Film Culture (Winter 1955)

des temps, Max Gérard (France). Films on art: Eine Melodie—vier Maler, Herbert Segelke (Germany); Architettura della Penisola Sorrentina, Roberto Pane (Italy). Animated film: Fudger’s Budget, Robert Canon (U.S.A.) Field and Stream, Simmons (U.S.A.). Films for television: The Gallant Little Tailor, Lotte Reininger (England); The Family of Man, J. B. Scibetta (U.S.A.). Medical films: Frisian conjioned Twins, (Holland); The Wisconsin Cleft Palate’s story, University of Wisconsin (U.S.A.). e@ Winners of Venice Children Film Festival, 1955: Grand Prize: Journey into the History, Karel Zeman (Czech). Recreation films: Tim Driscoll’s Donkey, Terru Bishop( England); Two Friends, V. Eissimont (Sov. Russia). Didactic films: The Pirogue Maker, Arnold Eagle (U.S.A.); Le théoreme de Pithagore. F. Clausse (France). Animated film: Un match straordinario, M. Pascenski (Sov. Russia); Povidani pejskovi a_ kocicce. Eduard Hofman (Czech.). The prize of CIDALC: Mistery of Bird Island, John Haggarty (England). e International Film Center for Television. The recent Tangier Conference on Television, organized by UNESCO, drew up a resolution recommending the creation of an International Film Center for Television under UNESCO auspices. The aim of this non-profit organization is to first set up two film libraries, one in Paris and one in New York, to which the 15 signatories would have access. This proposal still has to get the approval of the Director-General and then the vote of the Constituent Assembly. @ Sov. Russia increases its film output. The new Soviet General Plan for the vear 1955-1956 calls for 200 feature films. Most of these films shall deal “with the contemporary themes.”” A great number of the new productions will be adaptations from classical literature, including Othello, Taras Bulba and Tolstoi’s War and Peace. Kozintzev will direct a new version of Don Quichote, with Cherkassov in the leading part. me ee ® UFA soon to return. Indications are that at least partial acquisition of the properties of UFA, once the Nazi film monopolv. is due in the near future. German and Swiss interests are involved, but are holding out for acquisition of the theatres along with the studios. UFA owns studios and laboratories in Bavaria (Munich-Geiselgesteig, 8 stages), Berlin (Tempelhof, 5 stages) and Wiesbaden. e Federico Fellin?’s “La Strada?’ winner of the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival of 1954, will have its first Ametican showing on December 15th, on the sixth and final program of the Museum of Modern Art Film Library’s Thursday series, presented for the benefit of the Film Preservation Fund. © Film Preview Program. The Film Preview Program. consisting of the Film Preview Center Project. now is in its fourth year, and the Spot Booking Preview Service, newly organized, began operation October 1st. The program is designed to “assist film users and program planners to obtain and preview current 16mm educational films.’ Write to Film Council of America regarding participation in this service (600 Davis Street, Evanston, IIl.). © Gregory Markopoulos, whose film poems Psyche, Lysis, Charmides and Swain are widely shown in film societies, has arrived in Greece where he is preparing his first feature-length film. The film is based upon the book by Elias Venezis, ‘‘Serenity,” and deals with a group of uprooted people who seek to begin life again. @ Roger Tilton, whose documentary on jazz dance was favourably received by critics, has just finished another short on square dance. The Film was shot around New York City trying to record some glimpses of this fast disappearing element of American folk-culture. © Four experimental film-makers have received the first grants awarded by the Creative Film Foundation, founded last year to promote the development of motion pictures as a Fine Art form. The recipients and their projects are: Mrs. Shirley Clarke, New York, for an_ experiment in the use of dance movement; Roger Tilton, New York, for the sound track of a film which employs superimposed images to create a lyric cine-poem; Stan Brakhage, Denver, Col., for experimental manipulation of dramatic image and action, and Carmen D’Avino of New York, who will investigate the relation of film to painting, using animation techniques. e@ Indian students protest against the showing of TANGANYIKA. The New York Times (Sept. 28) writes about African students studying at Delhi University protest against the showing of Universal-International film Tanganyika. “The students,’ writes the N.Y. Times, “who have been agitating for months against some American films on Africa, went to see Tanganyika which stars Van Heflin and Ruth Roman. In the middle of the showing they marched out, shouting “down with imperialism’ and “boycott malicious films.’’ The students kept on marching till they reached Mr. Nehru’s residence, where they sat on the roadside for three hours until some of them were invited in to see the Prime Minister. The students told Mr. Nehru that some Hollvwood’s movies about Africa—they also objected to Robert Ruark’s Africa Adventure and Untamed—portraved Africans as savages unfit to rule themselves. Mr. Nehru brought the matter up himself at the end of his press conference. He said he was convinced some of the pictures being shown in India were in “bad taste because thev insulted other peoples.” He indicated that he was not imvressed bv the “documentary label of some films.” It was easy. he said, to pick out the worst elements of life in a country and call it a documentary. e The Third American Film Assembly will meet in Chicago, April 23-27, 1956, The Morrison Hotel. The Second As sembly met at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and assembled 2,000 persons interested in the many diverse elements of the informational film field. The Golden Reel Film Festival, one of the features of this meeting, is the national showcase for outstanding 16mm informational and cultural motion _ pictures. The rules of the film competition were developed with the helo of a 1954 National Planning Committee which represented all elements of the 16mm film field. Films will be competing in 22 categories and will be exhibited over a three day period. Actual judging will take place at these screenings. The jurors are selected by the Committee on Juries from avplications submitted to the FCA. The Golden Reel Award for 1956 will be awarded to that film in each category selected by the jurors as most nearly accomplishing its stated purpose. Special meetings will also be on the program of this national gathering: The American Federation of Film Societies, Film Preview Center Project. Local Film Councils, Film Producers, and the Board of Directors of FCA. Deadline for submitting entries to the Golden Reel Film Festival is January 20, 1956. For further information on the American Film Assembly, write Film Council of America, 600 Davis Street, Fvanston, Illinois. © Old Age. Produced by Storyfilm (10 min., 16mm, B&W, sd.), deals with the enforced loneliness of old people and their struggle to keep contact with the stream of life. Photographed entirely in in the streets of New York, the film’s mood is set bv a blues plaved by the Oscar Peterson Trio (featuring Ray Brown and Herb Fllis) and backed un by the trumpet of Dizzy Gillespie and saxaphone bv Flivo Phillips. The theme is a strong plea for attention to the (largely neelected) problems of a large portion of the population. The picture was photographed and edited bv . Faith Elliott, Peggy Lawson and Pat Jaffe—all currently employed by the film industry. Old Age is their first independent production. LT ERS With this issue “Film Culture’ reaches its first anniversary. We are printing below some of the letters of encouragement and congratulation:. I salute you on your courageous film magazine—truly the first serious attempt here in the states. Frank Stauffacher, San Francisco I find ‘Film Culture’ the most rewarding American periodical I’ve ever subscribed to. It has the same high level of criticism one is used to finding in English periodicals like ‘The New Statesman and Nation,” ‘Listener,’ ‘The Architectural Review,” but which you seldom find in American journals. Ellodie Osborne, Conn. i