The Strongest Man is a Miami-set comedy about an anxiety-ridden Cuban-American who fancies himself the strongest man in the world. In a quest to recover his most beloved possession, his golden BMX bicycle, he finds and loses so much more.
The Strongest Man filmmaker and co-stars will introduce and participate in a Q&A after the Saturday, June 27 7:30 PM screening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK20g6CNg-k
Harley-Davidson, leather, tattooed biceps: Ron “Stray Dog” Hall looks like an authentic tough guy. A Vietnam veteran, he runs a trailer park in rural Missouri with his wife, Alicia, who recently immigrated from Mexico. Gradually, a layered image comes into focus of a man struggling to come to terms with his combat experience. When Alicia’s teenage sons arrive, the film reveals a tender portrait of an America outside the mainstream. STRAY DOG is a powerful look at the veteran experience, a surprising love story, and a fresh exploration of what it takes to survive in the hardscrabble heartland.
We are pleased to open STRAY DOG at the Music Hall on Friday, July 24. Filmmaker Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone) will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:20 PM screenings on Friday and Saturday, the 24th and 25th.
IN STEREO is about David and Brenda, who are perfect for each other, and everyone knows it except David and Brenda. After they break up, due to mutual immaturity, they voyage through a romantic purgatory that shakes both of them to their core, until they realize what’s apparent, and work out a design for being together that they refuse to call “being together.” A sharply observed, dark comedy about the complexity of modern relationships, IN STEREO is a humorous look into the lives of confused 30-somethings trying to figure it all out.
IN STEREO writer-director Mel Rodriguez III will participate in a Q&A after the 7:20 screening at the Music Hall on Friday, July 3rd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYDs84hnms
7 MINUTES, which premiered at the 2014 Austin Film Festival, follows three desperate young men who are forced by circumstance to commit a brazen robbery. As each minute of the event unfolds, true motives are revealed and stakes intensify. What begins as a simple plan – ‘in and out in seven minutes’ – quickly becomes a dangerous game of life and death.
7 MINUTES writer-director Jay Martin will participate in a Q&A after the 7:30 screening at the NoHo on Friday, June 26. The Q&A will be moderated by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2, (500) Days of Summer).
Through a clever mix of stop motion animation and interviews, THE WANTED 18 recreates an astonishing true story: the Israeli army’s pursuit of 18 cows, whose independent milk production on a Palestinian collective farm was declared “a threat to the national security of the state of Israel.”
We’ll be hosting Q&A’s after the 7:40 PM screenings of THE WANTED 18 at the NoHo this Friday and Saturday, June 19 and 20 and after the 5:30 show on Sunday, June 21:
June 19: Ina Fichman, Producer of THE WANTED 18; Salam Al-Marayati, President of Muslim Public Affairs Council; Suhad Babaa, Executive Director of Just Vision;
June 20: Ina Fichman, Producer of THE WANTED 18; Suhad Babaa, Executive Director of Just Vision;
June 21: Suhad Babaa, Executive Director of Just Vision.
The acclaimed new documentary Revenge of the Mekons charts the unlikely career of the genre-defying collective notorious for being—as rock critic Greil Marcus notes—“the band that took punk ideology most seriously.” Born out of the 1977 British punk scene, the Mekons progressed from a group of socialist art students with no musical skills to the prolific, raucous progeny of Hank Williams. Joe Angio’s exuberant documentary follows their improbable history and reveals how punk’s reigning contrarians continue to make bold, unpredictable music.
Revenge of the Mekons filmmaker Joe Angio will participate in Q&A’s after the 9:55 PM screenings at the Playhouse on Friday, June 19 as well as the 7:30 PM screenings at the NoHo 7 on Monday, June 22 and at the Royal on Tuesday, June 23. Rico Bell of the Mekons will join him for the NoHo and Royal screenings.
The artistic and political revolution of early 20th century Russia is mythologized in CHAGALL-MALEVICH, a magical period drama about the uneasy relationship between two artistic geniuses that we’re opening the Music Hall and Town Center on Friday, June 19. Lead actress Kristina Schneidermann will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:15 PM screenings Friday, June 19 at the Town Center and Saturday, June 20 at the Music Hall.
Inspired by the memoirs of Marc Chagall and those of his contemporaries, the film blends fact and folklore to evoke the return of the iconic Jewish artist (portrayed by Leonid Bichevin, “Cargo 200”) to his childhood home of Vitebsk. Having left behind immense success in Paris, Chagall returns to the Russian empire in 1917 hoping to marry the love of his life, Bella Rosenfeld (Kristina Schneidermann); he produces copious paintings and establishes the Academy of Modern Art. A rivalry develops with abstract painter Kazimir Malevich (Anatoliy Belyy), invited to teach at the art school. As Bella rekindles a childhood friendship with military Red Commissar Naum (Semeon Shkalikov), Chagall competes for the affections of his muse and future wife. As the October Revolution sweeps across Russia, historical events intrude on personal struggles and upend the quiet provincial life in Vitebsk.
EVERY LAST CHILD is the dramatic story of five people impacted by the current polio crisis in Pakistan. Taking place on the front line of the fight against the disease, it is a story of sacrifice, fearless determination and sorrow in the face of mistrust, cynicism and violence.
The Los Angeles World Affairs Council will conduct a panel discussion following the 7:20 PM screening at the Music Hall on Friday, June 12. Participants include Danielle Perissi, Head of Documentary, Image Nation Abu Dhabi and Executive Producer of EVERY LAST CHILD; Peter L. Salk, MD, President of the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation; and Gitanjli Arora, MD, Co-Director of the Global Health Education Programs at the UCLA Center for World Health. The discussion will be moderated by Sandra de Castro Buffington, Founding Director of the Global Media Center for Social Impact.
