September 3, 2000
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu

UCSB Arts & Lectures Fall Cinema 2002 features
10 films from around the globe

Summary Facts:

• UCSB Arts & Lectures Fall Cinema 2002
• A series of 10 international films, including 6 Santa Barbara premieres
• Friday, September 27 through Thursday, November 21
• Silent film screening of Legong: Dance of the Virgins with live Gamelan accompaniment and performance by Bali & Beyond on November 21
• All screenings at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall, except Y tu mamá tambien, which screens at 7:30 & 10 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall
• General public: $6, UCSB students: $5
• Ticket prices for Legong: General public $10, UCSB students: $8
• Tickets may be purchased in advance at the UCSB Arts & Lectures Ticket Office and at the door, if available, beginning at 6:30 pm
• Charge by phone, 893-3535, or by fax, 893-8637
• For tickets and information, phone UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

UCSB Arts & Lectures Fall Cinema 2002, a series of ten films, features six Santa Barbara area premieres and spans the globe, from above the Arctic Circle to Iran. One special event highlights the calendar, a November 21 screening of Legong: Dance of the Virgins, a rarely exhibited 1935 silent movie shot entirely in Bali with a Balinese cast. Restored to its “uncensored” original version, including the then shocking bare-breasted native girls and violent cockfights, by the UCLA Film Archive, Legong is a treasure trove of Indonesian ethnography. The film will be accompanied by Bali and Beyond, Los Angeles’ premier Gamelan ensemble, who will also perform after the screening.

The series begins on Friday, September 27 with Monsoon Wedding, which won the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion in 2001. Director Mira Nair has said in interviews that she’s inspired by “the sparkle of the chaos” on the streets of India: “I want to use it, eat it up...have every frame pulsing.” After making films like Mississippi Masala in the United States, Nair returned to her native New Delhi to make this dazzling comedy that teems with life. Monsoon Wedding tells a modern Indian story about a lavish arranged marriage in a way that’s old-fashioned and irreverent, innocent and sexual. The Chicago Sun-Times claims this treat for the senses “leaps over national boundaries and celebrates universal human nature.” In English, Hindi and Punjabi with English subtitles, as needed. (2001, 113 minutes)

A bride on the run is the lynchpin of the bawdy Mexican sex comedy Y tu mamá también, a film that screens on Wednesday, October 2. Director Alfonso Cuarón (A Little Princess, Great Expectations), like Mira Nair, left Hollywood to return to his native country and make a smash hit. Two hormonally charged teens take to the road with the runaway bride in a film that is not only an outlandish study of sexual mores, but also an understated examination of social relations. J. Hoberman of the Village Voice raved: “Y tu mamá también is the sort of soulful raunchfest I suspect Pauline Kael would have loved; the movie appears to be pure pop fun, albeit too impudent in its sexual slapstick (and lyrical in its sense of place) to have been made in present-day Hollywood.” In Spanish with English subtitles. (2001, 105 minutes)

The series moves from Mexico to Cuba for the sensual and exuberant documentary La Tropical on Sunday, October 6. Directed by David Turnley, winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for photography, this luminous black and white film is an extraordinary portrait of the Salon Rosado at La Tropical, the club where generations of working-class Cubans have gathered to dance, sing and live la vida loca. This fascinating look at the Havana hot spot where race and rumba, socialism and salsa meet on the dance floor features a joyous soundtrack including Los Van Van, Charanga Habanera and Orquesta Aragon. In Spanish with English subtitles. (2002, 96 minutes)

The series makes a dramatic shift with its next offering Baran, a classic romance of two young lovers from different worlds, screening on Sunday, October 13. The film comments on the plight of the close to 3 million Afghan refugees who have sought sanctuary in Iran by means of a direct love story between a good-hearted, lazy Iranian boy and a young Afghani woman who poses as a man to eke out a hardscrabble existence for her impoverished family. According to Salon.com, Iranian director Majid Majidi “has a delicate touch and an extraordinary visual sense...he’s one of the most gifted young directors.” Majidi’s other films include The Color of Paradise and Children of Heaven. In Farsi and Dari with English subtitles. (2001, 94 minutes)

The Fast Runner—Atanarjuat, screening on Thursday, October 7, also takes filmgoers to a seldom seen world. The first feature film made in the Inuktitut language by an almost entirely Inuit cast and crew, The Fast Runner was directed by Zacharias Kunuk, who was born to a nomadic family in a sod house in 1957. Winner of the Caméra d’Or at Cannes, this compelling folk epic brings us rare glimpses from above the Arctic Circle of warring clans, dazzling sunlight and sweeping vistas. The New York Times calls the film a “masterpiece,” insisting, “The combination of dramatic realism and archaic grandeur is irresistibly powerful.” In Inuktitut with English subtitles. (2001, 172 minutes)

The series continues with a double bill of gripping documentaries, War Photographer and Alone with War on Sunday, October 27. A 2002 Academy Award-nominee for Best Documentary Feature, War Photographer follows the daring exploits of James Nachtwey, a member of the prestigious Magnum Photos Agency and a five-time winner of the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his heart-rending photos from Jakarta, Kosovo, Palestine and other battle-scarred sites around the globe. Alone with War documents the aftermath of Beirut’s brutal civil war. War Photographer is in English and German with English subtitles as needed. Alone with War is in French and Arabic with English subtitles. (Christian Frei, 2001, 96 minutes / Danielle Arbid, 2000, 58 minutes)

The series presents a special Halloween season screening of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas on Tuesday, October 29. Before directing Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands, Burton worked as a Disney animator and amused himself creating the story of Jack Skellington, leader of Halloweentown, who decides he needs to do more with his talents. He kidnaps Santa and attempts to do Christmas his well-meaning yet ill-conceived way. The resulting film is a devilishly delightful marvel of stop-motion animation featuring clever and catchy songs by Danny Elfman (of Oingo Boingo and The Simpsons theme song fame). (Henry Selick, 1993, 76 minutes)

On Sunday, November 3, the series presents the standout film of the 2002 Human Rights Watch Festival, The Trials of Henry Kissinger. “Henry Kissinger is a war criminal,” charges firebrand journalist Christopher Hitchens. “He’s a liar. And he’s personally responsible for murder, for kidnapping, for torture.” Featuring previously unseen footage, newly declassified government documents and revealing interviews with key insiders, this film explores Hitchens’ charges that Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner, should be put on trial for war crimes for his policies towards Cambodia, Chile and Indonesia. New York Newsday called the film “required viewing for every American.” In English and Spanish with English subtitles as needed. (Alex Gibney and Eugene Jarecki, 2002, 80 minutes)

The series concludes on Thursday, November 21 with a rare screening of Legong: Dance of the Virgins. Legong is the last surviving silent film shot by a major Hollywood studio (Paramount) and was also one of the last films to use the two-strip Technicolor process. Its story of unrequited love seems less important today than what the film shows us of life in Bali, from religious rituals to domestic chores, and what the film tells us about the 1930s idealization of the romantic South Pacific. The screening will be immeasurably aided by live Gamelan accompaniment from Bali & Beyond, a Los Angeles based performing arts company inspired by the cultures of Indonesia. (Henri de la Falaise, 1935, 54 minutes)

Arts & Lectures Fall Calendar also includes four film and filmmaker events: Promises with B.Z. Goldberg on Sunday, October 20, Profit and Nothing But! with Raoul Peck on Wednesday, October 30, The Mark of Cain with Alix Lambert on Wednesday, November 6, and Gas Food Lodging with Allison Anders on Thursday, November 14. Separate press releases closer to these dates will describe each event in further detail.

All film screenings begin at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall, except Y tu mamá también, which screens at 7:30 and 10 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall. Tickets for all films are available in advance at the UCSB Arts & Lectures Ticket Office (893-3535) and may be purchased in person or charged by phone. Tickets can also be bought at the door, if available, starting at 6:30 pm. All tickets are $6 for the general public and $5 for UCSB students, except for Legong: Dance of the Virgins, with live Gamelan accompaniment, which costs $10 for the general public and $8 for UCSB students.

Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, these films are sponsored by The Santa Barbara Independent, KCSB Radio 91.9 FM, Blue Agave and The Daily Nexus. Baran and Alone with War are co-presented with the UCSB Center for Middle East Studies.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.