Fall 2015 Season
Scroll down for complete listing
DEEP WEB
Monday, September 21st
7:00pm, Theatre Three, Main Street Historic Port Jefferson Village
Speaker: Alex Winter, Director & actor who played Bill S. Preston, Esq. in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure!
DEEP WEB is the inside story of one of the the most important and riveting digital crime sagas of the century — the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, the convicted 30-year-old entrepreneur accused of being the “Dread Pirate Roberts,” creator and operator of the online black market, the Silk Road. The film explores how the brightest minds and thought leaders behind the Deep Web are now caught in the crosshairs of the battle for control of a future inextricably linked to technology, with our digital rights hanging in the balance.
In addition to being the only film with exclusive access to the Ulbricht family, DEEP WEB features the core architects of the Deep Web: anarchistic cryptographers who developed the Deep Web’s tools for the military in the early 1990s; the dissident journalists and whistleblowers who immediately sought refuge in this seemingly secure environment and the figures behind the rise of the Silk Road, which combined the security of the Deep Web with the anonymity of cryptocurrency (bitcoins). Narrated by Keanu Reeves, DEEP WEB won the Best International Feature at The Global Visions Film Festival. Lodging sponsored by Danfords Hotel.
VERY SEMI-SERIOUS
Monday, September 28
7:00pm, Theatre Three, Main Street, Historic Port Jefferson Village
Speaker: George Booth, Award-Winning Cartoonist
The New Yorker, one of the world’s most famous magazines, is known not only for its insightful articles, adventuresome fiction, but also its iconic cartoons. Leah Wolchock’s fascinating, off-beat documentary, VERY SEMI-SERIOUS delivers a highly entertaining and endearing history of the magazine’s cartoons and gives its audience a view of the world through the quirky and imaginative lens of its cartoonists. Wolchok captures the art, inspiration and genius that goes into creating these cartoons, and offers a delightful parade of characters who create the art. The film goes behind the scenes with its humorous cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff who provides revealing access to his weekly pitch meetings where aspiring and established cartoonists present their work, and where pride is left behind, as hundreds of submitted cartoons get rejected. The film features perceptive interviews and delves into the creative process, the delicate balance of humor and the mythos of the revered publication. It is a laugh-out-loud and moving film– unmissable for New Yorker fans.
Sponsored by the Greater Port Jefferson/Northern Brookhaven Arts Council, the Port Jefferson Documentary Series brings the directors, producers and stars of each film into the theater for an up-close and personal question-and-answer session. Joining us for the evening is the iconic NewYorker cartoonist, George Booth. Winner of the National Cartoonists Society Gag Cartoon Award in 1993, and the National Cartoonists Society Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, 2010, George, a former Stony Brook resident, is known for his “doodlers” style. His cartoons feature every man beset by modern complexity, goofballs perplexing their spouses, cats and very often a fat dog. His cartoons, have been gracing the covers and pages of the New Yorker since 1965, and he is the only New Yorker cartoonist to have been profiled in the New Yorker. Time: 86 minutes
CARTEL LAND
Monday, October 5th
7:00pm, Theatre Three, Main Street, Historic Port Jefferson Village
Speaker: Tom Yellin, Producer
With unprecedented access, CARTEL LAND is a riveting, on-the-ground look at the journeys of two modern-day Mexican drug cartel.
In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as “El Doctor,” leads the Autodefensas, a citizen uprising against the violent Knights Templar drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona’s Altar Valley – a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley – Tim “Nailer” Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to stop Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border. Time: 98 minutes
THE RUSSIAN WOODPECKER
Monday, October 12
7:00pm, Theatre Three, Main Street Historic Port Jefferson Village
Speaker: Chad Gracia, Director
Fedor Alexandrovich, an idiosyncratic Ukrainian artist, possesses an incendiary and dangerous conspiracy theory. Far from a careless mistake, he believes the catastrophic Chernobyl Disaster of 1986 was actually an elaborate government cover-up designed to mask a failed 8 billion ruble antennae, known as the “Russian Woodpecker,” intended to interfere with western radio frequencies and located near the radioactive site. Rich with Soviet history and the stories of Chernobyl’s former citizens, this documentary chronicles the history behind one of the most chilling events of our time as well as Alexandrovich’s thrilling attempts to spread the word of his theory. Winner of the World Documentary Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Time: 80 Minutes
PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT
Monday, October 19
7:00pm, Theatre Three, Main Street Historic Port Jefferson Village
Speakers: David Koh and Dan Braun, Producers
In her documentary, PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT, Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland uses recently unearthed audio recordings from 1978-79 of Peggy’s last interviews along with archival photos, to create a portrait of one of the most powerful women in the history of the art world, whose life was as wild and complex as the abstract art she so loved.
Born an heiress into New York’s prominent Guggenheim family, Peggy Guggenheim, homely, eccentric and never feeling at ease in high society, managed to make her mark as one of the premier art collectors of the 20th century. Moving to Paris at age 21, she was introduced to the world of the avant-garde and mingled with artists such as Picasso, Dali, and Kandinsky. After the Nazi invasion of Europe, she came back to New York and opened her gallery, THE ART OF THE CENTURY, which became one the premier avant-garde spaces in the US. The number of artists Guggenheim had discovered who had their first exhibitions with her is staggering. Also staggering was her colorful and salacious personal life. She not only collected art, but artists as well. Her list of trysts, affairs and marriages included such Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollack, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Co-sponsored by Gallery North. Time: 96 minutes
THE KILLING FIELDS OF DR. HAING S. NGOR
Monday, October 26
6:00pm, Charles B. Wang Center, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook NY
Speakers: Dr. Ngor’s niece, Sophia Ngor Demetri, who escaped from Cambodia with Dr. Ngor and who appears in the film, and Wayne Ngor, who narrates the film.
SUNY Students Free
Produced, directed, written, and edited by Oscar®-nominated and triple Sundance Award-winning filmmaker Arthur Dong, THE KILLING FIELDS OF DR. HAING S. NGOR is a singular documentary seen through the eyes of one of the most well-known survivors of the Cambodian genocide: Dr. Haing S. Ngor. When Dr. Ngor was forced into a labor camp by the Khmer Rouge, he could not imagine that he would escape after four years of torture and be called upon to recreate his experiences in a film that would earn him an Academy Award®. That film, THE KILLING FIELDS, is used as a springboard for the documentary, which is a combination of history and biography, a dramatic transnational narrative which fuses animation and the spoken word, interlaced with a rich palette of archival material. Anchored by an adaptation of Ngor’s richly layered autobiography, Survival in the Killing Fields (coauthored with Roger Warner), the film serves as a personal indictment of the global politics that were thrust upon Southeast Asia, and the consequences that continue to surface today as Cambodia grapples with corruption, poverty, and the impunity of aging former Khmer Rouge leaders still at large. Time 87 minutes
LOVE MARRIAGE IN KABUL
Monday, November 2
6:00pm, Charles B. Wang Center Stony Brook University, Stony Brook NY
Speakers (by Skype): Pat Fiske, Producer and Amin Palangi, Director
SUNY Students Free
When her young son drowned, Sydney-based Mahboba Rawi founder of Mahboba’s Promise, dedicated her life to improving the lives of Afghanistan’s orphans and widows. She has since rescued thousands of children and women from the unforgiving streets of Kabul through the Hope House Orphanage and the charity Mahboba’s Promise. One of those she helped was a boy named Abdul, now grown up and madly in love with Fatemeh, the girl next door. Her father is a man of strict tradition and insists that their marriage only proceed if a $10,000 dowry is paid or a wife found for his son. With nothing to Abdul’s name, the fate of the couple depend’s entirely on Mahboba’s ability to meet or negotiate the fathers terms. The film provides a fascinating, moment-by-moment glimpse into the courtship and marriage customs of Afghanistan. Time: 84 minutes
