Brittany Runs a Marathon at Real Art Ways

Brittany Forgler is a hilarious, friendly, hot mess of a New Yorker who always knows how to have a good time, but at 27, her late-night adventures and early-morning walks-of-shame are starting to catch up to her. When she stops by a Yelp-recommended doctor’s office in an attempt to score some Adderall, she finds herself slapped with a prescription she never wanted.

Forced to face reality for the first time in a long time, Brittany laces up her Converse and runs one sweaty block. The next day, she runs two. Soon she runs a mile. Brittany finally has direction–but is she on the right path?

The culminating event of our summer filmmaking program, Eye On Video.

Eye On Video is one of six studios sponsored by the Greater Hartford Arts Council’s Neighborhood Studios. 15 high schoolers from the Greater Hartford area come together to create original short films in just six weeks. They learn about the filmmaking process from inception and screenplay writing to filming and editing. This showcase is their opportunity to share their films with the community at large. This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

For more information about our education programs, contact Tina Parziale at 860.232.1006 x129 or tparziale@realartways.org.

New York Times Critic Pick, 93% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

From filmmaker Joe Talbot comes a lyrical and lovingly crafted ode to friendship, family, and the frustrations of living in a rapidly changing San Francisco. Born out of the filmmaker’s childhood friendship with his lead actor and subject, who spent his early childhood living in a sprawling Victorian house, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a feat of personal storytelling about the meaning and magic of home, the importance of community, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to become who we are. The story of one man trying to reclaim the house he grew up in, Talbot’s feature debut is about finding peace within yourself, no matter where you live.

94% on Rotten Tomatoes

This documentary offers an unflinching look at the legendary reporter, who interrogated the 20th century’s biggest figures in his fifty-plus years on air. His aggressive reporting style and showmanship redefined what America came to expect from broadcasters.

Unearthing decades of never-before-seen footage from the 60 Minutes vault, the film explores what drove and plagued Wallace, whose storied career was entwined with the evolution of journalism itself.

93% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

Echo in the Canyon celebrates the explosion of popular music that came out of LA’s Laurel Canyon in the mid-60s as folk went electric and The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield and The Mamas and the Papas gave birth to the California Sound.

It was a moment (1965 to 1967) when bands came to LA to emulate The Beatles and Laurel Canyon emerged as a hotbed of creativity and collaboration for a new generation of musicians who would soon put an indelible stamp on the history of American popular music.

Featuring Jakob Dylan, the film explores the beginnings of the Laurel Canyon music scene. Dylan uncovers never-before-heard personal details behind the bands and their songs and how that music continues to inspire today.

Echo in the Canyon contains candid conversations and performances with Brian Wilson, Ringo Starr, Michelle Phillips, Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Roger McGuinn and Jackson Browne as well as contemporary musicians they influenced such as Tom Petty (in his very last film interview), Beck, Fiona Apple, Cat Power, Regina Spektor and Norah Jones.

A New York Times Critic’s Pick

In August 1969, nearly half a million people gathered at a farm in upstate New York to hear music. What happened over the next three days, however, was far more than a concert. It would become a legendary event, one that would define a generation and mark the end of one of the most turbulent decades in modern history.

Occurring just weeks after an American set foot on the moon, the Woodstock music festival took place against a backdrop of a nation in conflict over sexual politics, civil rights and the Vietnam War. A sense of an America in transition – a handoff of the country between generations with far different values and ideals – was tangibly present at what promoters billed as “An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace and Music.”

The documentary turns the lens back at the audience, at the swarming, impromptu city that grew up overnight on a few acres of farm land. What took place in that teaming mass of humanity – the rain-soaked, starving, tripping, half-a-million strong throng of young people – was nothing less than a miracle of teamwork, a manifestation of the “peace and love” the festival had touted and a validation of the counter-culture’s promise to the world.

Who were these kids? What experiences and stories did they carry with them to Bethel, New York that weekend, and how were they changed by three days in the muck and mire of Yasgur’s farm?

Two rebellious young women – one fleeing the chaos of secular hedonism for the disciplined comforts of faith; the other desperate to transcend her oppressive religious upbringing for sexual and spiritual freedom – cross paths unexpectedly in Jerusalem, to startling consequences.

On one side is Anat Abadi, an intense young woman who has recently found God, to the horror of her secular tribe. On the other is Sari Alter, a married mother who, having escaped her cloistered religious upbringing for the promise of secular freedom, is chafing under the constraints of her humdrum marriage, feeling she had traded one cage for another.

Both women must confront the tension between self-assertion and tribal affiliation as they negotiate dueling fundamental human desires: to be, and to belong. Along their intersecting journeys they and the characters in their orbit traverse uneasily the landscape of competing faiths, ambitions, and viewpoints.

By the end, it is the power of the human encounter that will change profoundly the way each of them regards both truth and ‘the other.’

From Argentine director Benjamín Naishtat comes a crime drama with a distinctively 1970s look, sound and vibe. 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.

In the mid-seventies, a strange man arrives in a quiet provincial city.

In a restaurant, without any apparent reason, he starts insulting Claudio, a renowned lawyer. The community supports the lawyer and the stranger is humiliated and thrown out of the place.

Later that night the stranger, who is determined to wreak a terrible vengeance, intercepts Claudio and his wife Susana.

The lawyer then takes a path of no return involving death, secrets and silences.

Ends Thursday
Award-winning filmmaker Aviva Kempner (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, Rosenwald) tells the real story of Moe Berg, major league baseball player turned spy.

Berg caught and fielded in the major leagues during baseball’s Golden Age in the 1920s and 1930s. But very few people know that Berg also worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), spying in Europe and playing a prominent role in America’s efforts to undermine the German atomic bomb program during WWII.

The Spy Behind Home Plate reveals the life of this unknown Jewish hero through rare historical footage and photographs as well as revealing interviews with an All-Star roster of celebrities and other individuals from the worlds of sports, spycraft, and history.

Berg may have had only a .243 batting average during his 15-year major league career, but it was the stats he collected for the OSS that made him a most valuable player to his country during World War II.

Click here to read Don Gonyea’s interview with director Aviva Kempner from NPR’s All Things Considered, Sunday, June 2, 2019.

Ends Thursday
98% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

During the summer of 1990 in Chile, a small group of families lives in an isolated community right below the Andes, building a new world away from the urban excesses, with the emerging freedom that followed the recent end of the dictatorship.

In this time of change and reckoning,16-year-old Sofía and Lucas, and 10-year-old Clara, neighbors in this dry land, struggle with parents, first loves, and fears, as they prepare a big party for New Year’s Eve. They may live far from the dangers of the city, but not from those of nature.

Toni Morrison passed away on August 5. We join the world in mourning her passing and thanking her for her work. We had finished our run of this movie. We’re bringing it back again starting Friday, August 16.

97% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

In the summer of 1973, a young international crew of six women and five men embarked together on a most unusual sea voyage. They began a close-quarters trip across the Atlantic from Spain to Mexico on a free-floating raft christened the Acali.

The voyage was initiated by Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genovés, who proposed to use the group as guinea pigs in his investigation of the origins of violent conflict and dynamics of sexual attraction.

Contentious from the get-go and incorrectly labeled by the media as ‘The Sex Raft,’ the Acali mission took 101 days to reach its destination. Now, more than forty years later, the surviving crew members reunite to reenact and recollect their experiences, additionally illustrated with extensive 16mm archival footage from the voyage.

What results is a document of the thin line between science and cultism in the early ‘70s, a touching story of female camaraderie and, in the character of Genovés, an unforgettable portrait of oblivious, toxic masculinity.

Ends Thursday
90% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes
A New York Times Critic’s Pick

This inspiring documentary chronicles the eight-year quest of John and Molly Chester as they trade city living for 200 acres of barren farmland and a dream to harvest in harmony with nature.

Through dogged perseverance and embracing the opportunity provided by nature’s conflicts, the Chester’s unlock and uncover a biodiverse design for living that exists far beyond their farm, its seasons, and our wildest imagination.

Featuring breathtaking cinematography, captivating animals, and an urgent message to heed Mother Nature’s call, The Biggest Little Farm provides a blueprint for better living and a healthier planet.

Click here to listen to the NPR Documentary of the Week (5/10/19) podcast about the film with Raphaela Neihausen and Thom Powers of NPR affiliate WNYC.

About the Farm
Apricot Lane Farms is a traditional foods farm started by John and Molly Chester, a husband and wife team, who left their jobs in Los Angeles to become farmers and pursue their dream vision of starting Apricot Lane Farms in 2011. Located 40 miles north of Los Angeles, the farm is dedicated to the mission of creating a well-balanced eco-system and rich soils that produce nutrient-dense foods while treating the environment and the animals with respect.

Apricot Lane farm residents include pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, guinea hens, horses, highland cattle, and one brown swiss dairy cow named “Maggie.” Many of which, you will meet in The Biggest Little Farm. The land consists of Biodynamic Certified avocado and lemon orchards, a vegetable garden, pastures, and over 75 varieties of stone fruit.

From the filmmaking team behind the highly-acclaimed documentary The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years, Pavarotti lifts the curtain on the icon who brought opera to the people.

Academy Award winner Ron Howard puts audiences front row center for an exploration of The Voice…The Man…The Legend. Luciano Pavarotti gave his life to the music and a voice to the world.

This cinematic event features history-making performances and intimate interviews, including never-before-seen footage.

96% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

Ollie (Tessa Thompson) is a reformed drug runner in an economically depressed small town in North Dakota, who was caught coming back from Canada with medicine for her terminally ill mother and has been toeing the line ever since.

After her mother dies, Ollie’s sister Deb (Lily James) shows up on her doorstep with a hungry child and an unplanned pregnancy.

Ollie can only see one viable option: quickly raise money to pay back the bank and hold onto their mother’s home, so Deb can raise her family safely away from her abusive ex. But to do that, she’ll need to return to the dangerous way of life she thought she’d left behind.

Writer/director Nia DaCosta won Tribeca Film Festival’s 2018 Nora Ephron Award for this emotionally-charged small-town modern Western about two women in rural America. Their sister bond, beautifully exemplified by the authentic and lived-in relationship between Tessa Thompson’s Ollie and Lily James’ Deb, is what keeps them connected but can also tie them down.

Held Over for Saturday & Sunday

Hailed as “the Michelangelo of yoga” and considered to be one of the most important masters in the world, B.K.S. Iyengar is credited with bringing the ancient art of yoga to the modern masses.

Born in Southern India 100 years ago, the legendary guru is the founder of Iyengar Yoga, a form of Hatha known for its rigorous mental and spiritual focus.

Filmed before he passed away in 2014, this intimate portrait centres on Iyengar’s legacy and teachings, while illuminating the life-changing holistic methods at the core of his practice.

Whether you’re a seasoned devotee or simply looking for self-care motivation, this profound film is bound to steer you on the path to mindfulness.

A New York Times Critic’s Pick
100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

Known as “the artist among architects,” Luis Barragán is among the world’s most celebrated architects of the 20th century.

Upon his death in 1988, much of his work was locked away in a Swiss bunker, hidden from the world’s view.

In an attempt to resurrect Barragán’s life and art, boundary redefining artist Jill Magid creates a daring proposition that becomes a fascinating artwork in itself—a high-wire act of negotiation that explores how far an artist will go to democratize access to art.

Narrated by Jodie Foster, this documentary tells the story of the first female filmmaker, Alice Guy-Blaché. It explores the heights of fame and financial success she achieved before she was shut out from the very industry she helped create.

Guy-Blaché started her career as a secretary to Léon Gaumont and, at 23, was inspired to make her own film called La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy), one of the first narrative films ever made.

After her filmmaking career at Gaumont (1896-1907), she had a second decade-long career in the U.S., where she built and ran her own studio in Fort Lee, N.J. Over the span of her career, she wrote, produced or directed 1,000 films, including 150 with synchronized sound during the ‘silent’ era.

Her work includes comedies, westerns and dramas, as well as films with groundbreaking subject matter such as child abuse, immigration, Planned Parenthood, and female empowerment. She also etched a place in history by making the earliest known surviving narrative film with an all-black cast.

Green has dedicated more than eight years of research in order to discover the real story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968) – not only highlighting her pioneering contributions to the birth of cinema but also her acclaim as a creative force and entrepreneur in the earliest years of movie-making.

Green interviewed Patty Jenkins, Diablo Cody, Ben Kingsley, Geena Davis, Ava DuVernay, Michel Hazanavicius, and Julie Delpy – to name a few–who comment on Guy-Blache’s innovations. Green discovered rare footage of televised interviews and long archived audio interviews which can be heard for the first time in Be Natural.

100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes
Based on the book by Sean B. Carroll.

Beginning in the 1960s, a small band of young scientists headed out into the wilderness, driven by an insatiable curiosity about how nature works. Immersed in some of the most remote and spectacular places on Earth—from the majestic Serengeti to the Amazon jungle; from the Arctic Ocean to Pacific tide pools—they discovered a single set of rules that govern all life.

Now in the twilight of their eminent careers, these five unsung heroes of modern ecology share the stories of their adventures, reveal how their pioneering work flipped our view of nature on its head, and give us a chance to reimagine the world as it could and should be.