Tag: Crosstown Arthouse Film Series

The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp.
Tickets are $5 (at the door only)

The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series is proud to present ANACRONTE, the work of animator, writer and director Yashira Jordan. Yashira was an inaugural participant in the Crosstown Arts Residency program. ANACRONTE: What on first instance appears to be a conflict between good and evil is actually a struggle within every one of us. We can choose to cope with evil and fight for our dreams or surrender to the will of others. Anacronte and the Sorcerers of Evil put humanity’s happiness to the test, leaving us as both winners and losers. Anacronte was produced by Yashira Jordan and directed by Raul Koler and Emiliano Sette.

Ildikó Enyedi’s fairytale-like, unconventional ironic film luminaire MY 20TH CENTURY was awarded the Camera d’Or at Cannes in 1989. On the eve of the 20th century, two twin girls, Lili the anarchist and Dóra, a luxurious woman of loose morals, along with Mr. Z., who loves them as an entity, all reach the Hungarian border at the same time on board the Orient Express. Their story, rushing under the spell of Edison’s inventions, is a special ‘research of happiness’, reclaiming the ‘mass murdering century’ from the restlessly changing world and the miracle of existence. Tarkovsky’s fabulous actor, Oleg Yankovsky, performs an unforgettable double with the young Polish actress Dorotha Segda.

About Yashia Jordan:
Yashira Jordán was born in La Paz (Bolivia) in 1985. Shem made her first short film when she was 12. She studied Fine Arts in UNLP Argentina, specialized in Film 2010. She is a BERLINALE TALENT 2007 Universidad del Cine (Film University of Buenos Aires) – BAFICI and a BERLINALE TALENT 2008 from Berlin International Film Festival. Winner of “IBERMEDIA Project Scholarship” for Ecuador and Venezuela.

Selected for Producers Network- Marche du Film- Cannes in Ventana Sur, Buenos Aires two times. Director, writer, and producer of the film DURAZNO, with which she has participated in various Major and indie festivals and other film events around the world, such as the European Film Market of the Berlinale Film Festival, Rencontres du Toulouse-France, Guadalajara, Morelia, Mexico; Visions du Reel, Switzerland, Latin side of the Doc, Hot Docs, Canada, Girona cinema, Barcelona, Alianza Francesa, Buenos Aires, Argentina.BR LAB, Brazil. among others.

Co-founder of the Animation Studio CELESTE since 2011, where she became Executive Producer of animation in BELISARIO -a Full-dome series won 2019 Quirino Awards in Tenerife for Best Innovate Animation together with the Planetarium of the City of La Plata, Argentina, and the production company Cut to the Chase in Argentina. Creator of the Latin American Stop Motion Workshop (Taller Latinoamericano de Stop Motion, TLSM) with the support of Festival international du film d’animation d’Annecy and Jamie Caliri’s Dragon Frame. TLSM which in its four versions hosted more than 500 participants from all over Latin America, and experts such as Alex Juhasz (The Little Prince, The Bababook), Mark Shapiro of LAIKA, Francesca Maxwell (Art Director of Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson), Juan Pablo Zaramella from Argentina, Veronique Ecrenaz and Folimage from France. Director and Producer of the stop-motion short film DUBICEL.

Director of DIAMANTE in development her second film, was selected to ISLAB, in la ISLA del SOL, LA PAZ Bolivia and in Volumetric Filmmaking Depthkit Though Works Arts – Art Residency in New York City 2019. During her career, she attended talks, meetings, and workshops with filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Win Wenders, Mike Leigh, Lucrecia Martel, Wim Wenders, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Lisandro Alonso, and Alex McDowell among others.

The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp.
Tickets are $5 (at the door only)

The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series is proud to present DUBICEL, the work of animator, writer and director Yashira Jordan. Yashira was an inaugural participant in the Crosstown Arts Residency program. DUBICEL (12 minutes) is a cosmic child who lives in a galactic dome alone and wants to open the walls that imprison him to discover what is beyond and to discover the stars. Despite having the gift of materializing mysterious objects of his dreams, he cannot find the one what allows him to open the window of his dome, until one of them gives him the key to be able to reach what he needs. But this one is not an object. It is a living being. This short film was made by Ecological art recycling.

One of the most immersive and rarefied experiences in the history of cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky’s STALKER  (161 minutes) embarks on a metaphysical journey through an enigmatic post-apocalyptic landscape. A hired guide — the “Stalker” of the title — leads a writer and a scientist into the heart of the Zone, the restricted site of a long-ago disaster, where the three men eventually zero in on the Room, a place rumored to fulfill one’s most deeply held desires. Adapting a science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and making what would be his final Soviet feature, Tarkovsky created a challenging and visually stunning work, his painstaking attention to material detail and sense of organic atmosphere further enriched by this vivid new digital restoration. At once a religious allegory, a reflection of contemporary political anxieties, and a meditation on film itself—among many other interpretations—Stalker envelops the viewer by opening up a multitude of possible meanings.

About Yashia Jordan:
Yashira Jordán was born in La Paz (Bolivia) in 1985.  Shem made her first short film when she was 12. She studied Fine Arts in UNLP Argentina, specialized in Film 2010.  She is a BERLINALE TALENT 2007 Universidad del Cine (Film University of Buenos Aires) – BAFICI and a BERLINALE TALENT 2008 from Berlin International Film Festival.  Winner of “IBERMEDIA Project Scholarship” for Ecuador and Venezuela.

Selected for Producers Network- Marche du Film- Cannes in Ventana Sur, Buenos Aires two times.  Director, writer, and producer of the film DURAZNO, with which she has participated in various Major and indie festivals and other film events around the world, such as the European Film Market of the Berlinale Film Festival,  Rencontres du Toulouse-France, Guadalajara, Morelia, Mexico; Visions du Reel, Switzerland, Latin side of the Doc, Hot Docs, Canada, Girona cinema, Barcelona,  Alianza Francesa, Buenos Aires, Argentina.BR LAB, Brazil. among others.

Co-founder of the Animation Studio CELESTE since 2011, where she became Executive Producer of animation in BELISARIO -a Full-dome series won 2019 Quirino Awards in Tenerife for Best Innovate Animation together with the Planetarium of the City of La Plata, Argentina, and the production company Cut to the Chase in Argentina. Creator of the Latin American Stop Motion Workshop (Taller Latinoamericano de Stop Motion, TLSM) with the support of Festival international du film d’animation d’Annecy and Jamie Caliri’s Dragon Frame. TLSM which in its four versions hosted more than 500 participants from all over Latin America, and experts such as Alex Juhasz (The Little Prince, The Bababook), Mark Shapiro of LAIKA, Francesca Maxwell (Art Director of Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson), Juan Pablo Zaramella from Argentina, Veronique Ecrenaz and Folimage from France.  Director and Producer of the stop-motion short film DUBICEL.

Director of DIAMANTE in development her second film, was selected to ISLAB, in la ISLA del SOL, LA PAZ Bolivia and in Volumetric Filmmaking Depthkit Though Works Arts – Art Residency in New York City 2019. During her career, she attended talks, meetings, and workshops with filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Win Wenders, Mike Leigh, Lucrecia Martel, Wim Wenders, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Lisandro Alonso, and Alex McDowell among others.

The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Film begins at 6 pm sharp.
FREE ADMISSION (as part of Crosstown Concourse’s Trunk or Treat event)

In HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) is an eccentric millionaire who rents a reportedly haunted mansion for one night under the pretense of hosting a party for his wife, Annabelle, whom he believes to be after his fortune. He explains to his guests that any among them who survives in the house for one night — during which all communication with the outside world will be cut — will receive a prize of $10,000.

The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp.
Tickets are $10 (at the door only)

Double feature with HAXAN (1922) and a live score by 1000 LIGHTS, followed by a screening of DEEP RED (1975).

HAXAN (1922): Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen’s legendary silent film HAXAN uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages and early modern era suffered from the same ills as psychiatric patients diagnosed with hysteria in the film’s own time. Far from a dry dissertation on the topic, the film itself is a witches’ brew of the scary, the gross, and the darkly humorous. Christensen’s mix-and-match approach to genre anticipates gothic horror, documentary re-creation, and the essay film, making for an experience unlike anything else in the history of cinema.

Is 1000 LIGHTS a post punk band? A proto-punk band? A goth band? A band of Memphis’ heaviest hitters? All of the above? Meet A Thousand Lights. Guitarist Joey Killingsworth (Jocephus and the George Jonestown Massacre, Super Witch, Grendel Crane, Static Bombs), drummer Russ Thompson (The Margins, Static Bombs, New Intruders, Pisshorse), bassist Chris McCoy (Super Witch, Static Bombs, New Intruders, Pisshorse), and vocalist Jesse James Davis (Yesse Yavis, Model Zero) owe their partnership to the Memphis Does Bowie benefit show. Thompson, who has been a musical partner with McCoy since their days in the legendary 90s art punk band Pisshorse, sat in with McCoy and Killingsworth’s metal juggernaut Super Witch to cover the Bowie classics “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps,” “Cat People,” and “It Ain’t Easy.” Davis, dressed as Low-era Bowie, brought the house down fronting Winchester and the Ammunition. Memphis Does Bowie raised more than $20,000 for Memphis area charities. In 2017, Killingsworth, Thompson, and McCoy were playing together in the death rock project Static Bombs when the trio tapped Davis for a pair of shows: Gimmie Shelter, a benefit for homeless charities that saw Memphis musicians paying tribute to the Rolling Stones; and a slot at Memphis’ hottest Halloween party, hosted by Black Lodge Video, where the band, joined by saxophonist Seth Moody, performed The Stooges Funhouse album in its entirety. These shows were such a raging success that the group decided to make it permanent, renaming themselves A Thousand Lights, after a line from The Stooges’ “Down On The Street.”  As you can tell from the choices of artists they paid tribute to, A Thousand Lights sound is slippery and diverse, incorporating elements from the earliest days of punk and post punk that bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Love and Rockets synthesized into goth rock.  Their debut EP “3nc EP” is available now on iTunes & Spotify. 

SECOND FEATURE: DEEP RED (1975): 4K restoration! From Dario Argento, the man behind some the greatest excursions in Italian horror (SUSPIRIA, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, THE CAT O’ NINE TAILS), comes DEEP RED: arguably the ultimate giallo. Aided by a throbbing score from legendary proggers Goblin, this hallucinatory fever dream is punctuated by some of the most expert setpieces the genre has to offer. One lonely night, musician Marcus Daly (David Hemmings, BLOW UP), looks up from the plaza below and witnesses the brutal axe murder of a woman in her apartment. Racing to the scene, Marcus just misses the perpetrator — or does he? As he takes on the role of amateur sleuth, Marcus ensnares himself in a bizarre web of murder and mystery where nothing is what it seems.

The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp.
Tickets are $10 (at the door only)

Double feature with THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE (1921) and a live piano accompaniment by Maeve Brophy, followed by a screening of SECOND FEATURE: GANJA & HESS (1973).

THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE (1921): The last person to die on New Year’s Eve before the clock strikes twelve is doomed to take the reins of Death’s chariot and work tirelessly, collecting fresh souls for the next year. So says the legend that drives THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE (Körkarlen), directed by the father of Swedish cinema, Victor Sjöström. The story, based on a novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf, concerns an alcoholic, abusive ne’er-do-well (Sjöström himself) who is shown the error of his ways, and the pure-of-heart Salvation Army sister who believes in his redemption. This extraordinarily rich and innovative silent classic (which inspired Ingmar Bergman to make movies) is a Dickensian ghost story and a deeply moving morality tale, as well as a showcase for groundbreaking special effects.

MAEVE BROPHY gave her first solo piano recital at age 9 and made her orchestral debut at 15. She has given solo and collaborative performances in Wells, England; the Amalfi Coast; Kiev, Ukraine; New York; San Francisco; Seattle; Aspen; Nashville; and Memphis. She has performed for the Memphis Chamber Music Society and the Artist Ascending Series in Memphis and is a regular performer with the Luna Nova Ensemble. Maeve has performed as soloist with the Chernygev Symphony in Kiev as well as the Paducah Symphony and the Central Florida Philharmonic. She has a BA from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a Master of Music in Piano Performance from Texas Christian University. She also studied at the Manhattan School of Music and at the New England Conservatory of Music with Russell Sherman. She has worked as a freelance accompanist in Memphis and played for numerous student recitals at the University of Memphis. She has taught students privately as well as at the Boston College of Adult Education.

SECOND FEATURE: GANJA & HESS (1973): Flirting with the conventions of blaxploitation and horror, Bill Gunn’s revolutionary independent film GANJA & HESS is a highly stylized and utterly original treatise on sex, religion, and African American identity. Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead) stars as anthropologist Hess Green, who is stabbed with an ancient ceremonial dagger by his unstable assistant (director Bill Gunn), bestowing upon him the blessing of immortality … and the curse of an unquenchable thirst for blood. When the assistant’s beautiful and outspoken wife Ganja (Marlene Clark) comes searching for her missing husband, she and Hess form an unexpected partnership. Together, they explore just how much power blood holds. Later recut and released in an inferior version, this edition represents the original release, restored by The Museum of Modern Art with support from The Film Foundation, and mastered in HD from a 35mm negative.

The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp.
Tickets are $10 (at the door only)

Double feature with THE UNHOLY THREE and a live score by BLUESHIFT ENSEMBLE, followed by a screening of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

THE UNHOLY THREE was Tod Browning’s first shot at telling the story of three sideshow performers who grow sick of living the impoverished life they lead and hatch a plan to get rich. Tweedledee (Harry Earles) is a dwarf who disguises himself as a baby. Professor Echo, a ventriloquist, becomes Mrs. O’Grady — Tweedledee’s “grandmother.” Professor Echo’s girlfriend, who is a pickpocket, becomes his “granddaughter.”  Theft, fake talking parrots, murder, ALMOST child murder, circus strongmen, and an unhinged pet ape!!!!

BLUESHIFT ENSEMBLE is a Memphis­-based contemporary chamber music ensemble dedicated to bringing artists and audiences together through artistic collaboration. By programming both new and existing classical repertoire alongside multi­-genre collaborations, Blueshift aims to connect a wider audience to today’s classical music. The ensemble draws upon Memphis’s uniquely diverse musical heritage by combining classical music with popular music genres such as rock, blues, soul, and hip hop and featuring local musicians, visual artists, and composers. The astronomical term “blueshift” indicates an object’s moving closer toward the observer. Blueshift aims to bring concert music and art out of the concert hall and into the Memphis community.

SECOND FEATURE: NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955)
A tall, handsome ‘preacher’ — his knuckles eerily tattooed with ‘love’ and ‘hate’ — roams the countryside, spreading the gospel … and leaving a trail of murdered women in his wake. To Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), the work of the Lord has more to do with condemning souls than saving them, especially when his own interests are involved. Now his sights are set on $10,000 — and two little children are the only ones who know where it is. ‘Chill…dren!’ the preacher croons to the terrified boy and girl hiding in the cold, dark cellar … innocent young lambs who refuse to be led astray.