University of Wisconsin - Madison Cinematheque

REMEMBERING PROFESSOR NIETZCHKA KEENE
The Department of Communication Arts suffered a huge loss with the death of Professor Nietzchka Keene on October 20, 2004, after a brief but valiant battle with cancer. Professor Keene was a distinguished filmmaker and dedicated teacher who had written, directed and produced three feature-length films. Her first film, The Juniper Tree, was set and filmed in Iceland and starred singer-actress Bjork in her first film role. Her second film, Heroine of Hell, was funded by a prestigious ITVS grant and aired on PBS, starring Catherine Keener, Wendy Phillips, and Dermott Mulroney. At the time of her death, she had nearly finished production on her third film, Barefoot to Jerusalem¸ set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. At UW-Madison, she headed up the department’s video production courses, teaching advanced film and video production, screenwriting, and editing, and overseeing the production studios. Her creative guidance shaped the lives of hundreds of students who passed through the production courses in the Comm Arts major; she was selective in whom she accepted into her courses and rigorous in her expectations. She is greatly missed by her colleagues, friends, and students past and present. “She had her own ideas and goals for what she wanted to accomplish and would follow them with intensity and strength,” said her friend and filmmaking partner Patrick Moyroud. “Not many people have produced, written and directed three feature films on budgets that would not even pay for a three-bedroom house today.” The Department has organized a Nietzchka Keene Memorial Fund through the University of Wisconsin Foundation in her honor. It will be used to provide an annual prize for excellence in undergraduate film and video production. Contributions can be made to the fund by check, payable to the UW Foundation (UW Foundation, Gift Processing Department, P.O. Box 8860, Madison, WI 53708-8860), with a notation “for Nietzchka Keene Fund.” One can also donate on-line at the UW Foundation's website, specifying the Nietzchka Keene fund. At 7:30 pm in 4070 Vilas, the Communication Arts Cinematheque will screen Nietzchka's major feature film The Juniper Tree (1989), starring singer and actor Bjork. Praised by critics as distinctive, ambitious, and genuinely poetic and a demanding but impressive achievement that mirrors a distinctly female sensibility in its concern with psychological and historical perceptions of women,this haunting film, set in medieval Iceland and based on a tale from the Brothers Grimm, has been screened at more than 23 festivals and invitational events around the world, including the Sundance Film Festival, the Harvard Film Archives, and the Art Institute of Chicago. It won the Prix du Public at the Festival des Films des Femmes de Montreal in 1990 and the First Prize for First Film at the Troia International Film Festival in Troia, Portugal in 1991.
Thursday, January 27, 7:30 p.m. The Juniper Tree (1989, 35mm)
Enthusiasm: Donbass Symphony (Entuziasm: Simfonia Donbassa) (Soviet Union, 1931, 67 min, 35mm) Dir. Dziga Vertov Music Timofeyev Friday, February 4, 7:30 p.m.
“The most significant contribution to the Soviet sound film" according to Annette Michelson, is a gorgeous atonal celebration of Soviet coal mining, as the workers achieve their Five Year Plan quota in a mere four years. Charlie Chaplin said: "Never had I known that these mechanical sounds could be arranged to sound so beautifully. I regard it as one of the most exhilarating symphonies I have heard." Restored by Peter Kubelka! (Irina Leimbacher) Print courtesy of the Austrian Film Museum. This screening is presented in conjunction with the conference “Modernism’s Multiple Media: Text, Image, Sound,” held February 4-5, 2005, sponsored by the UW German Department. For more information, see: http://german.lss.wisc.edu/events_attachments/Modernism.

The Structural Films of Peter Kubelka
The Cinematheque presents two special lecture/screenings with Peter Kubelka, one of the most distinguished figures in avant-garde film. A multifaceted artist and theoretician, Kubelka is professor of film at the Art Academy in Frankfurt and has worked in the art forms of film, cuisine, music, architecture, speaking, and writing. Over the past 40 years, he has lectured at museums and universities throughout the world and has been awarded the Austrian State Prize for his life’s work. "Peter Kubelka is the perfectionist of the film medium – the world's greatest filmmaker which is to say, simply: See his films! ...by all means/above all else..." – Stan Brakhage These programs were made possible in part through the support of the Austrian Consulate General in Chicago. For more information on Peter Kubelka, see fredcamper.com.
Thursday, March 10, 4:00 p.m. Special afternoon screening time! Peter Kubelka’s Metric Films* *Adebar(Austria, 1957, 2 min., 35mm) Schwechater(Austria, 1958, 1 min., 35mm) Arnulf Rainer(Austria, 1958, 7 min., 35mm) Poetry and Truth* (Dichtung und Wahrheit) (Austria, 2003, 13 min., 35mm) Saturday, March 12, 7:30 p.m. Peter Kubelka’s Metaphoric Films *Mosaik im Vertrauen(Austria, 1955, 16 min., 35mm) Unsere Afrikareise(Austria, 1966, 13 min., 16mm) Pause!*(Austria, 1977, 12 min., 16mm)
Film Style in Question Symposium
The hunt for a secret document leading to the location of a vast war treasure pits a French explorer, an Indochinese princess, and an English diplomat against a Hindu fakir and a resurrected Vampire gang. Louis Feuillade’s infamous 12-part serial is often talked about but rarely screened; the serial has only played a handful of times in North America in the past 85 years and our screening will be its Wisconsin premier! With live accompaniment by renowned silent film pianist David Drazin. Special thanks to Gabrielle Claes, Clémentine De Blieck, and the Royal Belgian Film Archive for generously lending their print. Tih-Minh is presented in conjunction with the Film Style in Question symposium on the UW-Madison campus April 21-23, commemorating the career of Professor David Bordwell. The symposium will feature eleven presentations from film scholars around the world, and a keynote address by Professor Bordwell. For more information, go to the Film Style in Question website.
*Tih Minh* Dir. Louis Feuillade Writ. Louis Feuillade Cast. Mary Harald, René Creste, Georges Biscot, Edouard Mathé, Louis Leubas, Gaston Michel, Marquet, Émile André, Georgette Faraboni, Jeanne Rollette, Lugane, Madame Lacroix. Friday, April 22, 7:30 p.m. Tih Minh (parts 1-2) (France, 1919, 190 min, 35mm) Saturday, April 23, 7:30 p.m. Tih Minh (parts 3-4) (France, 1919, 204 min, 35mm)
WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, CAPITAL TIMES, and WCFTR FILM SERIES
The Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, and The Capital Times proudly present a two-part series of Hollywood movies adapted from classic books of the 19th and 20th centuries. Read the books, then see the movies — on the big screen! This cooperative film series features the collections of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. Each film will be presented at 1:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State Street, with an introduction by a specialist with expertise relating to the content of the books and movies in the series. Following the showing of the films that person will moderate a discussion of the films and the books from which they were adapted. Reading the book before seeing the movie is encouraged but not required. Admission to all the screenings is free to the public on a first-come, first-serve basis. The first screening will take place this Sunday, January 23
Sunday, January 23 Jane Eyre (USA, 1944, 97 min., 16mm) Dir. Robert Stevenson. Writ. Charlotte Brontë, John Houseman. Cast. Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine, Margaret O'Brien, Peggy Ann Garner, John Sutton, Sara Allgood. Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium, 816 State Street 1:30 Speaker: Prof. Caroline Levine, UW Dept. of English 2:00 Screening Discussion follows Sunday, April 24 The Maltese Falcon (USA, 1941, 101 min., 16mm) Dir. John Huston. Writ. Dashiell Hammett, John Huston. Cast. Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane, Lee Patrick. Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium, 816 State Street 1:30 Speaker TBA 2:00 Screening Discussion follows
IFVC Open Film and Video Show Friday, May 6, 7:30 p.m.
Highlighting the work of local film and videomakers, the Independent Film and Video Collaborative holds its semiannual Open Show, to which anyone who has made a film or video can submit. All entries should list title, director, and length (less than 10 minutes), and must be submitted in 16mm, 35mm, video, mini-DV, or BetaSP format. Cinematheque is a coalition of UW-Madison academic departments and student film groups dedicated to showcasing films which would otherwise never reach Madison screens. Films are shown in 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Avenue (at the corner of Park St.). Check our website for schedule updates and last-minute additions: http://cinema.wisc.edu/. For information about screenings from the Wisconsin Union Directorate Film Committee visit http://www.union.wisc.edu/film/. For Wisconsin Film Festival information, visit http://www.wifilmfest.org/. Funding for the Spring 2005 Cinematheque has been provided by generous grants from the Anonymous Fund and the Brittingham Foundation. Special thanks to Dean Gary Sandefur and the College of Letters and Science for their continued support. For wheelchair access to our screening room, please call our projectionist in advance at 265-4231, or call the Department of Communication Arts during business hours at 262-2277.