Calendar – Past Event

On Friday nights in January, February and March, UnionDocs will screen six excellent films, all of which have been named named Pare Lorentz Award Winners by the International Documentary Association (IDA). It is no surprise, then, that the selections in this traveling festival resound with influence from the socially conscious documentary films of Pare Lorentz, who, during the depression, produced and directed the first government sponsored feature documentary and was named head of the United States Film Service by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. We are very fortunate to also have the opportunity to conclude the festival by showing four important works by this pioneer. All of these are documentaries that inspire the best in all of us – films that address issues of social justice, political strife, and survival in a world with declining natural resources. Each screening will be followed by a discussion, with filmmakers and special guests in attendance.

The Pare Lorentz Film Festival is supported by the New York Community Trust. We are very grateful and excited to bring these filmmakers from across the country and beyond together with scholars, experts and our local audiences in Brooklyn.

When?
Fridays, January 22 - March 12, 2010, at 7:30pm, followed by post-screening discussion.

Tickets
$7 suggested donation

Reservations
www.uniondocs.org

Venue
UnionDocs, 322 Union Ave, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Directions
L train to Lorimer Street / G to Metropolitan Ave
Exit subway and walk south on Union Ave (away from the BQE)
322 Union is on the east side of Union Ave after you cross Maujer St.

MANDELA: SON OF AFRICA, FATHER OF A NATION

Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 7:30 pm

THE RIVER
In The River, Pare Lorentz deploys powerful images, a poetic Pulitzer Prize-nominated script and another score by Virgil Thomson to illustrate the problems of flood control on the Mississippi River and the efforts to correct it. While arguing that the building of dams would put an end to the destruction of crops and property brought about by the havoc of annual floods, Lorentz reveals the ways the river has been misused, and presents a stirring paen to America's natural landscape, and the proud history with which it is imbued.

THE FIGHT FOR LIFE
In this short feature, based on a book by Paul De Kruit, Lorentz presents a staged re-enactment of an emergency childbirth in an urban hospital. As the story of the mother's difficult delivery and death in spite of valiant efforts by the doctors to save her unfolds, The Fight For Life reveals the crisis of health and pre-natal care among the urban poor of the period, and explores the impoverished lives of the working people of the cities, who live in slums and tenements where they are forced to suffer from the disabling diseases endemic in such environments.

The Pare Lorentz Film Festival is proudly presented at UnionDocs through a collaboration with the International Documentary Association (IDA). This program is supported by the New York Community Trust.