Birthright: A War Story at Real Art Ways

One Time Only – Film + Discussion

Panel Discussion

On Tuesday, September 19, after the film, stay for a panel discussion moderated by Sarah Croucher, Executive Director, NARAL Pro-Choice CT who will speak about the effects of the anti-choice movement in Connecticut.

BIRTHRIGHT: A WAR STORY is a feature length documentary that examines how women are being jailed, physically violated and even put at risk of dying as a radical movement tightens its grip across America.

The film tells the story of women who have become collateral damage in the aggressive campaign to take control of reproductive health care and to allow states, courts and religious doctrine to govern whether, when and how women will bear children.

The documentary explores the accelerating gains of the crusade to control pregnant women and the fallout that is creating a public health crisis, turning pregnant women into criminals and challenging the constitutional protections of every woman in America.

Post-Film Panel Discussion on Tuesday, September 19

MODERATOR:

Sarah Croucher
Executive Director, NARAL Pro-Choice CT

PANELISTS:

Luchina Fisher
Co-Executive Producer and Writer of Birthright: A War Story

OB-GYN
Hartford GYN Center

Samantha R.
Volunteer Clinic Escort from Hartford GYN Center. Clinic escorts help walk patients in and out of the clinic and ensure that they feel safe on the sidewalk when anti-choice protestors are present.

A Movie in the Afternoon. Every Day.

At 32, Michal (Noa Kooler), an Orthodox Jewish woman, is finally looking forward to the comfort and security of marriage, when she is blindsided by her fiancé’s decision to call off the wedding with only a month’s notice.

Unwilling to return to lonely single life, Michal decides to put her trust in fate and continue with her wedding plans, believing Mr. Right will appear by her chosen date.

Confident she will find a match made in heaven, she books a venue, sends out invitations and buys a wedding dress, as her skeptical mother and sister look on with trepidation.

During Michal’s month-long search for a spouse, she enlists the help of two different matchmakers, goes on a series of disastrous blind dates and finds an unexpected connection with a charming but utterly unsuitable pop star (Oz Zehavi) – all while dismissing pleas by concerned friends and family members that she reconsider her risky plan.

As the day of the ceremony grows closer and no suitor appears, Michal puts everything on the line to find happiness.

Band Aid, the refreshingly raw, real, and hilarious feature debut from Zoe Lister-Jones, is the story of a couple, Anna (Zoe Lister-Jones) and Ben (Adam Pally), who can’t stop fighting.

Advised by their therapist to try and work through their grief unconventionally, they are reminded of their shared love of music. In a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, they decide to turn all their fights into song, and with the help of their neighbor Dave (Fred Armisen), they start a band.

A story of love, loss, and rock and roll, Band Aid is a witty and perceptive view of modern love, with some seriously catchy pop hooks to boot.

A Movie in the Afternoon. Every Day.

Based on author David Grann’s nonfiction bestseller, “The Lost City of Z” tells the incredible true story of British explorer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), who journeys into the Amazon at the dawn of the 20th century and discovers evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization that may have once inhabited the region.

Despite being ridiculed by the scientific establishment who regard indigenous populations as “savages,” the determined Fawcett – supported by his devoted wife (Sienna Miller), son (Tom Holland) and aide-de-camp (Robert Pattinson) – returns time and again to his beloved jungle in an attempt to prove his case, culminating in his mysterious disappearance in 1925.

An epically scaled tale of courage and passion, told in writer/director James Gray’s classic filmmaking style, “The Lost City of Z” is a stirring tribute to the exploratory spirit and a conflicted adventurer driven to the verge of obsession.

A Movie in the Afternoon. Every Day.

He was the pride of Bayonne, New Jersey, a man who went fifteen rounds in the ring with Muhammad Ali, and the real life inspiration for Rocky Balboa.

But before all that, Chuck Wepner (Liev Schreiber) was a liquor salesman and father with a modest prizefighting career whose life changed overnight when, in 1975, he was chosen to take on The Greatest in a highly publicized title match.

It’s the beginning of a wild ride through the exhilarating highs and humbling lows of sudden fame-but what happens when your fifteen minutes in the spotlight are up?

Driven by a committed performance from Liev Schreiber, Chuck is a refreshingly human tale of resilience and redemption. Elisabeth Moss, Naomi Watts, Jim Gaffigan and Ron Perlman costar.

In October 1965, The Beatles were faced with an impossible task—produce a new album of original music for a Christmas release. Within one month, The Beatles had emerged with what many consider to be one of their greatest albums—Rubber Soul.

They even had time to create a double A-side single, “We Can Work It Out” backed by “Day Tripper.” Both sides of the single, as well as the album, hit number one on the charts.

In Deconstructing The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, composer/producer Scott Freiman walks Beatles fans young and old through the creation of Rubber Soul.

Learn the stories behind the creation of “Norwegian Wood,” “In My Life,” “Nowhere Man,” and other classic Beatles songs. Mr. Freiman conducts an educational journey into the creative process of The Beatles performances and recording sessions.

HELD OVER.

A Movie in the Afternoon. Every Day.

The year is 1940, London. With the nation bowed down by war, the British ministry turns to propaganda films to boost morale at home. Realizing their films could use “a woman’s touch,” the ministry hires Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) as a scriptwriter in charge of writing the female dialogue.

Although her artist husband looks down on her job, Catrin’s natural flair quickly gets her noticed by cynical, witty lead scriptwriter Buckley (Sam Claflin).

Catrin and Buckley set out to make an epic feature film based on the Dunkirk rescue starring the gloriously vain, former matinee idol Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy).

As bombs are dropping all around them, Catrin, Buckley and their colorful cast and crew work furiously to make a film that will warm the hearts of the nation.

A Movie in the Afternoon. Every day.

The real-life story of one working wife and mother who became a hero to hundreds during World War II.

In 1939 Poland, Antonina Żabińska (portrayed by two-time Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain) and her husband, Dr. Jan Żabiński (Johan Heldenbergh, a European Film Award nominee for the Academy Award-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown), have the Warsaw Zoo flourishing under his stewardship and her care.

When their country is invaded by the Germans, Jan and Antonina are stunned and forced to report to the Reich’s newly appointed chief zoologist, Lutz Heck (Golden Globe Award nominee Daniel Brühl of Captain America: Civil War).

To fight back on their own terms, the Żabińskis covertly begin working with the Resistance and put into action plans to save lives out of what has become the Warsaw Ghetto, with Antonina putting herself and even her children at great risk.

50th Anniversary Release! Looks and sounds better than ever.

On a beautiful June weekend in 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love, the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward, capturing a decade’s spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll.

Monterey would launch the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, but they were just a few among a wildly diverse cast that included Simon and Garfunkel, the Mamas and the Papas, the Who, the Byrds, Hugh Masekela, and the extraordinary Ravi Shankar.

With his characteristic vérité style, D. A. Pennebaker captured it all, immortalizing moments that have become legend: Pete Townshend destroying his guitar, Jimi Hendrix burning his.

The complete program of performers and songs:

1. The Mamas & the Papas – “California Dreamin'”
2. Canned Heat – “Rollin’ and Tumblin'”
3. Simon & Garfunkel – “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)”
4. Hugh Masekela – “Bajabula Bonke (The Healing Song)”
5. Jefferson Airplane – “High Flyin’ Bird” and “Today”
6. Big Brother and the Holding Company – “Ball ‘n’ Chain”
7. Eric Burdon & The Animals – “Paint It Black”
8. The Who – “My Generation”
9. Country Joe and the Fish – “Section 43”
10. Otis Redding – “Shake” and “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”
11. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – “Wild Thing”
12. The Mamas & the Papas – “Got a Feelin'”
13. Ravi Shankar – “Dhun” (“Dadra and Fast Teental”)

Milestones of a Spiritual Life

This eye-opening documentary, comprising footage shot by various filmmakers in more than 25 countries, explores how different religious practices and rituals from around the globe help reveal our common humanity.

The film immerses the viewer in the daily use of faith and spiritual practice. At a time when religious hatreds dominate the world’s headlines, this film explores faith as primary human experience, and how people turn to ritual and prayer to navigate the milestones and crises of private life.

The film’s director commissioned or sourced footage from top independent filmmakers from a wide range of religious traditions, with each team contributing a single scene.

The film, sweeping in its global reach, yet intensely intimate, is a tour de force that unifies these scenes into a single work, told without narration, without experts and, for long stretches, without words at all.

Director Thomas Lennon has been nominated three times for an Academy Award, winning in 2007.

Part of the 30th Connecticut LGBT Film Festival

This sweeping documentary takes the viewer on a wondrous tour of same-sex desire from ancient times to Victorian crimes in an expedition of erotic history, poetry and visual art.

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker John Scagliotti (Before Stonewall) explores how the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the growth of LGBT political power in the 1990s cleared the path for artists and scholars to re-discover pre-20th century same-sex desires.

Weaving dozens of expert interviews with art and poetry, he revels in lesbian love spells from ancient Rome, homoerotic verses of Michelangelo, censored chapters of the Kamasutra, Native American two-spirit rituals and more.

Director John Scagliotti will be present for a Q&A after the film.

About the Speaker

John Scagliotti Director/Producer
If you care about gay history, John Scagliotti is somebody you should know about.

In 1973, along with his late partner Andrew Kopkind, Scagliotti at Boston’s WBCN created The Lavender Hour, which became the first regularly-scheduled gay-themed program on commercial radio.

In the mid-1980’s, Scagliotti produced the Emmy Award-winning documentary “Before Stonewall.” “Stonewall” is a compelling and still timely look at the roots of the gay and lesbian movement in the US prior to 1969.

And in the early 1990’s, Scagliotti was the moving force behind “In The Life,” the first television series on LGBT life playing on U.S. public television.

His newest project is “Before Homosexuals,” an introduction to the little known stories of LGBT people from deep in human history.

Three short films will play before the feature:

The Closet   (Northeast Premiere)
Directed by Yago Mateo, 2016, UK, 3 min
Martin bought a closet, but not just any closet. This one has attitude.

Scar Tissue    (East Coast Premiere)
Directed by Nish Gera, 2017, Netherlands, 14 min, In English and Arabic with English subtitles
Sami has fled his war-torn hometown of Aleppo for a safer life in Amsterdam and hopes to build a life there as an openly gay man. Most of all, he hopes to escape the ghosts of the past that still haunt him. A chance encounter brings him face to face with the self-assured, direct and sensual Johan. As the night progresses, secrets are revealed that force them to confront some harsh truths about the very different worlds they come from.

Time is the Longest Distance    (New England Premiere)
Directed by Bryan Powers, 2016, USA, 15 min
Adam arrives at his father Jack’s nursing home to share news of a major change in his life, hoping to bridge the distance between them before Jack’s Alzheimer’s becomes too advanced. While things do not go as planned, Jack’s chance encounter with a teenaged boy provides Adam with an unexpected way to find the acceptance he seeks.

FINAL WEEKEND.
93% Fresh Rating on rottentomatoes.com

It’s a shame no one wants to talk to them at parties, because obituary writers are a surprisingly funny bunch!

Ten hours before newspapers hit neighborhood doorsteps — and these days, ten minutes before news hits the web — an obit writer is racing against deadline to sum up a long and newsworthy life in under 1000 words.

The details of these lives are then deposited into the cultural memory amid the daily beat of war, politics, and football scores.

Obit. is the first documentary to explore the world of these writers and their subjects, focusing on the legendary team at The New York Times, who approach their daily work with journalistic rigor and narrative flair.

Going beyond the byline and into the minds of those chronicling life after death on the freshly inked front lines of history, the film invites some of the most essential questions we ask ourselves about life, memory, and the inevitable passage of time.

What do we choose to remember? What never dies?

Beatrice is a motor-mouthed fantasist, a self-styled billionaire countess who likes to believe she’s on intimate terms with world leaders. Donatella is a tattooed introvert, a fragile young woman locked in her own mystery.

They are both patients at the Villa Biondi, a progressive but secure psychiatric clinic.

Paolo Virzì’s new film tells the story of the unpredictable and moving friendship that develops between the two women as they flee the mental institution in search of love and happiness in the open-air nuthouse –  the world of sane people.

Laura Poitras, Academy Award winning director of CITIZENFOUR, has created her most personal and intimate film to date. Filmed over six years, RISK is a complex and volatile character study that collides with a high stakes election year and its controversial aftermath.

Cornered in a tiny building for half a decade, Julian Assange is undeterred even as the legal jeopardy he faces threatens to undermine the organization he leads and fracture the movement he inspired. Capturing this story with unprecedented access, Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle.

In a new world order where a single keystroke can alter history, RISK is a portrait of power, betrayal, truth, and sacrifice. Executive Produced by Sam Esmail, creator of Mr. Robot.

In 2012 Nature published a study led by more than 20 researchers from the top scientific institutions in the world predicting that humankind could disappear between 2040 and 2100. It also said that it could be avoided by drastically changing our way of life and take appropriate measures.

Shortly after giving birth to her first child, French actress and director Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) became increasingly aware of the dangers and the state of urgency that her son will face in the future. Along with friend and activist Cyril Dion and their crew, she decided to travel the world in search of solutions that can help save the next generations. The result is Tomorrow, an inspiring documentary that presents concrete solutions implemented throughout the world by hundred of communities.

From the US to the UK and through Finland and India, together they traveled to 10 countries to visit permaculture farms, urban agriculture projects and community-owned renewable initiatives to highlight people making a difference in the fields of food, energy, finance, democracy, and education.

Their common ideas and examples make Tomorrow one of the most essential and unexpectedly inspirational viewing experiences of our time.

TODAY, we sometimes feel powerless in front of the various crises of our times.

TODAY, we know that answers lie in a wide mobilization of the human race. Over the course of a century, our dream of progress commonly called “the American Dream”, fundamentally changed the way we live and continues to inspire many developing countries. We are now aware of the setbacks and limits of such development policies. We urgently need to focus our efforts on changing our dreams before something irreversible happens to our planet.

TODAY, we need a new direction, objective… A new dream! The documentary Tomorrow sets out to showcase alternative and creative ways of viewing agriculture, economics, energy and education. It offers constructive solutions to act on a local level to make a difference on a global level. So far, no other documentary has gone down such an optimistic road…

TOMORROW is not just a film, it is the beginning of a movement seeking to encourage local communities around the world to change the way they live for the sake of our planet.

Start small to grow big, and write a new story for the generations to come.

Tomorrow is also a book: http://www.chelseagreen.com/tomorrow