Piano Tuners of Earthquakes

TONIGHT! is OFFscreen's last film of the semester, and of the academic year.


OFFscreen presents
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
by Dirs. Stephen & Timothy Quay
Germany/UK/France, 2005 - 99 mins.
*Tonight*
Sunday, April 22
Newcomb Hall Theatre
7:00 & 9:30 pm
Tickets $3

The breathtakingly beautiful and long-awaited second feature from master animators the Brothers Quay draws a direct line to the realm of the collective id, where Jungian archetypes and characters from the Brothers Grimm play out dark tales of eros and death. On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful opera singer Malvina is mysteriously killed and abducted by a malevolent Dr. Droz. Felisberto, an innocent piano tuner, is summoned to Droz's secluded villa to service his strange musical automatons. "With the possible exception of Canadian director Guy Maddin, there's not another living filmmaker who comes close to creating a world as potent and magical as the one conjured by the Quays." (Kristine McKenna, Los Angeles Times)

Click here to read McKenna's full review in the Los Angeles Times

Click here to check out the official Piano Tuner Website.

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Our Daily Bread Tonight

OFFscreen Presents:
Our Daily Bread
Dir. Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Germany/Austria, 2005 - 92 mins.
*Tonight*
Sunday, April 15th
7:00pm & 9:30 pm
Tickets $3

Beth Meyer of the Landscape Architecture Department will be leading a discussion after the 7pm screening with graduate student Mark Phemister.

Our Daily Bread reveals the little-known world of high-tech agriculture. In a series of visually stunning, continuously tracking, wide-screen images that seem right out of a science-fiction movie, we see the places where food is cultivated and processed: surreal landscapes optimized for agricultural machinery, clean rooms in cool industrial buildings designed for maximum efficiency, and elaborate machines that operate on a 'disassembly line' basis. Dispensing entirely with explanatory commentary or 'talking-head' interviews, Our Daily Bread unfolds on the screen through an endlessly fascinating flow of images and an insistent gaze, accompanied only by the persistent industrial soundtrack of the ingenious marvels of mechanization employed by agri-business. Our Daily Bread is "the 2001: A Space Odyssey of modern food production." (Stuart Klawans, The Nation)

click here to see the official website.

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Jem Cohen's Chain

I hope people were able to make it to the Bridge's screening of the four films for the AIA Film Festival on Thursday. Additionally, if you weren't at the Bridge, I hope you were able to make it to Take Back the Night, which had a pretty good turn out this year.

In other news, Jem Cohen's Chain will be screened tomorrow at Vinegar Hill Theatre as part of the Architecture Film Festival.



the plot summary of the film is as follows:
"As regional character disappears and corporate culture homogenizes our surroundings, it's increasingly hard to tell where you are. Actual malls, theme parks, hotels and corporate centers worldwide are joined into one "superlandscape" which shapes the lives of two women caught within it. One is a corporate executive, the other a young drifter."

To read a short write up of the Chain film project from indiewire click here.

Once again:
Jem Cohen's Chain
Vinegar Hill Theatre
Saturday April 14th
3pm
As part of the AIA Film Festival
Tickets are $6

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Our Daily Bread Review

Just in case you missed it, The Cav Daily ran a review last Thursaday of Our Daily Bread, which OFFScreen will be showing this coming Sunday, April 15th, as the concluding film in the Architecture Film Festival.

We held a press screening last weekend, and a few people came out, including Elaine Quick, who was able to use some of her insight as an urban planning major when reviewing the film.
Check the review out here.

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Architecture films Wed. Night

The AIA Film Festival continues tomorrow night with three films at the Charlottesville Community Design Center.

Lagos / Koolhaas by Bregtje van der Haak
LAGOS / KOOLHAAS follows Koolhaas during his research in Lagos over a period of two years as he wanders through the city, talking with people and recognizing the problems with water, electricity and traffic. But instead of judging the city to be doomed, he is able to interpret this 'culture of congestion' positively, thereby creating a completely new concept of the big city.
55 mins.
Recycle by Vasco Nunes
6 mins. Documentary short
Architecture of Reassurance by Mike Mills
Through the eyes and imagination of a young girl, Architecture of Reassurance explores life in a suburban wonderland where objects and design create an illusion of identity, belonging and comfort. Mike Mills (also the Dir. of Thumbsucker) blurs the lines of narrative film with documentary technique by exploring the ideas and lives behind suburbia's architecture.
23 mins.


p.s. - everyone who loves a little Koolhaas should check this out. (or if you just enjoy a good laugh and some snappy flash animation)

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Black Maria Film Festival

The Black Maria Film Festival returns to Vinegar Hill Theatre tonight as part of the Virginia Film Society's Spring Series.
The screening will include a selection of short experimental, animation, and documentary award winners from this year's Black Maria Festival and will be presented by Dir. John Columbus.

Once again that's
Tuesday, April 10th
Vinegar Hill Theatre
Screening begins at 7pm and will run a little over 2 hours.
Tickets are $8, free for Film Society Members

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Renzo Piano: Work in Progress

Renzo Piano: Work in Progress
a film by Marc Pettijean will be shown
Tuesday, April 10th
at the Charlottesville Community Design Center
Brown Bag Lunch - 12 noon
52 mins.



'As a revealing personal and professional portrait, RENZO PIANO brings together many of his closest collaborators-architects, engineers, and maquette-makers-to create a "real-life" portrait of an architect who sees his profession as a living thing, evolving with time and practice.'
www.frif.com

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AIA FILM FESTIVAL!

After more than a week of no posts (sorry), the OFFScreen blog is back to tell you to check out this:

The American Institute of Architects Film Festival is here (well, it's been here since last saturday).

Everyday this week there will be films held around town about the exciting world of architecture, design, and sustainability. (Can you tell I'm an A-schooler?)
Today @ Noon
Brown Bag Lunch at the Charlottesville Community Design Center on the Downtown Mall
Regular or Super: Views on Mies van der Rohe by Patrick Demers & Jeffrey Hillel
Running time: 56 mins. (Perfect for that lunch break)


























'Featuring stylish cinematography and an evocative jazz score, REGULAR OR SUPER illustrates many of Mies' classic buildings, combining these striking facades with observations from some architecture superstars, including Rem Koolhaas, Elizabeth Diller and Phyllis Lambert, which are interlaced with anecdotes from customers and neighbors of the gas station, plus comments from his biographer and family members.'

If you have the time or work downtown you should definitely check it out
Tomorrow, same time same place, there will be a documentary on the work of Renzo Piano.

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Three Times

OFFscreen Presents
Three Times
Dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien - Taiwan, 2005 - 120 mins.
TONIGHT Sunday, April 1st - 7 & 9:30 PM

Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien (Millennium Mambo) has delivered one of the most rapturously beautiful and romantic movies of the year. The film is composed of three love stories, each set in a different era - a 1966 pool hall, a 1911 brothel and present day Taipei. The film stars the same actors - Shu Qi and Chang Chen - in all three sections , evoking a sentimental tale of three reincarntions of an unfinished love. The images are "photographed with such visual beauty that watching the movie is like holding your breath so the butterfly won't stir." (Roger Ebert, Chicago-Sun Times)

Click here to read Ebert's full review of the film.

Click here to read another review from Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader.

Finally, click here to check out the official website of the film and see the trailers.

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