New Yorker Films

Fire

Killer of Sheep: The Charles Burnett Collection

One of the 100 Essential Films. -National Society of Film Critics

DVD Details: USA, 1977, 80 minutes, B&W, Region 0, NTSC, In English; Special Features of this 2-disc deluxe box set: KILLER OF SHEEP commentary track with Charles Burnett and the Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Richard Peña; KILLER OF SHEEP cast reunion video by Ross Lipman (who restored the film); KILLER OF SHEEP trailer; Burnett's second feature, MY BROTHER'S WEDDING (1984. Color. In English. Starring Everett Silas and Jessie Holmes): the original 115-minute cut and the director's 82-minute cut; three rediscovered short films: SEVERAL FRIENDS (1969. 23 minutes.), THE HORSE (1973. 13 minutes.), and WHEN IT RAINS (1995. 13 minutes.); the new short on Hurricane Katrina, QUIET AS KEPT (2007. 5 minutes.); and liner notes by film critic Armond White.

A masterpiece of African American filmmaking and one of the finest debuts in cinema history, KILLER OF SHEEP was chosen for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. In the Los Angeles community of Watts, Stan, a sensitive dreamer, is growing detached and numb from the toll of working at a slaughterhouse. Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a teacup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife, holding his daughter. Combining lyrical moments with neorealist style, Burnett unfolds his story with compassion and humor. KILLER OF SHEEP's haunting images and extraordinary soundtrack are a revelation in this new high-definition transfer from the UCLA Film & Television Archive's brilliant 35mm restoration.

View the trailer here: http://www.killerofsheep.com/trailer.html.

The 2-disc special edition also includes an additional full-length feature (original release & director's cut), MY BROTHER'S WEDDING: When MY BROTHER'S WEDDING was rushed to a festival screening before the director could make his final cut, it received mixed reviews and was never released - denying audiences the chance to discover Burnett's remarkable second feature. The film critic Armond White called this 'a catastrophic blow to the development of American popular culture.' Revisited decades later, following restoration by the Pacific Film Archive and a complete re-edit by Burnett, MY BROTHER'S WEDDING proves to be funny, heartbreaking and timeless. Pierce Mundy works at his parents' South Central dry cleaners with no prospects for the future - his childhood buddies are all in prison or dead. With his best friend just getting out of jail and his brother busy planning a wedding to a snooty upper-middle-class black woman, Pierce navigates his conflicting obligations while trying to figure out what he really wants.

A treasure that demands to be unearthed in all its funny-sad tenderness. - Village Voice

Astonishing! Marvelous and rare... Humorous, loving and honest, devoid of either condescension or political posturing... An indelible reminder of what real independence looks like. - A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Never less than engrossing! As ever, it's a joy to look at and listen to: Burnett's movies are quite unlike anyone else's. - Time Out New York

My Architect: A Son's Journey

One nonfiction film that truly creates a narrative journey, My Architect is filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn's engrossing search for his father. Louis Kahn, one of the most celebrated architects of the 20th century, died in 1974 and left behind a highly compartmentalized life, including two children born out of wedlock to two mistresses. Nathaniel interviews the members of this somewhat puzzled family, but his deepest experiences are visits to the buildings that his father made (such as the grand Salk Institute in La Jolla, California), culminating in an emotional trip to Bangladesh. Here, Louis Kahn designed a massive government complex, a soaring achievement (and fascinating paradox--a Muslim capital designed by a Jewish man). This film asks: where does an artist truly live? In his life, or in the work he leaves behind? Nathaniel Kahn takes an amazingly even-tempered approach to this, given his personal stake in the story, and the result is a uniquely stirring movie. --Robert Horton

A riveting tale of love, art, betrayal and forgiveness -- in which the illegitimate son of a legendary architect undertakes a worldwide exploration to discover and understand his father's and the personal choices he made.

Louis I. Kahn is considered by many historians to have been the most important architect of the second half of the twentieth century. While Kahn's artistic legacy was a search for truth and clarity, his personal life was secretive and chaotic. His mysterious death in a train station men's room left behind three families -- one with his wife and two with women with whom he had long-term affairs. The child of one of these extra-marital relationships, Kahn's only son Nathaniel, sets out on a journey to reconcile the life and work of this mysterious man.

Revealing the haunting beauty of his father's monumental creations and taking us to the rarified heights of the world's celebrated architects and deep within his own divided family, Nathaniel's personal journey becomes a universal investigation of identity, a celebration of art and ultimately, of life itself.

Jazz on a Summer's Day/A Summer's Day With Bert Stern

Part concert documentary, part pop-cultural time capsule, Bert Stern's Jazz on a Summer's Day chronicles the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with an approach as deceptively relaxed, even impulsive, as the music itself. Still photographer Stern sidesteps more formal documentary conventions such as narrative voiceovers to wander purposefully from festival stage to boarding-house jam sessions, taking in the parallel color and motion of the America's Cup preparations when he isn't capturing rich color footage of the performances and the celebratory mood of the concertgoers. In the process, he documents American jazz at a notably golden moment in its development--diverse, adventurous, and still broadly popular, this was jazz not yet under the shadow of rock and youth culture, played by an integrated artistic community a few short years away from social and political turmoil that would boil divisively to the surface during the '60s. To say Stern was rolling film in a jazz Camelot is overstatement, but only slightly so.

Stern's circular approach and wonderful eye achieve a breezy languor at the expense of more comprehensive coverage of the festival's bumper crop of strong jazz, blues, and gospel musicians. Perhaps inevitably, the camera lingers on Louis Armstrong, Anita O'Day, Mahalia Jackson, Dinah Washington, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, and George Shearing. Avid fans of later styles may be frustrated by the fleeting glimpses of other musicians such as Eric Dolphy and Art Farmer, or the honor roll of classic jazz stylists whose Newport sets weren't included in the film, but such omissions seem forgivable, if not necessary, to Stern's serendipitous design. --Sam Sutherland

Life And Debt

Set to a beguiling reggae beat, Life and Debt takes as its subject Jamaica's economic decline in the 20th century. The story has reverberations in the plight of other third-world nations blindsided by globalization, like Ghana and Haiti. After England granted Jamaica independence in 1962, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in with a series of loans. These loans came with strings attached--the kind that would eventually plunge the country $7 billion into debt, stranded without the resources to dig themselves out. Although IMF officials get the chance to have their say, it's clear where filmmaker Stephanie Black's sympathies lie--with the country's underemployed farmers and sweatshop workers. Jamaica Kinkaid (A Small Place) penned the narration, while the soundtrack features some of the "imports" with which this island nation remains mostly closely associated: Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Mutabaruka, who performs the title track. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Privilege

Steven Shorter (played by Manfred Mann lead singer, PAUL JONES) is a rock music phenomenon. His popularity, carefully engineered by his corporate handlers, has reached dizzying proportions. But, when artist Vanessa Ritchie (played by the original supermodel, JEAN SHRIMPTON) is hired to paint his portrait, she discovers that he is unhappy and unstable. When matters take a devious twist, Steve rebels in a startling manner.

In the wake of the controversy surrounding his Oscar®-winning anti-nuclear drama The War Game, director PETER WATKINS fashioned a darkly comic vision of a totalitarian near-future. So forceful was Privilege in its criticism of the media, corporate culture and the state that it was greeted with a potent mix of praise and abuse on its first release. Its prescience and the questions it asks about manipulation and control make Watkins film even more relevant today.

Special Features:
- New High Definition video transfer
- 26 minute short film Lonely Boy (1962) featuring Paul Anka in his prime
- Optional English and French subtitles
- Original PRIVILEGE trailer
- Stills and poster gallery
- Peter Watkins filmography
- Collector's booklet.

Earth

A tragedy set against the ethnic violence of India's independence in 1947, the second film in Deepa Mehta's elemental India trilogy is even more incendiary than her controversial Fire. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Parsees alike buzz like bees around the lovely flower Shanta (Nandita Das), the Hindu nanny of sheltered 8-year-old Parsee girl Lenny-baby. This sunny Eden of racial harmony plunges into darkness when independence brings the partition of the empire and sets ethnic groups against one another in civil war. As seen through the naive eyes of little Lenny-baby, Earth is more tragic melodrama than social history, but what Mehta's adaptation of Bapsi Sidhwa's autobiographical novel Cracking India lacks in insight, it makes up for in fiery imagery, emotional passion, and a heavy-hearted longing for the paradise lost. --Sean Axmaker

Earth, The second film in Deepa Mehta's controversial trilogy is an emotionally devastating love story set within the sweeping social upheaval and violence of 1947 India. As her country teeters on the brink of self rule and instability, 8-year old Lenny, an innocent girl from an affluent family, is in danger of having her world turned upside down. As the simmering violence around them reaches a boiling point, Lenny's beautiful nanny Shanta (Nandita Das) falls in love with one of Lenny's heroes,… the charismatic and peace-advocating Hassan. Love, however, can be dangerous when religious differences are tearing the country apart, and friendships and loyalty are put to the test. Building to a shattering climax, Earth is a devastating human drama in which desire unfolds into a stirring tale of love and the ultimate betrayal.

Moolaadé

The final film from African cinema's founding father, Ousmane Sembene, MOOLAADE is a potent polemic directed against the still-common practice of female circumcision. Though the subject matter may seem weighty, this buoyant film is anything but - Sembene places the action amid a colorful, vibrant tapestry of village life, employing an imaginative array of emblematic metaphors, mythic overtones, and spirited songs. MOOLAADE reinforces the strong feminist consciousness that marked his earlier classics FAAT KINE, BLACK GIRL, and CEDDO. In a small village, four young girls facing ritual 'purification' flee to the household of Collé Ardo Gallo Sy, a strong-willed woman who has managed to shield her own teenage daughter from mutilation. Collé invokes the time-honored custom of moolaadé (sanctuary) to protect the fugitives. Tension mounts as the ensuing stand-off pits Collé against village traditionalists (both male and female) endangering her daughter's prospective marriage to the heir-apparent to the tribal throne.

A sharp critic of the internal problems of modern Africa, but also a passionate advocate of African pride and autonomy, Sembene's fiery spirit will live on beyond the stand-up-and-cheer finale.

Voted Best Foreign Film of the Year by the National Society of Film Critics and the following publications all selected MOOLAADE as One of the Ten Best Films of the Year: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Weekly, Dallas Morning News, Chicago Tribune, The Village Voice, Houston Chronicle.

DVD Details: Senegal, 2004, 124 minutes, Color, Region 1, NTSC, Widescreen presentation: Enhanced for 16x9 TVs/Letterboxed for 4x3, Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0, In Jula (a dialect of Bambara) and French with optional English subtitles; scene selections. Special Features: A 2-disc set; Featurette: Making of MOOLAADE; Sembene: Portrait of a Filmmaker; footage from the film's African premiere in Burkina Faso; interviews with director Ousmane Sembene and three actresses; interviews with activists in Burkina Faso who speak about female genital mutilation (FGM); promotional film for FORWARD, a U.K. NGO leading the fight against FGM; theatrical trailer; and a 16-page booklet.

Bamako

An extraordinary trial is taking place in a residential courtyard in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. African citizens have taken proceedings against such international financial institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whom civil society blames for perpetuating Africa's debt crisis, at the heart of so many of the continent's woes. As numerous trial witnesses (schoolteachers, farmers, writers, etc.) air bracing indictments against the global economic machinery that haunts them, life in the courtyard presses forward. Melé, a lounge singer, and her unemployed husband Chaka are on the verge of breaking up; a security guard's gun goes missing; a young man lies ill; a wedding procession passes through; and women keep everything rolling - dyeing fabric, minding children, spinning cotton, and speaking their minds.

Written and directed by the celebrated filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako (Waiting for Happiness) and co-executive produced by Danny Glover (who also provides a cameo in the film), this critically acclaimed political drama - filled with a lush mix of warm colors and impassioned music - offers a unique opportunity for audiences to become familiar with contemporary Africa. Sissako, who grew up in the courtyard that the film is set in, hired professional lawyers and judges along with "witnesses" to express their true feelings. Bamako voices Africa's grievances in an original and profoundly moving way.

Director Ken Russell declared Bamako to be a "revolutionary lesson in contemporary film-making." The Observer's Philip French listed Bamako among his top 50 films of the past 5 decades. Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com, who named the film as his number one film of 2007, deemed the film a "fearless high-wire act, grim and witty, confrontational and self-mocking." A.O. Scott of The New York Times stated that he's "never seen a film quite like 'Bamako'... a work of cool intelligence and profound anger... necessary viewing."

Special Features:
- Interviews with: director Abderrahmane Sissako, executive producer / actor Danny Glover, Yao Graham (Third World Network Africa) and Gita Sen (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era)
- Harry Belafonte: clip from NY Film Festival panel
- Theatrical trailer
- Dolby Digital 5.1
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
- Optional English subtitles
- Scene Selections
- Essays by Aminata Traoré and Mahmood Mamdani

La Belle Noiseuse

La Belle Noiseuse is a thrilling and unconventional drama about the responsibility of an artist to his vision and the conflicts that arise when such responsibility is perceived as a threat to others. Michel Piccoli (Le Doulos) delivers one of his finest, most lived-in performances as Edouard Frenhofer, a famous painter living with his artist wife Liz (Jane Birkin) on a spacious estate in the French countryside. Frenhofer has lacked inspiration for a decade and has given up on painting. The idea behind his unfinished masterpiece, La Belle Noiseuse ("The Beautiful Troublemaker"), has been seemingly unattainable for a decade; Liz was the original model for it, and Frenhofer's exhaustion with the project has an emotional parallel to his dispassionate relationship with her.

Along comes a rising artist, Nicolas (David Bursztein), who suggests that his girlfriend, Marianne (Emmanuelle Béart), a writer, could help Frenhofer jumpstart the painting's completion. From this point, most of La Belle Noiseuse becomes a remarkable, seemingly unedited and privileged look at the development of a bond between artist and muse. Béart, fiercely brilliant, spends the majority of the film nude and continually molded into sometimes-painful positions as Frenhofer struggles--sketch after sketch, paint upon paint--to find something beyond the obviousness of Marianne's body. As the two struggle to meet each other halfway, Liz and Nicolas feel marginalized and jealous, putting pressure on Frenhofer to disregard such personal concerns or give in to them. Adapted by French New Wave master Jacques Rivette from a story by Honore de Balzac, the lengthy La Belle Noiseuse is fascinated by the artistic process; it is itself a patient process of watching ideas and aesthetic courage reveal themselves in the face of extraneous aversion. --Tom Keogh