RMIC and Mamma 'Zu present
The ITALIAN FILM & FOOD FESTIVAL

This all-day event takes place at the Firehouse Theatre, 1609 West Broad Street, Richmond (free parking in the Lowe's)
Admission: Per Film, $8 each (available only at the door)
All-Day Pass, $25 (available at the door or in advance at Chop Suey Books and Video Fan)
Light Italian fare included; beverages extra

Welcome to the first food and film festival, sponsored by Mamma 'Zu and the Richmond Moving Image Co-op. We hope to do more of these in the future for those of you who enjoy fine international cuisine and classic cinema – imagine the possibilities!

10:00 am
IL Grido (The Outcry)
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
(1957, B&W, 115 mins., Italian with English subtitles)

Made just two years before his "L'Avventura," "IL Grido" was the film that propelled Antonioni to international acclaim. A worker in the Po Valley wanders aimlessly with his young daughter after his wife deserts him. The bleak landscapes and beautiful camerawork reveals the director's early preoccupation equating the external landscape to a character's state-of-mind. Other Antonioni films of note: L'Avventura" (1959), "Blow-Up" (1966), "Zabriskie Point" (1970), "The Passenger" (1975).
Introduction by Trent Nicholas, adjunct professor of film studies, Department of Art History, Virginia Commonwealth University.

1:00 pm
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
Director: Vittorio de Sica
(1970, color, 95 mins., Italian with English subtitles)

Actor-turned-director de Sica got his start in the "white telephone" comedies of the Fascist era, and along with Roberto Rosellini became one of the major voices of Italian neo-realism through his collaborations with Cesare Zavattini – "Bicycle Thief"(1948), "Umberto D." (1953).
Dominique Sanda stars as the beautiful daughter of the upper crust and Jewish Finzi-Continis in 1938 Ferrara. As Mussolini increasingly models Fascist Italy like Germany, even their wealth cannot protect them. Their fall from power and eventual doom is told with poignancy and power. The stunning cinematography by Ennio Guarnieri highlights this recently restored print.
Introduction by Dr. Irby Brown, author, film historian, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Richmond.

4:00 pm
The Conformist
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
(1969, color, 108 mins., Italian with English subtitles)

Having made his debut feature at 20 from a script by Pier Pasolini five years earlier, Bertolucci would score heavily with audiences and critics with "The Conformist". Jean-Louis Tringnant (a favorite of French New Wave director Rohmer) stars as a Mussolini acolyte who must assassinate his ex-professor, now in political exile. Like Welles in "Citizen Kane," Bertolucci employs multiple flashback sequences to mold an anguished portrait of man ultimately at the service of the state. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro's (a long-time Bertolucci collaborator) images are dazzling and memorable. Bertolucci, like Antonioni, would increasingly turn to international co-productions to offset rising film costs – "Last Tango in Paris" (1970), "1900" (1976), "The Last Emperor" (1987).
Introduction by local writer and cineaste F.T. Rea.

8:00 pm
Nights of Cabiria
Director: Federico Fellini
(1957, B& W, 117 mins., Italian with English subtitles)

Fellini's wife Giulietta Masina stars as a plucky Roman prostitute, who although betrayed and robbed by her lover, finds the will to carry on. Co-written with Pasolini, the film received an Oscar for Best Foreign Film of the year. Fellini began as a cartoonist before writing scripts in the Neo-Realist vein, and his films are perhaps the most personal of all the Italian greats – filled with dreams and fantasies and peopled by characters bordering on the grotesque, they are often autobiographical. Masina also starred in her husband's films – "La Strada" (1953) and "Juliet of the Spirits"(1965). Other Fellini works include: "8 1/2" (1964), "Satyricon" (1969), "Amarcord"(1974). (Note: This restored print of "Nights of Cabiria" contains a crucial episode omitted from previous prints.)
Introduction by Robert Ellis, cineaste and long-time adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Programming Notes:
Programming a one-day festival of a cinema as rich and vital as Italy's is problematic, in that arbitrary critical and historic considerations are weighed and imposed. Those choices are complicated further due to the availability and even existence of prints offered by the distributors. Note: These selections will be screened on film featuring newly restored editions of "Nights of Cabiria" and "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis."

Nevertheless, we offer a representative sample of the Second Italian Renaissance: a selection of film from the fifties through the seventies that dominated the international scene and propelled their directors into the ranks of the auteur. On the heels of Italian neo-realism – a movement linked to the post-WWII spiritual and economic malaise typically shot in gritty black and white on location – directors Fellini, Antonioni, de Sica, and Bertolucci emerged with films filled with personal references and universal themes.

Their influence would span the globe, impacting heavily on the French and other "New Wave" movements and fueling the American art-house theatre during those decades. I was fortunate enough to have first glimpsed these titles and other films by these directors at the hallowed Biograph Theatre in the ' 70s and ' 80s, and it's been many years since such a line-up of Italian classic cinema has been programmed – and with the help of Italian restauranteur Ed Vasaio of Mamma 'Zu we're betting the magic's still there.

Michael Jones
President, RMIC

FLICKER
Doors open at 7:30, show starts at 8:00 pm at the Canal Club,
1545 E. Cary Street
Admission $3
Flicker is a bi-monthly screening of short Super 8 and 16mm films by area filmmakers.

March 29 – April 4 James River Film Festival RMIC unspools the 11th James River Film Festival. Guests, film schedule and locations to be announced. The festival includes the 2004 juried competition of short film and animation.

FLICKER celebrates 6 years running
Doors open at 7:30, show starts at 8:00 pm at the Canal Club,
1545 E. Cary Street
Admission $3
Flicker is a bi-monthly screening of short Super 8 and 16mm films by area filmmakers.

2nd Annual International
HOME MOVIE DAY
4 - 7 p.m.
Plant Zero, 0 East 4th Street, Richmond

Whether you've inherited a box of old family films, have some of your own home movie handiwork you'd like to share with an appreciative crowd of amateur film lovers, or you just love home movies, you're invited to RMIC's celebration of Home Movie Day! HMD is a celebration of amateur filmmaking and an opportunity to promote the long-term benefits of film versus video.
National Home Movie Day 2004 site.

FLICKER's Annual:


8:00 p.m. Plant Zero,
0 East 4th Street, Richmond
Plant Zero is located just south of the Mayo (14th Street) Bridge.
Admission $3

RMIC presents another installment of its Essential Cinema series. This one veers off course with a program called Essential Cinema: Disarming the Canon, featuring avant garde and experimental films not represented in Anthology Film Archives’ list of “essential cinema,” the source of our previous installments. The program was curated by MM Serra, executive director of the Film-Makers' Cooperative, who will be on hand to present the films and answer questions afterward.
>> See film descriptions

Fuses
(1964/67) by Carolee Schneeman
16mm, color, silent, 23 min.

Cats Amore
(2002) by Martha Colburn
16mm, Color, Sound, 6 min.

Hold Me While I'm Naked
(1966) by George Kuchar
16mm, color, sound, 15 min.

Ballhead
(1985) by Mara Mattuschka
16mm, b&w, sound, 5 min.

La Suture
(2000) by Michele Handelman
video, color, sound, 8-1/4 min.

Mayhem Is This What You Were Born For? (Part 6)
(1987) by Abigail Child
16mm, b&w, sound, 16-1/2 min.

Channeled Energies
(1993) by Joel Schlemowitz
16mm, color, sound, 3 min.

Switch Center
(2002) by Ericka Beckman
16mm, color, sound, 10 min.

The Film-Makers' Cooperative is the largest archive and distributor of independent and avant-garde films in the world. Created by artists in 1962, the Coop has more than 5,000 films and videotapes in its collection.

FLICKER
8 p.m., Plant Zero, 0 East 4th Street, Richmond
Plant Zero is located just south of the Mayo (14th Street) Bridge.
Admission $3 (more about FLICKER)

Surrealist Film Festival
At the Hand Workshop Art Center,
1812 West Main Street, Richmond,
Admisssion $8/program; students w/I.D. $6,
All-day passes $20 in advance at Chop Suey Books and Video Fan
(Program offerings and times are subject to change)

Program #1 11 a.m.

Introduction by Dr. Howard Risatti

Slide show of Surrealist art

Poetry reading by Coby Batty

Edwin S. Porter's "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend" (1906) After consuming too much welsh rarebit, a man suffers gastronomical nightmares.

George Melies' "Ballet-Master's Dream" (1903) From the French father of special effects, a fantasy of trick photography that anticipates the Surrealist movement.

Max Fleischer's "Bimbo's Initiation" (1931) Betty Boop was created as a sort of love interest for the popular Bimbo character; a truly surreal cartoon!

Excerpts from: Joseph von Sternberg's "Blonde Venus" (1932) With Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant featuring Dietrich in a gorilla costume! Also, Louis Feuillade's "Juves vs. Fantomas" ('13), a favorite early detective serial of the Surrealist bunch.

Hans Richter's "Ghosts Before Breakfast" (1927) A surreal tea party succumbs to Richter's manipulation of time and space.

Luis Bunuel's and Salvador Dali's "Un Chien Andalou (Andalusian Dog)" (1928) This surrealist film, freed from traditions of narrative continuity, caused riots at its premiere in Paris!

Program #2 2:30 p.m.

Introduction by Trent Nicholas

George Melies' "Fairy Kingdom" (1903) More fantasy from the master of special effects.

Man Ray's "Retour a la Raison (Return to Reason)" (1923) A deliberate attempt by Ray to infuriate an audience of a Dada program, this abstract short features his Rayogram process.

Max Fleischer's "Betty Boop's Museum" (1932) Betty's museum is treasure trove of surreal fantasy!

Rene Clair's "Entr'acte" (1924) A fast-moving comedy with special effects highlighted by a camel-drawn hearse. A classic!

"Exquisite Corpse" (2004) Eighteen Richmond filmmakers shot 30 seconds apiece on super-8 with three cameras circulating during a three week period. This is a cinematic equivalent of the child's game of drawing on separate panels of the unfolded whole. The Surrealists loved all games employing chance and contradicition. The eighteen filmmakers are >> With live improvised music by Andrew D'Angelo and Darius Jones

Luis Bunuel's "Simon of the Desert" (1965) Based on the life of the 15th century St. Simeon Stylites, Simon on a pole high above the ground resists the temptations of a multi-formed Satan. The ending is one of the most amazing conclusions in the history of cinema!

Program #3 7:00 p.m.

Introduction by Michael Jones

Max Fleischer's "Superman--Mechanical Monsters" (1941) The man of steel meets the challenge in this popular animated piece.

Buster Keaton's "Ballonatic" (1923) Buster starts out at a fun house but ends up carried in a hot air balloon to the wilderness where he finds bears, canoes, and romance!

Luis Bunuel's "That Obscure Object of Desire" (1977) Master director Bunuel's last feature is as surreal and shocking as "Un Chien Andalou", made nearly fifty years before. An erotic black comedy, it sums up the themes and obsessions of his entire canon with the wealthy Don Mateo ever frustrated by a young mistress played by two different actresses. One of his very best!