Stranger Than Fiction: Documentary Premieres

For decades, the cool, level gaze of international star Charlotte Rampling has challenged audiences to judge her, even as she has made herself vulnerable in scores of daring and controversial roles in films including Visconti’s THE DAMNED and Caviani’s THE NIGHT PORTER. In this frank documentary profile, she turns the gaze inward. Intimate conversations with friends including Paul Auster, Peter Lindbergh, and Juergen Teller cover topics ranging from exposure, age, and beauty to sex, death, and taboo, interspersed with a marvelous selection of film clips illustrating Rampling’s career. In English, French, and German with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)

Paul McCartney was on a plane waiting for takeoff on a New York runway as the 9/11 attacks took place. His proximity to the tragedy motivated him to launch the project intended as a healing gesture for the city--the all-star benefit, The Concert for New York City. With unprecedented access, veteran documentarian Maysles, who had covered the first trip to New York by The Beatles back in 1964, captures the entire behind-the-scenes story, from rehearsals and jam sessions to backstage at the concert itself, as McCartney, seen as a loopy, easy-going man of the people, holds court for friends including David Bowie, James Taylor, Bill Clinton, Harrison Ford, and more. HDCAM video. (BS)

LIFE LESSONS
2011, Maria Finitzo, USA, 19 min. With Aislinn DeButch, Caroline Ann Thomas

Director Finitzo (TERRA INCOGNITA) based her humorous fictional short LIFE LESSONS on her own childhood experiences as the awkward daydreamer in a dance class of aspiring ballerinas. The short film became the inspiration for the documentary MY MOTHER’S IDEA, which alternates a making-of chronicle of LIFE LESSONS with a fond history of Chicago’s legendary Stone Camryn School of Ballet and its two charismatic teachers Walter Camryn and Bentley Stone, who ran the school for 45 years. LIFE LESSONS opens the program, followed by MY MOTHER’S IDEA. HDCAM video. (BS)

Director Maria Finitzo will be present for audience discussion at both screenings. Following the Q&A on Saturday, the audience is invited to a reception sponsored by Two Sisters Productions in the gallery/café (valid ticket stub required for admittance).

A career Marine, Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger was prepared to give his life for his country. He never bargained on sacrificing the life of his nine-year-old daughter to a Marine Corps cover-up of a contamination of the water supply at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune. SEMPER FI chronicles a powerfully emotional story as Ensminger’s personal investigation attracts other former Marines, revealing a tragic history of rare cancers and scores of infant abnormalities and deaths among Lejeune’s residents over a 30-year time period, all linked to the massive concentration of toxic chemicals in the camp’s wells. SEMPER FI is one of fifteen documentaries named to the short list for a 2012 Academy Award nomination. HDCAM video. (BS)

When tycoon Donald Trump decided to build a luxury golf resort on the northeast coast of Scotland, smack in the middle of one of Britain’s last untouched, ecologically sound stretches of landscape, legislators fell over themselves nullifying environmental protection laws in order to help him. The coast was clear, so to speak, except for a brave band of local landowners who vowed to hold out against the destruction of their beloved wilderness at any cost. With dogged perseverance and a large helping of humor to leaven the rage, filmmaker Baxter reports from the center of this clash of cultures. HDCAM video. (BS)

Director Anthony Baxter will be present for audience discussion at both screenings.

Mr. Baxter will also be a guest on The Rosie Show which airs on Friday. More details can be found here.