FILMS OF PETER WHITEHEAD
July 3 - October 2, 2007
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"Whitehead was the greatest avant-garde British filmmaker of the Sixties. His films stand together as an unrivalled record of that decade's counter-culture" (Dave Calhoun, Time Out). The Museum is pleased to present, on a rotating schedule, four of Whitehead's remarkable films, which have been rediscovered and celebrated during an international tour over the past few years: Wholly Communion documents Allen Ginsberg and other Beat poets at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965; Benefit of the Doubt records Peter Brook directing his anti-Vietnam War play US, starring Glenda Jackson, for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967; TONITE LET'S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON is an impressionistic view of the mod scene in London, with appearances by Mick Jagger, Julie Christie, Michael Caine, and David Hockney, and music by Pink Floyd; and CHARLIE IS MY DARLING, Whitehead's rarely screened documentary on Rolling Stonemania in England.
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WITHIN OUR GATES by Oscar Micheaux
October 3 - November 2, 2007
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Early African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux made this 1920 silent film as a response to D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, and its defense of the Klan and lynching. The story focuses on an African-American woman who goes North in an effort to help a Southern minister raise money to sustain a school for poor children. Her romance with a black doctor eventually leads to revelations about her family's past that expose the racial skeletons in America's closet.
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THE SHORT FILMS OF ALAN BERLINER
November 3 - December 22, 2007
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Alan Berliner, whose films will be featured in this year's Virginia Film Festival, is known primarily for his experimental variations on the "home movie," including Family Album and Nobody's Business. Berliner is also acclaimed for his astonishing editing skills, which are on full display in the early short films collected for this program, including Everywhere at Once (1985) and City Edition (1980).
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NIGHTJOHN by Charles Burnett
January 17 - March 3, 2008
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As Oscar Micheaux is considered the greatest black filmmaker of the silent era, many now consider Charles Burnett America's greatest living black director. His masterpiece Killer of Sheep was recently revived and screened at the Virginia Film Festival, but this film about slavery, made in 1996 for the Disney Channel, has not received the recognition it deserves. It tells the story of Sarny (Allison Jones), a young house slave on a cotton plantation, who is taught to read by Nightjohn (Carl Lumbly), a slave who escaped to the north but returned to captivity to teach others what he knew.
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TO BE ANNOUNCED
March 4 - April 14
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BLACK MARIA FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
April 15 - June 2, 2008
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For the second year, the video gallery will present a selection of award-winning shorts from this annual touring festival of new experimental, documentary, and animated films. Festival director John Columbus will be in town to present a theatrical program of award-winners in the Virginia Film Society series in mid-April (visit www.vafilm.com for details).
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CARRARA by William Wylie
June 3 - September 1, 2008 |
In tandem with the second Festival of the Photograph, the media gallery will present William Wylie's new film shot in the historic marble quarries of Carrara, Italy. Several of Wylie's elegant black and white photographs of Carrara stones will also be on display.
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