Far East Deep South screening with filmmaker in attendance...

 

The Strand Theatre in downtown Vicksburg will host a screening of Far East Deep South and one of its filmmakers on Saturday, October 15 at 7 PM. The film tells the story of a Chinese-American family’s search for their roots which leads them to the Mississippi Delta, where they discover surprising family revelations and uncover the racially complex history of Chinese immigrants in the segregated South.

Through encounters with local residents and historians, this Chinese American family not only discovers their family’s important role in the Mississippi Delta but they also learn about the symbiotic relationship between the Black and Chinese communities during the Jim Crow era.

The film provides a window into the struggles of Chinese immigrants in the American South during the late 1800s to mid-1900s and the discrimination they faced. The Chiu family’s history demonstrates how exclusionary immigration laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 separated their family for generations. This deeply moving and unforgettable story offers a poignant and important perspective on race relations, immigration and American identity.

"Growing up here in Vicksburg, we were very aware of the dozens of Chinese American families who lived here, said Daniel Boone, film programmer for the Strand "They often owned and operated small neighborhood grocery stores throughout the city. We shopped in the stores, because they were convenient, and the owner's kids were our classmates. This film tells the larger story of how all that came to be and what happened in later years. Being able to be present another Mississippi story which helps us understand the fabric of this place we call home is part of what we see as our mission as a community theater."

Baldwin Chiu, producer of the film (and one of its subjects) will be presenting the screening and leading a discussion at the Strand.

This screening is being underwritten by the US Heartland China Association and will be free of charge.

 

 

Manhattan Short returns to the Strand!!!

 

One screening only: Saturday, October 1 at 7 PM

 

It's time again for you to be the judge...

 

MANHATTAN SHORT today announced the Final Ten selections for its 25th Annual Short Film Festival, a worldwide event taking place in over 400 venues across six continents between September 22 and October 2, 2022. MANHATTAN SHORT is the only event of its kind. The Final Ten screen simultaneously across the world during a one-week period, with the Best Film and Best Actor awards determined by ballots cast by the audiences in each participating venue. By virtue of their selection by MANHATTAN SHORT, each short film is automatically Oscar-qualified.

 

The Final Ten MANHATTAN SHORT finalists hail from eight countries with films from Scotland, Czech & Slovakia, Spain, Australia, Finland and Lebanon, alongside two films each from France and USA. These Final Ten Films represent the best short films from among 870 submissions from 70 countries received by MANHATTAN SHORT for 2022, testimony to the enduring vibrancy and creativity of short films worldwide.

 

If the 10 short films presented by MANHATTAN SHORT have one common theme, it's how people deal with adversity in its various forms. Short films like The Blanket, Freedom Swimmer and Freefall explore how individuals react when caught up in large-scale, traumatic events. Adversity on a more personal level is the focus of short films like Warsha, Fetish, The Big Green and Love, Dad. Sometimes, the response is laughable, as in Save the Bees and The Treatment, especially when even the universe seems to be against you, as in Don vs Lightning. How these stories are told is varied as the directors that tell them. In short, there is plenty of drama and comedy interwoven with surprisingly effective newer ways of storytelling like animated documentaries. MANHATTAN SHORT also is a showcase for rising-star actors and recognizable favorites like Disney stalwart Peton List and Scotsman Peter Mullan, himself a prize-winning director, appearing in unexpected, talent-stretching roles.

 

The MANHATTAN SHORT Final Ten are:
Don vs Lightning (Scotland), Love, Dad (Czech & Slovakia),Save the Bees (USA),The Treatment (Spain), Freefall (France), Fetish (USA), Freedom Swimmer(Australia), The Blanket (Finland) Warsha (Lebanon) The Big Green (France).

 

All Final Ten short films become Oscar-qualified, meaning they will be automatically eligible for an Academy Award nomination by screening for a week at the Arena CineLounge in Hollywood in the county of Los Angeles from Sep 23 to Sept 29.

 

You Be the Judge!

Which of these Final Ten short films is the best? That's up to a worldwide audience to decide. Cinema-goers across the United States and around the globe will become instant film critics as they are handed a ballot upon entry that allows them to vote for the Best Film and Actor. MANHATTAN SHORT is the ultimate audience award that salutes the creative talents of both directors behind the camera and actors in front of it. Votes will be sent through to MANHATTAN SHORT HQ with the winner announced at ManhattanShort.com on Monday Oct 3, at 10AM EST. 

 

Tickets are $10 and available at Highway 61 Coffeehouse and at the door...

Movies events Saturday and Monday...My Cousin Vinny / Man with a Movie Camera

 My Cousin Vinny

Saturday, September 17 at 7 PM

My Cousin Vinny is coming to the Strand...

Marisa Tomei won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and Joe Pesci proved how funny he could be in this story of clashing cultures...

"What's a Yute?"

"You're in Ala-f**k*n'-bama..."

"How do you cook your grits? You like 'em regular, creamy, or al dente?"

"Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than on any place on the face of the earth?!"

'It's got protein! We need protein!'

'Now I ask ya: Would you give a f--- what kind of pants the son of a b---- who shot you was wearing?'

'So, it's either wear the leather jacket, which I know you hate, or this. So, I wore this ridiculous thing for you.'

'However, in 1964, the correct ignition timing would be four degrees before top-dead-center.'

'My biological clock is ticking like this!/Lisa, I don't need this...'

'No, the defense is wrong!'

Come hear it and see it all again at the Strand...

Tickets are $10 and available at Highway 61 Coffeehouse or at the door.

------------------------------------

Man with a Movie Camera 

accompanied by live music

Monday, September 19 at 7 PM

A special event classic movie: Man with a Movie Camera accompanied by Live music.

Silent movies were never truly silent: they depended on musicians to play live music to complement the films. As part of their national tour. Montopolis, a chamber combo, under the direction of Justiin Sherburn, will give us a rare opportunity to experience this in the 21st Century. They have created a new score which they will be performing live along with the film.

Revered as a visual masterpiece and one of the greatest documentary films ever made, Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) was shot in Ukraine, and gives historical context to the current Russian invasion and lays bare the costs of the ongoing humanitarian crisis. The joyful original score by Montopolis celebrates the beauty and resilience of Ukraine’s people and aims to inspire American audiences to support the country in its time of need.

Vertov's feature film, produced by the film studio VUFKU, presents urban life in Moscow and the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Odesa during the late-1920s. It has no actors. From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be said to have "characters", they are the cameramen of the title, the film editor, and the modern Soviet Union they discover and present in the film.

Man with a Movie Camera is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invented, employed or developed, such as multiple exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reversed footage, stop motion animations and self-reflexive visuals (at one point it features a split-screen tracking shot; the sides have opposite Dutch angles).

In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound poll, film critics voted it the 8th greatest film ever made, and it was later named the best documentary of all time in the same magazine.

100% of the revenue from poster sales at these events are donated to UNICEF to support the refugee crisis in Ukraine.

Here's a link to a page with a trailer showing excerpts of the film and the band accompanying it:
https://www.montopolismusic.com/man-with-a-movie-camera

Okay , it's a Monday night, but this is special. Come see this once in a lifetime event...

Tickets are $15 and available at the Highway 61 Coffeehouse as well as at the door.

And free popcorn.

Free Double Feature: Arsenic & Old Lace plus Double indemnity

 

Double feature at the Strand

Arsenic and Old Lace

Double Indemnity

Saturday, August 20 at 7 PM

Sponsored by John and Lisa Martin

Cary Grant stars as the one sane member of a charmingly lunatic family in director Frank Capra's classic comedy. When Mortimer Brewster (Grant) brings his new bride to meet his two kindly aunts, he discovers that, among many other acts of charity, the two genteel ladies help lonely old men die happy ... by feeding them a wonderful meal before poisoning them. Now, Mortimer desperately wants to protect the two serial murderers he loves, stop them from killing anyone else and keep his bride from discovering how deranged his family really is.

 

After Arsenic and Old Lace we will have hot dogs in the lobby followed by 

Double Indemnity 

In Billy Wilder's seminal film noir Fred MacMurray plays an insurance salesman who is seduced by a conniving woman (Barbara Stanwyck) into a scheme to murder her husband and make it look like an accident in order to collect his impressive life insurance policy. Dark and twisty with snappy dialogue. Based on a scandalous novel by James M. Cain, the screenplay was written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler.

 

Don't miss these two great classic films both released in 1944.

Into the Woods live onstage at the Strand - 3 more performances

 

Come with a cast of about two dozen local actors/ singers Into the Woods where nothing's clear, where witches ghosts, and wolves appear.

The Westside Theatre Foundation is bringing Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods to the stage of the Strand.

James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim take everyone's favorite storybook characters and bring them together for a timeless, yet relevant, piece... and a rare modern classic. The Tony Award-winning book and score are both enchanting and touching.

The story follows a Baker and his wife, who wish to have a child; Cinderella, who wishes to attend the King's Festival; and Jack, who wishes his cow would give milk. When the Baker and his wife learn that they cannot have a child because of a Witch's curse, the two set off on a journey to break the curse.

Everyone's wish is granted, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them later with disastrous results.

Advance Tickets are $20 each and available online or at Highway 61 Coffeehouse, and $25 at the door.

Where? The Strand Theatre 717 Clay Street Downtown Vicksburg

When?

Friday, July 22 at 7:30 PM

Saturday, July 23 at 7:30 PM

Sunday, July 24 at 4 PM

Print your own program for the show

The Defenders free screening and discussion

 

A new film documenting the actions of the attorneys who took part in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement will have a free screening at Vicksburg’s Strand Theater at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 11.

In the 1950s, major events in the Civil Rights Movement were taking place. But Mississippi’s only accredited law school did not accept Black students, so during that decade the state had a total of four Black lawyers—only three of whom would take on civil rights cases. The story of attorneys R. Jess Brown, Carsie Hall, and Jack H. Young is told in The Defenders: How Lawyers Protected the Movement. The film also tells the story of the hundreds of lawyers and law students from across the country who saw what was happening and came to Mississippi to take up the fight.

Brown worked for many years out of an office in Vicksburg, where in 1965 he represented a group of citizens arrested for participating in a local voting rights action. Hall and Young were based primarily in Jackson, but all three attorneys worked cases across Mississippi. Between them, they represented Mack Charles Parker, Clyde Kennard, James Meredith, the Tougaloo Nine, Freedom Summer participants from across the state, more than 300 Freedom Riders, and more than 600 people arrested while taking part in the Jackson movement.

Jackson-based media company Red Squared was commissioned by the Foundation for Mississippi History to produce the film for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

“We were fortunate to be able to conduct Interviews with people directly connected to this important story, including Reuben Anderson, Marian Wright Edelman, and Constance Slaughter-Harvey,” said Sarah Campbell, one of the film’s producers and director of programs and publications for MDAH. “We also were able to draw on the state archives’ rich holdings of archival news footage, documents, and photographs to immerse viewers in the era.”

Following the screening of the 40-minute film there will be a discussion and question-and-answer session with Campbell and Defenders director Roderick Red. The Strand Theater is located at 717 Clay Street in Vicksburg.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai at the Strand

 

 

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

at the Strand

Saturday, June 4 at 7 PM

It's summer at the Strand - time for something cool. Jim Jarmusch combined his love for the ice-cool crime dramas of Jean-Pierre Melville and Seijun Suzuki with the philosophical dimensions of samurai mythology for an eccentrically postmodern take on the hit-man thriller.

In one of his defining roles, Forest Whitaker brings a commanding serenity to his portrayal of a Zen contract killer working for a bumbling mob outfit, a modern man who adheres steadfastly to the ideals of the Japanese warrior code even as chaos and violence spiral around him.

Featuring moody cinematography by the great Robby Müller, a sublime score by the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, and a host of colorful character actors (including a memorably stone-faced Henry Silva), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai plays like a pop-culture-sampling cinematic mixtape built around a one-of-a-kind tragic hero.

Tickets are $10 each and available at the door or at Highway 61 Coffeehouse.



Don't forget: free popcorn!