Monday, February 9, 2009

Film at Boston University! Culture Vulture or Extra Credit

Free films?

Screenings are held at the BU College of Communication, 640 Comm. Ave., Boston, Room B-05 Events are FREE.
Transportation: the “B” Boston College Green Line, the first stop at BU past Kenmore Square.
Thursday, February 12, 7 p.m.
AN EVENING WITH ROBERT PATTON-SPRUILL

For Black History Month, Emerson filmmaking professor, Patton-Spruill shows Squeeze (1997), the Roxbury-shot feature which Spruill made as a graduate student at BU, and which elevated the BU Film Program when it was bought by, and released by, Miramax Films. Squeeze is an unusual mixture of gangland genre film and an art-house work, influenced by both blacksploitation and the French New Wave. Spruill will be joined by Squeeze producer, Patricia Moreno, a BU grad.

Friday, February 20, 7 p.m.
AN EVENING WITH GODFREY CHESHIRE

A well-regarded film critic, Cheshire turned for the first time to filmmaking with Moving Midway, a wry, politically challenging documentary begun when his ancient North Carolina family home, Midway, was being uprooted and placed down the road. Cheshire contextualizes his Midway family story within the racist plantation milieu of Gone With the Wind, and also, along the journey, uncovers unknown black relatives. This tale for Obama’s America was picked by New York Magazine as one of the Ten Best Films of 2009.

Thursday, February 26, 7 p.m.
AN EVENING WITH ANNE MAKEPEACE

Veteran documentarian Anne Makepeace, whose work shows often at Sundance, brings to BU her newest work, Rain in a Dry Land (2007), an audience hit and prize-winner at several dozen film festivals. In this humanist saga of extreme culture shock, Makepeace follows two Somali Muslim families from refugee camps in Kenya to trying to make it as immigrants in tough-love America. This was the opening show for 2008 P.O.V., PBS’s esteemed indie-film series.

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