This Weekend In New Haven

Sixty-Eight! Europe, Cinema, Revolution?
A Film Festival and Conference at Yale University
Thursday, February 15 to Saturday, February 17, 2007
Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St., New Haven, CT

Sixty-Eight! Europe, Cinema, Revolution? will focus on the New Wave cinemas of Eastern and Western Europe leading up to and in the aftermath of the political showdowns of 1968. The European Studies Council, along with the Film Studies Program and the Department of the History of Art, has organized the festival around a wide variety of films from many countries, from little-known gems and avant-garde shorts to recognized cinematic classics. The festival will interlace feature films, documentaries, and experimental films with introductions by scholars and critics from a range of disciplines, and informal panels and open discussions. A complete list of participants and details may be found at http://www.yale.edu/macmillan/europeanstudies/1968

Thursday, February 15
7:00pm Far From Vietnam (Jean-Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais and Agnes Varda, France, 1967, 16mm)
9:30pm I Am Curious - Yellow (Vilgot Sjoman, Sweden, 1967, 35mm)

Friday, February 16
9:00am Cinegiornali liberi (Cesare Zavattini et al., Italy, 1968, 16mm)
Classe de lutte (Les Groupes Medvedkine de Besancon, France, 1968, 16mm)
La reprise du travail aux usines Wonder (Etats generaux du cinema, France, 1968, DVD)

10:45am Discussion: Giorgio De Vincenti (Universita di Roma-III), Michael Denning (Yale), Annette Michelson (Tisch School of the Arts, NYU), Jennifer Stob (Yale)

11:45am: Metrum (Ivan Balad'a, Czechoslovakia, 1967, DVD)
Forest (Ivan Balad'a, Czechoslovakia, 1969, DVD)
Silence (Milan Peer, Czechoslovakia, 1969, 35mm)

2:00pm: Birds, Orphans and Fools (Juraj Jakubisko, Czechoslovakia, 1969, 35mm)
The Red and the White (Miklos Jancso, Hungary, 1967, 35mm)

5:00pm Discussion: Katerina Clark, Laura Engelstein, Alice Lovejoy, John MacKay (all from Yale)

7:00pm: The Words of the Chairman (Harun Farocki, West Germany, 1968, 16mm)
La Chinoise (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1967, 35mm)

8:45pm Discussion: Francesco Casetti (Universita Cattolica, Milan), Kristin Ross (NYU), Sally Shafto (Big Muddy Film Festival, Southern Illinois University)

9:30pm: China is Near (Marco Bellocchio, Italy, 1967, 35mm)

Saturday, February 17
9:00am: The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet, West Germany, 1968, 35mm)
Alaska (Dore O, West Germany, 1968, 16mm)
Jum-Jum (Werner Nekes, West Germany, 1968, 16mm)
Raw Film (W. and B. Hein, West Germany, 16mm)

12:00pm Discussion: Thomas Elsaesser (University of Amsterdam), Terri Francis (Yale), Gundula Kreuzer (Yale)

2:00pm: Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (Alexander Kluge, West Germany, 1968, 16mm)
4:00pm: Notes for a Film about India (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1968, DVD)
Black Panthers (Agnes Varda, USA, 1968, 16mm)

5:30pm Discussion: Hazel Carby (Yale), Kathleen Cleaver (Yale), Anita Trivelli (l'Università "Gabriele d'Annunzio", Chieti-Pescara)

7:30pm: Le Revelateur (Philippe Garrel, France, 1967, DVD)
La revolution n'est qu'un debut: continuons le combat (Pierre Clementi, France, 1968, DVD)

9:30pm: The Structure of Crystal (Krzysztof Zanussi, Poland, 1969, 35mm)

For those of my readers who might be in the New Haven area this weekend, Yale will be hosting a film festival and conference focusing on of the most politically-contentious years in the postwar era: 1968. As a point of reference, it is important to note that this is the third such conference hosted at the university, with the first two focusing upon the years 1945 and 1956 respectively. In other words, 1968, with all its connotations, is not the sole purpose behind the conference. This is first the opportunity to screen a number of European films that emerged from the same zeitgeist. While I myself would have preferred a less shall we say "obvious" year -- and one richer in film art -- such as say 1962 or especially 1967 (which you will notice is the year of many of the films screened for the conference anyway), the opportunity to see so many rare works is indeed tantalizing, and not to be missed if you're anywhere close to New Haven. So too will be the discussions that include a number of my former and current professors and colleagues including NYU emeritus faculty Annette Michelson. For those outside the area, I will do my best to blog as much of the event as is possible -- one could say correspondences from the front.