Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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From PERSEPOLIS (Sony/Everett / Rex Features)Censored Women’s Film Festival
George Washington University is hosting the first Censored Women’s Film Festival, a showcase of films made by women about the atrocities that women face around the world. Friday’s day-long summit at the Marvin Center includes screenings of The Price of Honor, about Texas teenagers murdered by their father in an “honor killing”; The Cruel Cut, about female genital mutilation; India’s Daughter, about the gang rape of a young girl in India; and Persepolis, the award-winning animated feature from 2007 about a young woman coming of age in Iran. See the complete festival schedule here.
Watch the trailer for The Price of Honor.
Friday, November 20 from 9-5 at George Washington University’s Marvin Center, 800 21st Street NW, Suite 204.
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Ousmane Sembene (Kino Lorber Inc.)Ousmane Sembene, a Senegalese dockworker who dropped out of school in fifth grade, rose to become the father of African cinema. Biographer Samba Gadjigo co-directed this documentary profile with Jason Silverman. The film is too often a self-portrait of Gadjigo, who idolized Sembene, but this is no hagiography. Among clips of Sembene’s films (including Moolade, a harrowing tale of female genital mutilation), the film documents the time that the director took funds that were meant for young upcoming African directors and used them to make his own film. I wish the film had taken other directions—there’s a brief, poetic look at the difficulty of film preservation in Senegal—but it is most valuable as an introduction to the work of a world master that many moviegoers are probably unfamiliar with.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Angelika Pop-Up.
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(Music Box Films)In 1967, Israel was under threat of annihilation by forces from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. But the Six-Day War was a decisive win for Israel, and marked the historical moment when Israel “turned from David to Goliath.” Young kibbutzniks led by author Amos Oz interviewed returning soldiers in the aftermath of the war, who shared their feelings about the experience. But the Israeli Army only allowed about 30 percent of those conversations to be published. Israeli filmmaker Mor Loushy has put together a provocative and mesmerizing document of the experience of war and the conflicted emotions of its survivors.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark Bethesda Row
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The Freer’s Seijun Suzuki retropsective continues this weekend with 35mm screenings of two of the director’s rarest films. I’ll let the Freer’s description sell the 1985 film Capone: “In this surreal comic confection, a traditional naniwa-bushi singer moves to Prohibition-era San Francisco. He goes in search of Al Capone, whom he mistakenly believes is president, hoping to impress the gangster with his singing and popularize the art form in the States. Filmed mostly in an abandoned amusement park in Japan, Suzuki’s vision of 1920s America is an anarchic collage of pop culture images, from cowboys to Charlie Chaplin.” The notes continue to explain that the film is so elusive partly because “it reflects the racial attitudes of the time in which it is set by including, for example, a minstrel band in blackface. Such discomfiting images are balanced by scenes featuring an actual African American jazz ensemble that joins the film’s hero in jam sessions mixing blues, jazz, and naniwa-bushi.” Also screening this weekend, Carmen from Kawachi (November 20 at 7 p.m.), a late gem from Suzuki’s Nikkatsu period.
Capone Cries a Lot screens Sunday, November 22 at 2 p.m. at the Freer. Free.
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Born with a primordial dwarfism that stopped his growth at 2′ 9″, Filipino actor Weng Weng (1957-1992) was a most unlikely action star. But he became a diminutive answer to James Bond, playing Secret Agent 00 in For Y’ur Height Only and this 1982 action comedy. The Washington Psychotronic Film Society writes in awe that 00 “isn’t afraid to take on foes that are four times his size.” The actor was recently the subject of the documentary
The Search for Weng Weng and also features prominently in the Filipino exploitation film documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed. The WPFS gives you a rare chance to see one of Weng Weng’s hard-to-find movies in the company of inebriated fellow cinephiles.
Watch the trailer.
Monday, November 23 at Acre 121.
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Tickets are now available for the 28th edition of what may be the Washington area’s best film festival, the AFI’s European Union Film Showcase, running from December 1-20. Tomorrow, November 20 from 10 a.m.-10 p.m., tickets will be available for this year’s non-Special Presentation films for just $10. See the full schedule of films and buy tickets here, and stay tuned for a festival preview on November 30.
