COMING SOON: winter 2020 MOVIES & EVENTS CALENDAR
Fantastic Fungi
Directed By Louis Schwartzberg
(dOCUMENTARy feature)
Panel Discussion to Follow
Playing Friday, Jan. 24 at 7 pm
and Friday, Jan. 31 at 10:30 am
Fantastic Fungi is a consciousness-shifting film that takes us on an immersive journey through time and scale into the magical earth beneath our feet, an underground network that can heal and save our planet. Through the eyes of renowned scientists and mycologists like Paul Stamets, best-selling authors Michael Pollan, Eugenia Bone, Andrew Weil and others, we become aware of the beauty, intelligence and solutions the fungi kingdom offers us in response to some of our most pressing medical, therapeutic, and environmental challenges.
Tickets: $15 in advance, $17 at the door.
January 24 at 7 pm
January 31 matinee + lunch: $40
January 31 matinee only $15
Event Sponsor:
Farm and Fork Society
Gauguin from the National Gallery, London
Narrated by Dominic West
(dOCUMENTARy feature)
Discussion to Follow w/Mary Birmingham of the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey
Playing Friday, Jan. 31 at 7 pm
This fascinating cinema event opens with a brand-new documentary narrated by actor Dominic West about the life and work of Paul Gauguin, one of the world’s most popular and important artists. Filmed in Tahiti, France, the Marquesas Islands and the UK, this cinematic film explores Gauguin’s extraordinary–and at times controversial–artistic achievement, with commentary from his descendants, artists and world experts. The documentary will be followed by an exclusive private view of the National Gallery exhibition The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Gauguin Portraits, just after it opens in London. The tour will be led by the exhibition curators and guest contributors, bringing this first ever exhibition of Gauguin’s portraits to the big screen with stunning close-ups and illuminating insights.
Tickets: $15 in advance, $17 at the door.
The Farewell
Directed By Lulu Wang
(dOCUMENTARy feature)
Discussion to Follow
Playing Friday, Feb. 7 at 7 pm
After learning their beloved matriarch has terminal lung cancer, a family opts not to tell her about the diagnosis, instead scheduling an impromptu wedding-reunion back in China. Headstrong and emotional writer Billi rebels against her parents’ directive to stay in New York and joins the family as they awkwardly attempt to rekindle old bonds, throw together a wedding that only grandma is actually looking forward to, and surreptitiously say their goodbyes.
A heartfelt celebration of both the way we perform family and the way we live it,
The Farewell masterfully interweaves a gently humorous depiction of the good lie in action with a thoughtful exploration of how our cultural heritage does and does not travel with us when we leave our homes. Writer/director Lulu Wang imbues The Farewell with warmth and knowing wit, while the uniformly excellent ensemble cast (anchored by a breakout performance by Awkwafina) invites us to share this extended clan’s joy and sorrow—and to feel, for the length of this remarkable film, like a part of their family.
Admission is complimentary. This event is sponsored by Your Decisions Matter, a new program from SAGE Eldercare funded by Atlantic Health System’s Overlook Medical Center Community Advisory Board. The program is a community-based initiative to help people have conversations with their loved ones about end-of-life care and decision making. Find us on Facebook @yourdecisionsmatter or on the SAGE website: sageeldercare.org.
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The Garden Left Behind
Directed By Flavio Alves
(dRamatic feature)
Panel Discussion to Follow
Playing Friday, Feb. 21 at 7 pm
Beginning with an enthusiastic reception at SXSW Film Festival, The Garden Left Behind, has become one of the most ubiquitous and celebrated films of the 2019 film festival circuit in the US and abroad. Driving a cab through the lonely streets of New York, Tina (Carlie Guevara) struggles to provide for herself and her grandmother. Being undocumented makes work difficult to come by, and to add more stress, Tina has begun the transition process. While her doting grandmother endeavors to understand, Tina finds warm support in a group of trans activists that take her under their wing. Tina waits impatiently for her doctor (Ed Asner) to sign off on her transition so she can begin taking hormones, eager to join her trans sisters. But mounting medical costs, her rocky relationship with the man she’s been seeing, and her legal immigration status all become daunting obstacles in Tina’s pursuit of happiness.
S X SW Audience Award Winner
Tickets: $12 in advance, $14 at the door.
Cunningham
Directed By AlLa KOVGEN
(dOCUMENTARy feature)
Discussion to Follow
Playing February 28 at 7 pm
CUNNINGHAM traces Merce Cunningham's artistic evolution over three decades of risk and discovery (1944-1972), from his early years as a struggling dancer in postwar New York to his emergence as one of the world's most visionary choreographers. The 3D technology weaves together Merce's philosophies and stories, creating a visceral journey into his innovative work. A breathtaking explosion of dance, music, and never-before-seen archival material, CUNNINGHAM is a timely tribute to one of the world's greatest modern dance artists.
Tickets: $12 in advance, $14 at the door.
The Cave
Directed By Feras Fayyad
(Documentary feature)
Discussion to Follow
Friday, March 6 at 7 pm
In Arabic and English, with subtitles
Oscar nominee Feras Fayyad ("Last Men in Aleppo") delivers an unflinching story of the Syrian war with his powerful new documentary, The Cave. For besieged civilians, hope and safety lie underground inside the subterranean hospital known as the Cave, where pediatrician and managing physician Dr. Amani Ballour and her colleagues Samaher and Dr. Alaa have claimed their right to work as equals alongside their male counterparts, doing their jobs in a way that would be unthinkable in the oppressively patriarchal culture that exists above. Following the women as they contend with daily bombardments, chronic supply shortages and the ever-present threat of chemical attacks, The Cave paints a stirring portrait of courage, resilience and female solidarity.
Congratulations to Dr. Amani Ballour who has won the 2020 Raoul Wallenberg Prize for Extraordinary Human Achievement.
Tickets: $12 in advance, $14 at the door.
The New Bauhaus
Directed By Alysa Nahmias
(dOCUMENTARy feature)
Discussion to Follow
Playing Friday, March 13 at 7 pm
An odyssey through the life and legacy of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, the innovative artist and educator whose pioneering approach to integrating technology into design continues to influence and inspire.
In Chicago, The New Bauhaus evolved from its origins at the German Bauhaus into an extraordinary flowering of interdisciplinary design pedagogy premised on the notion that “the whole field of contemporary architecture and design must be based upon an indivisible unification of formerly separated and independent fields.”
Following recent retrospectives of Moholy’s work at major museums, this film offers a more accessible and intimate, emotional journey through Moholy’s life and his work as an artist, designer, visionary, and teacher.
Tickets: $12 in advance, $14 at the door.
Event Sponsor:
Studio 1200
511 Millburn Avenue, Short Hills, NJ
Beanpole
Directed By Kantemir Balagov
(dOCUMENTARy feature)
Discussion to Follow
Playing Friday, March 6 at 8 pm
The story of two women navigating a devastated 1945 Leningrad, which premiered in Cannes's Un Certain Regard this year where it won
Best Director.
It's 1945, and Leningrad lies in ruins, wartorn and paralyzed. Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko), a nurse, and Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina), a soldier, are traumatized from the siege and its aftermath, and struggling to rebuild their lives.
Drawing loosely from Nobel Prize–winning author and historian Svetlana Alexievich's 1985 book The Unwomanly Face of War, Balagov creates a world where women's suffering and resilience becomes elliptic — with proactivity and punishment at either side of an ever-swinging pendulum. Their hardships in the face of unspeakable tragedy are palpable through their sunken eyes and shallow gazes, but we are simultaneously pulled along in their perseverance. Survival of the fittest takes on a new meaning, as gains seem tiny and incremental yet everything is at stake. Spiritually bleak, yet rich in colour and remarkably precise in its style, the cinematic language of Balagov speaks to a new generation of Russian filmmakers telling stories of a homeland that has yet to reconcile with its historical cataclysms.
Tickets: $12 in advance, $14 at the door.