Stars of "The Russians Are Coming" to Give Filmed Greetings to Mendocino Film Festival Audience
Saturday, June 4, 8:00 pm, Crown Hall

Mendocino has a strong historical connection to the classic 1966 comedy "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming." It was the first movie to be filmed in its entirety on the Coast, so there are numerous recognizable shots of Mendocino and Fort Bragg in the film. Screening it at the Mendocino Film Festival is a natural, and reflects the Festival’s commitment to the Coastal area and its people.

What would make this return to the big screen even better? What if legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler shot clips of stars of "The Russians Are Coming" delivering heartfelt messages to the Film Festival audience in honor of this event? That’s just what has happened. As of this printing, priceless filmed messages, some lensed by Wexler, have been received from Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner, and Director Norman Jewison, and two more surprise clips are expected by showtime for a once-in-a-lifetime presentation at the Russians screening on Saturday, June 4 at 8pm in Crown Hall.

In an exciting last minute addition, San Francisco Chronicle film critic and cinema scholar Mick LaSalle has agreed to appear at the Mendocino Film Festival. LaSalle is the author of a book on pre-Production Code movies, "Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood," published by St. Martin's Press. He has taught at UC Berkeley extension and lectured at film festivals around the country. LaSalle has been a panelist at the Venice Film Festival and teaches film courses at Stanford University. Between 1994 and 1999, he was the on-air film critic for KGO-TV (ABC) in San Francisco. His first article for the SF Chronicle appeared on September 18, 1985, commemorating Greta Garbo's 80th birthday.

LaSalle will talk about film and host a showing of the highly acclaimed production of "Complicated Women," a documentary based on his book and narrated by Jane Fonda. The book and documentary are historical studies of the actresses who worked during the pre-censorship "pre-Code'' era of 1929-1934. LaSalle will answer questions from the audience after the showing, which will be on Sunday, June 5, 9 am, Matheson, and is free of charge.

Friday Night Silents
Produced by George Russell, MFF Program Director, 2008
Friday, June 3, 8 pm, Crown Hall, $10
Silent Movies with Live Music Returns to the Mendocino Film Festival!

Silent films produced in the first three and a half decades of cinema were rarely silent. From the neighborhood nickelodeons with their pianists and violinists to the picture palaces with their Wurlitzer organs and pit orchestras, silent films were meant to be accompanied by music. Silent films with live music were a cinematic Esperanto, a true universal language, lost with the coming of sound-on-film and dialogue. In the last thirty years, contemporary composers and musicians, both solo and in ensembles, have discovered the deathless visual language of silent cinema and have given it a new musical voice. This voice has an astonishing range. All manner of instrumentation as well as compositional and improvisational styles, from the traditional to the decidedly un-, have “set” silent films which are eighty, ninety and more than a hundred years old. In skilled hands, these new settings are both complementary and exciting.

Our program of Friday Night Silents is performed by the wonderful and adept Eggplant Cinema Ensemble 2011 from San Francisco. They are:
Michael Cavaseno- guitar and effects; Todd Grady- trumpet; Dave Mihaly- marimba and percussion; Bill Noertker- bass; Sanjay Pardanani- percussion and cajon; Annelise Zamula- saxophone and flute.

Eggplant Cinema Ensemble 2011 has chosen this program and has set it to music especially prepared for this evening. In this day, as in their day, these silent films with live musical accompaniment are intended for audiences of all ages. We invite all of you to join us at Friday Night Silents!

This program is made possible by the generous support of KOZT Radio.

 

Women Behind the Camera: Coffee and Conversation

Saturday, June 4, 11:00 am, Little River Inn Abalone Room, $10

Join us for an intimate conversation with three women directors, Dayna Goldfine, Nancy Kelly, and Jen McGowan, all of whom have brought films to this year’s Festival. They will discuss the role of documentary and narrative women directors in the industry and entertain questions posed by the audience. For over twenty years, Emmy Award-winning director/producer DAYNA GOLDFINE, together with her partner, Dan Geller, has created critically-acclaimed multi-character documentary narratives including Ballets Russes, Now and Then: From Frosh to Seniors, Isadora Duncan: Movement From the Soul, Something Ventured (screening in Mendocino) and more. NANCY KELLY is a multi-award winning producer/director who has directed the documentaries Smitten, Downside Up, Cowgirls, Sweeping Ocean Views, A Cowhand’s Song, Trust (screening in Mendocino) and the critically-acclaimed dramatic feature film Thousand Pieces of Gold. JEN McGOWAN began her career studying acting at NYU and then directing at USC. Her thesis film, Confessions of a Late Bloomer, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Touch, which screens in Mendocino’s Short Films program, premiered and won at the Oscar-qualifying Florida Film Festival. Jen is currently prepping her first feature film.

This program is made possible by the generous support of the Little River Inn.

Saturday, June 4, 2:00 pm, Crown Hall, $10

Widely revered as the “Dean of Documentary Filmmaking,” Albert Maysles joined us as our special guest and advisor in 2007. This year he will honor director and cinematographer Les Blank with the fourth annual Albert Maysles Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking. Please join us for this special conversation and screening of an early, classic music film The Blues Accordin’ to Lightin’ Hopkins (1969) – along with a selection of scenes from the best music and food films of Les Blank:
Hot Pepper, featuring Clifton Chenier “Zydeco Accordion King” (1973); Chulas Fronteras (1976); Always for Pleasure (1978); Burden of Dreams (1982); Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1979); Yum Yum, Yum: A Taste of the Cajun and Creole Cooking of Louisiana (1990); Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers (including interview with Alice Waters) (1980).

There will be a surprise gustatory delight for all in attendance.

LES BLANK
Les Blank is a prize-winning independent filmmaker, best known for a series of poetic, exuberant and closely observed films that led Vincent Canby of The New York Times to declare, Blank “is a master of movies about the American idiom... one of our most original filmmakers.” Blank’s first independent films began a series of intimate glimpses into the lives and music of passionate people who live at the periphery of American society. This series grew to include Cajun, Polish and Tex Mex musicians and cooks.
Blank is most acclaimed for Burden of Dreams, an extraordinary feature-length documentary about the messianic German director Werner Herzog struggling against desperate odds in the Amazon basin to make his epic feature, Fitzcarraldo. For Burden of Dreams, Blank was honored with a British Academy Award for Best Documentary of 1982. Derek Malcolm of England’s The Guardian called it one of the best 100 films of the 20th century. In the late 1970s, Mendocino photographer Nicholas Wilson produced a six-week film series featuring Blank’s entire opus.

This program is made possible by the generous support of Kanbar Charitable Trust.