Blanton Summer Film Series

This summer the Blanton and the Austin Film Festival are proud to present an exciting new collaboration, the New Directions Film Series. This special collection of five films will introduce the exceptional work of emerging independent filmmakers. The films will be screened in the museum's new auditorium during Third Thursdays and select Sundays through July 19. Dates and times are below. Cost: $3 for AFF members, Blanton members, UT faculty and students; and $5 for general public.

• Gretchen (2006) 98 minutes
  Thursday, June 18, 7 PM
  Sunday, June 21, 3 PM
  

  Dir. Steve Collins, U.S. Gretchen has bigger problems than abysmal fashion sense: She's 17, painfully awkward and stuck in the most unforgiving place on earth – high school. When her obsession with school bad boy Ricky gets out of hand, her mother sends her to an emotional treatment center to recover. She has to travel elsewhere, however, to truly begin to understand why she fixates on the wrong kind of guy. Starring Courtney Davis as the perpetually uncomfortable Gretchen, Steve Collins' first feature is a humorously deadpan yet poignant reminder of how the smallest moments can lead to extreme adolescent drama.

• Silent Light (2007) 135 minutes
  Sunday June 28, 3 PM
  

  Dir. Carlos Reygadas, Mexico. Set in a Mennonite community in Mexico, Silent Light quickly establishes the importance of nature in setting the rhythms androutines of the religious, rural lives at the film's center. Its lauded opening shot chronicles a starry sky slowly giving way to breaking dawn as the cacophonous chatter of crickets chanting, dogs barking, and roosters crowing fills the soundtrack. From here on, birdsong is nearly constant, and images of land and sky frequently hold the camera's attention for extended durations. But amidst this pastoral setting, a disturbance is apparent from the outset. A cut from the heavenly curtain–raiser takes us into the home of Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr) and Esther (Miriam Toews), where a circulating camera catches static portraits around the kitchen table and introduces us to the couple and their numerous children, the silence broken only by the unnerving tick–tock of a clock until an “Amen” frees the family to eat breakfast. In the somewhat stilted manner between husband and wife, not simply the result of the director's characteristic use of nonprofessional actors, festering emotions are legible.

• The Juche Idea (2008) 62 minutes
  Sunday July 12, 3 PM
  

  Dir. Jim Finn, U.S. Roughly translated, Juche, the official North Korean religion and political ideology, means self–reliance. But the official text on the state–sponsored philosophy, written by Kim Jong–il, leaves final authority over interpretation of Juche to the Dear Leader, himself. The Juche Idea tells the story of a South Korean video artist (Kim Jong–il loves movies!) who takes a residency in North Korea. She becomes inspired by the Juche concept of revolutionary art, and intent to further adapt the ideology to modern cinematic practices. The film is partly told through some of the projects she makes while at the residency–The Small Little Teeth of America: The Tiny Dentures of Imperialism; Flesh Ring in the Sea of Blood; and The Winter of Abundance: Our Hope is the Juche State. As in his earlier films Interkosmos (Opening Night, 2006) and La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo (NYUFF 2007), Finn's signature tone is in full effect–The Juche Idea is a deadpan yet poetic look at the relation of image to idea, and an investigation into the role of propaganda and politics in the creation of art.

• Welcome to Nollywood (2008) 80 minutes
  Thursday July 16, 7 PM
  

  Dir. Jamie Meltzer, U.S. The Nigerian film industry, known as “Nollywood”, has exploded in the last ten years. Now the most popular cinema in all of West Africa - more popular even than imports of Hollywood or Bollywood films - the Nigerian film industry has distinguished itself by shooting all films (called “video-films”) on digital video. This has allowed production schedules to be compressed (films are shot in several days) and immediately brought to market (distribution consists of bringing films to Idumota electronics market in Lagos and selling them for home-viewing). The sheer volume of Nigerian video-films is staggering: one estimate has a film being produced for each day of the year. Nollywood is now the third largest film industry in the world, generating 286 million dollars per year for the Nigerian economy. And yet this vibrant, profitable industry is virtually unknown outside of Africa. Jamie Meltzer, director of Off the Charts: The Song Poem Story, (which premiered on PBS’ prestigious Independent Lens series) has created a fascinating look into this newly emerging film industry, exploring its inner workings, economic challenges, and diverse array of colorful films. Traveling to the country’s chaotic capitol, Lagos, Meltzer spent two months following three of Nigeria’s hottest directors, each different in personality and style, as they shot their films about love, betrayal, war, and the supernatural. Welcome to Nollywood tells the stories of these three directors and their latest productions, while also using interviews with scholars, actors, and journalists who celebrate (in insightful and often humorous ways) Nollywood as a whole, its unique character and genres, as well as its impact on the culture of West Africa and Africans at home and abroad.
  

• Shotgun Stories (2007) 92 minutes
  Sunday July 19, 3 PM
  

  Dir. Jeff Nichols, U.S. Shotgun Stories tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father, a man that never bothered to give his children proper names. He left the three brothers, Son, Boy and Kid, when they were young. Their last impressions were of a violent drunk who never hesitated to put his own needs ahead of his family. The brothers were left to be raised by their mother, a hateful woman, who to this day blames her children for the life she's been left with and the man she could not keep. Their father, having left the memory of his children as completely as he left their home, managed to move on and put his life back together. He sobered up, became a devout Christian, married a wonderful woman, and fathered four new sons. All of who received proper names. His life became a model that most would aspire to, a man successful in business, community and family. His only true failing being the sons he turned his back on. At the beginning of the film, we find Son, Boy and Kid as grown men. The three brothers' lives progress and their futures play out, but their past inevitably comes to claim them. Following a dispute at their father's funeral, a feud begins to simmer between these sons and the new young men their father has raised. It is an anger that has always rested uncomfortably in the background of their lives. However now, it is a thing that will rise up to overtake them all. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.