Friday, April 2 - Thursday, April 8

Morning Sun

The film Morning Sun attempts in the space of a two-hour documentary film to create an inner history of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (c.1964-1976). It provides a multi-perspective view of a tumultuous period as seen through the eyes—and reflected in the hearts and minds—of members of the high-school generation that was born around the time of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and that came of age in the 1960s. Others join them in creating in the film’s conversation about the period and the psycho-emotional topography of high-Maoist China, as well as the enduring legacy of that period. Morning Sun is not a comprehensive or chronological history of the Cultural Revolution as such; nor is it a study of elite politics or of student factionalism. The film essays rather a psychological history. It attempts a cinematic account of experiences and emotions as reflected on by historical actors who themselves were enacting a history that they had learned and wished to recreate in their own lives. It is also a film about the cultures and convictions, as well as the historical events, that created the impetus, language, style and content of the period—the films and plays, the music and ideas, the rhetoric and ideologies, the education and the aspirations, the frustrations and fantasies, as well as the realities and ardor, that a new revolution that attempted to remake revolution itself entailed. Official Website. Written, directed and produced by Carma Hinton, Geremie R. Barme, and Richard Gordon. In Color. Digital video. 117 mins. USA. 2003. In English and Chinese, with both English and Chinese subtitles. Showtimes: Nightly at 7 and 9:15pm, with additional Wed, Sat & Sun at (2) & 4:30pm.

"Bravo for "Morning Sun," a densely packed documentary that is about as comprehensive a look at the Cultural Revolution as can be imagined in a two- hour work" -- SF Chronicle

""A gripping, relentlessly tragic retelling of life in revolutionary times"
-- Village Voice

"The bizarre and colorful nightmare world of Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution comes alive" --Salon.com

"The creators of Morning Sun make a huge contribution to our understanding of what was going on in the minds of those teenage Red Guards." -- Sight and Sound

ALSO SHOWING
Friday, April 2 - Thursday, April 8

"e pick! Achingly funny!" -- SF Gate

Fasten your seatbelts. You’re about to embark on an epic investigation of the long and glorious history of human stupidity. Setting out on an exhaustive search for its origins and true meaning, director Albert Nerenberg heads towards culture’s lowest common denominator. He careens at warp speed through sound bites from television news, reality TV shows, Internet sites and popular films, then on to institutions of higher learning obsessed with the study of intelligence. After a tour through the worlds of fundamentalist religion and politics, he finally arrives at – surprise! – George W. Bush, the president of the world’s only superpower and the most heavily armed nation on earth. What starts out as an entertaining romp through mass culture soon becomes ominous as cultural critics, authors, academics, entertainers, and people on the street reveal the economics and politics behind the dumbing down of contemporary culture. Hilarious, smart and very scary. Watch The Trailer. For more info, stumble into www.trailervision.com. Running Time: 72 mins. Show times: Nightly at 6:15, 8, and 9:45. Additional Saturday and Sunday matinees at (2) and 4:30.

"Fans of Michael Moore's movies will love Stupidity" -- SF Chronicle

"The fastest-selling ticket at Toronto's Hot Docs festival this weekend is for a documentary called Stupidity"
-- Toronto Globe & Mail

“(Four out of 4 Stars!) Probes the sweet mystery of Stupidity... why intelligent people do boneheaded things.”
-- Eye Weekly

“(Four out of 4 Stars!) Less documentary than “amuseamentary”.. a blitz of titillating images—crazy stunts, streakers, gross out gags, monster trucks, Dubya gafes - intercut with sound bytes by everyone from Rick Mercer to Noam Chomsky”. -- Macleans

“A fresh idea of stupidity as a force not a failing.”
- Toronto Globe and Mail

“Both funny and scary, attacks stupidity full on with humor” – Now

“A mind blowing film with changes the way you think about thinking”
– CKLN

“A documentary with a supercharged rhythm and contagious humor”
– Le Devoir

“Stupidity while also jarring also proves hysterical”. – The Gazette

“A smart documentary about Stupidity” – Hour

“One astute piece of filmmaking” - Calgary Sun

“Stupidity the movie brilliantly, defines our modern age.”
- Calgary Herald

Friday, April 9 - Thursday April 15

How to Draw a Bunny explores the fascinating, often hilarious, and always enigmatic world of artist and underground icon Ray Johnson. A "Pop Art mystery movie", the film is framed by Johnson's mysterious suicide on Friday, January 13th, 1995, the puzzling circumstances of which left both his intimate admirers and the general public wondering if this was a final "performance". Little has been written about him, yet the man called "the most famous unknown artist" was considered a genius whose career spanned nearly fifty years and whose collages have been exhibited in major museums around the world. Ray Johnson, "collagist extraordinaire and founding father of mail art" was at Black Mountain College 1945 -1948. He went to New York and, along with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, played an early, pivotal role in the development of Pop and performance art. Johnson's inimitable, often irreverent style prompted comparisons to Duchamp, but it was his life that was really his art. As Billy Name says in one of the interviews: "Rauschenberg was a person making art, so was Andy (Warhol). Ray wasn't a person. Ray WAS art. . . That's why he's an artist's artist. . ." Jury Prize Winner at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Named as one of the 10 Best documentaries of last year in the Village Voice annual critic’s poll. Nominated for a 2003 IFP Spirit Award for Best Documentary.starring Ray Johnson. Directed by John Walter and Andrew Moore. In Color. Digital video. 90 mins. USA. 2002. Score by bebop jazz great Max Roach. Show times: Nightly at 6, 8, and 10pm with additional matinees Wed, Sat & Sun at 2 & 4pm.

"An absorbing documentary portrait."-- J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

"A seamless model of form and content." -- Manohla Dargis, LA TIMES

“A "Rashomon"-like portrait of Ray Johnson, whose life and death -- and all the art that came in between - made him 'New York's most famous unknown artist'
-- Grace Glueck, NEW YORK TIMES

"Unlike most documentaries about arty types, John Walter's wonderfully capricious, wittily edited film about Johnson seeks to make precise all the different ways in which the artist managed to remain opaque." -- Ella Taylor, L.A. WEEKLY

"e pick! Achingly funny!" -- SF Gate

Fasten your seatbelts. You’re about to embark on an epic investigation of the long and glorious history of human stupidity. Setting out on an exhaustive search for its origins and true meaning, director Albert Nerenberg heads towards culture’s lowest common denominator. He careens at warp speed through sound bites from television news, reality TV shows, Internet sites and popular films, then on to institutions of higher learning obsessed with the study of intelligence. After a tour through the worlds of fundamentalist religion and politics, he finally arrives at – surprise! – George W. Bush, the president of the world’s only superpower and the most heavily armed nation on earth. What starts out as an entertaining romp through mass culture soon becomes ominous as cultural critics, authors, academics, entertainers, and people on the street reveal the economics and politics behind the dumbing down of contemporary culture. Hilarious, smart and very scary. Watch The Trailer. For more info, stumble into www.trailervision.com. Running Time: 72 mins. Show times: Nightly at 6:15, 8, and 9:45. Additional Saturday and Sunday matinees at and (4:30).

"Fans of Michael Moore's movies will love Stupidity" -- SF Chronicle

"The fastest-selling ticket at Toronto's Hot Docs festival this weekend is for a documentary called Stupidity"
-- Toronto Globe & Mail

“(Four out of 4 Stars!) Probes the sweet mystery of Stupidity... why intelligent people do boneheaded things.”
-- Eye Weekly

“(Four out of 4 Stars!) Less documentary than “amuseamentary”.. a blitz of titillating images—crazy stunts, streakers, gross out gags, monster trucks, Dubya gafes - intercut with sound bytes by everyone from Rick Mercer to Noam Chomsky”. -- Macleans

“A fresh idea of stupidity as a force not a failing.”
- Toronto Globe and Mail

“Both funny and scary, attacks stupidity full on with humor” – Now

“A mind blowing film with changes the way you think about thinking”
– CKLN

“A documentary with a supercharged rhythm and contagious humor”
– Le Devoir

“Stupidity while also jarring also proves hysterical”. – The Gazette

“A smart documentary about Stupidity” – Hour

“One astute piece of filmmaking” - Calgary Sun

“Stupidity the movie brilliantly, defines our modern age.”
- Calgary Herald