Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Upcoming Milestone Film Series


The Black Film Center/Archive is co-sponsoring the upcoming Milestone Film Series events. Please distribute this email to interested parties. 

New Restorations from Milestone Films
Since 1990, Milestone Films has been involved in the restoration and distribution of groundbreaking, artistically and culturally significant films. Over the course of two days, Milestone Films founder Dennis Doros will present three films: Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason and two films by Kathleen Collins, as well as give a lecture. The lecture and all screenings take place at IU Cinema. The lecture and screenings are free, but ticketed.

Lost Films of Kathleen Collins
Thursday - March 21 - 7:00 PM
At the time of her death in 1988, Kathleen Collins was just 46 years old, but already an internationally renowned playwright, a beloved professor and a successful independent filmmaker. After nearly 30 years of being out of circulation, Milestone Films has digitally restored her two films from original camera negatives to look and sound as fresh, bracing and complex as they did when they were made.

The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (1980) is a short story of three Puerto Rican brothers scraping by while contending with the ghost of their dead father.

Losing Ground (1982), one of the very first fictional features by an African-American woman filmmaker, is the story of a black philosophy professor whose artist husband rents a summer country house to celebrate a museum sale. Their idyll summer challenges their relationship as they struggle to find ecstatic experience, both intellectually and emotionally. Dennis Doros is scheduled to be present. (HD Cam presentation, 140 Minutes total, Not Rated)

Jorgensen Lecture: Dennis Doros
Friday - March 22 - 3:00 PM
Dennis Doros will deliver his lecture titled Where’s Shirley: The Restoration of Portrait of Jason, which he presented earlier in the year at the Berlin International Film Festival. (70 min.)

Portrait of Jason (1967) Directed by Shirley Clarke
Friday - March 22 - 6:30 PM
Shirley Clarke’s fascinating character study of self-proclaimed hustler Jason Holliday, evades easy categorization. On the surface, it is a series of 16mm film reels in which the title character provides a vivid verbal account of his life. It is, however, neither straightforward cinema vérité nor traditional documentary. Instead, it lies between a subtle interview, a brilliant monologue, and record of performance that deals head-on with issues of documentary construction. Recently restored by Milestone Films, Portrait of Jason deserves to become a canonical film alongside the work of other luminaries like Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas. Dennis Doros is scheduled to be present. (HD Cam, 105 min., Not Rated)