WINTER 2014
e v ent s January Saturday, January 4 at 2pm Family Matinee Porco Rosso Tuesday, January 7 at 7pm Scribe producer’s forum Community Visions 2013: New Films by Philadelphia Organizations Wednesday, January 8 at 7pm Archive Fever! 5.0 Two Temple University Student Academy-Award Winners for Documentary Film Thursday, January 9 at 7pm Full Exposure L’enfer d’ Henri Georges Clouzot (Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno) Friday, January 10 at 7pm Free to Love I am Curious (Yellow) Saturday, January 11 at 5pm Free to Love Pink Narcissus Saturday, January 11 at 7pm Free to Love In the Realm of the Senses Saturday, January 11 at 10pm Free to Love Deep Throat Wednesday, January 15 at 7pm I Used to be Darker Thursday, January 16 at 7pm Free to Love Flaming Creatures / Fuses / Lovemaking / Schmeerguntz / 6/64 Mama & Papa: An Otto Muehl Happening Friday, January 17 at 7pm Free to Love Freedom to Love Saturday, January 18 at 5pm Free to Love Gift (aka Venom)
Saturday, January 18 at 8pm Free to Love The Telephone Book Saturday, January 18 at 10pm Free to Love Fritz the Cat
February Saturday, February 1 at 5pm Free to Love Barbarella
Wednesday, January 22 at 7pm Either Way (Á annan veg)
Saturday, February 1 at 7pm Free to Love No More Excuses / The Continuing Story of Carel & Ferd
Thursday, January 23 at 7pm Free to Love The Set
Saturday, February 1 at 10pm Free to Love Boys in the Sand
Friday, January 24 at 7pm Free to Love Score
Wednesday, February 5 at 7pm University Of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum Film Series Presents Women Film the War on Terror Operation Atropos
Saturday, January 25 at 5pm Free to Love Hot Times (aka My Erotic Fantasies) Saturday, January 25 at 7pm Free to Love I, a Man / Mario Banana no. 2 Saturday, January 25 at 9pm Free to Love Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice Tuesday, January 28 at 7pm Reelblack Newlyweeds Wednesday, January 29 at 5:30 Art Exhibit Opening Shelby Donnelly: Fabric Impressions Wednesday, January 29 at 7pm Claes Oldenburg at 85 The Great Ice Cream Robbery / Pat’s Birthday Thursday, January 30 at 7pm Free to Love Radical Sex Education Films from San Francisco’s Multi-Media Resource Center Friday, January 31 at 7pm Free to Love Pat Rocco Shorts Program
Thursday, February 6 at 7pm Spring Season Preview Party DANCETORIUM: An Evening of Post-Punk and New Wave Music Celebrating the Death of Analog Video Friday, February 7 at 7pm 14th Annual Lunar New Year Celebration Saturday, February 8 at 5pm Free to Love It is Not the Homosexual who is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives Saturday, February 8 at 7pm Free to Love WR: Mysteries of the Organism Wednesday, February 12 at 7pm Archive Fever! 5.0 Far From Vietnam / The New Wave by Itself Thursday, February 13 at 7pm Free to Love Barbara Hammer Early Short Films Friday, February 14 at 7pm Free to Love Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *(But Were Afraid to Ask)
Saturday, February 15 at 2pm Motion Pictures: Key Concepts Fellini: Twenty Years After I Vitelloni Saturday, February 15 at 8pm Free to Love I am Curious (Blue) Wednesday, February 19 at 7pm University Of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum Film Series Presents Women Film the War on Terror Control Room Thursday, February 20 at 7pm Full Exposure Centro Historico Saturday, February 22 at 2pm Family Matinee Fantastic Mr. Fox Saturday, February 22 at 7pm The Secret Cinema presents Dark Waters – Rare 35mm print! Wednesday, February 26 at 7pm The Blank Generation Thursday, February 27 at 7pm Selections from the HRWIFF Camp 14 - Total Control Zone Friday, February 28 at 7pm Selections from the HRWIFF Rafea: Solar Mama
March Saturday, March 1 at 5pm Selections from the HRWIFF In the Shadow of the Sun Saturday, March 1 at 8pm Selections from the HRWIFF Born This Way Monday, March 3 at 7pm Philadelphia Flamenco Festival Flamenco Hoy Tuesday, March 4 at 6pm Gala Kick-Off Party Brazilian Carnival
Wednesday, March 5 at 7pm University Of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum Film Series Presents Women Film the War on Terror The Oath Thursday, March 6 at 7pm Motion Pictures The Bicycle Thief – New 35mm Print! Friday, March 7 at 7pm Almayer’s Folly Wednesday, March 12 at 7pm Archive Fever! 5.0 The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (Ikhtifa’aatSoad Hosni elThalaathat)
Saturday, March 29 at 5pm Flaherty on the Road Program 2: Figure-Ground ÇA VA, ÇA VA (it’s ok, it’s ok, we go on) / Movement in Squares / Figure-ground / Village, Silenced Saturday, March 29 at 8pm Flaherty on the Road Program 3: Perpetrators The Specialist
table of contents 3 ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Fabric impressions – Shelby Donnelly 5 featured program: Free to love 7 programs 8 partner programs
Thursday, March 13 at 7pm Full Exposure Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (Romanzo di unastrage)
9 January 14 February 21 March 34 Free to Love
Saturday, March 15 at 2pm Family Matinee NFB Shorts Program Saturday, March 15 at 7pm The Janus Collection The Marriage of Maria Braun Tuesday, March 18 at 7pm Philadelphia à la Pataphysique: Cinema Pataphysique Zazie dans le metro Wednesday, March 19 at 7pm ICA Arthur Jafa Friday, March 21 at 7pm A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness Wednesday, March 26 at 7pm University Of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum Film Series Presents Women Film the War on Terror Return Friday, March 28 at 7pm Flaherty on the Road Program 1: Political Memory Farther than the Eye Can See / Printed Matter / Bete&Deise
tickets/box office: Tickets are available at www.ihousephilly.org + 215.387.5125 IHP’s Box Office is now open from 1pm – 8pm, Tuesday – Saturday. Purchase your tickets in person or with IHP over the phone during these hours and save the processing fee. Cover: Barbarella
Fantastic Mr. Fox (p. 18) 2
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT Fabric Impressions We are excited to present local artist Shelby Donnelly’s exhibit titled ‘Fabric Impressions’, on show at International House from January 6 – March 28, 2014, in our East Alcove and Galleria. Fabric Impressions are works based on a four-month artist residency in Paris where Shelby sought out the current state of leisure. Through visiting markets, parks, and the countryside, she responded to everyday moments and translated them into the fantastic and surreal. In her work she creates a loose documentary referencing film, night dreams, and art history via the French Impressionists and Symbolist painters. Her work engages in formal conversations using image and contextual fragmentation that investigates a singular moment in time. Shelby will also install nine new banners in the Galleria that respond to the cinematic themes in IHP’s Free to Love: The Cinema of the Sexual Revolution film series. Finally, in April or May, Shelby and Hannah Wnorowski will collaborate to create a one-night only installation in the Ibrahim Theater (date to be determined). The two artists will project films onto sculptures to transform and respond to the images of the projections. Shelby Donnelly is a fabric-based artist working in Phildelphia. Shelby holds a B.F.A in Printmaking and Drawing from Washington University in St. Louis (2002) and an M.F.A. from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (2008). She is an artist and educator, and recently has attended artist residencies at Millay Artist Colony in New York, Soaring Gardens in Pennsylvania, and Second State Press in Philadelphia. In 2012, Donnelly attended a four-month artist residency at the Cite de Internationale in Paris, France, awarded to her by Washington University. Ms. Donnelly primarily works with found and silk-screen printed fabrics that are sewn into two-dimensional and three-dimensional collages. In September 2012, Shelby started her own business, 2-Sided as a way to explore themes of leisure in functional and unique artist multiples. Please join us at IHP on Wednesday, January 29 from 5:30 to 7pm to open Fabric Impressions. Light hors d’oeuvres and refreshments will be served. The exhibit will be on display through March 28, 2014.
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FEATURED PROGRAMS
FREE TO LOVE: THE CINEMA OF THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION From the curator A few years ago I was watching Hal Ashby’s excellent 1974 film Shampoo, and I was struck by how aptly it captured an important turning point in American culture. The story of a charismatic hair stylist played by Warren Beatty and his numerous sexual relationships, the film is set in 1968 amid what we now regard as the high-water mark of liberalism and both symbolically and literally foreshadows the ultimate undoing of the New Left in the wake of Nixon’s election to the US presidency. Beatty’s George Roundy defies the traditional values of the 1950s, yet he ultimately demonstrates the limits of the sexual revolution’s utopian aspirations. By sleeping around Hollywood—and it’s no accident that Ashby’s film takes place inside a bastion of commercial art, where promiscuity is practically an ethos—he literally screws himself out of power, and his self-betrayal is transcribed onto the failures of 1960s countercultures to truly make a difference in society. Of course, we know the rest of the story: The longing for order and safety brought on by Nixon, then the even more reactionary Reagan, who rang in “morning in America”— namely, the morning after those tumultuous, revolutionary days of sexual liberation and youth rebellion. As a time capsule of a time capsule (the film, just six years after the fact, is already looking back on a lost era), Shampoo interrogates the legacy of the sexual revolution, a cultural coitus interruptus. And those questions, in a sense, are what inspired Free to Love. While it’s difficult to articulate every aspect of the sexual revolution in a single film series, we attempted to cover a broad panoply of visions from the era with the hope that they might begin to demonstrate just how entangled sexual liberation and popular entertainment became and how much our society has changed in the decades since. ihousephilly.org
Free to Love: The Cinema of the Sexual Revolution brings together a wide selection of films, both commercial and experimental, to investigate how these issues and ideas manifested themselves in the production of moving-image art. Some of these films have experienced an enduring popularity over the years while others have rarely been screened since their initial release. The sexual revolution, as defined by this film series, begins in the early 1960s and ends in the late 1970s. It encompasses the publication of Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl, the mass availability of oral contraception, the Stonewall riots and, of course, the sudden rise in popularity of erotic cinema. While the sexual revolution cannot simply be viewed as one unified movement, it is precisely its very conflicts and contradictions that inspired some of the most important films from this period, asserting sexual power in an era when “power to the people” was the motto. It turns out that film conveyed this revolution perfectly, bringing it to the most polite corners of conversation. Today, it’s hard to imagine middle-class, suburban couples lining up to attend a screening of a pornographic film, but for a brief moment that was de rigueur. Gerard Damiano’s film Deep Throat was screened in seventy-three US cities and made $25 million in ticket sales. In and of itself, sex on film was nothing new. Dudley Murphy’s 1921 short film Soul of the Cypress is a haunting erotic fantasy featuring full frontal nudity. There’s even a cut to exploding fireworks as the main characters presumably reach sexual climax (a device later used in numerous films including Deep Throat). It was simply that, over the years, the audience had changed. In the postwar years the films, performances, and happenings of artists like Jack Smith, Carolee Schneemann, and Claes Oldenburg often involved sexually explicit or transgressive elements, so that one can begin to see the seeds of the mainstream erotic cinema being sown in the lofts and galleries of urban bohemia. It also didn’t hurt that Smith’s Flaming Creatures, a forty-five minute film where male and female bodies writhe in a whimsical display of Dionysian delight, made headline news as it was deemed obscene by the authorities and consistently confiscated by local police departments at various screenings across the country. In the age of the internet, these images are perhaps no longer all that groundbreaking and some may even seem quaint by current standards. But the questions they pose continue to be provocative, or at the very least relevant. In 2013, we’re still talking about a “war on women,” so we know that sexual power remains a critical
and pressing issue. For all of its liberations, the sexual revolution also brought on a long-running backlash that has circumscribed erotic content to the smallest and most private screens. Gone are the days of standing in line for an X-rated film—now, everyone stars in their own. In the end, I decided not to include Shampoo in the series even though its influence may be felt throughout the entire program. There are, undoubtedly, other omissions, including several films that have all but vanished from circulation. Nevertheless, this series is almost certainly the most ambitious attempt to capture the narrative of the sexual revolution on film to date. I hope that Free to Love: The Cinema of the Sexual Revolution will provide a fresh perspective on the changes that took place, not just in cinema but in politics, academia, the arts and, most importantly, on individuals who dramatically threw off the shackles of a fearful, hypocritical, and antiquated system of moral authority and suppression to live their lives any way they chose. A culture that can acknowledge and appreciate sex as a natural and healthy activity that unites us all and allows each of us to connect with our innermost passions is most certainly a place beyond fear, repression, and ignorance. Free to Love is perhaps a small, albeit partial glimpse of such a place.
Friday, January 10 at 7pm I am Curious (Yellow) Saturday, January 11 at 5pm Pink Narcissus Saturday, January 11 at 7pm In the Realm of the Senses Saturday, January 11 at 10pm Deep Throat Thursday, January 16 at 7pm Flaming Creatures / Fuses / Lovemaking / Schmeerguntz / 6/64 Mama & Papa: An Otto Muehl Happening
Thursday, January 30 at 7pm Radical Sex Education Films from San Francisco’s Multi-Media Resource Center Friday, January 31 at 7pm Pat Rocco Shorts Program Saturday, February 1 at 5pm Barbarella Saturday, February 1 at 7pm No More Excuses / The Continuing Story of Carel & Ferd Saturday, February 1 at 10pm Boys in the Sand
Friday, January 17 at 7pm Freedom to Love
Saturday, February 8 at 5pm It is Not the Homosexual who is Perverse, But the Society in Which he Lives
Saturday, January 18 at 5pm Gift (aka Venom)
Saturday, February 8 at 7pm WR: Mysteries of the Organism
Saturday, January 18 at 8pm The Telephone Book
Thursday, February 13 at 7pm Barbara Hammer Early Short Films
Saturday, January 18 at 10 pm Fritz the Cat
Friday, February 14 at 7pm Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *(But Were Afraid to Ask)
Thursday, January 23 at 7pm The Set Friday, January 24 at 7pm Score
Saturday, February 15 at 8pm I am Curious (Blue)
Saturday, January 25 at 5pm Hot Times (aka My Erotic Fantasies) Saturday, January 25 at 7pm I, a Man / Mario Banana no. 2 Saturday, January 25 at 9pm Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
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PROGRAMS Archive Fever! 5.0
Central to our visual culture, the archive is a repository for any personal memories, shared histories, objects, and documents through which we revisit the history of our time. In this series, we explore the myriad ways in which the archive, archival, and found materials are central to the works of film and video artists who are discovering the dynamic possibilities within archives. Wednesday, January 8 at 7pm Two Temple University Student Academy-Award Winners for Documentary Film
Wednesday, February 12 at 7pm Far From Vietnam / The New Wave by Itself
Wednesday, March 12 at 7pm The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (Ikhtifa’aatSoad Hosni el-Thalaathat)
Family Matinees
All year long, International House Philadelphia will be entertaining families when we open the doors to all ages for our new series of family friendly matinees one Saturday every month at 2pm. The series aims to bring the big screen to children, inspiring their imaginations, and yours, too! Take this opportunity to encourage a love of film and art from a young age. Filmgoers of all ages will delight in this carefully curated selection of inspired cinema from around the world. These films will bring the best of both worlds – education and entertainment. With a diverse line-up of programming geared towards children, teens, parents, and grandparents, there is no reason to leave anyone at home! Free to members; special discounted ticket price of $5. Saturday, January 4 at 2pm Porco Rosso
Saturday, February 22 at 2pm Fantastic Mr. Fox
Saturday, March 15 at 2pm NFB Shorts Program
Flaherty on the Road
The 59th Flaherty Seminar, “History is What’s Happening” programmed by Pablo de Ocampo examined both the frame and subject of history in cinema to understand how the social and political conditions of the past are inextricably linked to the present. Featured film and video works which employ radical gestures in both form and political position, the Seminar drew upon strategies of performance, collective production, re-speaking, and archival research to consider the ever-shifting contexts and conditions in which images from the past are watched and repurposed. Here, documentary listens as much as it tells; it produces an engaged space which hopes to create the conditions for communication. Questioning the effect of nostalgia in relationship to archives of images, the works in this program put forth the proposition that the function of history in cinema is not about remembering or recording, but about its potential for action. Invited guests include Deborah Stratman, The Otolith Group, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, and Sarah Maldoror. Flaherty on the Road is a traveling film series featuring innovative, provocative, and hard-to-see works from the most recent Flaherty Seminar. The series makes
it easier for institutions to present works from the Seminar, as all components of the screening – exhibition formats, program notes, film stills, artist biographies, and press materials are provided by one entity – the Flaherty. With this initiative, the Flaherty extends the reach of the Seminar to a far greater number of academics, students, filmmakers, and film enthusiasts than the 170 participants who attend the weeklong event. In addition, it also increases the livelihood of makers who are featured in the program, as the Flaherty pays 50% of the distribution income directly to the makers. Friday, March 28 at 7pm Farther than the Eye Can See / Printed Matter / Bete&Deise Saturday, March 29 at 8pm The Specialist
Saturday, March 29 at 5pm ÇA VA, ÇA VA (it’s ok, it’s ok, we go on) / Movement in Squares / Figure-ground / Village, Silenced
Full Exposure
Full Exposure is a series dedicated to recent works by innovative film and video makers from around the world, and is a snapshot of the current state of moving image production and it’s constantly evolving practice. Thursday, January 9 at 7pm L’enfer d’ Henri Georges Clouzot (Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno)
Thursday, February 20 at 7pm Centro Historico
Thursday, March 13 at 7pm Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (Romanzo di unastrage)
Motion Pictures
Motion Pictures is a monthly series that focuses on different movements in film culture such as science fiction, city symphonies, and New German Cinema. It has previously featured the films of Georges Méliès, John Ford, Preston Sturges, and Andrei Tarkovsky. Saturday, February 15 At 2pm I Vitelloni
Thursday, March 6 at 7pm The Bicycle Thief – New 35mm Print!
SELECTIONS FROM THE HRWIFF:
In Conjunction with Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the Greenfield Intercultural Centers at the University of Pennsylvania Presents In recognition of the power of film to educate and galvanize a broad constituency of concerned citizens, Human Rights Watch decided to create the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. Human Rights Watch’s International Film Festival has become a leading venue for distinguished fiction, documentary and animated films and videos with a distinctive human rights theme. Through the eyes of committed and courageous filmmakers, we showcase the heroic stories of activists and survivors from all over the world. The works we feature help to put a human face on threats to individual freedom and dignity, and celebrate the power of the human spirit and intellect to prevail. We seek to empower everyone with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a very real difference.
PARTNER PROGRAMS In selecting films for the festival, Human Rights Watch concentrates equally on artistic merit and human rights content. The festival encourages filmmakers around the world to address human rights subject matter in their work and presents films and videos from both new and established international filmmakers. Each year, the festival’s programming committee screens more than 500 films and videos to create a program that represents a range of countries and issues. Once a film is nominated for a place in the program, staff of the relevant division of Human Rights Watch also views the work to confirm its accuracy in the portrayal of human rights concerns. Though the festival rules out films that contain unacceptable inaccuracies of fact, we do not bar any films on the basis of a particular point of view.
Reelblack
For the eleventh consecutive year, International House along with the Greenfield Intercultural Center at the University of Pennsylvania will be hosting the Philadelphia premieres of works from this powerful Human Rights Watch program.
Tuesday, January 7 at 7pm Community Visions 2013: New Films by Philadelphia Organizations
Thursday, February 27 at 7pm Camp 14 - Total Control Zone
Friday, February 28 at 7pm Rafea: Solar Mama
Saturday, March 1 at 5pm In the Shadow of the Sun
Saturday, March 1 at 8pm Born This Way
The Janus Collection
Truly one of our national treasures, Janus Films is a vital part of American film culture. International House continues the Janus Collection with titles from their library, all in brand new or restored 35mm prints. Saturday, March 15 at 7pm The Marriage of Maria Braun
Reelblack promotes discoveries and rediscoveries in African-American films. Tuesday, January 28 at 7pm Newlyweeds
Scribe Video Center Producers’ Forum
The Producers’ Forum in-person screening series is a lecture discussion program, that allows Scribe to invite important nationally and internationally recognized media makers to Philadelphia to share their work and talk about their process of creating.
The Secret Cinema
For 20 years Secret Cinema has been the area’s premiere floating repertory cinema series, bringing hundreds of unique programs to nightclubs, bars, coffee houses, museums, open fields, colleges, art galleries, bookstores, and sometimes even theaters and film festivals. Saturday, February 22 at 7pm Dark Waters – Rare 35mm print!
University Of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum
In collaboration with Penn Cinema Studies & International House Philadelphia Speaking through different genres and cultural contexts, women filmmakers explore the consequences of today’s wars at home and abroad. Film and feminist theory scholar Karen Beckman, who directs this year’s Penn Humanities Forum on Violence, will introduce each screening and host informal audience discussions. Don’t miss this rare chance to see how women film the war on terror. Wednesday, February 5 at 7pm Operation Atropos
Wednesday, February 19 at 7pm Control Room
Wednesday, March 5 at 7pm The Oath
Wednesday, March 26 at 7pm Return
Unless noted, all IHP screenings are free admission for IHP members; $7 students + seniors; $9 general admission.
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January
Saturday, January 4 at 2pm Family Matinee PORCO ROSSO dir. Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 1992, 35mm, dubbed in English, 94min.
This unsung treasure from Hayao Miyazaki nestles a tale of morality and identity inside a soaring airborne adventure — a tribute to early aviation and the reckless flyboys whose home was the open sky. Set in a mid-war Italy swept by fascism, the film follows the life of Marco, a world-weary flying ace-turned bounty hunter who plies his trade above the waters of the Adriatic. Somewhere along the way a curse has transformed Marco’s head into the head of a pig, reflecting his loss of faith in humanity. Marco meets his polar opposite in the innocent and energetic 17-year-old Fio, an aspiring airplane designer, and the two are catapulted into an airborne adventure pursued by air pirates, the Italian army, and an egotistical American flying ace. Miyazaki fans will be familiar with the writer/director’s fascination with flight; in this film, Miyazaki indulges his passion to the fullest. An avid aviation buff, Miyazaki’s airplane designs conform scrupulously to the technology of the period. But most impressive are the exhilarating aerial scenes: sweeping panoramas of wind, cloud, smoke and water and the breathtaking feeling of soaring though the air in an open cockpit. Free to members; special discounted ticket price of $5. ihousephilly.org
Operating Outside the Lines Tuesday, January 7 at 7pm Scribe producer’s forum Community Visions 2013: New Films by Philadelphia Organizations Scribe Video Center’s Community Visions program teaches documentary video-making skills to members of community organizations in Philadelphia, Chester, and Camden (NJ). A powerful way to document community concerns, celebrate cultural diversity, and comment on the human condition, Community Visions is a part of Scribe’s mission to explore, develop and advance the use of video, film, audio, and interactive technology as artistic tools and as tools for progressive social change. Ione Nash – Her Life, Her Art by Arthur Hall Afro-American Dance Ensemble Alumni
A pioneer in the Dance Arts, Ione Nash has made a significant contribution to African dance in Philadelphia and the US through her belief that passionate expression of feeling is at the heart of great dance. In the late 50s, she joined the ensemble of Ghanaian dancer Saka Acquaye, who founded an African dance troupe in Philadelphia. She created her own company, the Ione Nash Dance Ensemble in 1960. Throughout the 60s, she danced as a partner with Arthur Hall in his own Afro-American Dance Ensemble. Turning 90 this year, Nash shares her unique experiences as a dancer, choreographer and teacher, with insights on the history of African American dance in Philadelphia.
Stolen Dreams II by Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (YASP)
Through this film, YASP breaks down the myth that trying youth as adults is a real solution to violence, and shows instead the ways that youth and violence and youth incarceration are actually two pieces of the school-toprison and school-to-grave pipeline. Operating Outside the Lines by Brandywine Workshop
This documentary explores the history of Brandywine Workshop’s 40 years of printmaking and other visual art, including testimonials from artists. Founded in 1972 by Allan Edmunds, Brandywine is a national center for printmaking. With an international following, Brandywine’s artists include Emma Amos, Akili Ron Anderson, Camille Billops, Edgar Heap of Birds, Mei-ling Hom, Richard Howard Hunt, Martina Johnson Allen, Jacob Landau, Hughie Lee Smith, Evangeline Montgomery, Marta Sanchez, Toshio Sasaki, Vincent D Smith and Isaiah Zagar. Free admission.
www.scribe.org/events/communityvisions2013 Community Visions is made possible by support from the Wyncote Foundation and Union Benevolent Foundation.
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Through Adam’s Eyes Wednesday, January 8 at 7pm Archive Fever! 5.0 - Two Temple University Student Academy-Award Winners for Documentary Film Program curated by Leonard Guercio YOU SEE, I’VE HAD A LIFE dir. Ben Levin, USA, 1973, 16mm, 30 min.
Ben Levin sensitively chronicles the life of 14-year-old Paul, diagnosed with leukemia, as he contemplates and confronts the disease and its fatal outcome. THROUGH ADAM’S EYES dir. Bob Saget, USA, 1978, 16mm, 12 min.
Bob Saget documented his young nephew Adam, born with a genetic facial disfigurement, as he courageously undergoes facial reconstructive surgery. BEYOND IMAGINING dir. Wendy Weinberg USA, 1992, 16mm, 30min.
In 1914, Margaret Anderson founded the Little Review and, fighting against the pressures of censorship and limited funds, introduced readers to the literary works of Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce, among other notables.
ihousephilly.org
Thursday, January 9 at 7pm Full Exposure L’enfer d’ Henri Georges Clouzot (Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno) dir. Henri Georges Clouzot, France, 2009, 35mm, French w/ English subtitles, 96 min.
In 1964, director Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, The Raven, The Wages of Fear, The Picasso Mystery) chose Romy Schneider, age 26, and Serge Reggiani, 42, to star in L’enfer (Inferno), an enigmatic and original project with an unlimited budget. Reggiani was to play Marcel Prieur, the manager of a modest hotel in provincial France who becomes possessed by the demons of jealousy. Intended to be a cinematic “event” upon its release, three weeks after shooting began on Inferno, things took a turn for the worse. The project was stopped, and the images, which were said to be “incredible”, would remain unseen...Until now. Working closely with Clouzot’s widow, Inès, Serge Bromberg reconstructs Clouzot’s original vision, filling and explaining the gaps with new interviews, re-enactments and Clouzot’s own notes and storyboards. Midway between documentary and narrative, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno unveils, for the first time in nearly half a century, these luminous visions. It delivers an in-depth look at the masterpiece that might have been, featuring the original astonishing color expressionism that Clouzot captured on celluloid, a visual exploration of the director’s own anxiety.
Wednesday, January 15 at 7pm I Used to be Darker dir. Matt Porterfield, USA, 2013, HD, 90 min.
Wednesday, January 22 at 7pm Either Way (Á annan veg) dir. Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, Iceland, 2011, HD, 84 min.
Director Matt Porterfield in person.
Director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson in person.
When Taryn, a Northern Irish runaway, finds herself in trouble in Ocean City, MD, she seeks refuge with her aunt and uncle in Baltimore. But Kim and Bill have problems of their own: they’re trying to handle the end of their marriage gracefully for the sake of their daughter Abby, just home from her first year of college.
Either Way is a subtle and playful dramatic comedy. In the remote north of Iceland in the mid-1980s, Finn and Alfred, two employees of the Icelandic Road Administration, spend the summer painting lines on the winding roads that stretch out to the horizon. With noone but each other for company, the barren wilderness becomes a place of adventure, disaster and discovery as both men find themselves at a crossroads in their lives.
A story of family revelations, people finding each other and letting each other go, looking for love where they’ve found it before and, when that doesn’t work, figuring out where they might find it next.
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Due North at the Icebox Project Space, on view from January 9-26th, 2014. (www.duenorth2014.com)
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Little Red Tuesday, January 28 at 7pm REELBLACK Newlyweeds dir. Shaka King, 2013, Blu-Ray, 87 min.
Writer/Director Shaka King in attendance. A Brooklyn repo-man and his globetrotting girlfriend forge an unlikely romance. But what should be a match made in stoner heaven turns into a love triangle gone awry in this dark comedy that is part ballad of chemical dependency, part coming-of-age romance, part hallucinatory adventure. Official Selection: 2013 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection: 2013 Black Harvest International Film Festival Shaka King was listed one of ‘5 Filmmakers to Watch’ at Sundance
Wednesday, January 29 at 5:30 ART EXHIBIT OPENING Shelby Donnelly: Fabric Impressions We are excited to present local artist Shelby Donnelly’s exhibit titled ‘Fabric Impressions’, on show at International House from January 6 – March 28, 2014, in IHP’s East Alcove and Galleria. Fabric Impressions are works based on a four-month artist residency in Paris where Shelby sought out the current state of leisure. Through visiting markets, parks, and the countryside, she responded to everyday moments and translated them into the fantastic and surreal. In her work she creates a loose documentary referencing film, night dreams, and art history via the French Impressionists and Symoblist painters. Her work engages in formal conversations using image and contextual fragmentation that investigates a singular moment in time. Shelby will also install nine new banners in the Galleria that respond to the cinematic themes in IHP’s Free to Love: The Cinema of the Sexual Revolution film series. This Spring, Shelby and Hannah Wnorowski will collaborate to create a one-night only installation in the main theater (date to be determined). The two artists will project films onto sculptures to transform and respond to the images of the projections. Please join us for an opening reception, including light hors d’oeuvres and refreshments.
ihousephilly.org
February
The Great Ice Cream Robbery Wednesday, January 29 at 7pm Claes Oldenburg at 85 The Great Ice Cream Robbery dir. James Scott, UK, 1971, 16mm, 40 min.
Special introductory presentation by Branden W. Joseph. Co-presented with the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. James Scott, son of pioneering British abstractionist William Scott, created several film portraits of contemporary artists in the 1960s and early 70s. Scott’s intention was not merely to document the artworks themselves, but to merge the artistic practice of his subjects with the possibilities of the moving image. The most ambitious of Scott’s portraits, The Great Ice Cream Robbery (1971) is a side-by-side double projection featuring Claes Oldenburg as he prepares for his retrospective at the Tate Gallery in London. Featuring appearances by Richard Hamilton and Hannah Wilke. preceded by: Pat’s Birthday dir. Robert Breer, US, 1962, 16mm, 13 min., b&w
A day in the country with Claes Oldenburg and the Ray Gun Theatre Players. Includes such classic items as the haunted house, a gas station, ice cream stand, miniature golf, airplane noises and balloons.
Wednesday, February 5 at 7pm University of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum WOMEN FILM THE WAR ON TERROR Operation Atropos dir. Coco Fusco, USA, 2006, digital, 59 min. Operation Atropos is a documentary about interrogation and POW resistance training. Director Coco Fusco worked with retired U.S. Army interrogators who subjected her group of women students to immersive simulations of POW experiences in order to show them what hostile interrogations can be like and how members of the U.S. military are taught to resist them. The group of interrogators is called Team Delta, and they regularly offer intensive courses that they call “Authentic Military Experiences” to civilians. The documentary includes interviews with the interrogators that shed light on how they read personalities, evaluate an interrogatee’s reliability, and use the imposition of physical and mental stress strategically. More fundamentally, however, the film shows how interrogators rationalize what they do and how they imagine both themselves and their enemies. Free admission.
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Crash Cource in Science Thursday, February 6 at 7pm Spring Season Preview Party DANCETORIUM: An Evening of Post-Punk and New Wave Music Celebrating the Death of Analog Video Performance by Crash Course in Science • Screening and presentation of Nightclubbing by Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers • VJ by Video Pirates • Free Video Store DANCETORIUM is a one-night-only event dedicated to the future aesthetics of the 1980s. Home video was a new and exciting invention, enabling viewers to disengage with the cinema experience and view their favorite films “on demand” for the first time. DIY music culture moved on from the first wave of punk bands to produce bands much more liberating and weird, combining primitive synthesizers with the raw energy of early punk rock. Video replaced film as the vanguard medium for moving image work. But now, thirty years on, analog video is all but extinct in the wake of digital technology. Help us unpack all these issues (while previewing our spring season programming) as we tease them out through beats, synths and projections. International House will have a one-night-only pop-up video store. But this is not your typical video rental store, it’s the Free Video Store! Browse the selection and take home a new favorite VHS or two. Free for Members; $5 General Admission. ihousephilly.org
Friday, February 7 at 7pm 14th Annual Lunar New Year Celebration Ring in the Year of the Horse at IHP! Featuring dance performances from the Chinese community in Philadelphia, a sampling of traditional Chinese food, and at the end of the evening, and a time-honored lion dance to welcome the coming year once and for all. Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year, is a centuries old, important traditional Chinese holiday celebrated all around the world. Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese New Year vary widely. Often, the evening preceding New Year’s Day is an occasion for Chinese families to gather together to their annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly cleanse the house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red paper cut-outs with popular themes of good-fortune or happiness, wealth, and longevity. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes. Chinese tradition states that the Year of the Horse is optimistic, with a belief that good fortune will soon be on the way with plenty of supportive friends, so please join together and celebrate with your friends at International House! $5 Residents; $8 Members & Alumni; $12 General Public
Far From Vietnam Wednesday, February 12 at 7pm Archive Fever! 5.0 FAR FROM VIETNAM & THE NEW WAVE BY ITSELF FAR FROM VIETNAM
Saturday, February 15 At 2pm Motion Pictures: Key Concepts Fellini: Twenty Years After I Vitelloni
dirs. Jean-Luc Godard, JorisIvens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, and Alain Resnais, France, 1967, DCP, French w/ English subtitles, 115 min.
dir. Federico Fellini, Italy, 1953, 35mm, Italian with English subtitles, b&w, 103 min.
Initiated and edited by Chris Marker, Far From Vietnam is an epic 1967 collaboration between cinema greats Jean-Luc Godard, JorisIvens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch and Alain Resnais in protest of American military involvement in Vietnam--made, per Marker’s narration, “to affirm, by the exercise of their craft, their solidarity with the Vietnamese people in their struggle against aggression.” Passionately critical and self-critical, and as bold in form as it is in rhetoric, Far From Vietnam is a milestone in political documentary and in the French cinema. followed by: THE NEW WAVE BY ITSELF dirs. Robert Valey & André S. Labarthe, France, 1995, digital, French w/ English subtitles, 57 min.
Introduced by Leonardo Guercio Temple University Set in the director’s hometown of Rimini, I Vitelloni follows the lives of five young vitelloni, or layabouts, who while away their listless days in their small seaside village. Fausto, the leader of the pack, marries his sweetheart, but finds himself constantly distracted by other women. Meanwhile, would-be playwright Leopoldo goes on working on his dreary plays, dreaming of staging them one day. Clownish Alberto still lives at home with his mother and sister, Olga, while boasting of preserving the family honor by watching over her. Stuck in adolescence, the five friends stumble into various misadventures, as they seek to spice up their uneventful provincial lives. Ultimately, one of them breaks free from their self-imposed paralysis and moves on.
Shot in 1964, this film is a beautiful time capsule of the French New Wave in action. Probably the most important post-war film movement, “la Nouvelle Vague” revitalized cinema all over the world. 16
Wednesday, February 19 at 7pm University of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum Film Series WOMEN FILM THE WAR ON TERROR Control Room dir. Jehane Noujaim, USA, 2004, digital, Arabic and English, 84 min.
Egyptian-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim (Startup.com) directs Control Room, a documentary investigating the ethics of media-managed wars. This film particularly focuses on the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Noujaim and her film crew travel to the headquarters of Al-Jazeera, the media leader in the Arab world, to find out what the news looks like in Iraq. She interviews several journalists and producers involved in war reporting for Al-Jazeera, including senior producer Sameer Khader, journalist Hassan Ibrahim, and producer Deema Khatib. Noujaim also interviews American correspondents David Shuster from NBC and Tom Mintier from CNN.
ihousephilly.org
Thursday, February 20 at 7pm Full Exposure Centro Historico dir. Pedro Costa, Manuoel de Oliveira, Victor Erice and Aki Kaurismaki , Portugal, 2012, digital, Portuguese w/ English subtitles, 80 min.
“Two of these four short films about the Portuguese city of Guimarães are by Portuguese directors, and they are standouts. Pedro Costa’s Sweet Exorcist features Ventura, the elderly Cape Verdean immigrant (and nonprofessional actor) who starred in his 2006 film Colossal Youth, and extends the earlier film’s triangular connection between the life of a beleaguered laborer, the mighty grind of historical forces, and the substrate of mythological fantasy. Ventura wanders through haunted underbrush and arrives at a hospital, where, in the elevator, he encounters the statue of a soldier—with whom he enters into a dialogue about the country’s 1974 military coup, the vestigial dreams of his homeland, and the enduring legend of revolution that survives like a secular vision of redemption. The centenarian Manoel de Oliveira’s documentarybased fiction The Conqueror takes an aptly long and Olympian view of history, following a tour guide (Ricardo Trêpa) as he leads his flock of tourists to the city’s medieval highlights and delivers potted introductions in broken English. Oliveira offers a simple and rarefied lesson in vision, finding blazingly clear angles to reveal ancient wonders in a renewed immediacy, to look ancient heroes in the face, and to take their point of view—visual and historical, whimsical yet hopeless—against the undiscerning modern crowd”. Richard Brody
Saturday, February 22 at 2pm Family Matinee Fantastic Mr. Fox
Saturday, February 22 at 7pm The Secret Cinema presents Dark Waters – Rare 35mm print!
dir. Wes Anderson, 2009, USA, 35mm, 87 min.
dir. Andre de Toth, US, 1944, 35mm, b&w, 90 min.
A wily fox uses his formidable cunning to outsmart three feebleminded farmers, who resort to extreme tactics to protect their chickens in director Wes Anderson’s animated adaptation of the popular Roald Dahl children’s book. For 12 years, Mr. and Mrs. Fox (voices of George Clooney and Meryl Streep) have lived a peaceful life in the wilderness with their son, Ash (voice of Jason Schwartzman). Shortly after their young nephew Kristofferson (voice of Eric Anderson) arrives for a visit, Mr. Fox’s longsuppressed animal instincts begin to take over and the faithful family man resorts back to his old ways as a cunning chicken thief, endangering not only his family but the entire animal community as well. When evil farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean force the animals underground in a desperate attempt to capture the audacious Mr. Fox, dwindling food supplies force the frightened animals to band together in one last attempt to fight for the land that is rightfully theirs. Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson provide additional voices.
“Why did they pull me out of the water? That’s where I belong, under the water with my mother and father!” Exotic beauty Merle Oberon stars as a woman who saw her parents drown in a ship sunk by Nazi torpedos, and dazed, goes to live with relatives she’s never met in a murky New Orleans plantation. Haunted by survivor’s guilt and recurring visions of the tragedy, she finds her off-kilter relatives sympathetic at first, yet mysteriously they seem to encourage her nightmares and growing madness. Striking cinematography and a gallery of weird types (especially character actor greats John Qualen, Elisha Cook, Jr., and Thomas Mitchell) make this an especially atmospheric psychological thriller. Genre aficionados have debated whether or not Dark Waters is true film noir, but in the most literal sense, this must be one of the darkest films ever released: the grains of silver needed to create the ratio of black-to-white in its 35mm print could probably supply the photographic needs of five regular Hollywood releases.
Free to members; special discounted ticket price of $5.
Preceded by a selection of shorts from The Secret Cinema archives.
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Wednesday, February 26 at 7pm The Blank Generation dirs. Amos Poe & Ivan Kral, US, 1976, 16mm, b&w, 56 min.
Introduced by Amos Poe The crucial document of New York’s punk underground in the 1970s, The Blank Generation captures icons of the underground including Blondie, Talking Heads, Television and Patti Smith Group on their home turf of CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. Shot in black & white 16mm with non-sync sound, Poe and Kral’s film mimics the cut and paste, collage aesthetic of punk rock. The Blank Generation is a true cult classic. This film is shown in conjunction with Pretty Vacant: The Graphic Language of Punk. A survey of the extraordinary diversity of punk and post-punk graphic design, Pretty Vacant: The Graphic Language of Punk features posters, flyers, fanzines, handbills, record sleeves, badges and other graphic ephemera from the collection of Andrew Krivine. On view from January 25 – March 15, 2014 at The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, PA.
ihousephilly.org
Thursday, February 27 at 7pm SELECTIONS FROM THE HRWIFF: INTERNATIONAL HOUSE PHILADELPHIA Camp 14 - Total Control Zone dir. Marc Wiese, Germany, 2012, digital, Korean w/ English subtitles, 104 min.
In Conjunction with Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the Greenfield Intercultural Centers at the University of Pennsylvania Presents: Camp 14 – Total Control Zone is a fascinating portrait of a young man who grew up imprisoned by dehumanizing violence yet still found the will to escape. Born inside a North Korean prison camp as the child of political prisoners, Shin Dong-Huyk was raised in a world where all he knew was punishment, torture, and abuse. Filmmaker Marc Wiese crafts his documentary by quietly drawing details from Shin in a series of interviews in which Shin’s silence says as much as his words. Weaving anecdotes from a former camp guard and a member of the secret police with powerful animated scenes capturing key moments in Shin’s life, Wiese pulls audiences into Shin’s world. Shin escapes and becomes a human rights ‘celebrity,’ but as we see, his life outside the camp is often just as challenging as it was inside it. Courtesy of Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment in the UK. Official Selection Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival 2012 and Toronto International Film Festival 2012
Friday, February 28 at 7pm SELECTIONS FROM THE HRWIFF: INTERNATIONAL HOUSE PHILADELPHIA Rafea: Solar Mama
Saturday, March 1 at 5pm SELECTIONS FROM THE HRWIFF: INTERNATIONAL HOUSE PHILADELPHIA In the Shadow of the Sun
dirs. Jehane Noujaim and Mona Eldaief, Denmark/US/England, 2012, digital, Arabic w/ English subtitles, 75 min.
dir. Harry Freeland, UK/Tanzania, 2012, digital, Swahili w/ English subtitles, 84min.
In Conjunction with Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the Greenfield Intercultural Centers at the University of Pennsylvania Presents:
In Conjunction with Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the Greenfield Intercultural Centers at the University of Pennsylvania Presents:
Rafea is a Bedouin woman who lives with her daughters in one of Jordan’s poorest desert villages on the Iraqi border. When she is selected for an intriguing program called the Barefoot College in India, Rafea doesn’t need to think twice, and travels to join 30 illiterate women from different countries to train to become solar engineers over the course of six months. Rafea immediately understands that she has a unique opportunity to give her children a better future and to provide the whole village with solar power. A tumultuous struggle with her husband threatens to put an end to her dreams, yet Rafea remains determined. Will she be able to empower the other women in the village to join her in the struggle to rewire the traditions of the Bedouin community that stand in their way? Official Selection International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2012
Filmed over six years, In the Shadow of the Sun tells the story of two men with albinism in Tanzania pursuing their dreams in the face of virulent prejudice. In the midst of an escalation in brutal murders of people with albinism, we meet Josephat Torner. Josephat decides to confront the communities where the killings are taking place saying, “I need to change society so it can accept me.” Along the way, he visits Ukerewe Island. He finds 62 people with albinism living there, including 15-year-old Vedastus. Vedastus, whose mother was told to kill him when he was born, has been bullied out of school and rejected by his community. But Vedastus dreams of returning to get an education. Dedicating his life to campaigning against this sort of discrimination against people with albinism–segregated from society and deprived of education–Josephat becomes a mentor to Vedastus. Through his intimate portrait of Vedastus and Josephat, filmmaker Harry Freeland reveals a story of deep-rooted superstition, heartfelt suffering, and incredible strength. Official Selection International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2012. 20
March
Saturday, March 1 at 8pm SELECTIONS FROM THE HRWIFF: INTERNATIONAL HOUSE PHILADELPHIA Born This Way dir. Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullmann, Cameroon, 2012, digital, French w/ English subtitles, 84min.
In Conjunction with Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the Greenfield Intercultural Centers at the University of Pennsylvania Presents: There are more arrests for homosexuality in Cameroon than in any other country in the world. With intimate access to the lives of four young gay Cameroonians, Born This Way steps outside the genre of activist filmmaking and offers a vivid and poetic portrait of day-today life in modern Africa. This is a story of what is possible in the global fight for equality.
Monday, March 3 at 7pm Philadelphia Flamenco Festival Flamenco Hoy dir. Carlos Saura
On Monday, March 3, 2014, join the Philadelphia Flamenco Festival and International House for a screening of Flamenco Hoy. Directed by the celebrated film maestro Carlos Saura, Flamenco Hoy, is a spectacular showcase of flamenco with breathtaking dance, dynamic music, and soul-searing singing. Featuring 20 of Spain’s most exciting artists from the new generation of flamenco, dramatic choreography by Rafael Estevez and Nani Panos, and musical direction by the electrifying pianist Chano Dominguez, this dazzling show takes the audience into the heart of flamenco today. Flamenco Hoy, was awarded and nominated at prestigious film festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Montreal, and San Sebastian, as well as several Oscar Award nominations. Following the show, enjoy a lead dialogue on the film and flamenco by Philadelphia Flamenco Festival’s Artistic Director, Elba Hevia y Vaca. For more information regarding the 2014 Philadelphia Flamenco Festival and for festival schedules, visit Philaflamencofest.org
ihousephilly.org
Tuesday, March 4 at 6pm Gala Kick-Off Party: Brazilian Carnival Join us as we kick-off the countdown to IHP’s most wonderful event of the year: the much anticipated Annual Global Gala! This year we are honoring the rising, vibrant country of Brazil – home to the best party city in the world, and the birthplace of Carnival, what must be the greatest party on earth. IHP is throwing its own Carnival party, with an explosion of music and color, plus tons of feathers, high-heels, sequins, and dancing. For one night, IHP will treat guests to Brazilian food, drinks, music, and dancing; in essence a teaser and pared down glimpse of what awaits on May 17th at the Gala itself. Details such as band, performers, and caterers to be announced. $5 Residents; $15 Members; $20 General Admission
Wednesday, March 5 at 7pm University of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum Film Series: WOMEN FILM THE WAR ON TERROR The Oath dir. Laura Poitras, 2010, digital, Arabic w/ English subtitles, 96 min.
From the director of the Oscar-nominated My Country, My Country, The Oath is a spectacularly gripping documentary that unspools like a great political thriller. It’s the crosscut tale of two men whose fateful meeting propelled them on divergent courses with AlQaeda, Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo Bay Prison and the U.S. Supreme Court. Abu Jandal is a taxi driver in Sana’a, Yemen; his brother-in-law Salim Hamdan is a Guantanamo prisoner and the first man to face the controversial military tribunals. Jandal and Hamdan’s intertwined personal trajectories—how they became bin Laden’s bodyguard and driver respectively—act as prisms that serve to explore and contextualize a world which has confounded Western media. As Hamdan’s trial progresses, his military lawyers challenge fundamental flaws in the court system. The charismatic Jandal dialogues with his young son, Muslim students and journalists, and chillingly unveils the complex evolution of his belief system post-9/11. Winner of Best Documentary Cinematography at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, The Oath offers a rare window into a hidden realm—and the international impact of the U.S. War on Terror. 22
Thursday, March 6 at 7pm Motion Pictures: Key Concepts Neo-realism THE BICYCLE THIEF – New 35mm Print! dir. Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1948, 35mm, Italian w/ English subtitles, b&w, 93 min.
Sixty-fifth Anniversary screening! Introduced by Leonardo Guercio Temple University The Bicycle Thief quickly solidified its position as one of the greatest films ever made when it was originally released. In this December 13th, 1949 review for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther called it “brilliant and devastating -- a film that will tear your heart, but which should fill you with warmth and compassion.” Now, sixty years later, as the world faces what many consider the biggest economic crisis since The Great Depression, the story of The Bicycle Thief seems to resonate more strongly than ever. As A.O. Scott aptly states in his 2008 review, “this film seems more relevant, more powerful, maybe more real than ever before.”
ihousephilly.org
Friday, March 7 at 7pm ALMAYER’S FOLLY dir. Chantal Akerman, France, 2011, 35mm, French w/ English subtitles, 127 min.
The first narrative feature in seven years by the great Chantal Akerman is this adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s debut novel, which concerns a Dutch trader living in Malaysia. Transplanting the story from the 1890s to the 1950s, Akerman has brought the history of an extra half-century of colonialism and foreign intervention to bear on Conrad’s tale, a story of cultural conflict, desire, and despair. Having married the adopted Malay daughter of the wealthy Captain Lingard in order to obtain an inheritance that has failed to materialize, Almayer has become isolated and bitter, trapped in his remote trading post, and investing all his emotional energy in his own beloved daughter, Nina. But, haunted by feelings of racial and cultural alienation and harboring hatred towards her father, Nina has no intention of providing him with comfort or companionship.
Wednesday, March 12 at 7pm Archive Fever! 5.0 The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (Ikhtifa’aatSoad Hosni el-Thalaathat) dir. Rania Stephan, Lebanon/UAE, 2011, digital video, Arabic w/ English subtitles, 70 min.
A rapturous elegy to a rich and versatile era of film production in Egypt, constructed from the work of one of its most revered stars, Soad Hosni, who from the 1960s into the 1990s embodied the modern Arab woman in all her complexity and paradoxes. Stephan’s montage of footage from VHS tapes, DVDs, and VCDs poetically rewrites a golden period of Egyptian cinema and evokes an enduring symbol of modern Arab womanhood.
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Where Philadelphia meets the world! Support from individuals, corporations, the community, and educational organizations has been integral to the success of IHP’s mission. These gifts are an investment in the lives of IHP residents and alumni, the greater Philadelphia community, and every person that walks through the doors of International House. Today’s Residents – Tomorrow’s Leaders The residents of International House, students and scholars, who come from all over the world including the US, learn more than the curriculum that they study. · Residents come to understand and appreciate the American experience through exposure to the complexity of contemporary American academia, business, and government
· Residents explore American culture and the cultures of the world through personal and social interactions
· Residents live in a diverse, open, and safe atmosphere that allows them to experience the richness and depth of the global mosaic
· Residents participate in programs and activities that expose them to global perspectives and impact them as future leaders in the Greater Philadelphia region, the US, and the world The World is on Our Stage Programs at International House introduce the region to compelling and thought-provoking arts and culture from all over the world.
· International House, often in partnership with many collaborators, presents a tremendously diverse range of arts and cultural events
· Over 30,000 Greater Philadelphia residents attend hundreds of public programs and are exposed to differing global perspectives
· World-class artists, authors, filmmakers, musicians and audience participate in a critically important and thought provoking dialog of cultural pluralism and inclusion Please help to advance the mission of International House Please include your monetary gift in the accompanying envelope, which has many options for giving, as well as membership. Matching Gifts are a wonderful way to increase your support of IHP. Planned Gifts to International House are an expression of your commitment to this great institution. Your gift ensures our continuing ability to enrich and positively transform lives. Please remember International House as you consider your designation for United Way. Our donor option number is 1517. Please call Tanya Steinberg, President & CEO at 215.895.6527 or e-mail Tanya@ihphilly.org to make your gift or for further information. Thank you for your support!
ihousephilly.org
Become a Member at IHP! As a member supported organization, IHP depends upon member contributions to present our signature contemporary arts and cultural programs, and to continue providing a warm and welcoming environment for the thousands of people who come from around the world and call IHP home year after year. Please help IHP continue to serve our century-long mission by becoming a member today! Flip back through the pages of this magazine, look at all the events taking place at IHP, and consider the variety of subjects covered, the ensuing conversations and dialogue inspired by them, and the way in which this unique programming engages the local and international community. It only happens at International House Philadelphia. With your membership, you will receive free admission to most IHP films in International House’s Ibrahim Theater, as well as free and discounted admission to concerts, language classes and other events and programs presented at IHP. Join today! FOR MORE INFORMATION ON becoming a member visit www.ihousephilly.org/membership or call 215.387.5125 x2
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The Sweater Thursday, March 13 at 7pm Full Exposure Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (Romanzo di unastrage) dir. Marco Tullio Giordana, Italy, 2012, DCP, Italian w/ English subtitles, 129 min.
Marco Tullio Giordana (The Best of Youth) delivers a Machiavellian drama, based on a book by Paolo Cucchiarelli, which dissects the Piazza Fontana bombing, highlighting the manipulations and tragic consequences of the event and subsequent investigations. An explosion at the Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura in Milan in 1969 resulted in 17 deaths and injured dozens more. The protests sweeping Europe and the fear of communism led the police to focus their investigations on anarchist groups. But the Police Commissioner is convinced it’s not that simple. When known nonviolent protestor Giuseppe Pinelli dies in police custody, Calabresi’s enquiries reveal a conspiracy to discredit the Left by foreign and state governments, the police, and the secret service through to neo-fascists. Intriguingly complicated and politically nuanced, Romanzo di unastrage is an ever-twisting conspiracy of lies, intrigue and dirty politics. The meticulously staged real life story is both enthralling and gripping.
ihousephilly.org
Saturday, March 15 at 2pm Family Matinee NFB Shorts Program How to Build an Igloo dir. Douglas Wilkinson, Canada, 1949, 16mm, 11 min.
Les Raquetteurs dirs. Michel Brault & Gilles Groulx, Canada, 1958, 16mm, French w/ English subtitles, 15 min.
Bead Game dir. Ishu Patel, Canada, 1979, 16mm, 6 min.
The Sand Castle dir. Co Hoedeman, Canada, 1977, 16mm, 14 min.
The Sweater dir. Sheldon Cohen, Canada, 1980, 16mm, 11 min.
dir. Ranier Werner Fassbinder, Germany, 1978, 35mm, German w/ English subtitles, 120 min.
Tuesday, March 18 at 7pm Philadelphia à la Pataphysique: Cinema Pataphysique Zazie dans le metro dir. Louis Malle, France, 1960, 35mm, French w/ English subtitles, 92 min.
Maria (Hanna Schygulla) marries Hermann Braun in the last days of World War II, only to have him disappear in the war. Alone, Maria uses her beauty and ambition to prosper in Germany’s “economic miracle” of the 1950’s. Fassbinder’s biggest international boxoffice success and the first part of his “postwar trilogy,” The Marriage of Maria Braun is a heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life, as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past.
A brash and precocious ten-year-old (Catherine Demongeot) comes to Paris for a whirlwind weekend with her rakish uncle (Philippe Noiret); he and the viewer get more than they bargained for, however, in this anarchic comedy from Louis Malle, which rides roughshod over the City of Light. Based on a popular novel by Raymond Queneau that had been considered unadaptable, Malle’s audacious Zaziedans le métro, made with flair on the cusp of the French New Wave, is a bit of stream-of-consciousness slapstick, wall-to-wall with visual gags, editing tricks, and effects.
Saturday, March 15 at 7pm The Janus Collection The Marriage of Maria Braun
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Wednesday, March 19 at 7pm ICA presents Arthur Jafa Born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1961, Arthur Jafa uses film to examine how black cinematic culture operates in relation to the African-American diaspora. He is the director of Slowly This (1995), Tree (1999), and Deshotten1.0 (2009). His cinematography credits include Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991), Spike Lee’s Crooklyn (1994), and Manthia Diawara’s Rouch in Reverse (1995). Jafa is also a cultural critic and his writing has appeared in several publications. Presented in conjunction with Ruffneck Constructivists, a group exhibition curated by artist Kara Walker on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art - University of Pennsylvania from February 12 – August 7, 2014. Ruffneck Constructivists takes inspiration from the song “Ruffneck” by MC Lyte, to bring together a number of artists from a range of cultural backgrounds and media who are known to make challenging work in response to social inequities, work that at the same time maintains a staunchly self-aggrandizing position toward the viewer. As Walker states, Ruffneck Constructivists are defiant shapers of environments. Whatever their gender affiliation, Ruffnecks go hard when all around them they see weakness, softness, compromise, sermonizing, poverty, and lack; they don’t change the world through conscious actions, instead they build themselves into the world one assault at a time. Free admission. ihousephilly.org
Friday, March 21 at 7pm A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness dirs. Ben Rivers & Ben Russell, Estonia/Finland/Norway, 2013, HD, 98 min.
Co-Director Ben Russell in person Co-presented with the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. A Spell follows an unnamed character through three seemingly disparate moments in his life. With little explanation, we join him in the midst of a 15-person collective on a small Estonian island; in isolation in the majestic wilderness of Northern Finland; and during a concert as the singer and guitarist of a black metal band in Norway. Marked by loneliness, ecstatic beauty, and an optimism of the darkest sort, A Spell is a radical proposition for the existence of utopia in the present. Starring musician Robert AA Lowe (best known for his intense live performances under the name Lichens) in the lead role, A Spell lies somewhere between fiction and non-fiction - it is at once a document of experience and an experience itself, an inquiry into transcendence that sees the cinema as a site for transformation.
Wednesday, March 26 at 7pm University of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum Film Series: WOMEN FILM THE WAR ON TERROR Return dir. Liza Johnson, USA, 2011, digital, 97 min. Back from a tour of duty, Kelli (Linda Cardellini) can’t wait to rejoin her old life in the Rust Belt town in which she’s always lived. She’s ready to experience the old feelings of everyday life-the carpet under her bare feet, a cold beer in front of the television, the smell of her baby’s head. But slowly, her world comes to feel unfamiliar. Her friends love her but seem preoccupied with trifles. Her children need more focused attention than she can give, and as much as he tries, her husband Mike (Michael Shannon) doesn’t understand what she’s been through. As Kelli’s dislocation ripples through her world, she risks becoming an outsider. When she’s thrown back on her own resources Kelli has to struggle to find a new way forward.
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Farther Than the Eye Can See Friday, March 28 at 7pm Flaherty on the Road PROGRAM 1: POLITICAL MEMORY Farther than the Eye Can See dir. Basma Alsharif, 2012, digital, 13 min.
An oral history from another time and place. Centered on the account of a Palestinian woman’s exodus from Jerusalem in 1948, Alsharif uses language not as a direct address, but rather as aural and visual material through which to explore personal and political memory and a landscape that no longer exists. Printed Matter dir. Sirah Foighel Brutmann & Eitan Efrat, Belgium, 2011, digital, 29 min.
Printed Matter unpacks an archive of photographs left behind by AndrÊ Brutmann, who was a freelance photographer for the international press in the Middle East. His collection includes both a familiar visual history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (funerals, speeches, armed violence in the streets during both the First and Second Intifadas) and, after the birth of his daughter, Sirah Foighel Brutmann, in 1983, a record of his family life. The archive is presented on a light table by the artist’s mother, Hanne Foighel. As she leafs through the repeating grids of captured moments, both intimate and banal, Foighel reflects on the images, sometimes struggling to recall the exact scenarios, delivering a narrative commentary that layers personal and political histories.
ihousephilly.org
Bete&Deise Bete&Deise dir. Wendelien van Oldenborgh, The Netherlands, 2012, 40 min.
A filmed encounter between two women in an unfinished building in Rio de Janeiro. Exchanging stories about their life and work, Bete Mendes and Deise Tigrona engage in a biographical dialogue about the personal voice in the public sphere. As in much of her previous work, van Oldeborgh casts specific individuals, in lieu of actors, to speak as themselves in her films. Bete Mendes (b. 1949) has been an actress in Brazilian telenovelas since the late 1960s. Alongside this history as a very public figure on television, Mendes maintained a position in political activism and resistance: from being a part of the resistance against the military dictatorship to her involvement in the labor movement, during which time she co-founded the working party Partido dos Trabalhadores. Deise Tigrona (b. 1979) is one of the most powerful voices in the Funk Carioca movement today. Growing up and performing as a singer in the impoverished community of Cidade de Deus, she rose to great international popularity with her music in 2005. The public life that came with fame made it difficult to concentrate on family life, which led to the decision to take a step back from her music career and return to a job closer to home. She has recently started performing again. Though separated by more than a generation, these paired autobiographical monologues come together in conversation, highlighting both the similarities and the differences they encountered in their lives. Wendelien van Oldenborgh weaves together these stories to speak to politics within cultural production and the manifestation of these ideas in the public and the personal lives of these women.
ÇA VA, ÇA VA Saturday, March 29 at 5pm Flaherty on the Road PROGRAM 2: FIGURE-GROUND ÇA VA, ÇA VA (it’s ok, it’s ok, we go on) dir. Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, 2012-13, 31 min.
Abonnenc’s film is a study of memory, amnesia, and the complications of representation in narratives of trauma and revolution. The film begins with a rehearsal for a production of the play A Corda (The Rope), by white Angolan writer Pepetela—a play that was authored during his time as a member of the Peoples’ Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and which was used as a tool for disseminating the work of the MPLA around the country. What follows is a series of scenes which highlight the complications implicit in encountering, representing, and remembering history. Movement in Squares
Village, Silenced Figure-ground dir. Jean-Paul Kelly, 2013, 5 min.
Figure-ground combines animation with appropriated images depicting tragedies which relate, directly and indirectly, to the 2008 global financial crisis, including the suicide of Bernie Madoff’s son and the murder of Trayvon Martin. The film alternates between images Kelly sourced from Internet searches and handdrawn interpretations of the sites where these deaths took place. Hand-drawn colored cells replace the location of the body in the landscape. Village, Silenced dir. Deborah Stratman, 2012, 7 min.
At the center of Deborah Stratman’s reworking of Humphrey Jennings’s 1943 film The Silent Village is the use of sound as a mode of social control. In the film, Welsh coal miners engage in a reenactment of the Nazi invasion of a Czech mining village.
dir. Jean-Paul Kelly, 2013, 13 min.
A two-channel video work configured here for a single-screen presentation, Jean-Paul Kelly’s Movement in Squares is composed of three elements: video appropriated from a Florida-based foreclosure broker who documents the condition of repossessed homes; the artist paging through a catalogue of paintings by the British Op Art pioneer Bridget Riley; and voice-over narration from a 1979 documentary about Riley. In conversation on the screen, these elements put forth questions about representation, ethics, and perception in how we look at images. 32
Saturday, March 29 at 8pm Flaherty on the Road PROGRAM 3: PERPETRATORS The Specialist dir. Eyal Sivan, France, 1999, digital, b&w, 128 min.
The trial of Adolf Eichmann, Nazi SS lieutenant colonel, in 1961 was significant for being the first time a trial was filmed and broadcast on international television. Filmed on four different cameras onto two-inch open-reel videotape, the recordings were directed by Leo Hurwitz, an American documentary filmmaker who had been blacklisted for the twelve years preceding this trial as a result of the McCarthy-era witch hunts. This footage has created a set of iconic images which have widely circulated as recognizable representations of this trial: the quiet, obedient Eichmann seated in a bulletproof glass booth in front of a microphone with headphones over his ears. Though documented extensively, use of this material had always been drawn from the same few hours of footage, out of a total of 350 hours of film. For his film, Sivan negotiated access to the entirety of the archive. Using Hannah Arendt’s book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, as his source and inspiration, Sivan sets out to make a portrait of “an appallingly ordinary man” who insists on his role as being nothing more than an agent, an administrator. Never denying the fierce accusations of the prosecution, Eichmann’s argument in his defense is that he was only following orders, that certainly others would have done the work had he refused his instructions from his superiors. Mining
this vast archive Sivan has constructed a detailed study of one of the most infamous perpetrators of violence in the 20th century. Composed entirely of this footage with no outside commentary or interviews, The Specialist is a study in how archives of images are used, how we understand history through documentary recordings, and how, in the words of Arendt, we comprehend “the banality of evil.”
FREE TO LOVE: THE CINEMA OF THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION Ja nua ry 10 – Februa ry 15
(TH E FO LLOW I N G C O NTA I N S AD U LT C O NTENT)
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I am Curious (Yellow)
Pink Narcissus
Friday, January 10 at 7pm I am Curious (Yellow)
Saturday, January 11 at 5pm Pink Narcissus
dir. Vilgot Sjoman, Sweden, 1967, 35mm, b&w, 121 min.
dir. James Bidgood, US, 1971, 35mm, 71 min.
Seized by customs upon entry to the United States, subject of a heated court battle, and banned in numerous cities, Vilgot Sjöman’s I Am Curious—Yellow is one of the most controversial films of all time. This landmark document of Swedish society during the sexual revolution has been declared both obscene and revolutionary. It tells the story of Lena (Lena Nyman), a searching and rebellious young woman, and her personal quest to understand the social and political conditions in 1960s Sweden, as well as her bold exploration of her own sexual identity. I Am Curious—Yellow is a subversive mix of dramatic and documentary techniques, attacking capitalist injustices and frankly addressing the politics of sexuality.
Photographer James Bidgood shot Pink Narcissus on 8mm in his small New York apartment over the course of seven years, though upon its initial release the director was uncredited. The film is awash in vivid colors as the main character imagines himself in a series of erotically charged fantasies that draw on mythological themes and surrealistic tableaux. Pink Narcissus is an enduring classic of early Queer cinema.
Preceded by: Touch Cinema
Oblivion
dir. Valie Export, Austria, 1968, HD, 1 min.
Preceded by: Jabbok dir. Tom Chomont, US, 1967, 16mm, 3 min. dir. Tom Chomont, US 1969, 16mm, 6 min.
Deep Throat Saturday, January 11 at 7pm In the Realm of the Senses
Saturday, January 11 at 10pm Deep Throat
dir. Nagisa Oshima, Japan, 1976, 35mm, 109 min.
dir. Gerard Damiano, US, 1972, 35mm, 61 min.
Still censored in its own country, In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no corrida), by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, remains one of the most controversial films of all time. A graphic portrayal of insatiable sexual desire, Oshima’s film, set in 1936 and based on a true incident, depicts a man and a woman (Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda) consumed by a transcendent, destructive love while living in an era of ever escalating imperialism and governmental control. Less a work of pornography than of politics, In the Realm of the Senses is a brave, taboo-breaking milestone.
Introduced by Karl McCool of Dirty Looks NYC A landmark of erotic cinema, Deep Throat is credited for kicking off the “porno chic” trend of the early 1970’s. The unlikely story of a woman whose clitoris is located in her throat, the film found a popular audience amongst celebrities, film critics, and average Americans alike. Perhaps the most iconic X-rated film ever made, Deep Throat reinforced a hetero-normative, phallic oriented vision of sexuality and received backlash from conservative sectors of society as well as the more liberal minded. The film’s star eventually denounced her role in the film and began a crusade against pornography in the 1980s. Preceded by: Confessions dir. Curt McDowell, US, 1972, 16mm, b&w, 16 min.
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Flaming Creatures Thursday, January 16 at 7pm Shorts Program Introduced by MM Serra Flaming Creatures dir. Jack Smith, US, 1963, 16mm, b&w, 45 min.
Fuses dir. Carolee Schneemann, US, 1967, 16mm, 30 min.
Lovemaking dir. Scott Bartlett, US, 1970, 16mm, 13 min.
Schmeerguntz dir. Gunvor Nelson/Dorothy Wiley, US, 1965, 16mm, b&w, 15 min.
6/64 Mama & Papa: An Otto Muehl Happening dir. Kurt Kren, Austria, 1964, 16mm, b&w, 4 min.
Friday, January 17 at 7pm Freedom to Love dir. Phyllis & Eberhardt Kronhausen, West Germany, 1969, 35mm, 90 min.
Introduced by Eric Schaefer The husband and wife team of doctors Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen were early advocates of sexual freedom who advanced their theories through art exhibitions, critical writing, and filmmaking. Part documentary, part exploitation film, Freedom to Love is a treatise on the social need for healthier attitudes toward sex. Covering a broad range of topics and historical factors, the film uses interviews along with reenactments and archival material to illustrate an enlightened view of sex and sexuality.
The Telephone Book Saturday, January 18 at 5pm Gift (aka Venom)
Saturday, January 18 at 8pm The Telephone Book
dir. Knud Leif Thomsen, Denmark, 1966, 35mm, b&w, 96 min.
dir. Nelson Lyon, US, 1971, HD, b&w/color, 81 min.
In its original version, this film contained snippets of explicit hardcore pornography which gave the authorities fits. A compromise was reached which consisted of placing large white crosses over the offending scenes rather than cutting them out. Debate raged in the media over the issue and, thanks largely to this film, censorship was abolished in Denmark in 1969. The film was intended as a warning against the wave of unbridled hedonism looming on the horizon but ironically helped pave the way for precisely the kind of excesses it preached against. Focusing on a young hedonist named Per who preaches the gospel of the flesh to his new girlfriend and her upper-class family into which he insinuates himself, Gift was actually a heated polemic against pornography. Largely forgotten today, it is an overlooked masterpiece from a moment in time when Denmark was transforming from an isolated backwater on the fringes of Europe into the most liberal society on the face of the earth.
A major, though forgotten, work from New York’s underground film scene of the late 60s and early 70s, Nelson Lyon’s The Telephone Book tells the story of Alice, a sex-obsessed hippie who falls in love with the world’s greatest obscene phone caller and embarks on a quest to find him. Her journey introduces her to an avant-garde stag filmmaker, a manipulative psychiatrist, a lesbian housewife, and more. Photographed in high-contrast black-and-white, and punctuated with a remarkable, surreal color animated sequence, The Telephone Book features appearances by Jill Clayburgh, Warhol superstars Ultra Violet and Ondine (Warhol himself was alleged to have been filmed but never made it into the final cut) and legendary voiceover talent Norman Rose. Preceded by: Desire Pie dir. Lisa Crafts, US, 1976, 16mm, 5 min.
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Saturday, January 18 at 10 pm Fritz the Cat
Thursday, January 23 at 7pm The Set
dir. Ralph Bakshi, US, 1972, 35mm, 78 min.
dir. Frank Brittain, Australia, 1970, 35mm, b&w, 102 min.
Let’s not restrict the art of sexual-political transgression to human actors; we also bring you the first animated feature to receive an Xrating in the United States. Based on the comic series by cult legend Robert Crumb, Ralph Bakshi’s controversial adaptation follows the misadventures and musings of the bold, sex-obsessed tomcat (and university student), Fritz. Navigating a range of neighborhoods and subcultures in 1960s New York City, Fritz experiences both hedonistic and sociopolitical awakenings. Through a whirlwind of encounters with drugs, group sex, rallies, and riots against porcine police, Fritz endures various transformations, humiliating failures, wild triumphs, and losses rendered as anything but cartoonish. Transgressive in content and form, Bakshi’s Fritz takes pungent jabs at the clichés of counterculture and Disney’s sanitation of the animation medium. While some dismiss Fritz for its crassness and political incorrectness, others laud the film as a gem of avant-garde animation.
“Impotency, homosexuality, frustration, nymphomania, lesbianism, bedroom antics… You name it, it’s in The Set, a film soon to be premiered in Melbourne!” A rarely-seen, low-budget oddity, The Set is notable as the first Australian feature film with homosexual themes. Chock full of nudity and high camp, director Frank Brittain examines what happens when a young man checks out of his humdrum life falls in with ‘the set,’ the Sydney high society crowd. The film has never before been available on home video, though the groovy lounge and jazz/pop score by Sven Libaek has been reissued by the esteemed Trunk Records. Paul is a young working-class man who sells shirts at a Sydney department store and dreams of going to art school. When his girlfriend leaves for London, he becomes the protégé of renowned designer Marie Rosefield. Marie belongs to ‘the set,’ an upperclass clique of artists and eccentrics. These new connections offer Paul a job as set designer for flamboyant British stage director John L. Fredericks. Helping Paul is Tony, a handsome student who is dating Paul’s cousin. As Paul becomes part of ‘the set,’ he begins a homosexual relationship with Tony. As the deadline for the set approaches, Paul starts to question his values and those of his new friends.
Friday, January 24 at 7pm Score dir. Radley Metzger, US/Yugoslavia, 1972, HD, 95 min.
Introduced by Elena Gorfinkel, followed by a discussion between Gorfinkel and director Radley Metzger Score, Radley Metzger’s fantastical and lush portrait of swinger culture, as well as a vanguard in the still-limited canon of bisexual erotic cinema, has rightfully garnered cult status. Set in the mythical city of Leisure, located “deep within the erogenous zone,” Score follows the exploits of a middle-aged married couple as they challenge each other to seduce a couple of naïve newlyweds. After luring their conquests into their luxurious home, they play a whirlwind of games, playful and provocative, incorporating mind and body. Score charts the sexual coming-of-age of this young couple, replete with sexual identity crises and revelatory awakenings. Furnishing the decadent party with a colorful and resplendent abundance of props and costumes (nuns, policemen, cowboys...), Metzger lends ample screen time to the kinky and fetishistic. Depicting an impressive range of sexual practices, supplemented with hilarious narration, Score makes for an entertaining and constantly surprising viewing experience, eschewing banalities and familiar constellations.
Saturday, January 25 at 5pm Hot Times (aka My Erotic Fantasies) dir. Jim McBride, US, 1974, 35mm, 80 min.
Also known as A Hard Day For Archie, Jim McBride’s Hot Times is a farce on teenage male sexual frustration and bad timing, featuring both basketball games and blue balls. Set amidst a culture of sexual liberation and all that it promises, the film follows Archie Anders, a self-proclaimed “all-American guy who just wants to get laid,” on his restless wanderings and missteps through high school and the streets of Manhattan on New Year’s Eve. Archie is determined to get his rocks off by the end of the night, after multiple curtailed encounters. Adding to his frustration, Archie shares a bedroom with his sex-hungry older sister, is caught spying in the girls’ locker room, and unwittingly stumbles into a hotel room porn shoot, where he even has a brief opportunity to take part. Hot Times had no easy time finding distribution. Altered by its producers to avoid an X-rating in the U.S., its dialogue has been amply bleeped out and replaced with the cartoonish sound of a cuckoo (a fitting complement to the ‘boi-oi-oing’ sound effects marking Archie’s arousal), and several shots have been masked. Further cuts were made by British censors and distributors. While the film and its protagonist similarly struggled to find release, we leave it up to you to discover if satisfaction is delivered in the end.
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I, a Man Saturday, January 25 at 7pm I, a Man
Saturday, January 25 at 9pm Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
dir. Andy Warhol, US, 1967, 16mm, 97 min.
dir. Paul Mazursky, US, 1969, 35mm, 105 min.
After the success of My Hustler New York’s Hudson Theater requested Andy Warhol make another feature film to capitalize on the emerging “sexploitation” market. Inspired by the popular Swedish import I, a Woman, released in the U.S. the previous year, I, a Man follows the main character in a series of encounters with women that never quite add up to sexual intercourse. The film stars Tom Baker, Nico, Ultra Violet, and Valerie Solanas, who agreed to appear in the film after offering Warhol the script for her film “Up You Ass,” which Warhol later claimed he had lost. Jim Morrison had originally agreed to play the lead character but after The Doors’ management discouraged it he suggested Baker. Unlike Warhol’s earlier “durational” films, I, a Man was heavily edited and includes a considerable amount of the strobe cutting technique which he used in many other films from this period.
Hollywood’s response to the sexual revolution is quite aptly captured in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. As wife swapping and swinging had migrated to middle America by the late sixties, the film chronicles one adventurous couple’s attempt to convert their slightly more conventional friends replete with a host of hippieera tropes about self-fulfullment and free love. Though nowhere near as racy or titillating as some of the erotic films of the time, B&C&T&A is an excellent and pointed criticism of some of the more far flung ideas being posited by the new “sexually liberated” generation.
Preceded by: Mario Banana no. 2 dir. Andy Warhol, US, 1964, 16mm, b/w, 3 min.
Riverbody
Eyetoon
Thursday, January 30 at 7pm Radical Sex Education Films from San Francisco’s Multi-Media Resource Center
considering the radical sex education films that were offered through the MMRC. Special thanks to the University of Delaware Library Film and Video Collection for providing rare prints for this program.
The Multi-Media Resource Center (MMRC) was a radical organization based in San Francisco during the 1970s and 1980s. Founded under the Glide Methodist Church (an important organizing place for gay and lesbian activists), MMRC leaders and reverends Ted McIlvenna and Laird Sutton believed sexuality was their ministry, with a vital part of their mission done through the creation and distribution of films. But the films produced by the MMRC are not your typical sex education films. Produced with the aesthetics of the nascent New American Cinema, at times they look as if Jonas Mekas or Gregory Markopoulos went hardcore, with rushing handheld cinematography, double and triple exposures, and soundtracks ranging from psychedelic folk to raga music.
A Quickie
In addition to producing films, the MMRC distributed a wide variety of films, including some legendary experimental films by filmmakers like Barbara Hammer, Gunvor Nelson, Scott Bartlett and James Broughton. These films were divorced from their context in avant garde cinema and placed into a greatly different context, that of sex therapy and education. Who knows how many times Jerry Abrams’ psychosexual, candy-colored cine-poem Eyetoon was screened for unsuspecting viewers in this context? Other films, like A Quickie and Love Toad were humorous, randy films meant to “lighten the mood” of an otherwise weighty screening session.
Fullness
This collection of films is the first retrospective screening
Orange
dir. Dirk Kortz, US, 1970, 16mm, 2 min.
Rich and Judy dir. Laird Sutton, US, 1970, 16mm, 12 min.
Riverbody dir. Alice Ann Parker, US, 1970, 16mm, 7 min.
Holding dir. Constance Beeson, US, 1971, 16mm, 13 min.
Love Toad dir. Greg Von Buchau, US, 1970, video, 2 min. dir. Laird Sutton, US, 1974, 16mm, 13 min.
First Date dir. Mariko Tse, US, 1976, video, 5 min.
Eyetoon dir. Jerry Abrams, US, 1968, 16mm, 7 min.
Unfolding dir. Constance Beeson, US, 1969, 16mm, 16 min. dir. Karen Johnson, US, 1971, 16mm, 3 min.
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Breath of Love Friday, January 31 at 7pm Pat Rocco Shorts Program Introduced by Whitney Strub An evening of short films by an important pioneer of queer cinema. Special thanks to the UCLA Film & Television Archive. A Special Friend 1967, 15 min.
A Matter of Life 1968, 14 min.
Sex and the Single Gay – trailer 1970, 4 min.
Breath of Love 1969, 20 min.
How to Shoot a Nude on the Freeway 1969, 4 min.
Sign of Protest 1970, 20 min.
Yes 1968, 23 min.
Discovery 1969, 12 min.
Saturday, February 1 at 5pm Barbarella dir. Roger Vadim, US/France/Italy, 1968, HD, 98 min.
French director Roger Vadim’s science-fiction comic-strip adaptation Barbarella positions Jane Fonda as a sexy, interstellar super-heroine who is searching for Dr. Durand Durand in a remote region of space. While the film was a critical and box office failure it is now widely considered a cult classic. Fonda, who was married to director Vadim at the time, vacillates between liberated feminist icon and sex object, which is perhaps why the film failed to make an impact in the politically charged 1960s.
No More Excuses Saturday, February 1 at 7pm No More Excuses
Saturday, February 1 at 10pm Boys in the Sand
dir. Robert Downey Sr., US, 1968, 16mm, b/w, 46 min.
dir. Wakefield Poole, US, 1971, HD, 90 min.
Downey takes his camera and microphone onto the streets (and into some bedrooms) for a look at Manhattan’s singles scene of the late sixties. Of course, that’s not all: No More Excuses cuts between this footage and the fragmented tale of a time-traveling Civil War soldier, a rant from the director of the fictional Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, and other assorted improprieties.
One of the first films to bring porn to the mainstream, it’s hard to imagine now the impact that Boys in the Sand had upon its release. With a heavy press campaign that included full-page ads in The New York Times and Variety, the film was a smash hit and helped usher in the Golden Age of Porn, paving the way for later successes like Deep Throat and Beyond the Green Door.
Followed by: The Continuing Story of Carel & Ferd
Boys in the Sand follows Casey Donovan and his all-male encounters on Fire Island. The lyrical imagery and pastoral idealism of the settings are intercut generously with hardcore action and vice-versa. Filmmaker Wakefield Poole was looking to create a film of “high profile homosexuality with no guilt.”
dir. Arthur Ginsburg w/ Video Free America, US, 1970-75, video, 59 min.
A fascinating hybrid of performance and video verité, The Continuing Story of Carel and Ferd introduces Carel and Ferd, a couple who allowed Ginsberg to produce an ongoing documentary record of the intimate moments of their relationship. Carel, a porn actress, and Ferd, a drug addict, invite the camera to participate in their wedding, their sex life, and their break-up. Produced before the landmark PBS documentary An American Family introduced television audiences to the live-in camera — and many decades before the ubiquity of reality television — this document raises questions about the relationship between subject and camera, privacy and manipulation. Originally presented as an installation, this one-hour version, which includes interviews with Carel, Ferd and Ginsberg, was distilled from thirty hours of footage recorded from 1970 to 1975.
While the porno chic era came on strong thanks to Boys in the Sand and other hits of the early 1970s, it was not to last. The 1980s brought the invention of home video, which brought porn from a collectively experienced phenomenon to something to be watched in private, ultimately changing the material into something less narrative-based and more sexually explicit and illicit. But Boys in the Sand provides a look back to the beginnings of porn’s Golden Age, a time when the aesthetics and spirit of independent filmmaking still seeped into the X-movies.
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It is Not... Friday, February 8 at 5pm It is Not the Homosexual who is Perverse, But the Society in Which he Lives dir. Rosa von Praunheim, Germany, 1971, 16mm, 67 min.
“Defining the gay ghetto as a state of mind, a product of internalized heterosexual values, Praunheim takes a dime-novel story about one man’s journey to liberation and uses it to assail media-created romantic illusions, capitalist principles, and sexist role-playing.” David, a young man from the country, arrives in Berlin where he meets Clemens and lives with him in bourgeois domesticity. The relationship ends when David becomes involved with a wealthy older gentleman, but this liaison is also shortlived. The film then follows the young man as he explores the various options of the gay world: street cruising, the bar life, the “rough trade” of public lavatories and the transvestite cabaret scene. In the end, David’s friend Paul takes him to a gay communal flat where the group discusses his problems and helps him realize that he has been leading a superficial life. They suggest that he become politically involved and join with other gay people in the fight for freedom. It’s Not the Homosexual Who is Perverse But the Situation in Which He Lives courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Preceded by: Queens at Heart dir. Southeastern Pictures Corporation, US, 1967, 35mm, 22 min.
Friday, February 8 at 7pm WR: Mysteries of the Organism dir. Dušan Makavejev, Yugoslavia, 1971, 35mm, 85 min.
Introduced by J. Hoberman “Comrade-lovers: for your health’s sake, fuck freely!” Serbian raconteur Dušan Makavejev’s WR: Mysteries of the Organism was so sexually and politically controversial it was banned in the director’s home country and resulted in his exile for the next seventeen years. The film, a fiction-documentary hybrid, uses the life and theories of psychiatrist/sexologist Wilhelm Reich as a jumping off point to discuss the revolutionary potential of human sexuality, not only in terms of personal freedom but also in the realms of global politics and economics. Seemingly disparate episodes (such as counterculture musician Tuli Kupferberg stalking a passerby dressed as an oversexed G.I. or a meeting of the underground magazine Screw with editors working in the buff) punctuate and surround the central narrative of Milena, a young Serbian feminist who is fixated upon an ice skater not coincidentally named Vladimir Ilyich (after Bolshevik leader Lenin). Out of the strong wave of revolutionary Eastern European cinema being produced around the time WR: Mysteries of the Organism pushes the boundaries of subversive filmmaking the farthest, creating an incendiary, radical argument for global sexual liberation. It’s no wonder legendary film critic Amos Vogel featured the film on the cover of his book Film as a Subversive Art, in which he called it “a tribute to the ultimate power of ideas over institutions.”
Dyketactics x 2 Thursday, February 13 at 7pm Barbara Hammer Early Short Films Introduced and followed by a discussion with Barbara Hammer A Gay Day, US, 1973, 16mm, 3 min. Menses, US, 1974, 16mm, 4 min. Dyketactics X 2, US, 1974, 16mm, 8 min. Women I Love, US, 1976, 16mm, 27 min. Multiple Orgasm, US, 1977, 16mm, 10 min. Double Strength, US, 1978, 16mm, 15 min. No No Nooky TV, US, 1987, 16mm, 10 min.
Everything... Friday, February 14 at 7pm Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * (But Were Afraid to Ask) dir. Woody Allen, US, 1972, 35mm, 88 min.
Inspired by the controversial book of the same name by Dr. David Rueben, Allen addresses a variety of “helpful” questions (“What is Sodomy?”, “What Happens During Ejaculation?”) through a series of outrageous vignettes. Featuring performances from Gene Wilder, Burt Reynolds, and Louise Lasser, Everything You Always Wanted to Know… is the ultimate parody of the popular pseudo-science that emerged during the sexual revolution. Preceded by: The Bed dir. James Broughton, US, 1968, 16mm, 20 min.
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Saturday, February 15 at 8pm I am Curious (Blue) dir. Vilgot Sjoman, Sweden, 1967, 35mm, b&w, 107 min.
A parallel film to Vilgot Sjöman’s controversial I Am Curious— Yellow, I Am Curious—Blue also follows young Lena on her journey of self-discovery. In Blue, Lena confronts issues of religion, sexuality, and the prison system, while at the same time exploring her own personal relationships. Like Yellow, Blue freely traverses the lines between fact and fiction, employing a mix of dramatic and documentary techniques.
International House Philadelphia:
A Unique Location for Your Next Event or Meeting! Whether you are planning a business conference, an intimate soiree, an executive meeting, or a large social event, International House Philadelphia has the space and services to meet your needs and make your event a success. Located in the heart of Philadelphia’s University City, IHP has over 8,500 square feet of available space with the capacity to meet the needs of groups as small as 10, or as large as 600. IHP’s Ibrahim Theater The Ibrahim Theater is a fully-equipped, multipurpose theater facility. Featuring a state-of-the-art concert sound-system, we can accommodate a variety of music presentations from small acoustic ensembles to fully amplified 10+ piece bands. The Ibrahim Theater is ideal for film and video screenings, with the capability to project 16mm and 35mm film as well as most video formats including DigiBeta, BetaSP, DVD, Blu-ray and miniDV. Additional devices can be incorporated into our system. There is also access from the stage, which is perfect for PowerPoint lectures and other visual presentations. Our lighting system is equipped with a digital lighting board. With a knowledgeable staff able to assist you, we can provide a complete package for most events. South America Room At almost 2,000 square feet, with a capacity of up to 150, South America is our most versatile space with a great view and an outdoor balcony. It is ideal for large seminars and classes, as well as receptions. Australia Lounge A uniquely designed atrium space, the Australia Lounge is an attractive setting for receptions, breakfasts, and as a breakout space for conferences, accommodating up to 100 for stand-up events and 50 for a seated gathering or meeting. Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America Rooms These rooms, which accommodate 10 to 60 people, are ideal for small board meetings, seminars, retreats, classes and conference breakout space. The Asia and Africa Rooms can be combined to form a larger meeting space. To inquire about hosting your event in IHP’s Ibrahim Theater or any of our other wonderful event spaces, please email events@ihphilly.org or call 215.895.6539.
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Great reasons to live at ihp • Free & Discounted admission to events • Convenient location • 24-hour security staff • Computer lab with web access • Resident cafÉ on premises • Leadership development programs • tv lounge + recreation center • discounted gYM membership • long And short term housing • laundry facilities & utilities included If you are a student, scholar, or professional trainee looking for an apartment or room in Philadelphia, consider International House. IHP is a multicultural residential center, and a source of distinctive arts and cultural programming. We are a warm and friendly living environment; a home for nearly 1,000 people from as many as 95 different countries around the world annually, including the US, who attend area colleges and universities. As a resident of International House, you’ll not only enjoy the privacy and quiet of our apartments and single rooms, you’ll also develop relationships while making friends with others from around the world, and become part of a unique community where all cultures are celebrated and shared. Our residents enjoy the benefits of IHP membership, receiving free admission and access to films, concerts, cultural events, art exhibits, leadership seminars, executive networking events and more throughout the year. Inquire today and start enjoying life at the intersection of Philadelphia and the World! housing@ihphilly.org, 215.895.6540, www.ihousephilly.org/student-housing
getting here International House Philadelphia is located at 3701 Chestnut Street, in the University City neighborhood, one block south of Market Street and one block north of Walnut Street. Public Transportation: It’s a short walk from either of the Green Line’s 36th Street stops or the Market-Frankford El’s 34th Street stop. From Center City, take the 21 bus west on Walnut Street to 37th Street. From West Philly, take the 21 bus east on Chestnut to 37th. Parking: It’s easy to park in University City! Discounted parking for International House patrons is available at the Science Center Parking Garage, 3665 Market Street. A special rate of $5 per vehicle is effective after 4pm until 7am, Monday through Friday plus all day Saturday & Sunday. Please bring your parking stub to IHP’s Front Desk to be stamped when attending events. Plenty of street parking, free after 8pm, is available on Chestnut and Market Streets and throughout the neighborhood. Contact Us: General Information 215.387.5125 or info@ihphilly.org
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Executive Office Tanya Steinberg, President + CEO Clara Fomich, Executive Assistant + Office Manager Institutional Advancement + Development Elina Cher, Manager of Individual Engagement Jessamyn Falcone, Development Services Manager Lauren Fenimore, Foundations Research Manager Arts, Communications + Events William Parker, Director of Arts, Communications + Events Sasha Dages, Marketing + Communications Manager Patrick DiGiacomo, Box Office + Membership Manager Cory Espinosa, Junior Graphic Designer Jim Fraatz, Production and House Manager Justin Miller, Graphic Designer Robert Cargni-Mitchell, Programs Curator + Projectionist Roshni Patel, Conference Center Manager Jesse Pires, Programs Curator Herb Shellenberger, Programs Office Manager Farah Siah, Language Program Manager Admissions, Resident + Alumni Services Glenn D. Martin, Director of Admissions + Resident Life Michael T. Beachem IV, Associate Director of Resident Life Edwin Garcia, Admissions Coordinator Emily Martin, Admissions Coordinator Yun Joon Park, Front Desk Coordinator Marlon Patton, Cashier + Front Desk Manager Sarvelia N. Peralta-Duran, Alumni Relations Director Business Office Lina Yankelevich, Director of Finance Angela Bachman, Finance Manager Anna Wang, HR Coordinator Building Services, Operations + Public Safety Scott Drinnan, Director of HR + Services Moshe Caspi, Security Services + Systems Manager Deborah Sara Houda, Customer Service + Facilities Manager Larry Moore, Lead Security Guard Raj Persad, Building Operations Manager Alexander Rivkin, Information Systems + Technology Manager Althelson Towns, Facilities Supervisor Facilities, Maintenance + Security Services David Kodzo Gasonu Amar Persad George Azvolinsky Sylvie Hoeto Ronald Persaud Reginald Brown Mirjana Janic Ronald Smith Melvin Caranda Yefim Klurfeld Linda Stanton Phillip Carter Esther Kpakah Adrian Stephen Joseph Clinton Jr. Vipin Maxwell Robert Wooten Moifee Dorley Lulzim Myrtaj Semere Dugassa
Nonprofit. Org. US Postage PAID Philadelphia, PA Permit No. 5335
3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
IHP is an independent, member supported non-profit. JOIN TODAY! International House Philadelphia is a multicultural residential center, a source of distinctive programming, and the embodiment of an ideal. It has a critical three-fold mission: to maintain a diverse and welcoming community for scholars from around the world, while introducing them to the American experience; to broaden the horizons of its residents and the Greater Philadelphia community through high quality international arts and humanities programs; and to encourage understanding, respect, and cooperation among the people of all nations. www.ihousephilly.org International House Philadelphia: THE NEXUS BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL CULTURE AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS The generous support of our Members, Friends and Benefactors allows International House Philadelphia to continue the tradition of offering lifelong learning through the Arts, Culture and Humanities to an increasing number of people each year. 1st Advantage Abstract, LLC, Alpin W Cameron Foundation, Arcadia University, Audrey Allen Immigration Law, LLC, The Bartlett Foundation, Citibank, City of Philadelphia Department of Commerce, Connelly Foundation, Dentex Dental Group, Ltd, Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, Drexel University, Drexel University Office of International Programs, Elliott Lewis Corporation, EPAM Systems, eXude Benefits Group, Inc., Gap International, GMI Contractors, Graboyes Commercial Window Company, Greenfield Intercultural Center, HSBC Bank USA, The Jerome M. and Anne Zaslow Family Fund, Laura Solomon and Associates, Levon Nazarian Foundation, Masterpieces Fine Art & Custom Framing, Inc, Max Hansen Caterer, Momentum Partners, LLC, National Endowment for the Arts, Oliver Fire Protection & Security, Penn Cleaning, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, The Philadelphia Foundation, Philadelphia University, Philip Rosenau Co., Inc., PNC Bank, Progressive Business Publications, Prometrics, Inc., RBS Citizens Bank, Real Property Solutions LLC, The Rittenhouse Foundation, Scribe Video Center, Shelly Electric Company, Sheraton Philadelphia University City Hotel, Shox Surgical, South Jersey Periodontics & Dental Implants LLC, Stelmakh & Associates, Stephen Philibosian Foundation, Tiagha & Associates Ltd., Temple University, Temple University Department of Film and Media Arts, University City Science Center, University of Pennsylvania, University of the Sciences, Wells Fargo Bank, Zipcar, Zoll, LLC We are also thankful for the support of our in-kind donors and the many generous members and annual donors.