Putting the focus on the filmmaker
Documentarians address their role at ICA forum
Got the guts to turn the camera lens on yourself?
Two directors are putting their neuroses, second-guesses, and best defenses on the table this week in a public forum about what happens when filmmakers become part of their stories.
"Facing Realities: Dialogues in Boston Documentary Film" takes place Thursday from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the Institute of Contemporary Art in the museum's theater.
The evening starts with a screening of "Backyard," Ross McElwee's 40-minute work from 1984 about his own North Carolina family, his relationship with his father, and his family's relationship with the black staff they employed. McElwee teaches in the department of visual and environmental studies at Harvard University, and he'll talk about the film afterward.
At 8 p.m., Nina Davenport's 95-minute "Operation Filmmaker" plays, followed by a conversation with both Davenport and McElwee moderated by Scott MacDonald, author of the book series "A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers." Davenport, now based in New York, studied with McElwee.
"Operation Filmmaker" starts out as a profile of a young, confident, Iraqi film student named Muthana Mohmed who is given an internship by first-time director Liev Schreiber on the film "Everything Is Illuminated." The movie turns into an exploration of charity, expectation, and the perils of making art for a third party - the audience - when the critical distance between the other two - the filmmaker and the subject - is all but gone.
The movie won the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Film Festival last November and had a sneak peak at the Harvard Film Archive in February. The ICA presentation is its formal Boston premiere and it opens a theatrical run at the Brattle Theatre on June 20.
In an introduction to the evening's program posted at filmandreality.org, consulting curator Peter Dowd writes that, "similar to 'Backyard,' 'Operation Filmmaker' grapples with the difficulties inherent in filming another. While marked by a different style, different tone, different maker's vision, both of these films wrestle with the ultimate questions at the very root of documentary itself: What does it mean to film another? To what am I obligated and entitled as the maker? And whose story will this film really be telling?"
Dowd notes that screenings of "Operation Filmmaker" "have sparked fierce debates, some outrage, as well as strong praise."
For more information, call the ICA at 617-478-3103 or go to icaboston.org.
INTERNATIONAL FEST CONTINUING: One of the big highlights of the Boston International Film Festival, which opened this weekend and continues through Saturday, is the US debut of "Killer Poet," about the double life of Norman Porter Jr., who escaped from Massachusetts prison facilities in 1985 and lived on the lam in Chicago until three years ago (see story, opposite).
Also of note: the director of the short film "The Norman Rockwell Code," a well-received spoof of "The Da Vinci Code," debuts his new short, "The Stag Hunt," on Wednesday at 6 p.m. New Hampshire-based Alfred Thomas Catalfo wrote, directed, and stars in the film, which is a jumbo of probability theory, quantum mechanics, and National Security Agency intrigue. A trailer is online at thestaghunt.com.
(Marketing gross-out prize to "Hanah's Gift," described by the filmmakers as "The Blair Witch Project" meets "Halloween." A Globe editor received a baseball bat - looks like a real Louisville Slugger - covered in "blood" with the film's title burned into the wood. If that's your cup of tea, try the trailer at hanahsgift.com or come to the screening on Friday - the 13th! - at 10:15 p.m.)
The full schedule is online at bifilmfestival.com. There's also a table of information in the lobby of AMC Loews Boston Common, where the festival takes place.
FILM CAMPS FOR KIDS: Cloud Place, the Copley Square art space for children, is inviting Boston-area public school students ages 14 to 19 to apply for its Multimedia Documentary Filmmaking workshop. Not only is the workshop free, but students will receive dinners and a stipend, and their work will be shared online and included in a cultural conference next spring at the Omni Parker House hotel.
The workshop takes place over eight evenings in August. Students will learn the techniques for making personal narratives, visit community and historical sites around the city, and practice digital editing and sound mixing. For an application, go to cloudfoundation.org and click on "programs" or call 617-262-2949.
Rhode Island children ages 8 to 16 might be interested in the KidsEye Summer Filmmaking Camp hosted by the Rhode Island International Film Festival. The day camp takes place at the University of Rhode Island campus in Kingston July 7-11. Tuition is $340. Applications are at film-festival.org, or call 401-861-4445.
SCREENINGS OF NOTE: Today at 5:15 p.m., Hou Hsiao-hsien's new "Flight of the Red Balloon," starring Juliette Binoche as a Parisian mother who hires a Taiwanese au pair, at the Museum of Fine Arts (617-267-9300 and mfa.org/film).
Also today, a special showing of "Gettysburg," introduced by director Ron Maxwell, at 12:30 p.m. at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. The event is a precursor to next year's bicentennial celebration of the birth of Abraham Lincoln (1809) and each ticket includes entrance to Chesterwood, the Stockbridge home and studio of Lincoln Memorial sculptor Daniel Chester French (413-528-0100).
Thursday at 8 p.m., Boston Jewish Film Festival (BJFF) founder Michal Goldman's "At Home in Utopia," about the United Workers Cooperative Colony, a cooperative apartment built in the Bronx in the 1920s by Jewish garment workers. A sneak preview of a final cut was shown at last fall's BJFF, and a six-show run of the film starts this week at the MFA. Thursday's show will be preceded by songs from A Besere Velt (A Better World) Yiddish Community Chorus of the Workmen's Circle and followed by a conversation with Goldman and co-producer Ellen Brodsky. Dr. Alvin Poussaint will be a guest speaker after the 1 p.m. show on June 19.
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com.
