June 3, 2004
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu
UCSB Arts & Lectures and UCSB Summer Sessions present Summer Cinema 2004—10 films from around the globe
Summary Facts:
- UCSB Arts & Lectures Summer Cinema 2004
- A series of 10 international films, including 5 Santa Barbara premieres
- Wednesday, June 30 through Wednesday, September 1
- Series features striking new 35-mm prints of two Hollywood classics: Roman Holiday on June 30 and Modern Times on August 4
- All screenings at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall
- General public: $6 / UCSB students: $5; except for Touching the Void, for which UCSB students get free admission.
- 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, (805) 893-3535, or by fax, (805) 893-8637
- For tickets and information, phone UCSB Arts & Lectures: (805) 893-3535
UCSB Arts & Lectures and UCSB Summer Sessions present Summer Cinema 2004, a series of ten films, featuring five Santa Barbara area premieres and spanning both the globe and cinematic history.
The series begins on Wednesday, June 30 with a screening of the gossamer romance and elegant comedy of Roman Holiday. The unforgettable, sublime Audrey Hepburn won the Best Actress Oscar for her lead debut in this classic about a European princess pining both for a simple life and a handsome American reporter played by Gregory Peck. The film was directed by William Wyler, exhibiting a whimsical touch not present in the bulk of his impressive multi-decade career (the 1959 Ben-Hur, The Heiress, Wuthering Heights, etc.). We will screen a restored 35-mm print. (1953, 120 minutes)
The series shifts from fairy tale romance to “biting topical resonance” (UK Guardian) with In This World, a film that screens on Wednesday, July 7. Winner of the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival, In This World follows the hazardous journey of two Afghan boys as they make an unimaginably arduous, multi-stage trip from Pakistan to London, hoping for a better life. Using non-professional actors and hand-held digital cinematography, director Michael Winterbottom (Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People) captures the astonishing trek made by thousands of refugees. In Pashtu, Persian and English, with English subtitles, as necessary. (2002, 112 minutes)
The series continues on Wednesday, July 14 with Bukowski—Born into This, a fascinating documentary about Los Angeles’ hard-living Charles Bukowski, author of works like Notes of a Dirty Old Man and Love Is a Dog from Hell. The film features archival footage of the brutally honest—and sometimes just brutal—Bukowski, abundant amounts of his writing, and interviews with friends and fans including Sean Penn, Tom Waits and Bono. “A definitive screen overview,” opines Variety, “that makes a compelling case for raising him from cult status to the top rank of 20th century U.S. literary figures.” (John Dullaghan, 2003, 123 minutes)
The series next turns to one of contemporary film’s most exciting writers—Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation)—with a screening of his film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on Wednesday, July 21. An audacious, touching and droll romance, Eternal Sunshine features stellar performances by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as lovers who opt to have all memories of their courtship erased, only to rue their decisions. Terrific supporting performances by Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Wilkinson add to the fun. Entertainment Weekly writes, “Watching Eternal Sunshine you don’t just watch a love story—you fall in love with what love really is.” The film’s title, by the way, comes from Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard.” (Michel Gondry, 2004, 105 minutes)
The series next features The Clay Bird, the first film from Bangladesh to be widely released in the United States, on Wednesday, July 28. A powerful, clear-eyed drama about the tensions that marked East Pakistan’s violent transition into the nation of Bangladesh in 1971, The Clay Bird focuses on one family to illuminate struggles between Islam and Hinduism, country and city. Originally banned by the Dhaka government for “religiously sensitive” content, the film set box office records when finally released. Upon the film’s opening in the United States, New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell extolled, “Easily one of the finest pictures of this or any year.” In Bengali with English subtitles. (Tareque Masud, 2002, 94 minutes)
More than just shifting gears, the series offers a film famous for a scene with gears, when Charlie Chaplin’s beloved Little Tramp gets passed through the inner-workings of a factory in his classic Modern Times, screening on Wednesday, August 4. The 1936 film is both the last time Chaplin played the Tramp character and his last non-dialogue film, despite the introduction of sound almost a decade prior to Modern Times (the film does contain sound, including Chaplin’s own hilarious nonsense song). Chaplin and his co-star Paulette Goddard manage an impeccable balance of humor, pathos and some keen satire. We will screen a restored 35-mm print that closed the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. (84 minutes)
The Big Animal, screening on Wednesday, August 11, is a Polish comedy that doubles as a fable about small-town provincialism and our deep-rooted desires to fit in. A slyly comic allegory about a couple that “adopts” an abandoned, two-humped Bactrian circus camel and thereby becomes the unwilling center of a civic crisis, the film is a whimsical gem. Director Jerzy Stuhr developed the film from a script by the late master, and his sometime colleague, Krzysztof Kieslowski (Decalogue). In Polish, with English subtitles. (2000, 72 minutes)
On Wednesday, August 18, the series continues with Touching the Void, a film The Baltimore Sun claims “does what only the best nature adventures can do. It inspires wonder at the rough and risky beauty of an unspoiled portion of the Earth and a harsh, tempered joy at the way it can push human strength to its pinnacle.” In 1985 Joe Simpson and Simon Yates were the first climbers to ascend the formidable west face of the 21,000-foot Siula Grande Mountain in the Andes. On their descent disaster struck, and Yates believed he left Simpson for dead in an icy crevasse. This incredibly gripping docudrama recreates the most inspiring epic survival story in years. (Kevin Macdonald, 2004, 106 minutes)
Blind Shaft, screening on Wednesday, August 25, is both a searing indictment of the human cost of China’s evolving market economy and a nail-bitingly suspenseful thriller. Set in the desolate coalfields of northwest China, the film concerns two scheming miners who are led by their miserable circumstances into a world of blackmail and murder. Shot in a verité style, often on the sly as director Li Yang did not have governmental approval to make the film, Blind Shaft is “the best crime movie now on the screen...brief, harsh, brutal and informative,” according to The Nation. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (2003, 92 minutes)
The series concludes on Wednesday, September 1 with the eye-opening Iran, Veiled Appearances. One of the most talked about films at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, this documentary provides extraordinary access to both Iran’s paramilitary religious sects and to the increasingly modernized youth, who express their desire for a more open society. The film traces developments from the 1970s to the present, giving voice to various contemporary attitudes. Scenes of life in Iran rarely glimpsed in the West include pilgrims at the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, teens eager to chat with the opposite gender despite social and religious mores insisting they can’t do so, a mixed-sex dance class and, as a surprising finale, women paragliders. (Thierry Michel, 2003, 90 minutes)
All film screenings begin at 7:30 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. Tickets are $6 for the general public and $5 for UCSB students, except for Touching the Void, for which admission is free for UCSB students who show valid ID at the door.
The series is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and UCSB Summer Sessions and sponsored by the Santa Barbara Independent, KCSB Radio 91.9 FM, Blue Agave and the Daily Nexus. The final five films of the series are also supported in part by UCSB Summer Freshman Start Experience.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.