Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival November 12 – 15, 2009 Ticket Information amnh.org/mead 2009 – Celebrating 33 Years Welcome to the Mead

All screenings are held at the To Order Ticket Prices Once again, the Margaret Mead Film & Video American Museum of Natural History American Express, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover General Public* $12 Festival brings together a collection of gripping stories are accepted. We have eliminated our service charge! told from unique perspectives. For our 33rd edition, Opening Night (F1)* $15 Entrance for screenings is on77th Street between You now save money when you order tickets in we continue to honor the legacy of famed anthropol- Central Park West and Columbus Avenue advance by phone or online – order now! DJ Spooky (Special Event)* $25 ogist and American Museum of Natural History curator Margaret Mead, showing documentaries that Transportation and Parking By Phone Opening Night film plus reception $40 increase our understanding of the complexity and Call 212.769.5200 with the filmmakers (F2) Subway diversity of the peoples and cultures that populate Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm; Saturday, 9am – 4pm our planet.The Mead Festival has also expanded its B (weekdays) or C to 81st Street; 1 to 79th Street. Have your credit card, membership category, and *Members/Students/Senior Citizens – please call or check online for discounted rates. horizons to reflect the ever-evolving art of story- Bus program codes ready when you call. telling. New technologies and greater access to all M7, M10, M11, or M104 to 79th Street; the longitudes and latitudes of our interconnected Online Become a Friend of the Festival M79 toCentral Park West. Visit amnh.org/mead world have amplified the possibilities for films made The Friend of the Festival package (F28) $99 Parking in the documentary tradition. On-site Purchase (a $150 value) A three-story parking garage is open daily until 11 pm; The package includes: Mid-October – November 11 Steeped as we are in our daily lives, the Mead gives Beyond the stories are the way they are told, and the narration—these filmmakers embrace poetic observa- enter from West 81st Street. •Invitation to the Opening Night film and Tickets may be purchased during Museum hours us a chance to step outside our own struggles and filmmakers featured this year marshal their talents tion and reenactments, humor and subjectivity. They reception for two. at the Advance Group Sales desk in the Theodore routines, to consider not only what divides us but also to employ new modes of storytelling. Claymation allow their cameras to linger on their subjects and •Six tickets – your choice of programs;please Tickets are not refundable. Roosevelt Rotunda (Central Park West at 79th all thatconnects us. We are also reminded of how sequences illustrate the epic struggles of indigenous the surrounding landscapes, permitting the narrative specify program codes when ordering. Programs are subject to change. Please check our website Street entrance) and at the Rose Center for our lives affect those half a globe away. A Native Bolivian female wrestlers. Staged readings and to reveal itself. for the most current schedule and updated information. and Space (81st Street entrance). Alaskan community comes together to mourn the dramatic re-creations expose the wretched secret We invite you to sit back and watch. From the Films are shown in various program formats, ranging During the Festival impending loss of their land to climate change. We of the Ukrainian Holodomor. An intimate camera and from a single full-length movie to multiple short films. follow the length of a race track through , innovative editing evoke the rigorous schedules of dilapidated communal apartments of St. Petersburg, Ticket prices are per program. November 12 – 15 , to backyard tiger breeders in Flat Rock, Indiana, Tickets may be purchased at the 77th Street pausing to become acquainted with the communities overachieving high school students in . Rather Tickets may be purchased in advance for any program these 33 films will enlighten you, hearten you, and entrance only, between Central Park West and along the way. A school in Brooklyn becomes a than relying solely on traditional documentary on the Festival schedule. Each program is identified by a battlefield in the War on Terror. techniques—archival footage, interviews, voiceover enrich you. We hope you’ll join us. program code. Please refer to the program code when Columbus Avenue, one hour prior to show time. ordering tickets. — Ariella Ben-Dov Artistic and Festival Director 2 3 Mead Festival Highlights amnh.org/mead

CLOSING NIGHT ALONG THE MODERN SILK ROAD HAIR INDIA From A.D. 600 to 1200, goods were exchanged, laborers migrated, and cultures converged along what historians now Raffaele Brunetti and Marco Leopardi call the Silk Road. While most of was cloaked in the New York Premiere • Brunetti in person darkness of the Middle Ages, a flourishing network of civili- • Sunday, November 15 8:00 pm, Program F27 zations stretched from the Mediterranean to the easternmost The last stop on the Mead Festival is India, where Hindu shores of Asia, with hubs in Baghdad, Samarkand, Turfan, believers offer their hair as part of a sacred ritual to pay off and Xi’an. In conjunction with the American Museum of an ancient debt of the gods.The choice locks travel to Natural History’s Traveling the Silk Road exhibition, the Mead Bangalore, to Rome, and back to India again, where the elite presents a series of films that illuminates our own meta- pay astronomical prices in tony salons to have them adorn phorical Silk Road, along which goods and ideas travel in their heads. As the documentary follows the strands of this centuries-old grooves and where modern industries and lucrative business, we learn about the people and customs technologies have generated new pathways for the ongoing at the different strata of society all along the supply chain. evolution of culture. The opening night film,Cooking History, From Hemlata and her daughter, who are sacrificing their hair takes us across the battlefields of the 20th century, where for the first time, to Sangieta, who must keep up appearances even the destructive force of war has contributed to culinary OPENING NIGHT in the competitive job and marriage market of Mumbai, the and cultural exchange. In Hair India, which closes the COOKING HISTORY hair travels full circle back to India but remains worlds apart. LOVE AGAINST THE ODDS festival, sacrificial hair shorn in a Hindu temple is transported to a factory in Bangalore, to a distributor in Rome, then Peter Kerekes A young woman in love is pregnant and must decide if she teenager who wants to be. Edie and Thea: A Very Long back to India’s finest salons. In Babaji, an Indian Love Story,a New York Premiere • Filmmaker in person will have the baby. An octogenarian couple shares their love Engagement portrays the long-term relationship between Hindu man embraces the burial practices of another religion Thursday, November 12 • 7:00 pm, Program F1 story through photos and home movies dating back to the two lesbians, one of whom suffers from MS.How I Am draws in hopes of being reunited with his beloved wife. Finally, early 1960s.A community comes together to support a young out the adolescent Patrick, whose autism isolates him. In The 33rd annual Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival kicks feed the German soldiers who take Poland,or spicing meat Hotel , about Africans looking for a way into Europe, boy whose family decides to give him an experimental War + Love in Kabul, a young man wounded in the war on off with an unusual tour of the field kitchens of the second for Serbian soldiers during the Balkan Wars of the 90s, these and 7915 KM, about Europeans racing through northeastern operation. A married woman unabashedly expresses her Afghanistan is kept from his childhood sweetheart. half of the 20th century. From the black bread that fed the veterans share their recipes, all the while recounting the Africa to Dakar, demonstrate how, for better and worse, desire to be with another man. These stories make up the Whatever their disability, it in no way completely defines Soviet soldiers who beat back the Nazis from Leningrad costs of war. With an eye for dark humor yet always we continue to carve new grooves into the world. to the “monkey meat” rations of ’s colonial war in displaying a sensitivity to the horrors both committed and films in the Love Against the Odds series at this year’s Mead. the subjects of these films. They are articulate and insightful Algeria, we meet the men and women who cooked for the witnessed, Peter Kerekes dares to ask the question: if no one What links these six films besides the theme of love? The and generously open up a window onto their lives. The Presenting Sponsor of Traveling the Silk Road is main characters are blind, deaf, or autistic; another suffers armies on Europe’s bloody battlefields. While slaughtering cooked for the armies of the world, would war be over? This series is co-presented by Center for Media,Culture and History from multiple sclerosis and another is paraplegic.Blind Loves a pig for Hungarian kolbasz, rolling out dough for bread to • acquaints us with three blind couples in love and one blind and Council for the Study of Disability, NYU disTHIS! Film Series. Additional support has been provided by Mary and David Solomon The Silk Road Project residency is generously supported by Cooking History and Hair India are part of the Along the Modern Silk Road series. Rosalind P.Walter 6 FestivalSchedule

LeFrak TheaterNight Opening History Cooking 7:00pm 12 Nov. Thursday, ProgramF1 tion o tion Reconstruc- Perestroika: 4: KabulWar Lovein + 2:00pm 14 Nov. Saturday, Door The Next Tiger 8 Game the Beyond 6:00pm 13 Nov. Friday, Closing Night Closing India Hair 8:00pm L Blind 6:00pm The ThePhilosopher Kings 3:30pm K 15 Nov. Sunday, aufmannIn I W 8: Living The 6:30pm Theater :00pm :00pm tifadaNYC 30pm 00pm anna Be Boss Be anna oiayLf fCranes of Life Solitary f a Flat a f ov ProgramF23 es ProgramF20 ProgramF17 ProgramF11 Progr ProgramF7 ProgramF14 Progr ProgramF5 am F27 am am F25 am h atDy fShishmaref of Days Last The 6:00pm 4:00 o Hersk 2:00pm 15 Nov. Sunday, o World Wondrous The 8:30pm Babaji, 6:30pm Immok TheUnforbidden City 4 Sahara Hotel 2:00pm 14 Nov. Saturday, Ring the of Mamachas 9 Fig Trees 7 and Thea Edie 5:00pm 13 Nov. Friday, V Linder Theater :00pm oic f Laundry Laundry f f Blackness f :30pm :30pm :15pm esfrom El- pm o le MyHome alee, anIndian L vits a vits ProgramF9 ProgramF21 ProgramF15 ProgramF18 ProgramF6 ProgramF3 ProgramF22 ProgramF12 Progr ProgramF26 t the Hear the Sa am F24 am ye o d v eStory t

Leonhardt People Center Americana 7:00pm 1:30pm 14 Saturday, Nov. Gyumri 8:00pm Rush Doesn’t Sun the Where ForgottenSongs Nine Ang The program: F and Widows, Assassins, 6:00pm 13 Nov. Friday, 5:30 KM 7915 3:30pm Fortune Good Speech Memor Speech Am I How uneral Directors, Oh My! Oh Directors, uneral pm elmak Pr Progr Progr ProgramF19 ProgramF8 ProgramF4 ogr am F10 am am F13 am am F16 am ers y

The Milstein Hall of Life Special EventSpecial Scienc the and Spooky DJ 4:00pm 15 Nov. Sunday, e of Terraof Nova e pca ProgramSpecial Th Senegal Republic, Sahrawi Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Austria, ugr,Scotland Hungary, 2005 Bussink Astrid T Americana 2008 GeyrhalterNikolaus 7915 Vietnam U.S., Turkey, Serbia, Japan, 2009 opaz Adiz opaz eAngelmakers · · · 30 min 30 106 min 106 91 min 91 KM es 6:00 pm pm 6:00 Dir Funeral and Widows, Assassins, Doesn’t Songs (Scr Friday person in Filmmaker Saturday Saturday 7:00 pm pm 7:00 pm 3:30 ectors, Oh My!) Oh ectors, eeningwith and · R November 13 November · ush · · · · Program F13 F13 Program Where Where Program F19 F19 Program Program F4 Program November 14 November 14 November in NineF the pr the the Sun the orgotten ogram Co-presenter: toprovide reallyacomplete happened picture upand why. ofwhat open finally residents village years,the many for history their thisperiod in about Reticent soakedin poison. cubes sugar using husbands their killing for responsible held were women 1929,51 gr and, past tainted village’s sleepy the of memories their share to ofobservationallife theyin rural begin Slowly, Hungary. portrait this in lives daily their about go Nagyrev of inhabitants The adually , thehist Rooftop Films Rooftop or y o y f the “ rei udr”cmst ih.In comestolight. arsenicmurders” olg,Anthonycollege, and Timhope in afford to enlist Unable theU.S.Army. to decision their ing arepreoccupied with defend- friends prom, signings,yearbook Besides n agn u with out hanging and , w ihsho seniors school high two AlphabeticalListing w the choice, right the made they’veConvinced future. better a with them provide will service military Co-presenter: resulting eyes.Africanthrough The by. zoom like look Europeans what of merely revelatoryportrait a is mosaic cultures vehicles and tricked-out peoples, the landscapes, that diverse the observe to Republic, Democratic Arab Sahrawi fromMauritania pausing thenfinally throughto Senegal, Mali, the to Morocco from trackstire the followsGeyrhalterNikolaus filmmaker Austrian 2007’swake of rally,dusty the In continent’sedge. western the at line finish the to Africaacross race and Europe in gather to invited Paris-to-Dakar has the Rally riders” “all 1979, Since large f ml,and amily, ar-war . Intercut with conversa- with Intercut . ilred,friends, girlfriends, y the community atcommunity the African Film Festival Film African y argue with argue y r c argumen boy the City, Min Chi Ho and Hiroshima, Belgrade, Istanbul, of natives and Americans traveling between tions eport ountr y weaken even as their as evenweaken y date nears. date ts for ser for ts ving their ving 7 s’ Babaji, an Saturday · November 14 Baba Basant Rai buried his accomplished as he is in their road to possible Cooking History Thursday · November 12 What keeps the armies of Russian woman prepares cooks are proud of their roles 6:30 pm · Program F18 wife nine years ago, and yet using the natural world to notoriety. A portrait of one 7:00 pm · Program F1 the world going? Tanks, blinis she once made for the in serving their countries still grieves. Prescribing and help the sick, Babaji was man’s sorrow, the film is also Peter Kerekes submarines, airplanes, bullets, soldiers fighting off the yet remain haunted by war’s Indian Love Filmmaker in person Filmmaker in person preparing traditional unable to save his beloved a window into traditional 2009 · 88 min bombs? Actually, bread. Bread Germans outside Leningrad. horrors. Using humor, Story remedies, Babaji, as he is wife. Digging a grave next to Indian culture, its beauty and Austria, Bosnia, Croatia, Czech and blinis and sausage and Another hunts mushrooms in poignancy, and reserve, Jiska Rickels affectionately called, attends hers, he lies down in it and limitations, and how it Republic, France, Germany, coq au vin, even “monkey a Czechoslovakian forest. Kerekes elevates the much- 2008 · 72 min to the community outside waits for death. Meanwhile, struggles to accommodate, Great Britain, Hungary, Israel, meat” rations. As one cook Hungarians slaughter a pig maligned documentary India, The Hazaribagh, in Jharkhand, the people of the town and resist, modernity. Russia, Serbia, Slovakia puts it, without food, the for kolbasz. A German sings a technique of re-enactment U.S. Premiere India, curing fevers and depend on Babaji, who is New York Premiere army would be in a shambles. fight song while baking black while subtly making his point Co-presenters: Center for stomach ailments as well as rumored to be more than 100 Taking a tour of 20th century bread for the soldiers who that if the armies of the Religion and Media, NYU; exorcising the malevolent years old. They marvel at his battlefields, Peter Kerekes just took Poland. A French world were indeed in a Indo-American Arts Council Inc. ghosts that walk among eccentricity and longevity, revisits its mess halls and conscientious objector chases shambles, there might not them. As knowledgeable and regarding him as a “star” and field kitchens, asking the a cockerel for his dinner. be any wars. cooks to recreate the meals Reliving the battles while Co-presenter: CEC ArtsLink they served at the front. One they prepare the food, the Beyond the Friday · November 13 A lone warrior crosses a maker Jos de Putter shows their technique, strategizing 6:00 pm · Program F5 landscape through an opaque us, takes place on the faces new approaches, and fussing veil of snowflakes. Another and fast-clicking fingers of over equipment,“Sky” from Game Filmmaker in person Jos de Putter lays waste to a small village. the young male players who China and “” from the Opening Night 2008 · 70 min Yet another stands on a compete professionally on a Netherlands try to maintain China, The Netherlands, mound surrounded by the growing international circuit. their focus, hanging on to old , U.S. enemy, preparing to take them Using a traditional narrative glories and seeking out new U.S. Premiere on. These characters populate structure, de Putter slows ones before time runs out. the cyberspace of III, down the action and renders Long-suffering girlfriends, DJ Spooky Sunday · November 15 Join us for a behind-the-scenes peek of the latest multimedia a video game embraced by this unusual world familiar to adoring fans, and disapproving 4:00 pm creation by Paul D.Miller, aka DJ Spooky,whose Rebirth of a Nation 10 million players around the outsiders,casting the contend- parents all make appearances, and the Science redefined D.W. Griffith’s racist 1915 film about the American Civil world. But the real action is ers in a story of all-or-nothing completing the picture. This War.With Terra Nova: Sinfonia , he turns his attention to not on the computer screen. competition between players game may be new, but the of Terra Nova global climate change,specifically its effects on the world’s only The real action, as Dutch film- in their prime. Perfecting story is as old as drama itself. uninhabited landmass, Antarctica. Using sounds recorded during a visit to the frozen continent and images culled from AMNH archives, DJ Spooky demonstrates how he created Terra Nova, Blind Loves Sunday · November 15 Sitting around the parlor one afternoon in their home in eastern discussing his project with Heidi Cullen, director of communica- 6:00 pm · Program F25 Slovakia, Peter and Iveta imagine an underwater world, him tions and senior research scientist at Climate Central, a nonprofit (Slepe Lasky) noodling on the piano, her knitting vigorously. Director Juraj foundation created to provide science-based assessments of Juraj Lehotsky´ Lehotsky´ obliges the married couple’s fantasies, rendering them climate change and options for addressing it. Andrew C. Revkin, 2008 · 77 min in a fanciful vignette. But neither Peter nor Iveta can see it. They an environmental reporter for the New York Times, whose Dot Slovakia are both blind. Combining moody low-light cinematography, Earth blog examines efforts to balance human affairs with the New York Premiere an artist’s eye for composition, and a sharp ear for quotidian planet’s limits, will moderate the event. sounds, Blind Loves depicts the day-to-day world of the blind, Co-presenter: Science & the Arts at CUNY Graduate Center rich in other sensory experiences. Special Event 8 9 Edie and Thea: Friday · November 13 When Edie and Thea first met, they danced so long that Gyumri Friday · November 13 On December 7,1988,a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck northern 5:00 pm · Program F3 Edie wore a hole in her stocking. Both now in their 80s, the 8:00 pm · Program F8 Armenia, nearly leveling the town of Gyumri. Local officials couple light-heartedly reminisce about their storied Jana ˇSevcíková say 25,000 people lost their lives; unofficial figures claim 70,000 A Very Long Filmmakers and Edie Windsor Filmmaker in person relationship, which began in New York City in the early 1960s. 2008 · 68 min dead. More than one third of the victims were children. In mour- in person Engagement Facing homophobic families, prejudiced co-workers, and Armenia, Czech Republic ning, many parents reacted to the devastating loss by naming Susan Muska and Thea’s diagnosis with multiple sclerosis, they managed to stay U.S. Premiere newly-born children after their dead brothers and sisters.Today, Gréta Olafsdottir together through it all. A loving look at a long-term many of these namesakes believe that the soul of their siblings 2009 · 61 min · U.S. relationship, Edie and Thea also serves as a lens onto the lives in them. Filmmaker Jana ˇSevcíková visits the town 20 New York Premiere history of the American gay rights movement. years on to find a people still recovering from this catastrophe. Co-presenter: Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY Co-presenter: Anthropology Museum of the People of New York

Fig Trees Friday · November 13 Known for combining realistic AIDS Action, Fig Trees recounts Mining bible references, Hair India Sunday · November 15 In order to pay for the wed- an ancient, sacred ritual, sold make their offering, the 7:00 pm · Program F6 and magical elements in his the history of AIDS activism modern history, high art, and 8:00 pm · Program F27 ding of Vishnu to the Goddess at auction to the highest documentary observes these John Greyson fiction films, John Greyson over the past two decades. popular culture, Greyson Raffaele Brunetti and Padmavathi, the gods’ trea- bidder, and ends up strutting ordinary people as they Brunetti in person 2009 · 104 min brings his creative powers to Weaving opera and campy employs the gamut of docu- Marco Leopardi surer granted a long-term down the red carpets on top negotiate life’s pressures and , South Africa documentary. Predicated on clips of rewritten pop tunes, mentary and fiction techniques 2009 · 75 min loan to be paid off by future of the world’s most famous problems. One part of India the conceit that Gertrude Stein stylized reenactments of to tell what is ultimately a India, Italy generations. Still today, Hindu heads. Featuring Sangieta, is sacrificing their “crowning and Virgil Thomson are writing possible historical truths and simple story of two individuals New York Premiere believers offer money and the editor of Hello! magazine glory” so another part can their 1934 avant-garde opera powerful first-person who are inspired to put their jewels to service the centuries- in Mumbai; Mayoor, a hair look good. By thoughtfully “Four Saints in Three Acts” testimony, the documentary lives on the line to fight for old debt. The very poor, we wholesaler in Bangalore; interweaving these various based on the lives of Zackie implicates governments, the rights of others. are told, sacrifice their only Thomas,an Italian who repack- narratives, the filmmakers Achmat of South African’s corporations, and the media possession—their hair. At an ages the hair into extensions; leave us wondering,in the end, Co-presenters: Center for Treatment Action Campaign in the deaths by neglect of 25 impartial remove, Brunetti and Hemlata and Gita, a which part is really better off. Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY; Closing Night and Tim McCaskell of Canada’s million people worldwide. and Leopardi follow the course mother and daughter who trek Gay Men’s Health Crisis Co-presenter: Indo-American of this hair as it is sheared in to Simhachalan Temple to Arts Council Inc.

Good Fortune Saturday · November 14 UN Habitat promises better housing to residents of the Kibera Herskovits at Sunday · November 15 Who has the authority to tell another culture’s history? Melville access to the archives? Who gets their research funded? 1:30 pm · Program F10 slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Meanwhile in the Kenyan countryside, 2:00 pm · Program F22 J. Herskovits, a second-generation Jewish-American, redefined Who is objective and who is self-interested? When Herskovits, Landon Van Soest and Dominion Farms, a private U.S. company, hopes to elevate the the way the world understands African-American history. At a founder of the white-dominated African American Studies Filmmakers in person the Heart of Filmmaker in person Jeremy Levine local standard of living by converting pastures and farmland into time when eugenics dominated the study of race, Herskovits Association, clashes with prominent black intellectual elites, 2009 · 73 min rice fields. By taking their camera directly to the communities Blackness examined the roots of African American culture in Africa, hoping including W.E.B. Du Bois and sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, the Kenya, U.S. affected by these two ambitious development projects, the Llewellyn M. Smith the uncovering of cultural links would improve the black conflict calls into question all that we know about each other. filmmakers discover what these do-gooder institutions can’t 2009 · 57 min · U.S. American self-image. Combining his field films made in Nigeria, Co-presenters: Department of Anthropology, Columbia University; seem to—why their presence is unwelcome by the very New York Premiere Dahomney, Mali, and elsewhere with key moments in Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust; people they are trying to help. anthropological and civil rights history, as well as interviews The New York Jewish Film Festival with current-day scholars, Herskovits demonstrates the nuances Co-presenter: Human Rights Watch International Film Festival of identity politics involved in anthropological study. Who has

10 11 Hotel Sahara Saturday · November 14 The temporary residents of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, have Immokalee, Saturday · November 14 Immokalee, Florida, is at the are beaten, not given food or homes, carnivals, and church- 2:00 pm · Program F12 come from all over Africa to wait for transport to Europe, and 4:30 pm · Program F15 heart of industrial agriculture water, or are not paid. Yet they es, the documentary recounts Bettina Haasen the chance at a better life. Bettina Haasen’s intimate camera My Home in the . It also continue to come from their the community’s struggle for 2008 · 86 min Filmmakers in person ushers us through the provisional world of these migrant Kevin Allen and Jennifer Heuson has the largest population of homes in , Guatemala, farm workers’ rights. What Germany, Mauritania (precedes The Unforbidden City) workers as they pick up odd jobs and sleep in sparse rooms, 2009 · 27 min migrant farm workers in the and Haiti to earn money on ultimately emerges is a tale North American Premiere all under the constant threat of deportation. Sandwiched U.S. · World Premiere country. These workers live these modern-day plantations. of the persistent hope for between the Sahara Desert and the , they try in slave-like conditions: some Visiting tomato fields,workers’ a better life. to stoke their individual dreams in a place where the only thing not fleeting is their desire to reach their destination. Saturday · November 14 Khalil Gibran International Academy, the first Arabic-language Intifada NYC Program F20 public school in the U.S., opened in Brooklyn in 2007. Almost Co-presenter: African Film Festival 8:30 pm · David Teague immediately,“Stop the Madrassa” formed in fear that the school Filmmaker in person 2009 · 47 min would teach radical Islam or even produce terrorists. As critics U.S. (Double feature – screens with and the mainstream media stoked the flames in post-9/11 New York Festival Premiere I Wanna Be Boss) America, the controversy forced the school’s Arab-American Muslim principal from her job.Weaving together interviews and cinema verité footage, the film is supplemented by graphic- How I Am Saturday · November 14 “I’m like a hermit on an which acts as a free-form his affinity for the natural novel style illustrations of closed-door proceedings. Built on the 5:30 pm · Program F16 island,” is how Patrick, an guide through this intimate world. As the camera tries to principal’s struggle to get her job back, Intifada NYC clarifies the (Wie Ich Bin) autistic teenager, describes portrait of a disability. With a reach through his disability, ensuing public debate about tolerance and freedom of speech. Leitner in person Ingrid Demetz, Caroline Leitner, himself. Trapped in his own delicate hand, the filmmakers Patrick himself reveals the Co-presenter: London International Documentary Film Festival and Daniel Mazza (preceded by Speech Memory) body, he attempts to reach show Patrick’s discomfort limitations of language as an 2008 · 49 min · Italy others with “talk written with the outer world of expression of an inner life. down,” his own poetic prose, family and school as well as IWanna Be Boss Saturday · November 14 “Strategy for the exams is more important than knowledge” The Last Days Sunday · November 15 Inupiaq have lived in Shishmaref on Sarichef Island 8:30 pm · Program F20 is the advice given by one teacher at an elite high school in 6:00 pm · Program F26 off ’s Seward Peninsula for an estimated 4,000 years. Marije Meerman Chongqing, China. Director Marije Meerman follows four of Shishmaref Bound by the Chukchi and the , the residents 2008 · 58 min Filmmaker in person Filmmaker in person students as they compete for the few coveted spots at Jan Louter of Shishmaref rely on the frozen north to sustain their way of China, The Netherlands (Double feature – screens Beijing’s two top universities. Pressure from teachers who 2008 · 95 min life, hunting walrus and bearded seal, caribou and ducks, and U.S. Premiere with Intifada NYC) earn bonuses based on test scores and guilt from parents The Netherlands, U.S. whatever else the seasonal bounty provides. As the world who sacrificed to send their children to school only add to East Coast Premiere debates the causes and effects of global climate change, the the tension in the final weeks before the exams—exams glaciers melt, eroding the coast of this island commu- that represents their single chance to stake a claim in the nity and leaving the land vulnerable to the powerful storms global economy. that rage closer and closer to shore. As a result, the Inupiaq are losing their homes and quite possibly their ancient culture. Co-presenter: Asian CineVision Against the stark white background of Alaskan winters, this moving documentary tells the story of the some of the first climate-change refugees who must relocate to the mainland and face an uncertain future. Co-presenter: Climate Central 12 13 The Living Saturday · November 14 Fed by four major rivers, the of his Five Year Plan to indus- ganda cinema of the era Perestroika: Saturday · November 14 Once the seat of the Russian by a different family, all of the sale, filmmaker Christiane 6:30 pm · Program F17 Ukraine is a land of fertile trialize and de-privatize the showing a happy, productive 4:00 pm · Program F14 Empire, the Baroque historic whom share the bathroom Büchner brings us along for a (Zhyvi) steppes that used to be USSR, he ordered Communist peasant population against center of St. Petersburg is up and kitchen. When one sardonic ride with intractable Filmmaker in person Reconstruction Filmmaker in person Sergiy Bukovsky known as the Breadbasket of officials in the Ukraine to snippets of testimony of for sale. Having had its owner decides to put her neighbors through the 2008 · 75 min the Soviet Union. A Slavic starve the resistant rural Holodomor survivors. Their of a Flat architectural jewels hacked room on the market, she cramped quarters, peeling- France, Ukraine culture that was once the population. The resulting scattered remembrances (Perestroika: Umbau up into komunalka during must also convince the paint hallways, and water- U.S. Premiere hub of Europe, 20th century Holodomor was witnessed by slowly fit together to complete einer Wohnung) the Communist era, the city others to sell. Enter the self- damaged ceilings of Russia’s Ukraine has been carved up few outsiders; one of these, a horrific chapter in Soviet Christiane Büchner is now experiencing the wake interested real estate agents new economy, which in the and dominated successively by British journalist Gareth Jones, history, which cost the lives of 2008 · 84 min of perestroika reforms, where and impatient buyers, and a end head-butts against its Russians, Austro-Hungarians, left behind evidence in his 25,000 Ukrainians each day. Germany, Russia communal property promises frenzied unraveling of the Byzantine past. and Soviets, all of whom personal diaries.While sharing capitalist-sized profits. In one already tenuous relationships Co-presenters: CEC ArtsLink; U.S. Premiere Co-presenter: Department of recognized its strategic value. entries of these piercing, first- flat on Marat Street, each of ensues. As witness to the Department of Slavic Lan- Russian and Slavic Studies, NYU When Stalin implemented hand accounts, director Sergiy the four rooms is inhabited many intrigues involved in guages, Columbia University; forced collectivization as part Bukovsky juxtaposes propa- The Ukrainian Museum

Mamachas of Friday · November 13 Carmen Rosa La Campeona is petticoat skirts and bowler their own shows. Punctuated The Philosopher Sunday · November 15 Meet seven men and one job, sweeping between rows that everyone’s life offers the 9:15 pm · Program F9 torn between her family and hats, the Mamachas are a hit. by claymation vignettes, the 3:30 pm · Program F23 woman responsible for of auditorium chairs, dusting opportunity to display heroism the sport she loves. For Rosa Soon, they are invited to join documentary shows Carmen keeping the halls of America’s dioramas, answering to the and accumulate wisdom. the Ring Filmmaker and animator Kings Filmmaker in person and her fellow teammates, Bolivia’s main wrestling Rosa taking charge of her universities spic and span. To “toilet gods,” these ordinary (Mamachas del Ring) Christopher Lopez-Huici Patrick Shen Co-presenter: Service Employees lucha libre isn’t only about league and its guaranteed own life while also becoming (preceded by The Solitary us, they are custodians. To people share their hardships Betty M. Park in person 2009 · 70 min International Union Local 32BJ wrestling. On the streets of weekly fights. As the team’s increasingly isolated. As family Life of Cranes) filmmaker Patrick Shen, they and heartaches, their joys 2009 · 75 min Haiti, U.S. · New York Premiere La Paz, wearing the traditional success grows, the league’s responsibilities take time are “philosopher kings.” On the and triumphs, reminding us Bolivia, U.S. dress of the indigenous manager tries to squeeze away from training and travel, U.S. Premiere Aymaran, they are ridiculed or them out unless they work on she must decide between her The Solitary Sunday · November 15 Cranes dominate our skylines become invisible to passersby, bird’s-eye view of these ignored as relics of the past. his terms. Left on their own, family and her sport. 3:30 pm · Program F23 and make our modern cities merging with their machines. operators. Part city symphony, Once they enter the ring, the Mamachas del Ring book possible. Yet few people ever Starting with the drivers climb- part film poem, The Solitary Co-presenter: Cinema Tropical Life of Cranes (precedes The Philoso- however, wearing full their own events and promote notice them or the men and ing up at dawn and ending Life of Cranes reflects on how Eva Weber pher Kings) 2008 · 27 min · U.K. women who operate them. with them coming down our existence is shaped by New York Premiere Spending most of their time after a nightshift, the film the environment we inhabit. up in the crane, these workers observes the city through the Nine Forgotten Friday · November 13 In a Siberian village covered while they sing the nine villagers set against their Speech Memory Saturday · November 14 Father and daughter try to build a posthumous portrait of the 6:00 pm · Program F4 with snow and swept with forgotten songs. Photographs frozen backdrop, this filmic 5:30 pm · Program F16 filmmaker’s Korean grandfather. Born deaf in Japan during its icy winds, the young were show the surrounding land- poem is an eerie portrait Caroline Key occupation of , Key Jin Yun was raised learning only to write Songs (Screening with The Angel- Filmmaker in person called to war never to return, scape littered with burned- of a vanishing community 2007 · 23 min and sign in Japanese. After Japan’s defeat in 1945, the occupation Galina Krasnoborova makers and Where the Sun leaving behind only their out huts that were once full and a reflection on tradition, U.S. (precedes How I Am) ended and the boy and his family returned to Korea. Through 2008 · 19 min Doesn’t Rush in the program gravestones. Old women of life. Weaving traditional memory, and oblivion. East Coast Premiere the details of Yun’s life, Speech Memory examines the impact of Germany, Russia Assassins, Widows, and dispassionately list the names songs and the prayers of immigration and cultural assimilation, revealing the shifting Funeral Directors, Oh My!) Co-presenter: Rooftop Films of relatives who passed away mourners with images of the complexities of language, national identity, and memory. 14 15 The Tiger Friday · November 13 Experts estimate that more license that allowed him to Interviewing his family and War + Love Saturday · November 14 Shaima and Hossein are in love.But Shaima is already married to 8:00 pm · Program F7 tigers live in private captivity keep exotic animals, the state neighbors as well as several 2:00 pm · Program F11 another,and Hossein is a paraplegic unable to work.Add to these in the United States than of Indiana threatens to shut animal protection officials, already extraordinary problems the threat of igniting a genera- Next Door Filmmaker in person in Kabul Camilla Calamandrei roam wild in the whole world. him down. He has five days to Calamandrei uncovers the (Mein Herz sieht tion-decimating blood feud, and the unfolding drama takes on 2009 · 86 min Twenty-four of them live in bring his facilities up to code intricate web of commerce and die Welt schwarz— the dimensions of a Shakespearean play. Helga Reidemeister’s Dennis Hill’s backyard. A and to find other homes for all government laxity that keep observational camera captures the muddy hues of bombed-out U.S. Eine Liebe in Kabul) New York City Premiere resident of Flat Rock, Indiana, but three of his brood.The Tiger breeders like Hill in business. Kabul and the whispering worlds of Afghan women as she dem- Hill has been breeding and Next Door tracks Hill over the What finally becomes exposed Helga Reidemeister onstrates not only the difficulties of lives lived in a perpetual war selling tigers for more than 15 days and months that follow is the widespread attitude 2009 · 87 min zone but also of an outsider trying to penetrate the layers of truth. years. When a surprise govern- as he fights to keep the that humans are indeed lords Afghanistan, Germany Co-presenter: Goethe-Institut New York ment inspection costs him the animals he claims to love. of the animal kingdom. U.S. Premiere

TheUnforbidden Saturday · November 14 A beer peddler bikes through to have her nails done and find future of this forever expand- Where the Sun Friday · November 13 A small village in Slovakia is almost entirely made up of the 4:30 pm · Program F15 the narrow alleyways of just the right sofa. Old Wang ing city. As a steady beat of 6:00 pm · Program F4 elderly. With nothing much in town to occupy the residents, Beijing’s 14th century neigh- meticulously records in his pick axes, sledge hammers, their lives seem to revolve around the public announcements City Filmmaker in person Doesn’t Rush (Screening with The Angel- borhood known as Source diary the banalities of each and bulldozers closes in on that ring out from speakers affixed to poles and houses. The (De Onverboden Stad) (Tam Gozie Stonce Sig makers and Nine Forgotten (preceded by Immokalee, Street. As he rides, collecting day,including the high temper- their homes, the residents most important news of the season: a new funeral director is Floris-Jan van Luyn Nie Spieszy) Songs in the program Assassins, My Home) empties and delivering full ature. Just beyond the tightly alternately prepare and needed for the crowded, unkempt graveyard. Who will get the 2008 · 58 min Widows, and Funeral Directors, bottles, he introduces us to packed warren of single-story despair for the day when Matej Bobrik job? Who wants it? A portrait of the slow death of a village, China, The Netherlands Oh My!) other area residents. The houses stands the gleaming Beijing’s historic heart has 2009 · 23 min where the old times are already gone and the new ones have U.S. Premiere grumpy Dong Tongju works National Grand Theater and no more room for them. Poland not yet arrived. in central heating. Gao Li the wide, freshly paved road U.S. Premiere Co-presenter: Asian CineVision Co-presenter: Rooftop Films fantasizes about a life as a leading out to the modern lady of leisure, with the time high-rises that represent the The Wondrous Saturday · November 14 Freshly laundered sheets, tours the border town where including the children, pitch 8:30 pm · Program F21 crisp tablecloths, and fluffy Fliegel Textile provides 24-hour in to ensure the housework Worldof Laundry bath towels adorn the turnaround service to its hotel and the cooking get done. But (Die wundersameWelt bedrooms, dining rooms, and clients. By meeting some of nurturing relationships with Voices from Sunday · November 15 Generations of intra-marriage among Bedouins in the der Waschkraft) bath racks of Berlin’s finest the female employees and wives, husbands, and children 4:00 pm · Program F24 desert has created the largest deaf community in the world. hotels. Surprising at it seems, their families, the film quietly requires more than paying the Wary of outsiders and neglected by the Israeli government, Hans-Christian Schmid those clean white linens are exposes how the global bills and ticking off chores, and El-Sayed Filmmaker in person (Shablul Bamidbar) which still has not brought electricity to this 200-year-old 2009 · 93 min washed, dried, and pressed marketplace is affecting small- as the lure of better-paying village, the people of El-Sayed have developed their own unique Poland, Germany not at a nearby Berlin laundry town , where jobs calls more townspeople Oded Adomi Leshem sign language. When two-year-old Muhammed gets surgery U.S. Premiere but across the River Odra in a labor is cheaper and life is abroad, these workers struggle 2009 · 75 min for a cochlear implant, the community waits to see if it will small town in neighboring harder. Working shifts on a to keep their families together. Israel Poland. Taking his camera to rotating seven-day, 24-hour work as they simultaneously grapple with the threat its Co-presenter: Goethe-Institut New York Festival Premiere Widuchowa, German film- schedule interferes with success would pose to their language and culture. New York maker Hans-Christian Schmid family life, so everyone, Co-presenters: ArteEast; Consulate General of Israel; The Other Israel Film Festival 16 17 Featured Filmmakers Thank You staff • friends • support adizes, topaz greyson, john levine, jeremy reidemeister, helga Traveling Festival honorary chair advisory committee thanks thanks also to the following our co-presenters continued our co-presenters continued Americana Fig Trees Good Fortune War + Love in Kabul Mary Catherine Bateson Michael Apted Barbara Abrash museum departments Cinema Tropical Museum of Jewish Heritage – A page 7 page 10 page 10 page 17 Each year, the Traveling Festival brings Patsy Asch Felicity Arengo Anthropology www.cinematropical.org Living Memorial to the Holocaust artistic & festival director Thomas D. Blakely Tom Baione www.mjhnyc.org Audio-Visual Climate Central allen, kevin t. haasen, bettina louter, jan rickels, jiska Ariella Ben-Dov Emilie de Brigard John Biaggi highlights from the current program to Central Reservations www.climatecentral.org The New York Jewish Film Festival Immokalee, My Home Hotel Sahara The Last Days of Shishmaref Babaji, an Indian Love Story Robert Carneiro Shiva Balaghi Communications/Marketing www.thejewishmuseum.org page 13 page 12 page 13 page 8 venues in the United States and abroad. festival coordinators Cynthia Close Mahen Bonetti Development Council for the Study of Disability, Kathleen Maguire Loni Ding Bruni Burres Education New York University Rooftop Films bobrik, matej heuson, jennifer l. luyn, floris-jan van schmid, hans-christian Lily Szajnberg Françoise Foucault Juliane Camfield General Accounting www.nyu.edu/disability.council www.rooftopfilms.com Where the Sun Doesn’t Rush Immokalee, My Home The Unforbidden City The Wondrous World of Laundry Consisting of seven programs, each running Faye Ginsburg Lawrence Carter-Long festival assistant Purchasing Department of Anthropology, Science & the Arts at CUNY page 17 page 13 page 16 page 17 Rhoda Grauer Tali Cherizli Research Library Kira Lacks Columbia University Graduate Center between one and two hours, the Traveling Bob Hawk Stephen Cohen ˇ Visitor Services www.columbia.edu/cu/ http://web.gc.cuny.edu/sciart brunetti, raffaele kerekes, peter mazza, daniel sevcíková, jana Laurel Kendall Heidi Cullen Hair India Cooking History How I Am Gyumri anthropology consultant anthropology/ Festival provides access to select gems of David MacDougall Mark Edwards our co-presenters Service Employees International page 11 page 9 page 12 page 11 Monique Scott this year’s Mead to audiences far and wide. Judith MacDougall Ann Goerdt African Film Festival Department of Russian and Slavic Union Local 32BJ büchner, christiane key, caroline meerman, marije shen, patrick brochure editor Antonio Marazzi Carlos Gutiérrez www.africanfilmny.org Studies, New York University www.seiu32bj.org www.nyu.edu/fas/dept/russian Perestroika: Reconstruction Speech Memory I Wanna Be Boss The Philosopher Kings Shari Kizirian Sevanne Martin Patrick Hazard Anthropology Museum of the The Ukrainian Museum of a Flat, page 15 page 15 page 12 page 15 Louis Massiah Andrea Holley People of New York Department of Slavic Languages, www.ukrainianmuseum.org Create a mini-Mead Festival at your univer- brochure design Patricia Monte-Mor Melanie Kent www.anthropologymuseum.org Columbia University bukovsky, sergiy krasnoborova, galina miller, paul d. aka dj spooky smith, llewellyn m. Fulcrum Communications: Bill Moyers Mary Kerr www.columbia.edu/cu/slavic support The Living Nine Forgotten Songs DJ Spooky and the Science of Herskovits at the Heart of sity, museum, art house, or community Olga Zhivov Lourdes Portillo Adrienne Klein ArteEast page 14 page 14 Terra Nova, page 9 Blackness, page 11 Somi Roy Yanni Kotsonis www.arteeast.org disTHIS! Film Series http://disthis.org center. A selection of the 2009 program is web design Jay Ruby Eugenia Levinson Asian CineVision Ben McCloskey bussink, astrid lehotsky,´ juraj muska, susan teague, david Enid Schildkrout Barbara Mathe www.asiancinevision.org Gay Men’s Health Crisis Armistead Booker The Angelmakers Blind Loves Edie and Thea: A Very Long Intifada NYC already available for rental. The Traveling André Singer R.A. McBride www.gmhc.org page 7 page 8 Engagement, page 10 page 13 Florence Stone Ann Michel CEC Artslink Festival can be rented for a weekend mar- festival interns Elizabeth Weatherford Jennifer Nedbalsky www.cecartslink.org The Goethe-Institut, New York Arianne Elbaum www.goethe.de/Ins/us/ney/ calamandrei, camilla leitner, caroline olafsdottir, gréta van soest, landon y Laila Williamson Andrew Revkin Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies or Marilla Li enindex.htm The Tiger Next Door How I Am Edie and Thea: A Very Long Good Fortune athon or for several weeks. Visit our website Frederick Wiseman Aroon Shivdasani at CUNY Graduate Center page 16 page 12 Engagement, page 10 page 10 Corina Maritescu Krishna Stone Sarka Marouskova http://web.gc.cuny.edu/Clags Human Rights Watch International at amnh.org/mead and click on “Traveling.” pre-screening committee Aba Taylor Film Festival demetz, ingrid leopardi, marco park, betty m. weber, eva tural Hist Diana Marsh The Center for Media, Culture and Jason Fox Pegi Vail www.hrw.org/en/iff

How I Am Hair India Mamachas of the Ring The Solitary Life of Cranes Na Aiko Masubuchi History, New York University Faye Ginsburg Katherine Wells This Festival is made possible page 12 page 11 page 14 page 15 of Gilli Messer www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/media Indo-American Arts Council Inc. Tamar Goelman Peter Whiteley with public funds from the New York Karanja Muigai www.iaac.us Miles Groth Phil Wilde The Center for Religion and Media, State Council on the Arts, a state geyrhalter, nikolaus leshem, oded adomi putter, jos de Stella Hardee John Woo 7915 KM Voices from El-Sayed Beyond the Game New York University London International agency; Consulate General of Israel; a very special thank you Sevanne Martin Angela Zito page 7 page 16 page 8 Natalie Tschechaniuk, www.nyu.edu/fas/center/ Documentary Festival NYU Council for the Study of Laura Terruso The Filmmakers former Festival Coordinator religionandmedia/ www.pocketvisions.co.uk Disability; The Center for Media, Culture and History, NYU; Mary and

American Museum David Solomon. 2009 18 © 19 American Museum of Natural History Central Park West at 79th Street New York, NY 10024

For tickets: 212.769.5200 • amnh.org/mead

Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival the longest running international documentary showcase in the United States