5/2: The Inheritance at Freddy’s

Description: Movie Mike presents the landmark doc chronicling the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, THE INHERITANCE (dir. Harold Mayer, 1964, 58min) on his own 16mm print
“Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the film traces the growth of the American labor movement from immigrant arrival at Ellis Island through union participation in the civil rights struggle of the sixties. Focusing on the garment industry, the documentary exposes conditions in the sweatshops and ghettos of New York, Chicago, and Rochester, and depicts the police brutality accompanying protest. Plus more clips from Mike’s archives on the labor movement in the US. More on this timely screening at our sit
Details: Wednesday May 2, 8pm, FREE
Freddy’s Bar and Backroom - 627 5th Ave btw 17th and 18th St.
Read more about the general strike and May Day actions in NYC here

4/26: “Medora” kickstarter party and October Country

Description: Kickstarter party for Davy Rothbart and Andrew Cohn’s doc MEDORA, now in production.
Learn more about the kickstarter campaign and check out an extended preview. Director Andrew Cohn will also present a quick short short, “Little Helper” shot next door to Launchpad at J’s Wong restaurant on Franklin Ave.“Years ago, Medora was a booming rural community with prosperous farms, an automotive parts factory, a brick plant, and a thriving middle class. The factories have since closed, crippling Medora’s economy and its pride. The population has slowly dwindled to around 500 people. Drug use is common, the school faces consolidation, and as one resident put it, “This town’s on the ropes.”  … Medora follows the down-but-not-out Medora Hornets varsity basketball team over the course of the 2010 – 2011 season, capturing the players’ stories both on and off the court. The Hornets were riding a 44-game losing streak when we arrived, often playing schools ten to twenty times its size. The team’s struggle to compete bears eerie resonances with the town’s fight for survival in a country whose economy has shifted away from farming and manufacturing. Medora is an in-depth, deeply personal look at small-town life, a thrilling, underdog basketball story, and an inspiring tale of a community refusing to give up hope despite the brutal odds stacked against them — we like to think of it as a real-life, modern-day Hoosiers. On a grander scale, it’s a film about America, and the thousands of small towns across the country facing the same fight.
Followed by: recent award-winning, underseen doc October Country (dir. Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher, 2009, 80min) a verite look at an American family haunted by the ghosts of war and abuse. “Shot over a year from one Halloween to the next, the film uses rich visual metaphors and floats through multiple storylines to paint a portrait of a family who are unique but also sadly representative of the struggles of Americaʼs working class. Winner of the 2009 SILVERDOCS Grand Jury Prize for best US Documentary Feature.” Filmed in upstate NY.

4/4: Miike x2 J-Horror Double Feature at Freddy’s

MIIKE X2!
8pm: Gozu (aka Yakuza Horror Theater: Gozu, 2003, 125min)
10:15: Bijita Q (aka Visitor Q, 2001, 84min)
come for one or both | preceded by a local short

Nippon horror from Japan’s legendary grindhouse auteur Miike, who has pounded out over seventy theatrical, video, and TV productions since his debut in 1991. Prolific, provocative, and probably not appropriate for anyone.
Gozu has been called a J-horror version of Mullholland Dr., a twisted conflation of Yakuza mystery, Lynchian comic-horror, Japanese folklore, with lots of lactating. ”…a straight-to-video Japanese release that snuck into Cannes last year and has been leaving a trail of damp, crusty stains on the festival circuit since, it is likely his most cunning and controlled work since the sex-panic Venus flytrap Audition.” -Dennis Lim

In Visitor Q, his indescribably perverse take on the family drama, a deranged dad sets out to make a documentary on the exploits of his seriously damaged family. “The scandalous pinnacle of Miike’s extreme cinema canon.” -Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness

At Freddy’s Bar and Backroom, 627 5th Ave. btw. 17th, 18th St.
R to Prospect Ave.
Free show – get a beer – tip your barkeep – Freddy’s now has a full menu, and it’s bangin’

4/1: CAPOEIRA: FLY AWAY BEETLE at Amarachi Lounge

3/22: Brownstones to Red Dirt & I Am Big Bird preview at LaunchPad

Description: Very excited for a special screening of the touching and timely Bed-Stuy-shot doc Brownstones to Red Dirt (Copper Pot Pictures, 2010, 85min) and a sneak preview/ kickstarter trailer for the upcoming feature doc I Am Big Bird, a look at the life of Carroll Spinney, the man who has played the big yellow bird in every episode of Sesame Street since 1969. Community screening: free and open to all.

Details: Thursday March 22nd, 7pm. Free & BYOB & popcorn provided

at LaunchPad, 721 Franklin Ave. btw/ Park Pl and Sterling Pl, 2/3/4/5 to Franklin

3/7: New Shorts from #OWS//Occupy Rallies at Freddy’s

Description: Join KCCS and filmmaker Messiah Rhodes for a presentation of breaking film and media from Occupy Wall Street rallies and documentation of rallies from this people’s movement.

>we’ll also roll some recent work by filmmaker/editor Adele Pham, and a piece shot at Zuccotti for “Sankofa Day 2011″ by Freddy’s mainstay and BCAT-featured program “Freddy’s Brooklyn Roundhouse”

>short docs include recent clips from STOP WAR ON IRAN, STOP STOP AND FRISK rallies in NYC, and the #OccupyMuseums campaign

++ preview of Messiah’s upcoming feature doc #STATE OF REVOLUTION, a chronicle of activism and resistance in New York State in 2011, from budget cut protests in Albany to Bloombergville to Zuccotti Park

+ discussion and drinking to follow, and info on Occupy Brooklyn
http://rhodespictures.tumblr.com/
http://vimeo.com/adelepham
http://www.freddysbrooklynroundhouse.org/

Details: Weds. 3/7 in the backroom
~9-11pm, free

Freddy’s Bar, 627 5th Ave btw/ 17th, 18th St. M/R to Prospect Ave.

3/6: Brooklyn Arts Council Filmmaker meet up @ Littlefield

Description: From our friends at Brooklyn Arts Council:

Calling all Brooklyn Filmmakers!

Brooklyn Arts Council and Scene: Brooklyn invite you to join us at our next filmmakers meet up! Enjoy drink specials, meet and mingle with other local film professionals, and submit your film to this year’s Scene: Brooklyn in person – for 25% off the regular Withoutabox submission fee. Brooklyn Arts Council staff will be on hand with information about our screening programs and services for film and media artists. This will be the last chance to submit work in person before this year’s screening series in May; the withoutabox late deadline is March 8. Hope to see you there!

Details: Tuesday, March 6, 2012 | 6 – 9pm happy hour specials

at littlefield - 622 Degraw St. between 3rd and 4th Ave

More on Scene: Brooklyn at BAC’s site

THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR at Spectacle Theater!!

Just-announced special screening Saturday at Spectacle Theater:

THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR (dir. Ivan Dixon, 1973, 102min)
“Possibly the most radical of the blaxploitation films of the 70s, this movie was an overnight success when released in 1973, then was abruptly taken out of distribution for reasons still not entirely clear. A mild-mannered social worker (Lawrence Cook) is recruited by the CIA as a token black and proceeds to learn (and later apply) the techniques of urban guerrilla warfare in Chicago (though most of the filming was done in Gary, Indiana). Corrosively ironic and often exciting, this adaptation by Sam Greenlee of his own novel, directed by Ivan Dixon, remains one of the great missing (or at least unwritten) chapters in black political filmmaking.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum

Saturday 2/25 5pm sharp
$5
Spectacle Theater, 124 S3rd St. in Williamsburg

2/23 THE MACK and CLAUDINE meet CLEOPATRA JONES

Join KCCS Thursday the 23rd  at LaunchPad as  Joanna White-Oldham of the Center for Active Learning presents a tripple header of blaxploitation films!

6:00pm -The Mack (1973). Dir. Michael Campus. Goldie (Max Julien) comes home from prison and takes over the pimp game in the Bay Area. Also stars Richard Pryor.

Runtime: 110 min

8:00pm Claudine (1974). Dir. John Berry. Oscar nominated dramatic comedy starring Diahann Carroll as Claudine, a single mother raising six children in Harlem. Claudine’s love interest, Roop (James Earl Jones) struggles with managing his feelings for her, her children and his personal obligations.

10:00pm Cleopatra Jones (1973). Dir. Jack Starett. Tamara Dobson is Cleopatra Jones a US Special Agent sent to take out “Mommy” (Shelley Winters) a notorious drug trafficker.
Runtime: 89 min

Details: Thursday February  23 / 6:00pm / at LaunchPad, 721 Franklin Ave btw/ Park and Sterling. 2/3/4/5 to Franklin Ave.
FREE / BYOB / popcorn provided.

2/1: Rare race films & Richard Pryor on 16, at Freddy's

Description: KCCS is doing another month of screenings for Black History Month, starting with a trip down racially insensitive memory lane: our friend and Park Slope film archivist Movie Mike and the Black Film Preservation Society’s Walter Taylor present rarely-seen 16mm film on the big screen in Freddy’s Backroom. Prepare to be awed by a deluge of political incorrectness as Movie Mike and Mr. Taylor unspool buried race cartoons and one-reelers time forgot.

Show includes Mike’s reel of ’30s era Race Cartoons, ’50s TV adventure Ramar of the Jungle, and Walter’s reel of Hollywood clips titled Great Ladies of Jazz, chock full of choice vocals. We’ll wrap with a performance film of standup by Richard Pryor. All on crisp celluloid.

From Movie Mike: “ We must keep a historical perspective when viewing this stuff, using film as time travel to visit our cultural past. We’ll experience social, cultural and political attitudes that time forgot!  To understand where we are now, we must see where we have been… If you are sensitive, this stuff may hurt your feelings.  Try to remember, history is not what we wish it to be, it is what it is, and it ain’t cute!”

Details: Weds. 2/1 8:30pm, free

At Freddys Bar & Backroom 627 5th Ave btw 17th and 18th St. N/R to Prospect Ave