Filmmaker grad returning to BC
'Station Agent' director Tom McCarthy brings new film to campus arts festival
With the Independent Film Festival of Boston rolling across Boston and Somerville later this week (stories, page N13), you're forgiven if you want to conserve all your Local Action energy for that event's parties, panels, and movies.
But there are some nifty folks coming through town this week separate from IFFBoston who are worth making plans around. One is Tom McCarthy, the talented local who wrote and directed 2003's "The Station Agent" and graduated from Boston College in 1988.
McCarthy will be at the college's Chestnut Hill campus for BC's 10th annual Arts Festival for two events: a conversation and free public screening of his new film, "The Visitor," on Friday at 8 p.m., and a public interview - in the manner of James Lipton's "Inside the Actors Studio" - on Saturday at 4 p.m. BC Theater Department faculty member Luke Jorgensen will conduct the interview. ("The Visitor" opened locally this weekend.)
In addition to writing and directing his two movies, McCarthy is a working actor, too, with regular appearances on "The Wire" and "Law & Order," and roles in "Flags of Our Fathers," "Syriana," and "Good Night, and Good Luck." He'll be awarded the BC Arts Council Alumni Award for Distinguished Achievement during his visit. Previous awardees include actor Chris O'Donnell and "Saturday Night Live" comedian Amy Poehler.
For more information, call 617-552-2787 or visit bc.edu/artsfestival.
CONVERSATIONS WITH: There are lots of other folks talking film this week, too. Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun will be at the Harvard Film Archive today at 3 p.m. (with his "Bye Bye Africa") and again at 7 p.m. (with "Our Father"). Haroun is recipient of the McMillan-Stewart Fellowship in Distinguished Filmmaking, which is given annually by Harvard's Film Study Center (617-495-4700 and hcl.harvard.edu/hfa).
Dr. Catherine Kimble, who is on the faculty of several local schools including the Massachusetts General Hospital/ McLean Hospital Adult Psychiatry Residency Training Program, will be at the Coolidge Corner Theatre tomorrow at 7 p.m. to introduce Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" with a presentation about vertigo and anxiety. The evening is part of the Science on Screen series (617-734-2500 and coolidge.org).
Director Christopher Zalla will bring his 2007 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner to the Institute of Contemporary Art for its Boston premiere on Saturday at 7 p.m. The film, which is now titled "Sangre de mi sangre" but was called "Padre Nuestro" when it played Sundance, is about a young Mexican man who travels to New York City to try to find his father. When accepting his award at Sundance, Zalla said, "for a kid who was once on welfare this is a pretty amazing place to be. . . . There are people in this country that we decide to call illegal - an illegal human being - and I just don't get that. . . . I want to dedicate this film to those who are toiling so hard just to make a living" (617-478-3103 and icaboston.org).
COLLEGE FILM EVENTS: Films and videos produced by the undergraduate students of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts will be shown Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts. Admission is free. Graduate student films will screen on April 30 at 5:30 p.m., with the filmmakers present for a Q&A (617-267-9300 and mfa.org/film).
On Saturday at 8 p.m. the Campus MovieFest grand finale will be presented at the downtown Colonial Theatre. The evening will showcase shorts produced by students from Boston College, Boston University, Bridgewater State College, Emerson College, MIT, Northeastern University, and Tufts University. Winners from the Boston final will go on to compete at the national "championship." Details plus last year's winning shorts are at campusmoviefest.com/events/boston/index.html.
SCREENINGS OF NOTE: The MFA is hosting a program of eight feature films by young Italian directors Wednesday through Friday. Among the highlights: Paolo Sorrentino's "One Man Up" ("L'uomo in più"), about a lounge singer and a soccer player in Naples who share the same name and eventually cross paths.
And the annual White River Indie Films festival in New Hampshire takes place Friday through next Sunday. The opening night gala includes a live appearance by anticonsumerism activist and performance artist Bill Talen, who goes by the name "Reverend Billy" and has created the Church of Stop Shopping. He'll be on hand for a Q&A after an 8 p.m. screening of Rob VanAlkemade's "What Would Jesus Buy?" The documentary tracks the good preacher's quest to save America from "the Devils's Monoculture" and the "Shopocalypse." The festival schedule is at wrif.org.
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com.
