Co-presented by the Foundation for Self-Taught American Artists,
Film @ International House, and the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation
Wednesday, March 4
The Cats of Mirikitani
Broad Street Ministries
315 South Broad Street, Philadelphia
Dinner at 6:00pm, screening at 7:00pm
FREE ADMISSION
Eighty-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani survived the trauma of WWII internment camps, Hiroshima, and homelessness by creating art. But when 9/11 threatened his life on the New York City streets and a local filmmaker brought him into her home, the two embarked upon a journey to confront Mirikitani's painful past. An intimate exploration of the lingering wounds of war and the healing powers of friendship and art, this documentary won the Audience Award at its premiere in the 2006 TriBeCa Film Festival, and has gone on to win more than ten awards at film festivals around the world.
Presented in conjunction with One Book, One Philadelphia at the Broad Street Ministries, 315 South Broad Street, in Philadelphia. Dinner at 6pm, the film screening at 7pm. A discussion with filmmaker Linda Hattendorf and members of the Foundation for Self-Taught American Artists will follow.
Tuesday, March 17
In the Realms of the Unreal
International House
3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
Screening begins at 7:00pm
FREE ADMISSION
Henry Darger eked out a living as a janitor and dishwasher in Chicago. A solitary and profoundly Catholic man, he devoted his free time to his masterwork In the Realms of the Unreal, a complex 15,000-page novel. A kind of mythic allegory of child endangerment and redemption, this occasionally violent epic is heavily illustrated with large-scale scrolls that describe Darger's fantasy cartography, enumerate his invented human military forces and hybrid creatures, and above all, memorialize his beloved Vivian Girls. This remarkable, disturbing manuscript was discovered shortly before Darger's death in 1973 by the landlord of the Chicago apartment in which he'd lived for over forty years. Some viewers are troubled by the psychosexual imagery, but Darger's artistic accomplishment is hard to deny. In the Realms of the Unreal, an Emmy-nominated documentary film by Jessica Yu, intersperses interviews with Darger's neighbors and narration of passages from his works, along with his illustrations, to explore the mind and work of Henry Darger.
Film introduced by Juliana Driever, an independent curator-writer and the Assistant Director of Gigantic ArtSpace, in TriBeCa. She has previously held positions at the Contemporary Center at the American Folk Art Museum, New York; the Roger Brown Study Collection, Chicago; and served as the Manager for the Henry Darger Collection at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago. Presented in conjunction with One Book, One Philadelphia at International House, Philadelphia.
Wednesday, April 22
The Long and the Short of It
International House
3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
Screening begins at 7:00pm
An evening of feature length films, shorts, and isolated interviews with such artists as Gregory Van Maanen, Elijah Pierce, and Hawkins Bolden, selected by filmmaker Jeffrey Wolf (edited such films as Billy Madison, Holes, The Ref, and Beautiful Girls; director-producer of the documentary James Castle: Portrait of an Artist) and screenwriter Mark Rosenthal (The Jewel of the Nile, Mercury Rising, Tim Burton's The Planet of the Apes, Mighty Joe Young, and upcoming The Sorcerer's Apprentice).
Screening followed by a conversation between Jeffrey Wolf and Mark Rosenthal, at International House, Philadelphia. Free admission members above Internationalist level; $5 Internationalist members, students + seniors; $7 general admission.
FOUNDATION MISSION
The Foundation for Self-Taught American Artists is dedicated to the production, acquisition, promotion, and distribution of documentary films—supported by a dynamic website—to educate and inspire our growing audience of diverse communities.
For additional info please visit: www.foundationstaart.org