Indy and foreign films make their way to screens in Mercer County thanks to upcoming series at Grounds For Sculpture and Princeton Public Library
By: Josh Appelbaum
Films focusing on social issues by independent and foreign filmmakers also will make their way to screens in Mercer County.
Noah Kadner’s Formosa, which will screen at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton Jan. 19, concerns a social guidance filmmaker the type who made those classroom "hygiene" films in the ’50s who is out of touch with his teen audience. The lensman hires a mysterious con man he mistakes for a Method actor in hopes of saving his Formosa Studios.
Formosa begins the Dinner and a Movie series at the sculpture museum, in conjunction with the Garden State Film Festival, which awarded Mr. Kadner’s film Best Comedy last year. Works by emerging independent filmmakers will be shown every third Thursday, and cinema-hungry audiences will have a chance to satiate their appetites before the films with special dinners by Chez Alice Café, located at Grounds For Sculpture, from 5-7 p.m.
Two series at the Princeton Public Library promise to be more esoteric than Dinner and a Movie, but no less satisfying. On Jan. 18, Real Danger/Reel Danger: The Truth of Women’s Lives will begin with a screening of Joshua Marston’s Maria Full of Grace.
The series, sponsored by the Arts Council of Princeton and Princeton Public Library, is the third focusing on gender issues, following the 2002-2003 series Real Life, Reel Life: Women of a Certain Age, which questioned whether the films presented portrayed women’s lives realistically. Last spring’s Real Men, Reel Men: Beyond the Macho Myth challenged Hollywood’s portrayal of stolid, macho men.
The new series includes Veronica Guerin (Feb. 8), an account of an Irish journalist assassinated by drug dealers she wrote about; Rachida (March 8), about a young school teacher in ’90s-era civil war-torn Algeria; Woman Thou Art Loosed (April 19), chronicling a female death row inmate’s struggle to come to terms with her legacy of abuse, addiction and poverty; an undetermined Iranian feature (May 17); and The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (June 14), the true story of how a mother enters a jingle-writing contest and hopes to win money to help raise her 10 children.
The library also will partner with the Coalition for Peace Action for Films of War: Alternative Voices, to explore the effects of wars, responses to them and "alternate visions." The series begins with Winter Soldier (Jan. 19), which features interviews conducted by members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War of 125 vets, one of whom is a young John Kerry.
Jan Barry, a panel moderator at the Winter Soldier Investigation and a staff writer for The Record of Bergen County, will host a post-screening discussion along with Kenneth J. Campbell, a University of Delaware professor of political science and a member of VVAW.
The series will continue Feb. 9 with WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception, filmmaker Danny Schechter’s assessment of the Pentagon’s propaganda campaign in the current Gulf War. Mr. Schechter will lead a post-screening discussion.
The library will screen Refusing to Kill (March 2), about those who refuse to participate in war, which will be introduced by anti-war activist Eric Gjertsen. Films of War will conclude with a yet-to-be-determined film March 23.
The Dinner and a Movie series will begin with Formosa at Grounds For Sculpture, 18 Fairgrounds Road, Hamilton, Jan. 19, 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $8 and include admission to the park. For information, call (609) 586-0616, ext. 20. On the Web: www.groundsforsculpture.org. Real Women, Reel Women: The Truth of Women’s Lives (Jan. 18-June 14) and Films of War: Alternative Voices (Jan. 19-March 23) will be presented at Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon St., Princeton. Free admission. Films begin at 7 p.m. For information, call (609) 924-9529, ext. 257. On the Web: www.princetonlibrary.org