Bamcinématek Announces the Complete Lineup for the Sixth Annual
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BAMcinématek announces the complete lineup for the sixth annual BAMcinemaFest, a festival of American independents with 24 New York premieres, one US premiere, and one world premiere, Jun 18—29 Closing Night—25th anniversary of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, co-presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with Lee and cast in attendance Centerpiece—Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer Spotlight—David Wain’s They Came Together The Wall Street Journal is the title sponsor for BAMcinemaFest, BAMcinématek, and BAM Rose Cinemas. Brooklyn, NY/May 6, 2014—BAMcinématek announces the complete main slate for the sixth annual BAMcinemaFest (Jun 18—29), a 12-day festival presenting premieres of emerging voices in American independent cinema. “New York’s best independent film showcase” (The New Yorker), this year’s festival features 24 New York premieres, one US premiere, and one world premiere. Closing the festival is a special 25th anniversary screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), co-presented with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and as previously announced, the festival opens with the New York premiere of Richard Linklater’s monumental coming-of-age epic Boyhood, already one of the most widely acclaimed films of the year. “Not only does BAMcinemaFest 2014 represent the top emerging American independent cinema of the year, but it is bookended by two veritable titans of American cinema—one who calls Fort Greene home,” says Gabriele Caroti, director of BAMcinématek. “The screening committee, comprised of programmers Nellie Killian, David Reilly, and Ryan Werner, scoured more submissions and festivals than ever before. Alongside brand new work, this year we’ve turned back the clock 25 years to when Spike Lee shot Do The Right Thing just a few miles away from BAM. A deep, heartfelt thanks to the Academy for co-presenting this timeless, prescient cinematic milestone—still as powerful, subversive, and revolutionary now as it was a quarter century ago.” “News Corp and The Wall Street Journal are strongly supportive of community and of creativity, and BAM is a uniquely creative community,” said Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp, which publishes The Wall Street Journal. “There is no doubt that this festival will bring together cutting-edge cinema and honor monumental movies whose influence stretches far beyond its walls and screen. Out of a dark theater in Brooklyn will shine a light of entertainment and enlightenment.” In Spike Lee’s Oscar-nominated Do the Right Thing, the streets of Bed-Stuy boil and tensions run high on Brooklyn’s hottest day of the year. Loaded with an amazing supporting cast (including Samuel L. Jackson, John Turturro, and Rosie Perez) and music by Public Enemy, Do the Right Thing swings effortlessly from satire to social commentary. Upon its release, Roger Ebert praised the groundbreaking film as coming “closer to reflecting the current state of race relations in America than any other movie of our time,” and 25 years later it remains an important cultural touchstone for a very different Brooklyn. This landmark event, presented on the Steinberg Screen at the BAM Harvey Theater, will feature a Q&A with Lee and members of the cast and crew including Danny Aiello, Bill Nunn, Giancarlo Esposito, and more. The screening will kick off a 12-day retrospective, looking back on three decades of remarkable Spike Lee Joints and commemorating the 15th anniversary of BAMcinématek, which launched in 1999 with a survey of Lee’s career. More information about the 25th anniversary screening and retrospective to be announced. Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer is this year’s BAMcinemaFest Centerpiece, screening Wednesday, June 25 in its New York premiere with Bong in person at the BAM Harvey Theater. In his first English-language film, Korean genre maverick Bong (The Host) mounts a visually breathtaking dystopia in which all the survivors of Earth’s new Ice Age are packed aboard a perpetual-motion locomotive. Equal parts allegory and thriller, this ambitious adaptation of the popular French graphic novel follows a railway Spartacus (Chris Evans) and his band of ragtag revolutionaries as they break out of the cramped caboose to liberate the train from its decadent ruling class, led by an evil prime minister played by an uproarious (and barely recognizable) Tilda Swinton. Snowpiercer is a Radius-TWC release and opens June 27. As a special Spotlight screening on Monday, June 23, BAMcinemaFest presents the New York premiere of David Wain’s They Came Together with Wain, Paul Rudd, and Amy Poehler in person at the BAM Harvey Theater. More than a decade after the release of cult summer camp spoof Wet Hot American Summer, Wain and co-writer Michael Showalter reteam to lampoon the rom-com with this sidesplitting send-up. The concept is familiar: Molly (Poehler) runs a small Upper West Side sweets store; Joel (Rudd) works for the big candy conglomerate that’s opening across the street. After a bookstore meetcute sparked by a shared, uncanny love of fiction, their initial rivalry leads to improbable romance and Wain and Showalter’s absurdist hijinks gleefully rip to shreds every cliché in the book. They Came Together is a Lionsgate release and opens June 27. The complete BAMcinemaFest 2014 slate includes: . OPENING NIGHT: Boyhood (Richard Linklater) NY Premiere Narrative An IFC Films release. CLOSING NIGHT: 25th anniversary of Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee) Co-presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. CENTERPIECE: Snowpiercer (Bong Joon Ho) NY Premiere Narrative A Radius-TWC release. SPOTLIGHT: They Came Together (David Wain) NY Premiere Narrative A Lionsgate release. 10,000KM (Carlos Marques-Marcet) NY Premiere Narrative In this groundbreaking and moving look at 21st-century relationships, long-term couple Alexandra and Sergi live together in Barcelona, where they’re planning to start a family. But when she accepts a yearlong residency in LA, the pair decides to stay together despite the long distance. Using video chat to stay in touch—and attempt some awkward cybersex—they soon discover the limits of their digital connection, confronting a distance even the Internet can’t diminish. Winner of the Special Jury Award at SXSW for Best Acting, and opening with a virtuoso 20-minute long take that registers the painful push and pull between romantic commitment and individual desires, 10,000KM is a candid exploration of love in the age of the pixel. Approaching the Elephant (Amanda Rose Wilder) NY Premiere Documentary Without imposing traditional authority or structure, New Jersey’s Teddy McArdle Free School allows children to set their own rules and choose whether or not to attend classes. The teachers struggle to create a learning environment that instills the values of democracy and critical thinking, but an ongoing clash between two students tests the limits of the system. Evoking both the immersive style of Frederick Wiseman and such fictional dystopias as Lord of the Flies, Wilder crafts an inspired portrait of unfettered childhood within a radical model of education. Appropriate Behavior (Desiree Akhavan) NY Premiere Narrative Writer-director-star Akhavan helms this deadpan comedy about a bisexual Iranian-American woman adrift after a break-up. Finding new digs in Bushwick and a daycare job at a kindergarten film school, 20-something Shirin oscillates from conservative family gatherings (where she remains closeted) to hip Brooklyn parties and cold sexual encounters—punctuated with flashbacks to simpler times with her ex. Drawing comparisons to Annie Hall and Girls, this debut feature introduces a sharp new voice in independent cinema. Concerning Violence (Göran Hugo Olsson) NY Premiere Documentary Set to the voice of Lauryn Hill reading Frantz Fanon’s anti-colonialist call to arms, The Wretched of the Earth, this mesmerizing assemblage of rarely seen archival footage brings to light nine of the most pivotal episodes in the history of African revolution. Documenting decades of uprisings, from the Angolan War of Independence to the Mozambique Liberation Front and beyond, director Göran Hugo Olsson’s (The Black Power Mixtape 1967—1975) propulsive and endlessly provocative docu-essay interrogates the role of violent revolt in the dismantling of colonial power and offers an impassioned tribute to the sacrifices made in the pursuit of liberation. A Kino Lorber release. Ellie Lumme (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky) NY Premiere Narrative Film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky makes the leap to filmmaking with his debut narrative work, a self- described “ghost story without a ghost.” When 22-year-old Ellie meets a slightly older, seemingly infatuated stranger, he soon becomes a constant—and unwelcome—presence in her life. As their relationship grows increasingly disturbed, this meticulously shot, subtly supernatural tale blossoms into a haunting psychological riddle. Evolution of a Criminal (Darius Clark Monroe) NY Premiere Documentary In this unique, autobiographical documentary, filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe revisits his journey from honors student to convicted felon at the age of 16. Feeling the anxiety of his family’s financial troubles, Monroe planned a bank heist that netted $140,000 in cash but landed him in jail for three years. Contemplating the ramifications of his crime, Monroe gathers interviews with relatives, accomplices, and victims, who react to his efforts to make amends in unpredictable ways. His unflinching and cathartic confrontation with his past examines how the effects of one bad decision reverberate throughout a community. For the Plasma (Bingham Bryant & Kyle Molzan) World Premiere Narrative In a remote house in Maine, two old friends analyze CCTV footage of the surrounding forest to predict shifts in global financial markets. From this cryptic premise grows a lo-fi mind-bender of intimate scale and startling relevance that flirts with sci-fi and horror conventions even as it subverts them.