Ashley Clark has programmed tomorrow evening’s presentation at Light Industry of three short films with children as protagonists: Helen Levitt‘s In the Street (1948), Lionel Ngakane’s Jemima + Johnny (1966), and Djibril Diop Mambéty‘s The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun (1999).
“Perhaps the best-known of the trio, In the Street reveals, in just sixteen minutes, a dense history of Spanish Harlem in the mid-40s, as lived and experienced on corners, sidewalks, and stoops,” writes Melissa Anderson in the Voice. “Played by Nicolette Robinson and Patrick Hatfield, the grade-school-age heroes of the title in Ngakane’s Jemima + Johnny, another monochrome treasure, are technically fictional creations. But, as is often the case with the most enduring movies about kids, the slippage between role and real (if still not fully formed) person, acting and being brings an electric unpredictability to their interactions, both with each other and the adults who help or (too frequently) hinder them.”
“At only 42 minutes, Djibril Diop Mambéty’s parting gift extols the weight of youthful generosity and autonomy,” writes Max Kyburz in Brooklyn Magazine. “The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun blends the harsh conditions of a neocolonialist nation [Senegal]—which, despite being marked by capitalism, is overrun by enormous poverty—with the hope and ambition of Sili (Lissa Balera), a newcomer in the rabid rat race of prepubescent news hawkers.”
Also in New York, Claude Lelouch will be at the French Institute Alliance Français tomorrow evening to take part in a Q&A following a 50th-anniversary screening of his A Man and A Woman with Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant. FIAF will also present an excerpt from Philippe Azoulay’s forthcoming documentary on Lelouch, Shoot to Live (Tourner pour Vivre).
The Films of David Lynch, a retrospective at the IFC Center that includes a new 4K retrospective of Eraserhead (1977) and a batch of rarely seen shorts, is on through Sunday. IndieWire’s Eric Kohn, David Ehrlich, Kate Erbland, and Anne Thompson have “traded emails about the mysterious auteur’s talent and its continuing relevance today.” And for the Guardian, Dorian Lynskey tells the story of the creation of the soundtrack for Twin Peaks. A 35mm print of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) screens on Thursday.
And at Little White Lies, Adam Nayman asks, “Is David Lynch the greatest contemporary director of musical sequences?” Mulholland Drive (2001), screening tomorrow and Friday—and again, this is a new 4K restoration—”is not only adorned by a series of indelible musical numbers but also built solidly around them, to whatever extent a movie famously salvaged from the wreckage of a crashed-and-burned television pilot can be said to have a structure in the first place.”
Tomorrow night, “podcast and curatorial joint Matchcuts will throw their sixth monthly screening at Spectacle,” writes Tyler Maxin at Screen Slate. “In their episodes, Nick Faust and Kachine Moore tackle weekly crop blockbusters, documentaries, and moving image exhibition—from mass market to art market—with humor and insight…. This month they present Alex Mar’s 2010 film American Mystic, a mosaic documentary about three young men and women scattered in the United States, each immersed in non-mainstream religious practice.”
San Francisco. At the Evening Class, Michael Hawley is previewing the 60th edition of the San Francisco Film Festival, running from April 5 through 19.
London. The BFI kicks off its two-month-long RW Fassbinder season with a double feature, Love is Colder than Death (1969) and Katzelmacher (1969), followed tomorrow evening by a talk presented by Martin Brady of King’s College, “Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Wunderkind, Iconoclast, Star.” Meantime, the BFI’s posted Alex Davidson‘s Fassbinder primer and, from David Morrison, “Six reasons to watch Fear Eats the Soul [1974].”
“His muse was Hanna Schygulla, who brought her enigmatic, haughty allure to 23 of his film and television works,” writes Ryan Gilbey in the Guardian. “Now 74, with a wild mane of grey hair, she has collaborated with directors such as Godard, Béla Tarr, and Carlos Saura and was even a contender for the lead in Sophie’s Choice. But she only ever gets asked about one person. Seated in the window of an empty restaurant in West Berlin, she tells me: ‘It’s because I’m one of the survivors.’ Her choice of words makes Fassbinder sound like a natural disaster. To some, that’s precisely what he was.”
Slavoj Žižek will interview Ralph Fiennes tonight at the Emmanuel Centre.
Magazines at the Movies, happening at the Book Club tomorrow evening, brings together editors to discuss their work: David Jenkins (Little White Lies), Ben Smith (Shelf Heroes), Davide Cazzaro (Nang), Giovanni Marchini Camia (Fireflies), Phil Wrigglesworth and Gabriel Solomons (Beneficial Shock) and Freddie Fraser Forsyth (Casebook).
Catherine Grant notes that, while the Essay Film Festival roars on through Saturday, audio recordings of a good number of the sessions have already begun to appear online.
Ghent. Courtisane festival 2017, featuring focuses on the work of Peter Nestler, Ute Aurand, and Ogawa Productions and a conversation with Jacques Rancière, opens on Wednesday and runs through Sunday.
Graz. The 20th edition of Diagonale, the Festival of Austrian Film, is on from tomorrow through Sunday.
