Upstate Film Society’s Spring 2008 Film Fest is coming up in March! This lineup promises to be our best series ever, with several award-winning and award-nominated films and actors, and even a pre-release screening. These films are NEW to the Upstate, so come enjoy them on the big screen.

SPRING 2008 SCREENINGS:

• March 4-6 I’M NOT THERE
• March 11-13 THE SAVAGES
• March 18-20 MONGOL
• March 25-27 MARGOT AT THE WEDDING

Showtimes are at 4:00pm and 7:30pm each day at Cherrydale Cinemas in Greenville, SC. Tickets are $9 per adult.

Cherrydale Cinemas
3221 North Pleasantburg Drive
Greenville, SC 29609
(864) 370-9166
Map & Directions

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS

CLICK HERE TO SEE FILM SYNOPSES

COMING UP: SPRING 2008 INDIE FILM FEST
The Upstate Film Society’s Spring 2008 Indie Film Festival will feature four dazzling independent films new to the Upstate. These films will be screened at Consolidated Theatres Cherrydale Cinemas 16 in Cherrydale Plaza, North Pleasantburg Drive, Greenville.

Screenings are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 4:00 and 7:30 pm each week of the festival. Ticket prices are $9 per adult.

Film selections will be announced in late February, so become a member of UFS to be the first to be notified of the screenings.

So how do we choose the films for the festival? The UFS Board of Directors discusses a variety of good independent films, then submits a short list of potential films to our partner, Consolidated Cherrydale Cinemas. Cherrydale’s film distributor selects the films on the basis of availability, cost, and access.

If you would like to nominate a film for consideration by the UFS Board, please send your suggestion to upstatefilm@gmail.com or post it below. Thanks for your support!

TWO GREAT FILM EVENTS IN THE UPSTATE: THE SECOND ANNUAL FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL AND A PREVIEW SCREENING OF AN UPSTATE FILM! Scroll down for details.

SECOND ANNUAL FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL
Co-sponsored by the Upstate Film Society and The Peace Center for the Performing Arts

Newly restored and available for the first time in almost a decade, Albert Lamorisse’s Oscar®-winning The Red Balloon remains one of the most beloved children’s films of all time. Paired with White Mane, Lamorisse’s other newly restored classic short, the two films will anchor the second annual French Film Festival at the Gunter Theatre in late December 2007.

The short film series, co-sponsored by the Upstate Film Society and The Peace Center for the Performing Arts, will feature six award-winning French films. The series will premiere on Friday, Dec. 28 with a screening at 8 p.m. There will be two other screenings on Saturday, Dec. 29 at 4:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. In addition, there will be a special family matinee on Saturday, Dec. 29 at 2 p.m. featuring just The Red Balloon and White Mane.

Rounding out the festival are Pen Pusher, a romantic film set on the Paris Métro; My Last Role, a dark comedy about an actor’s memorable final part; The Woman Driver, a droll look at a woman hired to portray a positive image of Switzerland; and Be Quiet, a French-produced film detailing the relationship between a Palestinian boy and his father on their tense journey home. See below for a description of each film.

For ticket information, call The Peace Center box office at 864.467.3000 or 1.800.888.7768 or order online at www.peacecenter.org.

Dates and Times:

Friday, Dec. 28 at 8 p.m. (Special premiere screening)

Saturday, Dec. 29 at 4:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 29 - Family double-feature matinee at 2 p.m. (screenings of The Red Balloon and White Mane only)

Featured Films:

• Pen Pusher (Gratte Papier) 2005, 9 min. Director Guillaume Martinez takes a dull Parisian Métro ride and transforms it into a fantastic setting for a romantic event, and achieves it without a word being spoken between the two leads. Award: The film won the ‘Silver Bear’ at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival in 2006.
• My Last Role (Mon Dernier Rôle) 2006, 15 min. Directed by Olivier Ayache-Vidal. For three years actor Patrick Chesnais has been unemployed and living in a small hotel room in the suburbs. Today, Patrick is going to carry out what he’s been thinking about for awhile. This may be his last part, but it will be the greatest. Award: The film won the student jury prize at the 2007 Cracow International Documentary and Short Film Festival.
• White Mane (Crin-Blanc) 1953, 40 min. Directed by Albert Lamorisse. In the south of France is a near-desert region called La Camargue. There lives White Mane, a magnificent stallion and the leader of a herd of wild horses too proud to let themselves be broken in by humans. Only Folco, a young fisherman, manages to tame him. A strong friendship grows between the boy and the horse, but they must elude the wrangler and his herdsmen to live freely. Janus Films is proud to bring this film, beloved by generations of French children, to North America in 2007 in a glorious new restoration (White Mane is presented in a new English translation, faithful to the original French voiceover and dialogue, spoken by Peter Strauss). Award: The film won the Grand Prize, Best Short Film at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.
• The Woman Driver (La Conductrice) 2004, 10 min. Directed by Carl Lionnet. A young woman, hired to provide a positive image of Switzerland, profiles her daily routine. Award: Official selection at the short film festival in Clermont-Ferrand.
• Be Quiet 2005, 19 min. Directed by Sameh Zoabi. On their journey home, a Palestinian boy and his father are beset by the tensions of a politically charged and militarized reality; an atmosphere that serves as a foil to the struggles for a father bringing up his son. Award: Third prize at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
• The Red Balloon (Le Ballon Rouge) 1956, 34 min. Directed by Albert Lamorisse. In this deceptively simple, nearly wordless tale, a young boy discovers a stray balloon that seems to have a mind of its own. Wandering through the streets of Paris, the two become inseparable, to the surprise of the neighborhood and the envy of other children. The Red Balloon has enchanted the young—and the young at heart—for decades, and it will surely find a new generation of fans with this Janus Films re-release. (In French: minimal dialogue with subtitles.) Awards: Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival and the only short film ever to receive an Oscar® outside of the short film category. It won the 1956 Oscar® for Best Original Screenplay, beating out ”The Bold and the Brave,” “The Ladykillers” and “Julie.”

CELEBRATION AND PREVIEW SCREENING OF TO MY GREAT CHAGRIN

Thursday, December 27th at 7:30 PM at Centre Stage, 501 River Street, Greenville

Admission $10 per person. (No reservations. Tickets available at door. Cash or check only, please)

To My Great Chagrin, a feature-length film produced and directed by Jeff Sumerel, has been selected by The Museum of Modern Art in New York City to have its World Premiere at their Opening Night of the 2008 Documentary Series to take place in February.

You are invited to attend the December 27th celebration at Centre Stage which is to be the only screening of To My Great Chagrin before its World Premiere at MoMA.

Sumerel, a Greenville native, along with collaborator Jeter Rhodes, have completed a three-year journey to create a most compelling and exhilarating account of the remarkable history and career of a man known as “Brother Theodore.” Theodore’s television appearances spanned from Jack Paar to Johnny Carson to Merv Griffin to David Letterman. His diverse movie experiences joined him with Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Tom Hanks.

The Los Angeles Daily News described Theodore as Boris Karloff, Salvadore Dali, and Najinski all in one.

To convey this unbelievable story, Sumerel and Rhodes have crafted an enthralling visual interpretation by weaving an array of rare audio and film archives in a most creative, poetic manner. In addition, Sumerel interviewed over sixty Theodore admirers, friends, and colleagues, such as Woody Allen, Eric Bogosian, Penn and Teller, Harlan Ellison, and Dick Cavett, among others.

The film will run 75 minutes, followed by a reception with a cash bar.

We hope you will be able to join us for this special Preview Screening and Celebration.

For more information, contact Jeff Sumerel at jsum@spontaneous.net

Movie Schedule :

“Once” Rated R, will run September 4-6.
“Paris Je T’aime” Rated R, will run September 11-13.
“My Best Friend” Rated PG-13, will run September 18-21.
“Introducing the Dwights” Rated R, will run September 25-27.

It’s year No. 2 for the Upstate Film Society’s Independent Film Festival.

This year’s list includes four selections that will be showing September at Cherrydale Cinemas.

But paring the list down to just four has taken a fair share of research with plenty of lively discussions, said Margaret Jenkins who serves on the society’s board of directors.

The dozen-or-so board members started the process by compiling personal lists of films they’d read about in the frequent ramblings around movie sites and newspaper articles.

Next came the round table discussions, interspersed with advice from consolidated theaters. The result is a list of movies that will give film fans the chance to see features they otherwise wouldn’t see on Upstate screens.

And for film buss including Jenkins, there’s nothing quite like watching a good movie in the company of fellow fans.

“My preference would always be to watch a film with people that you can enjoy it with,” she said.

In addition to bringing lesser known titles to local viewers, encouraging the communal theater experience is part of the purpose of the society, said Jenkins.

Finding the society was a bonus for Jenkins, who moved to the area five years ago., especially since she comes from Los Angeles where movies are daily water cooler fodder.

“I think that Greenville’s a small town,but it has a level of sophistication that is very evident” she said.

Next on the society’s schedule will be preparation for the French Film Festival. There are also plans to boost membership by offering more perks such as ticket discounts, snack specials and restaurant coupons.

But for Jenkins, the best part of the deal is the chance to discuss what she’s seen with fellow society members.

“I really do like the discussion and the critique,” she said. “That is really one of the most enjoyable things to me.”

“Once” is a story about a Dublin guitarist/singer-songwriter who makes a living by fixing vacuum cleaners in his Dad’s Hoover repair shop by day, and singing and playing for money on the Dublin streets by night. An (unnamed) Girl is a Czech who plays piano when she gets a chance, and does odd jobs by day and takes care of her mom and her daughter by night. Guy meets Girl, and they get to know each other as the Girl helps the Guy to put together a demo disc that he can take to London in hope of landing a music contract. During the same several day period, the Guy and the Girl work through their past loves, and reveal their budding love for one another, through their songs.

Official Movie Website

“Paris, je t’aime” is about the plurality of cinema in one mythic location: Paris, the City of Love. Twenty filmmakers will bring their own personal touch, underlining the wide variety of styles, genres, encounters and the various atmospheres and lifestyles that prevail in the neighborhoods of Paris. Each director has been given five minutes of freedom, and we, as producers, carry the responsibility of weaving a single narrative unit out of those twenty moments. The 20 films will not appear in the order of the arrondissements, from one to twenty, but rather, in a pertinent narrative order, initially unknown to the audience. They will be fused together by transitional interstitial sequences, and also via the introduction and epilogue sequences of the feature film. Each transition will begin with the last shot of the previous film and will end with the first shot of the following film, and will have a threefold function: 1) The first is to extend the enchantment and the emotion of the previous segment, 2) The second is to prepare the audience for the surprise of the next segment, and 3) The third is to provide a general, comfortable and cohesive atmosphere to the feature film. The delightful and brief interludes of these transitions will enable the viewer to slide from one world to the next, featuring a recurring and unexpected character. This mysterious character is a witness to the Parisian life and helps create a continuous narration. It appears both in and in-between the films. In addition to the information these transitions will provide about the city and its people, their tone will be intentionally light often referring to famous scenes easily attributed to the history of Paris cinema. Similar specifications will be followed by the composer who will supervise the musical fusion between the films and the transitions as he creates the musical score of Paris, je t’aime. Considering the common theme of Paris and Love, the fusion between the films and the transitions, the fast pace of a fluid and complete storytelling, Paris, je t’aime will not be just another “anthology” picture. It will be a unique collective feature film that will constitute a two-hour cinematographic spectacle whose original structure will make for a dramatically different experience for its global audience.

Official Movie Website

“My Best Friend” François is a middle-aged antique dealer. He has a stylish apartment and a fabulous life, but at a dinner with a group he considers his dearest acquaintances, he is blindsided by the revelation that none of them actually likes him. He’s arrogant, self-centered and harsh, and they don’t believe he knows the meaning of friendship. His business partner Catherine makes him a bet: if he can produce his best friend, she will let him keep the massive Greek vase he acquired that afternoon on the company tab. If not, it’s hers. Having accepted the wager, François naively tears through his address book, trying to shoehorn an increasingly unlikely series of contacts into the all-important role. Moving through Paris, he keeps encountering a trivia-spouting, big-hearted cabbie named Bruno. Bruno’s chatty, lowbrow ways grate against François’s designer temperament, but he covets the other man’s easy way with people. He convinces Bruno to teach him how to make friends and sets about learning the “three S’s” - being sociable, smiling and sincere - though they don’t come easy. Ultimately, François’s victory will depend on Bruno’s naiveté in playing along, but what’s the cost of cheating at friendship?

IMDB Movie Review

“Introducing the Dwights” Tim (Khan Chittenden) lives with his overbearing mother, Jean (Brenda Blethyn), and brain-damaged brother but has little experience with women. When he meets Jill (Emma Booth), romance blooms and the pair begin dating. Jean, whose career as a comic is in a slide, becomes jealous of her son’s relationship with Jill.

Official Movie Website

Showtimes are at 4:00pm and 7:30pm each day at Cherrydale Cinemas in Greenville, SC.Cherrydale Cinemas
3221 North Pleasantburg Drive
Greenville, SC 29609
(864) 370-9166
Map & Directions

BUY TICKETS HERE

March 6-8: LITTLE CHILDREN

Synopsis: Actor-turned-director Todd Field follows up his Oscar-nominated drama, IN THE BEDROOM, with this ambitious adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s celebrated novel. Set in the imploding minefields of modern suburbia, LITTLE CHILDREN follows several inhabitants of a small American town as they fumble their way through adulthood. Numb-to-life housewife and mother Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) finds an outlet for her yearning in gorgeous househusband Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), who is crippled with insecurity over the fact that his perfect wife, Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), is the family breadwinner. When Sarah and Brad meet at the local playground one afternoon, a passionate affair is sparked. In a further attempt to reclaim his youthful fire, Brad joins a night football league with Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich), a former cop who has begun to harass a convicted sex offender, Ronnie J. McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley). These troubled lives eventually collide, causing each individual to take full responsibility for their not-so-responsible actions. Adapted for the screen by Field and Perrotta and artfully photographed by Antonio Calvache, LITTLE CHILDREN is a bitingly funny, and nakedly honest, critique of middle class dysfunction.

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Official Site
More info at The Internet Movie Database
Reviews at Rotten Tomatoes

March 13-15: VENUS

Synopsis: Screen legend Peter O’Toole stars in this moving story of an elderly actor and his somewhat questionable relationship with a teenage girl. Maurice (O’Toole) and his friend Ian (Leslie Phillips) are two classy curmudgeons whiling away their hours in coffee shops and at the theater, but their routine is thrown for a loop when Ian’s niece’s daughter Jessie (Jodie Whittaker) is sent from the country to act as his nurse. Jessie shows up on the scene sullen and pouty, immediately drinking all the liquor in the house and slouching her way from room to room. But Maurice befriends her, taking her to museums and getting her a gig as an art model, and along the way he openly expresses the lust she has awakened in him. Jessie’s brash rejections of his affections are at first as amusing as they are awkward. When she starts to allow him small pleasures–like kissing her bare shoulders or caressing her hands–the film enters into some uncomfortable, complicated territory, but it is deftly navigated by Hanif Kureishi’s sharp screenplay, and O’Toole’s heartbreaking performance. Far from just a tale of a May-December romance, VENUS is a very raw look at growing old, and the aches and pains, both emotional and physical, that accompany a man near the end of his life. It is an honest, moving portrait of human desire, and how it can both beat us down and lift us up–no matter the age.

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Official Site
More info at The Internet Movie Database
Reviews at Rotten Tomatoes

March 20-22: THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED

Synopsis: Passionate cinephiles can be found casting quizzical glances at the erratic and often conflicting decisions made by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) as they slap ratings onto movies. So in an attempt to make sense of their working methods–which, until now, have remained shrouded in mystery–one of those cinephiles, Kirby Dick (TWIST OF FAITH), has made this full-length motion picture about the inner workings of the MPAA. Dick begins by examining the MPAA’s set-up as an anonymous group that is exclusively funded by the major Hollywood studios. Fundamentally established to prevent children’s eyes from seeing anything society would consider unsuitable, the MPAA has blossomed into a powerful force, with the difference between an R and an NC-17 rating possibly leading to millions of dollars forfeited at the box office. Actors and directors such as John Waters, Maria Bello, Mary Harron, and Kevin Smith offer their forthright opinions on these decisions, and Dick highlights many of the clips that have fallen foul of the censors. The director also compares and contrasts similar scenes from indie pictures and films produced by major studios, with the latter seemingly allowed far more leniency when it comes to avoiding the dreaded NC-17. In a wonderful twist that adds a strong narrative structure to the film, Dick hires a private detective to hunt down the MPAA’s members, thereby lifting the curtain on who these shadowy figures actually are. But the real cherry on the top of Dick’s movie is his submission of THIS FILM HAS NOT YET BEEN RATED to the MPAA, which helps highlight the appeals process, and reveals the involvement of the Catholic Church and major cinema chains across the country. Entertaining and informative, Dick’s movie is everything a documentary should be. Revelations come thick and fast throughout, and the director skillfully creates a palpable feeling of injustice that will leave many viewers feeling the MPAA is in urgent need of a drastic overhaul.

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Official Site
More info at The Internet Movie Database
Reviews at Rotten Tomatoes

March 27-29: SHERRYBABY

Synopsis: Maggie Gyllenhaal is mesmerizing as a recovering addict in writer-director Laurie Collyer’s feature-length fiction-film debut, SHERRYBABY. Gyllenhaal stars as Sherry Swanson, a troubled woman who has just been released from prison, where she spent three years for robbery to support her heroin addiction. Determined to regain control of her life, she moves into a halfway house and starts looking for a job, being carefully watched by her tough parole officer (Giancarlo Esposito). At an AA meeting, she is drawn to Dean Walker (Danny Trejo), a gritty older man who befriends her–but his ties to her dangerous past life threaten to pull her back in. Sherry’s main desire is to reestablish a relationship with her young daughter, Alexis (Ryan Simpkins), who is being raised by Sherry’s brother, Bobby (Brad William Henke), and his wife, Lynnette (Bridget Barkan)–but Lynnette doesn’t trust Sherry, wanting to keep Alexis for her own. As Sherry struggles to get back on track, she plays by her own rules, with drugs and a return to prison waiting just around the corner. Gyllenhaal gives a raw, bare, powerful performance as the embattled and desperate Sherry, who will do almost anything to regain her daughter’s love. Loosely based on the story of one of Collyer’s closest childhood friends, SHERRYBABY, which got its start in the Sundance Filmmaker’s Lab, is an emotional rollercoaster of a movie, with realistic characters, an excellent cast, and plenty of surprising turns.

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Official Site
More info at The Internet Movie Database
Reviews at Rotten Tomatoes