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The beautifully acted late-life romance MY SAILOR, MY LOVE opens Friday.

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This Friday we’re pleased to open a touching and charming Irish indie film My Sailor, My Love. It follows Howard (James Cosmo), a widowed sailor living alone on the coast of Ireland and struggling to care for himself. His daughter, Grace (Catherine Walker), hires Annie (Bríd Brennan) to help out around the house. Though Howard initially rejects this imposition, Annie’s charm and gentle care win him over, and the two fall in love. Annie’s large and loving family welcomes Howard into their lives, but these new relationships only serve to illuminate the depth of pain and hurt between Howard and Grace, who is facing challenges of her own. Grace’s resentment tears at Howard and Annie’s otherwise idyllic seaside love story. This windswept drama deftly balances a universal family saga with a tender and timeless romance. We open My Sailor, My Love this Friday at the Town Center, Monica Film Center and Claremont with Saturday and Sunday morning screenings at our Newhall theater.

Critics around the world have been writing about the acting. The film’s director, acclaimed Finnish filmmaker Klaus Härö, said this about his experiences working with the actors:

“The cast has been an immense joy, from the moment the roles were confirmed and when we first went on set. I would often sit very close by to the actors and get to witness what goes into their work, which left me very impressed. Sometimes when I looked around, I could see the emotions brought to surface after a take. Someone might have tears in their eyes, or the crew might burst into applause after a scene. This isn’t very common on a movie set, and it might even seem unprofessional in a way. The atmosphere at the set has been exceptional, and the actors left a very strong imprint on the whole crew.”

“Sharp writing, subtle acting, and a winning Irish setting. My Sailor, My Love will play to any nation where humans struggle to make themselves understood.” – Donald Clarke, The Irish Times

“A quiet yet profoundly powerful feature, aching in emotional sophistication and depth. Cosmo and Brennan are divine.” – Andrew Murray, The Upcoming

“A lovely indie. Klaus Härö’s gentle and special family drama has much more at play than rote tear-jerking. Magnificently shot and acted. Sailor is filled with sage wisdom and vulnerable people struggling to do the best that they can even when they are at their worst.” – Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News

“Prepare to be moved.” – Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Hammer to Nail

“There is so much more to who we are! Our music, our food, our passion, our ‘over-the-top’ generosity, our love for life.” Filmmaker Michael Goorjian on his Armenian-American comedy-drama AMERIKATSI, opening Friday at the Royal and Town Center.

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The new comedy-drama Amerikatsi is set in 1948, when an Armenian-American repatriates to Armenia only to end up in a Soviet prison. He discovers he can see into a nearby apartment from the confinement of his cell window, and through that man’s lively home life he discovers the rich culture of his native Armenia hidden behind the Iron Curtain. Veteran film critic Thelma Adams described the film as “a stirring labor of love that witnesses the darkness of the past, and seeks out the light.”

From Armenia-American Filmmaker Michael Goorjian: Films about Armenia have mostly focused on the Genocide, which is crucial. But as a people, there is so much more to who we are! Our music, our food, our passion, our “over-the-top” generosity, our love for life. Amerikatsi celebrates and shares this side of Armenia with the world, a side which since my boyhood, I have longed to know and reconnect with.  

 

In many ways, the main character Charlie’s dream of returning to his homeland reflects the dream of not only the Armenian Diaspora, but hundreds of millions of people throughout the world who long to connect to their native land. For many, especially in America, we feel that far-away-land pulsing in our blood, calling for us to return. But, like Charlie, the reality of our ancestral homeland doesn’t always turn out to be what we imagined it would be. The connection we long for is always just out of reach, as if residing on the other side of a prison wall.

To learn more, here’s an interview with Mr. Goorjian that MovieWeb just published headlined “Exclusive: Amerikatsi Filmmaker Michael Goorjian on His Armenian Passion Project.”

“I was motivated to place a lens on male vulnerability that includes a more empathic and compassionate gaze.” Filmmaker Aitch Alberto on ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE.

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The many fans of Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s 2012 YA novel “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” are abuzz about the new movie adaptation, which we are pleased to open Friday at our Glendale, Santa Monica and North Hollywood theaters. It was written and directed by a fellow fan, Aitch Alberto, who wrote the following about her filmmaking journey:

When I read Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s YA novel “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,” I was a different person, I read it cover to cover and it affected me to my core. At the time I didn’t understand the journey I would take but, sometimes you just jump in because life is inviting you to.

I’ve been on my journey and exploration around gender and masculinity for years and this book, these characters, and the need to tell this story have been a part of that journey, which is something I didn’t realize until recently. Ari, has been a mirror and a guide to helping me unpack my own misconceptions and internalized stereotypes around masculinity.  Dante, with his naivety and fearlessness – has inspired me to embrace and fully become who I am, without concern for the ramifications. In fact, being honest about who I am and giving young people permission to do the same has become my mission.

Ari and Dante at its core tells a story of self-discovery and acceptance. And when I think about the world today and my own journey of self-discovery, I believe there is nothing more important than standing up and fully embracing who we are and being seen for it. One great lesson from the story is that when young people and anyone really are given the room to be who they are, the process of self-discovery becomes a natural part of growing up and, ultimately, a superpower.

With the film, I was motivated to place a lens on male vulnerability that includes a more empathic and compassionate gaze. My goal for the film is to help redefine masculinity specifically for the Latinx community and present us as fully realized human beings.

I wanted to make an accessible, grounded, yet elevated teen love story, playing with perspective, where we watch Ari’s unease and emotional isolation shift and expand when Dante enters his life. And by the end of the film, they are engulfed by a bold star filled sky, a hint of exaggerated realism, holding them, finally safe in the world. Through self-acceptance, they have found their place in the universe and the universe embraces them.

Visually I was inspired by the boyish wonder of “Stand by Me”, the surreal pallet of “Virgin Suicides” and the photographic choices in “Badlands,” as well as the composition and color in the photography of William Eggleston – both musing and grounded yet with an ethereal sensibility, an almost gauzy, golden, faded photo album look. There is a naturalistic quality to the book and the script that I wanted to maintain. We wanted to bring the audience into Ari’s world, making the film an immersive experience, where there is not a big formal separation between subject and audience. ~ Aitch Alberto

The “gorgeous, quietly affecting” RETURN TO DUST opens July 28 at the Royal.

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A beautiful, allegorical gaze at changing rural China, Return to Dust follows a couple overcoming the challenges of their arranged marriage and the disdain of their families to survive, come together and make a home for themselves. We open the film Friday, July 28 at the Royal.

The writer-director Ruijun Li (River Road, Walking Past the Future) released the following statement upon the release of his film: “It is said that film is the art of time. In this sense, a movie director’s work is essentially the same to that of farmers. In movie making, we are constantly faced with issues dealing with time and life. Farmers trust land and time with their crops and livelihood, so shall we trust land and time with our movies. The words on paper, like seeds growing into harvest, are transformed by camera shots into what we remembered in our distant memories.”

“An unhurried but hypnotic portrait of two discards thrown together to scratch out a life as they weather the seasons.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“It’s a gorgeous, quietly affecting film that finds an unassuming beauty in this simple life in rural China, but which doesn’t shy away from the extreme hardships faced by the very poorest.” ~ Wendy Ide, Guardian

“A thought-provoking [film] with beautifully-judged performances that radiate warmth and encourage empathy. It marks Li Ruijun as a significant cinematic talent.” ~ Anna Smith, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“It’s a film which is making the right people angry.” ~ David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“Return to Dust is many things — a vivid portrait of China’s hardscrabble rural north-west, an unexpected victim of state censorship — but it is first and last a love story.” ~ Danny Leigh, Financial Times

VERMEER: THE GREATEST EXHIBITION at the Claremont, Glendale & Monica Film Center May 15 & 16.

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Even if you have the time and money to visit Amsterdam and see the Rijksmuseum’s historic, never-to-be-repeated Vermeer exhibition before it closes on June 4, tickets sold out within hours of being made available last year. However, a good plan B is available next Monday and Tuesday in nearby Claremont, Glendale and Santa Monica: Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition. (We’ll also be screening Close to Vermeer on July 17 and 18 at the same venues. It’s also about the Rijksmuseum show.)

From Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition producer and co-writer Phil Grabsky: “If there is one exhibition that I have been asked about more than any other to inquire whether we filmed it for Exhibition on Screen, it is the 1995 Vermeer exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. My Exhibition on Screen brand did not germinate in my mind until 2009 and the first film, Leonardo from the National Gallery, did not emerge until 2011
so, no, we didn’t capture that 1995 show.

“Since then we have made two films with a Vermeer theme: one specifically on Girl with a Pearl Earring and its wonderful home, the Mauritshaus in The Hague, and the second film Vermeer & Music based on a very fine exhibition at the National Gallery in London. But when I heard that the Rijksmuseum was planning the greatest Vermeer exhibition in history, I
knew that the Exhibition on Screen cameras had to be there.

“We weren’t alone in requesting access to show, but we’ve worked at the Rijksmuseum before and they trust us – and, I think, like us. Thus it was, on the eve of the opening, we the team (led by director David Bickerstaff) found ourselves in the enormously privileged position of having the galleries to ourselves to film in. We were given the time to interview the key
participants as well as one of the United Kingdom’s leading art historians. I knew from the minute that I saw this exhibition it was something special but even I was amazed that all tickets sold out within hours for the entire three month run. That only confirms how important it is that as often as we can Exhibition on Screen captures, for posterity, not only the huge efforts of those who put on a show like this but also the way that the art looks when hung together in this way.

“We can only do this if you keep coming to the cinema and spread the word about Exhibition on Screen to your friends and colleagues. Please visit our website for more background clips, etc and lots of offers and goodies. I hope you enjoy the film.”