For three days in three different locations this week, 2008 Dare to Dream Media & Arts Festival (April 16-19) is bringing together artistic talents from diverse backgrounds to celebrate and honor the experiences and contributions of immigrants in New York City. At the same time, it will also introduce alternative educational models aimed at nurturing global consciousness among underserved youth.

Produced by Bronx-born, Dominican community activist and visionary Joel Mejia, the Dare to Dream Media & Arts Festival is also the culmination of the Dare to Dream Project, a media arts initiative that uses immigration as a basis to teach media and arts to inner city youth.

(more…)

As a few lucky TRACE staffers were graced to see at last issue’s transcultural casting call, true beauty dresses — and undresses — itself in as many ways as there are folks on this earth. Check out the footage from behind the scenes at this True Beauty issue photo shoot.

If Jellyfish whet your appetite for more filmic Israeli revelations, check out New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture this week and next for a seductive film series probing the private areas of Israeli culture. With costumes and role-playing, these Tel Aviv filmmakers show how deeply linked sexual and personal identity is to the militarized, media-saturated landscape of the state of Israel.

In their video trilogy, Beyond Guilt (2004-2006), Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir get in front of the camera while picking up men in bars, bathrooms, through internet dating sites and call services to ask them about their attitudes towards sex. They even invite a prostitute to a hotel room and have her shoot a video of them. In Nothing Happened (2007), they follow a group of kids during a typical Tel Aviv night of chilling with prostitutes and impersonal hookups.

Another collection of shorts, Yossi Atia and Itamar Rose’s collection of satirical shorts, “Come to Israel: It’s hot and wet and we have the Humus,” satires race, gender, and sexuality. Taking on the roles of fictional characters, they interview random Israelis going about their business on the street, in the mall and picnicking in the park.

The films are playing nonstop today through April 18th. If you want more, catch Ari Libsker on Thursday, when he will be showing his shorts from London, Accra and Tel Aviv. And if you’re still fiending hot, wet humus, Libsker’s documentary, Stalags - Holocaust and pornography in Israel is opening at The Film Forum tomorrow.

Catch clips of Beyond Guilt here, Storefront intel here and Stalags showtimes here.

Tori Sparks is a rock star of sorts in the contemporary dance world. Her work will quiet your thoughts, allowing a flood of emotions to have their way with you. It is mysterious and sly, or joyful and smiley. Either way, it is damn potent.

Sparks as an artist is a do-er. Her work doesn’t stop with the stage. She uses the camera to take dance, as an established art form, out of the traditional venues and into a new era of expression. This weekend, Sparks presents this other form of visual choreography at the Bushwick Starr. “Trilogy of Two” is three movement-based videos featuring music by Towers of Hanoi and Antler.

Sparks was recently featured in TRACE’s Sporting Life issue along with a portfolio of six other dancers making quality work. Check out her reel for examples of brilliant performance work, or, for those of you nowhere close to Bushwick this evening, view some of her vids here and keep an eye out for her.

Trilogy of Two, three movement-based music videos by Tori Sparks, The Bushwick Starr, Bushwick, Brooklyn. April 4 & 5th, 8pm. $12

TRACE: Describe the work that you’re presenting this weekend.

Tori Sparks: I am presenting a series of movement-based music videos we at sharpelbow have been crafting, called “Trilogy of Two.” I use the term “music videos” lightly as they are not your typical formula, but they are not straight-up dance films either. I have been working in movement and costume design with the concept of “twinning” and the pitfalls of seeking individual sovereignty. With that in mind for the concept, I then juxtaposed music from independent bands like Towers of Hanoi (Gainesville) and Antler (New York).

(more…)

There’s nothing quite like a little classic, Dutch experimental film from the 1970s to liven up a Tuesday. Or a lot of it. With two world premieres of new digital restorations set to spin alongside six other short films by the Dutch master of twisted narratives and viewer/viewed relations, the Anthology Film Archives in New York is really going for broke on Frans Zwartjes.

But they’re only doing it once! So check it out because it’s probably the only time you’ll ever be able to see so many Zwartjes films at once. For the last eleven years, the Netherlands Filmmuseum has been pouring itself into restoring Zwartjes’ films — which made him only briefly known internationally but inspired the next two generations of Dutch experimental filmmakers.

Keep an eye out for Living, which will be screening. It’s Zwartjes’ favorite.

Show some love to Tuesdays and experimental film here.

The Barbican in London, which has been serving up a tantalizing array of reggae cult classics since March 12th, only has a week left in its Film Jamaica series. The series runs parallel to the Barbican’s seasonal run of The Harder They Come, a musical adaptation of the groundbreaking, seventies Jamaican feature starring the legendary Jimmy Cliff. And while the musical runs in the theatre, the original celluloid headlines the Film Jamaica series.

The Harder They Come tells the country-boy-meets-world story of a young musician who moves to Kingston with dreams of becoming a singer, but who quickly becomes an outlaw. The soundtrack features seminal reggae hits “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” “Many Rivers to Cross,” and the eponymous title track.

This Wednesday, Film Jamaica will premiere Rockers, a 1970s documentary-style exploration of the Robin Hood myth in roots music culture during Jamaica’s music industry heyday.

For your viewing pleasure, check out the Film Jamaica series here and the musical here.

Francophiles and foreign-film buffs get a treat this weekend with the start of Rendezvous with French Cinema, a week long event at the IFC debuting 15 of the newest French films in America. Throughout the week, the IFC will premiere a range of films covering love, war, and the situations that take us from one pole to the other.

The festival kicks off with French box-office hit, A Secret. Based on a novel by Phillipe Grimbert that will also be released in the United States this year, the film explores the effects of the many secrets a Jewish family was forced to keep on the eve, and in the wake of World War II.

Given the popularity of Persepolis, you might want to check out Fear in the Dark, an animated film in the same stylistic vein, developed by six of France’s top comic book artists. Each artists’ idea is woven into a dreamlike story taking you through the realms of science fiction, horror, and the fantastic.

One movie I’m checking for is Ain’t Scared, a drama set in the housing projects outside of Paris. Ain’t Scared is one day in the emotional life of a group of youth trying to express deep feelings for each other, when they’re accustomed to maintaining a hard, protective front. The director, who also grew up in les cités (as the housing projects are called), gives audiences a chance to see a gentler side of Paris’ urban youth that is rare in the media.

A bonus during the week is a preview screening of Love Songs, which will start its official run at the IFC March 21.

The directors of all the films will also be in attendance - a cherry on top for those who like to find out the director’s perspective on making the film, or the significance of the color green. All films in French with English subtitles.

Festival runs February 29-March 6 atthe IFC. For tickets and further information, visit IFC.

In the hills overlooking the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, a war is going on. Violence has long been harbored in the alleys, and beneath the palms of the favelas. Gangs and drug lords enforce law and order more than the police, who often enter the favelas shooting or ready to shoot. Either way, the fights, the rivalries, and the gunshots always give way to the blood of the young, the innocent and the damned.

City Of Men, a new film by the team behind City Of God, explores the ties that bind friendship, fatherhood, community, and survival in a world that is unsentimental about self-discovery, and is the nemesis to self-preservation. Two friends, Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) realize this the hard way in the months leading up to their 18th birthdays. Acerola has a two-year-old son to raise. Used to his freedom, he feels tied down by his marriage and fatherhood; for Laranjinha, the problem isn’t being a father, it is not having one. While the duo tries to solve their problems, a gang war destabilizes the structure of the drug world around them . When the head drug lord in the community, Laranjinha’s cousin Madrugadão (Jonathan Haagensen), loses his ground to his former partner, the two friends are torn apart in the ensuing conflict. When the dust settles, they find themselves on opposite sides of the war wondering which will be stronger - the pull of friendship or the code of the streets.

Some viewers may remember Silva and Cunha from City Of God, where, at the age of 11, they were cast as the young versions of L’il Dice and File-com-Fritas. They have played Acerola and Laranjinha since City Of God on a television series in Brazil, also called City Of Men. Their real lives almost mirror those of their characters, with the exception that their talent for acting opened a world of opportunity for them that could lead to a life beyond the favela.

Beautiful and dusty, languid and fervent, City Of Men picks up where City Of God left off, showing how the tidal wave of a violent and conflicted past breaks across the doorsteps of today. City Of Men explores not only how drugs and violence shape and constrain the daily lives of the people in the favelas, but also what life is like for the 90% who are not directly involved in the drug or gang world until they fall victim to it.

Opens Friday, February 29 at the Angelika Film Center in New York. For tickets and showtimes, visit Angelika’s website. For more on City of Men, click here.

The more you consider child soldiers, the more chilling they become. A powerful desire to place blame, point, or otherwise pin down victim and evil, circles around them, unable to rest. It’s a rare film that can capture such frustration with honesty and without overloading on pity.

Closing Tuesday, February 26th at New York’s Film Forum, Ezra: The Story of a Child Soldier is the fictional account of a boy, riddled with amphetamines to decimate his mind, memory, and conscience. Pointedly, the film does not give his story or the audience an ending to walk out of the theater with.

Nigerian/UK filmmaker Newton Aduaka is one to watch out for, and this film is not to be watched by the faint of heart.

Check out the trailer here. Tickets & Showtimes here.

When most people think of Brazil, visions of sun bleached sands, tanned beauties in Ipanema bikinis, Rio favelas, and World Cup soccer usually come to mind. However, the same historical paths that led to the beauty of the world’s most outrageous Carnivale setting also produced pockets of forgotten Afro-Brazilian communities known as ‘quilombos’. In director Leonard Abrams’ new documentary, Quilombo Country, the origins of these communities are examined and light is shed on the current conditions of the ‘quilombos’ struggling inhabitants.

“Brazil, once the world’s largest slave colony, was brutal and deadly for millions of Africans. But many thousands escaped and rebelled, creating their own communities in Brazil’s untamed hinterland. Largely unknown to the outside world, these communities, known as quilombos, struggle today to preserve a rich heritage born of resistance to oppression.”- Quilombo Country

Narrated by the legendary voice of Public Enemy’s Chuck D, Quilombo Country is the culmination of over 5 years of travel, research, and interaction in the quilombos. Abrams provides an intimate and provocative glimpse into the lives of a people determined to keep their legacy in tact. This Saturday, February 23rd, Quilombo Country will hold its world theatrical screening in New York City’s Anthology Film Archives, at 8pm. Admission is $8, and the screening will be followed by a Q&A with Abrams and a celebratory reception. If you’re in the city come out to support this important documentary and be sure to carry the experience beyond Black History Month.