Vanishing of the Bees

Follow professional beekeepers around the world in their quest to save the honeybees from colony collapse disorder. Excellent footage. Excellent celebration of Earth Day. 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 21, at the Downtown Coliseum Theater. Co-sponsored by Sitka Film Society, Sitka Global Warming Group and Sitka Local Foods Network. $8 at Old Harbor Books.

Upstairs Video Club

The Upstairs Video Club opens its doors 6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 11, for a show of "Say Anything." The venue for this new project is The Loft, across Oja Street from the Sitka Police Department parking lot (408 Oja Way, Suite A). Film starts at 7, after social time with treats and drinks.

Sign up for posts by clicking "like" on the Upstairs Video Club facebook page, or check out more details at the website at www.upstairsvideoclub.org The Sitka Film Society will keep you posted on upcoming events, as well.

Cusack plays Lloyd Dobler in this romantic teen comedy. Boy meets girl. Boy labors over scoring girl. Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl again. A Cameron Crowe original.

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``Best Worst Movie''

BEST WORST MOVIE

The film society kicks off its 2010-11 season with the documentary ``Best Worst Movie'' 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 17, at the downtown Coliseum Theater.

In 1989, a group of unknown actors in Utah starred in what would be crowned the worst movie of all time ``Troll 2.'' After two decades of running from this cinematic disaster, the cast can no longer hide from a legion of followers that celebrate them for their ineptitude.

Best Worst Movie, directed by one of the actors in the film, Michael Paul Stephenson, unravels the stories of these unforgettable real-life characters and the colorful army of devotees who continue to revel in the film's perfectly flawed brilliance. At the center is an Alabama small-town dentist-turned cult movie icon, and the Italian movie director who hasn't come to terms with his internationally revered cinematic failure.

See the trailer:

http://bestworstmovie.com/trailer/

Tickets are $8 at Old Harbor Books.

Thanks so much to Shaleece Haas for traveling all the way up to Sitka to show her terrific film ``Old People Driving'' last month, and thanks to all who attended. A copy of the DVD will soon be available at Kettleson Memorial Library, as will ``Feast & Sacrifice.'' ``Hunt for the Red Devil'' is available on line.

Old People Driving

Sitka Film Society presents~

The New Filmmaker Forum: An evening of short documentary films
Sitka Performing Arts Center

Saturday, July 24, 7pm

Tickets: $6.00

A Q&A reception with filmmaker Shaleece Haas -- Raven Radio intern from 2009 -- will be held after the screening.



Old People Driving (25 minutes)
In the tender and surprising documentary, "Old People Driving," director Shaleece Haas gets into the passenger seat and asks, "Can a person be simply too old to drive?" The film chronicles the adventures of Milton, age 96, and Herbert, age 99, as they confront a grim milestone: the end of their driving years. And we learn the heartbreaking truth about the generation that came of age during America's love affair with the automobile: that they, too, will eventually sputter to a stop.

Hunt for the Red Devil (8 minutes)
They have ice blue blood, three hearts, eight arms … and they're taking over our waters. In the last decade, the population of giant squid has exploded. They can now be found swimming — and feasting — from the South Pacific Ocean to the gulf of Alaska. In "Hunt for the Red Devil," journalist Maggie Fazeli Fard sets out to learn the truth behind the growing numbers of Humboldt squid, also known as "red devils.

Feast & Sacrifice (26 minutes)
In a small village in Senegal, Kanni and her family prepare for the biggest holiday of the year - The Feast of the Sacrifice. With beautiful imagery and an intimate connection to her subjects, director Clare Major explores the rich themes of globalization, community and the lives of women in today's rural Africa.

My Father's Son

The Sitka Film Society presents

a film by JorDan Fuller 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 15, at the Downtown Coliseum. $5 Admission:

After picking up his son Carlos from a Mexican orphanage, Miles and the boy head out on the road for the states. Struggling to connect and unable to speak each other's language, their new beginning is quickly marred as they become stranded in the desert overnight. Finding themselves blood-related strangers they must now face the past and any possibility of a future - together. 25 minutes.

The film has been screened across the country at various short film festivals, and has garnered awards for acting and directing. The film took top prize for Best Short Film at the NYC Picture Start Film Festival. Xander Bailey won the Golden Halo Acting Achievement Award from the Southern California Motion Picture Council, and the audience award for the NYC Picture Start Film Festival.

The film society screened Fuller's other feature, ``The Runners'' in 2007 at the Sitka Filmmakers event here. Fuller grew up in Sitka and graduated from Sitka High before studying film at the University of Arizona. He is in Sitka fishing this summer.

Join the film society for ``My Father's Brother'' 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 15, at the Downtown Coliseum Theater. The director, JorDan Fuller, will answer questions after the film.

Sitka Film Society

The Sitka Film Society Presents
The Eyes on the World Film Festival
April 15 and 16
April 22 and 23
Downtown Coliseum Theater
Tickets $8, or $26 for the series, at Old Harbor Books


6 p.m. Thursday April 15
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, concludes that the war is based on decades of lies and leaks 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, making headlines around the world.

A riveting story of how one man’s profound change of heart creates a landmark struggle involving America’s newspapers, its president and Supreme Court. A political thriller whose events lead directly to Watergate, Nixon’s resignation and the end of the Vietnam War.

“Riveting! A straight-ahead, enthralling story of moral courage. This story changed the world. The movie offers one revelatory interview after another. CRITICS’ PICK!”
- David Edelstein, New York magazine

“Detailed, clearly told, persuasive…”
- Mike Hale, The New York Times

“The most exciting thriller I’ve seen in a while – as powerful as anything Hollywood can throw at us.”
- V.A. Musetto, New York Post

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5:30 p.m. Friday, April 16

Invictus (PG)

The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

Academy award nominees: Morgan Freeman for Best Actor, Matt Damon for Best Supporting Actor

Golden Globe nominee: Clint Eastwood, Best Director

Eastwood, who will be 80 next year, understands the flow of narrative in a way younger directors might envy. Working here with co-stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, he doesn't allow anything, especially not splashy technique, to get in the way of simply telling a story. Over the last several years, he's become as much of a brand name as Pixar when it comes to audience satisfaction that you can count on. -- Kenneth Turan, L.A. Times

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6 p.m. Thursday, April 22

Burma VJ

Armed with pocket-sized video cameras, a tenacious band of Burmese reporters face down death to expose the repressive regime controlling their country. In 2007, after decades of self-imposed silence, Burma became headline news across the globe when peaceful Buddhist Monks led a massive rebellion. More than 100,000 people took to the streets protesting a cruel dictatorship that has held the country hostage for more than 40 years. Foreign news crews were banned, the Internet was shut down, and Burma was closed to the outside world. So how did we witness these events? Enter the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), aka the Burma VJs.

Compiled from the shaky handheld footage of the DVB, acclaimed filmmaker Anders Ostergaard’s Burma VJ pulls us into the heat of the moment as the VJs themselves become the target of the Burmese government. Their tactical leader, code-named Joshua, oversees operations from a safe hiding place in Thailand. Via clandestine phone calls, Joshua dispenses his posse of video warriors, who covertly film the abuses in their country, then smuggle their footage across the border into Thailand. Joshua ships the footage to Norway, where it is broadcast back to Burma and the world via satellite^[3] . Burma VJ plays like a thriller, all the more scary because it is true.

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary

"Burma VJ" documents the work of such courageous journalists, who, at the risk of imprisonment or worse, film antigovernment activities using small consumer cameras. The material is smuggled to the Democratic Voice of Burma, a site in Norway described as a television station in exile. From there, the footage is beamed into Burma via satellite.

-- San Francisco Chronicle

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6 p.m. Friday, April 23

A Single Man (Rated R)

A SINGLE MAN is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood. Set in Los Angeles in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, it is the story of a British college professor (Colin Firth) who is struggling to find meaning to his life after the death of his long time partner. The story is a romantic tale of love interrupted, the isolation that is an inherent part of the human condition, and ultimately the importance of the seemingly smaller moments in life.

A SINGLE MAN is produced by Tom Ford through his Los Angeles based production company, Fade to Black, in association with Chris Weitz and Andrew Miano of Depth of Field, and Robert Salerno of Artina Films. The screenplay is written by Tom Ford and David Scearce.

Academy Award nominee for Best Actor (Colin Firth)

His first time out, Ford has made one of the best films of the year.-- Orlando Sentinel

This is a wonderful movie. -- A.O. Scott, The New York Times