Cinematheque

Welcome to the Film and Television Department’s Cinematheqùe: meetings and conversations with filmmakers and free screenings of important, innovative films. Cinematheque is the department’s premiere screening series.

Events are FREE to BU students and staff and their friends. Screenings are generally Friday evenings at 7 p.m. Transportation: the “B” Boston College Green Line, the first stop outward bound after Kenmore Square.

For more information, contact the Film and Television department at filmtv@bu.edu.

About the Curator

The BU Cinematheque curator is Gerald Peary, a cinema professor at Suffolk University and a long-time film critic for the Boston Phoenix. He chooses his BU programs based on his extensive contacts in the professional film world and from his travels to film festivals around the globe, including, annually, Cannes, Toronto, Montreal, and South by Southwest. Visit Gerald Peary’s website at www.geraldpeary.com.

2012 Schedule

Friday 1-27 | 7 p.m.	An Evening With Don McKellar	The Toronto-based McKellar is well-known actor (for Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg,), a film director (the sci-fi Last Night), and a screenwriter (32 Short Films about Glenn Gould, The Red Violin). He scripted the hit Broadway musical, The Drowsy Chaperone), and also Blindness, tonight’s screening, the cult fantasy parable about a world in which all have lost their sight, starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Gael Garcia Bernal. (Room COM 101)
Friday 2-3 | 7 p.m.	An Evening With Jennifer Getzinger	There are those who consider the Jennifer Getzinger-directed The Suitcase, from the fourth season of Mad Men, the best episode ever from the best program on television. This is the one where Peggy (Elizabeth Moss) skips out of her birthday dinner with her parents and boyfriend for an all-nighter of intense, intimate talk with her boss, Don Draper (Jon Hamm), while helping him with a suitcase PR campaign. (Room COM 101)
Friday 2-10 | 7 p.m.	An Evening With Joe Swanberg	The Chicago-based Swanberg is among the founding (young) fathers of the “mumble core” movement and, by plan, the most prolific feature filmmaker in America, having made seven low-budget narrative films in 2011. Incredibly, they are really good! Perhaps the best: tonight’s Silver Bullet, a formally stylish, almost Bergmanesque exercise in werewolf lore and creepy romantic dalliances situated on a movie set. Warning: there are scenes in the film of a sexual nature. (Room COM 101)
Friday 2-17 | 7 p.m.	An Evening With Dia Sokol-Savage	Harvard grad Savage has gone from being producer for Andrew Bujalski’s indie features to a career as an MTV producer. At BU, she will show favorite episodes from her two acclaimed MTV series: “Catelynn” from “16 and Pregnant,” in which a Michigan girl puts her child up for adoption without the approval of her parents, and “Nothing Stays the Same” from “Teen Mom 2,” in which teenager Janelle parties all night, causing her mom to serve papers for custody of Janelle’s baby. (Room COM 101)
Friday 2-24 | 7 p.m.	An Evening With Peggy Ahwesh	Bard film professor Ahwesh is a legendary experimental filmmaker whose engrossing, unclassifiable shorts are influenced by such disparate factors as feminist and gender theory, Bataille, Jack Smith, virtual realities, pornography, and Peewee’s Playhouse. At BU, Ahwesh will show a range of her astonishing, complex works covering twenty years of film and video: found footage, video games, mock horror (she assisted George Romero). Warning: there are scenes in the films of a sexual nature. (Room COM 101)
Friday 3-2 | 7 p.m.	An Evening with Max Good	Is graffiti a fabulous populist endeavor that should flourish everywhere? Or should it be discouraged, banished, as a public nuisance? Filmmaker Good plunges into the graffiti cultural war in his spirited 2011 documentary, Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle for Expression. He becomes a night detective with a video camera, catching irate, righteous citizenry in New Orleans and Berkeley secretly painting over graffiti art. (Room COM 101)
Friday 3-23 | 7 p.m.	An Evening With Peter Himmelstein	IAt 45, Himmelstein made his first feature, The Key Man, a smart, slick, exciting, 1970s-set neo-noir, about a fall guy in the insurance business, who, wishing to buy a fancy house and make his wife happy, falls prey to a team of colorfully craven gangsters. Shot on retro Fuji stock, The Key Man is a film-savvy narrative, with echoes of classics The Parallax View, The Asphalt Jungle, Double Indemnity, but also a 2011 parallel to Drive. (Room B05)
Friday 3-30 | 7 p.m.	An Evening With Maria and Peter Jacquemetton	BU film graduate, Maria Jacquemetton, met her French husband, Andre Jacquemetton, in Los Angeles, where they have teamed for two decades writing and story editing for television drama series, including Star Trek: Enterprise. They have won three Emmys, four Writers Guild of America awards. Currently, they are executive producers of AMC Television’s Mad Men, and they will discuss the acclaimed series at BU and screen the Emmy nominated episode “Blowing Smoke.” (Room COM 101)
Friday 4-6 | 7 p.m.	An Evening With Michael Tully	Septien is being screened in honor of Will Lautzenheiser, a former professor at Boston University who is currently undergoing treatment for a rare and serious illness. A fundraiser for his recovery will be held concurrent with the event. The movie follows Cornelius Rawlings who returns to his family’s farm eighteen years after disappearing without a trace. While his parents are long deceased, Cornelius’ brothers continue to live in isolation on this forgotten piece of land. Ezra is a freak for two things: cleanliness and Jesus. Amos is a self-taught artist who fetishizes sports and Satan. Although back home, Cornelius is still distant. In between challenging strangers to one-on-one games, he huffs and drinks the days away. The family’s high-school sports demons show up one day in the guise of a plumber and a pretty girl. Only a mysterious drifter can redeem their souls on 4th and goal. Triple-threat actor/writer/director Tully creates a backwoods world that’s only a few trees away from our own, complete with characters on the edge of sanity that we can actually relate to. A hero tale gone wrong, Septien is funny when it’s inappropriate to laugh, and realistic when it should be psychotic. The film will made its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. (GSU Auditorium)