THE AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE GUIDE December12- January 22, 2003 ★ AFITO THEATRE AND MEMBER EVENTS PREVIEWVOLUME 1 • ISSUE 7 Krzysztof Kieslowski’s RED BLUE WHITE THE DECALOGUE and the North American premiere of THE BIG ANIMAL Plus: Washington Jewish Film Festival THE REAL OLD TESTAMENT THE SCHOOL OF ROCK TIBET: CRY OF THE SNOW LION THE LAST LETTER FROM HERE TO ETERNITY MODERN TIMES I VITELLONI Also: Celebrating Nicole Kidman, Judy Garland Continuing: Iranian Film Festival, Old & New from Bill Murray Films that Capture thethe Holiday SpiritSpirit IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD FEATURES EXCLUSIVE WASHINGTON Features 2-3 2 TIBET: CRY OF THE SNOW LION 3 IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD 3 THE LAST LETTER Special Seasonal Presentations 4-6 4 14th annual Washington Jewish Film Festival 4 Naughty and Nice: A wide range of films that celebrate, or at least acknowledge, the Yuletide Special Event 5 5 Judy! Judy! Judy! THE WIZARD OF OZ with John Fricke book signing Series 7, 11 7 The films of Richard Linklater, through THE SCHOOL OF ROCK 11 Nicole Kidman from FLIRTING to THE HOURS “Impeccably made… Breathtaking… A more concise and affecting summation of the Featured Showcase 12-13 Tibetan crisis would be hard to imagine.” 12 Krzysztof Kieslowski: THE BIG ANIMAL, THE DECALOGUE, —DAVE KEHR, NEW YORK TIMES Three Colors Trilogy: BLUE, WHITE, RED TIBET: CRY OF THE SNOW LION Exclusive Calendar 8-9 Opens Friday, Dec 12 with daily shows through Washington Thursday, Dec 18, including weekend matinees Area Theatrical About AFI Silver 10 Filmed over nine years in Premiere! DC Area Exclusives 14-Back Cover Tibet, India and Nepal, this is a thorough explo- 14 Chaplin’s MODERN TIMES ration of the Tibetan 14 Fellini’s I VITELLONI people’s legendary 14 Mid-Atlantic Regional Showcase: FIVE LINES struggle with oppression 15 Cine Latino: CUBA MIA: PORTRAIT OF and occupation by the AN ALL-WOMAN ORCHESTRA Chinese government, back cover FROM HERE TO ETERNITY bringing audiences to the long forbidden back cover THE REAL OLD TESTAMENT “rooftop of the world” with an unprecedented richness of imagery. Narrated by Martin Sheen, Continuing 15 it includes moving testimony by Tibetans both renowned and obscure. 15 Iranian Voices Film Festival The extraordinary Dali Lama in his non-violent approach to liberating • TO ORDER WWW.AFI.COM/SILVER TICKETS: • 15 Bill Murray: Found in Translation Director Tom Peosay has been invited to attend December 12. his people, personal stories of oppression told by ordinary citizens and On the cover: Irène Jacob in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s RED, Photo Fest image; never-before-seen footage of brutalization in the region illuminate the inset: IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD, MGM Enterprise image tremendous will for Tibetan independence. English voice-over transla- tions of featured Chinese citizens by actors Susan Sarandon, Tim Information is correct at press time. Films and schedule subject to change. Robbins and Ed Harris, plus a soundtrack featuring music by Rage Check www.AFI.com/Silver for updates. Against the Machine, R.E.M. and the Foo Fighters provide the voices of AFI PREVIEW (ISSN-0194-3847) is published every six weeks by the American Film Institute’s office at 8633 Colesville the American “Free Tibet” movement. Road, Silver Spring, MD. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect the official institute policy. © 2003 American Directed by Tom Peosay; written by Sue Peosay and Victoria Film Institute. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or whole without permission is prohibited. Editorial, publishing Mudd; produced by Maria Florio, Victoria Mudd, Sue Peosay and and advertising offices: AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring, MD 20910 (301.495.6720). Subscription price: $50.00 per year. All subscriptions also include membership in the American Tom Peosay. US, 2003, color, 104 min. Film Institute. Send all remittances and correspondences about subscriptions, undelivered copies and address CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE; NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL changes to: American Film Institute, 2021 N. Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027, Attention: Membership. Periodicals VIEWERS postage paid at Silver Spring, Maryland and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to AFI PREVIEW at American Film Institute, Membership Department, 2021 N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027. 2 AREA PREMIERES • TO ORDER WWW.AFI.COM/SILVER TICKETS: • MGM ENTERPRISE Exclusive Exclusive Washington Washington Area Theatrical Area Premiere Premiere! “Primal in its effect, THE of the LAST LETTER demonstrates the 40th Anniversary power of language, performance, 70mm Print! and narrative to hold an audience IT’S A MAD, spellbound.” MAD, MAD, Two —J. HOBERMAN, VILLAGE VOICE Week MAD WORLD Run! Opens Friday, Dec 19 with THE LAST LETTER [La dernière lettre] daily shows through Thursday, Jan 1, including weekend matinees Opens Friday, Dec 12 with daily shows through When you announce that your cast includes comedians Jonathan Thursday, Dec 18, including weekend matinees Winters, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Jack Cinema Verité documentary guru Frederick Wiseman Benny, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Carl Reiner, Spencer Tracy, Mickey shifts gears and turns his unflinching camera towards a Rooney, Jimmy Durante, Eddie “IT’S A MAD, MAD, dramatic, fictional story. Adapting the one-woman “Rochester” Anderson, Dick stage play he directed, Wiseman brings Catherine MAD, MAD WORLD Shawn, Stan Freberg, Phil Silvers, Samie to the screen as narrator Anna Semyonovna, who is everything… that Jerry Lewis, The Three Stooges recites letters from a chapter of Soviet writer Vasili and Edie Adams, you had better Grossman’s posthumously published World War II its extravagant title deliver something funny. And novel, Love and Fate. As Samie recites from the letters, suggests.” Stanley Kramer does deliver—and the story unfolds on screen: She is an elderly woman, a deliver and deliver—some of the —BOSLEY CROWTHER, Russian Jewish doctor living in a small Ukranian city NEW YORK TIMES all-time funniest moments in during the war, writing a letter to her physicist son as American film history (including Germans seize the city. Facing certain death, she tells the memorable Battle of the Gas Station with Jonathan Winters vs. him the story of her life: her loves, discoveries, Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan). Injected with what seems like a heartaches and truth—and just how much he means to million cameo appearances (Joe E. Brown, Andy Devine, Howard da her. Silva, Zasu Pitts, Sterling Holloway, Paul Ford, etc.), Stanley Kramer’s Directed by Frederick Wiseman; written by 1963 classic spent more money on comedy “stuntmen” than any picture Véronique Aubouy; produced by Frederick in motion picture history. Nominated for six Academy Awards, Wiseman and Pierre-Olivier Bardet. US/France, including sound, color cinematography, editing, score and song, and 2002, color, 61 min. French with English subtitles. winning for Best Sound Effects, this spectacular romp is presented in the newly struck, 70mm wide-screen print. Directed/produced by Stanley Kramer; written by Tani and William Rose. US, 1963, color, 70mm, 183 min. 3 SPECIAL HOLIDAY PRESENTATIONS 14th Annual Washington Naughty Jewish Film Festival & On Saturday, December 13, the AFI Silver will host three of the films pre- Special Event! sented during this year’s 14th annual Fri, Dec 19 – Thu, Jan 1 Washington Jewish Film Festival. The JAMES’ JOURNEY Director Ra’anan Nice TO JERUSALEM AFI Silver Theatre will celebrate its 2003 Festival, “An Exhibition of Alexandrowicz live on stage first holiday season by showcasing a International Cinema,” will showcase JULIE WALKING HOME JAMES’ wide array of Yuletide and New 40 features, documentaries and Sat, Dec. 13, 7:30 JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM Year’s films, exploring this festive shorts from more than a dozen coun- Agnieszka Holland (EUROPA, Sat, Dec. 13, 9:45 genre and expanding it to include tries. The Festival is presented by the EUROPA; 11th WJFF’s THE In this Cannes Film Festival audience DYBBUK) is back with another film favorite, James, a devout pilgrim from some unlikely additions to the canon. DC Jewish Community Center’s Morris exploring the psycho-sexual intersec- the small African village of Which ones are naughty and which Cafritz Center for the Arts and co- tion of the Jewish and Polish experi- Entshongweni, is sent by his people ence. Julie’s (Miranda Otto, LORD OF to see Jerusalem. On arriving at the ones are nice? That’s for you to figure sponsored by the Embassy of Israel THE RINGS) father, a devout Polish Israeli airport, James is mistaken for out. Happy Holidays! and Washington Jewish Week. Catholic, has never approved of her Jewish husband Henry and curses Director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz will attend the their relationship. But it’s Henry’s infi- screening and participate in a live discussion delity and their son Nicholas’s sudden of the film. Opening in AFI Silver’s WOULD I LIE TO YOU, TOO? illness that set her family on a down- historic theatre! Sat, Dec. 13, 5:45 ward spiral. In a quest to cure an illegal guest worker and sent to Life is not great for the gregarious Nicholas, Julie travels to Poland prison, where he catches the attention A CHRISTMAS STORY group of fast-talking but flailing where she meets Alexis, an intro- of Shimi (Salim Daw) who bails him Fri, Dec 19, 6:45; Sun, Dec 21, 9:00; entrepreneurs doing business in the verted Russian faith-healer with out of jail and puts him to work as Fri, Dec 26, 4:15 Jewish garment district of Paris. The whom she falls in love. When Alexis one of his gang of guest workers. All Ralphie wants for NEW Christmas is a Red Ryder 35mm boys think they’ve scored big when Co-writer Arlene Sarner (PEGGY SUE GOT Living in the shadows of Tel Aviv, they swing a promising partnership James cleans the homes of yuppies BB gun, but the only Print! with a giant discount clothing chain, MARRIED, BLUE SKY) has been invited to and performs menial labor once done response he gets from his Eurodiscount.