Spring Break
Errol Morris to speak in April
by Daniel D. Snyder
Associate Editor
Arts | 3/25/08
Posted online at 12:15 AM EST on 3/25/08
In what is becoming something of a tradition at Brandeis, yet another famed filmmaker will be premiering his latest work at our fair University. The next director to add his name to the list is Errol Morris, the Academy Award-winning (for his 2004 film The Fog of War) documentarian. The event follows the showing of equally legendary director Werner Herzog's recent film Encounters at the End of the World.
On April 17, Morris will appear at Brandeis to screen his most recent and ambitious creation, S.O.P: Standard Operating Procedure, a detailed examination of the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq. The film was debuted at the Berlin Film Festival Feb. 12, where it took, as the first documentary ever entered, the Silver Bear Jury Grand Prize. Though the American premier will be taking place in New York, Brandeis will be a close second.
Those of you bewildered at the role of Brandeis as ground zero (or close to it) for these films need look no further than Prof. Alice Kelikian, chair of the Brandeis Film Studies program. A friend of Morris' for over 20 years, Kelikian got him to show his film at Brandeis as a personal favor. "Errol showed us previews of the film exactly a year ago, and I thought it important for students to see the completion of the film-making process, … to be able to watch the film as a whole on our campus," says Kelikian.
Kelikian doesn't intend to stop with the premier of S.O.P. Coming later in the spring is a screening of Flow: For Love of Water, a Sundance buzz film by Irena Salina about the growing concerns over the planet's water resources. Then, come the fall semester, on Sept. 8, there will be an outdoor screening of the Oscar-nominated 1927 silent film Chang, which tells the story of Siamese jungle man Kru and a village full of elephants.
However, this will be no ordinary screening. Not only will the film be shown on a 30-foot screen, it will be accompanied by live music, newly composed for the film by eminent silent-film accompanists the Alloy Orchestra.
Though the Film Studies program at Brandeis remains a minor and not a major, the future of film at the University certainly looks bright. The?National Center for Jewish Film's annual film festival continues its tenure at Brandeis' Wasserman Cinematheque this year with JEWISHFILM.2008, the 11th annual incarnation of the convention.
On April 17, Morris will appear at Brandeis to screen his most recent and ambitious creation, S.O.P: Standard Operating Procedure, a detailed examination of the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq. The film was debuted at the Berlin Film Festival Feb. 12, where it took, as the first documentary ever entered, the Silver Bear Jury Grand Prize. Though the American premier will be taking place in New York, Brandeis will be a close second.
Those of you bewildered at the role of Brandeis as ground zero (or close to it) for these films need look no further than Prof. Alice Kelikian, chair of the Brandeis Film Studies program. A friend of Morris' for over 20 years, Kelikian got him to show his film at Brandeis as a personal favor. "Errol showed us previews of the film exactly a year ago, and I thought it important for students to see the completion of the film-making process, … to be able to watch the film as a whole on our campus," says Kelikian.
Kelikian doesn't intend to stop with the premier of S.O.P. Coming later in the spring is a screening of Flow: For Love of Water, a Sundance buzz film by Irena Salina about the growing concerns over the planet's water resources. Then, come the fall semester, on Sept. 8, there will be an outdoor screening of the Oscar-nominated 1927 silent film Chang, which tells the story of Siamese jungle man Kru and a village full of elephants.
However, this will be no ordinary screening. Not only will the film be shown on a 30-foot screen, it will be accompanied by live music, newly composed for the film by eminent silent-film accompanists the Alloy Orchestra.
Though the Film Studies program at Brandeis remains a minor and not a major, the future of film at the University certainly looks bright. The?National Center for Jewish Film's annual film festival continues its tenure at Brandeis' Wasserman Cinematheque this year with JEWISHFILM.2008, the 11th annual incarnation of the convention.
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