Hayao Miyazaki’s characters
illustration by Jori Bolton :: via comicartfans.com
What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.
Samantha Osaki, a student living in Pennsylvania, reads the sworn statement of an interpreter at the Kandahar detention facility in Afghanistan who witnesses the mistreatment of a detainee:
Here’s actress Lili Taylor reading the same statement at the Sundance Film Festival 2011:
And here’s a fragment of the original handwritten statement:
Join Samantha and Lili in honoring this interpreter:
HORSES OF GOD, a film by Nabil Ayouch debuts at Cannes on Saturday. The film was inspired by Mahi Binebine’s novel Les Etoiles de Sidi Moumen.
Tin House Books published Binebine’s first novel, Welcome to Paradise in April, and will publish Horses of God next year.
Marjane Satrapi speaks with Francoise Mouly, art editor at The New Yorker
Using animation, film, and the graphic novel, the peerless Marjane Satrapi combines political history and memoir to depict a country’s upheaval through the story of one family. The day’s first screening featured Satrapi’s debut film, Persepolis, a poignant coming-of-age story told by a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution. The event included a screening of Satrapi’s new film Poulet aux Prunes (Chicken with Plums), based on the graphic novel of the same name.
Co-sponsored by The Museum of Modern Art
(via PEN American Center - Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis and Chicken with Plums)
The Life and Times of playwright Athol Fugard.
A new documentary charts the struggle of playwright Athol Fugard, who turns 80 this year, against the violence of apartheid.
(via Athol Fugard: A man of obstinacy and courage - Mail & Guardian Online)
Photo © David Harrison / Mail & Guardian
Marjane Satrapi in conversation with New Yorker art editor Francoise Mouly.
The PEN World Voices Festival event included a screening of Satrapi’s new film Poulet aux Prunes (Chicken with Plums), based on the graphic novel of the same name.
Co-sponsored by The Museum of Modern Art
Image © Susan Horgan / PEN American Center
Rachel Riederer on the Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Knowing that these are true stories takes the pleasure out of the horror-movie fear, but human rights documentaries offer a different set of rewards. It’s thrilling to see a plucky hero escape a fantastical monster, but it’s even more frightening to see the monsters that really do walk among us, and even more stirring when the plucky hero is real. I can think of no horror-movie premise to rival the one described by a female soldier in The Invisible War: repeatedly drugged and raped on a remote island base, she was not able to tell anyone—the only outside phone line was monitored by her attackers. Her account of escaping with her life and sanity intact is as gripping as anything Stephen King has dreamed up.
Image from Flickr via NimahelPhotoArt
The Wizard of Oz Book by Dennis Neuschaefer-Rube
“The Wizard of Oz”, all of the 140,000 filmstills of the movie are published. On 98 pages the images are arranged chronologically in rows from left to right. One page contains 1440 pictures which correspond to exactly one minute of film. So the page numbers also show the minute of the film from which the stills were taken.
Very cool.
Attention Edgar Oliver fans - we went to go see his new one-man show Helen and Edgar, based on stories he told at The Moth, last night and needless to say it’s amazing. But if the thought of Edgar Oliver telling his story isn’t enticing enough, how about some special guests that’ll be doing Q&As after the show, including…
- Mike Birbiglia and Seth Barrish of Sleepwalk With Me this Thursday, 10/11
- Our artistic director Catherine Burns on a special Moth night, 10/16
- Jonathan Ames of Bored to Death on 10/18
The show is running through October 27th at Theatre 80 in the East Village, New York City. Get your tickets here! Quickly! Before it sells out!
And while you’re at it, you should read Neil Gaiman’s blog post about opening night.
