Just learned about this free & independent cross-cultural film series, Film Forward, starting on Feb. 27 to March 1, at various locations in Southern AZ. Most are showing at the Loft Cinema at 3233 E. Speedway, some way out at the Tohono O’odham Nation Recreation Center in Sells, another at the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center at 1288 W. River Rd. Check the full schedule for other venues (Tucson Museum of Art, Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church).

Go online to the Loft Cinema’s website, http://www.loftcinema.com/filmforward2012, for a complete listing with venue sites.

FILM FORWARD is a cultural exchange program designed to enhance cross-cultural understanding, collaboration and dialogue around the globe by engaging audiences through the exhibition of film and conversation with filmmakers. FILM FORWARD is an Initiative of Sundance Institute and The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Brief descriptions of these films:
The Green Wave – 2009 Iranian Presidential election (documentary)
Grbavica – Balkan war struggles for mother/daughter
On the Ice – Tragedy for Alaskan teenagers
Unfinished Spaces – Cuban architects (documentary)
Beginners – gay lover of ill father, starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer
Somewhere Between – four adopted girls (from China) living in America

The public is also invited to a free reception for this film series:
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28 AT 5:00 P.M.
FILMMAKER RECEPTION
With FILM FORWARD filmmakers Mike Mills, Ali Samadi Ahadi and Andrew Okpeaha MacLean in attendance, as well as team members from Sundance Institute’s FILM FORWARD and the Native American & Indigenous Programs. Food provided by My Big Fat Greek Restaurant.
Location: Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main Ave.

And the Wed. Feb. 29 showing of “Somewhere Between” is preceded by a tasty Chinese dinner (for $8) at the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center, starting at 6 p.m., followed by the film at 7 p.m.

Note: “The Green Wave” film is also part of the Human Rights Watch film festival (click here). It will show on March 20, in case you miss it with Film Forward.

Information on show dates/ticket prices from Tucson Peace Calendar website (with some additions/corrections by me):

“No Roosters in the Desert” at Zuzi! Theater, 738 N. 5th Avenue in Tucson, Arizona

A New Play Commissioned by Borderlands Theater by Playwright Kara Hartzler (immigrant attorney/legal director of Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project)

Directed by Barclay Goldsmith

Winner of the Edgerton Foundation American New Play Award and the NEA Access to Excellence!

October 7-24, 2010

Rolling World Premiere sponsored by National New Play Network: Mexico City, Tucson and Chicago

In this riveting play-based on actual interviews by Anna Ochoa O’Leary-four women trek the desert towards the American dream. On their way they push the limits of their physical and emotional endurance, and they establish profound yet fragile connections with each other through the magical storytelling of the youngest of them, an indigenous woman from Chiapas.

Featuring Annabelle Nunez, Anel Schmidt, Eva Zorilla Tessler, and Veronica del Cerro

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE/TICKET INFORMATION:

SUPPORT HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS
AND PURCHASE TICKETS THROUGH DERECHOS HUMANOS
@ 520-770-1373 OR EMAIL CRUZ AT CRUZ@DERECHOSHUMANOSAZ.NET

Preview Performance: October 7, 7:30pm
$17 General, $15 Senior, $10.75 Student

Opening Night Celebración: October 8, 7:30pm
$22 General, Senior and Student
Opening Night Celebración includes postres plus meet and greet the playwright and actors.

Regular Performances: October 9, 15, 16, 22 & 23, 7:30pm &
Sunday Matinees: October 10, 17 & 24, 2 p.m.
$19.75 General, $17.75 Senior, $10.75 Student

Tickets can also be purchased through Borderlands Theater, 40 W. Broadway

RESERVATIONS:
(520) 882-7406 or www.borderlandstheater.org
(For group sales or to arrange accommodations for patrons with disabilities please contact the Box Office.)

Sponsors:
National Endowment for the Arts
Arizona Commission on the Arts
Tucson Pima Arts Council/Kresge Art in Tucson
Dana Foundation
Edgerton Foundation for New American Plays
Lark Play Development Center
National New Play Network (NNPN Rolling World Premiere)
The Smith Prize
University of Arizona College of Humanities
University of Arizona Binational Migration Institute

I first read about this play in ARIZONA Alumnus Magazine (Fall 2010 issue) in an article by Margaret Regan who writes (page 32) that “the four fictional women in the play are going it alone in the desert after becoming separated from the rest of the group. They bond and tell stories and swear they’ll stick together, but when one is injured, the other three are suddenly faced with a moral dilemmma”, which becomes the central drama of the play.

Dr. Anna Ochoa O’Leary wrote a research study entitled “Women at the Intersection: Immigrant Enforcement and Transnational Migration on the U.S. Mexico Border”, which attorney Kara Hartzler read to write this play. Ochoa O’Leary is a UA Assistant Professor of Mexican American and Raza Studies. She had interviewed about 130 women in 2006 & 2007, who had been repatriated back to Mexico.

Best foreign language film of 1961, “The Virgin Spring” will be at the Loft Theater on June 6 at 1 p.m., and Tuesday June 8 at 7 p.m. Admission is free (but $5 donations are suggested) for these Essential Cinema monthly films.

“Legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman won his first Oscar for this cruel but unsensational medieval allegory, a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in 13th century Sweden. Starring frequent Bergman collaborator and screen icon Max von Sydow, the film is both beautiful and cruel in its depiction of a world teetering between paganism and Christianity, and of one father’s need to avenge the death of a child.”

movie poster

In Swedish with English subtitles (thank goodness), 89 minutes long.

Inspired Wes Craven’s controversial 1972 shocker, “The Last House on the Left.”

The Loft Theater is at 3233 E. Speedway, east of Country Club Rd.

Essential Cinema is sponsored by the Arizona Commission on the Arts, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.