Co-Curated by Marina Goldovskaya and Samuel B. Prime
Co-sponsored by the French Film & TV Office, Consulate General of France in Los Angeles

A Melnitz Movies and Documentary Salon Co-Presentation

Return To Sender, Address Unknown – A Tribute To Chris Marker

Featuring: ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANDREI ARSENEVICH (Chris Marker, 1999) and TO CHRIS MARKER, AN UNSENT LETTER (Emiko Omori, 2012)

Tuesday, May 8, 2012 @ 7:30PM
UCLA James Bridges Theater
Melnitz Hall 1409, UCLA

Q&A with director Emiko Omori to follow screening 

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANDREI ARSENEVICH (Chris Marker, 1999):

Through film clips, journal entries, and personal musings, ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANDREI ARSENEVICH is renowned French filmmaker Chris Marker's homage to his friend and colleague, Andrei Tarkovsky, who died in 1986. Performing close readings of Tarkovsky’s films—including rare scenes from his student film (an adaptation of Hemingway's THE KILLERS) and a practically unknown production of BORIS GOUDONOV—Marker attempts to locate Tarkovsky in his work. Parallels drawn by Marker between Tarkovsky’s life and films offer an original insight into the reclusive director. Personal anecdotes from Tarkovsky's writings—from his prophetic meeting with Boris Pasternak (author of DR. ZHIVAGO) to an encounter with the KGB on the streets of Paris (he thought they were coming to kill him)—pepper the film.

With behind-the-scenes footage of Tarkovsky obsessively commanding his entire crew (including famed Bergman cinematographer Sven Nykvist, during the filming of a complicated sequence from his final film The Sacrifice), and candid moments of Tarkovsky with his friends and family, bedridden but still working on the editing of his final film, ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANDREI ARSENEVICH is a personal and loving portrait of the monumental filmmaker.

"A masterpiece! Marker's ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANDREI ARSENEVICH [is] the best single piece of Tarkovsky criticism I know of, clarifying the overall coherence of his oeuvre while leaving all the mysteries of his films intact. The video interweaves biography and autobiography with poetic and political insight in a manner that seldom works as well as it does here."

—Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

"A brilliant appreciation of the last great Soviet director, Andrei Tarkovsky. No less then Jean-Luc Godard or Martin Scorsese, Marker is an original and perceptive exegete of other filmmakers...The most sustained and heartfelt tribute one filmmaker has paid another."

—Jim Hoberman, Village Voice

"A film that defies categorization as a documentary, or even as a 'film essay'...A love letter is more like it: personal, passionate, unguarded. The meat of the film is a dazzling montage, drawn mostly from Tarkovsky's work, but reorganized into illuminating new patterns... inspiring us to make our own observations and connections."

—F. X. Feeney, LA Weekly

TO CHRIS MARKER, AN UNSENT LETTER (Emiko Omori, 2012):

A collective cinematic love letter to the elusive French filmmaker Chris Marker in documentary form, Emiko Omori’s timely film captures the persona of a filmmaker who is at once both contradictorily present in and distant from his body of work. Notoriously private, Self-described as the “best known author of unknown works,” Marker is widely known for a few key cinematic works such as LA JETÉE (1962) and SANS SOLEIL (1983), but his wider filmography remains undiscovered. Through interviews with Marker's many colleagues and admirers, Omori lovingly describes a man whose preference for personal privacy has rendered him perhaps cinema’s most famous enigma: a man who is his works. Marker’s films have affected many, both those who know him personally and those who only know him through his films. Please join us for this special event as we pay tribute to a legendary and ephemeral French filmmaker, the "cat who walks by himself," Chris Marker.

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANDREI ARSENEVICH

Writer/Director: Chris Marker
Featuring: Andrei Tarkovsky, Chris Marker, Marina Vlady, Sven Nykvist, Eva Mattes, Alexandra Stewart, Margarita Terekhova, Michal Leszczylowski, Valérie Mairesse, Larisa Tarkovskaya
DigiBeta, 55 min.

(brief intermission)

TO CHRIS MARKER, AN UNSENT LETTER

Writer/Director: Emiko Omori
DVD, 80 min.

NOTE: This is the first public screening of Emiko Omori’s TO CHRIS MARKER, AN UNSENT LETTER, still a work in progress.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Rooftop Films is proud to announce the opening weekend of our 16th Annual Summer Series presented by AT&T with some of the greatest new short films from all around the world and a special preview screening of Think of Me, starring Lauren Ambrose.

When:

Friday, May 11th and Saturday, May 12th, 2012. Doors at 8:00 p.m.

Where:

Open Road Rooftop above New Design High School, 350 Grand Street, Lower East Side, New York, NY

Opening Weekend Show Details:

Friday, May 11 - Opening Night

This is What We Mean by Short Films

Opening Night of Rooftop Films 16th Annual Summer Series will feature grand stories in little packages, with some of the greatest new short films from all around the world.

8:00pm: Doors Open
8:30pm: Live Music by Crinkles
9:00pm: Short Films
11:30pm: After party with Complimentary Drinks

Tickets: $12 online or at the door

For tickets and more information, visit:

http://rooftopfilms.com/2012/schedule/this-is-what-we-mean-by-short-films-3/

Rooftop Films is proud to announce the feature film lineup for the 16th Annual Summer Series presented by AT&T, featuring over 45 outdoor screenings with huge crowds, live music, spectacular venues and the best in new, independent, and foreign films. This year’s edition kicks off with some of the greatest new short films from all around the world on Friday, May 11th at Open Road Rooftop at New Design High School in the Lower East Side, and a special preview screening of Think of Me, starring Lauren Ambrose, on Saturday, May 12th also at Open Road Rooftop.

Rooftop Films has continued to experience remarkable growth since their initial single screening on the roof of founder Mark Elijah Rosenberg’s tenement building in 1997 and the focus remains on leveraging their grassroots popularity to bring out big crowds and shine a spotlight on new independent films that might otherwise never get the attention they deserve.

Acting as innovators and leading an event-based film marketing revolution, Rooftop Films has helped enable the success of many alumni, including Wasteland, Trouble the Water, Holy Rollers, Winnebago Man, and numerous others. In addition, through their Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund, they help more powerful, understated films not only be seen, but made; films such as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Patron Saints, Nancy, Please, and The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom have received production or post-production support via the Rooftop Filmmakers’ Fund and gone on to have tremendous success at festivals and reaching wide, appreciative audiences.

However, the popularity and longevity of Rooftop Films comes primarily from the fact that their events take audiences beyond the average multi-plex movie going experience. This year is no different.

"Our aim at Rooftop Films," says Founder and Artistic Director Mark Elijah Rosenberg, "is to immerse our audiences in new worlds, to bring them places they wouldn’t otherwise go, to provide intimate looks into unique lives. I’m excited about our feature film programming in 2012 because it includes daring and personal films on a wide range of subjects, from a diverse collection of filmmakers, and with every film we’ll be providing a unique cinematic experience."

During the weekend of June 6-8, Rooftop Films will be presenting three films from the SXSW Film Festival to New York City: Caveh Zahedi’s (I am a Sex Addict) political documentary The Sheik and I, Matthew Lillard’s (Scream, SLC Punk) comic feature debut Fat Kid Rules the World, and Amy Seimetz’s dramatic thriller Sun Don’t Shine, about a road-trip gone bad.

Please find below the full line-up for the 2012 Summer Series listing of feature films. All shows include live-music before the screenings and most include filmmaker Q&As and after parties with complementary open bars. The Summer Series will also include over 20 programs of short films. The full schedule including locations and dates will be announced in the coming weeks.

Press passes, screeners, images, and interviews available upon request.

Rooftop Films 16th Annual Summer Series Opening Weekend

Friday, May 11, 2012
This is What We Mean by Short Films
Opening Night of Rooftop Films 16th Annual Summer Series will feature grand stories in little packages, with some of the greatest new short films from all around the world.
Venue: Open Road Rooftop (350 Grand Street, LES)
Tickets, films and more info at: www.rooftopfilms.com

Saturday, May 12, 2012
Think of Me (Bryan Wizemann)
http://www.thinkofmemovie.com/
“Trembling with vulnerability, Lauren Ambrose is positively devastating” (The New York Observer) as a young single mother doing her best not to fall apart.
Venue: Open Road Rooftop (350 Grand Street, LES)
Tickets, films and more info at: www.rooftopfilms.com

REDCAT is proud to mark the 40th anniversary of New Day Films by hosting a celebratory screening of work by two of its Los Angeles-based members, Anayansi Prado’s Niños en Tierra de Nadie (Children in No Man’s Land) and Adele Horne’s The Tailenders. The collective was created by filmmakers Julia Reichert, Jim Klein, Amalie R. Rothschild and Liane Brandon when Klein and Reichert failed to secure distribution for Growing Up Female (1971), about the social constraints placed on women aged 4 to 35.

In the early 1970s the act of hearing women’s voices was perceived as a “radical,” and New Day welcomed the work of filmmakers—both men and women—who were challenging the political status quo in terms of gender, social and racial inequality. Today, New Day Films counts about 120 members, whose films have won Academy Awards, Emmys, and premiered at major film festivals, and cover issues as diverse as immigration, human rights, LGBT, disability, addiction, criminal justice, youth and aging.

In person: New Day Members Adele Horne, Ann Kaneko, Meena Nanji, Anayansi Prado and Jonathan Skurnik

Curated by Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud.

Filmmaker Steven C. Barber, producers Matthew Hausle and Tamara Henry and executive producer Tim Shelton invite you to the 2012 Memorial Day (May 28) premiere of Until They Are Home at the DGA Theatre in Los Angeles.

Until They Are Home, Barber's sequel to his 2009 film Return to Tarawa, chronicles the search by members of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) for the remains of missing US Marines who were killed in the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943. Narrated by Kelsey Grammer, Until They Are Home brings to light the extraordinary dedication of the JPAC team members, largely unsung heroes who, until now, have been unrecognized while working in the shadows.  These young men and women returned in 2010 to the site of one of the most horrific battles of World War II in order to bring home fallen military heroes. Their efforts have provided some closure after 69 years, recovering the remains of a few US servicemen and flying those remains back to American soil.

Delta Boys, the new film from Andrew Berends, explores the untold stories of the Niger Delta militancy--rebels who band together in the face of corrupt government oppression in this oil-rich region of Nigeria--following the lives of two militants: Ateke Tom, the "Godfather" of the Niger Delta Vigilante Force, and Chima, a 21-year-old who left home to join the fight. The film also documents life in a tiny fishing village caught in the crossfire of the conflict. Mama, a 22-year-old,struggles to give birth to her first child with no access to modern medical care, while raids are launched from a militant camp across the river. The personal stories of Chima, Ateke and Mama reflect a broader global struggle between entrenched power and corporate interests and an underserved population.

Nigeria is the fifth largest supplier of oil to the United States. Yet, despite this natural wealth, the majority of Niger Deltans live in poverty. Ateke's militants, along with other groups, have called for a greater distribution of wealth and jobs. When their requests have been ignored, they've attacked oil installations and pipelines, kidnapped foreigners, and made the entire Delta a no-go-zone.

But many feel that while the Niger Delta struggle is legitimate, the militants' motives are not so pure.