Exhibit focuses on black film history
(Correction: Because of a reporting error, the Local Action column in Sunday's Arts & Entertainment section misstated the name of this year's Jewish film festival at Brandeis University. It is Jewishfilm.2006.)
Oscar Micheaux was the first African American to produce a film with sound. That movie, "The Exile," was made in 1931, and it played at black theaters nationwide.
"Micheaux really paved the way as an independent filmmaker," says Tracy Gibbs, the director of marketing and membership of the Museum of Afro-American History. Even for black audiences, says Gibbs, his films "were really out there" in how head-on they dealt with racism.
Posters from Micheaux's film as well as movies with stars including Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, and Paul Robeson will be featured in an exhibit that opens at the museum on Beacon Hill this week. The 37 posters, from films made between 1919 and 1963, were selected by the museum from a massive collection of black film posters, lobby cards, and ephemera held by John Kisch, who runs the Separate Cinema archive. (His www.separatecinema.com provides a fun look at a lot of the holdings.)
The exhibit opens Tuesday at 7 p.m. with a discussion that will provide an historical overview of black films, black filmmakers, and black stars of the early 20th century, and their impact -- how many films they made, how many movie houses they ran, who they were financed by, and their marketing strategies. Beverly Morgan-Welch, executive director of the museum, will lead the conversation.
The museum is the largest institution focused on African American history in New England. The show runs through June 3. Information is at 617-725-0022 and www.afroammuseum.org.
CONVERSATIONS WITH: Moshe Safdie, the renowned Israeli-born, Canadian architect who now lives in Boston, will talk about his work after a screening of a 2004 documentary about his life, "Moshe Safdie: The Power of Architecture." Directed by Donald Winkler, the documentary covers Safdie's early life in Israeli and evolution as an architect after his family moved to Canada. (Safdie created Habitat '67, the experimental apartment complex built as part of Montreal's 1967 World's Fair and now a permanent part of that city's landscape, and the movie explains how Habitat '67 was his first project ever, and was designed, as a thesis project, using Legos.)
Safdie has offices in Jerusalem, Toronto, and Somerville, and he built the expansion of the Peabody Essex Museum, which was unveiled in 2003.
The Wednesday event begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts; the film also screens on April 27 at 2 p.m. Details at 617-267-9300 and www.mfa.org.
German director Jan Schütte, who currently is a visiting faculty member at Harvard, will discuss his films next Friday and Saturday evenings at the Harvard Film Archive. Among the films that will screen are "Dragon Chow," "Bye Bye America," "Old Love" -- based on a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer -- and his most recent "
A story by the film editor of the German magazine Spiegel, posted (in English) at Schütte's website, www.janschuette.de, notes that "home is not a place, but a state of mind in the five feature films and seven documentaries that [Schütte] has made over the past two decades. The people in his films, both real-life and fictitious characters, tend to travel -- they are restless souls, wanderers and underdogs, people adrift at the edges of society who are searching for a meaning in their lives."
The story also notes that: "in terms of his age . . . and in his approach to directing, Schütte is a kind of go-between for two generations of German filmmakers: From the older generation of cinematic auteurs like Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog, who set out in the early seventies to create fiercely individual, original films that laid claim to being art rather than entertainment, Schütte has inherited the urge to tell only the stories close to his heart; at the same time, he shares the desire to reach -- and entertain -- a broad audience with Germany's younger generation of filmmakers, including Tom Tykwer, Sönke Wortmann, and Katja von Garnier."
Films and times for Schütte's films are at 617-495-4700 and www.harvardfilmarchive.org.
MORE COOLIDGE RENOVATIONS: After spending $1.2 million between 1999 and 2005 on expansion of its smaller theaters and heating and air conditioning upgrades, the 72-year-old Coolidge Corner Theatre has started work on its final major renovations. Projects include making the facility handicap accessible, expanding the lobby and concession area, adding an elevator, putting new seats into the main theater, and restoring the deco ceiling in the main hall. Renovations are projected to cost $1.4 million; the theater has secured $867,000 and is still looking to raise $530,000. Executive Director Joe Zina says the work won't affect programming
IN TOWN: The ninth annual Jewishfilm.2006 begins next Saturday and runs through April 30. The curators of the program really work to make this festival count -- every film is accompanied by either the filmmaker or a guest speaker to lead a conversation after the screening.
The opening event is director Jorge Gurvich's 2005 "Next Year in . . . Argentina," at 8:15 p.m. Saturday at the Wasserman Cinema at Brandeis University. The documentary examines the lives of Jews who have either stayed in Argentina or emigrated to Israel, and Gurvich will be present for questions.
Next Sunday features three films, including Israeli journalist and documentary filmmaker Zippi Brand Frank's "You're in the Army Now," about women in the Israeli armed forces. The director is currently based at Harvard, where she is a Nieman fellow in journalism.
The festival's full schedule is at www.jewishfilm.org, with information at 781-899 7044.
SCREENING OF NOTE: The 48-hour Film Festival is a national project in which teams of filmmakers make a short movie in two days, and then screen the results to the public in a competition. The project is in mid swing here in Boston: some 70 teams shot their films around the city last weekend and the results have been screening this past week. The final group of films will be shown this Tuesday and Wednesday at the Kendall Theatre, and awards will be given for the Best of City film and Audience Award. Details at www.48hourfilm.com/boston/.
FOR FILMMAKERS: The South of Washington Street area of Boston -- SoWa -- has been bubbling for years as a hive of fine arts studios, and now it's getting its own film festival. The debut SoWa Film Festival will take place May 19-21, the same weekend as the annual SoWa Art Walk. The festival is still looking for submissions of all sorts -- features, documentaries, experimental works of any length -- with a preference for the avant-garde. Deadline is this Wednesday. Find out more at 617-267-1300 and www.sowafilmfestival.com.
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com. 
