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Friday April 27 - 7:30 PM -
Rockland Library
OPENING NIGHT CONCERT & FILM
Concert - PAMELA WYN SHANNON & LISA GUTKIN
An Evening of spirited Celtic-inspired folk music with
Pamela Wyn Shannon and Lisa Gutkin.
Pamela Wyn Shannon has
attracted international attention with her mesmerizing
Celtic-influenced folk music. Pamela's vocal style ranges from
lilting sensitivity to urgent callings and her inventive modal
guitar work has been described as "a tiny chamber orchestra
working in unison at the end of her hands." She has performed
and recorded with Roger McGuinn (the Byrds), Davy
Graham, and musicians from Solas, Kila, Cherish the
Ladies, Lunasa, The Klezmatics and Whirligig.
Pamela performed at the Nick Drake Tribute Gathering in
the UK, where she was filmed and interviewed by the BBC and
Germany's Aspekte for a documentary on Nick Drake.
Pamela is joined by Grammy award winning
fiddler and composer Lisa Gutkin, whose
versatile musical background has led her to play with such
respected folk musicians as The Roches, Shawn Colvin,
Suzanne Vega, and The Klezmatics, as well as
classical musicians such as The Waverly Consort and
Ensemble Galilei. Lisa's compositions were heard on
episodes of the final season of HBO's Sex & The City
and she has also performed with Dutch choreographer Maggie
Boogaart and the internationally acclaimed dance company,
Pilobolus.
Film - DEEP PRESENCE:
Meditations on a Wild Coast
(USA, Dan Kowalski & Kurt
Hoelting,2006, Color, 30 min.).
Deep Presence: Meditations on a Wild
Coast is a series of digital tone poems pairing
striking cinematography of the Alaskan wilderness with sound,
music and poetry. A departure from narrative and traditional
nature films, Deep Presence opens the senses, calms the mind,
and invites the kind of quiet noticing that reveals the natural
world to everyone, wherever they may find themselves.
"Deep Presence is utterly
beautiful. Just stunning and humbling and powerful. A psalm to
the Planet." -Judyth Asphar, Resurgence
Association
"A rare and inspired
artistic synthesis of wild nature and deep soul, and a wake-up
call about what it means to be alive in, and in love with, a
precious world." - Rick Jackson, Director, Center
for Courage & Renewal
SPONSORED BY
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Saturday April 28 - 12:00 Noon -
Rockland Library
STRINGS
(2005, Anders Rønnow
Klarlund, Denmark, In English, Color, 88 min.)
Winner of both the Citizen Kane Award and the Grand
Prize for European Fantasy Film at the Catalonian International
Film Festival.
In STRINGS, director Anders Rønnow Klarlund has created a
wondrous world and mythology unlike any we have known. The adult
fantasy film features distinctive marionettes, designed by Bernd
Ogrodnik, a German-Icelandic marionette craftsman, while the
materials used to make the marionettes reflect their inner life,
trade and position in the society. The marionettes’ strings are
likewise essential to the mythology of this world. When a string
holding one of their body parts is cut, they can replace that
body part, but when their head string is cut, they die. STRINGS
tells the story of young prince Hal who sets out to avenge the
death of his father, the Emperor of Hebalon. Hal is convinced
that the Zeriths, arch-enemies of the Hebalonians, are behind
the murder, but he soon realizes that the world is not all black
and white and that his father may not as innocent as he
thought.
“Beautiful and Haunting...most
definitely for Adult Fantasy Fans” -LA Times
SPONSORED BY:
Saturday April 28 - 2:00 - Rockland Library
SEEDS
(USA, 2004, Joseph Boyle & Marjan Safinia, English, Color, 89
min.)
With "Maine Seeds" for Questions & Answers
afterwards
Official Selection in 30 International Film
Festivals. Question and Answer session following with Maine
Seeds campers.
Made by an Iranian and Native-American/Irish
directing team, a Saudi- American producer, a Lebanese composer
and a Russian-Jewish editor, Seeds asks the question:
What if you had the chance to spend three weeks living with
someone you consider your enemy? Could you coexist? Would you
live in peace? Every summer, young leaders from the Middle
East, Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Balkan
regions meet at the Seeds of Peace International Camp in
Otisfield, Maine. There they are joined by teens from
Maine who attend the camp. In Seeds we meet ten extraordinary
teenagers, from areas of world conflict, who undertake the
challenge of coexisting together.
"…a spectacular film…truly
impressive" — CNN
"Adults can only aspire to such
bravery" —Michelle Pearl, Daniel Pearl Foundation
CO-SPONSORED BY:
Saturday April 28 - 4:30 - Rockland
Library
SOUND OF THE SOUL
USA,2005,English, Arabic and French dialogue
with English subtitles, Color)
Producer/Director Stephen Olsson
has received the National Emmy Award for Outstanding Director,
the DuPont–Columbia Award and the George Foster Peabody Award.
"The global rise of religious fundamentalism
and its frightening effect on international politics can make
mutual respect and dialogue between people of different cultures
and faiths seem like an impossible dream. But as this thoughtful
documentary shows, music is a language that is understood by
every faith. At the center of the film is the Fez Festival of
World Sacred Music in Morocco, a week-long concert that brings
together an astonishing array of musicians, including a
female-led Sufi group from Afghanistan, a choir dedicated to
ancient Russian church music, an all-brass gospel group from New
York, and a French-Algerian Jew who sings in Andalusian with
Muslim musicians. But perhaps the most remarkable element of
Stephen Olsson's touching documentary is that this rich musical
event engenders real conversation, a characteristic that seems
to spring organically from the essence of the city of Fez, which
was expressly founded on the principles of religious tolerance
and learning. To complement the musical footage, the film shows
religious leaders, scholars, and representatives from both the
World Trade Organization and the World Bank engaged in
discussions about how to make inter-faith dialog and
spirituality the guideposts for moving forward in an
ever-globalizing world. A moving testament to the healing power
of music, Sound of the Soul offers a microcosmic vision of what
a culture of tolerance can achieve and gives hope that such an
approach might spread to the world outside Fez." - Kellen Quinn,
Tribeca Film Festival
CO-SPONSORED BY:
Saturday April 28 - 6:00 - Rockland
Library
EVE AND THE FIRE HORSE
(Canada,2005, Julia Kwan, English & Cantonese, Color, 92 min.)
Winner of the Special Jury Prize
at the Sundance Film Festival and Leo Awards for Best Direction
and Best Screenwriting.
If Jesus and the Buddha dance in the moonlight, who leads?
Julia Kwan, who didn’t touch a film camera until she was 23,
makes her feature debut with this emotional, wonder-filled story
of childhood which Roger Ebert described as
“the heartwarming story of two little sisters growing up near
Vancouver and trying to combine Buddhism and Catholicism with
Chinese beliefs about of fate and luck. It is not a children’s
movie. It is a movie about children.”
“Luminous!” - Roger
Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
“Eve and the Fire Horse is fresh,
relevant, and empowering...” - Brian Hu – Asian
Pacific Arts
"An exceptionally talented cast ‚
beautiful cinematography and art direction, attention to detail,
and Kwan's flawless screenplay, make Eve & The Fire Horse one of
the most enchanting and memorable films made in this country."
- Toronto Globe and Mail
CO-SPONSORED BY:
Saturday April 28 - 8:00 - Rockland
Library
ENCOUNTER POINT
(2006, Julia Bacha and Ronit Avni, United States, Color, 85
min., in English, Arabic and Hebrew, with English Subtitles )
Winner of the Audience Award at
the San Francisco International Film Festival and Winner of the
Spirit of Freedom Award at the Bahamas International Film
Festival.
“The media is a side- taking process, but that
doesn’t serve any purpose. There is no pro-Israeli,
pro-Palestinian, there is pro-solution.” Ronit
Avni and Julia Bacha’s inspiring new documentary is about the
Bereaved Family Circle, a group made up of 250 Israelis
and 250 Palestinians who have lost family members in the
fighting and who come together to dialog about peace, risking
their lives and public standing to promote a nonviolent end to
the Mideast conflict. Their journeys lead them to the
unlikeliest places to confront hatred within their communities.
Dynamically edited by co-director Julia Bacha, who also co-wrote
and edited Control Room. Encounter Point is an upbeat
film about everyday leaders, not reported on by the news media,
who choose peaceful action instead of revenge.
"A riveting documentary,
which blazes with a kind of spiritual grace ..."
Melissa Levine, Village Voice
CO-SPONSORED BY:
Sunday April 29th - 12:00
Noon - Rockland Library
COSMIC AFRICA
(2002, South Africa, Craig & Damon Foster, Bambara / English /
Ju/'hoan, Color, 72 min.)
Not long ago, Africa was a land without
borders and fences. The earth, water and sky were its natural
boundaries. There was power in the sky, a time when ancient
skywatchers looked to the heavens for meaning, guidance and
inspiration. In many parts of Africa today, the sacred alliance
between the earth and sky is still replayed. Thebe Medupe
fell in love with the stars as a boy, listening to his
grandfather’s stories under the night sky of rural North West
Africa. He grew up to become a scientist, an astronomer and
became fascinated with the apparent contradictions between his
scientific study of the stars and the more spiritual approach of
his ancestral traditions. Cosmic Africa follows
Medupe's spiritual and scientific quest for the roots of
astronomy in the African tradition, a journey that stretches
from the prehistoric cave paintings in Namibia to the coastline
and steamy jungles of Ghana, across crocodile infested lakes and
deserts of Northern Kenya, to the towering cliff-side dwellings
of the Dogon people in Mali and on to the ancient monoliths in
the windswept Egyptian Sahara.
“Fascinating and studded with
sumptuous imagery.” - Variety
PLUS SHORT: Angel Passing
(USA, 1998, David Langlitz, Color, 25 min.)
Winner of the Special Judges
Award at the Cleveland International Film Festival.
David Langlitz’s beautiful, affecting short film stars
Starring Hume Cronyn and Elaine Tse.
CO-SPONSORED By
Sunday April 29th - 2:00 - Rockland
Library
DOUBLE FEATURE
CHALICE OF REPOSE:
A Contemplative Musician's Approach to Death and Dying
(USA, 1997, Paul &
Jennifer Kaufman, Color, 44 min.)
Winner of the First Prize at the Palm
Springs International Film Festival.
Paul & Jennifer Kaufman’s inspiring documentary about the work
of the Chalice of Repose Project and it’s founder,
harpist and singer Therese Schroeder-Sheker, a pioneer in using
therapeutic music with the dying and their families. Following
in the spirit of the monks of St. Cluny in the Middle Ages who
used music and beauty to usher the dying into the afterworld,
this gentle and compassionate woman has for over 34 years
trained practitioners in prescriptive music for the care of the
dying and their loved ones. Throughout this tranquil and
emotionally affecting film, compassion and creativity combine to
help people transition through death in peace and dignity.
Chalice of Repose will touch your heart and
soul.
APPOINTMENT
WITH THE WISE OLD DOG
Dream Images in a Time of Crisis ( USA, David
Blum Color, 29 min.)
Renown cellist Yo-Yo Ma, introduces this film
by the late orchestral conductor, and writer, David Blum.
Diagnosed with Cancer at the age of 52, Blum discovered that
drawing images from his dreams helped him cope with his illness
in a profoundly unexpected way. In Appointment with the
Wise Old Dog, David Blum gently leads us into his
drawings which reflect his spiritual guides, radiant landscapes,
and the music of Mozart and Beethoven. Shortly before his death,
he felt compelled to share his inner journey through this film.
Blum explains, “It’s an amazing fact that at a time of dire
crisis, people often find themselves supported by a power that
makes it possible for them to cope”
“This film is a ‘must see’ as it
displays with grace, artistry and brilliance the needed
surrender of the ego to the Self.”
- Michael
Conforti, Jungian Analyst, Founder and Director of the Assisi
Conference
CO-SPONSORED BY
FESTIVAL CLOSING FILM
Sunday,
April 29th - 4:00 PM - THE STRAND THEATRE
Son Of Man
(Mark Dornford-May, 2006, South
Africa, 86 min., Color, in Xhosa and English with English
subtitles)
Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at
Sundance and Winner of Best Feature at the Pan African Film
Festival in Los Angeles.
Since its debut at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, Son of Man
has received rave reviews as a stirring and emotionally
absorbing drama. Filmmaker Mark Dornford-May collaborates with
the pioneering Dimpho Di Kopane Theater Company to
re-tell the story of Jesus in modern day South Africa. Andile
Kosi plays Jesus, who is born in the (fictional) state of Judea
in southern Africa, where violence and poverty are rife. As
civil war breaks out, Jesus asks no less than that his followers
foreswear warfare and follow a life of peace. Filled with
stunning choral music, dance, and rhythms that infuse the film
with African life and spirit, Son Of Man is a moving story of
love, betrayal, and redemption.
"The South African film renaissance continues with
one of the most extraordinary and powerful films at Sundance,
Son of Man. -Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times
"...some of the most exciting
filmmaking of the entire festival" - Los Angeles
Times
CO-SPONSORED BY
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