Returning this week to Brooklyn, NY is BAMcinemaFest, the film festival for the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcinématek, this year filled with a bevy of unapologetically irreverent and memorable cinema. Now in its 7th year, the festival has been cited by Time Out New York as, “Brooklyn’s most vital showcase for essential new indie cinema.”
Check out our preview of some of the standout films.
General admission for all BAMcinemafest films is $16 (member price $11), save the Thursday June 25th outdoor screening of Richard Linklater’s classic first feature film, Slacker.
Jason and Shirley
(2015 – 79 min.)
Thursday, June 18th at 7pm
Directed by Stephen Winter
With Jack Waters, Sarah Schulman, Bryan Webster, and Orran Farmer as Carl Lee
WORLD PREMIERE
Q&A with Jason and Shirley director Stephen Winter, actor Jack Waters, and additional cast and crew.
In 1967, legendary avant-garde filmmaker Shirley Clarke made one of her simplest and most radical films, a feature-length interview of downtown entertainer, hustler, and raconteur Jason Holliday called Portrait of Jason. In his new film, director Stephen Winter goes on to imagine what happened when the cameras weren’t rolling on that December 3, 1966 day of filming Jason for 12 nonstop hours with stories from his turbulent life.
Casting downtown theater veteran Jack Waters and author-activist Sarah Schulman (The Owls) in the lead roles. Winter plunges the viewer into the dizzying power struggle between filmmaker and subject, as the increasingly inebriated and drug addled Jason battles to turn the tables on his interlocutors and they seek to challenge his carefully constructed persona.
Is this Jason being exploited? Are Shirley and her partner/lover, actor and chronic heroin user Carl Lee (Super Fly, 1972) manipulators? And is Jason full of it? This surreal historical interpretation of that night – mostly filmed in lo-fi video and real world feeling style – aims to answer these questions, and simultaneously ask even more. And fans of Shirley Clarke (The Cool World, The Connection) will no doubt be fascinated by this narrative examination into her life.
UPDATE: The screening is sold out, but a limited number of tickets may become available at a later date. Follow BAMcinématek on Facebook and Twitter for updates.
Stand by: If any seats are available, they will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis just before the start of the show.
BREAKING A MONSTER
(2015 – 93 min.)
Saturday, Jun 20th, 2015 – 4pm
Directed by Luke Meyer
New York Premiere
Q&A with Luke Meyer and Unlocking The Truth band members Malcolm Brickhouse, Alec Atkins, and Jarad Dawkins
The members of Brooklyn speed-metal band Unlocking the Truth, 12 and 13 year-old members Malcolm Brickhouse, Alec Atkins, and Jarad Dawkins, as they perform on the street in Times Square and spend every spare minute making music—when they aren’t attending seventh grade.
After videos of the band’s wild performances go viral, they land a 70-year-old manager and a $1.8 million contract with Sony. But as the boys become professional musicians and enter into adulthood, they must learn the realities of life in a band. Luke Meyer’s funny, empathetic documentary offers a behind-the-scenes look at today’s music industry and a group of kids at the critical moment between recess and rock star.
This screening will feature a Q&A with director Luke Meyer and Unlocking the Truth band members Malcolm Brickhouse, Alec Atkins, and Jarad Dawkins.
KIDS: 20th Anniversary
(1995 – 91 min.)
Thursday, June 25th, 2015 – 7pm (includes Q&A) & 8pm
Directed by Larry Clark
With Rosario Dawson, Leo Fitzpatrick, Chloë Sevigny, Justin Pierce
Q&A with Larry Clark, Harmony Korine, Chloë Sevigny, Leo Fitzpatrick, and Rosario Dawson
Unquestionably, Kids is one of the controversial movies of the 1990’s, a decade full of shock, awe, and societal unrest duly reflected in its art.
The film follows teenage skaters Telly (Fitzpatrick) and Casper (Justin Pierce) as they drift aimlessly through downtown Manhattan in the single-minded pursuit of sex – specifically, deflowering virgins – and drugs. Their teenage debauchery eventually leads Telly to an encounter with an old partner Jennie (Sevigny), whose revelation of now being H.I.V. positive reveal his even more disturbing side.
Scripted by then first-time screenwriter Harmony Korine (who remains controversial to this day with modern films like Spring Breakers), and featuring breakout performances by future Hollywood and independent film leading ladies Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson, Larry Clark’s startlingly raw, vérité portrait of urban adolescence was hailed by The New York Times as “a wake-up call to the world.”
And if you like all the above, also check out:
Krisha (June 19th – 7pm, directed by Terence Malick mentee Trey Edward Shults), archival footage and new revelations revisit the intellectual face-off between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley in Best of Enemies (June 20th -1:30p), Nasty Baby (June 20 – 6:45p, co-starring TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, and Kristen Wiig – standby tix only), the sci-fi bending Advantageous (June 21st – 5pm), Chernobyl revisit through the eyes of an irreverent artist in Chad Garcia’s The Russian Woodpecker (June 26th – 7pm), and the Chris Marker inspired Counting (June 27th – 4pm).
BAMcinemaFest runs from June 17th to June 28th. Check out the links below for details.
LINKS:
BAMcinématek Twitter link (for ticket updates)
Brooklyn Academy of Music Twitter page
