Madison Art Cinemas owner Arnold Gorlick in Toronto.
Description
On today's episode of Deep Focus, host Tom Breen and Madison Art Cinemas owner Arnold Gorlick recap their favorite films from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.
Episode 121: 48 Hour Film Project New Haven 2018 Recap
Haley Copes, Trish Clark, and Ryan Licwinko.
Description
On today's episode of Deep Focus, host Tom Breen talks with 48 Hour Film Project New Haven Producer Trish Clark and with Ryan Licwinko and Haley Copes, two local filmmakers who participated in the 2018 competition during the final weekend of July. Licwinko's team, everyoneleavesnewhaven, made the martial arts movie, "The Warrior, The Guardian, and The Liar. Copes's team, Bounce Lounge Productions, made the comedy, "A Slice of Chaos."
Episode 119: Trish Clark / 48 Hour Film Project New Haven 2018
Description
On today's episode of Deep Focus, host Tom Breen talks with Trish Clark about this summer's 48 Hour Film Project New Haven, the eighth annual Elm City competition to make a 4 to 7 minute movie that follows an assortment of randomly assigned criteria over the course of one weekend. Breen and Clark also talk about the Nutmeg Institute, which Clark co-founded to help connect and inspire local filmmakers.
Links
http://www.48hourfilm.com/new-haven-ct
Episode 116: Jim Barone / The Week Of
Description
On today's episode, host Tom Breen talks with Jim Barone, a Hamden native who stars in the new Adam Sandler Netflix comedy, THE WEEK OF. Barone lost both of his legs due to complications with diabetes a few years ago, but is now embarking on an acting career, and is calling one of the most famous comedians in the world a new friend and mentor.
Episode 115: Steve Hamm / The Village
Steve Hamm.
Description
On today's episode, host Tom Breen talks with Steve Hamm, the director of THE VILLAGE, a new documentary and oral history of the Wooster Square neighborhood, which has served for over a century as the city's Little Italy.
Episode 114: NHDocs 2018
Description
On today's episode, host Tom Breen talks with local filmmaker Gorman Bechard about the fifith annual New Haven Documentary Film Festival, aka NHDocs.
Episode 109: Norman Weissman / Griggs Collection
The title sequence from Norman Weissman's 1968 film, THE LANGUAGE THEY SPEAK.
Description
On the first segment of today's show, host Tom Breen talks with Yale film archivist Brian Meacham and documentary filmmaker Norman Weissman about an upcoming screening of Weissman's eclectic industrial and educational films from the 1950s through 1970s.
On the second segment of the show, Breen and Meacham talk about the 50-year anniversary of Yale's acquisition of the John Griggs Collection, which marked the beginning of the Yale Film Archive as we know it today.
Links
An Evening with Norman Weissman—Treasures from the YFA: https://www.facebook.com/events/371080160030135/
Yale Collection of Classic Films: 50th Anniversary Celebration: https://www.facebook.com/events/1941302269466810/
Episode 107: Pizza, A Love Story
PIZZA, A LOVE STORY director Gorman Bechard (center) and producers Colin Caplan (left) and Dean Falcone.
Description
Today’s show is all about PIZZA, A LOVE STORY, a new documentary from local filmmaker Gorman Bechard and producers Colin Caplan and Dean Falcone that is all about just why, oh why, the small New England city we call home has three of the best pizza places in the world, all within a few blocks of one another. Host Tom Breen talks with them about about their research into Pepe’s, Sally’s and Modern, and about how America’s century-long love affair with pizza has been influenced by a small group of family-owned, Italian-American restaurants based out of New Haven.
Links
Kickstarter page for PIZZA, A LOVE STORY: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gormanbechard/pizza-a-love-story-a-documentary-on-the-ultimate-s?ref=creator_nav
PIZZA, A LOVE STORY website: http://www.pizzaalovestory.com/
Episode 105: The Island Next Door / Phantom Thread
WNPR reporter Ryan Caron King (Thomas Breen photo)
Description
On Wednesday, September 20, 2017, a Category 4 hurricane made landfall on the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria completely destroyed the island’s power grid, leveled homes and schools, and was and continues to be a source of great humanitarian concern both for the 3.4 million people who live on Puerto Rico as well as for the upwards of 300,000 Puerto Ricans who live in the state of Connecticut.
On the first segment of today’s show, host Tom Breen talks with WNPR journalist and photographer Ryan Caron King about the Island Next Door, a reporting project undertaken by King and WNPR news director Jeff Cohen that documents the months-long fallout of Hurricane Maria, both on the island and in the Nutmeg State. They focus in on the videos and photographs that Ryan made over the course of several reporting trips to Puerto Rico in late 2017.
On the second segment of the show, Breen is joined by New Haven Independent staff writer Allan Appel for a review of PHANTOM THREAD, a new movie from director Paul Thomas Anderson that offers a biting critique of the myth of the domineering male artistic genius and his docile female muse, all set in the world of high fashion in post-World War II London, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, and Lesley Manville.
Links
The Island Next Door: https://theislandnextdoor.wnpr.org/
Episode 104: African American Cinema / The Post
Paul Robeson in The Emperor Jones (1933)
Description
On the first segment of today’s show, host Tom Breen is joined by New Haven film critic and lecturer Steve Fortes to talk about the history of African American cinema.
In the early 1990s, Steve taught two seminars at Yale University about the history of African American film and television. On today’s show we’ll talk with Steve about the films that he covered in those two seminars, what he saw as some of the prevailing themes and trends of in the first century of African American cinema, and about which movies and filmmakers he would include today if he were teaching the same course in 2018.
On the second segment of the show, Breen is joined by New Haven Independent staff writer Allan Appel for a review of THE POST, Steven Spielberg’s new movie about the 1971 debate within the editorial ranks of The Washington Post about whether or not to publish Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers, classified documents that revealed decades of executive branch deceit and cynicism that prolonged America’s disastrous involvement in the Vietnam War. We’ll talk about how this movie resonates in 2018 as a celebration of the free press, and as an indictment of the hypermasculine industries of newspapers and politics in the early 1970s.
Episode 102: Francescsa Andre / The Shape of Water
CHARCOAL (2017)
Description
On the first segment of today’s episode, host Tom Breen is joined by Bridgeport-based filmmaker Francesca Andre to talk about her new movie “Charcoal,” a short film about colorism and prejudices within and without the black community against dark skin. They talk about the origins of this movie, Andre’s background as a fashion and news photographer, and her own experiences with colorism in her native Haiti and here in the States.
On the second segment of the show, Breen joined by New Haven Independent reporter Allan Appel for a review of The Shape of Water, director Guillermo del Toro’s new sci-fi-horror-romance about a mute cleaning woman in early 60s Baltimore who falls in love with an amphibious man held captive at the secret US army research facility where she works.
Links
http://www.francescaandrephotography.com/
Episode 101: Kate Rushin / Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991)
Description
On the first segment of today’s show, host Tom Breen is joined by Connecticut poet Kate Rushin to talk about two movies that have had a profound influence on her understanding and love of cinema: DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST, a landmark 1991 drama from director Julie Dash about three generations of African American Gullah women from the Sea Islands of South Carolina, a movie often celebrated as the first feature film directed by an African American woman to get a wide theatrical release in the United States; and we’ll also talk about BLACK ORPHEUS, a 1959 musical from French director Marcel Camus that adapts the classical Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to the vibrant, samba-suffused streets of Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro during Carnival.
On the second segment of the show, Breen and the New Haven Independent’s Allan Appel review THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, a new ensemble dramedy from director Martin McDonagh that follows a grieving, defiant mother seeking justice for her murdered child in a small town in the Ozark mountains of southern Missouri.
Links
Kate Rushin's website: http://katerushinpoet.com/
Episode 100: Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997)
One panel of the Amistad Memorial, designed by Ed Hamilton, that stands outside of New Haven's City Hall. (Photo by Thomas Breen)
Description
This marks the 20th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s AMISTAD, a 1997 historical drama about a successful revolt among enslaved Africans aboard a Cuban slave ship in 1839, those Africans’ subsequent recapture and detention in, among other places, New Haven, Connecticut, and the subsequent landmark United States court cases that resulted in the Africans’ freedom.
On today’s episode, host Tom Breen talks with Yale Film Studies Center director Michael Kerbel, Gilder Lehrman Center postdoctoral associate Joseph Yannielli and local film critic and lecturer Steve Fortes about Spielberg’s take on the Amistad uprising and trials, how themovie holds up two decades after its initial release, and how it resonates for audiences in New Haven where this story is so widely celebrated as one of this city’s primary connections to an international history of anti-slavery and civil rights.
Links
Treasures from the Yale Film Archive screening of AMISTAD: http://calendar.yale.edu/cal/event/eventView.do?b=de&calPath=%2Fpublic%2Fcals%2FMainCal&guid=CAL-ff808081-5e1b392f-015e-3451c399-000079e4bedework@yale.edu&recurrenceId=
New Haven Independent article about Marcus Rediker's documentary GHOSTS OF AMISTAD: http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/a_peoples_history_of_the_amistad/
Joseph Yannielli's talk on "“The Mendi Mission and the African Rehearsal for Reconstruction”": http://calendar.yale.edu/cal/event/eventView.do?b=de&calPath=%2Fpublic%2Fcals%2FMainCal&guid=CAL-ff808081-5e1b392f-015e-3946e364-00000183bedework@yale.edu&recurrenceId=
Episode 99: Mark Oppenheimer / Lady Bird
Mark Oppenheimer at the WNHH Studio.
Description
Today’s West Coast, High School, Romantic Comedy edition of the show all about a few movies that explore the highs, lows and confused in-betweens of teenage life, mostly told from the perspective of young female protagonists.
On the first segment of the show, host Tom Breen is joined by New Haven-based author, journalist and podcaster Mark Oppenheimer to talk about two movies that have had a profound influence on his understanding and love of cinema: Amy Heckerling’s 1982 directorial debut FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, an ensemble high school sex comedy set in southern california and written by Cameron Crowe, and Crowe’s own 1989 directorial debut SAY ANYTHING, which brings the teenage romantic yearning up the coast to Seattle and follows one unlikely couple in the tumultuous summer after their high school graduation.
On the second segment of the show, Breen is joined by New Haven Arts Paper editor Lucy Gellman and New Haven Independent staff writer Allan Appel to talk about LADY BIRD, Greta Gerwig’s new movie (also a directorial debut) about a 17-year-old in Sacramento, California trying to figure out who she is in relation to her mom, school, friends and city, all of which she desperately longs to escape from in order to start a new life as an independent adult on the East Coast.
Links
Mark Oppenheimer's website: http://www.markoppenheimer.com/
Unorthodox the podcast: http://www.tabletmag.com/tag/unorthodox
Facebook Live video of the interview: https://www.facebook.com/NewHavenIndependent/videos/10155885885571228/
Episode 98: Gorman Bechard / Who Is Lydia Loveless?
Gorman Bechard at the WNHH studio.
Description
On today's episode, host Tom Breen talks with prolific New Haven filmmaker Gorman Bechard about his latest rock documentary, Who Is Lydia Loveless? The movie follows a 24-year-old country rock musician as she tours the midwest in the early stages of her career, and dives deep on the challenges and joys of making art for a living.
Links
What Were We Thinking Films website: http://whatwerewethinkingfilms.com/
Episode 97: 2017 Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale (LIFFY)
Latin American filmmakers come to town for LIFFY. From left to right: Juan Gomez, Carlos Barba Salva, Luis Alberto García, Deyma D’Atri, and Jean Jean.
Description
This week is the Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale (LIFFY), an annual celebration of contemporary Spanish and Portueguese-language cinema that takes place in downtown New Haven at the Whitney Humanities Center at 53 Wall St.
In this week's episode, host Tom Breen talks with a handful of filmmakers who have movies screenings at this year's festival, including Cuban filmmaker Carlos Barba Salva, Haitian/Dominican filmmaker Jean Jean, Cuban filmmaker Deyma D’Atri, Cuban actor Luis Alberto García, and Colombian filmmaker Claudia Fischer.
Links
Episode 96: Trans Awareness Week / A Prophet
IV Staklo and Patrick Dunn
Description
Next week is Transgender Awareness Week, an annual grassroots celebration of trans culture and concerns that takes place in different communities throughout the country, including in New Haven.
The first segment of this episode is all about a trans film series that the New Haven Pride Center has organized to help celebrate Trans Awareness Week in the Elm City. Host Tom Breen is joined in the studio by two of the series’ programmers, Patrick Dunn and IV Staklo, to talk about the movies that will be playing, the different ways that trans people and issues are represented on screen, and the current state of the New Haven’s trans rights community.
On the second segment of the show, Breen joined by the Yale Film Study Center’s Archer Neilson to talk about Un prophete, a 2009 French film by Jacques Audiard that stars Tahar Rahim as a French Arab man learning to navigate the different languages, economies, cultures, and politics of a central French prison in the early 2000s. Un prophete is playing this Sunday at the Whitney Humanities Center on Wall Street as part of the Treasures from the Yale Film Archives series.
Other Links
New Haven Pride Center Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NewHavenPrideCenter/
New Haven Trans Awareness Week schedule: http://hosted-p0.vresp.com/713637/e3ad37a1d9/ARCHIVE
Episode 95: Loving Vincent / Nasty Women
Description
On the first segment of today’s show, host Tom Breen talks with Allan Appel and Lucy Gellman about LOVING VINCENT, a new animated film from directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman that gives the Citizen Kane treatment to the life of Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh: through a series of flashbacks and second-hand stories, we see the rise and fall of the troubled and inspired life of this eccentric painter, focusing in on the final days of his life in the rural French town of Auvers.
Unlike most animated movies, this story is composed of tens of thousands of hand-drawn oil paintings by over one hundred contributing artists, all simulating the heavy brushstrokes and ebullient style of the movie’s namesake.
On the second segment of the show, Breen is joined by Lucy McClure, Debbie Hesse, and Trish Clark to talk about the Nasty Women Film Event, a screening night of locally made feminist films that will be taking place at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art on Election day, next Tuesday, in honor of, or in defiance of, the anniversary of Donald Trump’s election as president.
Other Links
Nasty Women Film Event Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1962381047383269/
Episode 89: Graphic Novel Adaptations / American Splendor
AMERICAN SPLENDOR (2003)
Description
In today's episode, host Tom Breen is joined by New Haven Review publisher Bennett Graff for a conversation about movie adaptations of graphic novels. In particular, they focus on AMERICAN SPLENDOR, a 2003 film from directors Shari Springer Brown and Robert Pulcini that brings to life Cleveland author Harvey Pekar’s decades-spanning autobiographical underground comic series of the same name.
Episode 84: Josh Larsen / Movies Are Prayers
An interview with Filmspotting co-host Josh Larsen about his new book Movies Are Prayers.
Description
On today’s very special interview-only episode of the show, host Tom Breen is joined by Filmspotting co-host and Chicago-based film critic Josh Larsen to talk about Movies Are Prayers, Larsen’s new book about how movies can function as expressions of joy, lament, anger, and praise in ways that are strikingly similar to what is heard and felt during prayerful worship.
As a practicing Christian and a seasoned film critic, Larsen brings a theological perspective to his understanding of movies that articulates the religious potential of cinema, not as an instrument for indoctrination, but as an artful expression of mankind’s deepest joys, pains, and uncertainties, directed towards God.
Links
Movies Are Prayers Amazon book page: https://www.amazon.com/Movies-Are-Prayers-Deepest-Longings/dp/083084478
Larsen on Film website: http://www.larsenonfilm.com/
Filmspotting podcast: http://filmspotting.net/
Think Christian website: https://thinkchristian.reframemedia.com/