July 12-13, LEVINSKY PARK, directed by Beth Toni Kruvant
July 19-20, THAT WAY MADNESS LIES…, directed by Sandra Luckow
July 28, CHASING TRANE, directed by John Scheinfeld
July 29, LADY SINGS THE BLUES, directed by Sidney J. Furie
August 3, I CALLED HIM MORGAN, directed by Kasper Collin
August 4, ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA, directed by Shirley Clarke
August 9-10, ILLUMINATIONS: SHORT FILMS OF DISCOVERY directed by Marylou Bongiorno
August 16-19, WANDA, directed by Barbara Loden
August 23-24, PRIMAL SCREAM, directed by William J. Murray
August 23-24, MADE A MOVIE, LIVED TO TELL, directed by William J. Murray and Keith Reamer
Portraits In Jazz: A Celebration of The Montclair Jazz Festival
In celebration of the 2018 Montclair Jazz Festival, Montclair Film will feature four films profiling the lives and artistry of legendary jazz performers, with each screening preceded by a special performance by Jazz House Kids at 7:00 PM.
CHASING TRANE
Director: John Scheinfeld
Producers: John Beug, Dave Harding, Scott Pascucci, Spencer Proffer
Runtime: 99 Min
Set against the social, political and cultural landscape of the times, CHASING TRANE brings John Coltrane to life as a fully dimensional being, inviting the audience to engage with Coltrane the man, Coltrane the artist, an extraordinary talent whose boundary-shattering music continues to impact and influence people around the world. Written and directed by critically-acclaimed documentary filmmaker John Scheinfeld, the film is produced with the full participation of the Coltrane family and the support of the record labels that collectively own the Coltrane catalog.
Special performance by Jazz House Kids at 7:00 PM, Film at 7:30 PM
LADY SINGS THE BLUES
Director: Sidney J. Furie
Producers: Brad Dexter, Jay Weston, James S. White
Cast: Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams
Runtime: 144 Min
In a career best performance, legendary pop star Diana Ross portrays jazz singer Billie Holiday with stunning emotional power. Beginning with Holiday's traumatic youth, LADY SINGS THE BLUES depicts her early attempts at a singing career and her eventual rise to stardom, as well as her difficult relationship with Louis McKay (Billy Dee Williams), her boyfriend and manager. Casting a shadow over even Holiday's brightest moments is the vocalist's severe drug addiction, which threatens to end both her career and her life.
Special performance by Jazz House Kids at 7:00 PM, Film at 7:30 PM
I CALLED HIM MORGAN
Director: Kasper Collin
Producer: Kasper Collin
Runtime: 94 Min
On a snowy night in February 1972, the 33 year old jazz trumpet star Lee Morgan was shot dead by his common-law wife, Helen, during a gig at a club in New York City. The murder sent shockwaves through the jazz community, and the memory of the event still haunts the people who knew the Morgans. Helen served time for the crime and, following her release, retreated into obscurity. Over 20 years later, a chance encounter led her to give a remarkable interview. Helen’s revealing audio “testimony” acts as a refrain throughout the film, which draws together a wealth of archival photographs and footage, notable talking heads and incredible jazz music to tell the ill-fated pair’s story. Part true-crime tale, part love story, and an all-out musical treat, I CALLED HIM MORGAN is a stirring tribute to two unique personalities and the music that brought them together.
Special performance by Jazz House Kids at 7:00 PM, Film at 7:30 PM
ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA
Director: Shirley Clarke
Producer: Kathleen Hoffman
Runtime: 85 Min
ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA captures pioneering saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s evolution over three decades. Returning home to Fort Worth, Texas in 1983 as a famed performer and composer, documentary footage, dramatic scenes, and some of the first music video-style segments ever made, chronicle his boyhood in segregated Texas and his subsequent emergence as an American cultural pioneer and world-class icon. Among those who contribute to the film include William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Don Cherry, Yoko Ono, Charlie Haden, Robert Palmer, Jayne Cortez and John Rockwell. ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA is essential for anyone hoping to understand the history of jazz and the fertile creative exchange that highlighted the 60’s and 70’s in America. It is a portrayal of the inner life of an artist-innovator.
Special performance by Jazz House Kids at 7:00 PM, Film at 7:30 PM
Filmmakers Local 505
The Filmmakers Local 505 initiative offers local filmmakers the opportunity to not only share new films with local audiences, but also offers a revenue sharing opportunity, with a percentage of all ticket revenue given to the filmmakers. This program is open for submissions on an ongoing basis by contacting [email protected] with inquiries.
LEVINSKY PARK
Director: Beth Toni Kruvant
Runtime: 66 Min
No country has been more historically indebted to refugees than Israel. Yet, in the Levinsky Park neighborhood of Tel Aviv, a community of sub-Saharan African refugees seeking freedom in a strange new country has found itself in a vexing clash between two cultures. The film provocatively ventures into the lives of the denizens of Levinsky Park, incisively capturing the mixed feelings of resentment, apprehension, and acceptance on the part of the established Jewish community along with the exhilaration and anxiety felt by the newest residents. A fascinating and nuanced portrait of one of the defining global issues of our time: refugee migration.
THAT WAY MADNESS LIES…
Directors: Sandra Luckow
Runtime: 101 Min
Duanne Luckow begins a scary, dangerous and ever-escalating cycle of arrests, incarcerations, mental institutional stays including Oregon State Hospital (The setting of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST), an inability to aid and assist in his own defense and releases to the streets without a plan. Until court ordered, he exercises his right to refuse treatment. HIPPA laws intended to protect his privacy, inadvertently cuts off his most ardent advocates from access to him, leaving him vulnerable to an overburdened system. Serendipitous events and coincidences gave documentary filmmaker, Sandra Luckow, access to intimate and illuminating footage because Duanne is her brother. With their cameras, they expose an ineffectual and inhuman system as well as themselves.
ILLUMINATIONS: SHORT FILMS OF DISCOVERY
Director: Marylou Bongiorno
Runtime: 90 Min
Emmy-nominated, award winning, husband and wife, social justice filmmakers, Marylou & Jerome Bongiorno, preview four of their short fiction films, inspired by Arthur Rimbaud’s acclaimed Illuminations poems. The stories depict the fragile relationship between: actors struggling with love and ambition, the ghosts of General Giuseppe Garibaldi and inventor Antonio Meucci debating “Why do we fight?”, glass artisans grappling with trauma, and an adoptee and a Benedictine nun unraveling a dangerous past and present plans to return to Ghana. The films feature actors who are alumni of NYU Tisch Grad Acting, Yale School of Drama, and The Juilliard School. Special Guests will discuss the films with the filmmakers and audience.
Featuring: ANGUISH, starring Sean Patrick Higgins and Anna Tullis; HEARING VOICES, starring Tony Manna and Tim Nicolai; GLASS WORKS, starring Annie Fox and Malcolm Morano; MOTHERLAND, starring Fikile M Kani and Rachel Black Spaulding
PRIMAL SCREAM
Director: William J. Murray
Cast: Kenneth McGregor, Sharon Mason, Julie Miller
Runtime: 85 Min
In the future, a private detective tries to stop a large corporation from mining an element whose side effects include igniting human flesh and destroying internal body parts.
MADE A MOVIE, LIVED TO TELL
Directors: William J. Murray and Keith Reamer
Runtime: 45 Min
MADE A MOVIE, LIVED TO TELL revolves around the making of PRIMAL SCREAM, an obscure, shot-in-New Jersey 35mm feature, originally known as HELLFIRE. Filming began in 1983. The crew was young, inexperienced, and hopeful. The conceit – a futuristic film noir about a tough, dissolute private eye’s mission to wrestle from the hands of evil an explosive energy source mined in outer space – was highly ambitious. And there was no money, of course. The stop and start production took over two years, and was punished with an endless series of troubles; some wrenchingly serious, some seriously comic. It took a toll on the cast and crew – there were fights and recriminations – but it also resulted in lifelong bonds among those involved. The documentary is as much about the emotional residue of PRIMAL SCREAM’s making as it is about its actual production, people wrestling with the lingering, bittersweet afterlife of a long completed, yet highly imperfect, creative journey.
Montclair Film + Classics
Montclair Film + Classics presents works of consequence and importance to help honor, preserve, and engage with our shared cinematic history.
WANDA
Director: Barbara Loden
Cast: Barbara Loden, Michael Higgins, Dorothy Shupenes, Peter Shupenes
Runtime: 102 Min
Wanda (Loden) is a wanderer in a dreary Rust Belt town, drifting from bars to motels, jobs to jobs and men to men. She's directionless and futureless, an aging beauty seen by men as usable and disposable. Unable to support her children, she forgoes custody and eventually meets Norman Dennis (Michael Higgins), a petty criminal on the run who seduces her into joining him on the lam, only to find that happiness remains beyond her reach. A landmark in the history of feminist and independent cinema, WANDA is the singular vision of director, writer, and star Barbara Loden, and this new restoration brings her uncompromising film to new audiences.
ABOUT MONTCLAIR FILM
Montclair Film, a non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, nurtures, and showcases the talents of filmmakers from around the region and world. Montclair Film unites, empowers, educates, and celebrates our region’s diverse cultural heritage and robust artistic community by presenting engaging programs and events all year long. The eighth annual Montclair Film Festival will take place from May 3-12, 2019. Montclair Film’s year-round and festival programming is made possible through generous support from Investors Bank; Audible; Hackensack Meridian Health; the Horizon Foundation for New Jersey; Ashenfelter, Slous, Trembulak, McDonough, Golia & Trevenen, LLP; Chubb; Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage; William H. Connolly & Co.; The Nature Conservancy, and others. Our programs are made possible by funds from the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Travel and Tourism, as well as the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. For information about Montclair Film, visit www.montclairfilm.org
