serious undercurrents with a liberating sense of fun, with buoyant musical numbers that are as resplendent as GREASE. This movies high spirits cannot be quenched. - NY Times
OHORTEN (2009) - shows September 14 - Norway - 90 minutes - Gentle comedy
Enlivened with droll wit and framed with a robust sensitivity, OHORTEN is an amusing and entrancing personal portrait. On the evening of his retirement as a train engineer, dour Norwegian bachelor Odd Horten (a Buster Keaton-ish Baard Owe) learns to live life without a timetable. And since the film is the creation of absurdist Bent Hamer (KITCHEN STORIES), a master of droll melancholy himself, Odds life becomes just as peculiar as his name. The strangeness, humor and melancholy of aging are deftly explored here in a Jacques Tati-like innocence. In a literal sense this delightful film is about retirement and the prospect of loss. But Mr. Hamer sends Odd on a cockeyed journey from regret through comic confusion to a lovely eagerness for new adventures. - Wall Street Journal
WADJDA (2013) - shows September 21 - Saudi Arabia - 98 minutes - Drama with observant humor
You can tell that Wadjda is a rebel by looking at her feet. The other students at her all-girls school in Saudi Arabia accessorize their long, shapeless dresses with black Mary Janes and frilly socks, but Wadjda, a lanky 10-year-old with big eyes and an easy smile, favors black high-tops, a small gesture of spirited individuality in a world that seems organized to suppress any such expression. She also is determined to have her own bicycle, something that, while not quite forbidden, is nonetheless strongly discouraged in Saudi society. At the edge of adolescence, Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) is discovering the severe limitations placed on women in the name of custom, Islam and family honor. That discovery - and the tricky mixture of resistance and accommodation it provokes in this smart, stubborn girl - is the subject of writer/director Haifaa al-Mansours sharply observed, deceptively gentle film, the first feature ever directed by a Saudi woman. In the scenes between mother and daughter inside their apartment, the world outside no longer judging every action, new worlds open up. And therein lies the cinemas role in our lives - it reveals what is concealed to others. - Chicago Tribune
FOOTNOTE (2012) - shows September 28 - Israel - 103 minutes - Drama with light humor
FOOTNOTE is a film about Talmudic research, close analysis of the ancient writings on Jewish law. Talmudic scholars are detail oriented by trade, and the two in close-up here are a father and son long at odds, both emotionally and intellectually. Eliezer Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar-Aba), the father, is the traditionalist who compares himself to an archaeologist combing through pot shards. He pores over evidence - so much so that he once spent 30 years pursuing a breakthrough that collapsed when a rival published first. Uriel Shkolnik (Lior Ashkenazi) is the successful, admired, cutting-edge son, and its Uriel who gets the accolades, the academy membership, the adoring looks from women. Eliezer's biggest triumph is a footnote: his name in the masterwork of a revered scholar. When the Israeli prize committee calls to congratulate the winner of their big national prize, did they get the correct Professor Shkolnik? Its one of the smartest and most merciless comedies to come along in a while - it centers on an area of fairly narrow interest, but in its study of human nature, it is deep and takes no prisoners. - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
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LocationBainbridge Island Museum of Art (View)
550 Winslow Way East
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
United States
Categories
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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