Photo of Dr. Roy Grundmann

Schedule | Fall 2009

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Screenings are held at the BU College of Communication, 640 Comm. Ave., Boston, Room B-05 (unless otherwise noted). Events are FREE to BU students and staff and their friends. Transportation: the “B” Boston College Green Line, the first stop at BU past Kenmore Square.

Thursday, October 1
AN EVENING WITH CELIA MAYSLES

Her obsessive search to recover celluloid memories of her late documentarian father, David Maysles, who died in 1987, leads the young filmmaker in Wild Blue Yonder into an out-and-out war with her renowned octagenarian uncle, Albert Maysles. He claims ownership of the Maysles Brothers film estate, including Salesman and Grey Gardens. Celia’s spirited documentary includes a defiant “steal” of copyrighted footage which Albert insists is his property.

Thursday, October 8
AN EVENING WITH TOM McPHEE

Alternately heart-warming and heart-wrenching, McPhee’s An American Opera— The Greatest Pet Rescue Ever! shows first-hand the gripping Hurricane Katrina saga of how thousands of volunteers struggled to save many thousands of family pets, cats and dogs, which had been left behind as their owners fled in panic. Strong, emotional stuff—and An American Opera justifiably has won “Best Documentary” prizes at multiple film festivals.

Thursday, October 15
AN EVENING WITH IDO HAAR

The esteemed Israeli filmmaker brought to BU by the Consulate General of Israel to New England, will screen Melting Siberia, a feature documentary about his Russian-born mother, Marina, and her painful journey from Israel to the ex-Soviet Union in search of her lost father. Marina was still in the womb when her dad, once a heralded Red Army officer, disappeared, seemingly forever, in the Siberian steppes.

Thursday, October 22
AN EVENING OF CINEMA HILARITY

A double-feature night begins with filmmaker, Franco Sacchi, introducing his droll, eye-popping documentary, This is Nollywood, heralding the Nigerian film industry, where 2,000 low-low-budget genre movies are pumped out each year. Sacchi was there on the set in Nigeria for some crazy genre shooting! Second: a bold showing of the legendarily terrible, goblins-in-Utah, horror feature, Troll 2 (1990), in preparation for next week’s visit of Michael Paul Stephenson, Troll 2 child star.

Friday, October 23
AN EVENING WITH JAN-CHRISTOPHER HORAK

BU welcomes back a former College of Communication film graduate student, who, as Director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, is charged with UCLA’s seminal, world-acclaimed film restoration program. At BU, Horak will show Billy Woodberry’s classic 1984 feature, Bless Their Little Hearts, written by Charles Burnett. This story of a black family’s daily struggles in Los Angeles is a prime example of UCLA’s committed restoration of the works of key African-American independent filmmakers, the so-called “LA Rebellion,” many of whom met while attending UCLA.

Thursday, October 29
AN EVENING WITH MICHAEL PAUL STEPHENSON

Who could have imagined that the execrable 1990 horror flick, Troll 2, would not disappear but become an obsessive cult movie shown around the world, celebrated for being abominably bad? Stephenson, the once-child star, tracks down the original cast—some genial, some goony, some certifiably crazy—for his good-natured autobiographical documentary, Best Worst Movie, a super hit at the 2009 SXSW Film Festival. And let’s not forget Troll 2’s ill-natured Italian director, Claudio Fragasso, who, alone in the world, believes he made a little masterpiece. A Boston premiere!

Thursday, November 5
AN EVENING WITH ASHLEY SABIN AND DAVID REDMAN

The talented documentary team spent months in New Orleans living in a ramshackle utopia for down-and-out hurricane survivors for their film, Kamp Katrina. They return to Louisiana for tonight’s Invisible Girlfriend, bringing back Charles, one of their mentally deluded characters, as he rides 400 miles to New Orleans on a wobbly bicycle in search of a certain waitress, and his “invisible” true love, the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc herself.

Friday, November 6
AN EVENING WITH PHILLIP LOPATE

The much-honored, much-published New York novelist (The Rug Merchant), poet, memoirist, essayist (Portrait of My Body), professor, film critic, and cinema historian (American Movie Critics: an Anthology), will lecture on “Changing One’s Mind About a Film,” illustrated by a showing of Claude Sautet’s 1992 French classic Un Couer en Hiver (A Heart in Winter), about a beautiful violinist in love both with Ravel and her husband’s best friend.

Friday, November 20
AN EVENING WITH PAUL SCHRADER

(LOCATION: BU’s Sargent Building, 635 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 102)
Acclaimed for his amazing screenplays for Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ), Schrader is just as interesting for his deeply personal films as a director. These (Mishima, American Gigolo, Affliction, etc.) are transgressive, pessimist, yet strangely spiritual, inhabited by defiantly anti-social characters, breaking every Hollywood mold of the well-made, well-mannered film. For his BU visit, Schrader has chosen to show Auto Focus (2002), about the tortured, sexually driven, demonic night life of Hogan’s Heroes TV star, Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear).