this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

CHAGALL-MALEVICH

Marc Chagall (Leonid Bichevin), and Bella Rosenfeld (Kristina Schneidermann) open an art academy in Vitebsk during the Russian Revolution in CHAGALL-MALEVICH

CHAGALL-MALEVICH (Alexander Mitta, 2013)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, June 12
212-924-3363
chagall-malevich.com
www.cinemavillage.com

For his first film in a dozen years, Russian writer-director Alexander Mitta tells the intriguing story of the little-known relationship between early modernist painter Marc Zakharovich Chagall and avant-garde Suprematist Kazimir Malevich. In 1917, Chagall (Leonid Bichevin), already a success in Paris, returns to his home in Vitebsk to marry his sweetheart, Bella Rosenfeld (Kristina Schneidermann), who is being wooed by their childhood friend, Naum (Semyon Shkalikov). Chagall initially wants to return to Paris with Bella and continue his burgeoning career, but with the onset of the Russian Revolution he decides that he will use the power of art to provide much-needed culture and creativity for the community, opening the Academy of Modern Art. Trouble ensues when he hires Malevich (Anatoliy Belyy) to teach there, as Malevich brings his own very different ideas about art and politics. Meanwhile, Naum, who is still in love with Bella, has become the Red Commissar, ruling Vitebsk with fear and violence. Made with the support of Chagall’s granddaughter, Meret Meyer Graber, a vice president of the Marc Chagall Committee, and inspired by his memoirs, Chagall-Malevich is a highly stylized, fanciful film, evoking the work of Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Grand Budapest Hotel) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep); cinematographer Sergei Machilsky shot the movie in colors based on the paintings of Chagall and Malevich, set at sharp angles that can be both cool and disorienting. But Mitta’s (Lost in Siberia, My Friend, Kolka!) screenplay is far too sentimental and idealistic in its celebration of the brush over the gun. Chagall-Malevich might be beautiful to look at — Malevich’s bold geometric shapes are a wonderful foil for Chagall’s dreamscapes, and some of the more fantastical elements are rather funny — but the central plot is overly whimsical and often just plain silly, its palette lacking in subtlety and gradation. Chagall-Malevich opens June 12 at Cinema Village, with Schneidermann participating in a Q&A following the 7:30 show on Friday night.

THE YES MEN ARE REVOLTING

Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno travel the world calling attention to climate change in THE YES MEN ARE REVOLTING

THE YES MEN ARE REVOLTING (Laura Nix & the Yes Men, 2014)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
June 12-25
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
theyesmenarerevolting.com

Since 1999, culture-jamming pranksters Mike Bonanno (Igor Vamos) and Andy Bichlbaum (Jacques Servin) have been staging events to call attention to economic and environmental abuses perpetrated by big business and international governments, including Dow Chemical, the World Trade Organization, ExxonMobil, and BP. In their latest film, The Yes Men Are Revolting, the follow-up to 2003’s The Yes Men and 2009’s The Yes Men Fix the World, the daring, inventive activists find themselves facing a series of midlife crises, both personal and professional, particularly after one of their hoaxes goes embarrassingly awry. “Whenever we would do actions, I would always think, like, ‘This is the one that’s gonna change everything,’” a distraught Bichlbaum says in the film. “I would convince myself of that, and then afterwards there would be this huge depression, like, ‘Oh, we didn’t change everything.’” The action involving the presentation of a fake polar bear to an Amsterdam zoo might have failed, but it’s not long before Bonanno, who had moved to Scotland with his wife and children, and Bichlbaum, who was struggling to maintain a relationship with his boyfriend in New York City, are back together, fighting the good fight. The Yes Men Are Revolting follows the two men over the course of several years as they take on climate change, focusing on COP 15 and the partnership between Gazprom and Shell Oil, traveling from Zuccotti Park, Amsterdam, and Seattle to Uganda, Copenhagen, and Washington, DC, to call attention to the impact of Arctic drilling and polar ice cap melting on the future of the planet.

Laura Nix, who codirected the film with the Yes Men, goes behind the scenes as they construct their actions, hire actors to play media representatives and lobbyists, choose the wardrobe (and wigs), and build fake websites to help establish credibility. It’s amazing what they get away with and what people will believe — and it’s even funnier when they get caught (and sued). But at the heart of it all is a very real desire to, as their second film proclaimed, fix the world, while also maintaining their long friendship. The new movie begins with them on the Brooklyn shore, announcing the creation of the SurvivaBall, a ridiculous-looking giant costume that promises people protection from the elements “no matter what happens to the climate.” The Yes Men open the public’s eyes to so much infuriating corporate crime and corruption that you might just want to hide away in your own SurvivaBall, hoping and praying that things will get better. But don’t count on it. The Yes Men Are Revolting opens June 12 at the IFC Center, with the Friday-night screening part of the 2015 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, followed by a Q&A with Nix and the Yes Men, who on Thursday were in Columbus Circle, handing out free shaved-ice cones purportedly made from the melting polar ice cap. There will be a live video discussion with the Yes Men in person and Julian Assange after the 2:40 show on June 14, a Q&A with the Yes Men following the 8:25 shows on June 15 & 16, and a Q&A with editor Claire L. Chandler after the 8:25 screening on June 18.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL 2015: THE WANTED 18

THE WANTED 18 uses animation to tell story of Israeli cows sold to Palestinian town

THE WANTED 18 (Amer Shomali & Paul Cowan, 2014)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Saturday, June 13, $14, 6:30
Festival runs June 11-21 at multiple venues
212-875-5050
Film opens June 19 at Cinema Village
ff.hrw.org/new-york
www.wanted18.com

The never-ending battle between Israel and the Palestinians is reduced to a single incident attempting to be a microcosm of the conflict in the relatively silly and uneven documentary The Wanted 18. In 1988, shortly after the first Intifada began, an Israeli kibbutz sold eighteen cows to the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour. As the small, tight-knit community rallied around the cows, seeing them as a crucial part to their goal of freedom and independence, the Israelis grew suspicious of the Palestinians’ growing self-sufficiency and declared the cows “a threat to the national security of the state of Israel.” Codirectors Amer Shomali, whose family came from Beit Sahour, and Canadian Paul Cowan (Going the Distance, Westray) tell the story of the fight over the cows through contemporary interviews, drawings, reenactments, archival footage, and stop-motion animation in which four of the cows share their thoughts on the matter: Rivka (voiced by Holly Uloth “O’Brien”), Ruth (Heidi Foss), Lola (casting director Rosann Nerenberg), and Goldie (Alison Darcy). The heavily one-sided tale delves into such issues as taxation, bigotry, boycotts, curfews, and civil disobedience, as people from Beit Sahour give first-person accounts of what happened, along with Ehud Zrahiya, who at the time was advisor to the Israeli military governor on Arab affairs. “We were concerned that Beit Sahour may become a model for other places,” Zrahiya admits. “We were certainly concerned that this might infect other places and would spread to other localities throughout the West Bank.”

But while the animation style itself is fun and creative — the animation was inspired at least in part by a comic book that Shomali read as a child — the invented dialogue of the cows serves to trivialize the matter and turn it into a joke, which is part of the point but also results in making it look like the Palestinians are laughing, and crying, over spilt milk, as it were. Julia Bacha’s more direct 2009 film, Budrus, was much more effective in dealing with an absurd Israeli military order to chop down hundreds of acres of Palestinian olive trees in order to build a separation barrier in the West Bank. The Wanted 18 belittles the situation, especially when Beit Sahour wants to continue the fight despite the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords by U.S. president Bill Clinton, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The Wanted 18 is screening June 13 at 6:30 at Lincoln Center as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival and will be followed by a panel discussion with Shomali, Just Vision creative director Bacha, producer Ina Fichman, and Human Rights Watch MENA division executive director Sarah Leah Whitson, moderated by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! The film opens theatrically June 19 at Cinema Village.

MUSEUM MILE FESTIVAL 2015

Uptown institutions stay open late and open their doors for free for Museum Mile Festival

Multiple locations on Fifth Ave. between 82nd & 105th Sts.
Tuesday, June 9, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Admission: free
www.museummilefestival.org

There’s really only one main problem with the annual Museum Mile Festival: It’s too short. On Tuesday, June 9, from 6:00 to 9:00, nine uptown art and cultural institutions will open their doors for free and fill Fifth Ave. between 82nd & 105th Sts. with family-friendly activities for the thirty-sixth year. There will be live outdoor performances by Calpulli Mexican Dance Company, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, Evolfo, Kim David Smith, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Sammie & Trudie’s Imagination Playhouse, Silly Billy the Very Funny Clown, and Magic Brian, in addition to face painting, art workshops, chalk drawing, and more. The participating museums (with at least one of their current shows listed here) are El Museo del Barrio (“Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa — Art and Film”), the Museum of the City of New York (“Saving Place: 50 Years of New York City Landmarks”), the Jewish Museum (“Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television,” “Laurie Simmons: How We See”), the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (“How Posters Work,” “Making Design”), the National Academy (“The Annual 2015: The Depth of the Surface”), the Guggenheim (“Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim”), the Neue Galerie (“Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer: The Woman in Gold”), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“Van Gogh: Irises and Roses,” “Robert Motherwell: Lyric Suite”), along with the Africa Center (which is building a new home). Don’t try to do too much, because it can get rather crowded; just pick one or two exhibitions in one or two museums and enjoy.

AILEY AT LINCOLN CENTER 2015

AAADT’s Antonio Douthit-Boyd and Linda Celeste Sims perform in Wayne McGregor’s CHROMA (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be performing Wayne McGregor’s CHROMA for the last time at Lincoln Center, while also saying farewell to longtime dancer Antonio Douthit-Boyd (and his husband, fellow dancer Kirven Douthit-Boyd) (photo by Paul Kolnik)

David H. Koch Theater
20 Lincoln Center Plaza
June 10-21, $25 – $135
212-496-0600
www.alvinailey.org
www.davidhkochtheater.com

In June 2013, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performed at Lincoln Center for the first time in thirteen years. The late-spring season is now becoming an annual event, as the troupe, which takes over City Center every December, will be back at the David Koch Theater for the third straight year. From June 10 to 21, AAADT will present eighteen works across fourteen programs, in addition to an opening-night gala. New pieces include the world premiere of Rennie Harris’s Exodus, the company premiere of artistic director Robert Battle’s No Longer Silent, and new productions of Talley Beatty’s Toccata and Judith Jamison’s “A Case of You” duet from Reminiscin’. Also on the schedule are Battle’s Strange Humors and whirlwind Takademe, Ronald K. Brown’s elegant Grace, Jacqulyn Buglisi’s female celebration Suspended Women, Ulysses Dove’s Bad Blood, Matthew Rushing’s overly earnest ODETTA, Hofesh Shechter’s exhilarating Uprising, and Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain Pas de Deux, along with the Ailey classics Night Creature and Revelations. The Saturday afternoon family matinees will be followed by Q&As with the dancers, and Ailey Extension instructor Eddie Stockton will lead a free house dance class on June 11 at 6:00 on Josie Robertson Plaza, with music by DJ C Boogie. The company will also be presenting Wayne McGregor’s physically exertive Chroma for the final time while also saying goodbye to two longtime members, married couple Antonio and Kirven Douthit-Boyd, who will stay with Ailey through a Paris engagement at the Théâtre du Châtelet in July, then become the artistic directors of the Center of Creative Arts in St. Louis.

EGG ROLLS, EGG CREAMS, AND EMPANADAS FESTIVAL 2015

Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge St. between Canal & Division Sts.
Sunday, June 7, free, 12 noon – 4:00 pm
212-219-0302
www.eldridgestreet.org

The fifteenth annual Egg Rolls & Egg Creams block party is adding quite a twist this year, bringing together not only the Jewish and Chinese communities of the Lower East Side but also the Puerto Rican community. Taking place June 7, the festival will include food and drink, live music (klezmer, salsa, bomba, and plena) and dance, history, culture, and lots more. Among the highlights of the festival are the kosher egg creams and egg rolls — and new this year, empanadas — as well as yarmulke and challah workshops, tea ceremonies, Yiddish, Mandarin, and Spanish lessons, Hebrew and Chinese calligraphy classes, mah jongg, cantorial songs, Peking Opera, Chinese and Puerto Rican mask making, face painting, and free tours of the wonderfully renovated Eldridge St. Synagogue, which boasts the East Window designed by Kiki Smith and Deborah Gans. In past years, the festival has included performances by the Chinatown Senior Center Folk Orchestra, Qi Shu Fang’s Peking Opera, the Shashmaqam Bukharan Jewish Cultural Group, Ray Muziker Klezmer Ensemble, and Cantor Eric Freeman, some of whom will be back again for this year’s multicultural celebration.

FIRST SATURDAY: INTERNATIONAL LGBTQ PRIDE

Zanele Muholi (South African, b. 1972). Faces and Phases installed at dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany, 2012. (Photo: © Anders Sune Berg)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, June 6, free, 5:00 – 11:00
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The June installment of the Brooklyn Museum’s free First Saturday program celebrates LGBTQ Pride, with live performances by the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, Aye Nako, DJ Lynnee Denise, DJ Ilsa, and Junglepussy with DJ Joey Labeija; an exhibition talk by Jess Wilcox on “Zanele Muholi: Isibonelo/Evidence” and ten-minute pop-up gallery talks about “Diverse Works: Director’s Choice, 1997–2015”; a flag-making workshop; a poetry performance by Dark Matter (Alok Vaid-Menon and Janani Balasubramanian); a literary workshop with bklyn boihood, focusing on its upcoming publication, Outside the XY; screenings of Seyi Adebanjo’s 2013 documentary, Trans Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles, followed by a talkback with the director, and Dan Sickles & Antonio Santini’s 2014 film, Mala Mala, followed by a talkback with the directors and cast memebers Paxx and Joyce Puty; and a tribute to retiring museum director Arnold Lehman, with reflections and performances by DapperQ, Visual Aids, Harriett’s Apothecary, Haiti Cultural Exchange, CaribBEING, Afrika 21/Harriet’s Alter Ego, and Balmir Latin Dance. In addition, you can check out such exhibitions as “Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks,” “Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic,” “Kara Walker: ‘African Boy Attendant Curio (Bananas),’” and “Chitra Ganesh: Eyes of Time.”