October 8, 2018

THE EYES OF ORSON WELLES

NYC PREMIERE Esteemed film historian Mark Cousins (The Story of Film) takes a novel approach to Orson Welles by studying the legendary filmmaker’s paintings, drawings and doodles. Critic Todd McCarthy writes, “Freshly conceived, mordantly whimsical, light on its feet and fleet of mind, The Eyes of Orson Welles rightly makes no extensive claims for Welles’ drawing and […]

October 8, 2018

THE GREENAWAY ALPHABET

NYC PREMIERE Acclaimed filmmaker Peter Greenaway – perhaps best known for The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover – is a lover of patterns and sequences, a motif that recurs throughout his work. In this playful portrait by his wife, multimedia artist Saskia Boddeke, Greenaway engages in an autobiographical alphabetic word association led by […]

October 8, 2018

A HYMN FOR ALVIN AILEY

Made for PBS’s Great Performances series, Orlando Bagwell’s Emmy Award-winning film is an homage to Alvin Ailey, the pioneering African-American choreographer and founder of New York City’s renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Following Ailey’s death, the Theater’s artistic director, Judith Jamison, choreographed “Hymn,” a celebration of his influence featuring Anna Deavere Smith. Bagwell uses […]

October 8, 2018

THE ICE KING

NYC PREMIERE Acknowledged as one of the greatest figure skaters of all time, John Curry was arguably the first openly gay athlete to compete in the Olympics, winning gold at the 1976 games. After he retired from competing, Curry cultivated a new art form, ice dancing, merging his two loves: ballet and skating. His dance […]

October 8, 2018

INSTANT DREAMS

NYC PREMIERE A casualty of the digital revolution, Polaroid instant film and cameras were meant to fade quietly into oblivion when the company stopped production in 2008. Following three enthusiasts bent on keeping the instant dream alive, director Willem Baptist takes viewers on a hallucinatory quest to discover the secret chemical formula for Polaroid film. […]

October 8, 2018

JAY MYSELF

WORLD PREMIERE Acclaimed photographer Jay Maisel bought a six-story, 72-room building on the Bowery in 1966. Ever since, the site has served as his home, studio and repository for a breathtaking collection of items that inspires his photographic work. But now it must be emptied out following its sale in the largest private real estate […]

October 8, 2018

THE LAST RESORT

NYC PREMIERE Escaping the harsh winters of the Northeast for the perpetual sun of Florida, Miami Beach became a regular vacation destination for New York’s Jewish community after WWII. By the 1970s, many retired there, transforming Miami Beach into a veritable shtetl. The Last Resort revisits this sunburned paradise through the ambitious and captivating work […]

October 8, 2018

LAST STOP CONEY ISLAND: THE LIFE AND PHOTOGRAPHY OF HAROLD FEINSTEIN

WORLD PREMIERE Nobody loved New York as much as Harold Feinstein, as evidenced through his extraordinary portraits of ordinary New Yorkers. Working in lush black-and-white 35mm film, Feinstein, a stellar yet under-recognized photographer, captures the beauty, joy and diversity of NYC’s greatest treasure, its people. With an emphasis on New Yorkers at play in his […]

October 8, 2018

LOTTE THAT SILHOUETTE GIRL

NYC PREMIERE Before Walt Disney, there was a trailblazing woman at the vanguard of animation. Influenced by folktales and legends, Lotte Reiniger was a tour de force of creativity and innovation: she invented the multiplane camera and created the oldest surviving animated feature. This stunning film explores the life and times of a woman who […]

October 8, 2018

MOMENTS OF TRUTH

NYC PREMIERE  In Chuck Workmans’s montage/documentary with over 125 moments from significant documentaries of the past 100 years from Nanook to RBG with short remarks from significant filmmakers like Barbara Kopple, Ken Burns, Michael Moore, Ava DuVernay, Frederick Wiseman and others.