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

MoMA PRESENTS: ALEJANDRO LANDES’S PORFIRIO

Porfirio dreams of a better life in minimalist film based on a true story

PORFIRIO (Alejandro Landes, 2011)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
February 8-14
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.magic-lantern-films.com

Brazilian filmmaker Alejandro Landes’s minimalist Porfirio begins and ends with close-up shots of the title character, Porfirio Ramírez Aldana, taken slightly from below by cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis, focusing on the upper half of the man’s bare body, which is paralyzed from the waist done. Porfirio looks around as if he’s lost in a world that has let him down, and indeed it has. In the film, which opens theatrically at MoMA on February 8 for a one-week engagement, Porfirio plays himself, a Colombian father who was paralyzed by a policeman’s bullet and now lives a hard life selling minutes on his cell phone and needing the help of his eldest son, Lissin (played by his youngest son, Jarlisson Ramírez Reinoso), and neighbor/lover, Jasbleidy (real-life neighbor Yor Jasbleidy Santos Torres), just to get through every day. Landes uses natural light and sound and no score to add reality to the true story of a once-proud man now imprisoned in his wheelchair and getting the runaround from the state regarding compensation he feels he is owed. Landes (Cocalero) keeps the tale purposefully vague, never giving the details of the legal case or how and why Porfirio was shot, instead telling the story through Porfirio’s mesmerizing eyes, which are filled with a beguiling mixture of pain and mystery. “In one of the deepest moments of the film, Porfirio gazes out the window of his bedroom and, I dare say, we can peak into his very soul,” Landes, who spent five years with his subject, explains in the film’s production notes. “It was the second shot on the first day of the shoot. Although I think we captured many other fine moments, I must admit none matched a shining innocence I saw in his eyes that first day.” Landes was drawn to Porfirio’s story after reading about the extraordinary thing he did, which made him famous in South America and around the world, earning him the nickname the Air Pirate, but the director doesn’t delve into those details either. There’s no past or future for Porfirio, only the present for a compelling man desperate to regain his dignity. Landes will be at MoMA on opening night to participate in a discussion following the 7:00 screening of this small gem.

ATHENA FILM FESTIVAL: THE INVISIBLE WAR

Kori Cioca shares her shocking story in THE INVISIBLE WAR

THE INVISIBLE WAR (Kirby Dick, 2011)
Barnard College, Diana Event Oval – LL 100
117th St. & Broadway
Sunday, February 10, $12, 12 noon
www.athenafilmfestival.com
www.invisiblewarmovie.com

Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War is one of the bravest, most explosive investigative documentaries you’re ever likely to see. Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) busts open the military’s dirty little secret, revealing that episodes of horrific sexual abuse such as the Tailhook scandal are not an aberration but a prime example of a rape epidemic that seems to an accepted part of military culture. Dick speaks with many women and one man who share their incredible stories, describing in often graphic detail the sexual abuse they suffered, then faced further abuse when they reported what had happened. Their superiors, some of whom were the rapists themselves, either looked the other way, laughed off their allegations as no big deal, or threatened the victims’ careers. Dick includes remarkable Defense Department statistics — the government admits that approximately one out of every five female soldiers suffers sexual abuse and that there were nineteen thousand violent sex crimes in 2010 alone — even as such military officials as Dr. Kaye Whitley, Rear Admiral Anthony Kurta, and Brigadier General Mary Kay Hertog make absurd claims that they are satisfied with the way they are handling the alarming trend. The central figure in the film is Kori Cioca, a former member of the Coast Guard whose face was broken when she was raped by a superior and now keeps getting denied necessary medical services from the VA. Such courageous women as USAF Airman 1st Class Jessica Hinves, former Marine Officer Ariana Klay, USN veteran Trina McDonald, USMC Lieutenant Elle Helmer, USN Lieutenant Paula Coughlin, and even Special Agent Myla Haider of the Army Criminal Investigation Command also open up about the physical and psychological damage the abuse has left on their lives and careers. Inspired by Helen Benedict’s 2007 Salon.com article “The Private War of Women Soldiers,” Dick and producer Amy Ziering (The Memory Thief) have presented a searing indictment of an endemic military culture that has to come to an end, and fast. The Invisible War, which earned Dick and Ziering this year’s Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival at Lincoln Center and has been nominated for a Best Documentary Academy Award, is screening February 10 at 12 noon as part of the third annual Athena Film Festival at Barnard College and will be followed by a Q&A with Dick and executive producers Maria Cuomo Cole and Regina Kulik Scully.

THE ART OF SCENT 1889-2012

Fragrant exhibition at Museum of Arts and Design take visitors on an olfactory tour of the history of perfume (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Broadway
Through March 3
800-838-3006
www.madmuseum.org

A rather unique exhibit at the Museum of Arts & Design in Columbus Circle, one that truly “stinks,” has been extended through March 3. “The Art of Scent 1889-2012” collects twelve of the world’s most beloved, influential, and (in)famous perfumes, displaying them as if they were sculptures or paintings, firmly establishing them as individual works of art. Designed by the architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the exhibition, the first major museum retrospective to elevate perfume in such a way, consists of a dozen stations along a wall, indentations where visitors put their head in and breathe in the fragrances, accompanied by an illuminated paragraph that appears then disappears, like the smells themselves, detailing the scent’s creator and development. Curated by Chandler Burr, the fragrances are arranged chronologically, following the changing trends in the industry, including the implementation of synthetic materials and modern technology. First up on the aromatic tour is Aimé Guerlain’s 1889 scent Jicky, which combines the terpene alcohol linalool, the chemical compound coumarin, and the flavorant ethyl vanillin; the text explains, “Though subtle in effect, the synthetics were both disorienting and liberating. By freeing olfactory artists from an exclusively natural palette, they turned scent into an artistic medium, and made Jicky one of the first true works of olfactory art.” Museumgoers will react differently to each scent as they get whiffs of Enest Beaux’s Chanel N°5, Pierre Wargnye’s Drakkar Noir, Annie Buzantian and Albert Morillas’s pleasures, Jean-Claude Ellena’s Osmanthe Yunnan, and Daniela Andrier’s disturbing Untitled, lent by such parfumeries as Hermès, Prada, L’Oréal, Clarins, Estée Lauder, Clinique, Guerlain, and other cosmetic companies. A second room delves into further detail about the creation of perfume with video interviews, a multipart evolution of one particular scent, and a table where visitors can dip strips into the actual liquid products and sample the real thing. The deluxe catalog ($285) includes eleven of the perfumes in printed glass vials — only Chanel chose not to participate — with each scent assigned to a different artistic discipline: Francis Fabron’s L’Interdit is considered abstract expressionism, Olivier Cresp’s Angel surrealism, Jacques Cavallier’s L’Eau d’issey minimalism, and Untitled post-brutalism. On February 13, MAD will host the special program “Technology and Innovation in Fine Fragrance,” with Burr and Rochas house perfumer Jean-Michel Duriez leading an interactive discussion in which attendees will be able to sniff-sample raw materials and complex fragrances.

ROBOT THEATER PROJECT

Robot Theater Project includes a pair of one-act plays starring real robots at Japan Society (photos by Tsukasa Aoki and Tatsuo Nambu)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
February 7-9, $28, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Last month the Resonance Ensemble revived Karel Čapek’s 1920 play, R.U.R., the work that introduced the word “robot” to the world — and a highly influential story that involved machines gaining sentience and threatening humankind. Seinendan Theater Company takes that to the next level this week at Japan Society with Robot Theater Project, a pair of one-act plays written and directed by company founder Oriza Hirata in which real robots play characters onstage. In Sayonara, a woman with a terminal illness is cared for by Geminoid F, described in the cast biographies as “a female type tele-operated android [with the] potential to go beyond an experimental platform and become a commonly used robot in human society.” In I, Worker, a man struggles to deal with the loss of his child while his robot questions the meaning of life; the mechanical being is played by Robovie R3, “a life-sized robot invented to research communications between humans and robots.” While Geminoid F is making its theatrical debut, Robovie R3 previously appeared in Hirata’s Three Sisters, Android Version. The human actors include Bryerly Long, Hiroshi Ota, and Minako Inoue. The two plays, developed in collaboration with Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University, will be performed February 7-9 at Japan Society, Sayonara in English and Japanese with subtitles and I, Worker in Japanese with subtitles. Hirata and Dr. Ishiguro will participate in Q&As following the February 8-9 shows. In addition, Hirata will lead an acting workshop, “Exploring Naturalism,” on February 9 at 1:00, delving into his unique “contemporary colloquial theater.”

Robots and humans interact in moving ways at Japan Society

Update: As the audience enters the Japan Society theater for Sayonara, the first of a pair of one-act plays, two characters are already onstage, sitting in chairs. Although it appears to be two women, one brunette and Asian, the other blonde and Caucasian, it turns out that while the latter is a living, breathing female, Bryerly Long as a young woman dying of a terminal disease, the former is Geminoid F, a remarkably realistic android playing a robot who has been hired by the woman’s father to recite beautiful poetry to make his daughter’s final days peaceful. Geminoid F, who is powered through air pressure via twelve motorized actuators, doesn’t mouth the words exactly, which, along with her vacant eyes, are the only things that give her away as a mechanical being until she is carried off at the end, a long tube connecting her to electronic controls. The interplay between the android and the human is quite moving and believable, with a new scene added involving the nuclear disaster at Fukushima and how robots can help in the aftermath. In I, Worker, Hiroshi Ota (who also plays a small part in Sayonara) and Minako Inoue (who voices Geminoid F) are parents trying to cope with the death of their child. The husband is having more difficulties getting back to a relatively normal existence, which is also the case with the family’s two robots, played by Robovie R3s. While Geminoid F was created to look like a human, Robovie R3 is more in the mode of a futuristic R2D2/Dr. Who type, with fanciful colors and round, wide eyes. Just like the parents, the male robot has lost purpose in his life and is trying to find the will to go on, but I, Worker contains much more humor, supplied by the robots themselves, including how they exit the stage at the end. The two plays work because writer-director Oriza Hirata has created two pieces in which the stories themselves deal with the interchange between humans and robots; he has not cast the androids as real people going through completely real situations, and human actors are not playing robots. The plays would not be successful if they were performed only by robots or only by humans; instead, by bringing the two together, Hirata and robotic scientist Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro have built a fascinating meta that surrounds the tales, a harbinger of things to come both on- and offstage in our ever-evolving world.

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.