#InTheLoop | Georgian Films Mix with Over-The-Top Extravaganzas
BY QEDC It's In Queens
The Museum of the Moving Image is competing against…The Museum of the Moving Image.
The venerable venue launches two programs — New Georgian Cinema and See It Big: Extravaganzas! (Part One) — on Friday, Nov. 5.
New Georgian Cinema will screen six new movies from the former Soviet Republic where Joseph Stalin was born. Without much press attention, Georgia has become a creative, energetic, and eclectic center for modern film. This series presents stories, characters, and situations that explore the complexities and challenges of life in a former Communist satellite at the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
Meanwhile, See It Big: Extravaganzas! (Part One) will share several dozen films from various countries and eras. The common thread is excess with teeming canvases, crammed frames, ornate art direction, lush camerawork, and intense performances. Directors include Francis Ford Coppola, Cecil B. DeMille, Federico Fellini, and Zhang Yimou.
General admission is $15 for all the shows.
Here is a mini-schedule for New Georgian Cinema.
Beginning (Nov. 5 at 6:30 pm) takes place in a town where a Jehovah’s Witnesses community is under attack from an extremist group. As a community leader’s wife watches her world crumble around her, a detective intrudes on her home.
Let the Summer Never Come Again (Nov. 6 at 12:30 pm) is a love story/road movie.
Taming the Garden (Nov. 6 at 4:30 pm) is about a wealthy man who collects centuries-old, skyscraper-sized trees from rural Georgia. The documentary shows workers extract trees from farms and hillsides, secure them to flatbed trucks, and guide them to the seashore, where they float on barges to the main subject’s private garden.
What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (Nov. 6 at 6:30 pm) takes place in a riverside town where summertime romance and World Cup fever are in the air.
Shorts + Dead Souls’ Vacation (Nov. 7 at 1 pm) is a documentary about a once successful bass player who can’t land a gig. He wanders Tbilisi looking for work while fielding constant calls from his homebound, elderly mother. The director, George Sikharulidze, will be there.
Comets (Nov. 7 at 3:30 pm) is about a woman who returns to her summer house more than three decades after leaving and runs into a significant character from her youth.
Here’s the line-up for See It Big: Extravaganzas! (Part One).
The Sign of the Cross, Nov. 5 at 7 pm;
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Nov. 6 at 4 pm;
The Sign of the Cross, Nov. 7 at 12:30 pm;
Tommy, Nov. 13 at 1 pm;
The Scarlet Empress + Flaming Creatures, Nov. 13 at 4 pm;
Tommy, Nov. 14 at 5:30 pm;
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Nov. 19 at 3 pm;
Satyricon + Toby Dammit, Nov. 20 at 6 pm;
The Grand Budapest Hotel + The Impossible Voyage, Nov. 21 at 1 pm;
Satyricon + Toby Dammit, Nov. 21 at 4 pm;
Daisies, Nov. 26 at 7 pm;
The Grand Budapest Hotel + The Impossible Voyage, Nov. 27 at 3:30 pm;
Daisies, Nov. 27 at 6:30 pm;
The Forbidden Room, Nov. 28 at 1:30 pm;
Orlando, Dec. 5 at 1:30 pm;
Freak Orlando, Dec. 5 at 4 pm;
The Grand Budapest Hotel + The Impossible Voyage, Dec. 10 at 3 pm;
The Forbidden Room, Dec. 10 at 7 pm;
Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Dec. 11 at 3:30 pm;
Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Dec. 12 at 1:30 pm;
Belly, Dec. 17 at 7 pm;
Freak Orlando, Dec. 18 at 1 pm;
Orlando, Dec. 18 at 4 pm;
House of Flying Daggers, Dec. 18 at 6 pm;
House of Flying Daggers, Dec. 19 at 1 pm; and
Belly, Dec. 19 at 4 pm
The Museum of the Moving Image is located at 36-01 35th Ave. in Astoria’s Kaufman Arts District.
Top image: Dead Souls’ Vacation; bottom image: Satyricon, Park Circus