MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (MoMi) FILM SCREENINGS, THE SPARROW FILM PROJECT BAR CRAWL, AND THE SPARROW FILM PROJECT AWARDS GALA AT MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE

THE SPARROW FILM PROJECT, KAUFMAN ASTORIA STUDIOS AND KAUFMAN ARTS DISTRICT OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCE MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (MoMi) FILM SCREENINGS, THE SPARROW FILM PROJECT BAR CRAWL, AND THE SPARROW FILM PROJECT AWARDS GALA AT MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE,

“IT STARTS WITH A 3 WEEK, THREE MINUTE MOVIE MAKING EXPERIENCE”

(New York, NY November 27, 2018) –THE SPARROW FILM PROJECT, is proud to announce the Museum of the Moving Image(MOMI) Screenings ,The Sparrow Film Project Bar Crawl, and The Sparrow Film Project Awards Gala Ceremony.

The Sparrow Film Project ‘s10th anniversary festivities will highlight all 64 completed films and nominees over three separate events; screenings of all 64 completed films at the Museum of the Moving Image(MOMI) – Bartos Room on Saturday, Dec 1st , screening of all 64 completed films at the Sparrow Film Project Bar Crawl (see below venue info) on Sunday, December 2nd and the 33 nominated films at The Sparrow Film Project Awards Gala at Museum of the Moving Image on Thursday, December 6th at 6:30pm.

The announcement was made today by Founder and Chief Creative Officer Evangelos Roumeliotis, Artistic Director Michael Freeland and Technical Director Sal Milazzo of The Sparrow Film Project.

Starting with this year's 10th anniversary, The Sparrow Film Project is being presented under the Kaufman Arts District. The Sparrow Film Project is made possible with major sponsorship from Kaufman Astoria Studios and is presented in partnership with the Kaufman Arts District (KAD), which creates, supports and presents public arts installations and events in the Astoria community The Sparrow Film Project will culminate with an awards ceremony and gala on Thursday, December 6th at the Museum of the Moving Image, a co-founder of the KAD with Kaufman Astoria Studios and Queens Council on the Arts

The MOMI screenings will take place at the Museum of the Moving Image-Bartos Room on Saturday December 1st, starting at 2:30pm and ending at 8:30pm. The screenings will take place over 6 film blocks.

Tickets: $10 for all of the screening blocks and can be purchased at the below ticket link or at the MOMI Front Desk. Tickets are first come, first serve.

Ticket link: http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2018/12/01/detail/sparrow-film-project-the-sparrow-tavern-block

36-01 35th Ave, Astoria, NY 11106

Directions to Museum of the Moving Image: located off the R train subway- closest is the Steinway Street stop or N, Q – Broadway Stop

Film Voting will be held during the event and the film with the most votes over the screenings weekend will get into the Gala’s Wild Card. The winner will receive 2 tickets to the Red-Carpet Awards and Gala.

The Sparrow Film Project Bar Crawl will take place on Sunday, December 2nd from 2pm to 8pm.

First Look Festival 2016: The Museum of the Moving Image

Friday the annual First Look Festival starts at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. This annual series showcases a number of films from around the world before they hit local theaters. Every year they mange to get in some really stunning films and this year looks to be no exception. 

This year I got a chance to see four films prior to the festival start. I loved two I was eh on two, but I'm planning on going to Astoria and seeing some more. 

The festival runs from Friday through the end of the month so there is plenty of time to catch something.

For more information and tickets go here.

I'M THE PEOPLE
Anna Roussillon's portrait of a family in rural Egypt over the three years of the Arab Spring. We watch as Farraj Abdelwahid and his family try to scrape by on their farm and ponder events far away that they aren't sure are going to have any effect on them.

Moving documentary probably says a hell of a lot more about people and revolution than all the other documentaries on the events in Cairo simply because the film focuses on the average person over a longer period of time. If you want to know what revolution means to the guys outside the city this is the film for you.

Actually if you just want a really good portrait of a family over time this is a film for you

The film plays the 9th

PIECES AND LOVE ALL TO HELL
This companion to  RIP IN PIECES AMERICA  this is collection of rants of You Tube videos that were removed as inappropriate.  Its a collection of paranoid rants by women (the earlier film focused on men)

How you react to this is going to depend upon how much of the rants you can take. I was worn down rather quickly and ended up walking away from the computer screen I was watching the screener on and  just letting it play in the background. Yea its important to know that this much rage and anger is out there but it's a tough slog even at an hour.

This plays with OF THE NORTH on the 10th.

OF THE NORTH 
A collection of video images recorded by people in the arctic showing what life is like.

Kind of like watching someone's home movies for 75 minutes with an occasional music track over it. Some of this is really good, some of it it is why did the bother and I was left wondering if ths wouldn't have been better as You Tube clips I could bounce between at my own pace.

This plays with PIECES OF LOVE ALL TO HELL on the 10th

PAWEL AND WAWEL
Strangely hypnotic documentary/essay/experimental film is a record of the filmmaker's trip to Iceland. Static camera shots record people in bars, restaurants and fields, or shots out a window a trip some where.

Decidedly not for all tastes this film this film is the sort of thing that you can fall into and go somewhere else mentally as you try and join everything up. Think of this as a documentary mashed up with performance piece.

Highly recommended for the adventurous if you can see this on the big screen.

This film plays on the 22nd.

The NEW YORK KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL Returns With A Sharper Edge Than Ever

Some 15 years ago Korean cinema lodged itself into a special place in my heart, kicking and screaming all the way. Not a source of tranquility or soothing balm, I came to look to the nation’s exploding film scene for a reliable dose of cathartic turmoil.  While its output has been diverse, certain cultural qualities have often found their way into the fast growing canon of work, not the least of which is a tendency for biting rounds of verbal sparring. That and a tendency for unleashing cutting societal criticisms have led to my rabid consumption of South Korean film whenever the chance should arise.

For a while Korean cinema and I have experienced a bit of an estrangement. General busyness has led to seeing less films, and those I have seen felt as though they were laden with an uncharacteristic populist flavor. Even when detailing great struggle, the mood was more celebratory than caustic.

So, it pleases me to report that this year’s rendition of the New York Korean Film Festival, which runs from November 6 - 11 at the Museum of the Moving Image, is bringing the nation’s collective angst back to this metropolis in full force.

Perhaps the venue change to MOMI, situated in the internationally flavored borough of Queens has made the difference; Its vast Sumner Redstone theater is surely an ideal venue for absorbing films’ more bombastic qualities. It may also owe a lot to this year being officially cosigned by Subway Cinema, presenters of the New York Asian Film Festival, who have an eye always out for Asia’s more electrifying works and a penchant for wrangling an impressive array of guests. 

The result is a lean selection of films that is crammed tight with social issues, verbal exchanges both lively and thorny, and plenty of blood spilled, with top notch guests a-plenty on hand to guide you through it all.

The event is bookended by two films that could not be more different tonally, yet manage to share a discontented point of view on institutional injustice: Opening night film OFFICE is a creepy foray into terror between the cubicles of a small and struggling company. Setting out to immediately disturb, we watch as an office worker returns home and calmly murders the members of his family with a chilling hammer attack. The moments of terror that follow shift between otherworldly apparition, stealthy movements, and paranoid perceptions. It is a confusing mix that intentionally keeps the viewer off balance, but what remains clear throughout is that the office politics are vicious, especially to its youngest and most powerless member, and the affairs of the police who come to save the day are no less bound by red tape.

Meanwhile festival closer WONDERFUL NIGHTMARE  is a mostly lighthearted comedy that presents the folly of a one way role reversal. An intensely independent, male bashing, executive lawyer Yeon-woo, whose life is abruptly cut short by a celestial error, is transplanted into the body of a housewife in the final weeks of her life. Her struggles to cope with sudden domesticated complacence make for riotous mirth, while highlighting the difference between traditional and more modern gender roles. Her sudden transplant gives her a new perspective on the effects of corporate interests forcing the hand of civic politics. Things get a bit soapy when serious societal ills befall the members of  Yeon-woo’s new clan, yet the story’s heart is always in the right place in this mass appeal audience charmer.

Another grandiose production taking aim at corporate greed unchecked is accomplished action director Ryoo Seung-wan’s ( THE CITY OF VIOLENCE, THE UNJUST, THE BERLIN FILE) VETERAN, by way of an over the top cop drama. After a largely unnecessary half hour of cartoonish action, the story settles into a more tightly wound buildup to a showdown between a privileged enfant terrible son of a corporate tycoon and the reckless top cop on the previously introduced squad, who cannot stomach seeing the antagonist’s transgressions go unchecked. Along with the numerous hotheaded wars of words, the film also contains another familiar feature of many touchstone Korean films: a grudge match between two directly opposed, usually male, individuals bent on tearing each other apart. The film walks an interesting line between serious and silly. It’s a moving depiction of growing class inequity, but never achieves the emotional charge found in the strained loyalties of THE CITY OF VIOLENCE. The numerous familiar faces of the Korean film landscape working together here is impressive in and of itself.

The festival’s main thoroughfare can perhaps best be characterized by a trio of dark dramas from outside of Korean cinema’s most widely known pantheon. TRAP sends a modish screenwriter stuck in a quagmire of writer’s block to a remote makeshift inn where he is immediately taken with the property owner’s barely legal daughter. The source of his fascination is far from innocent as she carries out accomplished acts of seduction. The fetishistic camera work not only captures the writer’s enraptured perspective, but cheekily dares viewers to not be taken in by it themselves. There may not be too much below the surface of this assured exercise in eroticism and suspense, beyond the notion that infatuation is just a slight step away from delirium.  There is a definite gleam of mischief about the film, a curious kindred spirit to OFFICE and WONDERFUL NIGHTMARE for putting female characters in provocative, confrontational roles.     

CONFESSION is an impressive feature debut that presents a clash between ambition and loyalty amid relative poverty in elegant fashion. A backdrop of dingy locales is a steady but not overbearing reminder of how economics and the dangling carrot of financial gain affect the actions and fates of its humble characters. The three individuals whose longstanding friendship is tested are all well-developed and portrayed sympathetically. A work of steadily paced, stirring drama that can truly carry its head held high.

Festival highpoint THE SHAMELESS is a fascinating presentation of the tightrope walk of navigating hierarchical relationships in South Korean society. There is a constant vying for the upper hand of status amongst cops and crooks alike via words and tones, ever threatening to escalate into physical violence. One would be hard pressed to find a cooler customer than detective Jung Jae-gon (Kim Nam-gil) who makes his way through the extremely corrupt landscape as an emotional grifter. He plays on women’s attraction to find suspects on the run from the law. His encounter with bar mistress Kim Hye-Kyung (Jeon Do-yeon, who delivers a perfect balancing act of ferocity and frailty) leads to a crack in his resolve. While he wrestles internally with what it means to lead an honorable path, his steely demeanor remains mostly intact.  With nary a crack in its vision of heartbreak and weariness in a dilapidated urban sprawl, this is one not to miss.

MADONNA is less artful than the rest of its cohort but still compelling, as it weaves the tale of a hospital’s determined caregiver to uncover the past of a comatose, pregnant patient. Meanwhile, strings are being pulled by the son of an elderly wealthy patient on life support, who would resort to immoral means to keep his father’s body alive another day. It’s a chilling microcosm of the disparity of power amongst a nation’s citizens.

For those comfortable with the confrontational nature of many Korean films, the biggest endurance test of the fest may in fact be THEBEAUTY INSIDE, which stands out as a tranquil romantic tale, albeit with a fantastical twist. Its male lead suffers a curious affliction of waking up every morning with a completely different body. A designer of fashionable customized wooden furniture, he falls instantly in love with a woman who works in a shop that sells said furniture. Despite circumstances, they give a relationship a try and for a while, it's all ultra hip wooden chairs and equally hip music choices during a meet that seems interminably cute. When the unique and trying nature of his condition puts a strain on their relationship, things do become sufficiently dramatic. The lack of effort to do anything to understand or curtail the condition lends a fairy tale element. And really, the inclusion of this unreal element allows the director to abstract the problems faced by any typical relationship with adverse elements that has gone past the honeymoon stage, and present them in an entertaining way. Though cloying at times, its second half is heartfelt as is the film’s  ambitions to say something about diversity in these modern times.

For a full run down of the New York Korean Film Festival’s selections and schedule, as well as guests due to appear, visit the Museum ofMoving Image’s website.

@mondocurry

I for Iran (2014) First Look Festival 2015

I FOR IRAN is running as part of the Museum of the Moving Images' First Look Festival on Sunday and is worth a look.

The film begins as director Sanaz Azari starts  lessons to learn Persian. Her mother left Iran and moved to Belgium and she is trying to reconnect with her mother tongue.  Thanks to the use of a post revolutionary text book, the lessons begin to get a parallel discussion of the nature of freedom and revolution in a post revolutionary society.

The  idea behind the film is incredibly simple and in a weird way the film is almost static  with the teacher sitting or standing before us talking about the Persian language or politics. Intercut with the sequences of the teacher are shot from inside the text book which take on different connotations as the discussion goes on. While its almost static, the film is never dull or boring simply because the discussion of everything is so interesting.

Think of it as sitting in on a discussion between two highly intelligent people talking about extremely interesting things and you'll have a great time.

The  film screens Saturday afternoon at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. It's playing with INTERNATIONAL TOURISM about tourism to North Korea and LIVEPAN about ironing. For tickets and more information go to the film's festival webpage.

kinda like being there: The Raid 2: Berandal @ Museum of Moving Image (March 15, 2014)

Before the Raid 2 hit theaters in New York and around the US, it had a very special screening at the Museum of Moving Image, in Astoria, Queens. Director Gareth Evans, lead actor and coconspirator in action choreography Iko Uwais, and prolific Indonesian actress/newcomer to martial arts Julie Estelle would all be on hand, just as with other screenings they were attending. However, this screening landed at the Museum of Moving Image thanks to the enthusiastic pursuit of Warrington Hudlin, who has been curating the museum’s long running Fist and Sword series. Through Fist and Sword, he has been screening a variety of action and martial arts films up through the ages, including documentaries on dynamic figures various martial arts scenes. Based on this series’ following and New York City’s usual reputation for rambunctiousness, you can imagine the sold out crowd that had gathered was something to behold: a mix of cinephiles, rabid fans of the first Raid film eager to call “first!” on the follow-up, and actual martial arts practitioners, plus the odd luminary, such as Ric Myers (author of Films Of Fury) would all rub elbows with Warrington and the intense trio behind the movie.

The film, which I wrote about here, was wildly ambitious in scope featuring an international twist with a Yakuza group figuring prominently into the conflict between gangs. The audience made plenty of appreciative noise for its dynamic fight scenes, again highlighting the rarely documented fighting art pencak silat but also incorporating fantastical uses of weapons and an immense car chase. It was a pleasure to not only see, but be able to hear the film roar to life in the state of the art acoustics of the museum’s hive-like Sumner Redstone theater. Raid 2 boasts an excellent pulse pounding original score, as well as atmospheric sounds from Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails and excellent use of composer Haendel’s Sarabande.

After the film, Warrington declared the film an achievement of another level of martial arts cinema, citing the Shaw Brothers studio and Tsui Hark as previous milestones. Considering the crowd that was gathered, the words made quite an impression.

A rousing q & a session then followed. Ric Myers asked a lot of questions, but began by pointing out the film’s Shakespearian underpinnings. This was not a typical hero vanquishing villain sort of story, and there was definitely a bit of heaviness in the air mixed in with the adrenaline from emotional weight of Raid 2’s story.

Highlights of the q & a, which can be watched in its entirety as documented by Chocko here, included Evans discussing the origin of the film and how it was actually written before the original Raid, but shelved to address other projects and wait for a sufficient budget to tell the story. Evans also gave us details on  an origin story behind two of the more colorful characters, Hammer Girl (played by Julie) and Bat Boy, which may be told in a comic book form. He discussed parts of the film, originally planned to be much longer, that were edited out and discussed the possibility of a 4 minute gang battle scene being put up on Vimeo (sure enough it is has landed here. And it is quite gruesome).

This being Queens, the most international of New York City’s boroughs, there was at least one Indonesian fan on hand who had the presence of mind to cajole Evans about a snow falling scene in Jakarta. Another audience member would proudly produce his elementary school aged son as an audience member, which got a lot of blushing from Evans and an earnest attempt to explain that these were not kind things being depicted on the screen.

Iko Uwais was quite a character himself, lounging in his seat, making linguistic jokes, and acting nothing like the ultra serious character he’s portrayed in both movies.

When the buzz around Raid 3 begins, I would want to be a member of the Museum of Moving Image and get ready to land some tickets for another preview screening. I can’t imagine a better venue for it.

The hordes waiting to enter

Ric Myers and Warrington Hudlin working the crowd

Gareth Evans explaining is vision

Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais round 2

Julie Estelle "Hammer Girl"

Gareth and Iko soliciting an untainted opinion of their film

The cast of The Raid 3??

Raid 2: Berandal is currently playing in select cities.

Me on twitter = @mondocurry.