The LEF Foundation is pleased to announce its support of a new film screening series, Facing Realities: Dialogues in Boston Documentary Filmmaking. Having recognized and supported documentary filmmaking in Boston for many years, this film series is part of a larger effort to highlight the history and deepen the understanding of Boston’s remarkable documentary tradition, which continues today.

The screening series begins on Saturday, March 22 at 12:30 pm at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The intent of the series is to juxtapose important documentary films from different generations of Boston based filmmakers, thereby revealing the connections between the earliest innovators and filmmakers today. For the first screening, curator Peter Dowd has selected Forest of Bliss by Robert Gardner and Today the Hawk Takes One Chick, by Jane Gillolly.

A discussion between the filmmakers will be facilitated by film scholar Scott MacDonald, author of numerous books about experimental film, including the series A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. For complete details on this initial screening, please reference the attached flyer or visit the project’s website at www.filmandreality.org.

This screening series is part of a multi-platform effort, Film & Reality: Boston Documentary, being sponsored by LEF to shed new light on Boston’s documentary filmmaking tradition and its significant, yet under-recognized, contribution to the history of cinema and modern moving image culture. Through film screenings, critical writing and discourse, and filmmaking itself, this project highlights the work of area filmmakers who continue to explore the risk and friction that occur when film meets reality, and who produce highly original work that wrestles with the depiction of “truth” in our complex world.

Facing Realities: Dialogues in Boston Documentary Filmmaking
Saturday 22 March, 2008
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Remis Auditorium

12:30
Forest of Bliss by Robert Gardner, 1986, 90 min.

2:15
Today the Hawk Takes One Chick by Jane Gillooly, 2007, 72 min.

3:30
Discussion with Robert Gardner and Jane Gillooly led by film scholar Scott
MacDonald
For more information, please email info@facingreality.org