For Immediate Release Contact: Carol O’Sullivan

December 22, 2008 412-681-5449

Pittsburgh Filmmakers Announces

January Programming

(Pittsburgh, PA) – The following are descriptions of Pittsburgh Filmmakers Film Exhibition program for January 2009. The films are screened at 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.

The Harris Theater – 809 Liberty Ave.

Thru Jan. 8: Let The Right One In

Winner of best narrative feature at this year’s Tribeca Film Fest, this hauntingly beautiful Swedish indie, set in 1982, is a sweet coming-of-age tale and a gory vampire story. We meet Oskar, a serious, solitary 12- year-old who’s constantly picked on at school. He retreats into fantasies of revenge. Then one day he sees Eli, an unkempt, raven-haired girl walking barefoot in the snow. "I'm not a girl," she warns him. Hailed by critics everywhere for its fresh script, chilling suspense, and heart-breaking acting from its young leads, it’s both a masterful exploration of pre-teen alienation and a much-needed redo of the genre. Directed with imagination and promise, the film’s been compared to Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone, and Hallstrom’s My Life As a Dog. With subtitles. (Tomas Alfredson; Sweden; 2008; 114 min)

Yearly Series: The Best Films You May Have Missed

Looking back at 2008, we picked a few gems we thought Pittsburgh audiences wanted a second chance to see on the big screen.

Jan. 9 – 11: The Pool

This beautiful film, which played briefly in Pittsburgh during the 3 Rivers Film Festival, deserves a second chance. From director Chris Smith (American Movie) it tells the story of a boy who works at a hotel on the west coast of India. He sees from his perch in a mango tree, a luxuriant garden and pool hidden behind a wall. The shimmering pool, in which no one seems to swim, is a window onto a world he can hardly imagine. He ekes out a living cleaning hotel rooms and selling plastic bags on the street with his friend. The Pool recalls the best work of neorealist director Satyajit Ray. In English and Hindi with subtitles. (Chris Smith; USA; 2008; 95 min)

Jan. 12 – 15: Repo! The Genetic Opera

Ever since turning away mobs at a single showing of Repo! in this year’s Film Festival, we’ve been trying to get it back. Set in 2056, an epidemic of organ failures devastates the planet. GeneCo, a biotech company, offers organ transplants for a price. Failure to pay brings the collection agency – skilled assassins ordered to recover company property. With 20 amazing rock opera ballads ranging from blood-chillingly gothic to deliciously deviant to sentimental, in addition to sexy, messy, dance numbers, you’ll be singing and slicing for days. (Darren Lynn Bousman; USA; 2008; 98 min)

Jan 16 – 18: Frozen River

Melissa Leo has received nothing but raves for her Oscar-worthy performance in this indie feature, now on many year-end top 10 lists. Shot in the sub-zero temps of upstate New York, it tells the compelling story of a middle-aged mother with two teenagers, who’s lured into the illegal world of immigrant smuggling, when she teams up with a young mom from a nearby Indian reservation. (Courtney Hunt: 2008; USA; 97 min)

Jan 19 – 22: Chop Shop

Shown briefly as part of the Silk Screen Film Festival, this touching film (from the director of Man Push Cart) follows a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, who lives and works in a New York auto-body shop. He tries to make a better life for himself and his sister while saving money to buy a mobile-food van. Filmed on bleak overpasses and in vacant lots in the shadow of Shea Stadium, Chop Shop exposes the kind of hard, marginal labor that more comfortable city dwellers rarely notice. But there is a lyricism at its heart, an unsentimental appreciation of the grace that resides in the struggle for survival. (Ramin Bahrani: USA; 2008; 85 min)

Jan 24 & 25: Man on Wire

One of the best-reviewed films of the year, this amazing documentary is even better on the big screen. On the morning of Aug. 7, 1974, after months of preparation and years of dreaming, a French daredevil named Philippe Petit stepped into the sky above Lower Manhattan. For almost 45 minutes he ambled back and forth on a metal cable strung between the towers of the World Trade Center. The destruction of the twin towers on 9/11 revived an interest in the legendary stunt. (James Marsh; USA; 2008; 90 min)

Jan. 26 – 29: The Fall

Barry Paris called this “a wonder to behold” in his summer review, and Roger Ebert says it is “one of the most extraordinary films I've ever seen.” From director Tarsem Singh (The Cell) comes this ambitious epic of high adventure and human drama, set in 1915. A paralyzed stunt man and a four-year old Romanian girl occupy separate wings in the same LA hospital. One day he begins to tell her stories and we see them through her eyes – lush, vibrant, magical visions. Tarsem, who shot her visions in 28 countries over four years, says no computers were used to create them – they really exist. (Tarsem Singh; USA/India; 2008; 116 min)

Jan. 30 - Feb. 5: Ballast

Nominated for the 2008 Independent Spirit Award’s Best Picture and winner of Best Director and Best Cinematography at Sundance, this compelling drama by first time director Lance Hammer is racking up awards. Featured in this year’s 3 Rivers Film Festival, it’s infused with a bracing, gritty realism using all non-professional actors. Set in the Mississippi delta, it’s the tale of an uneasy human triangle. There's bad blood between Lawrence and Marlee, who used to be his twin brother's girlfriend. Shot using only available light, the southern landscapes are wide, flat, wet and strewn with debris. Variety called this film “an extraordinary debut.” (Lance Hammer; USA; 2007; 96 min)

Jan. 23: Special Screening For Gallery Crawl

Pittsburgh Reframed (at 250) will run continuously, beginning at 6:00pm. FREE.

Regent Square Theater – 1035 South Braddock Ave.

Jan. 1 – 4: Slap Shot – new print!

Filmed in Johnstown and Pittsburgh more than 30 years ago, this remains one of the greatest sports comedies of all-time. The late great Paul Newman is near his peak as Reggie Dunlop – the romantic, manipulative, womanizing, hard-drinking coach, whose minor-league team can’t seem to win a game. After recruiting some slightly shady players, (the high-sticking Hanson brothers achieve comic immortality in their only film appearance) they see their luck turn around with a new strategy of unrestrained violence and on-ice aggression. Unrepentantly crude, Slap Shot showcases Newman’s prodigious comedic talents. (George Roy Hill; USA; 1977; 123 min)

Jan. 5 – 8: Diva

“A brash, snazzy thriller…conspicuously clever and shamelessly glam.” –Village Voice When released 26 years ago, this divine piece of madness became an international art-house sensation. (Jean-Jacques Beineix; France; 1983; 123 min)

Jan. 9 - 15: Dear Zachary

Named one of the top five documentaries from 2008 by the National Board of Review, this provocative story of love, loss and injustice has a local connection. On the evening of Nov. 5, 2001, Dr. Andrew Bagby, an intern at Latrobe Area Hospital, was murdered in the parking lot of Keystone State Park in Derry Township. The prime suspect, an unstable ex-girlfriend named Dr. Shirley Turner, promptly fled to Newfoundland where she announced that she was pregnant with Andrew's child. Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne, Andrew's childhood friend, originally began this film as a way for little Zachary to learn about his father. But when Shirley Turner was allowed to walk free in Canada, the film's focus shifted to Zachary's grandparents, and their desperate efforts to win custody of the boy. Their story will leave you shaken. (Kurt Kuenne; USA; 2008; 95 min)

Opens Jan. 16: I’ve Loved You So Long

In what critics are calling her finest performance yet, this is the kind of part Kristin Scott Thomas was born to play. Set in eastern France, it tells the profoundly moving story of two sisters rediscovering their connection after years apart. Weary-looking Juliette (Scott Thomas) reunites with younger sister Lea who, though married with two adopted children, warmly accepts her older sister into their home. Lea tells her daughter that Auntie Juliette has been away in England, but it comes out that she has in fact been in prison, jailed for committing an inexplicable crime. “Claudel's film reaches beyond family drama to craft a sophisticated examination of forgiveness.” - Toronto International Film Festival. In French and English. (Phillipe Claudel; France; 2008; 115 min)

Sunday Night Series:

One Shoots, The Other Scores: Collaborations between

Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann

Known for his haunting scores and evocative sound design, Bernard Herrmann collaborated with the master of suspense to create some of the most memorable movies in American cinema. Herrmann began his career composing music for radio dramas, where he met a 22-year-old Orson Welles – who’d later invite him to score Citizen Kane. Herrmann is most closely associated with Hitchcock, partly due to those famous shrieking violins in Psycho’s shower scene. The Hitch-Herrmann partnership lasted from The Trouble With Harry (1955) to Torn Curtain (1966), when creative differences severed their relationship. Some music and film critics note that Hitchcock's later films are less effective without Herrmann's contribution.

Jan 4: The Trouble with Harry

Dark humor was always present in Hitchcock’s films and this rarely seen comedy features a dead body that appears and disappears. Painting with music, Herrmann’s first score for Hitch is light-hearted while evoking the golden days of a New England fall. (1955; 100 min)

Jan 11: Vertigo

In many of the key scenes in this psychological thriller, Hitchcock let Herrmann take center stage with a score that echoes Wagner's "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde, to dramatically convey Scottie’s obsessive love for the woman he tries to shape into a dead, past love. (1958; 128 min)

Jan 18: The Birds

Set in a sleepy coastal California town, this cautionary tale about complacency features no music at all – just a symphony of bird sounds. You’ll never look at a flock of birds the same way again. (1963; 120 min)

Jan 25: Psycho

Herrmann's most recognizable music is from this classic. Unusual for a thriller, the score uses only the string section of the orchestra. The scream-like sound heard during the shower scene (which Hitchcock originally suggested have no music at all) is one of the most famous moments from all of film history. (1960; 109 min)

Melwood Screening Room – 477 Melwood Ave.

Jan. 10: Bill Daniel Closing Performance

Daniel’s gallery show, The Great Depression closes with this event, which features projected 16mm films and a live band. 8:00pm.

Jan. 13: Film Kitchen

This monthly series highlights local independent film and video work. It is presented on the 2^nd Tuesday of every month. Co-sponsored by City Paper, WYEP-FM, Chipolte Mexican Grill, DH Creative, and Rock Light.

Jan. 30 & 31: Fear(s) of the Dark

The six animated tales are a wildly inventive and visually dazzling collection of intertwined shorts by some of the world's most renowned graphic artists: Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire. From a besotted student whose girlfriend is weirdly intense in her affections, to a Japanese schoolgirl menaced by a long-dead samurai, and a pack of hounds on a bloodthirsty rampage, this compilation has a story strand to trouble every sleep - not to mention a stunning range of animation styles. Shot in shimmering black and white, this anthology creates a world where phobias and nightmares come to life. Each time a hound breaks free, it leaps upon the next story, and occasionally, a victim. (various directors; various countries; 2008; 80 min)

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