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“We must switch over — and fast.” Oliver Stone on his new documentary NUCLEAR NOW, opening April 28

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As fossil fuels continue to cook the planet, the world is finally becoming forced to confront the influence of large oil companies and tactics that have enriched a small group of corporations and individuals for generations. Beneath our feet, Uranium atoms in the Earth’s crust hold incredibly concentrated energy- science unlocked this energy in the mid-20th
century, first for bombs and then to power submarines and the United States led the effort to generate electricity from this new source. Yet in the mid 20th century as societies began the transition to nuclear power and away from fossil fuels, a long-term PR campaign to scare the public began, funded in part by coal and oil interests. This campaign would sow fear about
harmless low-level radiation and create confusion between nuclear weapons and nuclear power.

With unprecedented access to the nuclear industry in France, Russia, and the United States, iconic director Oliver Stone explores the possibility for the global community to overcome challenges like climate change and reach a brighter future through the power of nuclear energy- an option that may become a vital way to ensure our continued survival sooner than we think.

We open Nuclear Now for a week-long engagement April 28 at the Monica Film Center with one-night screenings at our Newhall, NoHo, Town Center and Claremont theaters on May 1.

DIRECTORS STATEMENT:
Climate change has brutally forced us to take a new look at the ways in which we generate energy as a global community. Long regarded as dangerous in popular culture, nuclear power is in fact hundreds of times safer than fossil fuels and accidents are extremely rare.

So, how can we lift billions of people from poverty while rapidly cutting greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane — and, in many countries, coal? “Renewables” like wind and solar power can certainly contribute to this transition but are limited by weather and geography. While miracle batteries are not arriving to save us, engineers have been commercializing new, smaller nuclear reactor designs that can be mass-manufactured at low cost.

We must switch over — and fast.

This is, in my mind, the greatest story of our time — discussing humanity’s arc from poverty to prosperity and its mastery of science to overcome the modern demand for more and more energy. – Oliver Stone April 2023

“Nail-biting, evocative and utterly persuasive crime drama” CADEJO BLANCO opens April 21 at the Laemmle NoHo.

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The intense drama Cadejo Blanco follows a working-class girl from Guatemala City who travels to a small coastal town hoping to infiltrate a gang and find her sister, who has gone missing. Writing in the Austin Chronicle, film critic Ali Juell called the film “a vivid and multi-dimensional story as the audience sees Sarita join Andrés’ gang…Cadejo Blanco provides international audiences with a perspective they would largely be unexposed to otherwise and confronts some of the issues facing Guatemalans today.” Demetrios Matheou of Screen Daily described the film as “a nail-biting, evocative and utterly persuasive crime drama that is very much a part of the country’s burgeoning film output.” We open the film on Friday, April 21 at the Laemmle NoHo.

Writer-director Justin Lerner wrote the following about the creation of the film:

Guatemala has been my second home since 2016 when I moved there to help start a film school in the capital. The development of Cadejo Blanco began a year after I arrived, when I visited Puerto Barrios, a picturesque port city on Guatemala’s northeast Caribbean coast. I was invited by one of my students, an aspiring filmmaker, who wanted to discuss the possibility of making a movie together in his hometown. While he spent days showing me possible filming locations, I was introduced to many young men and women involved in “clicas,” small disorganized gangs of young people who engage in illegal activity (robberies, drug dealing, violence, and sometimes murder) in order to survive and to make money.

Over the course of the next two years, I formed friendships with present and former members of these clicas. I interviewed dozens of them (some who were very open and let me record our talks, and others who would only talk off the record). I toured their neighborhoods, homes, and hidden places of business (called ‘safe houses’), and I even got to know some of their families.

At one breakfast I was invited to, I sat next to a funny and charismatic man who I later discovered was a professional hitman. Inspired by all the stories told to me by the young people I’d met, I put together a feature screenplay about a teenager from the capital, Sarita, who comes to Puerto Barrios in search of her missing sister. Sarita tracks down her sister’s ex boyfriend, Andrés, who is a gang member in Puerto Barrios. Positive that Andrés has something to do with her sister’s disappearance, Sarita uses a fake name and finds a way to join his clica, hoping to learn more about what happened.

Watching the news at my hotel, I was astounded by the regularity of reports of girls who had gone missing, last seen on a bus that had been robbed or taken from their houses in the middle of the night. But I also learned that unlike in other parts of Central America, where women are often relegated to selling drugs or sex, women in Puerto Barrios clicas can be given a great deal of power.

In writing the screenplay, I relied heavily on real experiences related to me by a few young women affiliated with Puerto Barrios gangs. They opened up about the dangers of being a woman forced to join a clica to survive in a city with very few opportunities. They’d lost friends and family members to violence and crime and seen other female friends disappear right after joining.

Once a full draft was finished, Mauricio Escobar introduced me to Guatemalan filmmaker César Díaz, who won Cannes Film Festival’s 2019 Critics Week Prize and Camera d’Or for his film NUESTRAS MADRES (OUR MOTHERS), and he advised me through rewrites of the script, lending his perspective as a Guatemalan filmmaker, and helped me shape the film in post as my editing partner. He also served as an Executive Producer.

Early in pre-production, I met Rudy Rodríguez, a twenty-one year old who responded to a open call, coming in on his lunch break from the auto shop where he worked. In his audition, Rodríguez, a non-actor with a history of gang involvement, spoke openly about his former affiliations with gangs in Puerto Barrios, the infant daughter he just had with his girlfriend, and the significance of the tattoos he had on each shoulder, black-inked stars, which he got to remember his deceased mother and murdered father.

When I decided to cast Rodríguez as Andrés, the film’s male protagonist, I planned out several trips back to Puerto Barrios to spend more time with him. I brought our lead actress, Karen Martínez, who I’d cast after long admiring her work in the film LA JAULA DE ORO. With the help of Tatiana Palomo, an acting coach who studied at Carlos Reygadas’ film school in Mexico and specializes in training non-professional actors to perform on film, Karen and I worked with Rodriguez to help him feel comfortable on camera.

My Guatemalan lead producer, Mauricio Escobar of La Danta Films, was able to help establish a partnership between the film and Movimientos de Esperanza, an NGO based in Puerto Barrios, who partially sponsored Rudy’s experience working on the film. Through donations, the NGO was able to bring Rodríguez to the capital to live for months before the shoot, to train with me and Tatiana Palomo. The NGO was also able to provide Rodríguez with psychological and financial counselling through the duration of pre-production and production.

The rest of the casting process lasted for two more years and involved months of meeting locals at youth centers, churches, schools, and parks. I also sought the direct participation of current and former gang members who I had done interviews with previously, offering some of them significant roles in the film playing versions of themselves. For over a year leading up to the actual shoot, I conducted workshops and rehearsals aimed at making them feel comfortable improvising on screen.

Once I had a shareable draft of the script in Spanish, I shared it with certain members of the non-professional cast and asked them to rewrite it with me, so that each scene would fit each performer’s own voice and the film would maintain authenticity to their city. I encouraged each of them to revise the script as they saw fit, even during shooting. It was a process that caused delays, and even arguments, but it helped to ensure that the realities of their lives were being properly represented on screen.

I also added a handful of professional actors from Guatemala City to the supporting cast. Brandon López, Karen Martínez’s co-star in LA JAULA DE ORO, who shared the same award at Cannes and also won an Ariel award for his performance in that film, was the only trained actor to be cast as a gang member. He led my rehearsals with the non-professionals from
Puerto Barrios, also serving as their on-set acting coach. They looked up to him, having seen him in films, and on YouTube. Juan Pablo Olyslager, who I had seen in Jayro Bustamante’s films TEMBLORES and LA LLORONA, and veteran theater actress Yolanda Coronado, were also cast in supporting roles.

After seeing the film COCOTE at a film festival, I tracked down the cinematographer, an Argentinian named Roman Kasseroller and shared an early draft of the script with him. He agreed to work on the film, and within a few months he was able to meet me in Guatemala. As we scouted locations in Puerto Barrios, Roman met most of the locals I had cast. To get them comfortable with Roman putting a camera in their faces and being around the approximation of a crew, we staged several photo shoots and even filmed a scene from the script on a digital SLR.

Throughout the development process, I would periodically return to Los Angeles to share footage with producer Ryan Friedkin of Imperative Entertainment, who provided script and casting notes, advice and helped with strategy to get the film fully financed. Once we cast all the roles and finalized the script, Friedkin brought on producer Jack Hurley from The Orange
Company, who put together the rest of the financing with Escobar of La Danta Films.

A few months after the shoot, one of the Puerto Barrios cast members, Geobanny Alvarado, was tragically murdered. Most details of his death are unknown, but he was a valuable contributor to the film, having spent months with the crew, helping us find shooting locations, as well as offering revisions to the script, not only for his own dialogue, but for other parts of the screenplay that took place in Puerto Barrios.

The film will be dedicated to Alvarado’s memory, to honor the significant role he played in the project, both on screen and off. The NGO Movimientos de Esperanza, in partnership with the film, will also be securing a number of financial scholarships and work opportunities for the actors. They will be presented in Alvarado’s name.

One of the small hopes I have for those who watch Cadejo Blanco is that they will be able to feel like they got to live in Puerto Barrios for a few hours. I also hope that in watching the film they felt they got to know Alvarado, and his cast-mates, and will miss spending time with them when the film is over, as I do.

Justin Lerner, writer-director, Cadejo Blanco

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS? opens March 31.

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A fascinating documentary/political thriller with a classic rock band at the heart of the action, What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? involves the U.S. State Department, the Nixon White House, the governments of Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland and documentary footage that has been suppressed for over 50 years by one or all of the above. We open the film March 31 at the Monica Film Center with special one-night screenings and Q&As April 3 at the NoHo, April 4 at the Claremont and April 5 at the Glendale. The full Q&A schedule is here.

Director’s statement:

In early 2020, just prior to the worldwide explosion of COVID 19, Bobby Colomby, an acquaintance and  founding member of Blood, Sweat & Tears, called me for a friendly check in. As a fan of the band in its  heyday, I innocently asked him, “What the hell happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?” 

Bobby proceeded to tell me the story of the events surrounding the Iron Curtain Tour. He mentioned that a documentary film crew had accompanied the band to shoot material for what was intended to be a theatrical documentary. That film was never released and Bobby had no idea what became of it. 

  

I loved the mystery and intrigue behind this story, but would we be able to find that documentary footage or enough audio/visual material to tell the story effectively? I also love a good treasure hunt. So, as the  pandemic was shutting the country down, my team and I began a search. Soon enough, we found references to National General Television Productions as having been the company behind the  documentary and that their crew had shot 65 hours of footage during the Iron Curtain Tour. 

We cast a wide net around the world to locate this footage, contacting anyone and everyone who had a connection to National General or the film crew, as well as private archives, independent storage facilities and film labs. It was one dead end after another. It appeared that the footage and related elements had completely vanished.  

And then, finally, success. While searching for the raw footage, we stumbled upon a pristine print of a  53-minute version of the documentary that had been edited for television syndication. This was an  unexpected find as no such version was ever broadcast. A new high-definition transfer was made from this print and watching it provided a fascinating time capsule of our nation, the world, and this group of nine young men on an unprecedented adventure from 50 years earlier. I knew then we had the makings of  a fantastic documentary and, indeed, 40 minutes of the “lost” Blood, Sweat & Tears documentary is the  backbone of our film. 

Some additional heavy digging led us to the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where we ultimately uncovered five raw audio tapes that were recorded live during concerts on the Iron Curtain Tour. The band had a mobile 8-track machine on the tour and we later determined that their engineer had recorded a total of 18 tapes, but only these five were found. 

Our search into the private collections of band members and others who were on the Iron Curtain Tour yielded hundreds of never-before-seen photographs and memorabilia. I never gave up hope of finding the 65 hours of original footage. However, after two full years of chasing down every lead and digging  deep into vaults across the country as well as government storage facilities in Washington, D.C., Maryland  and Virginia, we came up empty. The mystery of what became of that material remains.

This film sheds light on history through a fascinating lens. It’s not a biography of the band, nor is it just for music lovers or fans of Blood, Sweat & Tears. It’s a compelling story that explores a unique moment in time and has surprisingly powerful resonance and parallels to what’s going on in the world today. ~ John Scheinfeld

Based on Stefan Zweig’s final novella, CHESS STORY “shows how incredibly quickly a seemingly firmly anchored free world can tip over into a dictatorship.”

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Vienna, 1938: Austria is occupied by the Nazis. Dr. Josef Bartok (Oliver Masucci) is preparing to flee to America with his wife Anna when he is arrested by the Gestapo. As a former notary to the deposed Austrian aristocracy, he is told to help the local Gestapo leader gain access to their private bank accounts in order to fund the Nazi regime. Refusing to cooperate, Bartok is locked in solitary confinement. Just as his mind is beginning to crack, Bartok happens upon a book of famous chess games. To withstand the torture of isolation, Bartok disappears into the world of chess, maintaining his sanity only by memorizing every move. As the action flashes forward to a transatlantic crossing on which he is a passenger, it seems as though Bartok has finally found freedom. But recounting his story to his fellow travelers, it’s clear that his encounters with both the Gestapo and with the royal game itself have not stopped haunting him. Adapted with opulent attention to period detail by filmmaker and opera director Philipp Stölzl, Chess Story brings Stefan Zweig’s stirring final novella to life.

Chess Story opens January 20 at the Monica Film Center.

“Stölzl craftily melds the genres of period drama and psychological thriller, not for the purposes of reheated nostalgia, but to shed a cold light on the recursions of historical trauma.” ~ William Repass, Slant Magazine

“The adaptation of Chess Story is one of the rare cases in which the film has not only managed to leave the original behind, but to surpass it. Visually intoxicating.” ~ Süddeutsche Zeitung

“This film…moves because of Oliver Masucci, who acts with fantastic despair. And because of the wonderful Birgit Minichmayr.” ~ Der Spiegel
 

STATEMENT BY DIRECTOR PHILIPP STÖLZL

“I encountered The Royal Game [the alternative title of Chess Story] at a very early age. Zweig’s mysterious and impressive story etched itself into my memory and is one of those stories that have accompanied me in one way or another through my entire life. When Philipp Worm and Tobias Walker told me about their plans to make a new film version, I was delighted, read the screenplay with interest – and loved it.

“Our aim was to make a sensuous, intense feature film that would appeal to a wider audience with a brilliant cast, tight production and powerful visuals that really fill the whole screen. The contrast between claustrophobic imprisonment and the expanse of the ship that pounds across the Atlantic to America through the endless mist creates a field of tension in which Zweig’s literary metaphor can be told as a “big” story.

“The nice thing about the very courageous approach of screenwriter Eldar Grigorian to The Royal Game is that it represents a kind of condensation of the surreal secret that the novella already contains. The Kafkaesque pitch Zweig has chosen for his narrative becomes a decisive inspiration on the journey of the material to the big screen.

“On the one hand there is the intense, restrictive chamber play about the duel between Bartok and Gestapo man Böhm, who interrogates him and has him tortured. Then there is the – seeming – voyage to America and on board the game against the silent and enigmatic world chess champion. The persistent mist gives the journey something surreal, as if the giant ship were a barge of the dead, and the passengers mere ghosts. For this reason, the fact that this all turns out to be a dream in Bartok’s head is not a denouement or a surprise in the traditional sense, but more the final chord of a gloomily poetic tale. And finally, the prisoner’s battle against his own insanity in the solitary confinement cell, which he tries to escape from with his “mental chess” and at the same time achieves the opposite, sliding further in instead. Here, the film is an intense trip, because we are very close to our protagonist and accompany him down into the abyss and mental confusion.

“All these narrative levels are interwoven and initially “make sense.” But the longer Bartok is in solitary confinement and loses touch with reality, the more mysterious things become on the ship, the more the audience also become lost in a labyrinth that resembles an oppressive daydream. To this extent I would say that in this film, Zweig’s more distanced experimental design becomes a cathartic, intense and emotional vexatious game that will hopefully enchain and grip the audience.

“Zweig’s story did not end the way the film does. The bleak, dismal ending of his novella expresses the fear of impending Nazi world rule. We, however, know that it turned out differently, that it became light again after a dark night. And we want the audience to leave the cinema with this meaningful and encouraging certainty.

“The backdrop to all this is the true story about Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria. This political level of The Royal Game makes the film timelessly relevant because it shows how incredibly quickly a seemingly firmly anchored free world can tip over into a dictatorship. It tells of how thin the layer of skin of a civilisation is and how close to the surface barbarism lies. And it tells us in this way to be alert.” ~ Philipp Stölzl, 19 October 2020

“If watching a Jafar Panahi film is something of a political act, then it is also a soul-nourishing one.” NO BEARS opens Friday at the Royal, January 20 at the Claremont, Glendale and Town Center.

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A statement from Jafar Panahi, unjustly imprisoned since July 2022 by the fascist theocrats in Tehran:

“We are filmmakers. We are part of Iranian independent cinema. For us, to live is to create. We create works that are not commissioned. Therefore, those in power see us as criminals. Independent cinema reflects its own times. It draws inspiration from society. And cannot be indifferent to it.

“The history of Iranian cinema witnesses the constant and active presence of independent directors who have struggled to push back censorship and to ensure the survival of this art. While on this path, some were banned from making films, others were forced into exile or reduced to isolation. And yet, the hope of creating again is a reason for existence. No matter where, when, or under what circumstances, an independent filmmaker is either creating or thinking about creation. We are filmmakers, independent ones.”

Some of the copious praise for No Bears, the film he finished just before being arrested:

“If watching a Jafar Panahi film is something of a political act, then it is also a soul-nourishing one.” ~ Barry Hertz, Globe and Mail

“[Panahi’s] work has not astonished like this in some time.” ~ Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com
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“There’s an urgency and a currency to No Bears that is evident even if you didn’t know Panahi is currently serving a six-year sentence for “producing anti-government propaganda,” both of which add a sting to its final act. You leave feeling like you’ve just seen a truly extraordinary late work produced by one of the era’s greatest working auteurs, quickly followed by the sense of experiencing a sucker punch when you remember that the man driving away from the scene of the crime onscreen isn’t able to go anywhere once that screen fades to black.” ~ David Fear, Rolling Stone
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“Panahi, whose courage and honesty are beyond doubt, has made a movie that calls those very qualities into question, a movie about its own ethical limits and aesthetic contradictions.” ~ A.O. Scott, New York Times
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“It’s a fierce critique of small-town traditionalism and religious dogma. But while this is an angry and ultimately devastating movie, it’s also a surprisingly playful and inventive one.” ~ Justin Chang, NPR’s Fresh Air
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“There’s no way to watch this film without feeling mournful, or fearing for the man who made it.” ~ Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine

“An exploration of how power works in the U.S., how historic change happens, and how people find the courage to become part of it through movements,” TO THE END opens December 9.

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Filmed over four years of hope and crisis, To the End captures the emergence of a new generation of leaders and the movement behind the most sweeping climate change legislation in U.S. history. Award-winning director Rachel Lears (Knock Down the House) follows four exceptional young women— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, activist Varshini Prakash, climate policy writer Rhiana Gunn-Wright, and political strategist Alexandra Rojas— as they grapple with new challenges of leadership and power and work together to defend their generation’s right to a future.

From street protests to the halls of Congress, these bold leaders fight to shift the narrative around climate, revealing the crisis as an opportunity to build a better society. Including up-to-the-minute footage that culminates in 2022’s landmark climate bill, To the End.

We open To the End at the Town Center, Monica Film Center, Glendale and Claremont on Friday, December 9.

Director’s Statement: The idea for To the End came about in Fall 2018 during the post-production of Knock Down the House. I became galvanized to focus a new project on the climate crisis when the UN’s 2018 IPCC report revealed that the key to averting climate catastrophe is political will. The project soon coalesced around Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three other visionary young leaders working on the Green New Deal: Varshini Prakash, Alexandra Rojas, and Rhiana Gunn-Wright. Building upon my last two features, I think of To the End as a continuing exploration of how power works in the U.S., how historic change happens, and how people find the courage to become part of it through movements. Like my previous films, this film required a leap of faith, foresight and risk to commit to following a controversial vérité story with an uncertain outcome.

The climate crisis can be so overwhelming that it can lead to feelings of despair or cynicism, especially when we see how it intertwines with other crises including the pandemic, racial and economic inequality, and political violence. Our protagonists confront this reality head on, and find the courage to act in the face of it, drawing inspiration from social movements that have successfully sparked transformative change in the past. Their efforts lead directly to major climate policy becoming a priority of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party, and ultimately to a scaled back but still major climate bill being passed. While the film ends here, the story does not, as our protagonists vow to continue fighting for solutions that match the scale that science demands and leave no one behind. Moreover, we feel strongly that telling these women’s stories has particular historic significance because the leadership and contributions of women of color have so often been overlooked in the United States.

To the End is grounded in character-based, on-the-ground vérité storytelling and intimate interviews in the style of Knock Down the House, an approach I’ve been working with for over a decade. The film incorporates large-scale aerial cinematography to evoke the sheer scale of the systems that have to change to address the climate crisis. We use archival collage to explore the historical and cultural dimensions of paradigm shift, and to examine critically how the media shape worldviews and horizons of possibility. By playing with tropes of dystopian fiction in aspects of the score, lighting, color grading, and sound design, we aim to draw audiences into a cinematic world where critical issues become the backdrop for individuals to forge a path that is always at once heroic and imperfect. Throughout, we build a driving narrative and explore our characters’ vulnerability and strength in a behind-the-scenes, first-person account of history as it is made.

Shot in 11 states and Washington, D.C. over the course of nearly four years of interlocking global and national tumult, the production process of To the End required our committed core team to continually draw inspiration and learning from the strength, dedication and self-reflection of our remarkable protagonists. The film frames their fight for a just and sustainable future as an epic coming of age story of courageous young women confronting multiple dystopian dimensions—climate disaster itself, the corporate media, and the Kafkaesque world of D.C. politics. I want To the End to stand as a unique historical document of how the United States came to make the largest investment to fight the climate crisis ever made by any country, while also offering viewers an opportunity to emotionally process the existential anxiety of this historical moment, and imagine themselves in new roles as part of changing the future.

“In a world fraught with corporate values and shareholders, this was a family business that…understood the importance of planting a tree for the next generation.” Director Raphael Sbarge on his documentary ONLY IN THEATERS.

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Only in Theaters filmmaker Raphael Sbarge kindly penned a director’s statement to share with you:

“I grew up in New York City, which at the time felt like a city filled with artists and colorful, intellectual, people. My father was an artist and a filmmaker, my mother, a Broadway costume designer. When I met the Laemmle family, they felt very familiar to me—their caring for one another, their openness and curiosity, their shared passion for art, music and culture, and their recognition that those things make life richer. 

“It was always the Laemmle family that drew me to this story. 

Greg & Tish Laemmle

“Our plan was to highlight the Laemmle family’s unbelievable legacy and impact on the motion picture industry and set it against the slowly changing landscape. What we didn’t realize was the extent to which we were poised to witness history unfold. Not long after we started, we realized the story was much bigger than we had imagined. 

“We ended up following the family for over two-and-a-half years, during which the Laemmle story became a microcosm of the macrocosm. The question was, where was it all headed? 

Greg Laemmle

“Multiple generations of a family had built a business on the core principle of celebrating artists. There was something so innate, so essential about the Laemmle family mission, which was ever more remarkable in a world that often undervalues artists, even though artists help us see the world, interpret it, and give it meaning. 

“In a world fraught with corporate values and shareholders, this was a family business that wasn’t driven only by money, but by people who understood the importance of planting a tree for the next generation. 

Greg & Tish Laemmle

“We feel quite privileged to have been there, during what was the most tumultuous 24-month period in the theater’s history. We found ourselves quite suddenly in the “hot part of the flame,” witnessing the Laemmle’s’ challenges, which were echoed over and over by theaters around the country and around the world.” ~ Raphael Sbarge

Mr. Sbarge and cast member Greg Laemmle will participate in a Q&A following the 7 o’clock screening of Only in Theaters at the Monica Film Center on November 14 as part of the Reel Talk with Stephen Farber series. The regular engagements begin November 18 at the Royal and other Laemmle venues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1BIUWv3MA

“Death will cease to be absolute.” THREE MINUTES: A LENGTHENING opens August 19 with the director in person.

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The beautiful new documentary feature Three Minutes: A Lengthening is based on a mere three minutes of footage, shot by David Kurtz in 1938, that are the only moving images remaining of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk, Poland before the Holocaust. Director Bianca Stigter takes those three minutes and expands and explores them to create “an original and incisive meditation on history, memory, memorials and the very nature of celluloid.” (Alissa Simon, Variety) We open the film August 19 at the Royal and August 26 at the Town Center. The August 16 at the Royal will be hosted by the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival and followed by a discussion with Ms. Stigter and author Glenn Kurtz. Scholar Michael Berenbaum of American Jewish University will moderate.

Director Bianca Stigter’s statement: 

“As a child, David Kurtz emigrated from Poland to the United States. In 1938 he returned to Europe for a sightseeing trip and whilst there he visited Nasielsk, the town of his birth. Specifically for this trip, he bought a 16mm camera, then still a novelty rarely seen in a small town never visited by tourists. Eighty years later his ordinary pictures, most of them in color, have become something extraordinary. They are the only moving images that remain of Nasielsk prior to the Second World War. Almost all the people we see were murdered in the Holocaust. 

“On Facebook, I stumbled upon a book written about this film, Three Minutes in Poland by Glenn Kurtz. The title fascinated me. I ordered the book and watched the footage, which can be found on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. While watching, I wondered: could you make those three minutes last longer, to keep the past in the present? 

“For this film essay, I examined the footage in the fullest detail, to see what the celluloid would yield to viewers almost a century later. The footage is treated as an archaeological artifact to gain entrance to the past. 

“I contacted Glenn Kurtz, traveled to Nasielsk to see if any traces remained from the past, and went to Detroit to speak with survivor Maurice Chandler and his family. 

“After this extensive research, I edited the footage in different ways to bring to life as many of the facts and stories about Nasielsk as possible. A few seconds of the recording of a café becomes a dance scene, a single shot of the market square tells the story of the deportation of its Jewish citizens. All the faces that appear in the film are singled out and magnified to pay homage to the people of Nasielsk. The old images of the Polish town are combined with the way Nasielsk sounds today, creating a tense fusion of the past and the present. 

“Three Minutes: A Lengthening is an experiment that turns scarcity into a quality. Living in a time marked by an abundance of images that are never viewed twice, we do the opposite here: circle the same moments again and again, convinced that they will give us a different meaning each time. The film starts and ends with the same unedited found footage, but the second time you will look at it quite differently. 

“Three Minutes: A Lengthening investigates the nature of film and the perception of time. Through the act of watching, the viewers partake in the creation of a memorial.”

“When apparatuses like these are available to the public, when everyone can photograph those who are dear to them, not only their posed forms but their movements, their actions, their familiar gestures, with words at the tip of their tongues, death will cease to be absolute.’’  ~ The French newspaper La Poste, 30 December 1895, after the Lumières’ first public showing of a film in Paris. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsepXNV7N_w