APR—MAY 2016 at BAMcinématek

The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor for BAMcinématek and BAM Rose Cinemas.

Apr 1—May 1 (1 Month, 29 Films) “Arguably the most important European director of her generation.”—J. Hoberman : IMAGES BETWEEN THE IMAGES Career-spanning retrospective features NY premiere run of Belgian director Chantal Akerman (1950—2015) forged a new cinematic language by wedding an uncompromising formal rigor with a profound depth of feeling. In an extraordinary oeuvre that encompassed travelogues, documentaries, literary adaptations, musicals, and at least one landmark of film history, Akerman explored alienation, female subjectivity, landscapes both physical and psychological, and her own identity. She was that rarest of artists: a visionary whose transfixing, exquisitely controlled camera style and searching intelligence offer a new way of experiencing the world. Images Between the Images opens with a two-week New York theatrical premiere run of her final film, No Home Movie—an Icarus Films release. INCLUDES: Almayer’s Folly (2011), Avec Sonia Wieder-Atherton (2002), (2000), La Chambre (1972), Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman (1996), A Couch in New York (1996), La Captive (2000), Le Déménagement (1992), Dis-Moi (1980), Down There (2006), From the East (D’Est) (1993), From the Other Side (2002), Golden Eighties (1986), Histoires d'Amerique (1989), (1972), J’ai Faim, J’ai Froid (1984), (1975), Letters Home (1986), The Man with a Suitcase (1983), The Meetings of Anna (1978), (1977), Night and Day (1991), No Home Movie (2015), One Day Pina Asked (1983), Saute ma ville (1968), South (Sud) (1999), (2004), Toute une nuit (1982), Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher (1989), Le 15/8 (1973).

Apr 21—24 (4 Days) NEW VOICES IN BLACK CINEMA Co-presented by ActNow Foundation The sixth annual New Voices in Black Cinema festival, presented with the Fort Greene-based ActNow Foundation, reflects the wide spectrum of views and themes in the African diasporic communities in Brooklyn and beyond. Among this year’s highlights are two Sundance hits: Malik Vitthal’s Imperial Dreams, starring a pre-Star Wars John Boyega as a young man trying to turn his life around in Watts, CA; and Tahir Jetter’s debut feature How to Tell You’re a Douchebag, a Brooklyn-set romantic comedy that cuts through the genre’s conventions with wit and verve. Full slate of films and guests to be announced.

May 4—17 (13 Days, 23 Films) LABOR OF LOVE: 100 YEARS OF MOVIE DATES Everyone has seen movies about dating. But they may not have considered how much dating has been shaped by the movies. Drawing on Moira Weigel's new history Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), this series explores the long affair between singles looking for real life romance and the stories that they watched on screen, from cautionary silent dramas about the perils of unsupervised courtship like Lois Weber’s Shoes, to iconic rom coms such as Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail and Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman, to films about feminist and gay liberation like the Mariposa Film Group’s Word is Out. While the series charts a century that has given us new and previously unimaginable romantic freedoms, the trials and travails of these romantic leads prove what any single on the market already knows: dating is work. Co- programmed with Moira Weigel and Mal Ahern. INCLUDES: American Psycho (Harron, 2000), Clueless (Heckerling, 1995), The Courtship of Eddie's Father (Minnelli, 1963), Cruising (Friedkin, 1980), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks, 1953), Gigi (Minnelli,1958), How a French Nobleman Got a Wife through the New York Herald (Porter, 1904), It (Badger, 1927), Looking For Mr. Goodbar (Brooks, 1977), Love Jones (Witcher, 1997), Masculin Feminin (Godard, 1966), My

Beautiful Laundrette (Frears, 1986), People on Sunday (Siodmak & Ulmer, 1930), La Ronde (Ophüls, 1950), She’s Gotta Have It (Lee, 1986), Splendor in the Grass (Kazan, 1961), The Student Nurses (Rothman, 1970), The Wild Party (Arzner, 1929), Women Reply: Our Bodies Our Sex (Varda, 1975).

May 18—24 (1 Week) New 4K restoration! Ousmane Sembène’s BLACK GIRL (1966) Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of African Cinema With Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Anne-Marie Jelinek, Robert Fontaine. Both a landmark of world cinema and a devastating indictment of colonialism’s tragic legacy, Black Girl is the first African film to receive international acclaim. Senegalese housemaid Diouana (Diop) is brought to France by the white family she works for, finding herself isolated in an unfamiliar country and trapped in a life of domestic servitude, a situation that the dignified Diouana refuses to accept. Father of African cinema Ousmane Sembène’s feature debut is one of the most important films ever made about race, with Martin Scorsese calling it “an astonishing movie—so ferocious, so haunting, and so unlike anything we’d ever seen.” Sembène’s luminous black and white images have a direct expressive power, gleaming anew in this restoration, which was made possible through the use of the original camera and sound negative provided by INA and the Sembène Estate and preserved at the CNC – Archives Françaises du Film. Black Girl screens with Borom Sarret (1963), Sembène’s first film, a neorealist look at the hardscrabble life of a wagon driver who encounters a cross-section of Dakar’s inhabitants as he makes his rounds through the city.

May 25—30 (6 Days, 14 Films) FILMAFRICA This cinematic companion to the annual DanceAfrica celebration features the best fiction and documentary films from Ghana, Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, and beyond, with a special focus on Senegal, the home of this year’s visiting company. The 2016 edition includes Senegalese feature Under the Starry Sky, Dyana Gaye’s richly-realized exploration of contemporary emigration; Jason Silverman and Samba Gadjigo’s epic biopic on the father of African cinema, Sembene!; and much more. Co-presented by the New York African Film Festival. ALSO INCLUDES: Afripedia (Goitom, Taft & Berhe, 2014), Cholo (Almusafer, 2014), Head Gone (Fasasi, 2014), Lamb (Zeleke, 2015), The Longest Kiss (Sicotte-Levesque, 2013), The Prophecy (Juzga, 2015), Red Leaves (Gete, 2014), TGV (Touré, 1998), Under the Starry Sky (Gaye, 2013).

A special event co-presented by the Dakar Vert Environmental Film Festival will feature three works on current-day environmental issues in Africa: Nicolas Cisse’s Mbeubeuss, le terreau de l’espoir, Simona Risi’s Mbeubeuss, and Cosima Dannoritzer’s The E-Waste Tragedy.

For press information, please contact Maureen Masters at 718.724.8023 / [email protected] Hannah Thomas at 718.724.8002 / [email protected]