AAFF 50TH: RETROSPECTIVE SCREENING SERIES
The Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF) launches its 50th season in September with a five-part Retrospective Screening Series, which presents influential and rare films from its five decades of ground breaking exhibition.
September 22 - The first retrospective screening includes films by Alice Anne Parker (a.k.a. Anne Severson), including her 1971 film Near the Big Chakra, an influential feminist film that provoked a riot during its screening at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1972. Severson will be in attendance and will be interviewed by artist and UM Art & Design professor Holly Hughes following the screening.
October 20 – The AAFF 50th: Retrospective Screening Series continues with a program of short archival films selected and presented by guest curator Mark Toscano, film preservationist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
November 30 - David Gatten selects and introduces influential films from AAFF’s exhibition history. Gatten’s been attending AAFF for more than two decades as a filmmaker, visiting professor and 2007 festival juror.
January 25, 2012 - Toronto filmmaker and 37th AAFF juror, Mike Hoolboom, visits Ann Arbor to present a program of significant films curated from the AAFF’s rich history.
The series concludes February 22, 2012 with Robert Gardner’s feature documentary Forest of Bliss, which played at the 24th Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1986. This landmark and influential documentary film has recently been restored and will be screened on a new 35mm print on loan from the Harvard Film Archive.
All screenings take place at the Michigan Theater in downtown Ann Arbor. All screenings begin at 7:30pm and tickets are $10 general; $7 students/seniors/Michigan Theater members; $5 Ann Arbor Film Festival members. The series is supported by the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan and presented in partnership with the Michigan Theater. For more information and advance tickets at: aafilmfest.org
