Film Work For The Environment

The Connecticut Forest and Park Association is looking for freshman, sophomore, and junior Wesleyan students interested in 1) producing a series of fun and informational "hesitant hiker" shorts in conjunction with Eastern Mountain Sports and REI Outdoors and Sporting Goods, and/or 2) organizing a film & guest lecturer series for its members and the public.

Film experience and a passion for the outdoors are a plus, but definitely not necessary. Please email Andrew Dermont '09 at adermont@wes if you'd like to get involved.

Glory at Sea

For a limited time only, Glory at Sea, a film directed by Wes alumn Ben Zeitlin '04, is online for free. It's won a ton of awards, so check it out in all of its splendor.



[EDIT] For a much better quality video, go to Court13.com. Thanks to Ray Tintori '06 for the tip.

[/EDIT, Mad, 11/30/08 11:12 am]

"Sand and Sorrow" Screening

Come see Sand and Sorrow, a film about the conflict in Sudan and the genocide in Darfur, directed by Paul Freedman and narrated by George Clooney.
The movie will be followed by a discussion with members of WeSTAND, baked goods will be provided for FREE!

Date: Thursday, November 20
Time: 7 pm
Place: Shanklin 107

World's first Yiddish Opera... with composer speaking!

Jared Gimbel '11, current President of the Wesleyan Yiddish Club and a Jewish Renaissance Fellow, sends in:

Solomon Epstein of Agawam, MA is bringing a film version of his Opera, "The Dybbuk", to Wesleyan. It was adapted from a libretto from the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music, whose efforts were sundered by the persecutions of Stalin and of Hitler.

Performed first in Israel in 1999, "The Dybbuk" is the world's FIRST Yiddish Opera, and a grand step to bringing Yiddish and that vanished world from oblivion to the 21st century.

The opera will be screened with its original cast on SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2008 at 8:00, in PAC 001. Sol will be showing the connection between traditional Jewish folk melodies and his opera in a musical demonstration, in addition to answering questions afterwards.

This is a meaningful historic work, and you should NOT miss it.

When: Sunday, Nov. 16 at 8 pm
Where: PAC 001
Why: awesome Yiddish opera, with the dude who made it there in person!

Blue Vinyl: The World's First Toxic Comedy

The second installment of the EON film series has arrived!

"With humor, chutzpah, and a piece of vinyl siding in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director and award-winning cinematographer Daniel B. Gold travel to America's vinyl manufacturing capital and beyond in search of the truth about vinyl."

Event: Blue Vinyl Screening
Date: TUESDAY, 11/11
Time: 8 pm
Location: The Woodhead Lounge

Universal Producing "In the Heights" Movie

It's been a great year for Lin-Manuel Miranda '02 - after having won a bunch of Tonys for "In the Heights", which he wrote the first draft of while a sophomore at Wes, and which opened on Broadway earlier this year, he's sold the film rights of the musical to Universal Studios, who will probably make an international monster hit out of it:

Set over three days in the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, In The Heights is an exhilarating musical journey into one of New York's most vibrant communities, where the lives of three generations come together in an unforgettable story of hope and self-discovery.

"In The Heights is a musical rich with storyline and characters that transcend the setting in which they are cast to entertain and speak to audiences from all walks of life," said Donna Langley, President of Production for Universal Pictures. "We are thrilled to be working with Lin-Manuel Miranda to bring this fantastic story to the big screen."

..."Nearly nine years into my journey with Heights, I remain constantly humbled by all the opportunities we have been given. I am thrilled to work with Universal and help bring this story to millions of people around the world," said Miranda.

The original Broadway producers of the show, Kevin McCollum, Jeffrey Seller and Jill Furman, will executive produce the movie, and Quiara Alegria Hudes, who wrote the Tony-nominated book for the show, will be writing the screen adaptation for the film.

Miranda will will probably be reprising his starring role in the movie, though no official casting had been done yet. He'll also be producing along with Meryl Poster, who supervised the film version of "Chicago" as an executive at Miramax.

I'm having a little Entourage moment writing this up right now, awesome, Wesleyan, for having some claim to this.

Broadway World: In the Heights to be a Big Screen Musical
Variety: Universal gets "In the Heights" rights

Middletown Sasquatch Attack

Apparently, shooting began in Middletown last night for Sasquatch Assault, which looks to be a riveting horror B-movie of sorts about the legendary Sasquatch, torn from its home in the wilderness by unscrupulous capitalists, and its subsequent rampage against a cruel society that just doesn't understand.

Or something. Either way this looks awesome. According to Ed McKeon at the Middletown Eye:

Filming will begin at sundown [yesterday, Thursday night] on the site of the former power plant for the Remington Rand Typewriter Factory on Johnson Street. The film is directed by Andrew Gernhard, director of photography is Wesleyan grad Colin Theys '07.

The public is invited to observe the filming as long as they are willing to adhere to crew instruction for staying outside of shots, and agree not to try to lure the Sasquatch from the filming area with Little Debbie snack cakes.

Mondo Kim's video collection to wind up at Wesleyan?

Sam Silver '11 sends in a tip that Mondo Kim's Video in New York is going out of the rental business - and looking for a place to house its gigantic collection of indie videos. Wesleyan is apparently on the short list to take the collection. New York Magazine reports:

When Korean émigré Yongman Kim opened Mondo Kim’s on St. Marks Place a decade ago, it was a scruffy indie shrine. But now the movie-rental business is in decline, and Kim is trying to give away his archive of 55,000 movies—many of which are next to impossible to find elsewhere. It’s the end of an institution: Harmony Korine and Spike Lee were customers; Quentin Tarantino, a regular when he was in town, thanked Kim’s at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 1. “We were the first to carry Krzysztof Kieslowski,” says Frank Tarzi, a former Kim’s film buyer. “We had Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jean-Pierre Melville before everyone rediscovered them. We carried Hong Kong cinema way before it became mainstream. Our collection of Godard was unmatched.” And the clerks were entitled to be snotty. “Where else are you going to find people who have an encyclopedic knowledge of the pornography of a particular country?” says Matt Singer, the host of IFC News and a Kim’s alum. “There was some attitude, but a lot of it just came from passion.” Another former Kim’s clerk, film critic Steve Erickson, remembers a co-worker who only recommended Michelangelo Antonioni: “A customer would ask for a comedy, and he’d recommend Red Desert.” Kim wants the collection to stay intact—“NYU wanted just 8,000 titles,” he says glumly—and available to the public, which complicates the hunt for a new home. More difficult, the deep selection sometimes came from sources that, as Tarzi says, “probably weren’t 100 percent legal.” Kim is talking to Yeshiva University, Film Forum, Wesleyan, and the New School.

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York blog has some more info that is mostly incredibly depressing and will make you feel wildly nostalgic for times past. Still, it's an interesting read.

Basinger on Wall St./Hollywood Intersection

Wes professor Jeanine Basinger gets a quote in the NYtimes' article In Hollywood, the Wall St. Plots Will Thicken, where she weighs in on the effect of economic hard times has on what reaches the silver screen:

Jeanine Basinger, chairwoman of the film studies department at Wesleyan University, said that studios had the best luck dealing with economic issues when they did so with subtlety. For instance, “It Happened One Night,” the 1934 Frank Capra movie about a spoiled heiress running away from her family, is a romantic comedy that hints at the social turmoil of the Great Depression: a wandering thief desperate for money; a passing train populated with hobos. “Subtlety has always been the key,” she said.

The article itself is also really worth a read, if only for the awesome picture of Martha Stewart and Jim Cramer at the top.

Film: The End of Suburbia

The EON film series presents:

What: a film about oil...yeah
When: TOMORROW, Tuesday 10/14 at 8 pm
Where: PAC 002

Attention all filmmakers

Alex Ketchum '12 writes:

If you have a film that is under 12 minutes in length—or about that length—now is your chance to show it! We will be projecting student films at the upcoming WestCo festival on Saturday, Nov. 8. Submissions are due by Nov. 2.

If you are interested, contact Alex at aketchum@wes.

Jeanine Basinger on Paul Newman

Professor Jeanine Basinger talked to Tom Ashbrook on NPR's On Point last week about the moments in Paul Newman's career which made her weak in the knees, way back when, and how Newman kept it real when dealing with the Star Machine.

Listen here to the full broadcast, cut to 7:10, 18:00, 27:40, 32:30, and 42:40 for Basinger's commentary.

Paul Newman

Paul Newman passed away on Friday at his home in Westport, Connecticut. A great actor, philanthropist, an all-around great guy:


NYTimes: Paul Newman, Magnetic Hollywood Titan, Dead at 83

Oldboy with the KSA

The Korean Students' Association presents Oldboy, the first film being shown in its Korean Movie Series.

Dae-Su is locked in a hotel room for 15 years without knowing his captor's motives. When he is finally released, Dae Su finds himself still trapped in a web of conspiracy and strangeness. His own quest for vengeance becomes tied in with romance when he falls for an attractive sushi chef.

The film won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and high praise from the President of the Jury, director Quentin Tarantino.

*Max Cap: 50ppl (first come first serve)
It's FREE!!! Bring all your friends!!!

Date: Thursday, September 25
Time: 8PM
Place: SC121 (Science Tower)

How Andrew Berends Escaped Nigerian Prison

The questionable detention by the Nigerian government, and subsequent release, of documentary filmmaker Andrew Berends '94 (left) is featured in today's NY Times.

Berends made it out of the harrowing 10-day situation with the help of his friend and fellow filmmaker Aaron Soffin (right), who organized a large network of filmmakers, journalists, and politicians which came to include Mariane Pearl and Senator Hillary Clinton, to pressure the Nigerian government to release Berends:

Although he was never formally accused of a crime, Mr. Berends, 36, was held in Nigeria without food and water for 30 hours (fearful of exposing his sources, he managed to swallow the SIM card from his cellphone that carried their names and numbers). He managed brief phone conversations with Mr. Soffin. “I got the message from him that everything possible was being done,” Mr. Berends said this past Friday. “Knowing it was happening was very comforting.”

Soffin is now headed to Rwanda to make a documentary about that country's genocide. Unflappable!

Wes alumnus being detained in Nigeria [u]

Andrew Berends '94, a Wes alumnus and documentary filmmaker, is being questionably detained by Nigerian authorities.

Berends was provisionally released into the custody of the U.S. Embassy over the weekend and was expected to be cleared today, but new reports claim that Berends has been re-detained and is—again—in the custody of the Nigerian State Security Services.

The former Film major was filming a documentary about the ongoing violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta region when he was arrested, along with his translator, and held without water, food, sleep, or a lawyer for 36 hours. Nigerian police, the army, and the Nigerian State Security Services interrogated him, accusing him of spying.

The U.S. State Department and various U.S. senators have intervened, but as today's continuing detention makes clear, more help is needed. Check out Help Andy, a blog set up to build media awareness about, and solicit help for, Andy's plight.

Calls to your local senators, as well as calls to the New York Senate delegation (Berends is a New Yorker) are encouraged. For more information, check out the New York Times report on Berends.

[Thanks to Wesleying friend Ed McKeon for the tip.]

---
2008-09-09 4:57 PM: According to the Help Andy blog, Berends is still being detained without charges:

It’s Tuesday morning now, and this is the 10th day since Andrew’s arrest arrest and the seizure of his passport and belongings. Nothing has changed. The Nigeria Security Services still have his passport. They have given no indication of when he will be free to go or if he will be charged with any crime.

---
2008-09-10 2:34 AM: The Help Andy blog reports that Berends' ordeal is now over, and he'll be arriving back in the United States soon:

We would like to express our sincerest thanks and gratitude to all those who helped in the release of Andrew Berends from Nigerian custody. Andy has now left Nigeria and will return to the United States shortly.

Clearing out our inbox

Wes alumni continue to pound out the blogs. Case in point: Himanshu Suri '07 sends us a link to his new blog, Gordon Gartrelle, which is devoted to "contemporary Indian/Indo-Diasporic art, indie/hip-hop music, fashion, and humour." It's now in our Wes 2.0 blogroll; check it out!

And it's not just on the blogs that Wes alumni are active; it's also in magazines targeted toward teen girls. A Wesleyan student spotted Jean Pockrus '08 in CosmoGIRL magazine:

I came across an article called Living On the Fringe: Who Says We All Have to Be Into the Same Things? Meet Five Girls Who Share Passions That Thrive Outside the Mainstream. Jean Pockrus was featured as "The Freegan."

The article quotes her: "Our culture drives us to consume so much more than we need. There's always a newer model to buy, and people throw out perfectly good stuff—including food. Freegans reduce waste by reclaiming and repurposing discarded items instead of buying new ones—often by dumpster diving—and using what would otherwise be thrown away. A lot of my freegan friends are really great at turning discarded stuff into cool things like jewelry. We can't eliminate all waste, but we can get creative about reducing it."

Meanwhile, Gwynne Hunter '10 points out that Wesleyan has created its own Wesleyan on Broadway site to promote In the Heights, the hit musical by Wes alumnus Lin-Manuel Miranda '02. Lin's created a rap and Wes-centric promotional video for the special September 5 showing of In the Heights. Funds raised through ticket sales will support Wesleyan financial aid.

Finally, Jason Reif '09 checks in from his internship at Rooftop Films, and would like to tell you about this New York-based organization that puts on a summer film festival, with events mainly in Brooklyn. There are movies, bands, open bars... and even non-rooftop venues. Check 'em out at RooftopFilms.com, or read the Rooftop Films blog (written by interns like Jason) at IFC.

Oliver Stone's "W" Trailer

A trailer for Oliver Stone's upcoming George W. Bush biopic went online last week. Good idea? Bad idea? Way too soon?

[via Videogum, Gawker]

Basinger on Godard

Well-published Film Studies chairwoman Jeanine Basinger reviewed a new book in the NY Times this week about the legacy of seminal French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard - a good read for film buffs/people who want to sound educated about the French New Wave and such.

NYTimes: Creating a Wave and Riding it to Film's Pantheon: The Life and Work of Jean-Luc Godard

Casting call for those near Cambridge

Ting Liu '10 writes:

For those of you interested in film or acting, I am looking for actors for two 16mm shorts I'll be working on this summer. If you are gonna be in Cambridge, MA, or anywhere close by in the next 6 weeks, please contact me. Most of the shootings will be done during the weekends, and if you are willing to swing by from out of town I can probably help with transportation. No distinction for sex, race, age or physical appearence. Acting experience preferred but most definitely not required.

Although I cannot afford to compensate you monetarily, money can't buy what you are about to experience.