BEIJING TAXI is a feature-length documentary that vividly portrays the ancient capital of China undergoing a profound transformation. The intimate lives of three taxi drivers are seen through a humanistic lens as they navigate a quickly morphing city, confronting modern issues and changing values. The three protagonists radiate a warm sense of humanity despite the struggles that each faces in adapting to new realities of life in the modern city. With stunning imagery of Beijing and a contemporary score rich in atmosphere, BEIJING TAXI communicates a visceral sense of the common citizens’ persistent attempts to grasp the elusive. The 2008 Summer Olympic Games serve as the backdrop for BEIJING TAXI’s story, a coming out party for a rising nation and a metaphor for Chinese society and its struggles to reconcile enormous contradictions while adjusting to a new capitalist system that can seem foreign to some in the Communist-ruled and educated society. Candid and perceptive in its filming approach and highly cinematic and moody in style, BEIJING TAXI takes us on a lyrical journey through fragments of a society riding the bumpy roads to modernization. Though its destination unknown, the drivers continue to forge ahead.

Added shows Sep. 9 at 7:30 and 9:45 with Louis C.K. in person! Sep. 8 shows SOLD OUT! In this unique and dynamic live concert film, Louis C.K.’s exploration of life after 40 destroys politically correct images of modern life with thoughts we have all had but would rarely admit to. Louis C.K.: Hilarious, premiered at The Sundance Film Festival in January as the first stand-up concert film presented at Sundance. Directed by Louis, the film received rave reviews with Variety declaring, “Standup comedy cinema has a new star in LOUIS C.K.: HILARIOUS.” Filmed at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee on April 18, 2009 as part of his international theater tour, LOUIS C.K.: HILARIOUS confirms why Louis C.K. is the most respected comedic voice of his generation.

Director Maximilian Schell got the reclusive Marlene Dietrich to agree to appear in this documentary only on the stipulation that she not be photographed as she looked today. Instead, we only hear her in interviews and see her in a rich array of archival footage.

Here is an excerpt from the New York Times review by Vincenty Canby, published Sept. 21, 1986:

“Alfred Hitchock, who never took kindly to suggestions from actors in his employ, once said of Marlene Dietrich: ‘She’s a professional.’

“He then added: ‘She’s a professional actress, a professional wardrober, a professional lighting technician…’

“Without wasting time on false modesty, Miss Dietrich might agree. In MARLENE, Maximilian Schell’s moving, unconventional documentary on Dietrich’s life, career and anxieties, it’s apparent that the remarkably durable performer is still very much in charge of things, or, at least, that she was, in September 1982 when Mr. Schell traveled to Paris to interview her for the film.

“Miss Dietrich agreed to submit to audio interviews, but not to be photographed. She wants the world to remember not the virtual recluse she’s become, but the legend she has been almost from the start of her career. The film that came out of this sometimes quarrelsome collaboration is, I suspect, a far more lively, haunted likeness than any ordinary film portrait would be… [MARLENE] is a portrait of a remarkably strong-willed woman, stage-managing her career right up to the bitter end. It’s also an examination of the very particular, possibly bitter legacy of movie stardom.”

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, the filmmaking team behind the 2006 Oscar-nominated doc Jesus Camp, take us on another controversial journey with 12TH & DELAWARE.

Description from Sundance 2010 catalogue:

On an unassuming corner in Fort Pierce, Florida, it’s easy to miss the insidious war that’s raging. But on each side of 12TH AND DELAWARE, soldiers stand locked in a passionate battle. On one side of the street sits an abortion clinic. On the other, a pro-life outfit often mistaken for the clinic it seeks to shut down.

Using skillful cinema-vérité observation that allows us to draw our own conclusions, Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, the directors of Jesus Camp, expose the molten core of America’s most intractable conflict. As the pro-life volunteers paint a terrifying portrait of abortion to their clients, across the street, the staff members at the clinic fear for their doctors’ lives and fiercely protect the right of their clients to choose. Shot in the year when abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered in his church, the film makes these fears palpable. Meanwhile, women in need become pawns in a vicious ideological war with no end in sight.

Q&A with director Rebecca Richman Cohen

Profiled in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces in Independent Film as an “up-and-comer poised to shape the next generation of independent film”, Rebecca Richman Cohen won Special Jury at SXSW and the Cinereach Award at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival with her directorial debut WAR DON DON.

In the heart of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, United Nations soldiers guard a heavily fortified building known as the “special court.” Inside, Issa Sesay awaits his trial. Prosecutors say Sesay is a war criminal, guilty of crimes against humanity. His defenders say he is a reluctant fighter who protected civilians and played a crucial role in bringing peace to the country.

WAR DON DON tells the story of a sensational trial with unprecedented access to prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims and, from behind bars, Sesay himself. In Krio, war don don means “the war is over,” and although today Sierra Leone is at peace, the specter of war remains ever-present. Can the trial of one man uncover the truth of a traumatic past? International justice is on trial for the world to see.

“This is highly-nuanced, thought-provoking filmmaking, providing profound sustenance for both the mind, the conscience and the heart.” – Pamela Cohn, Still In Motion

Q&A with director Stephanie Wang-Breal; co-presented by Silverdocs / Chicken & Egg Pictures

In presenting WO AI NI MOMMY with the Sterling Award for Best US Feature this past June, the jury at Silverdocs noted: “The film dives so deeply into its story that the filmmaker’s hands disappear. She creates a profound connection between her characters and the story she’s telling. Above all, she dares to leave us with questions to which there are no easy answers.”

From 2000-2008, China was the leading country for U.S. international adoptions. There are now approximately 70,000 Chinese children being raised in the United States. Wo Ai Ni Mommy explores what happens when an older Chinese girl is adopted into an American family. This film reveals the complicated gains and losses that are an inherent aspect of international, transracial adoption.

In 2007 Donna and Jeff Sadowsky of Long Island, New York submitted their dossier to adopt eight-year old Fang Sui Yong from Guangzhou, China. From the very first moment Sui Yong meets her new mother, Donna, we get a real sense of the emotional confusion and loss Sui Yong experiences, as adoption workers translate their first words of communication. This day will change Sui Yong’s life, forever. Language, habits, food, everything she knows will never be the same. Her new life in America is filled with happiness and confusion. As she struggles to survive in this new world, we witness her transform into a lively, outspoken American. Sui Yong has become someone neither she nor Donna could have imagined. In a sense, she’s the same girl Donna met in Guangzhou all those months ago – and yet she’s utterly different.

SWEETHEARTS OF THE PRISON RODEO goes behind prison walls to follow convict cowgirls on their journey to the 2007 Oklahoma State Penitentiary Rodeo. In 2006, female inmates were allowed to participate for the first time.

In a state with the highest female incarceration rate in the country, these women share common experiences such as broken homes, drug abuse and alienation from their children. From 1940 – 2008, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary held an annual ‘Prison Rodeo’. Part Wild West show and part coliseum-esque spectacle, it was one of the last of its kind – a relic of the American penal system. Prisoners compete on wild-broncs and bucking bulls, risking life-long injuries. For inmates like Danny Liles, a 14-year veteran of the rodeo, the chance to battle livestock offers a brief respite from prison life. Within this strange arena the prisoners become the heroes while the public and guards applaud.

Douglas Crimp in person — special time: 7:00pm

When the ever-influential writer and theorist Douglas Crimp first published an essay called Mourning and Militancy in 1989, he set off a bomb in both the art and AIDS activism worlds in which he was deeply entrenched. In conjunction with the monumental “ACT UP New York” show opening at the artists’ space White Columns, Queer/Art/Film is excited to have Crimp as this month’s guest artist, presenting a highly personal selection of activist videos that have meant the most to him, including Fast Trip, Long Drop by Gregg Bordowitz, and works by Matt Ebert, Ryan Landry, Maria Maggenti, and Jean Carlomusto, many of whom will be with us for tonight’s screening!

Genesis P-Orridge in person!

Starring the ever-charismatic Malcolm McDowell, this still-shocking social satire of fascistic British mores and ritualized boarding school torture holds special meaning for this evening’s presenter Genesis P-Orridge, the pandrogynous founder of the anarchistic industrial bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV. Raised in the UK, Genesis underwent years of hellish bullying at a British private school he/rself, noting that the film “is not nearly as vicious and appallingly sick psychologically as it really was for me.” You won’t want to miss an evening that’s guaranteed to be both highly personal, and eruptive.

James Bidgood in person!

A wild and thrilling tale involving genies, flying horses, beautiful princesses, and dastardly villains, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD’s incredible colors and fantastical innovations made a huge impression on the iconic photographer James Bidgood, director of the legendary erotic underground film Pink Narcissus. During the ’60s and ’70s, Bidgood built elaborate and fantastic sets in his apartment, painted stunning male models in bright hues of pink, blue, and green, and then snapped countless homoerotic pictures, influencing later photographers like Pierre et Gilles and David LaChappelle. At 77, Bidgood remains as much of a treasure as THE THIEF OF BAGDAD, and we’re thrilled to welcome him for a very special evening of Queer/Art/Film.