| Wednesday,
March 24 - Saturday, March 27, 2010
Directors in
Focus
The
Films of Kim Longinotto
Internationally
acclaimed director Kim Longinotto is one of the pre-eminent
documentary filmmakers working today, renowned for creating
extraordinary human portraits and tackling controversial topics
with sensitivity and compassion. Longinotto's films have won
international acclaim and dozens of awards at festivals worldwide,
including the World Cinema Jury Prize in Documentary at Sundance
for Rough Aunties.
Longinotto studied camera and directing at National School of
Television and Film, where she made Pride of Place,
a critical look at her boarding school, and Theatre Girls,
documenting a hostel for homeless women. After school, she worked
as the cameraperson on a variety of documentaries for TV including
Cross and Passion, an account of Catholic women in
Belfast, and Underage, a chronicle of unemployed adolescents
in Coventry. In 1986, Longinotto formed the production company
Twentieth Century Vixen with Claire Hunt.
Kim
Longinotto was awarded The
2010 Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Prize for Peace and Culture.
This is the first time that the prestigious main prize has been
awarded to a filmmaker.
Wednesday,
March 24, 2010
Dream
Girls
dirs.
Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams, UK, 1993, BetaSP,
50 mins, color, Japanese w/ English subtitles
Co-presented
by the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia as part
of the 2010
Cherry Blossom Festival
Introduced by Patricia
White
Dream
Girls offers a compelling
insight into gender and sexual identity and the contradictions
experienced by Japanese women. In this fascinating documentary
produced for the BBC, a door opens into the spectacular world
of the Takarazuka Revue, a highly successful musical theater
company in Japan. Each year, thousands of girls apply to enter
the male-run Takarazuka Music School. The few who are accepted
endure years of a highly disciplined and reclusive existence
before they can join the Revue, choosing male or female roles.
followed
by
Shinjuku
Boys
dirs.
Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams, UK, 1995, DVD, 53 mins, color,
Japanese w/ English subtitles
A
remarkable documentary about the complexity of female sexuality
in Japan, Shinjuku Boys introduces three "onnabes"
who work as hosts at the New Marilyn Club in Tokyo. Onnabes
are women who live as men. They have girlfriends, but don't
usually identify as lesbians. The film follows three onnabes
at home and on the job, speaking frankly about their gender-bending
lives, revealing their views about women, sex, transvestitism
and lesbianism. Alternating with these illuminating interviews
are fabulous sequences shot inside the Club, patronized almost
exclusively by heterosexual women who have become disappointed
with real men.
Thursday,
March 25, 2010
Hold
Me Tight, Let Me Go
dir.
Kim Longinotto, UK, 2007, BetaSP,
100 mins, color
Harrowing
at one moment and heartwarming the next, Hold Me Tight,
Let Me Go is set at England’s Mulberry Bush School, founded
by Barbara Dockar-Drysdale who developed unique methods for
working with children suffering through severe emotional trauma.
"Longinotto, director of award-winning Sisters In Law,
spent a year filming these children, who are prone to sudden,
violent outbursts, and their teachers, who display enormous
restraint and sensitivity. The children’s problems are real,
deep and stubborn — but the long arc of recovery is clear, with
hope for these troubled children just over the horizon. Over
the course of 30 years, Longinotto has established herself as
one of the most prolific and perceptive practitioners of cinema
verite." – Jason Silverman, True/False Film Festival
Friday,
March 26, 2010
Pride
of Place
dir.
Kim Longinotto and Dorthea Gazidiz, UK, 1976, DVD, 60 mins,
b/w
A
rarely seen classic, Pride of Place was made as her
first project while Longinotto was a student at England’s National
School of Television and Film. As a teenager, she was condemned
to a girls' boarding school in an old, isolated castle in Buckinghamshire.
Wisely, she ran away at the age of 17, and years later took
the opportunity for sweet revenge. In this dark and expressive
film, Longinotto exposes the repressive school from the students’
perspective — as a kind of miniature state with bizarre rules,
indigestible food and absurd punishments. One year after the
release of the film, the boarding school was closed down. With
Pride of Place, Longinotto sets the tone for a long
career of films in which individuals’ revolt against oppressive
authorities and stifling traditions.
followed
by
Theatre
Girls
dirs.
Kim Longinotto and Claire Pollak, UK, 1978, DVD, 56 mins, b/w
In her final piece at film school, Longinotto and her partner
take us into the Theatre Girls Club in Soho, London – a hostel
for elderly and destitute women and the only shelter in London
that would take in any woman at any time. The filmmakers lived
in the hostel for more than two months, establishing an extraordinary
level of trust with their "cast" – from the home’s
feisty cook to an elderly resident who was a terminal alcoholic.
In what will later be recognized as a signature style, Longinotto
films without judgment and finds the humor and humanity in situations
and characters that might otherwise be seen as tragic. This
stunning film debut earned awards at several European festivals
and screened to acclaim in the US and Asia.
Saturday,
March 27, 2010
Rough
Aunties
dir.
Kim Longinotto, South Africa, 2008, BetaSP,
103 mins, color
Fearless, feisty and
resolute, the "Rough Aunties" are a remarkable group
of women unwavering in their stand to protect and care for the
abused, neglected and forgotten children of Durban, South Africa.
This documentary the outspoken, multiracial cadre of Thuli,
Mildred, Sdudla, Eureka and Jackie, as they wage a daily battle
against systemic apathy, corruption, and greed to help the most
vulnerable and disenfranchised of their communities. Neither
politics, nor social or racial divisions stand a chance against
the united force of the women.
Saturday,
March 27, 2010
Good
Wife of Tokyo
dirs.
Kim Longinotto and Claire Hunt, UK, 1992, DVD, 52 mins, color,
Japanese w/ English subtitles
Co-presented
by the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia as part
of the 2010 Cherry Blossom Festival
Kazuko
Hohki returned to Tokyo with her band, the Frank Chickens, after
living in England for 15 years. This wry and delightful film
records her re-experiencing Japan after a long absence, examining
traditional attitudes to women and those of Kazuko’s friends
who are trying to live differently. "This is a remarkable
film which will appeal to general audiences as well as educators
teaching about women, the family and/or religion in contemporary
Japan. It deserves to be widely shown." – Japan Foundation
Center for Global Partnership Center for Educational Media
followed
by
Gaea
Girls
dirs.
Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams, UK/Japan, 2000, BetaSP,
106 mins, color, Japanese w/ English subtitles
This fascinating film follows the physically grueling and mentally
exhausting training regimen of several young wanna-be "Gaea
Girls", a group of Japanese women wrestlers. The idea of
them may seem like a total oxymoron in a country where women
are usually regarded as docile and subservient. However, in
training and in the arena, the female wrestlers are just as
violent as any member of the World Wrestling Federation, and
the blood that’s drawn is very real indeed.
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