Indie short gets a shot at Sundance
An 11-minute short film, shot over two weekends in Quincy and Randolph and cast primarily with nonactors from the neighborhoods, will play in competition at the Sundance Film Festival this week and next.
Tze Chun , the writer and director of "Windowbreaker ," is a Randolph native and graduate of Milton Academy and Columbia University. He cast his mother, Ai Cheng , as a woman who is worried about a rash of break-ins in her neighborhood and warns her two young children to stay clear of the Vietnamese teens who play basketball on the street.
Bryan Wilson , a graduate of Medfield High School and Emerson College (and recipient of a Boston Globe Acting Scholarship), produced the film and plays a white locksmith who earns the single mother's trust.
Newton native Anna Boden edited the short. Her feature film "Half Nelson ," which she produced, is up for six Spirit Awards next month.
"Windowbreaker" got its premiere at the Woods Hole Film Festival last summer and won the Audience Choice award at the New York City Short Film Festival in November.
The Sundance Film Festival, which takes place in Park City, Utah, had 4,445 short film submissions and chose 71. A selection will be streamed online between Thursday and April 18 at sundance.org . One of the three jurors for the Shorts Competition is Georgia Lee , a Harvard graduate (biochemistry major) whose feature film "Red Doors " is currently playing the Brattle Theatre.
Also heading to Sundance for the first time is cinematographer Stephen McCarthy of Roslindale. He shot Marco Williams's feature film "Banished ," about communities in Missouri, Arkansas, and Georgia that expelled African - Americans after the Civil War. That movie is co-produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley , Calif.
CONVERSATIONS WITH: Tonight at 7, co-director Julia Bacha will speak after the state premiere of "Encounter Point ," which looks at regular Palestinians and Israelis who are hungry to meet each other at a grass - roots level to work for peace. Bacha co-wrote the well-received documentary "Control Room ," about the al-Jazeera news network. The screening is at Studio Cinema in Belmont and hosted by Belmont World Film . Information is at 617-484-3980 and belmontworldfilm.org ; a trailer is at encounterpoint.com .
Gerald Peary and Amy Geller will present their work in progress "For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism" on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Bernard Toale Gallery , 450 Harrison Ave. Peary is a long time critic for the Boston Phoenix and a member of the National Society of Film Critics ; Geller got her start in film as the associate director of the Boston Jewish Film Festival and today is a producer. The documentary features interviews with Roger Ebert, Richard Schickel, Lisa Schwarzbaum , and the late Pauline Kael , among others. A post-screening discussion with the married filmmakers will be moderated by Arlington documentarian Eric Stange . It's free, but space is limited. RSVP susi@documentaries.org to confirm a spot.
HUMAN RIGHTS FEST: The annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival comes to the Museum of Fine Arts on Wednesday for six days. The opening documentary , "Sacco and Vanzetti " by Peter Miller , is about the two Italian immigrants accused of murder in 1920 and executed in Boston in 1927. (For more in-depth information, see our interview with Miller on page N9 ).
"Captive ," by Gastón Biraben , is an Argentine thriller about a young woman who goes on a search for her biological parents, who were critics of the military government (Saturday at 3:45 and returning Feb. 9).
Other highlights include "Men on the Edge ," about a group of Israeli and Palestinian fishermen who worked together from 1999 to 2003 (Thursday at 1:45 p.m.) and "Black Gold," about an Ethiopian coffee collective struggling to remain solvent in the thick of the international coffee trade (Thursday at 8:30 p.m. and co-presented by Oxfam America ).
The festival is presented by the MFA, Peabody Essex Museum , and Human Rights Watch , with "Men on the Edge" and the Holocaust film "KZ" copresented by the Boston Jewish Film Festival . The full schedule is at 617-267-9300 and mfa.org/film .
The festival also plays at the Peabody Essex Museum Jan. 20 and 21. Go to www.pem.org, or call 978-745-9500 ext. 3011., for more information.
SCREENINGS OF NOTE: Today at 5 and 8:30 p.m., the Color of Film Collaborative and Downtimeonline.net present a new Bible-inspired film, "Color of the Cross ." Writer/director Jean Claude LaMarre's movie is about the last two days of the life of Jesus, with LaMarre himself portraying Christ as a black Jew. Both screenings will be followed by discussion, and will be held at Roxbury Community College in the Media Arts Building at 1234 Columbus Ave .
Three films of Hungarian director Béla Tarr are at the Harvard Film Archive today through Wednesday. The HFA notes that the majority of Tarr's films are undistributed in the United States, and adds that they were "championed by Susan Sontag, whose 1995 lament on the death of cinephilia is tempered by the hope that Tarr -- and a select group of other contemporary filmmakers -- would be able to continue creating unique, transformative cinematic experiences." The filmmaker's seven and a half hour marathon "Sátántangó ," about "a group of farmers on a failing collective who await the arrival of a Messiah," plays today at 2 p.m. with two intermissions (617-495-4700 and hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/ ).
And if you missed it at regional festivals, "A Fish Story ," which looks at the over-fishing that plagued New England in the 1990s, new conservation measures, and the ongoing battle between fishing families and environmentalists, is on television tonight as part of the PBS series "Independent Lens . " Filmmakers Tim Gallagher of Boston and Courtney Hayes of Gloucester -- she grew up spending time on her father's tuna boat -- both started at WGBH-TV. The movie is on WGBH (Channel 2) at 9 . A companion web site at pbs.org/independentlens includes information on fish management and the New England fishing business.
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com. 
