Friday, March 1 - Thursday, March 14

Ram Dass Fierce Grace

This captivating documentary feature film is a portrait of Ram Dass, the highly influential author of Seventies classic, Be Here Now - a book that changed the lives of millions and set a whole generation on a quest for expanded consciousness and meaningful spirituality. By tracing the life journey of this extraordinary and controversial author and teacher, the film also explores the evolution of the movement Ram Dass helped create - from the counter-culture's experimentation with psychedelic drugs to the evolving and now widespread embrace of Eastern religion, meditation, yoga, environmental awareness, social activism, and alternative healing. RAM DASS FIERCE GRACE has been crafted in a very personal style interweaving current conversations and scenes with Ram Dass, interviews with key people in his story, and remarkable archival stills and film footage. The film begins in the present, as Ram Dass deals with the effects of a massive stroke he suffered in February 1997. He demonstrates such grace and equipoise that the movie rhetorically asks the question: "How do you get to be like this?" The film then traces Ram Dass's story, from his childhood, through his years as a professor of psychology at Harvard University, his experiments there with Timothy Leary, his expulsion from the University, his pilgrimage to India, his exploration of Hinduism, Buddhism and devotional yoga, his work in the realm of service and social action, and his far reaching impact as an author and spiritual teacher. Ram Dass's personal story is a window onto the larger cultural themes of our time. As the film is set in the context of his life today, at 70, it is also the story of a courageous explorer of consciousness dealing with the reality of aging and trauma. He continues to offer wisdom to a generation who thought they would remain forever young. By example, Ram Dass demonstrates that physical adversity and emotional suffering can provide a profound opportunity for spiritual growth. Instead of bemoaning his stroke and its after effects, the film reveals how he has come to accept them as "fierce grace." With humility, determination, dignity, and humor, he manages to thrive in the midst of his current predicament. As we watch him laugh with his therapists while re-learning to walk in physical therapy or see him quietly offer guidance to a young woman who's boyfriend has just been murdered, we come to understand that it is possible to find a place of equanimity within any storm. Log onto theOffical Site Or Be at the Ram Dass site Now. Showtimes: Nightly at 6:00, 8:00 & 10:00. Additional Sat, Sun & Wed matinees at 2:00 & 4:00. Directed by Mickie Lemle. US, 2001, 16mm 93 min.

"Remarkable... a generous, inspiring film that unfolds with grace and humor and gradually becomes a testament to faith." -- Edward Guthmann, SF CHRONICLE
"The movie outlines Ram Dass's conversion from Dr. Alpert — the "spit and polish" son of a railroad president — into the man who was given the name, which translates into "God's Servant," by his Indian teacher, Guru Maharaj Ji."
-- Elvis Mitchell, N.Y.TIMES
"Four decades later, Ram Dass still relaying messages".
-- Don Lattin, SF CHRONICLE
"A portrait of a high-profile, extremely public "blessed man," Baba Ram Dass."
-- N.Y.TIMES
"The Spirit Level" -- VILLAGE VOICE

Friday March 15- Thursday March 28

JUNG (WAR): In the Land of the Mujaheddin.

The winner of this year's Human Rights Watch International Film Festival Nestor Almendros prize for courageous and committed filmmaking, this powerful journalistic report documents the destruction wrought on Afghanistan by 20 years of war. The filmmakers travel with a surgeon and a war correspondent on "an excursion into human grief" across a rugged, stunning and ravaged landscape before arriving in the dirt-poor town of Charikar, where the team is trying to set up a hospital for mine victims. "NOT EVEN DEATH WANTS THE PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN," says a woman through a small hole in her tattered, body-enveloping chador. Beyond desperation, she has overcome her terror-hunger is stronger than fear-and approached the camera crew for food. The fundamentalists will beat you up in the street for wearing sandals that show part of your feet; think what they'll do if you're caught talking to a foreigner. En route they come under fire from Taliban guns and tanks, talk to maimed and terrorized children and adults, and, amid the unending stream of casualties, try to hold onto hope. Nightly at 7:00 and 9:15; Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday matinees at 2:00 and 4:30. Note: On Sunday, March 24 the film will play at 2:00 only! Produced by Giuseppe Petitto. Directed by Alberto Vendemiati and Fabrizio Lazzaretti. 114 mins. Italy/Afghanistan. 2001.

"No one will be able to forget it!" -- Mick La Salle, S.F. CHRONICLE
"Startling documentary Jung (War): In the Land of the Mujaheddin leads us away from Hollywood's war movie frenzy." -- Robert Avila, SF BAY GUARDIAN
-- S.F. EXAMINER
"An unsparing, heroic documentary".
-- A.O. Scott, N.T. TIMES
"A blood-and-guts documentary about life in Afghanistan two decades into the present slaughter." -- Stuart Klawans, THE NATION
"The must-see documentary about the blighted nation"
-- A.G. Basoli, VILLAGE VOICE

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Saturday & Sunday, March 24 and 25 at 12:00 NOON only.
and
Saturday & Sunday, March 30 and 31 at 12:00 NOON only.

ACADEMY AWARD
Winning & Nominated
SHORT FILMS

The Roxie is proud to present special 12 Noon screenings of this year's Oscar-nominated short films. The program will consist of the animated shorts: FIFTY PERCENT GREY, FOR THE BIRDS (Winner!), GIVE UP YER AUL SINS,STRANGE INVADERS, and STUBBLE TROUBLE; and live action shorts: THE ACCOUNTANT (Winner!), COPY SHOP, and GREGOR'S GREATEST INVENTION. The running time for the program is something under 2 hours. For information on all the nominated shorts log onto Apollo Cinema This program will run for at least two consecutive weekends. Watch this site for further updates! Admission to the Oscar-Nominated Shorts program is $7.00, and $3.00 for seniors and kids.
And of course, don't forget about our annual Up The Oscars party on Sunday, March 24. Tickets for that event are $15 and can be purchased beginning at the Roxie during normal box office hours!

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Sunday, March 24 2002

10th Annual
Up The Oscars!
Benefit Bash!

Join us in thumbing our noses at that nauseatingly narcissistic night known as the Academy Awards. Come cackle and crow and boo and hiss at the hilarity of what Hollywood would have us believe to be the height of cinema in 2001. Partake in the fun at our big ol' party; doors'll swing open just after 4:00 pm (the actual show starts at 5:00). But hey, you've been here before-you know the drill. Tickets are $15. ADVANCED TICKETS are STILL available at the Roxie Cinema Box Office. The Box Office opens 1/2 hour before the 1st show of the day. To find more about us and where we are located, click: INFO

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Friday, March 29 - Thursday, April 4

Presumed GUILTY
TALES OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDERS

The Roxie is pleased to present the THEATRICAL PREMIERE of Pamela Yates' and Peter Kinoy's timely and revelatory new documentary, PRESUMED GUILTY (Tales of the Public Defenders). PRESUMED GUILTY chronicles a year of trench warfare in the jails, holding cells, and courts of San Francisco as public defenders try to make the right thing happen. In a war to protect the rights and freedom of the accused these embattled lawyers clash daily with police, district attorneys, judges, and even their own clients. The San Francisco public defenders inhabit a murky world somewhere between truth and lies, where the only certainty is that each and every day can bring a new and bitter fight. Three years of filming yielded two high profile murder trials and moments as intimate as the privileged conversations between the public defenders and the defendants as together, they face the uncertainty of the criminal justice system. One of the featured public defenders in the film is Jeff Adachi who just this week was elected San Francisco Public Defender in a bitter campaign against Kimiko Burton. Burton's appointment to the job by Mayor Brown in the wake of then head PD Jeff Brown's unexpected retirement are captured in stunning detail, revealing a side to the election that outsiders would never have had a chance to otherwise see. But perhaps the soul of public defense is most vividly embodied in Will Maas. "There but for the grace of God…," says Will, sitting across from his client, Marcos Ranjel, who is facing life in prison without parole. Will is on a campaign to save Marcos, body and soul. But the demons stalking Marcos are no more insidious than those stalking the public defender; he did three tours of combat in Vietnam and saw enough to fray the fragile cloak of normalcy he wears. In these times when it is all too easy to jump to conclusions PRESUMED GUILTY reminds us to take another look. In Person! Opening Night, Friday, March 29: MEET THE FILMMAKERS AND THE PUBLIC DEFENDERS! Nightly at 7:00 and 9:30; Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday matinees at 2:00 and 4:30. Produced by Pamela Yates and Peter Kinoy. Directed by Yates, edited by Kinoy. 115 minutes. 2002.

" Three and 1/2 Stars!" -- Jeff Anderson, SF EXAMINER
"Ultimately (the film) emerges as a public defender's quintessential argument, the summons to place our-selves in the circumstances of another human being."
--Terry Diggs, The Recorder

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Saturday & Sunday, March 30 and 31 at 12:00 NOON only.

ACADEMY AWARD
Winning & Nominated
SHORT FILMS

The Roxie is proud to present special 12 Noon screenings of this year's Oscar-nominated short films. The program will consist of the animated shorts: FIFTY PERCENT GREY, FOR THE BIRDS (Winner!), GIVE UP YER AUL SINS,STRANGE INVADERS, and STUBBLE TROUBLE; and live action shorts: THE ACCOUNTANT (Winner!), COPY SHOP, and GREGOR'S GREATEST INVENTION. The running time for the program is something under 2 hours. For information on all the nominated shorts log onto Apollo Cinema This program will run for at least two consecutive weekends. Watch this site for further updates! Admission to the Oscar-Nominated Shorts program is $7.00, and $3.00 for seniors and kids.

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