Film Institute - Reels Background

Films and Filmmakers Spring 2013

Logo Montclair State University Film Forum Reel to Reel

Montclair State University, Film Program
Visiting Filmmakers Coordinator:
Tony Pemberton
973-655-7200
film@montclair.edu
TUESDAYS from 7:00 – 10:00 pm
Location: University Hall, Rm 1040 (unless otherwise noted)
open to all – admission free


January 29, 2013 – Lise Raven – Filmmaker

Lise Raven is an award-winning filmmaker who enjoys making both narrative and documentary films. Raven’s first feature film, LOW, screened in over 30 international film festivals. In 1995 she helped to found the SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL, after which she wrote and directed three films for the SHOWTIME Cable network. In 2000 Raven moved to Berlin, Germany after being awarded the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm Artist Residency in Film. While in Europe, Raven’s feature film project, Snipe, was funded by the Irish Film Board. In 2011 she worked with the Philadelphia Museum of Art to create a short video which screened in the ROBERTO CAPUCCI: ART INTO FASHION exhibition. KINDERWALD is the second part of THE KINDERWALD TRILOGY, a trilogy of films that are inspired by fairy tales about children lost in the woods. The first film, KINDERWALD: Neighbors, was shot in 2011. Raven is an Assistant Professor at Drexel University, in the Department of Cinema and Television.
Her indiegogo project is at this link: www.indiegogo.com/kinderwald-film


February 5, 2013 – Film Radio Unnameable

with Director Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson and Bob Fass

Director Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson present their film Radio Unnameable. Legendary radio personality Bob Fass revolutionized late night FM radio by serving as a cultural hub for music, politics and audience participation for nearly 50 years. Long before today’s innovations in social media, Fass utilized the airwaves for mobilization encouraging luminaries and ordinary listeners to talk openly and take the program in surprising directions. Radio Unnameable is a visual and aural collage that pulls from Bob Fass’s immense archive of audio from his program, film, photographs, and video that has been sitting dormant until now. The Film Directors and Bob Fass will be in attendance.
www.radiounnameablemovie.com/
Co-sponsored by the Montclair Film Festival and the Film Program.


February 12, 2013 – Hal Hartley – Filmmaker

Hartley’s most recent film, Meanwhile, featured at the 2012 Viennale, was released worldwide in 2012 through his own online sales and distribution channel, www.possiblefilms.com and, simultaneously, on iTunes.

His other films include: Simple Men (Official Selection at Cannes in 1992), Flirt (which opened Sundance in 1997), The Book of Life (1998), and No Such Thing (also, premiered at Cannes in 2001).

He has won awards at the Sundance Film Festival for his film Trust in 1991, the Tokyo International Film Festival for Amateur in 1994, the Cannes International Film Festival for Henry Fool in 1998, and the “Premi Noves Visions” award at the Sitges International Film Festival in Spain for The Girl from Monday in 2005.

There have been retrospectives of his work in Rotterdam, New York, Spain, Norway, Korea, Argentina, and Poland.


February 19, 2013 – MONTCLAIR UNDERDOG FILM FESTIVAL: OSCAR-Nominated Short Films

Co-sponsored by the Film Program and the Montclair Film Festival.
Back by popular demand, this event features a marathon of documentary and animated shorts nominated for this year’s academy awards in their respective categories


February 26, 2013 – Pola Rapaport: Filmmaker and Wolfgang Held: Directory of Photography

Pola Rapaport has been involved in the film industry as a writer, sound editor, director and producer for over 20 years. Her work includes these films: Hair: Let the Sun Shine In (2007), a celebration of the revolutionary hippie musical Hair, Rapaport’s work spans the boundaries between fiction and documentary, Writer of O, a docudrama about the secretive author of the erotic novel Story of O (2005); Family Secret, the story of the discovery of her long-lost secret Romanian brother (2000), have been screened at world-wide festivals.

Wolfgang has worked as a director of photography for narrative feature films and documentaries since the mid-90s. Most recently, he traveled the country filming the mockumentary Brüno with Sacha Baron Cohen. In 2008, his work on Carrier earned him an Emmy for Best Cinematography. His other credits include Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004), Mad Hot Ballroom (2005).


March 5, 2013 – Jonas Thaler

Meet Jonas Thaler SVP of Post Production for Walden Media Ben Baker, Executive Producer, Sixteen19, a post production facility New York ~ London ~ Los Angeles ~ New Orleans

Walden Media specializes in entertainment for the whole family. Past award-winning films include: “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “Nim’s Island,” “Charlotte’s Web” and the Sundance Audience Prize Winning documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman.'” Upcoming films include the family adventure “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island,” drama “Won’t Back Down,” Jay Moriarity biopic “Of Men and Mavericks” and the family comedy “Parental Guidance.”


MARCH 19, 2013 Paula Kerger : President and CEO, PBS

A Special Evening with Paula Kerger, President and CEO, PBS
& Merrill Brown, Director of the School of Communication and Media

An Evening Fireside Chat and Q & A with Paula and Merrill.

7:30 – 9pm at Jed Leshowitz Recital Hall
John J. Cali School of Music
Montclair State University
1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ


MARCH 26, 2013 Hilary Brougher : Filmmaker

Hilary Brougher earned a BFA in Film from the School of Visual Arts (1990) and was a fellow at the Sundance screenwriting and directing labs in 2001. She is currently a member of the Directing Faculty at Columbia University’s MFA Film Program.

Her most recent film INNOCENCE (in post production) was adapted from the novel of the same name by Jane Mendelsohn, and was produced by Killer Films and Ron Curtis. It stars Kelly Reilly, Sophie Curtis, and Linus Roache. Her first feature, THE STICKY FINGERS OF TIME was an official selection at the 1997 Venice, Rotterdam, and Toronto International Film Festivals, and was released theatrically in the U.S. in 1997. Her second feature, STEPHANIE DALEY (2007) starred Tilda Swinton and Amber Tamblyn. The film premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival where Hilary won the Waldo Salt Award for Screenwriting. The film was also awarded Best Director at the Milan International Film Festival.


April 2, 2013 – Till Schauder, and Sara Nodjoumi : Filmmakers

THE IRAN JOB follows American basketball player Kevin Sheppard as he accepts a job to play in Iran.

With tensions running high between Iran and the West, Kevin tries to separate sports from politics only to find that politics is impossible to escape in Iran.

Along the way he forms an unlikely alliance with three outspoken Iranian women. Thanks to these women, his apartment turns into an oasis of free speech, where they discuss everything from politics to religion to gender roles.Kevin’s season in Iran culminates in something much bigger than basketball: the uprising and subsequent suppression of Iran’s reformist Green Movement – a powerful prelude to the sweeping changes across the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring. The directors will attend.

See the trailer here: http://www.theiranjob.com

Sponsored by the School of Communication and Media’s Film Program, MSU’s Global Education Center, the History Department, The College of Humanities and Social Science, and the Montclair Film Festival


April 9, 2013 – Cinematography – Lecture – Guest TBD


April 16, 2013 – Sam Pollard : Film Editor & Producer

Sam Pollard’s professional accomplishments as a feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director span almost thirty years. He recently served as Executive Producer on the documentary Brother Outsider, Official Selection 2003 Sundance Film Festival. His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton’s Blackside production Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crosswords. For one of his episodes in this series, he received an Emmy. Eight years later, he returned to Blackside as Co-Executive Producer/Producer of Hampton’s last documentary series I’ll Make Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community. For the series, Mr. Pollard received The George Peabody Award. Between 1990 and 2000, Mr. Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee’s films: Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers, Bamboozled. As well, Mr. Pollard and Mr. Lee co-produced a couple of documentary productions for the small and big screen: Spike Lee Presents Mike Tyson, a biographical sketch for HBO for which Mr. Pollard received an Emmy, and Four Little Girls, a feature-length documentary about the 1965 Birmingham church bombings which was nominated for an Academy Award. Mr. Pollard began this journey in 1972 as an apprentice in a WNET-sponsored film-training workshop.


April 23, 2013 Dawn Porter / Gideon’s Army : Director / Producer

Gideon’s Army follows Travis Williams, Brandy Alexander and June Hardwick, three young public defenders who are part of a small group of idealistic lawyers in the Deep South challenging the assumptions that drive a criminal justice system strained to the breaking point. Backed by mentor Jonathan “Rap” Rapping, a charismatic leader who heads the Southern Public Defender Training Center, they struggle against long hours, low pay and staggering caseloads so common that even the most committed often give up in their first year. Nearly 50 years since the landmark Supreme Court ruling Gideon vs. Wainwright that established the right to counsel, can these courageous lawyers revolutionize the way America thinks about indigent defense and make “justice for all” a reality? Official selection 2013 Sundance Film Festival, winner Editing Award: US Documentary. An HBO Documentary Films presentation. Produced by Trilogy Films in association with Motto Pictures with funding provided by the Ford Foundation.


April 30, 2013 TBA