Description: War Against the Weak, based on the book “War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race,” traces the dark and forgotten history of eugenics and the pursuit of racial purification, from its beginnings in US institutions to its end, in the death camps of the Third Reich. Director Justin Strawhand and producer Pete Demas will be with us following the lively, often terrifying film, for what will be a fascinating talk about a deeply unsettling subject overlooked by history textbooks.
Description: Join us Wednesday March 10th for three homemade docs from Brooklyn filmmakers:
Michael Galinsky will be on hand with interview footage and clips from a rough cut of their investigation into the politics of the massive Atlantic Yards/ Barclays Center development, Battle of Brooklyn
Filmmaker Adam Chadwick and producer Bill Loerch will be on hand to introduce a rough cut of their in-progress doc Fit To Print, about the decline of the newspaper industry in America
Lastly, a screening of A Hole in a Fence (2007, 46min) about a peculiar abandoned lot in Red Hook, BK.
“Chronicling the changing fortunes of a unique abandoned lot in Red Hook, Brooklyn, A Hole in a Fence explores the complicated issues of development, class and identity facing the city’s most populous borough. It’s the story of a vanished homeless community and the young architect who documented it; of a real urban farm run by local kids amidst a landscape of industrial decay; of young graffiti writers losing their stomping grounds; of the arrival of a controversial Ikea megastore; of a photographer’s vision of nature’s renewal; of the doomed struggle to save a rare part of the neighborhood’s working waterfront; and of a filmmaker’s discovery of a fleeting, hidden world on the other side of a rusty old fence.”
Director D.W. Young will be on hand to introduce.
Details: Wed. 3/10, 8:30pm SHARP. Total program totals under 90 minutes
Freddy’s Bar & Backroom, 485 Dean St. @ 6th Ave, 2/3 to Bergen, any train to Atlantic Pacific. freddysbackroom.com
Description: A series of short clips of vintage erotica in time for Valentine’s Day. Pre-War Porn in the dingy backroom at Freddy’s for you and your beloved.
“Banned Films From the Brothels of Paris” (1920, approx. 70 min.) and “How To Undress In Front of Your Husband” (1937, 20min)
Not so much hardcore sexy as intriguing, though nudity is promised.
Details: 8:30pm, Wed. Feb. 10
Freddy’s Bar and Backroom, 485 Dean St. at 6th Ave.
Description: To pay tribute, we’ll present a screening of Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral On a Moving Train (2004, 78min) a film by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller, from First Run Features.
“This acclaimed film looks at the amazing life of the renowned historian, activist and author. Following his early days as a shipyard labor organizer and bombardier in World War II, Zinn became an academic rebel and leader of civil disobedience in a time of institutionalized racism and war. His influential writings shine light on and bring voice to factory workers, immigrant laborers, African Americans, Native Americans and the working poor.”
Featuring interviews with Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Tom Hayden and more, with narration provided by Matt Damon.
To everyone who attended the last screening and donated to Partners in Health, I want to extend our deepest thanks. By the end of the night, we had raised $250 for rescue efforts in Haiti. It is because of generous, conscientious individuals like yourselves, and of course the filmmaker, our speakers, and the proprietors of Vox Pop cafe that we are able to continue bringing you free films, and putting together events like this.
We were able to leave that evening knowing that although it may simply be a drop in the bucket, we had the pleasure of seeing some community action.
For more information, or to donate to Partners in Health independently, visit http://www.pih.org
Once again, thanks to all who donated, keep your ears perked up, more great screenings, filmmakers and events to come soon.
Description:
This week we are dedicating our movie night at Vox Pop Cafe to raising funds to help with disaster relief in Haiti. We’ll be showing a documentary produced right here in Brooklyn, hosting a discussion, and collecting money for Partners In Health, the aid group that has been doing phenomenal work in Haiti for over 20 years and already operates several hospitals and clinics throughout the country.
-WEDNESDAY at 8pm we’ll be screening Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy (2009, 50min) from Tet Ansanm Productions, co-directed by Renee Bergan and Mark Schuller, with narration by Edwidge Danticat. “Told through the lives of five compelling Haitian women, Poto Mitan gives an inside perspective on globalization, Haiti’s current crisis, and the resilient women challenging this system.” Visit potomitan.net for trailer, information and project goals.
-This screening will be followed by a discussion with a representative from Fonkoze, a micro-financing institution that works closely with PIH on the ground in Haiti.
-Asking for $10 towards PIH at this event, but of course no one will be turned away. Please give what you can.
Vox Pop Cafe is at 1022 Cortelyou Rd. @ Stratford Rd in Ditmas Park. Q train to Cortelyou voxpopcafe.com for more info, or 718-940-2084
Description: Special screening of Con Artist (2009, 87min) at UnionDocs in Williamsburg.
An official selection at the 2009 Tribeca and Hamptons Film Festivals, CON ARTIST examines the controversial, contradictory, greedy, and shamelessly self-promoting pop artist Mark Kostabi. A fast and funny “docu-comedy of art, celebrity, fortune, fakery, and the American Dream,” it’s also a must for fans of the city’s art/punk/hip hop boom in the ’80s.
A special discussion and q&a with director Michael Sladek follows the 7:30 screening.
Details: Friday, 1/15, 7:30pm
There is a suggested donation of $7 at the door, but we recommend getting advance tix through the UNIONDOCS site (official trailer is up here too), as the screening room is quite cozy.
322 Union Ave, L to Lorimer/ G to Metropolitan/ J to Hewes
Description: Famed bus tour guide/ pseudo-philosopher Timothy “Speed” Levitch takes us on a whirlwind tour through Manhattan (and his own headspace) in Bennet Miller’s beautifully photographed postcard to NYC The Cruise (1998, 76min). Preceded by a few vintage docs on the city.
BOOKS THROUGH BARS BENEFIT RepoMan/Mad Max Movie Night and Bakesale
Just $5 for two classic 1980s dystopian technothrillers and a chance to sample home-baked goods? All funds used to send free books to people in prison? That’s right. Come support New York City’s books to prisoners program. Learn about Books Through Bars here
7:30pm — MAD MAX II: THE ROAD WARRIOR
1982, directed by George Miller
“In a post-nuclear war world, a lone adventurer who drives the roads of outback Australia in an endless search for gasoline. His opponents include Lord Humungus, and they battle over a tiny band of civilized survivors and their horde of fuel.”
Haven’t seen Mad Max I? Don’t worry about it.
9:30pm — REPO MAN
1984, directed by Alex Cox
“Otto, a baby-face punk played by Emilio Estevez, becomes an apprentice to Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a coke-snorting, veteran repo-man-of-honor prowling the streets of a Los Angeles wasteland populated by hoods, wackos, burnouts, conspiracy theorists, and aliens of every stripe.”
Description: Freddy’s Backroom tomorrow, Wed. 12/9 with El dia de la bestia (TheDay of the Beast, 1995, 99min, Spain/Italy), director Alex de la Iglesia’s horror-thriller-comedy mash-up about an unhinged priest and his attempts to thwart the birth of the Antichrist in present-day Madrid on Christmas Day. In time for the holidays.
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