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First Festival of Independent American Movies
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Until October 16
Stas Namin’s Art Centre, 35 mm and Federal Agency of Culture and Cinematography of Russia present the First Festival of Independent American Movies First Festival of Independent American Movies "IndieVisual". The festival will take place at 35 mm Big Hall between October 12 and 16 featuring director Todd Solondz (pictured) at the opening night. Please see our Arts Calendar: Film.
In the programme:
October 13, Thursday
19:00 "Palindromes" presented by it's director Todd Solondz.
21:00 "Welcome To The Dollhouse” presented by it's director Todd Solondz.
October 14, Friday
19:00 “Last days” by Gus Van Sant
21:00 "Strange Days" by Kathryn Bigelow
October 15, Saturday
19:00 “The Doom Generation” by Gregg Araki
21:00 “I Shot Andy Warhol” by Mary Harron
October 16, Sunday
19:00 “Personal Velocity: Three Portraits” by Rebecca Miller
21:00 “Velvet Goldmine” by Todd Haynes
Todd Solondz
With Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) and Happiness (1998), director Todd Solondz (pictured) established himself as one of the most eloquent interpreters of suburban hell and general human dysfunction. Himself a product of the suburbs he portrays in his films, Solondz was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1960. Saddled with years of suburban experience and a decidedly unconventional appearance (one of his trademarks is the thick black glasses that distort his face), Solondz decided to funnel his energies into filmmaking and duly enrolled at New York University's film school.
On the strength of a few film shorts he made while at NYU (including "How I Became a Leading Artistic Figure in New York City's East Village Cultural Landscape" for Saturday Night Live), Solondz was offered three-picture deals by two major Hollywood studios. Unfortunately, his first film, Fear, Anxiety and Depression (1989) failed miserably. Following this disappointment, Solondz dropped out of filmmaking for a while, opting to teach English to Russian immigrants.
An arrangement with a lawyer friend who secured him funding for a low-budget effort brought Solondz back into filmmaking, and the result was Welcome to the Dollhouse. The bleak, unforgiving, and perversely hilarious tale of pubescent outcast Dawn "Wienerdog" Wiener (played expertly by Heather Matarazzo) was first shown at the Toronto Film Festival (after being rejected from several other prominent festivals), and then at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded the festival's Grand Prize in 1996. Upon its general (arthouse) release, Dollhouse was greeted with a positive reception, although more than one critic had trouble with the film's punishing content.
Welcome to the Dollhouse's critical controversies were overshadowed by Solondz's next effort, 1998's Happiness. A very, very black comedy that served up a heaping dose of suburban dysfunction, Happiness, in the words of producer Christine Vachon, was a "nonjudgmental film about a pedophile." One of its central plotlines--about a father who has an unnatural attraction to his young son's friends--caused sizable unhappiness among various critics and cultural watchdogs. However, the film also won considerable acclaim, premiering at the 1998 Cannes Festival to a positive reception and going on to establish Solondz further as one of the most original and provocative directors of his era.
After all the fuss over Happiness, few doubted that Solandz's eagerly anticipated follow up woud be any less controversial - though just how controversial it actually turned out to be came as quite a surprise to many. Originally concieved as three tales of dysfunction as only Solandz could envision, controversy reared its ugly head early on when star James Van Der Beek's segment was cut for reasons that varied wildly depending on what source they came from. By the time the film did hit screens in 2002, it was divided into two segments - titled "Fiction" and "Non-Fiction." The first segment starring Selma Blair as a college student who has an sexual encounter with her African-American writing professor, the sordid scene nearly earned the film the dreaded "NC-17" before Solandz opted not to shy away, but actually draw attention to the MPAA's unique brand of censorship. By placing a large orange box over the offending scene instead o simply trimming it so that unsuspecting audiences might not have even noticed it was cut, Solandz polarized audiences into two camps. While some thought the director was courting controversy for no other reason than to sell tickets, others saw the act of self censorship as a cry to question the be-all-end-all authorty of the MPAA to dictate which films are acceptable for mass release and which aren't. It would come as no surprise that some touted Solandz as a cinematic genius while others saw the effort as little more than a poorly executed attempt at being controversial.
Initial reports on Solandz's next picture - entitled Palindromes and scheduled for release in 2004 - made the film sound like something of an expansion the the dysfunctional family themes of the "Non-Fiction" segment of Storytelling.
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