this week in film and television

WIM WENDERS: PINA (IN 3-D)

PINA is a 3-D celebration of seminal choreographer Pina Bausch and Tanztheater Wuppertal

PINA: DANCE, DANCE, OTHERWISE WE ARE LOST (Wim Wenders, 2011)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Monday, March 16, 6:30, and Tuesday, March 17, 6:45
Series runs March 2-17
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.pina-film.de

Back in 2004, in reviewing Pina Bausch’s Fur Die Kinder von Gesern, Heute und Morgen (For the Children of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow) at BAM, we wrote, “You don’t have to be a dance fan to love the always engaging Pina Bausch.” The same holds true for Wim Wenders’s loving 3-D documentary, Pina. The longtime director of Tanztheater Wuppertal, German choreographer Bausch created uniquely entertaining pieces for more than thirty years, combining a playful visual language with a ribald sense of humor, cutting-edge staging, diverse music, and a stellar cast of men and women of varying ages and body sizes, resulting in a new kind of dance theater. A friend of hers for more than twenty years, Wenders (Wings of Desire, Paris, Texas) was collaborating with Bausch on a film when she suddenly died of cancer in 2009 at the age of sixty-eight, two days before rehearsal shooting was to begin. Wenders decided to proceed, making a film for Pina instead of with her. Using the latest 3-D technology, including a specially developed camera rig mounted on a crane, Wenders invites audiences onstage as he captures thrilling, intimate performances of several of Bausch’s seminal works, 1975’s Le Sacre du printemps, 1978’s Café Müller, 1978 and 2000’s Kontakthof (Contact Zone), 2002’s Fur Die Kinder, and 2006’s Vollmond (Full Moon), which were selected by Bausch and Wenders together.

Wim Wenders’s PINA takes to the streets of Wuppertal, Germany

The dancers seem to be more motivated than ever, reveling in Bausch’s building, repetitive vocabulary of movement and discussing how she inspired them with just a few words. As a bonus, Wenders includes footage of Bausch dancing Café Müller. Some members of the company also dance personal memories on the streets, in a factory, and aboard a monorail in and around Wuppertal. Pina is not a biopic; Wenders does not delve into Bausch’s personal life or have random talking heads discuss her contribution to the world. Instead, he focuses on how she used movement to celebrate humanity and get the most out of the men, women, and children who worked with her. In the September 2009 memorial ceremony held for Bausch at the Wuppertal Opera House, Wenders said, “I would like to ask all of you, finally, to cherish this treasure of Pina’s gaze. . . . appreciating that you knew Pina, that we all knew her gaze and were fortunate enough to experience such a priceless gift.” With Pina, which was nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar, Wenders has given us a beautiful gift, a wonderful tribute to his great friend. Pina is screening in 3-D on March 16 & 17 as the sixteen-day Wim Wenders retrospective concludes at MoMA; there is also still time to catch such other Wenders works as Alice in the Cities, Tokyo-Ga, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, Buena Vista Social Club, and lesser-known shorts and early films.

SOCIALLY RELEVANT FILM FESTIVAL NY

Tribeca Cinemas, 54 Varick St., Maysles Cinema, 343 Malcolm X Blvd., the Quad, 34 West 13th St., the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd St., the Center for Remembering and Sharing, 123 Fourth Ave., and the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave.
March 16-22, free – $15 (all access pass $200)
www.ratedsrfilms.org

Started last year by Nora Armani as a response to the violence in mainstream movies, both in the narrative as well as the style of filmmaking, the Socially Relevant Film Festival consists of fiction and nonfiction films from more than thirty countries focusing on “human interest stories that raise awareness to social problems and might offer positive solutions through the powerful medium of cinema.” The festival, running at Tribeca Cinemas, Maysles Cinema, the CUNY Graduate Center, the SVA Theatre, the Center for Remembering and Sharing, and the Quad, opens March 16 with a free screening (advance RSVP recommended) of Hϋseyin Karabey’s Come to My Voice, in which a young Kurdish girl, with her grandmother, has to find a gun to free her imprisoned father. Other programs include Michael Buckley’s Plundering Tibet with Giordano Cossu’s Umudugudu! Rwanda 20 Years On; Justin Thomas’s Truth Through a Lens, about the evolution of onetime Brooklyn street kid Dennis Flores; Matthias Leupold’s Lighter than Orange, which looks at the human cost of the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam; and Kaouther Ben Hania’s mockumentary Challat of Tunis, about the vicious slashing of eleven women in 2003. Most screenings will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers and other guests. There will also be panel discussions on distribution, storytelling, casting, and, closing the festival, “Next: An Open Dialogue on the Potential of Art as a Revolutionary Tool,” with Jessica Vale and Cherrell Brown, moderated by Adam Kritzer.

HAGIGAH IVRIT

Who: Assaf Gavron, Shira Averbuch, Yuval Hamevulbal, Roy Noy, Tal Mosseri, the Power Girls (Tuti and Naama), Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Mesiba Ivrit, Reuven (Ruby) Namdar, and more
What: Hagigah Ivrit (חגיגה עברית)
Where: JCC in Manhattan, B’nai Jeshurun, Israeli-American Council (IAC), Symphony Space, the Highline Ballroom, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Park Avenue Synagogue, Yeshiva University Museum, and other locations
When: March 14-30
Why: The first-ever North American cultural festival celebrating the Hebrew language features a book talk with Assaf Gavron, author of The Hilltop; an interactive educational performance of Peter and the Wolf; the Festifun2 musical production with Israeli child stars; a talk by Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Yehuda on “The Importance of the Hebrew Tongue to the Rebirth of the People in Their Land — and the Continued Existence of Judaism in the Future”; a dance party with live music; Hebrew classes for beginners; Shabbat dinner; a Passover family workshop; a conversation with Sapir Prize for Literature winner Ruby Namdar; a screening of Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit’s The Farewell Party; and other special and ongoing events.

SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION

Pianist Seymour Bernstein speaks with director Ethan Hawke at Steinway & Sons on Sixth Ave. (photo courtesy of Ramsey Fendall)

SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION (Ethan Hawke, 2014)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway between 62nd & 63rd Sts., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, March 13
www.ifcfilms.com

No, with Seymour: An Introduction, Ethan Hawke hasn’t managed the nearly impossible, filming an adaptation of the J. D. Salinger story about a young man who commits suicide. Instead, Hawke uses the title for his beautifully touching, life-affirming portrait of octogenarian composer and musician Seymour Bernstein. An extraordinary pianist, the Newark-born Bernstein started playing when he was three, began giving lessons when he was fifteen, and, when he turned fifty, decided to stop performing recitals despite great critical success, in order to concentrate on teaching and composing and to avoid his stage fright and the negative aspects of commercial fame. After meeting at a dinner party, Hawke and Bernstein hit it off and agreed to collaborate on the project, which was filmed over the course of two years. Hawke, in his first documentary and third feature as director (following Chelsea Walls and The Hottest State), shows Bernstein holding master classes in auditoriums, teaching in his cramped New York City apartment, talking in a café with former student and current New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, and selecting just the right piano for a recital Hawke convinces him to give at the Steinway & Sons showroom on West Fifty-Seventh St.; in addition, Hawke speaks with such other Bernstein friends as writer and scholar Andrew Harvey, pianist and lecturer Joseph Smith, and musician and songwriter Kimball Gallagher.

Documentary focuses on master pianist and composer Seymour Bernstein’s love of life and music (photo courtesy of Ramsey Fendall)

Seymour: An Introduction depicts Bernstein as a truly gentle, generous soul who always looks for the positive in people and situations, a perpetual smile on his face. The film focuses on his relationship with the piano more so than his personal life; although he discusses his childhood and his time in the military, he never mentions companions or family outside of his parents. For Bernstein and Hawke, it’s all about the music. “When I was around the age of fifteen, I remember that I became aware that when my practicing went well, everything else in life seemed to be harmonized by that. When my practicing didn’t go well, I was out of sorts with people, with my parents,” Bernstein says near the beginning of the documentary. “So I concluded that the real essence of who we are resides in our talent, in whatever talent there is.” And Bernstein’s talent is extraordinary, a joy to behold, as is his love of life. The endlessly charming and inspiring Seymour: An Introduction opens March 13 at Lincoln Plaza and the IFC Center; the now eighty-seven-year-old Bernstein will be at IFC to talk about the film at the 6:15 and 8:15 shows on Friday night and will be joined by Hawke at the 6:15 and 8:15 shows on Saturday and the 4:15 and 6:15 screenings on Sunday.

REELABILITIES: NY DISABILITIES FILM FESTIVAL

Rory Culkin will be among the special guests at the ReelAbilities film festival, discussing his starring role in GABRIEL

Multiple venues
March 12-18, free – $50 (most film screenings $12-$13)
newyork.reelabilities.org

The seventh annual ReelAbilities film festival will feature more than two dozen programs, focusing on “promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities.” This year’s festival, running March 12-18, will take place at more than three dozen locations in all five boroughs in addition to Westchester and Long Island. The Finishers, Nils Tavernier’s drama about a teenager with cerebral palsy who is convinced by his father that the two should compete together in an Ironman triathlon in France, is the opening-night selection, with a gala screening at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, while the closing-night film is Carlo Zoratti’s The Special Need, about a twenty-nine-year-old autistic man who is determined to lose his virginity, being shown March 18 at the JCC in Manhattan and followed by a reception. Among the other films are Adam Kahan’s The Case of the Three Sided Dream, a documentary about blind and paralyzed jazzman Rahsaan Roland Kirk; Troy Kotsur’s mockumentary No Ordinary Hero: The SuperDeafy Movie; Richard Kane’s Jon Imber’s Left Hand, which tells the story of the artist who had to switch the hand he paints with because of ALS; and Lou Howe’s Gabriel, which stars Rory Culkin as a teenager dealing with mental illness. (Many of the screenings will be followed by discussions and Q&As with the filmmakers, actors, protagonists, and health professionals.) There will also be such special events as “(In)Visible,” a conversation between blind Michigan Supreme Court justice Richard Bernstein and Jason’s Connections cofounder Jason Harris; a multimedia exhibit at the JCC in Manhattan by the Jack and Shirley Silver Center for Special Needs; the ReelAbilities Comedy Night at the JCC with Anita Hollander, Mary Archbold, Pat Shay, Shannon DeVido, and David Harrell; and a Shabbat Dinner celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, with film screenings and a panel discussion with historian Warren Shaw, Justice Bernstein, photographer Rick Guidotti, and others, moderated by Lawrence Carter-Long.

MoMA PRESENTS: BENEDIKT ERLINGSSON’S OF HORSES AND MEN

Human nature is explored through the eyes of horses in wildly entertaining Icelandic tale

OF HORSES AND MEN (HROSS Í OSS) (Benedikt Erlingsson, 2013)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
March 11-17
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
hrosss.is/the-film

Iceland’s entry for the 2013 Academy Awards and winner of the 2014 Nordic Council Film Prize, Benedikt Erlingsson’s black comedy, Of Horses and Men, takes an absurdist look at the relationship between humans and horses, incorporating love, sex, pain, responsibility, friendship, religion, and death in darkly comic and heart-rending ways. In a tight-knit community spread across a sweeping rural landscape in Iceland, horses are far more plentiful than people. One morning, Kolbeinn (Ingvar E. Sigurdsson) goes for a ride aboard his gorgeous white mare as men, women, and children come outside to watch him pass by like it’s a parade. But a shocking, unexpected encounter with Solveig’s (Charlotte Bøving) black stallion sets into motion a series of interconnected vignettes, each successive one featuring a minor character from a previous scene. Lust, land disputes, gender distinction, and other agreements and disagreements lead to either tragedy or joy, but, of course, this being Iceland, the former is far more prevalent, especially as more and more Brennivin (Black Death) and other drink is consumed. Writer-director Erlingsson’s debut feature is gorgeously photographed by Bergsteinn Björgúlfsson, whose camera moves lovingly over the green fields and mountainous valleys, treating the horses like Hollywood sirens, zooming in on their eyes to show the reflection of the people who seek to control them, equating the basic animal instincts of both species. The horses in the film are no mere props; Erlingsson, who grew up in a theatrical family and has directed numerous stage productions (in addition to owning a horse, whom he called his “life companion,” for thirty years until recently having to put her down), treats the animals like characters in their own right, revealing their, dare we say, humanity. Produced by Icelandic cinema legend Friðrik Þór Friðriksson (Children of Nature, Mamma Gógó), Of Horses and Men is a dark, wildly entertaining treatise on human nature among a rather quirky and unusual equestrian set. The film is being shown March 11-17 at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the ongoing MoMA Presents series.

DCTV PRESENTS STRAY DOG

Ron “Stray Dog” Hall takes his wife, and viewers, on a marvelous ride into the heart of America in Debra Granik’s charming documentary

STRAY DOG (Debra Granik, 2014)
DCTV (Downtown Community Television Center)
87 Lafayette St.
Wednesday, March 11, $10, 7:00
212-966-4510
www.dctvny.org
www.straydogthemovie.com

Shortly after meeting Ron “Stray Dog” Hall at the Biker Church in Branson, Missouri, writer-director Debra Granik (Down to the Bone) cast the Vietnam vet as Thump Milton in her second feature, the Oscar-nominated Winter’s Bone. Upon learning more about him, she soon decided that he would be a great subject for a documentary, so she took to the road, following him across the country in the engaging and revealing Stray Dog. Nearly always dressed in black, including his treasured leather jacket covered in medals and patches — when he puts it in a suitcase for a trip, it’s a ritual like he’s folding the American flag — Hall is a wonderfully grizzled old man with a fluffy white beard. At home, he is learning Spanish online so he can communicate better with his new wife, Alicia, a Mexican immigrant, and her two sons (who still live across the border). He visits with his teenage granddaughter, who is making some questionable decisions about her future. In Missouri, he owns and operates the At Ease RV Park, where he gives breaks to fellow vets who can’t always afford to pay the rent. And when he goes on the road, participating in the Run for the Wall, joining up with thousands of other bikers heading for the annual service at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, he stops along the way at other ceremonies honoring soldiers who have gone missing, are POWs, or were killed in action in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other wars.

Hall is a gregarious, gentle man who people instantly flock to and gather around — a scene in which two of his cats sit on each of his knees is absolutely heartwarming — but he is also haunted by some of the things he did in Vietnam, suffering from nightmares that sometimes have him screaming out loud while sleeping in bed. And he wears one of his mottoes right on his arm: “Never Forgive Never Forget.” At one point he sits comfortably on a couch and says, “Just kind of being free, don’t hurt nobody, do what you want to do — a nice thing, ain’t it? You know, I’d rather live as a free man for a year than a slave for twenty.” Granik simply follows Hall as he experiences life with his surprisingly refreshing point of view; no one ever turns to the camera to make any confessions, and no talking heads are brought on board to evaluate what we’re seeing. Granik just lets this beautiful piece of Americana unfold at its own pace while also touching on such hot-button topics as immigration reform, gun control, the economic crisis, and PTSD, making no judgments as we follow the captivating exploits of a man who is part Buddha, part Santa, and all patriot. Stray Dog, which made its New York premiere this past October at the 52nd New York Film Festival, will be screening March 11 at 7:00 at DCTV, followed by a Q&A with director Granik, editor and producer Tory Stewart, and cinematographer Eric Phillips-Horst.