Films this week 6/28 to 6/30/2024
by Gary Palmucci | 27th June 2024 | Gary's Corner
Over the years in our various incarnations, New Plaza Cinema has presented the best in rock and soul concert films and biographies — the Oscar-winning Summer of Soul, portraits of Linda Ronstadt, David Crosby, Aretha Franklin, Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez, Anita Pallenberg, and the LA folk-rock scene, just to name a few. To that illustrious list we are this weekend adding the exclusive NY theatrical premiere of Revival 69: The Concert That Rocked the World.
This new documentary celebrates the twelve-hour concert that took place in Toronto on September 13, 1969, with performances by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, The Doors, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis. There was plenty of behind-the-scenes drama leading up to the show (particularly around Lennon’s appearance) and much of the concert footage was shot by legendary cinematographer D.A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop). Director Ron Chapman has woven it all together in spellbinding fashion, and will be joining us for Q&As at three screenings this weekend, accompanied at various shows by such stellar guests as rock historian Robert Christgau, filmmakers Chris Hegedus and Adam Brooks, and singer/ songwriter Molly Davis. Check our website for full details on who will be appearing at which show…
On Sunday afternoon we’ll be celebrating another New Plaza Cinema milestone — the first anniversary of our premiere of the downtown art-scene documentary Make Me Famous. What started out as a two- or three-show engagement has turned into a one-year-and-counting “residency,” with its filmmakers (and tireless promoters) Brian Vincent and Heather Spore doing regular Q&As and often bringing with them colorful guests from the film and the 70s-80s downtown “scene.” This promises to be an exuberant screening.
Also holding over, or encoring this weekend: the documentaries Taking Venice, Song of Earth (whose attendance has been building weekly), Veselka (with a Q&A hosted by filmmaker Michael Fiore and some “Veselka guests,” and Euro dramas Farewell Mr Haffmann and Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara.
Coming next weekend: acclaimed at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Ghostlight, in which a troubled middle American family is profoundly uplifted by their town’s production of Romeo & Juliet; the latest from Oscar-winning Japanese auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car), Evil Does Not Exist; and Federico Fellini’s indelible classic, La Strada.
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Gary Palmucci, Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema