What's Happening

Until January 27, 2008

Jeff Wall

San Francisco, CA

Perhaps no contemporary photographer is more cinematic than Jeff Wall. And you can see why at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art exhibition "Jeff Wall," This traveling exhibition contains more than 40 images and photo boxes from Wall's nearly 30-year career. Early on, Wall took a cue from the masters of European paintings by staging his tableaux, creating scenes that look like they could be either serendipitous snap shots or insightful political reportage. On their web site, SFMOMA offers an interactive feature, "Jeff Wall: Works in Focus 1978 - 2004," that takes one through Wall's creative process. If you are at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, also check out "Douglas Gordon: Pretty Much Every Film and Video Work from about 1992," in which the video artist manipulates classic Hollywood images and influences, like his Hitchcock-inflected "24 Hour Psycho", to reframe concepts of time and narrative.

January 3 - 5, 2008

The Films of Lee Chang-dong

Los Angeles, CA

A high-school teacher turned novelist, Lee Chang-dong didn't take up filmmaking until his 40s. But since the early 90s, he has become one of Korea's most influential and serious filmmakers. After writing two films — To the Starry Island (1994) and A Single Spark (1996) — he directed his first feature Green Fish, which won the Vancouver Film Festival's Dragons and Tigers Award. His next Peppermint Candy used reverse narration to chart the ruin of a man in modern Korea. His 2002 Oasis took home five awards from the Vencie Film Festival, and after a break during which he served as Korea's Minister of Culture and Tourism, Lee returned with Secret Sunshine, a melodrama chosen as Korea's submission for the Academy Award's foreign-language category. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will present all four of his directed features.

January 8 to 30, 2008

Elliptic and Unbridled: The Early Films of Bela Tarr

Seattle, WA

Before making never-ending, enigmatic epics, like his seven-hour masterpiece Satan's Tango, Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr made dramatic features. Using a tight realistic dramatic style reminiscent of John Cassavettes, Tarr took on the grinding social reality of Hungary's enforced socialism. The series Elliptic and Unbridled: The Early Films of Bela Tarr at the Northwest Film Festival looks at some of these films. His 1977 debut Family Nest, for example, examines with a stark social realistic stare the effect of the communist regime's housing shortage on the life of an ordinary family. The other three films presented — The Outsider (1980), Prefab People (1982), Almanac of Fall (1984) — also dramatize the inhuman pressure of the communist system.

January 3 to 14, 2008

Palm Springs International Film festival

Palm Springs, CA

Among the blue-haired grand dames and out-of-town party boys, the Palm Springs International Film Festival has for 19 years planted a sprig of culture in this desert town. With 222 films from 66 countries, Palm Springs is pushing its international credentials. According to the director of Programming Carl Spence, "This was an incredibly strong year for emerging international filmmakers, especially those from the countries of Israel, Italy, and throughout Latin America." In addition to the films, the festival boasts a hearty rooster of stars receiving awards. This year includes Sean Penn (Director Of The Year), Emile Hirsch and Nikki Blonsky (Rising Star), Marion Cotillard (Breakthrough Performance), Halle Berry and Daniel Day-Lewis (Desert Palm Achievement), and Atonement's Joe Wright (Sonny Bono Visionary Award).

January 9 to 24, 2008

The 17th Annual New York Jewish Film Festival

New York, NY

New York's Jewish Museum teams up with the Film Society of Lincoln Center to present a quintessential New York experience - the Jewish Film Festival. With 32 films from 11 countries, the festival gives a snap shot of what it means to be Jewish now — and what it looked like before. Among the selections are a number of early films, like Carl. Th. Dreyer's 1922 tale of a Jewish girl in Russia Love One Another, which will be screened in a new restored print. There is also a spotlight on Austrian/French director Axel Corti.