Northwestern Films in June

EVANSTON, Ill. --- The popular “Rare Baseball Films” screening returns to Northwestern University June 14, for the ninth consecutive year. Fans of the sport are invited to the special Friday night program featuring Dave Filipi, director of film/video at Ohio State University’s Wexner Center for the Arts. It begins at 7:30 p.m.

Two other Block Cinema event offerings include a visit by director Larry Clark, who will attend the June 6 screening of his 1973 film “As Above, So Below,” and the June 7 screening of Korean director Kim Ki-duk’s 2012 film “Pieta.”

Clark’s 54-minute film will be followed by documentary filmmaker Don Amis’ 1974 film “Ujami Uhuru Schule,” -- Swahili for “Community Freedom School” -- a nine-minute short about a typical day in a south Los Angeles Afrocentric primary learning academy.

All films will be screened in the James B. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati Auditorium at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Drive, on Northwestern University’s Evanston campus.

Unless otherwise noted, general admission to Block Cinema is $6 for the general public or $4 for Block Museum members, Northwestern faculty, staff and students, students from other schools with valid IDs, and individuals aged 65 and older. Quarterly passes are $20. Tickets are available one hour before showtime. For more information, call the Block Cinema Hotline at (847) 491-4000 or visit the Block Cinema website at www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/block-cinema. 

BLOCK CINEMA SPRING FILM SERIES

• “L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema” series is a retrospective of one of the most important movements in American independent cinema. In the late 1960s, a group of promising African and African-American students entered UCLA to study film. Known today as members of the L.A. Rebellion, these mostly unheralded artists created a unique cinematic landscape. Over the course of two decades, students arrived, mentored one another and passed the torch on. Their provocative and visionary films are now presented in a traveling program from UCLA. Block Cinema, one of three Chicago film institutions co-presenting the 12-part series, will host the final program June 6, Larry Clark’s “As Above, So Below,” a powerful political film about black insurgency.

• The “Passport to Global Cinema: Contemporary International Films” series shows some of the best new films from around the world. Selections include sneak previews of upcoming releases and films without U.S. distribution, providing an opportunity to see some of the most talked-about films from the international film festival circuit. Part of Northwestern’s Global Languages Initiative, the series emphasizes the need for global fluency in the 21st century, celebrates linguistic diversity and promotes cultural literacy. The series ends June 7 with a screening of “Pieta,” the latest film from Korean provocateur Kim Ki-duk about a loan shark’s henchman and a mysterious woman who claims to be his mother.

JUNE 2013 BLOCK CINEMA FILM SCREENINGS

L.A. Rebellion, Creating a New Black Cinema, “As Above, So Below,” 7 p.m. Thursday, June 6, Free (Larry Clark, 1973, United States, 16mm, 52 minutes). A rediscovered masterpiece, director Larry Clark’s “As Above, So Below” opens in 1945 with a young boy playing in his Chicago neighborhood and follows him as a returning Marine with heightened political consciousness. Like “The Spook Who Sat By the Door” and “Gordon’s War,”  “As Above, So Below” imagines a post-Watts state of siege and an organized black underground plotting revolution. With sound excerpts from the 1968 HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) report “Guerrilla Warfare Advocates in the United States,” “As Above, So Below” is one of the more politically radical films of the L.A. Rebellion. New 16mm print courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive.It will be preceded by: “Ujami Uhuru Schule” (Don Amis, 1974, United States, film, 9 minutes). “Ujami Uhuru Schule,” Swahili for Community Freedom School, is a day-in-the-life portrait of an Afrocentric primary learning academy located in south Los Angeles. IN PERSON: Director Larry Clark will attend the screening.

Passport to Global Cinema, “Pieta,” 7 p.m. Friday, June 7, (Kim Ki-duk, 2012, South Korea, 104 minutes) Free with Northwestern WildCARD. The latest film by South Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk (“The Isle, 3-Iron”) is the provocative story of a loan shark’s henchman and the mysterious woman who claims to be his mother. This new relationship between the two slowly develops -- by turns emotionally complex, violent and shockingly sexual -- and begins to take on religious overtones. Kim’s filmmaking frequently combines serious, artistic sensibilities and over-the-top excesses. A film with a raw power that both troubles and transfixes, the film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Special program, “Rare Baseball Films,” 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 14 (video, program length is approximately 100 minutes).For the ninth consecutive year and with the baseball season in full swing, Block Cinema celebrates America’s national pastime with another edition of “Rare Baseball Films,” organized by curator Dave Filipi. This year, as in 2012, the program draws on newsreels from the Hearst Metrotone News Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Before TVs became fixtures in the home, these newsreels allowed fans to watch players in action at the local movie theater. This year’s screening includes baseball greats Joe DiMaggio, Christy Mathewson, Willie Mays and Hack Wilson, footage from the Negro and Japanese leagues, World Series clips of the Cubs, White Sox and more!Special thanks goes to Todd Wiener and Steven Hill of the UCLA Film & Television Archive for their assistance with this program. IN PERSON: Dave Filipi, director of film/video at the Wexner Center for the Arts, will introduce the films.  

CONSTRUCTION ALERT

A long-term construction project on Northwestern’s south campus has closed vehicle access to the Block Museum and Arts Circle Drive. Free parking is available in the lot directly south of the museum. For directions and parking information, visit www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/visit/directions-and-parking/index.html.