155 East 3rd Street, at Avenue A* New York City * USA
showtimes (212) 591 0434
advance tickets: click by showtime or call (800) 595 4849 (service charges apply)

"Hou's first film made outside of Asia is his most emotionally turbulent, yet he remains, like the balloon, outside looking in, a compassionate but distant observer capturing it all with a graceful restraint and floating beauty that ultimately carried me away with it". -Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

In 1956, Albert Lamorisse made THE RED BALLOON, a short in which a young boy, played by his son, makes friends with a red balloon. Some 50 years later, Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao Hsien has made his first French-language film, the charming and subtle FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON, commissioned by the Muse d'Orsay and inspired by Lamorisse's children's classic.

A blonde Juliette Binoche stars as Suzanne, a single mother living in Paris, doing her best to raise her seven-year-old son, Simon (Simon Iteanu), while preparing her latest puppet show, based on the Yuan Dynasty story of Zhang Yu and his beloved, Qiong Lian. Suzanne hires Song (Song Fang), a Taiwanese film student, to come to Paris to take care of Simon. Song goes everywhere with her camera, filming everything she sees.

Meanwhile, Simon is being followed by a red balloon that has grown attached to the boy. The balloon, which seems to have its own personality, hovers over the boy and his family as Suzanne struggles with her daily life, fighting with tenants who owe back rent, moving a piano, and getting ready for the puppet show.

Hou, the director of such widely acclaimed films as THE PUPPETMASTER, FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI, and CAFE LUMIERE, has created a touching, beautiful film in FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON, which opened the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and was also selected for that year's New York Film Festival. Not only does the balloon serve as a character unto itself but so does the city of Paris as Song and Simon walk through the streets and ride the train.

All the dialogue in the film is improvised, shot in long takes by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bing; Hou provided each of the actors with the general scenario and back story and then had them fill in the dialogue and movement themselves, adding a natural authenticity to the film.

Winner * Best Director
Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival 2007

"The only film I can even compare this to is 'Henry: Portrait Of a Serial Killer' and I may be going out on a limb here but this film will be uttered in the same breath as that horror classic. This is a film that takes all of the Freddys, Jasons, and Leatherfaces of the horror world and shows them the real meaning of true terror!" -Gorehounds Unite

Andrew Lakewood seems to be a normal average guy. He was raised by a loving family and has a close relationship with his older brother. His girlfriend adores him and his best friend could only think he knows everything about him. But deep inside of Andrew is a dark side, that has been masked over the years. Until one day, his thoughts and fantasies become real! Richard Terrasi is the Writer, Producer and Director of this pure horrific and disturbing film "Am I Evil". The film digs deep into the mind of a serial killer.

New York Premiere

Written and directed by Noboru Iguchi (SUKEMAN BOY, THE CAT'S EYED BOY), the film boasts special effects by Yoshihiro Nishimura(MEATBALL MACHINE, EXTE aka HAIR EXTENSION). Handling the action choreography is Yuji Shimomura (VERSUS, SHINOBI).

Iguchi's movie is about a teenager named Ami who sets out for revenge on a gang of bullies who tortured her little brother to death. She winds up losing an arm along the way, and replaces it with a gattling gun, a la Rose McGowan in GRINDHOUSE. But she doesn't stop at one limb -- Ami continues to lose body parts and replaces them with more weapons, until she becomes a walking, talking arsenal! There’s ninjas, flying guillotines, a drill bra (you heard me), and more blood than you’ve ever seen before.

Friday, May 23rd
Director Lloyd Kaufman In Person!

'Within the context of its genre - the satirical sexploitation zombie chicken gross-out musical extravaganza - it is just about as perfect as a film predicated on the joys of projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea can be... Poultrygeist plays like a grindhouse analogue to the sloppy, psychosexual provocations of the performance artist Paul McCarthy and is, in its lowbrow way, every bit as liberating.' -Nathan Lee, New York Times

'It's a veritable Cluckwork Orange! It takes up where the punctured glutton in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life left off!!!' -Lisa Nesselson, Variety

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead is cinema’s first chicken-zombie horror-comedy… with musical numbers!
When well-meaning but somewhat dim Arbie (Jason Yachanin) returns to the spot of his first (and only) romantic encounter with his high school sweetheart– the not-so-romantic Ancient Tromahawk Tribe Indian Burial Ground– he is shocked to discover two horrible realities: Not only has the graveyard been bulldozed to make room for the newest fast-food “American Chicken Bunker” chain restaurant, but after only one semester at college, his girlfriend Wendy (Kate Graham) has been transformed into a left-wing, lipstick-lesbian liberal, and spends her free time protesting the corporate takeover of America.
Reeling from heartbreak and a brutal beating from Micki (Allyson Sereboff), Wendy’s new activist girlfriend, Arbie channels his spite into applying for a job at the very restaurant they are protesting against. But something else is feeling wronged by all of the construction and commotion… Something not human…
Meanwhile, newly employed Arbie’s new coworkers are a colorful group: the sassy manager Denny (Joshua Olatunde); the burqa-clad Muslim, Humus (Rose Ghavami); the animal-loving yokel Carl, Jr. (Caleb Emerson); the effete Mexican spitfire Paco Bell (Khalid Rivera); and a mysterious 60-year-old man who has been working in fast-food all his life (Lloyd Kaufman).
Together, they slowly uncover the supernatural secret of the American Chicken Bunker, while the owner General Lee Roy (Robin L. Watkins) tries to keep a lid on everything, lest the scandal taint his growing empire. But once workers and customers start dying in bizarre and grotesque ways, it becomes clear that this isn’t just a mild case of salmonella … but something much more FOWL.
Will Arbie and his friends stop the supernatural before they infect all the artificial food stuffs, the customers or even the world? Will Arbie be able to win Wendy back now that he’s making minimum-wage? What’s Carl Jr. doing with that frozen chicken? And what’s with all the singing and dancing?

www.poultrygeistmovie.com

World Premiere
Cast & Director Will Be Present for Q&A

From Keith Crocker, director of 1997’s THE BLOODY APE, comes a brand new Nazi exploitation flick for 2008! For nearly 30 years no one has dared tackle the genre, leaving us rerunning Ilsa in our DVD players. Now, in period costume and refashioning New York, Long Island locales, Crocker has fathomed a return to the glorious ’70s when the Nazi genre was more grindhouse fodder rather than a political nod.

During the final days of World War II, Helmut Schultz and his cohorts in Nazi crime terrorize the prisoners with biochemical weapons experiments and shoot-on-sight torture for entertainment. After a captured showgirl, the voluptuous Southern belle Candice, escapes her captors and hides out in the women’s camp, other ragamuffin defenders bolster up their wits to overthrow the Nazi demons, even if it means leaving the camp on a slab… while Russian POW Natasha takes on soldier after soldier using only her body and her wits as she tackles the brown and black shirts all on her naked own.

Featuring fan favorite Brandon Slagle (guest at the 2008 Austin Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors), and a cast willing to get naked and bloody, BLITZKRIEG: ESCAPE FROM STALAG 69 has all the violence, gore and torture you would hope for a Nazi exploitation flick, filtered through the underground auteur sensibility of Nathan Schiff contemporary Keith Crocker. Which means it’s got just a teench (okay, maybe a pinch) of that good ol’ John Waters camp touch.

www.blitzkreigthemovie.com

(Carol Ciancutti-Leyva, 2008)

Tue May 27 630pm - buy tix

At a time when more women than ever are getting breast implants, fewer voices than ever seem to be asking 'Why?' And fewer still are asking "Are they safe?" Absolutely Safe takes an open-minded, personal approach to the controversy over breast implant safety. Ultimately, Absolutely Safe is the story of everyday women who find themselves & their breasts in the tangled and confusing intersection of health, money, science, & beauty.
At its heart, Absolutely Safe is driven by the experience of the filmmaker's own mother. Diagnosed in 1974 with breast tumors, Audrey Ciancutti underwent a double mastectomy with silicone-implant reconstruction surgery. A year later, her implants ruptured, & soon after, her health steadily declined. Like thousands of other women, Audrey believes her debilitating illnesses-joint pain, chronic fatigue, scleroderma- are linked to her breast implants; however, most doctors & researchers deny this link. Among the debate by plastic surgeons, toxicologists, attorneys, implant manufacturers, whistle blowers, government officials, & activists, Absolutely Safe introduces more everyday women like Audrey who make choices about their breasts in our appearance driven culture.
27 year-old Deneé Dimiceli has long been insecure about her breast size, & she's frank about why: a deep envy of pop culture icons and images of big-breasted women. Although her husband likes her breasts as they are & does not want her to take any risks by having surgery, Deneé chooses to go ahead with breast augmentation. Step by step, the film follows Deneé through the implantation process. With the help of renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Franklin Rose, Deneé becomes the 'Full C' she has longed to be. Months after surgery, Deneé is happy & healthy, though she initially lost sensation in her breasts.
As Deneé makes the choice to get breast implants, we meet Wendi Myers who has spent years longing for a life without implants. After suffering unexplained illnesses for years-dizziness, hair loss, fatigue-Wendi believes her silicone implants are making her sick & that they are ruptured, even though the implants appear to be in tact. As a younger woman, Wendi was an exotic dancer & had to get implants to earn more money. With the financial help from her mother & the surgical skill of Dr. Edward Melmed, one of the few plastic surgeons in this country who argues that implants have severe flaws & cause illness in some women, Wendi makes a unique choice-to have her breast implants 'ex-planted' & removed from her body forever. The remnants of Wendi's implants, are an alarming discovery for Wendi & her family.
The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) stands as the only traffic light at the implant intersection, for it is ultimately left to the FDA to analyze data & define risk. Billions are at stake as implant manufacturers lobby the FDA for approval of silicone implants & present studies which support no link between breast implants & disease. A data debate is at the heart of the FDA decision. Dissecting industry-sponsored safety research, a public interest watchdog acknowledges that the data does not prove a link between implants & illness, but probes the fact that the majority of the studies were based on short-term research. Meanwhile, physicians Dr. Ernest Lykissa & Dr. Michael Harbut maintain there are dangers associated with the platinum used in the making of breast implants. Dr. Lykissa, who studies chemical compositions of ruptured implants, wonders why there have not been any required studies on failed implants.
The story of Absolutely Safe always returns to the women & girls who stand front & center-both willingly & unwillingly-in the traffic jam of beauty, media, risk, & 'choice.' The quest for physical perfection leads the film's characters to operating rooms, support groups, hospital beds, & public hearings. In a plastic surgeon's waiting room, a patient is both enthusiastic about her own silicone implants & also shocked by tales of family friends with implant ruptures a& sickness. At a support group of breast cancer survivors with failed breast implants, group leader & photographer Anne Stansell reveals that she never had the option to live without implants after mastectomy- her implants were presented as a given part of her treatment package. At a discussion with 8 year-old girls, the pre-teens flip through magazines rating beauty & breasts with sharp, judgmental tongue. Shockingly, the quest to be the 'ideal beauty' begins long before breasts grow.
Even though the FDA recently lifted its restrictions on silicone implants & approved them for wide-scale use, many serious questions remain regarding breast implant safety. However, Absolutely Safe reveals that the conversation on implant safety is far more complex than simple pros & cons. Rather, the real conversation, the most important conversation-with the most difficult & challenging questions-rests with viewers themselves, as all individuals in our culture ultimately face this confusing intersection of choice, risk, money, beauty, & health. Absolutely Safe sparks this long overdue cultural conversation.

Carol Ciancutti-Leyva, Director / Producer
Carol Ciancutti-Leyva is a producer, director, writer, & development executive with more than twenty years experience. Her directorial debut, a documentary on the controversy over the safety of breast implants, is a co-production with the Independent Television Service. Inspired by her own mother's struggle with illness related to ruptured breast implants, she has spent a decade documenting the breast implant safety debate.
Ciancutti-Leyva began her career in the arts as Director of the Theatre Arts Program at the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York. Her teaching took her to Nairobi, Kenya where she founded & directed the Kenya School of Performing Arts. While in Kenya, she produced over 30 commercials on location with directors from England, Australia, & Hong Kong. On her return to New York, she continued producing film & video for corporate & education clients, & , with a multi-media creative team on location around the country, she produced the annual convention for the National Education Association.
For Hometown Films, she served as a feature film developer, working with screenwriters & developing story ideas. Ciancutti-Leyva also helped to develop a six-part documentary series called Hometowns about small towns across America struggling to stay economically alive. She also was Associate Producer for the documentary, Choc-O-Rama about America's fascination with chocolate, produced for Arte.
Today, Carol manages her independent film production company Amaranth Productions in New York City. Currently, Amaranth Productions has several projects in pre-production.

Jennifer Fox, Executive Producer
Jennifer Fox is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning director, producer, camerawoman, & educator who has been involved in countless documentaries over the last 25 years.
Her first film, Beirut the Last Home Movie, was broadcast in 20 countries & won seven international awards, including Best Documentary Film & Best Cinematography at the 1988 Sundance Film Festival. She directed the groundbreaking ten hour PBS series An American Love Story which was named by the New York Times & other major papers as one of the 'Top Ten Television Series of 1999.'
Recently, Jennifer Fox has completed yet another groundbreaking & world acclaimed project, Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman, a six hour film which explores the life of women in the modern world (www.flyingconfessions.com). Currently, she is working on the feature length documentary Learning to Swim.
Fox has executive-produced numerous films, including the award winning Love & Diane; On the Ropes; Double Exposure; Project Ten; Real Stories from a Free South Africa; & Cowboys, Lawyers, & Indians. Fox is one of the subjects of two documentaries on filmmaking, The Heck with Hollywood! by Doug Block, & Cinema Verite: Defining the Moment by Peter Wintonic.

Q&A with the Filmmaker
on Thursday 6/5,
Friday 6/6,
and Sunday 6/8 at 7pm!

Speculation about the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy is fueled by the new documentary RFK MUST DIE: THE ASSASSINATION OF BOBBY KENNEDY by Shane O'Sullivan, an independent researcher. The film is an expansion of a 2006 BBC broadcast attempting to prove that CIA operatives were present at the Ambassador the night of the assassination and may have been involved in the events that took place that horrible night. Sullivan believes that the CIA targeted Kennedy because of his role in the Bay of Pigs invasion, his pledge to end the War in Vietnam, and his vow to reopen the investigation into the murder of his brother if he became President.

Though Sirhan Sirhan was arrested, tried, and convicted for the RFK killing and is now serving a life sentence for murder, he still maintains that he has no recollection of the shooting and his easy susceptibility to hypnosis has led to speculation that he may have been a programmed "Manchurian Candidate".

For those saturated with official government cover-ups, the film is a frightening revelation. For a new generation too young to remember 1968 and too idealistic to think the worst about government complicity, it may be an eye opener.

"in a beautifully understated fashion, a warning about what man can do to his own planet" -I. Cohen"

Piavoli's films act like some primal memory bank, recalling a biological rhythm of life, a spiritual communion that has been severed; yet the language of Piavoli’s poetic images reaffirms this lost universality" -D. Laderman

"Blue Planet poem, concert, journey into the universe, nature, life... truly a different vision" -A. Tarkovsky

For over a quarter century, Franco Piavoli- "Italy's best-known experimental filmmaker" (Deborah Young)-- has been creating a symphonic cinema in which natural sounds and images play like the notes of a musical score. A poet who invites us to look for the natural rhythm of life, Franco reminds us of the "alphabet of reality we have lost" (T. Kezich). Praised as "unusually beautiful" by the San Francisco Chronicle, BLUE PLANET, his first feature film, was enthusiastically received at the 1982 Venice Film Festival. Since then it has won numerous prizes, including the Italian Academy Award (Nastro d'Argento). The film played continuously for a year in Rome and for ten weeks in San Francisco.

Narrated by John Waters
Q & A by director Kevin Sean Michaels Both Nights

'Ted V. Mikels puts the 'exploit' in exploitation films. He's pretty amazing.'
-John Waters (Director of PINK FLAMINGOS, HAIRSPRAY)

THE WILD WORLD OF TED V. MIKELS is a rollicking documentary look at the independent cinema and film pioneering world of Ted V. Mikels, who has been producing films for over 60 years. Way before low-budget action films became termed as "grindhouse," Ted was wowing audiences with his own special brand of guts, gore, humor, violence and most of all -- style.

THE CORPSE GRINDERS 1 + 2, THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES, 10 VIOLENT WOMEN, MISSION: KILLFAST, THE BLACK KLANSMAN, THE DOLL SQUAD, and GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS are some of Ted's films that have made their cinematic mark.

Ted reveals the secrets of his success and gives a rare inside look into his studio, editing facilities and home. Ted shares stories of the trials and tribulations making it in the movie business, the essence of
showmanship, and the days of living in a giant "castle" mansion with a harem of women.

New interviews include screen legend Tura Satana (Russ Meyer's FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL! KILL! and Ted Mikels' ASTRO-ZOMBIES and THE DOLL SQUAD), Francine York (THE DOLL SQUAD), plus actors that have worked with Ted on his new feature film DEMON HAUNT.

2007 South By Southwest Film Festival- World Premiere
2007 Independent Film Festival of Boston**
2007 Newport International Film Festival
2007 St. Louis International Film Festival
2007 New Jersey International Film Festival
**Honorable Mention, Documentary**
2008 Wisconsin Film Festival

'one of those wide-grin quirkster documentaries one hopes to discover every festival season, a thoroughly winning feature' -The Hollywood Reporter

'An amazing cast of characters.' -NPR's Here and Now

TWISTED: A Balloonamentary" takes you into the heart of Twist and Shout, one of the world's premiere balloon twisting conventions. Exploring how 8 balloons twisters lives are dramatically changed by a little piece of latex, this hilarious and heartwarming film is about passion, salvation, love, death, race, religion, and a whole lot of balloons. One young woman learns to twist so she can get out of a trailer park and and off welfare, an ex-con discovers the gospel with balloons and twists to find salvation, and a grandfather from a tough area twists to show kids to inspire kids to stay off drugs and out of gangs.

www.TwistedBalloonDoc.com