Editor's films get Coolidge treatment
Academy Award-winning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker probably won't be packing the gold statue she won for "The Departed" (or the ones she won for "The Aviator" or "Raging Bull") when she's feted at the Coolidge Corner Theatre next month, but the celebrations for her Coolidge Award are getting started this week, and tickets for the big events go on sale next weekend.
The Coolidge is showing a selection of Schoonmaker's work in advance of the April 11 gala celebrating her career, starting with "The Aviator" on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The 2004 biography of Howard Hughes, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, will be introduced by Peter W. Young, a retired USAF colonel and senior lecturer of aeronautics at MIT.
Schoonmaker got the first of her six Oscar nominations in 1970, for editing "Woodstock." She has collaborated with director Martin Scorsese for more than 25 years, editing most of his films since 1980's "Raging Bull , " including "The Last Temptation of Christ," "Goodfellas," "The Age of Innocence," "Gangs of New York," and, of course, "The Departed."
Tickets for the award gala, April 12 master class by Schoonmaker, and April 12 screening of "The Departed" with panel discussion featuring Schoonmaker and screenwriter William Monahan, go on sale to Coolidge members on Saturday at 11 a.m. at the box office. Tickets for the general public go on sale next Sunday at 11 a.m. at the box office and online. Information is at coolidge.org/award and 617-734-2500.
CONVERSATIONS WITH: Julie Bacha will host a Q&A after a showing of "Encounter Point," a documentary she co-directed, on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Regent Theatre in Arlington. As the subtitle puts it, the film is about "the everyday leaders who refuse to sit back as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalates." With Bacha will be two people featured in the film. "Encounter Point" was given the audience award for best documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival and Rencontres Film Festival in Montreal. It also plays on Thursday (781-646-4849 and regenttheatre.com) .
Co-writers Anna Boden, who grew up in Newton, and Ryan Fleck will talk about the evolution of their award-winning "Half Nelson" on Friday at 7 p.m. at Boston University's Phototonics Center Auditorium, 8 St. Mary St. The much-lauded "Half Nelson" picked up top acting prizes at the Spirit Awards last month for Ryan Gosling, who plays a teacher with a drug habit, and Shareeka Epps, the student who learns his secret, and best feature award and breakthrough director award for Fleck at last November's Gotham Awards; Gosling picked up an Oscar nomination as well. The event is put on by BU Cinematheque.
Also on Friday, Armenian director Nigol Bezjian will be at the Harvard Film Archive at 7 p.m. to present his "Roads Full of Apricots," about his experience of being displaced, and "Verve," about folk dancing, as well as to talk about the Armenian diaspora (617-495-4700 and hcl.harvard.edu/hfa).
UNDERGROUND FEST: The ninth-annual Boston Underground Film Festival, which actually takes place in Harvard Square, starts Thursday. There will be 24 programs over four days; nine are collections of short films grouped around topics that include "Free Speech Zone" and "Blasphemous Rumours," and eight of the programs are labeled "adult." Along with awards for "Best Documentary" and "Most Promising New England Filmmaker" (won by Christopher Kinsella last year), the festival also gives props to "Most Effectively Offensive." All shows are at the Brattle Theatre and Harvard Square Cinema.
The opening event is the New England premiere of Benjamin Meade's "American Stag," about the history of pornography. Cambridge's own Alloy Orchestra provided the film's soundtrack and will perform live to kick things off at 7:30 p.m. at the Brattle. The opening-night party is at the Hong Kong restaurant with a performance by the Black Cat Burlesque troupe. The schedule is at bostonundergroundfilmfestival.com. (For a profile of Sean Meredith, director of a puppet version of "Dante's Inferno," see page N11.)
BRATTLE BETTER: Speaking of the Brattle Theatre, it is now officially out of crisis mode. The Brattle Film Foundation has declared the 16-month "Preserve the Brattle Legacy" a success, with $400,000 raised and a lease signed through February 2009.
NETWORKING: Women in Film & Video/New England is launching a Breakfast Series to provide a chance for filmmaking professionals and newbies to meet and greet. The first will be held on Tuesday at 7:45 a.m. at the WGBH studios in Boston. Lorna Lowe Streeter will be presented with a $1,500 Accelerating the Creative Scholarship and talk about her documentaries. Reservations are required: Email info@womeninfilmvideo.org.
Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., the Filmmakers Workshop focuses on the sample reel, that introductory tape that filmmakers send to potential supporters as a calling card. Should it be a trailer or a rough cut? Excerpts from a variety of footage? Is music necessary? Three sets of filmmakers will present their reels for feedback; details are online at documentaries.org. The event takes place at the Bernard Toale Gallery at 450 Harrison Ave. in Boston, and an RSVP is required: E-mail susi@documentaries.org.
ART FILMS FROM MONTREAL FEST: Architect Norman Foster is designing the new glass-and-steel addition at the Museum of Fine Arts, but anyone who's been to London in recent years will know him better as the man behind the Millennium Bridge and the bullet-shaped building (known in London as "the Gherkin") that drastically changed the look of the city's skyline.
Swiss director Mirjam von Arx examines the building and how a city decides if a structure is right for it in "Building the Gherkin," which opens the "Festival International du Film sur l'Art" at the MFA on Friday. The series is a traveling program of 12 movies about art that were selected from last year's FIFA, a festival held annually in Montreal. "Gherkin" plays Friday at 6:15 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m., and four additional times through mid-April (617-267-9300 and mfa.org/film).
SCREENINGS OF NOTE: Also from Canada, Québécois filmmakers Michel Brault and Claude Jutra are being featured at the Harvard Film Archive for a week starting Saturday. The series features works from the late 1950s through early 1970s, a time of great change in Québec. Eleven films will be shown, including Jutra's "À tout prendre" on Saturday at 9:15 p.m. and next Sunday at 7 p.m. (617-495-4700 and hcl.harvard.edu/hfa).
And the Institute of Contemporary Art's first theater production in its new space is "This Place Is a Desert," a work by MIT theater arts assistant professor Jay Scheib and media artist Leah Gelpe. The tale of four lovers who all fail to connect is inspired, they say, by Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, and much of the action will be projected live onto a film screen. It plays Thursday through next Sunday (617-478-3103 and icaboston.org).
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com. 
