Fests and events, 5/9.

By David Hudson on 05/09/2009

"The Japanese documentarian Kazuo Hara's first film, 'Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974,' begins with a black-and-white photograph of Hara's ex-lover, Takeda Miyuki," writes the L Magazine's Mark Asch. "The camera zooms in on the photograph, so that we make out individual pores, individual pixels. Then the title. This film - which screens [tonight] at Light Industry, with Hara making a very rare US appearance - is about the camera as a tool of obsession and possession."

"This year's New York Asian Film Festival runs from June 19 - July 5 at the IFC Center (June 19 - July 2) and Japan Society (July 1 - 5)." And it's hardly a surprise to see that the lineup's already looking pretty amazing: "[T]his year we say 'fiddle dee dee' to the economic apocalypse and we're singing in the rain of fire and brimstone that heralds the end of the world. It's our biggest, most ridiculous festival ever!"

"In an unprecented move for a major US film festival, AFI Fest in Los Angeles will offer free tickets to all screenings at this year's event, set for October 30th to November 7th." IndieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez reports.

"Less than 24 hours after decimating two ancient Buddhas carved on an Afghan hillside in March 1996, a Jeep of heavily armed Taliban guards stormed the gates of Kabul's National Film Archive intent on destroying what lay inside." Arifa Akbar in the Independent: "Little did their commander know when he swept through the archives and burned as many prints as he could find that he had been tricked. Up to 6,000 of the most prized reels of Afghan films were hidden behind a hastily built false wall.... Among the reels was the country's first feature film, 'Rabia Balkhi,' which told the true story of the eponymous first and only queen of Afghanistan, who wrote Sufi poetry infused with erotic allegories, fell passionately in love with a court slave and was murdered by her jealous brother.... Now, two decades after it was last played before a cinema audience, the epic is to be shown tomorrow at the Tricycle Theatre in London as part of the Afghanistan Film Festival, an event that is little short of momentous for the wartorn country's filmmakers."

"Rooftop Films has announced the first half of their ridiculously cool summer outdoor series - their 13th, and always one of the best things about being in New York for the season." Alison Willmore picks out a few highlights from the lineup so far.

"Kim Longinotto is England's answer to Frederick Wiseman," writes Michael Tully. "While I confess to having seen only five of Longinetto's films - I know, shame on me - with MoMA's yummy retrospective devoted to her incredibly warm, inquisitive, and humane body of work, we lucky New Yorkers finally get a chance to play catch-all-the-way-up." Through May 23.

"Jancsó Classics" are screening through today at the Walter Reade in New York. The L Magazine's Mark Asch writes up two, "The Red and the White" and "The Round-Up."

"In the Realm of Oshima" arrives at LACMA. Aaron Hillis has a couple of recommendations in the LA Weekly. Doug Cummings previews "Death by Hanging" (1968) and "Boy" (1969). And from LACMA's Bernardo Rondeau: "In anticipation of this retrospective, I exchanged emails with the film series's curator: Cinematheque Ontario senior programmer James Quandt." Through May 23.

"The redoubtable folks at Film on Film Foundation, dedicated to screening films strictly on celluloid, move to the Roxie Cinema this Sunday to show the very first features of Stanley Kubrick and Robert Altman." A preview from Michael Guillén.

Basil Tsiokos has a Hot Docs roundup at indieWIRE, where Peter Knegt reports: "Simon El Habre's 'The One Man Village' and Hubert Davis's 'Invisible City' were the recipients of the fest's two big prizes, with 'Village' taking the Best International Feature Award and 'City' winning the Best Canadian Feature Award." Related online viewing: Ray Pride is posting quick interviews and just generally capturing the atmo.

"In the 1960s and 1970s, Nam June Paik, and many of his pioneering video artist colleagues and Fluxus collaborators took the visionary work of [Norbert] Wiener, the electric prophesies of McLuhan and Gregory Bateson and the utopic designs of Buckminster Fuller and concurred that the new video medium would usher in a social utopia that would extend far beyond the spheres of the 1970s experimental art world." Carolyn Kane for Rhizome: "For these early media artists, the feedback loops, live circuits, and video flows, coupled with the electronic image's immediate and physiological stimulations, when used in distinction to commercial models, posited potent possibilities for cybernetic consciousness, ecological human-machine systems, and an end to top-down power relations. In short, the rise of an egalitarian, democratic society through electronic media. In order to fully appreciate Paik's work, we must remember this historical context. A solo show is now on view at the James Cohan Gallery in Chelsea, 'Nam June Paik: Live Feed: 1972 -1994.'" Through May 30.

"The Milwaukee Underground Film Festival may be student-run at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, but every year they put on a world-class fest of fantastic avant-garde and experimental film and video work from around the globe." Mike Everleth's got the lineup. Through Sunday.

For the Washington Post, Dan Zak previews Politics on Film, "a festival debuting this weekend that hopes to distinguish itself from the rest of the District's cramped film calendar, which already features several established festivals (Filmfest DC, Silverdocs) that program politically minded movies."

Luke McKernan has the program for this year's British Silent Film Festival. June 4 through 6.

"Darren Aronofsky, Steven Soderbergh and Sam Mendes were [Wednesday] confirmed as in the programme, and on the guestlist, for this year's Edinburgh film festival," reports Ben Child for the Guardian. "All directors will participate in on stage Q&A's, as well as debuting their new films." Peter Knegt has more on the lineup at indieWIRE. The festival runs from June 17 through 28.

"Julien Duvivier's films, currently being retrospected at New York's Museum of Modern Art, form such a rich, neglected body of work, that seeing several at a time is like turning a familiar street corner and finding oneself faced with an exotic, lost continent, a primordial forest of glistening, sometimes decaying, celluloid." David Cairns in The Auteurs' Notebook. Also, he finds that "La Belle Équipe" has "definite pleasures, with snappy dialogue, a smooth tonal shift from light to dark, Jean Gabin shouting, singing and carousing, and a guest appearance by Robert Lynen, the young star of the 1930s 'Poil de carotte.' Viviane Romance, later of 'Panique,' plays a classic Duvivier tramp (a misogynist streak is emerging in the Great Director) who ruins men's lives and gets away with it (which makes a refreshing change)."

"Ten films under 10 minutes long and made for less than $10." Anne S Lewis previews the "10 Under 10" program for the Austin Chronicle. May 13.

"Clandestí: Forbidden Catalan Cinema Under Franco" runs through Tuesday. James Van Maanen has an overview while Acquarello reviews "Sexperiencias" and "Lock-Out."

"The Venice Film Festival will unspool a second installment of its revered vintage cinema Italiano retro titled 'These Phantoms 2: Italian Cinema Rediscovered,'" reports Nick Vivarelli for Variety. September 2 through 12.

Brockamania! A month's worth of films by Lino Brocka at Magnet Katipunan in Manila. Previewed by Noel Vera.

"'The question is: What's not "Expanded Cinema"?' artist Malcolm Le Grice noted during Tate Modern's sold-out conference April 17 - 19, which featured three days of films, performances, and presentations on the subject." A report from Melissa Gronlund for Artforum.

Susan King rounds up local goings on for the Los Angeles Times.

"Jonathan Horowitz. Apocalypto Now." At the Museum Ludwig in Cologne through August 23.

Online viewing tips. Mike Everleth has "three short films that screened as part of the Boston Underground Film Festival's curated program called 'Psychedelicinema.' And yes, all three films are pretty trippy."

[Photo: "Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974," Shisso Production, 1974]

Tags: AFI Fest 2009, Edinburgh 2009, Hot Docs 2009, Julien Duvivier, Kazuo Hara, Kim Longinotto, Lino Brocka, Nagisa Oshima, Nam June Paik, NYAFF 2009, Rooftop Films