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A unique live cinematic and musical event, Tales from the Gimli Hospital: Reframed pairs acclaimed filmmaker Guy Maddin’s classic first feature film with a live performance—directed by Maddin himself—of a new score created by composer Matthew Patton, a superstar group of Icelandic musicians, acclaimed Seattle-based musical collective Aono Jikken Ensemble, and live electronics engineer Paul Corley. A cult sensation when it was released theatrically in 1988, the original Tales from the Gimli Hospital tells the dreamlike, elliptical story of the jealousy and madness instilled in two men sharing a hospital room in a remote Canadian village. The film first propelled Maddin to international prominence, becoming a success on the midnight movie circuit, and is now being completely transformed by this brand new performance.
Xavier Le Roy's premise begins with a study of the expressive "choreography" of Sir Simon Rattle's conducting style, which Le Roy used as the structure for an evening-length performance of Sacre du Printemps. Le Roy recreated and elaborated on the conductor's movements on stage using the documentary film "Rhythm is It!," which features Rattle conducting "The Rite of Spring" by Igor Stravinsky. The piece was performed by Le Roy, accompanied by an audio playback arrangement which isolates each instrument in the orchestra and created the sensation that each audience member could be a musician in the orchestra, therein turning audience into virtual orchestra and dancer into "conductor."
Eyebeam and PERFORMA05, in association with HIGHBROW, co-presented Screen Play by visual artist and composer Christian Marclay, consisting of a video and three live musical ensembles. Marclay created the video to serve as a score to be interpreted live by a series of invited ensembles.
Marclay was the recipient of the 2005 Moving Image Commission, creating the video score Screen Play in Eyebeam’s Production Studios. The projected element of Screen Play is a combination of found film footage overlaid with computer animation. Marclay chose footage suggesting certain visual rhythms and emotions, which he then worked to accentuate or underscore elements with overlapping computer graphics. The resulting video—reminiscent at moments of a silent film and at others of a flight simulator—becomes the visual score for musicians to interpret live.
If you could make your deaf child hear, would you? Academy Award-nominated SOUND AND FURY follows the intimate, heart-rending tale of the Artinians, an extended family with deaf and hearing members across three generations. Together they confront a technological device that can help the deaf to hear but may also threaten deaf culture—and their bonds with each other. For Peter Artinian and his wife, both of whom are deaf, a surgical ear implant for their five-year-old daughter Heather means a choice between two worlds: an unfamiliar hearing world and the deaf world, a robust culture in its own right united by a uniquely visual and artistic language. Heather Artinian—precocious, vivacious, and avidly curious about implant surgery—is caught between her deaf parents and her hearing grandparents, as they argue passionately about her future. The debate is sometimes silent, but by no means quiet. When all is done, Sound and Fury speaks volumes about the choices we make and the battles we fight in order to be heard.
Inside the Bubble is a war picture—a road movie & a buddy flick. The film offers a front row seat inside the biggest story of 2004 with unique, exclusive, backstage coverage of the race for the White House, seen through the eyes of the senior staffers & advisers closest to Senator John Kerry. The "bubble" is a private place where the man who would be President surrounds himself only with the people he trusts the most. The "bubble" floats above ground, where media hounds are normally kept at bay. This is the place where a small group of super-humans give everything they have to one man. The "bubble people" put personal lives on hold—sacrificing sleep, health, family, career, cash and sometimes sanity—to work together to defeat a President and lead the nation. In the closest election, in a war against terror…you'll understand what it's like to be one of 5 people helping one man fight for ideas & win your vote on the roller-coaster ride of a lifetime.
What happens when documentary filmmakers, whose mission is to probe, explore, reveal, take as their subject one of the world’s greatest living magicians, whose life and art are basically off limits to probing, exploration, and revelation? More than a decade in the making, Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay is the captivating result of this curious conundrum: a mesmerizing journey into the world of modern magic and the small circle of eccentric geniuses who mastered it.
Narrated by Hector Elizondo, with stories from Keith David, C. Everett Koop, Joe "Joey Pants" Pantoliano, Regis Philbin, Ray Romano, Curtis Sliwa, Mike Starr and many more... New York Street Games captures a special time in American history. From Boxball to Ring-o-leavio to Skully, the film addresses the social and cultural importance of these games and the sense of community they engendered.
Destiny Hills (Gvaot Goral) is a story of a man, a tribe, a culture trapped in time, between tradition and progress, East and West. Muhammad, a contemporary Bedouin, is in search of his vanishing identity. As bulldozers destroy his home and community, the fall of these structures mirrors the shattering of his world and the communal life of his tribe. Stripped of his former identity, Mohammed looks to Islam to rebuild his life.
HIGHBROW is very proud to be a sponsor of The Tournées Festival, a program of FACE, which aims to bring contemporary French cinema to American college and university campuses. The program distributes over $200,000 in grants annually to encourage schools to begin their own self-sustaining French film festivals. The Tournées Festival has partnered with more than 300 universities, making it possible for more than 450,000 students to discover French-language films.
The festival offers a wide variety of films that represent the best of contemporary French cinema. The films span generational and geographic borders, offer a range of genres and subjects, and showcase innovations in both style and storytelling. There are films by first-time directors alongside those from respected and revered fixtures in French cinema.
The Ohmies is an interactive musical health and wellness brand for children three to five years old.
Through The Ohmies, preschoolers will interact with a musical adventure based on a curriculum focusing on movement/physical activity, emotional development and social development. Children will learn to identify their feelings, make friends, resolve conflicts, get along with their siblings, and to deal with anxiety. Moreover, The Ohmies will focus on movement (and physical activity) as another basis for a healthy lifestyle.
The series features Penny Butterfly (age 7) and her little brother, Poogle Caterpillar (age 4), two spirited, fun-loving creatures who live in Ohmland and allow their curiosity to send them off on adventures. On every adventure, Penny and Poogle gain skills central to preschoolers, learning about themselves and the world around them. These skills will focus on helping preschoolers to develop positive skills for health and well-being.