Films 4/07 – 4/10/22
by Gary Palmucci | 8th April 2022 | Gary's Corner
A series of unexpected, last minute developments have led to a particularly bounteous program this weekend at New Plaza Cinema @ West End Theatre. Early Monday morning I received word that the distributor of the surprise Oscar-winning Best Picture CODA had gotten approval for additional play dates, including at New Plaza Cinema! From the clips we saw on Oscar night it’s clear that this film’s deeply emotional “swell” is best experienced with an audience.
A couple hours later we heard from filmmaker (and our Upper West Side neighbor) Lisa Hurwitz that her acclaimed documentary The Automat had completed its successful downtown run and was available to the West End. Lisa will join us on Saturday night for a Q & A. G et your tickets ASAP!
After numerous requests we’ll be reprising the compelling Belgian drama Playground this weekend, and also introducing three other newly released international films:
- Donbass — Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitza has fearlessly built a body of work around the past two decades of bloody turmoil in his homeland. His 2018 feature Donbass is a pitch black comedy-drama set in that contested region of southeastern Ukraine. The trailer unfolds much like a replay of the tragedies we’re now witnessing daily. A portion of our ticket sales will be donated to the International Red Cross. In his Critic’s Pick in today’s NY Times, A.O. Scott writes, “Art isn’t a lever that moves history, but a lens that shapes perceptions of it. Certain narrative works, novels as well as films, provide illumination different from what might be found in journalism or history…”
- Ahed’s Knee — Israeli director Nadav Lapid is on the cutting edge of that nation’s young filmmakers, constantly asking the question of what it means to be an Israeli, especially to those citizens for whom some of its policies provoke turbulent emotions. In this drama, a filmmaker screening his work in a remote corner of the country is confronted with both political and personal crises.
- Gagarine — Two young French filmmakers dramatize the 2019 demolition of a housing project in Paris’ eastern suburbs (once a venerable bastion of France’s Communist Party) and its aftermath for a group of its young, immigrant residents. Per the NY Times’ reviewer, “this real life moment is re-envisioned with a heavy dose of magical realism, foregrounding the dreams of a new generation that build upon the subject’s utopian roots.” Fanny Liatard and Jeremy Trouilh’s debut feature was selected for Cannes 2020 — the Festival that never was — but it’s now here for us to experience. Here is the trailer.
Gary Palmucci, Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema