For Immediate Release Contact: Carol O’Sullivan

June 25, 2007 412-681-5449

Pittsburgh Filmmakers Announces

July Programming

(Pittsburgh, PA) – The following descriptions are from Pittsburgh Filmmakers’ Film Exhibition Program for July 2007. The films are screened at the Harris Theater, 809 Liberty Avenue (Downtown), the Melwood Screening Room, 477 Melwood Avenue (in North Oakland) and the Regent Square Theater, 1035 S. Braddock Avenue (in Edgewood). For admission prices and current showtimes call 412-682-4111. All titles and dates are subject to change, due to film availability.

Special Event:

July 3: The Triplets of Belleville -- FREE on the lawn @ Pittsburgh Center for Arts!

In this highly original, award-winning animated film, a lonely young boy is raised by his grandmother in the French countryside. She buys him a bicycle and encourages him to train for the Tour de France. He’s on his way until he gets kidnapped by a group of gangsters. Along with her faithful dog Bruno, Madame Souza sets out to rescue her grandson. They befriend a trio of old women who were once the '30s jazz trio known as “the Triplets of Belleville.” Features an original jazz musical score by Benoît Charest. See this classic under the stars. (Sylvain Chomet; France; 2003; 80 min)

The Harris Theater – 809 Liberty Ave

thru July 5: Day Night Day Night

In this remarkable first feature from director Julia Loktev, Day Night Day Night transpires on a girl's face, a19-year-old preparing to become a suicide bomber in Times Square. In a performance you won’t soon forget, we never learn why she made her decision – she’s made it already. We don't know who she represents, or what she believes in; we only know she believes it absolutely. This amazing film strips the story down to its existential core. Rather than giving us answers the filmmaker asks us to speculate about someone who has chosen when and how they will die. We are not asked to be sympathetic, but to travel along and draw our own conclusions. (Julia Loktev; USA; 2006: 94 min)

July 6 - 12: Triad Election

“The surfaces gleam as luxuriously as in a Hollywood film, but the blood on the

floor here seems stickier.” –NYTimes

Johnnie To’s answer to the Godfather films confirms his reputation as one of Hong Kong’s astutely gifted filmmakers. The violence comes quickly but lasts briefly in the struggle for the chairmanship of Hong Kong’s crime families, the Triads. We follow the reluctant candidate Jimmy, a pragmatic businessman. He knows the Triads and their traditions are a dying breed — the real money is to be made in China’s New Economy. This perspective makes the movie more than another action-genre flick: it’s a portrait of cultural-identity conflict. With subtitles. (Johnnie To; Hong Kong; 2007; 92 min)

July 13 - 26: The Boss Of It All

The controversial but ever-interesting Lars von Trier (Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves) takes a break from his Dogme95 melodramas to deliver a workplace comedy of errors. When the owner of an IT company decides to sell, he’s forced to wheel out the CEO to seal the deal. But the CEO was his creation, invented to take blame for unpopular decisions. Trier uses an invention he calls Automavision, by which the camera is semi-randomly manipulated by computer, giving the film a documentary-style authenticity amid the nearly brilliant farce. With subtitles. (Lars von Trier; Denmark; 2006; 99 min)

Opens July 27: The Trials of Darryl Hunt

“Powerful and unsettling.” –Variety.

In 1984, a black North Carolinian teenager was convicted of life in prison for the murder of a young white woman. What transpired over the next 19 years graphically illustrates the holes in the American justice system. The film sketches a quietly damning portrait of a community divided by a horrific crime. Outraged without being outrageous, this is an investigative documentary of the highest order. (Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg; USA; 2006; 113 min)

Regent Square Theater – 1035 South Braddock Ave.

Opens July 6: Paprika

“It expands your notion of what animation can achieve. You wake from it as if from a dream: spooked, provoked and exhilarated.” – Newsweek

The buzz about this film just keeps getting louder. An eye-popping anime for adults, it’s from one of the most exciting young Japanese animators (Tokyo Godfathers, Millenium Actress) working today. Paprika is part detective story, part thriller, part surrealist fantasy. But it’s also a look at how we live out our subconscious lives through dreams, the Internet and movies themselves. The plot centers on a machine that allows psychotherapists to enter, and alter, the dreams of their patients. But when a prototype of this new invention -- called the DC Mini -- is stolen, havoc ensues. The line between reality and nightmare is breached. (Satoshi Kon; Japan; 2007; 90 min)

Opens July 20: Jindabyne

"Subtle, compassionate and spiritual." - Salon

Before this film, Australian director Ray Lawrence made just two (Bliss and Lantana) in 21 years, but in his country he’s discussed in reverential terms. A half a decade later, Lawrence is back with this adaptation of Raymond Carver's haunting short story, "So Much Water So Close to Home" (adapted in 1991 by Robert Altman as part of Short Cuts). In this contemplative mystery, Laura Linney plays an American living in Jindabyne, New South Wales with her Irish-born husband, Stewart (Gabriel Byrne), and their son. Stewart and his friends go on their annual fishing trip in the remote Snowy Mountains. But on the first day they spot the body of an Aboriginal woman. Initially distraught, the men decide to stay through the weekend. Their decision meets with disapproval from their wives, the press, and when accusations of racism start flying their lives start unraveling. (Ray Lawrence; Australia; 2006; 123 min)

Sunday Night Series: 40’s Bogart

This series of Black & White classics offers a chance to explore the enigmatic appeal and the riveting performances of this Hollywood legend in his prime.

July 1: Maltese Falcon

Through a maze of double-crosses and backstabbing, the hard-boiled detective Sam Spade (Bogart) fights to get hold of an elusive, valuable statue. Pre-dating most of the great films noir, the style and plot of this classic created the mold. Also starring Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Mary Astor. (John Huston; 1941; 100 min)

July 8: To Have and Have Not

Bogart and his pals, who run charter boats in war time Martinique, get involved in smuggling, but the film's enduring popularity is not its plot -- it’s the sexy chemistry between Bogart and 19-year-old newcomer Lauren Bacall, especially in the legendary "you know how to whistle, don't you Steve?" scene. (Howard Hawks; 1944; 100 min)

July 15: Casablanca

We can never get enough of this treasure of World War II romance and intrigue featuring some of the best performances in the history of American cinema (Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid). An expatriate in North Africa runs into a former lover with unexpected complications. "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…” See it with someone you love. (Michael Curtiz; 1942; 102 min)

July 22: Key Largo

Bogart and Bacall created magic again in this moody story of hostages held in a rundown hotel in the Florida Keys during a category 5 hurricane. Bogart displays a gritty charisma and cynical sense of humor as he spars with the mob boss Johnny Rocco, played by Edward G. Robinson. (John Huston; 1948; 101 min)

July 29: Treasure of Sierra Madre

Two down-and-out Americans in 1920s Mexico hook up with an old-timer (played by Walter Huston, the director's father) to prospect for gold. Soon greed sets in and Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs begins to lose both his trust and his mind. “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges.” One of the first Hollywood films to be shot almost entirely on location. (John Huston; 1948; 126 min)

Melwood Screening Room – 477 Melwood Ave.

July 10: Film Kitchen

Presented on the second Tuesday of every month, Film Kitchen showcases regional film and video art. Reception begins at 7:00; films begin at 8:00. Co-sponsored by Pittsburgh City Paper, WYEP-FM, Pittsburgh Brewing. For more info: www.filmkitchen.org

Special Event - July 12: Not For Sale

Twenty-seven million people live in slavery today and over half of those are children. A film crew traveled 120,.000 miles and five continents to investigate the modern slave trade, shooting undercover footage of this trafficking. Based on the book by David Batstone, the film features startling footage and inspirational interviews of dedicated abolitionists in Cambodia, Peru, Moldova, Thailand, Uganda and the US. (Robert Marcarelli; USA; 2006; 85 min) Screening is followed by Q&A with representatives from the Pittsburgh based non-profit The Project to End Human Trafficking. Tickets are $12; all proceeds go to the organization.

July 13 - 19: Brand Upon the Brain!

"...a phantasmagoric story that could be a collaboration between Edgar Allan Poe and Salvador Dali. It's an astonishing film: weird, obsessed…hypnotic.” - Roger Ebert

This hilarious labyrinthine of a film received standing ovations at both Toronto and New York Film Festivals. Visionary Guy Maddin’s (The Saddest Music in the World) newest satire is his most spectacularly outrageous and purely enjoyable project to date. Infused with his trademark surrealist touches, the film is an original view on the experience of growing up: part detective serial, part horror film, part family drama. Stunning to look at, this beautiful black and white – and silent – film features a remarkable orchestral score and a narration by Isabella Rossellini. (Guy Maddin; Canada; 2006; 95 min)

July 23 only: The T.A.M.I. Show with Adam Sekuler

How does one of the greatest moments in rock-n-roll end up in a junk pile? An organization called Search and Rescue (co-founded by Adam Sekuler, it’s dedicated to presenting and preserving discarded archives of 16mm films) rescued this 1964 rock masterpiece from the dustbins of history. A who’s who of early 1960s rock, The T.A.M.I. SHOW features performances from guitar hero Chuck Berry, Motown superstars Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, British Invasion acts Gerry and the Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, garage rock legends The Barbarians, teen angst goddess Leslie Gore, surf music pioneers The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, and a veritable “Battle of the Bands" between two of the most exciting stage acts in rock history, James Brown and his Famous Flames and The Rolling Stones! Visiting from Seattle, Sekuler will present The T.A.M.I. Show, as well as excerpts from other lost treasures. He is currently program director for Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum.

July 27 – 29: Walking to Werner

Acclaimed (and notoriously obsessive) director Werner Herzog once walked from Munich to Paris to visit a dying friend. Inspired by Herzog’s approach to life and art, filmmaker Linas Phillips vowed to walk all the way from Seattle to Herzog’s house in Los Angeles. This profound film documents his struggles, encounters, questions and revelations along the journey. Braving traffic, shin splints and highway patrol, Phillips continues on, haunted by doubt but clinging to hope that fate will bring him to Herzog -- even after learning Herzog is away on a shoot. Meanwhile, he meets one marginal roadside character after another, lining up an unforgettably cast of characters. Punctuated by emails, voicemails and excerpts of audio commentary, these stories and Phillips’ own powerhouse narration make Walking to Werner as much a testament to human vulnerability and redemption as a chronicle of the 1,200-mile quest. (Linas Phillips; USA; 2006; 95 min)

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