Week of Wonders

Photo Op: New York City Greek Film Festival's busy actor, Vangelis Mourikis

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 12:07:04 GMT

10-24-11: Vangelis Mourikis, star of Attenberg, Knifer, and Tungsten in the 5th Annual NYCGFF

Ongoing now is the 5th Annual New York Greek Film Festival, with many films screening at the SVA Theater in Chelsea and the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Three selections star one very busy actor, Vangelis Mourikis-- Attenberg (in competition for a nomination in Oscar's Best Foreign Film category), Knifer and Tungsten. Mourikis told me that he forsees an influx of artistic endeavors during the Greek economic crisis, with perhaps some solutions to the countries woes, but certainly reflecting the times and the political climate.

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Photo Op: 2011 NYFF Press Conference for THE DESCENDANTS- Alexander Payne and George Clooney

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:14:39 GMT

10-16-11: Auteur Alexander Payne mines the humanity in every story, as he did in his thought provoking new film

10-16-11: George Clooney effuses an inner light, as he did in the melancholic The Descendants

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Photo Op: Lech Majewski and THE MILL & THE CROSS (based on Bruegel's "The Way to Calvary")

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 06:09:48 GMT

09-14-11: At the Polish Consulate, director Lech Majewski in front of a video installation based on his "living painting" film, The Mill & the Cross, on Pieter Bruegel’s masterpiece, "The Way to Calvary," the story of the crucifixion, set it in 16th century Flanders.

Looking for inspiration? Check out some of these art-process documentaries.

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 09:33:01 GMT

In a recent press screening at Film Forum for the current release of OVER YOUR CITIES THE GRASS WILL GROW, dir. Sophie Fiennes / August 2011 ("...a record of Anselm Kiefer, the 65-year-old world-renowned artist, as he creates a spectacular architectonic landscape....") I found myself drifting and thinking about other films I have seen that document the process of making art. I saw just about about all of them at Film Forum, so I asked Adam Walker, the theater's premieres program publicist for an unofficial list of of films that fell into that list, from the past few years. He included fashion and performance.

LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER, THE MISTRESS AND THE TANGERINE, dir. Amei Wallach / June 2008
CHUCK CLOSE, dir. Marion Cajori / December 2007
OUR CITY DREAMS, dir. Chiara Clementi (features Swoon, Marina Abramovic, Kiki Smith, Ghada Amer & Nancy Spero) / February 2009
RICHARD SERRA: THINKING ON YOUR FEET, dir. Maria Anna Tappeiner / September 2008
VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR, dir. Matt Tyrnauer / March 2009
LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET, dir. Frederick Wiseman / November 2009
KIKI SMITH: SQUATTING THE PALACE, dir. Vivien Bittencourt & Vincent Katz (played with AGNES MARTIN: WITH MY BACK TO THE WORLD, dir. Mary Lance / January 2007
THEATER OF WAR, dir. John Walter (about the Public Theater’s production of Brecht’s Mother Courage with Meryl Streep) / December 2008
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES, dir. Jennifer Baichwal (about Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky) / June 2007

I particularly recommend the Kiki Smith film to jump start some creative juices.

Photo Op: Miranda July in July

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:08:23 GMT

07-14-11: Filmmaker Miranda July outside the IFC Center

At the IFC Center this evening, Miranda July hosted a series of early experimental shorts by director Jane Campion. July recalled that when she was a child her father tried to entice her to watch avant-garde films by likening them to the cartoons she enjoyed. His home movies even had a Stan Brakhage Dog Star Man flair. July's second feature, The Future opens on July 29.

Photo Op: STRANGER THINGS directors Ron Eyal and Eleanor Burke @BAM

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:56:41 GMT

06-25-11: Directors Ron Eyal and Eleanor Burke at BAM before a screening of Stranger Things

At the BAM Cinema Fest, a pair of talented new directors screened their Slamdance winner, Stranger Things. The film follows a young woman who returns to the house of her deceased mother and meets a homeless man who tests her sense of humanity. Leads Bridget Collins and Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions) are excellent in this two-hander character study that has a lo-fi minimalism reminiscent of Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy.

The fire department arrived before the screening and the building evacuated when someone smelled smoke, leading Eyal to joke, "Tickets are burning up!" The easy-going crowd just took it as an opportunity to socialize outside on a warm summer day, and soon enough we were back inside.

Photo Op: Cannes best actor (for THE ARTIST) Jean Dujardin at the IFC Center

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:59:09 GMT

In an amazing night of "Rendez-Vous with French Cinema" last year at the IFC Center to see OSS- Lost in Rio, I got a couple of photos of the wildly hilarious Jean Dujardin who last week won a Best Actor Award at Cannes for The Artist, directed by his frequent collaborator, Michel Hazanavicius (of the OSS films). Dujardin treated the audience with singing, dancing, and an impersonation of John Wayne.

03-17-10: Actor Jean Dujardin on a cigarette break outside the IFC Center

03-17-10: Hazanavicius with Dujardin hamming it up after OSS 117 – Lost in Rio

Tribeca Online Film Festival and TFI New Media Fund

Sun, 01 May 2011 14:28:47 GMT

The Tribeca Film Festival may be over, but the on demand titles, such as "The Bang Bang Club" and "Last Night" are available until June 23. Time Warner Cable in Manhattan charges $5.99 for these films through Movies on Demand on channel 1000. I wrote about the on demand section of the festival as part of a larger story on the Tribeca Online Festival.

Below are excerpts from that piece:

This year, everything is free at the newly named Tribeca Online Film Festival, where you can follow the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival from the comfort of home. Jon Patricof, chief operating officer of the festival, spearheaded the multi-faceted digital strategy. The initiative includes online streaming of films, web access to events, Q&As with key players, an industry blog and live social media updates by filmmakers.
A stand-out short on the streaming list is “The Dungeon Master,” written and directed by brothers Rider and Shiloh Strong, who are recognizable from their many television acting credits. The film takes on Dungeons & Dragons, a game often favored by geeky obsessives, in a tale of friends revisiting the role-playing pastime of their youth....Similar to the “Quora” or “Yahoo! Answers” models, Tribeca Q&A offers online visitors the opportunity to ask questions to a selection of filmmakers and festival brass....Writer/directors Rider and Shiloh Strong have responded to a number of questions, such as “Is writing/directing/photography full-time jobs for each of you? Do you do other things to make ends meet between projects?” Shiloh answered, “Full-time job for me is the endless mission to get a job in acting/writing/directing or photography. I guess my ‘day job’ is photography. I get some gigs shooting events, or portraits at my studio here and there. I also assist and digital tech (work the computer) on some high-end commercial photography jobs to pay the bills. Somehow it seems to work itself out every month, but I never know what is coming next. The life of the freelancer.”

I saw some good films at the festival. Below are excerpts from a few of my published capsule reviews:

The Bang Bang Club
At TIME Magazine (where I worked in production during the 1990s), the combat photographers were rock stars. Were they as handsome as actor Ryan Phillippe? Oh, yes. Were the photo editors attractive like actress Malin Akerman, and romantically entangled with their charges? Absolutely. Did the reporters who sat behind desks all day live in envy of the men who could walk between bullets? You betcha. It’s no wonder “The Bang Bang Club” gets it right. Director Steven Silver based the film on the memoir of two photojournalists and their experiences in South Africa, capturing turmoil in the final days of apartheid. What the film lacks in pacing and historical clarity, it makes up for in feel and inspiration. It evokes the thrilling cauldron of a photo department like the one I cross-trained in at TIME.

The Trip
Michael Winterbottom’s uproarious British highbrow comedy “The Trip” follows comics Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon on a culinary tour of northern England. Elite dining and literary references inform the humor in the six-episode British television series that has been edited into a feature film. The two men play semi-fictionalized versions of themselves in a continuation of their performances in Winterbottom’s “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story” (2005) — where they joked, bickered and jockeyed for superiority....The two embark on a midlife male bonding road trip, like “Sideways” on English Lit.

Cairo Exit
I tend to be biased in favor of movies with characters named Rania. The Queen of Jordan shares my name — one that is very common in the Middle East. In “Cairo Exit,” Rania is a secondary character who makes sacrifices to secure a husband. The drama revolves around her friend, Amal, a Coptic Orthodox Christian girl who is living in the slums of Cairo like herself....Writer/director Hesham Issawi’s sophomore effort focuses on the hardscrabble day-to-day lives of the underclass. The film is a gritty counterpart to last year’s “Cairo Time” — starring Patricia Clarkson as an American woman who experiences the Egyptian city as sensuous and exotic....The Tribeca Film Festival has an exceptional track record for screening new work from Egypt, from Marwan Hamed’s epic soap opera, “The Yacoubian Building” in 2006 to Yousry Nasrallah’s enigmatic “The Aquarium” and Engi Wassef’s informative “Marina of the Zabbaleen” in 2008, to Ruba Nadda “Cairo Time” in 2010.

Speaking of Egypt, I was invited to the TFI New Media Fund lunch where the standout presentation was "18 Days in Egypt," a dynamic crowdsourced documentary by Jigar Mehta and Yasmine Elayat, that tells the story of the Egyptian revolution through videos and social media created by local citizens during the protests in Tahrir Square.

What is this fund? The TFI New Media Fund will provide support to filmmakers who combine traditional filmmaking with newer media platforms including video games, mobile apps, social networks and micro-blogging. Projects will receive $50,000 to $100,000 in funding to directly support the cross-platform storytelling. The application deadline is May 25, 2011.

Photo Op: Director of ATTENBERG/ Greek foodie Athina Rachel Tsangari

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 06:13:44 GMT

12-08-10: At lunch in Thessaloniki, Attenberg director Athina Rachel Tsangari expounded on her unique cookbook idea.

True/False Film Fest and documentary mutations

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 07:09:12 GMT

Just got back from the homespun True/False Film Fest in Columbia, Missouri. Here's my dispatch TRUE/FALSE FILM FESTIVAL 2011 in Filmmaker Magazine.

The hot topic was mutations of the nonfiction form. Here are some good articles that speak to the subject:

"It’s Actual Life. No, It’s Drama. No, It’s Both." by Dennis Lim

"Agrarian Utopias/Dystopias: The New Nonfiction" by Robert Koehler

"How Does Real Feel?" by A.O. Scott

Graphic novelist Adrian Tomine at the Strand Bookstore

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 07:29:15 GMT

02-09-11: Adrian Tomine signs his new book Scenes from an Impending Marriage at the Strand

The graphic novels and comics of Adrian Tomine provide me with an odd sort of solace. His succinct dramas involving complex emotions, from Optic Nerve Mini-Comics to Shortcomings, mine the dark side of human relationships, especially among the young and cool.

Until now.

"Long time readers might be disappointed that it's too sweet-natured," Tomine said of his new book that recounts the wacky foibles of a couple planning their wedding. The cartoonist was at the Strand Bookstore talking about the book, which is based on his own experience preparing for the altar.

Originally created as a handmade-and-stapled wedding favor, the work became a prototype for Scenes from an Impending Marriage. Tomine appears to have left his inner hipster behind in this Peanuts-meets-Family Circus cartoon tale.

A rapt audience peppered him with questions. On his attempt at screenwriting, he said it was "demoralizing," and added, "There's nothing that makes me more excited about drawing comics."

Director Yousry Nasrallah in Cairo

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 07:25:13 GMT

I flashed back to my 2008 meeting with Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah when I heard him on NPR this morning, in the midst of demonstrations in Cairo. Here's a link to the story.

Greek independent films are ripe

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 06:58:45 GMT

Fantastic news for Greek independent cinema.

It was announced today that Dogtooth will be compete for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.

Attenberg is currently screening at the Sundance Film Festival, and is the first Greek film to be invited to the program.

In a matter of hours, Wasted Youth will open the Rotterdam Film Festival. In February, Amnesty, an Albanian/Greek/French co-production will world premiere in the Forum of the Berlin Film Festival. Amnesty and Wasted Youth are alumnae of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival's Agora/Market Works-in-Progress industry section.

According to A. O. Scott in a New York Times travel piece, "...The cutting-edge festival is to be found in Thessaloniki, Greece....The festival has programs devoted to new films from Greece and the Balkans, both sites of cinematic resurgence in recent years."

In my coverage of last year's edition of the festival, I discussed the burgeoning national cinema. The festival's new director, Dimitris Eipides, told me, “The next hotspot? It could be Greece.”

12-08-10: Fresh Greek olives ready for curing

Video Clip: Sam Taylor-Woods' STILL LIFE (2001)

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 07:51:15 GMT

When I saw this video, mounted on a gallery wall at the Tate Modern a few years back, I had no idea that the artist/filmmaker would go on to make Nowhere Boy, one of my favorite films of 2010. Sam Taylor-Woods' Still Life was among the pieces in the show Memento Mori (translation: Remember you will die). Wall-mounted in a frame as if a painting, it was absolutely mesmerizing to watch the fruit go from ripe to spoiled.

Rania's Top Ten for 2010- Including debut features by 3 female directors

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 08:19:35 GMT

1. Dogtooth by Yorgos (aka Giorgos) Lanthimos A blast of fresh air in the art house.

2. The King’s Speech by Tom Hooper Elegantly written. Beautifully executed. Stop the backlashing!

3. Peepli Live*** by Anusha Rizvi Entertaining take on a serious social issue.

4. Nowhere Boy*** by Sam Taylor Wood Sumptuous treat for the senses. Spectacular female performances.

5. Life During Wartime by Todd Solondz A simple equation: Solondz = Genius.

6. Soul Kitchen by Fatih Akin A succulent soundtrack heightens the fun.

7. Exploding Girl by Bradley Rust Gray Memorable mood piece.

8. The Runaways*** by Floria Sigismondi An exuberant ride.

9. Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 by Jean-François Richet A tone poem on audacity.

10. Coco & Igor by Jan Kounen It had me at "The Rite of Spring" riot.

***Debut feature by emerging female auteur

05-07-11: UPDATE- I had not seen Cairo Time when I made this list. The film stars Patricia Clarkson as an American woman who experiences the Egyptian city as sensuous and exotic, and is directed by emerging female auteur, Ruba Nadda. It would have been in the Top Ten.

Gift Idea: The Immersive Movie Theater Experience

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 08:13:24 GMT

Does seeing a movie in the theater change the experience? Of course it does! I'm sure I'm not the only one who answers the phone, goes online, participates in a conversation, gets a snack, or breaks up a movie over more than one night when watching at home or on the go...not to mention the smaller screen size, the lit room, and the quality of the device.

My favorite films, the Top Tens of my life, tend to be the ones I saw in a movie theater. I've seen countless others on the small screen, but I just don't fall in love as much. I try mightily to write only about movies I've seen on a big screen-- not DVD screeners-- with the understanding that I'm writing about the theatrical experience, because we're-- you, know-- cineastes here.

So in honor of that immersive experience, here are a few links to memberships and passes for movies in the downtown Manhattan art house cauldron:

Anthology Film Archives
Film Forum
IFC Center

And a couple that have locations outside New York, as well:
Angelika Film Center
Landmark Theatres

When doc subjects attack: A surprise at Errol Morris' TABLOID

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 13:19:25 GMT

I've been busy with an assignment and just now getting to post about DOCNYC. The New York documentary film festival opened with Werner Herzog's magical Cave of Forgotten Dreams and concluded on Nov. 7 with an afternoon one-on-one conversation with docmaster Errol Morris and then an evening screening of his bizarro new film, Tabloid, about a former beauty pageant queen who finds herself in the tabloids, accused of kidnapping and raping a Mormon, among other escapades. The evening event still stands out in my mind because of a surprise guest. The subject of the doc, Joyce McKinney, appeared in person at the end of the film-- practically breaking through the screen-- to counter what she viewed as lies in the film.

I might have thought it was a stunt when she seemingly appeared out of nowhere (dressed in hot pink) but I had seen her earlier, in the audience of the one-on-one. I didn't know who she was then, since I hadn't seen the film yet, but I noticed a woman sitting in a wheelchair with a black pitbull by her side. She was quiet and nondescript and her wheelchair had signs on it saying something to the effect that Tabloid was based on lies.

I heard that festival brass had spotted her in the wheelchair and invited her to the evening screening, where it didn't take much coaxing to get her on stage afterwards. First Morris answered a few questions by festival host Thom Powers and then she arrived, ready to launch into a diatribe. Morris pretty much zipped his lip as she went on. It was a fascinating interplay between doc subject and doc maker. Here's the YouTube.

As I was searching for the video clip just now, I ran across several articles on the film where an anonymous (!) commenter wrote (among many other things) that the aforementioned article was "libelous and defamatory" and threatened to sue if it was not removed.

Tabloid is clearly not finished.

Jason Reitman hosts the premiere of THE TWO ESCOBARS

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 08:44:42 GMT

A miracle in editing, The Two Escobars recounts the story of infamous drug king, Pablo Escobar, and beloved soccer star, Andrés Escobar, whose worlds intersected in Colombia in the 1980s and 90s. Brothers Jeff and Michael Zimbalist co-directed the investigative tale that pieces together footage from soccer games, news reports, and recent interviews with outlaws and athletes. The ESPN production first screened at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. A solid case study in documentary journalism, the film is fascinating to watch, but you soon realize, this story is not going to end well.

10-13-10: Jason Reitman w/ The Two Escobars directors Jeff Zimbalist & Michael Zimbalist at Tribeca Cinemas

NYFF 2010: Photos of a few auteurs and a pearl from each

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 05:20:41 GMT

10-06-10: "When you're in London, give us a call, and we'll take you on a tour that will horrify you," said MIke Leigh on shooting in a decidedly ungentrified London for Another Year.

09-26-10: "I'm a forgetful person. That's why I make movies-- to record," said Apichatpong Weerasethakul on Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and his body of work.

10-03-10: "Our society believes that words are more significant than visuals and music, but that's where the spirituality is," said Julie Taymor on The Tempest and directing for theater versus film.

09-27-10: "Artists and criminals have a tendency to change the world," said Cristi Puiu on acting in and directing Aurora.

09-28-10: "I'm interested in emotions, not facts. They are the most real," said Pablo Larraín on the off-camera action in Post Mortem.

You zig. I zag. You go to Toronto. I go to Montreal.

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 05:06:18 GMT

09-03-10: I ran into David Arquette, star of The Land of the Astronauts, in the Complexe Desjardins mall.

In my usual maverick style, I went to Montreal, not Toronto.

Here's my first Montreal World Film Festival dispatch, including a brief history of the festival and a first look at Neil LaBute's short film, Sexting, starring Julia Stiles.

Here's my second Montreal World Film Festival dispatch, with my top picks, including Galop Arrière, a tribute to the Zingaro equestrian theater by Bartabas.

And this is my Author Archive on The House Next Door.

08-31-10: Bille August, Serge Losique, Marwan Hamed, and Carlos Saura at a City Hall press reception.

Foreign film fun: Akin's SOUL KITCHEN

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:50:42 GMT

Adam Bousdoukos and Moritz Bleibtreu play the Kazantsakis brothers in Soul Kitchen.

If you're looking for some summer fun, I highly recommend the hilarious new food-and-music-loving film by Fatih Akin, the Turkish-German director of Head-On, Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul, and The Edge of Heaven. Once again, I wasted no time in procuring the soundtrack to an Akin film, this time within hours of seeing (hearing) it at the Tribeca Film Festival.

A few weeks ago I sat in a Soho hotel with my new iTouch for an interview with Akin, who sported a 3 day stubble and a penetrating, dark-eyed gaze. Painfully, sadly, my interview was eaten by the device, due to an Apple malfunction that hours of research and a team of "geniuses" couldn't resolve.

What I remember is that Akin told me foodie films Big Night and Eat Drink Man Woman inspired the screenplay he wrote with Greek-German actor Adam Bousdoukos, his best friend since high school. It co-stars Head-On lead, Birol Ünel (considered by some as a modern Klaus Kinski) as a knife-throwing snobbish chef in the tale of a restaurant owner (played by Bousdoukos) doing whatever it takes to save his business from closing. Akin hinted at difficulties working with the "wild and free" Ünel, but hesitated to call him a "Kinski." The story takes place in the German town of Wilhelmsberg, an enclave Akin said is coincidentally reminiscent of hipster-gentrifying Williamsburg, New York.

I told Akin that I thought he had a rock 'n' roll directing style. "I'd rather be a jazz filmmaker," he countered, "It's all about controlling the rhythm of my films."

Ken Russell: 1970s Hedonist

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 10:09:45 GMT

07-30-10: Ken Russell discusses The Devils at the Walter Reade Theater.

On Friday, British director Ken Russell appeared at the opening night of Russellmania!, a Film Society of Lincoln Center retrospective of his work. Russell's mild manner and dry humor sharply contrasted with the over-the-top style and celebration of physical pleasure that marked his classic work from the 1970s, including The Music Lovers, The Devils, The Boyfriend, Tommy, etc. His sly wit and attention to The Devils star Vanessa Redgrave (who was a surprise guest and participated in a duel Q&A) only hinted at the powerhouse he must have been at his peak. He continues to make movies, and is still, he said, a practicing Catholic. This is surprising as The Devils (among others) can be interpreted as critical of religion and revolves around an outspoken, womanizing priest, played by a charismatic Oliver Reed. In some ways the film seems amusingly dated, but it retains its power as an examination of the essence of faith. This and Derek Jarman's production design, David Watkin's cinematography, and the characters-- including Redgrave as a lustful, humpback nun-- make the film a must-see.

Cast members and director of the head smacking whatsit, DOGTOOTH

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:17:52 GMT

03-30-10: Dogtooth cast members Christos Passalis and Aggeliki Papoulia with director Yorgos Lanthimos

On the occasion of the New York premiere of Dogtooth at New Directors/New Films last spring, distributor Kino Lorber hosted an afternoon at the Mission of Greece to the UN in New York. Over coffee and koulourakia, Greek and American journalists sat down with the film's director and cast members to discuss the making of the film and its influence.

Much of our conversation centered on the experimental theater background of filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and actors Christos Passalis and Aggeliki Papoulia, which is evident in this film. We also talked about FoG, of which distributor Rodrigo Brandão said I was the resident American expert.

I had wanted to see the film in its home country last fall at the 50th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which I covered for indieWIRE, but the director withdrew it in a protest. As I wrote in my coverage, "More than 200 Greek directors, producers, and screenwriters boycotted the government-supported event in protest of outdated film funding laws and charges of favoritism in the Greek State Awards. The group withdrew 52 films from the festival and thereby forced the cancellation of state awards that select winners from the Greek films in the program. The protesting group, which originally convened in March and call themselves Filmmakers of Greece (FoG), held a 'Greek Film Week' in Athens that preceded the festival and highlighted acclaimed films from the past year such as 'Dogtooth' by Yorgos Lanthimos, which premiered at Cannes."

Lanthimos had gone from winning the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes to spearheading the FoG movement, which, he told me at the UN event, continues unabated even during the current economic meltdown in Greece. When I took the photo of the group, they insisted that we move a Greek flag out of the picture.

Check out the Official Dogtooth Site for a synopsis, press, and playdates.

An eve of mustards at Murray's Cheese

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:34:13 GMT

So last year I toured the caves at Murray's Cheese, and gave you a glimpse of the street through a window in the underground cheese-aging cellar, and this time I'm showing you a view from their upstairs classroom, looking down on the retailer below. I was at the gourmet purveyor to sample international varieties of the tangy condiment. White wine and mustard-seed beer washed down dollops of sweet, pungent, nutty, and spicy mustards paired with cheese and charcuterie. Mm Mm good!

06-14-10: Murray's Cheese

06-14-10: Mustard tasting

Taking on an off-limits topic: 12TH & DELAWARE

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:59:40 GMT

Hollywood trembled and referred to it as "shmabortion" in Knocked Up, but HBO dives headlong into the topic of women's reproductive rights in 12th & Delaware. The film kicked off the Human Rights Watch Film Festival on Friday at the Walter Reade, and will air on HBO on August 2. In this powerful must-see film, co-directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing maintained a neutral stance as they observed the comings and goings at an abortion clinic and the anti-abortion organization that opened up across the street.