Best Film Series

“Early Kiarostami” at The Harvard Film Archive

“Travolta/Cage Face/Off” at The Somerville Theatre

“The Roots of Mulholland Drive” at The Brattle Theatre

“Judy Garland Centennial” at The Brattle Theatre

“Pop-Art Cinema of the Wachowski Sisters” at The Brattle Theatre

Best Rediscoveries (awarded this year in memory of Jon Haber of the Channel Zero film series)

Love & Basketball [2000, Gina Prince-Bythewood] (in “Big Screen Classics”) at The Coolidge Corner Theatre

Night Has a Thousand Eyes [1948, John Farrow] (in “Noir City Boston”) at The Brattle Theatre

Uptight [1968, Jules Dassin] (in “Ruby Dee Centennial”) at The Brattle Theatre

Diary for My Children [1984, Márta Mészáros] (in “The Films of Márta Mészáros”) at The Brattle Theatre

Desert Fury [1947, Lewis Allen] (in “Noirvember”) at The Brattle Theatre

Retrospectives of the Year (awarded in memory of David Pendleton)

(tie) “Michael Roemer and the Rite of Rediscovery” at The Harvard Film Archive and “Ruby Dee Centennial” at The Brattle Theatre

Commendations

To Emerson College’s Bright Lights Cinema Series, under the direction of Anna Feder, which for ten years has been holding free, open-to-the-public screenings of challenging independent films accompanied by penetrating discussions, often with the filmmaker in attendance.

To Belmont World Film for their 20 years of programming foreign-language films in coordination with local and international organizations to heighten awareness on a wide range of global issues.

To the free Screens for Teens series, presented by Harvard Art Museums and Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, which uses the medium of film to discuss such pertinent social issues as teen pregnancy, cross-cultural relations and the Indigenous experience. 

To John Quackenbush for his more than 12 years of world-class work as the Lead Projectionist at the Harvard Film Archive’s cinémathèque, upon his move to a new job and title as part of Harvard’s Art, Film, & Visual Studies department.

To Justin Freed, for his seminal contribution to Boston art film as a legendary programmer and exhibitor, and for his forthright, courageous mixed media autobiographical film, Jazz Saved My Life, as part of the exhilarating An Evening of Jazz & Healing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre.  

To Brittany Gravely of the Harvard Film Archive for curating Learning to Be Human: The Open-Ended Educational Film, a revelatory program of rare 16mm educational films from the 1960s and 1970s, which included work by directors Barbara Loden and Joan Micklin Silver.

The categories of Best Series and Retrospective of the Year are on hiatus for 2020.

Best Rediscoveries:

Jazz on a Summer’s Day [1959, Bert Stern] at the Brattle Theatre and Coolidge Corner Theatre (virtual cinemas)

Mädchen in Uniform [1931, Leontine Sagan] at the Brattle Theatre and Coolidge Corner Theatre (virtual cinemas)

Nationtime [1972, William Greaves] at the Brattle Theatre (virtual cinema)

Native Son [1951, Pierre Chenal] at the Brattle Theatre (virtual cinema)

Smooth Talk [1985, Joyce Chopra] at the Coolidge Corner Theatre (virtual cinema)

Special Commendations:

To The Coolidge Corner Theatre, for bringing the community together through expansion of their Education Seminar program into the virtual space, and through their outdoor screenings and drive-in events.

To The DocYard, for continuing to draw attention to important nonfiction films and filmmakers—and this year for recognizing Boston documentarian Lucia Small with a well-deserved retrospective.

To Frederick Wiseman, who at the age of 90 released City Hall, made in our own backyard, and to Zipporah Films for their dissemination of the film within a new exhibition landscape.

To Michele Meek, for creating NewEnglandFilm.com, a vital resource for independent filmmaking and community news, and maintaining it for more than 20 years.

BSFC 2019 Awards for Repertory Cinema and Commendations

Best Film Series

“East Meets West: Martial Arts & Spaghetti Westerns” at The Coolidge Corner Theatre

“The B-Film: Low Budget Hollywood Cinema 1935-1959” at The Harvard Film Archive

“Jack Attack: A Jack Nicholson Film Series” at The Somerville Theatre

“Uncomfortably Yours: The Films of Alex Ross Perry” at The Harvard Film Archive

“Satanic Panic” at The Coolidge Corner Theatre

Best Rediscoveries

Eastern Condors [1987, Sammo Hung] (in “East Meets West: Martial Arts & Spaghetti Westerns”) at The Coolidge Corner Theatre

Between the Lines [1977, Joan Micklin Silver] at The Brattle Theatre

The Mafu Cage [1978, Karen Arthur] (in “Women in Horror”) at The Coolidge Corner Theatre

Johnny Doesn’t Live Here Anymore [1944, Joe May] (in “The B-Film: Low Budget Hollywood Cinema 1935-1959”) at The Harvard Film Archive

You the Better [1983, Ericka Beckman] & Cinderella [1986, Ericka Beckman] at The List Visual Arts Centre, M.I.T.

Retrospective of the Year (awarded in memory of David Pendleton)

“The Complete Howard Hawks” at The Harvard Film Archive

Commendations

To Boston Open Screen, which in 2003 created a cinematic “open mic night,” for allowing budding filmmakers to showcase their works the way they were intended to be seen—in a dark room with engaged strangers—and helping them make lasting connections with like-minded artists.

To The Boston Turkish Film Festival which, under the direction of founder Erkut Gömülü, celebrates 18 years of bringing work by emerging and established filmmakers of the Turkish cinema to Boston audiences.

To The Boston Latino International Film Festival, launched in 2001, for bringing to Boston audiences a varied, challenging line-up of local, national and international films by Latinx filmmakers, and for prioritizing outreach to community partners.

To Sara Archambault, for her tremendous contributions to Boston’s film community, as she transitions away from her roles as programmer/co-founder of the documentary film series The DocYard and as program manager for the LEF Foundation.

 

 

 

 

 

Boston Society of Film Critics & Brattle Theatre to Honor Filmmaker Debra Granik for Inaugural BSFC Career Spotlight Award

Press Release: Boston (April 26, 2019) – The Boston Society of Film Critics (BSFC) announced today that partnered with the Brattle Theatre to present the inaugural “BSFC Career Spotlight” Award to filmmaker Debra Granik. The writer/director will be present to participate in a special repertory series of her work complemented by titles handpicked by Granik herself. The series will take place from Friday, May 31 to Sunday, June 2, on which Granik will be presented with the first-ever BSFC Career Spotlight Award.

Debra Granik was born in Cambridge, MA, and has directed four films to date – “Down to the Bone” (2004), “Winter’s Bone” (2010), “Stray Dog” (2014) and “Leave No Trace” (2018). The filmmaker recently received The Bonnie Award from the Film Independent Spirit Award, which “recognizes female directors with a remarkable body of work that demonstrated their uniqueness of vision and groundbreaking approach to film.”

Granik will be at The Brattle in person for Q&As throughout the weekend, and will be presented with the inaugural BSFC Career Spotlight Award following Sunday’s 7pm screening of “Leave No Trace.” And ina uniquely tailored format, Granik has collaborated with Brattle Creative Director, Ned Hinkle, to program complementary titles that have influenced her work. Titles include Robert Altman’s “Nashville,” Monte Hellman’s “Cockfighter” and Aki Kaurismäki’s “The Other Side of Hope.”

“I am excited to hunker down at the Brattle for a feast of Americana, mixed with a few movies from afar,” says Debra Granik. “The lyrical realism that these films exemplify is alive and well today, but it often gets buried by our culture’s behemoth commercial side. I come to the theater searching for visual notes and observations and patterns that help me understand the enormous emotional and psychic challenges of living in a mass consumer society. In every decade, movies have been a tool to help us decipher and distill how we got here and what we need. Somehow it soothes me, re-kindles my curiosity and compassion, and makes me feel not so all alone with the havoc and incomprehensibilities. These are a few of the films that, for me, can point a way forward in those times when hope can seem hard to find.”

Each of Granik’s four films will screen over the course of three days from May 31 to June 2 at The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA. Additional complementary titles will be showcased throughout the weekend. “The Brattle is thrilled to be joining with the Boston Society of Film Critics to celebrate Debra Granik,” says Ned Hinkle. “It’s rare that any artist can instill their work with so much empathy and it’s remarkable that, over a relatively short career, Granik has created films that can stand with the great humanist filmmakers of any age.”

“Debra Granik is one of the most maverick female filmmakers out there, and is in fine company with Kathryn Bigelow, Lynne Ramsay and Claire Denis,” says Tom Meek, BSFC President. “Oftentimes, filmmakers are honored late in their career or after their career has finished. Recognizing a filmmaker’s body of work while in progress is something that doesn’t happen enough.”

For full details on this screening series, and to buy tickets, please visit http://www.brattlefilm.org