FACES OF MECHANIZATION

A great Film Festival! Please inform students and colleagues! indira

FACES OF MECHANIZATION The Best in Contemporary World Cinema Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, April 4-15, 2008

www.cmu.edu/faces

The theme is new and the faces are new, but once again Carnegie Mellon University's International Film Festival brings the best to the 'burgh!

Faces of Mechanization offers Polish art films, German documentaries, Argentinean film noir with supplementary presentations and surprises from our sponsors.

How does technology affects the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the children we have, the way we live and the way we think? The Faces of Mechanization pose these questions. Meet Chinese factory workers, a Ukrainian coal miner, a talk show host who runs a fertility clinic and citizens of a voiceless metropolis. Whether by train, plane, automobile or crowded bus, come to the Squirrel Hill Theatre [SH], Manor Theater[M], Melwood Screening Room [MSC] and the CMU McConomy Auditorium[Mc] between April 04-15th for a mechanical exchange that is anything but mundane.

===================== La Antena (The Aerial) ===================== Directed by Esteban Sapir Argentina, 2007, 90 min *2008 Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Film, Best Music, Best Sound, Argentinean Film Critics Association

=Pittsburgh Premiere, second festival in US!=

"One of the season's most lovingly crafted and strikingly original films." Sandra Hamer, director, IFF Rotterdam.

Acclaimed Argentinean writer-director Esteban Sapir gives us a noir glimpse into the wintry Metropolis homes of three families living in the year X. The scene is a voiceless world with television as the primary controlling force. People watch TV. People eat TV meals. The merciless Mr. TV monopolizes both word and image while working on a sinister hypnotic machine to ensure his power. He kidnaps the only "voice" - that of a stunningly beautiful singer. Though shot in black-and-white, silent-film style, with influences of German Expressionism, Spain's Bunuel, Germany's Lang, Russia's Vertov, and France's Melies, "The Antenna" offers a very modern film invention.

(MSR) Friday, April 4,7:00pm. + reception (opening night) =Reception info= Recharge your batteries and add fuel to your fire. Tango Cafe will leave you voiceless with its donated array of Argentinean cookies, cakes, teas and coffees to fill your mouth. The East End Food Co-op will provide an international sampling of hot eats and fair trade drinks as well. For those with a craving for the cool, Bison Grass Vodka, the official drink of the festival brings you the "little water" served in New York's finest restaurant (for those of age only... sorry to all younger film fans). (SH) Friday, April 11, 7:50 pm. (M) Saturday, April 12,7:30pm.

==================================== Our Daily Bread (Unser tglich Brot) ==================================== Directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter Austria, 2006; 92min *2007 EcoCamera Award, Rencontres Internationales du documentaire de Montral 2006 Grand Prize, New York Film Festival; 2006 Grand Prix, International Festival on the Environment, Paris; 2006 Best Film, Ecocinema International Film Festival Athens

"...never fails to enthrall because of the impeccable eye - for composition, for color, for movement within the frame - of filmmaker Geyrhalter." Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

We are what we eat, as the saying goes, but do we know what we are eating? Food in today's world is as much an item of mass production as the vehicles we drive. Chickens are fattened in congested cages, while genetically modified tomatoes ripen in mega-greenhouses, and cattle require human intervention for reproduction. Food is another product of the twenty-first century mentality: mechanization and sterility. Humans are merely white lab coats plugging away at assembly-line efficiency. Director Nikolaus Greyhalter avoids commentary and adheres to the directness of images to allow you, the viewer, to digest the topic independently. The result will surely change your next meal. (M) Sunday, April 13, 5:30 pm. (Mc) Monday April 15, 9:00pm.

========== China Blue ========== Directed by Micha X. Peled USA, 2006; 88 min * 2006 Audience Award Winner, PBS Independent Lens, 2006 Amnesty Human Rights Award, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)

"a heartbreaking and meticulous documentary" The New York Times

This is life in a modern sweatshop. It's an offshoot of globalization, in which mechanization, productivity and deadlines override human dignity. It's a naive seventeen-year-old girl who left her village and family. "China Blue" investigates what the label" Made in China" hides by disclosing a jeans factory whose clients include Wal-Mart and Levi Strauss. Using smuggled equipment and outright deception, Micha X. Peled and his crew infiltrate a plant whose sales manager proudly touts, "We are happy to make the jeans for the whole world."

(Mc) Sunday, April 6, 5:30pm

============= Frozen Angels ============= Directed by Eric Black, Frauke Sanding Germany, 2005; 93 min *2005 Nomination, Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival 2006 Special Jury Mention, FICCO, Mexico

=Pittsburgh Premiere=

"FROZEN ANGELS is a mesmerizing work that is not so much a science film as a startling conduit into the future of the American Dream, where "perfect children" can be added to the shopping list." Shari Frilot, SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

From birth to age eighteen, the average child costs a parent $300,000. For couples who cannot have children naturally, the price tag offers a different figure. "Frozen Angels" exposes Los Angeles' growing baby business boom through the stories of donors, scientists, and wannabe parents caught in the rattle of this billion-dollar industry. How much would you pay for a perfect child?

(SH) Friday, April 11, 6:00pm

================== Workingman's Death ================== Directed by Michael Glawogger Austria/Germany 2005; 120min 2006 Best Documentary, Golden Apricot FF; Verevan, Armenia; 2006 Best Documentary, Durban International FF; 2006 Best Documentary, Austrian FF; 2006 Best Documentary in FICCO, Mexico Contemporary FF; 2006 Golden Gate Award Best Documentary, San Francisco IFF, USA

=Pittsburgh Premiere=

"Astonishingly powerful documentary about really, really hard work." The Hollywood Reporter

"Hard manual labor is visible, explainable, portrayable. This is why I often think of it as the only real work," comments Michael Glawogger, the director of Workingman's Death. Glawogger follows six groups of laborers from the coalmines of Ukraine to Chinese steel factories ending in Germany, where the Dulsburg-Meldrich smelting works are being turned into a leisure park. As sparks fly and smoke billows, Workingman's Death asks whether the death of hard labor has come, or ever will, in the light of the technology the world has at its disposal.

(M) Saturday, April 12, 5:00pm (M) Sunday, April 13, 3:10pm

========================= Mardi Gras: Made in China ========================= Directed by David Redmon USA, 2006; 74min2006 Award Winner, Spindletop Film Festival 2006 Winner, Black Point Film Festival; 2006 Winner, Big Muddy Film Festival; 2006 Winner, Hearts and Minds Film Festival; 2006 Winner, George Lindsey UNA Film Festival; 2006 Winner, Artsfest Film Festival

"This sly, engrossing doc is an expert riposte to smug proponents of the fetterless free market." The Village Voice

The pomp, circumstance, and chaos of a New Orleans Mardi Gras wears the mask of an exhilarating liberation, but the beads that bear chests come at a steep moral cost when viewed in a global spectrum. David Redmon follows the stories of four female teenagers working in the largest Mardi Gras bead factory in the world. He observes their economic reality, self-sacrifice, dreams of a better life and the severe discipline of life in a factory compound.

(Mc) Saturday, April 5, 4:30pm (Mc), Tuesday, April 15, 5:30pm

============================== Selected Works (Wybrane Prace) ============================== Directed by Artur Zmijewski Poland, 2006-2007; 110min

=American Premiere=

"The reason was, that there is absolutely no reason at all, that one should be interested in these (...) women, and there is definitely less of a reason to make a film about them." Artur Zmijewski

Domesticity as mechanization. Artur Zmijewski began with a simple premise: follow one person (from the following countries: Poland, Mexico, Italy and Germany) for 24 hours, documenting everything he or she does, whether professional or private. From work to school, from home to day care, shopping, sleeping, and cooking, the result is a fascinating and breathtaking work. The film consists of linear twelve and sixteen minute-long clips. Patterns emerge as does the question- how automated have we become?

(Mc) Saturday, April 5, 6:30 pm.

==================================== The Future Is Not What It Used To Be ==================================== Directed by Mika Taanila Finland, 2003; 53min *2003 Winner Venice Biennale, Italy; 2003 DocFest Germany; 2003 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival; 2004 Festival International du Film sur Art, Montreal,

"Recommended! Deftly intersperse clips of Kurenniemi's early innovative films with more recent footage of the artist obsessively collecting video, audio, and found objects - artifacts of a stream-of-consciousness digital diary. To this intriguing mix is added a sound track, which includes Kurenniemi's groundbreaking synthesized music. The resulting controlled chaos seems perfectly evocative of the life and work of this idiosyncratic artist who dwells in the constantly shifting nexus of man and machine." Educational Media Reviews Online

A documentary film about Erkki Kurenniemi, a pioneer of electronic art in Finland (b. 1941), whose career represents a natural blend of art, music, film, computers, robotics and science. With manic precision, Kurenniemi constantly records his thoughts, observations, objects and images. His ultimate goal is the merging of man and machine in a reconstruction of the human soul. *Pittsburgh Premiere*

(Mc) Sunday, April 6, 7:30pm

--------------------------------------------- Each feature-length film will be preceded by an outstanding Polish short made by one of the following film directors: Zbigniew Rybczynski, Piotr Szulkin or Thierry Paladino.

=All films are in English or with English subtitles=

Ticket Prices Opening Night $8/$5 student Regular admission $7/$3 student Full Access Festival Pass $30/$15 student