http://www.nwfilmforum.org/ Film schedule for Northwest Film Forum http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/rootsandbranches.php Thu, 8 May 2008 This musical trip back in time features motion picture and newsreel footage from the 1920s and 30s of country, blues and jazz performers. Clips range from the iconic Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills and early jazz masters Ted Weems and Frank Westphal, to anonymous jugs bands, fiddlers and field hands. The footage captures musicians at work in a vanished America - at barn dances, street corners, fiddler conventions and in the fields. Tom Sauber, Mark Graham and Orville Johnson will share their encyclopedic knowledge of Americana and old-time music as they narrate these rarely seen film clips. The trio will also perform a set of their own music, inspired and informed by blues, bluegrass and American roots music. http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/rootsandbranches.php http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/calendar.php#shotgun Thu, 8 May 2008 (Jeff Nichols, USA, 2007, 35mm, 90 min) The backdrop of Jeff Nichols' first feature is small-town Arkansas, but the scale is grand tragedy. This tale of bloody ties and vengeance combines the breadth and texture of a Cormac McCarthy novel with the lyrical naturalism of a David Gordon Green film (who co-produced it and mentored Nichols). While SHOTGUN STORIES relishes its influences, it also carves a singular space for itself as a chronicle of rural and familial decay. As Eddie Cockrell noted in VARIETY, this is "a point-blank buckshot blast of inarticulate American rage." Winner of the New American Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival. http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/calendar.php#shotgun http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/calendar.php#newyearbaby Thu, 8 May 2008 (Socheata Poeuv, Cambodia/USA, 2006, DVD) Although born in a Thai refugee camp on Cambodian New Year, filmmaker Socheata Poeuv grew up in the United States never knowing that her family had survived the Khmer Rouge genocide. In NEW YEAR BABY, she embarks on a journey to Cambodia in search of the truth and why her family's history had been buried in secrecy for so long. To RSVP for FREE admission call 800-930-6060 and press 3. http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/calendar.php#newyearbaby http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/duel.php Thu, 8 May 2008 (John Boorman, UK, 1969, 35mm, 103 min) John Boorman's shamefully neglected dramatic comedy chronicles impoverished Italian nobleman Marcello Mastroianni's alternately whimsical and wistful experiences residing in a London ghetto. Boorman veers beautifully between a carefully observed character study and guerrilla theater. Despite a Best Director award at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, LEO THE LAST has rarely been heard of since. http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/duel.php http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/duel.php Thu, 8 May 2008 (Jean-Luc Godard, France/Italy, 1965/69, 35mm, 110 min) Belmondo (who elevates onscreen smoking to an art form) plays a bored bourgeois who gives up his button-down life and goes on the lam with his mistress, Anna Karina (the pin-up girl for existential angst). Godard’s cinema explodes off the screen as his ideas come at a furious pace while Belmondo and Karina play out the death of romance in lurid widescreen Technicolor. A titillating blend of fiction, poetry, discussions and digressions, PIERROT is a vivid celebration (and simultaneous condemnation) of the joys of cinema. Belmondo was nominated for a BAFTA for his performance. http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/duel.php http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/georgesmelies.php Thu, 8 May 2008 Join us for a special celebration of the father of special effects, Georges Melies, featuring his greatest epics from the early 1900s. A stage magician turned filmmaker, Melies produced more than five hundred whimsical "trick films," crafting tales of the fantastic that pushing nearly every technical boundary of the time. His spectacular images remain some of the most iconic in film history, and continue to instill wonder and delight a century later. This special presentation includes rare tinted and hand-colored film prints accompanied by non-traditional musical selections including world music, avant-garde jazz and early electronic music. The film THE IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE (1904) will include a rare live performance of Melies' original narration combined with an audio collage of period 78-RPM records (compiled by Robert Millis and Jeffrey Taylor of Climax Golden Twins) played live on real Victrolas. Co-presented by The Sprocket Society and NWFF. http://www.nwfilmforum.org/cinemas/georgesmelies.php