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

NO MORE STIGMA: THE OTHER CITY

Documentary looks at the other side of the nation’s capital

THE GET DOWN CAMPAIGN’S NO MORE STIGMA FILM SERIES PRESENTS THE OTHER CITY (Susan Koch, 2010)
Maysles Cinema
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
Thursday, February 7, $10, cocktail reception 6:30, screening 7:30
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org
www.theothercity.com

Washington, DC, might be famous as a city filled with wealthy politicians, international ambassadors, ruthless lobbyists, and tourists visiting some of the finest cultural institutions and historical monuments in the world, but lurkng in the shadows is a very different story. As revealed in Susan Koch’s surprising documentary The Other City, the District of Columbia is in the midst of an HIV/AIDS epidemic that is actually on par with what many African nations are experiencing. Although Koch includes frightening statistics about the crisis — between three and five percent of D.C. residents are living with HIV or AIDS, primarily blacks and Hispanics as well as a growing number of women and teenagers — she focuses on a handful of fascinating protagonists who serve as a microcosm for this rampant epidemic that Washington has turned a blind eye to for three decades. J’Mia Edwards, who got infected by a boyfriend who knew he was HIV+ and didn’t tell her, is a single mother of three doing everything she can to keep her family from becoming homeless, but the red tape suffocates her at every step. Ron Daniels, who got infected from a reused needle, is a recovering addict who every day hands out medical supplies, AIDS tests, and love and hope from a van on the street. Jose Ramirez, who contracted AIDS from his much older lover, shares his story with young Latino immigrants in schools and at La Clinica del Pueblo while also handing out condoms in places where gay men go to have unprotected sex. Koch also visits the Courage to Change Group, former prisoners with HIV/AIDS who meet regularly for emotional support, and Joseph’s House, where HIV/AIDS victims such as Jimmy go to die in peace, surrounded by loved ones and dedicated caregivers. Among those adding their opinions are New York Times columnist Frank Rich, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, playwright and activist Larry Kramer, and journalist and documentary coproducer/writer Jose Antonio Vargas, whose reporting in the Washington Post inspired Koch to make the film. The Other City is a devastating look at a horrific crisis going on right under the noses of those who can do the most to do something about it. In honor of African American HIV Awareness Day, The Other City will be having a special screening at the Maysles Institute on February 7 as part of the Get Down Campaign’s No More Stigma Film Series, a self-described “bi-monthly series on sex, sexual identity, and sexual health awareness” curated by Kim J. Ford; there will be a cocktail reception at 6:30 hosted by Richard E. Pellzer II and Ulysses Williams, followed by the film at 7:30.

TWI-NY TALK: KATHRYN KOLBERT & MELISSA SILVERSTEIN

ATHENA FILM FESTIVAL
Barnard College
117th St. & Broadway
February 7-10, $12 per screening, $65 all access pass ($20 for students)
www.athenafilmfestival.com

The third annual Athena Film Festival returns to Barnard College this week, consisting of four days that celebrate women and leadership with film screenings, workshops, panel discussions, and other special events. Created by Kathryn “Kitty” Kolbert, director of the Athena Center for Studies at Barnard, and Melissa Silverstein, founder of Women and Hollywood, the festival runs February 7-10, presenting such shorts, features, and documentaries, primarily by and about women, as Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore’s Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and the Farm Midwives, which examines birthing methods from the 1970s to the present; Cecilia Peck’s Brave Miss World, about a former Miss World fighting for victims of physical and sexual abuse; Margarethe von Trotta’s Hannah Arendt, a biopic about the highly influential political philosopher and writer; and Bonnie McFarlane’s Women Aren’t Funny, in which stand-up comedian McFarlane and her comedian husband, Rich Vos, explore the world of women in comedy. Most of the screenings will be followed by Q&As with the filmmakers, subjects, and experts in the field, including Fishman, Peck, McFarlane, Fran Drescher, and many others. Among the free, ticketed talks are “A Hollywood Conversation with Gale Anne Hurd,” honoring this year’s winner of the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award, and “In Her Voice: Women Directors Talk Directing,” with directors Gini Reticker, Agnieszka Vosloo, Aviva Kempner, Courtney Hunt, Jodie Markell, and Emily Abt. This year’s Athena Award winners are director and distributor Ava DuVernay, film critic Molly Haskell, Film Society of Lincoln Center executive director Rose Kuo, and Paley Center for Media president and CEO Pat Mitchell. Kolbert and Silverstein recently discussed the festival and its growing impact via e-mail.

Kitty Kolbert and Melissa Silverstein (below right) are cofounders of the Athena Film Festival

Kitty Kolbert (above) and Melissa Silverstein (below) are cofounders of the Athena Film Festival

twi-ny: The third annual Athena Film Festival begins on February 7. What did you learn from the first two years, and how has that affected this year’s event?

KK & MS: We learned that there was a real hunger for a conversation about women’s leadership and that film is a wonderful media to jump-start that conversation. We learned how important it is for women and girls to have role models and also for men to see women leading in a wide variety of circumstances. We also learned that talking about women’s leadership should not be like taking medicine, so we look for movies that get the point across with humor and with inspiration.

twi-ny: What has been the general reaction of the film industry to the festival? Do you see the overall attitude toward women, in all aspects of the business, changing, or is it still an old (white) boys network?

KK & MS: There are women working at all levels of the business, but most of the top leaders and decision makers continue to be men. Amy Pascal [of Sony] is still the only female studio chief. It’s changing but very slowly.

twi-ny: Melissa, a few weeks ago you wrote on “Women and Hollywood” about the sexist treatment of Kathryn Bigelow in the media over various Zero Dark Thirty controversies, explaining that it “smells like shit.” It’s one thing to help develop more woman writers, editors, directors, actors, producers, techs, etc., but what can be done about the media’s role in all of this?

MS: One of the things we need to do is to keep talking about these issues. Kathryn Bigelow is a unique situation, and her experience lends to a much-needed conversation about the status of women directors in Hollywood. When there is only one woman and she gets treated the way she does people notice.

meliss silverstein

twi-ny: This year’s Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award is going to Gale Anne Hurd. Are women like Ms. Hurd and the late Ms. Ziskin anomalies in the film world, or do you see a new generation of such talented women on the horizon?

KK & MS: Producing is one of the places where you see amazing women making movies at all levels of the business. Gale Anne is one of the best, and she has had an amazingly prolific career making films that break stereotypes. She’s at the top of her class and other producers both male and female should learn from her, especially how she has been able to transition between TV and film because that is vital nowadays.

twi-ny: Kitty, along those lines, do you envision a time when leadership programs for women, such as the Athena Center, will be unnecessary?

KK: We have a very long way to go. In the U.S., women are leaders in only 18-22% of most industries. Among Fortune 500 companies and in Hollywood it is much less. And of course it varies considerably across the globe. I certainly believe that there will be plenty of work ahead for the next several generations.

twi-ny: What are some of the films at this year’s festival that you’re most looking forward to?

KK & MS: We have a particularly strong lineup this year. We are so unique because we have films that have wide distribution, such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and Brave, to films that many people would not be able to see. We hope your readers will come spend the weekend with us.

MUMIA: LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY

MUMIA: LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY examines the life and career of controversial African American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal

MUMIA: LONG DISTANCE REVOLUTIONARY (Stephen Vittoria, 2013)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, February 1
212-924-3363
www.cinemavillage.com
www.mumia-themovie.com

In Stephen Vittoria’s overly reverential documentary Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary, actors, activists, journalists, writers, and others celebrate the life and career of the former Wesley Cook, who changed his name to Mumia Abu-Jamal and helped found the Philadelphia wing of the Black Panther Party. The two-hour film begins with right-wing media mouths and the owner of Geno’s Steaks decrying the left’s embracing of Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1982 of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Denied access to Abu-Jamal in prison, Vittoria uses staged re-creations, archival footage, radio interviews, and such actors as Giancarlo Esposito, Ruby Dee, and Peter Coyote reading from his many books in order to portray him as a dedicated and talented journalist who became a feared target of FBI head J. Edgar Hoover and controversial Philly mayor Frank Rizzo, ultimately being set up for a murder he did not commit. Vittoria does not delve into the details of the case, instead exploring the man himself, with stories from Abu-Jamal’s sister Lydia Barashango, comedian and activist Dick Gregory, wrongly incarcerated boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, philosopher Cornel West, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alice Walker, fellow investigative journalist Juan Gonzalez, radical activist Angela Davis, and radio host Amy Goodman, who has broadcast numerous phone interviews with Abu-Jamal, whose 1982 death sentence was commuted to life in prison last year. Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary is completely one-sided, showing anyone against the golden-throated Abu-Jamal to be crazy as the filmmakers glorify its subject. However, it does reveal the City of Brotherly Love to be a frightening hotbed of violence and racism, even if that is not necessarily news. “Philadelphia has a veneer of liberalism and this whole Quaker mystique,” explains Temple associate professor and journalist Linn Washington. “The reality is it has been this ruthlessly racist city — really from its inception.” Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary works better when it examines the social history of the civil rights movement and the Black Panthers as covered by Abu-Jamal but falters when it treats his writings as if they were Shakespearean soliloquies. Vittoria will be present at Cinema Village to participate in several Q&As opening weekend, following the 6:30 and 9:00 screenings on Friday and 4:00 and 6:30 shows on Saturday and Sunday.

LITTLE FUGITIVE

Joey Norton goes on the adventure of a lifetime in Coney Island in underground indie classic LITTLE FUGITIVE

LITTLE FUGITIVE (Morris Engel, Ray Ashley, and Ruth Orkin, 1953)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
February 1-7
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Film Forum’s excellent “New Yawk New Wave” series, consisting of more than three dozen independent shorts, features, and documentaries made in and about the Big Apple, came to a close on January 31, setting the stage for one of the most influential and important — and vastly entertaining — works to ever come out of the city, Morris Engel’s charming Little Fugitive. In celebration of the film’s sixtieth anniversary, Film Forum is screening a newly restored 35mm print of the underground classic, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1953, was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar, and was entered into the National Film Registry in 1997. Written and directed with Ray Ashley and Ruth Orkin, Engel’s future wife, Little Fugitive follows the gritty, adorable exploits of seven-year-old wannabe cowboy Joey Norton (Richie Andrusco, in his only film role), who runs away to Coney Island after his older brother, Lennie (Richard Brewster), and his brother’s friends, Harry (Charlie Moss) and Charley (Tommy DeCanio), play a trick on the young boy, using ketchup to convince Joey that he accidentally killed Lennie. With their single mother (Winifred Cushing) off visiting their ailing mother, Joey heads out on his own, determined to escape the cops who are surely after him. But once he gets to Coney Island, he decides to take advantage of all the crazy things to be found on the beach, along the boardwalk, and in the surrounding area, including, if he can get the money, riding a real pony.

A no-budget black-and-white neo-Realist masterpiece shot by Engel with a specially designed lightweight camera that was often hidden so people didn’t know they were being filmed, Little Fugitive explores the many pleasures and pains of childhood and the innate value of home and family. As Joey wanders around Coney Island, he meets all levels of humanity, preparing him for the world that awaits as he grows older. Meanwhile, Engel gets into the nooks and crannies of the popular beach area, from gorgeous sunrises to beguiling shadows under the boardwalk. In creating their beautifully told tale, Engel, Ashley, and Orkin use both trained and nonprofessional actors, including Jay Williams as Jay, the sensitive pony ride man, and Will Lee, who went on to play Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, as an understanding photographer, while Eddie Manson’s score continually references “Home on the Range.” Rough around the edges in all the right ways, Little Fugitive became a major influence on the French New Wave, with Truffaut himself singing its well-deserved praises. There’s really nothing quite like it, before or since. Little Fugitive is running at Film Forum February 1-7, with Andrusco and Mary Engel, the daughter of Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin, on hand for Q&As following the 6:00 and 7:40 shows on Friday night. The film will be preceded by D. A. Pennebaker’s whirlwind 1953 short, Daybreak Express, a wild ride on the Third Avenue El, set to the title song by Duke Ellington.

FIRST SATURDAYS: AFRICAN INNOVATIONS

Unidentified Lega artist, “Three-Headed Figure (Sakimatwemtwe),” South Kivu or Maniema province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, wood, fiber, kaolin, nineteenth century (Brooklyn Museum, Museum Expedition 1922, Robert B. Woodward Memorial Fund)

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Saturday, February 2, free, 5:00 – 11:00 (some events require free tickets distributed in advance at the Visitor Center)
212-864-5400
www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Brooklyn Museum celebrates Black History Month at February’s free First Saturdays program with a focus on the long-term installation “African Innovations,” which comprises approximately 200 works spread across 2,500 years. The evening will include live music by the Republic of Cameroon’s Kaïssa, the multinational Akoya Afrobeat, and Sierra Leone’s Bajah + the Dry Eye Crew, guided pop-up gallery tours, the debut of Zimbabwe dancer-choreographer Rujeko Dumbutshena’s Jenaguru, children’s workshops on traditional West African instruments and linguist staffs, a curator talk on “African Innovations” with Kevin D. Dumouchelle, the multimedia Afrika21 project, a screening of Africa Straight Up preceded by a discussion with Applause Africa, a fashion show with designs inspired by African textiles and music by Ethiopian DJ Sirak, and a book club discussion of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel Things Fall Apart. Also on view at the museum now are “GO: a community-curated open studio project,” “Raw/Cooked: Duron Jackson,” and “Aesthetic Ambitions: Edward Lycett and Brooklyn’s Faience Manufacturing Company” as well as long-term installations and the permanent collection.

OUTSIDER ART FAIR 2013

The Outsider Art Fair will include a special exhibition dedicated to Renaldo Kuhler’s fantastical Rocaterrania

Center 548
548 West 22nd St, between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
January 31 – February 3, Thursday preview (6:00 – 9:00) $50, Friday – Sunday $20 per day, $30 run-of-show
www.outsiderartfair.com

For its twentieth anniversary, the Outsider Art Fair promises to be significantly different. Since 1993, the fair, dedicated to the work of emerging and well-known self-taught folk artists, was run by show master Sanford Smith, but art dealer Andrew Edlin, who runs his eponymously named gallery in Chelsea and whose uncle Paul Edlin was an outsider artist himself, has bought the fair with his new company, Under Wide Open Arts, and moved it from such previous locations as the Puck Building and 7 W 34th St. to the Dia Center of the Arts on West 22nd St., where NADA New York and the Independent now take place. More than three dozen galleries from around the world will be participating, including Haiti’s Galerie Bourbon-Lally, London’s Henry Boxer Gallery and Rob Tufnell, Tokyo’s Yukiko Koide Presents, Switzerland’s Galerie du Marché, Baton Rouge’s Gilley’s Gallery, Chicago’s Carl Hammer Gallery, Virginia’s Grey Carter-Objects of Art, Berkeley’s Ames Gallery, Dallas’s Chris Byrne, Miami’s Pan American Art Projects, and Iowa City’s Pardee Collection, along with such local mainstays as Ricco Maresca, Fountain Gallery, American Primitive, Feature Inc., Gary Snyder, Vito Schnabel, Galerie St. Etienne, and, of course, Andrew Edlin. Among this year’s special programs are a series of talks and panel discussions, including “Voyages” with Geneviève Roulin Tribute recipient Mario Del Curto on Friday at 4:00, “Rewriting the History of Art Brut: The Case of Gaston Chaissac” with Dr. Kent Minturn on Friday at 4:45, a Saturday-morning “Uncommon Artists” symposium at the American Folk Art Museum, “Women’s Mad Art” with Dr. Thomas Röske and “Agnes Richter’s Jacket: Enigma, Talisman, Narrative” with Dr. Gail A. Hornstein on Saturday at 4:00, and “A Bridge Between Art Worlds” with Daniel Baumann, Massimiliano Gioni, and Ralph Rugoff on Sunday at 4:00. In addition, the Geneviève Roulin Tribute to Mario Del Curto will take place Thursday at 6:00 as part of the early preview; an exhibition of twelve of Del Curto’s photographs will be on view on the second floor during the fair, along with the special exhibition “Renaldo Kuhler & Rocaterrania.”

TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY

New York premiere of “I’m going to toss my arms—if you catch them they’re yours” is part of Trisha Brown Dance Company program at BAM (photo by Laurent Philippe)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
January 30 – February 2, $20-$70, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.trishabrowncompany.org

This past fall, BAM bid farewell to Pina Bausch as Tanztheater Wuppertal presented the final work by the legendary German choreographer, “…como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si…” (Like moss on a stone), who died in 2009 at the age of sixty-nine. Now BAM is saying goodbye to another dance master as Trisha Brown brings her last two pieces to the Howard Gilman Opera House from January 30 to February 2. Now seventy-six, the Washington State-born Brown has been presenting dance at BAM since January 1976. How to describe her eclectic style? In fall 1993, influential multimedia artist and choreographer Yvonne Rainer wrote in BOMB magazine, “The task of describing Trisha Brown’s unique form of dancing is daunting. Its inscrutable blend of zaniness, athleticism, delicacy, and logic, always evading mimetic clichés, similarly eludes language, like a half-forgotten word or phrase that can’t quite roll off the tip of the tongue.” The Trisha Brown Dance Company will be performing two programs at BAM. The first (January 30, February 1-2) consists of 1987’s Newark (Niweweorce), featuring audiovisual elements by minimalist Donald Judd and Peter Zummo and lighting by Ken Tabachnick; the New York premiere of Les Yeux et l’âme, set to music by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion, with lighting by Jennifer Tipton and costumes by Elizabeth Cannon; the New York premiere of I’m going to toss my arms—if you catch them they’re yours, with video by Burt Barr, costumes by Kaye Voyce, and lighting by John Torres, set to Alvin Curran’s “Toss and Find”; and 1966’s Homemade, a solo danced by Vicky Shick, with an original film by theatrical happenings mainstay Robert Whitman. The second program (January 31) comprises Newark (Niweweorce), I’m going to toss my arms—if you catch them they’re yours, Homemade, and the thirtieth-anniversary presentation of the 1983 BAM commission Set and Reset, a collaboration with Laurie Anderson, Robert Rauschenberg, and Beverly Emmons. The company features Neal Beasley, Cecily Campbell, Tara Lorenzen, Megan Madorin, Leah Morrison, Tamara Riewe, Jamie Scott, Stuart Shugg, Nicholas Strafaccia, and Samuel Wentz. In conjunction with the performances, John Rockwell, Wendy Perron, and Stephen Petronio will participate in an “Iconic Artist Talk: On Trisha Brown” on February 2 at 5:00 at the BAM Fisher Fishman Space.