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The lure of family mysteries lies at the heart of Still Life in Lodz, an emotionally riveting documentary that journeys to the historically tumultuous city of Lodz, Poland. Here, a surprise reunion with a painting that hung in the same apartment for 75 world-altering years becomes a probing investigation into the power of memory, art, time and resilience.
Includes pre-recorded post screening Q&A with world-renowned Polish-American architect, artist, professor and set designer Daniel Libeskind, Director Slawomir Grünberg, and subjects of the film Paul Celler and Lilka Elbaum
Directed by Slawomir Grunberg
Film Society members receive $2 off the ticket price with a special promo code emailed to you.
Poland | NR | 75 min | Documentary | 2019 | In English
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REVIEWS
“The individual stories are powerful, as are the visual comparisons between present-day and historical locations. A few animated sequences effectively evoke the evanescence of memory.” – Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times
“Moving and evocative. It’s a remarkable story… the film often [reminds us] of the eternal value of mementos — and memories — passed down through the generations.” – Gary Goldstein, LA Times
“A poignant documentary suffused with both tragedy and hope.”– Sheldon Kirshner, The Times of Israel
“The documentary raises some provocative questions about the power of roots, special objects, the role of memory and how they inform each other. Original animation, archival footage, stills and drawings paint a vivid historical montage of Jewish life in Lodz, the evolution of Polish antisemitism, and the long shadow it casts.” – Simi Horwitz, The Forward
HER NAME IS CHEF showcases the stories of six amazingly talented, inspiring, females of the kitchen. Each share their triumphs in cutting through the clichés of the restaurant industry, and explore how they broke down the doors to ‘earn’ the title of Chef. Fatima Ali, a viewer favorite on the show Top Chef who died of bone cancer in 2019, is among a handful of chefs featured in this documentary. Host Leia Gaccione sits down with Elizabeth Falkner, Fatima Ali, Hillary Sterling, Esther Choi, Juliet Masters, and Caroline Schiff. They open up their hearts and minds to the world, leaving no stone unturned.
Peter Ferriero | Documentary | 98 Minutes | USA | $12
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REVIEWS
“It brings up a lot of questions about equality in gender and how women can make their way in this world, but it also is a touching and tragic tale of one woman being gone way too soon.” – Lael Loewenstein, Film Week
Gold Coast Arts and ShortsTV proudly presents the Oscar Nominated Short Films for 2021. This exclusive release features the year’s most spectacular short films and are available to stream virtually for a limited time. Each nominee is released in one of three distinct feature-length compilations according to their category of nomination: Live Action, Animation or Documentary. This year’s nominees are:
ANIMATION
BURROW | USA | 6 mins | 2020 – Director: MADELINE SHARAFIAN
Synopsis: In Disney and Pixar’s new short film, a young rabbit embarks on a journey to dig the burrow of her dreams, despite not having a clue what she’s doing.
GENIUS LOCI | France | 16 mins | 2019 – Director: ADRIEN MERIGEAU
Synopsis: One night, Reine, a young loner, sees among the urban chaos a moving oneness that seems alive, like some sort of guide.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS I LOVE YOU | USA | 13 mins | 2020 – Director: MICHAEL GOVIER, WILL MCCORMACK
Synopsis: Grieving parents struggle with the loss of their daughter after a school shooting. An elegy on grief.
OPERA | South Korea, USA | 9 mins | 2020 – Director: ERICK OH
Synopsis: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’ – George Santayana
YES-PEOPLE | Iceland | 9 mins | 2020 – Director: GÍSLI DARRI HALLDÓRSSON
Synopsis: One morning an eclectic mix of people face the everyday battle, such as work, school and dish-washing. As the day progresses, their relationships are tested and ultimately their capacity to cope.
LIVE ACTION
FEELING THROUGH | USA | 19 MINS | 2019 – Director: DOUG ROLAND
Synopsis: The first film to feature a DeafBlind actor in a lead role, is a coming-of-age story that follows Tereek, a teen wandering the streets of New York, desperate for a place to crash when he encounters Artie, a DeafBlind man in need of assistance getting to a bus stop. Out of an awkward meeting between strangers emerges an intimate bond, and a journey that forever changes Tereek.
THE LETTER ROOM | USA | 33 mins | 2020 – Director: ELVIRA LIND
Synopsis: When an empathetic corrections officer gets transferred to the prison’s letter room, he soon finds escape in the deeply personal letters written to an inmate on death row.
THE PRESENT | Palestine | 25 mins | 2020 – Director: FARAH NABULSI
Synopsis: On his wedding anniversary, Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift. Between soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy would it be to go shopping?
TWO DISTANT STRANGERS | USA | 29 mins | 2020 – Director: TRAVON FREE, MARTIN DESMOND ROE
Synopsis: Cartoonist Carter James’ repeated attempts to get home to his dog are thwarted by a recurring deadly encounter that forces him to re-live the same awful day over and over again.
WHITE EYE | Israel | 20 mins | 2019 – Director: TOMER SHUSHAN
Synopsis: A man finds his stolen bicycle, which now belongs to a stranger. While attempting to retrieve it, he struggles to remain human.
DOCUMENTARY
COLETTE | USA | 25 mins | 2020 – Director: ANTHONY GIACCHINO
Synopsis: A journey of self-discovery for ninety-year-old Colette Marin-Catherine, who is one of the last surviving members of the French Resistance.
A CONCERTO IS A CONVERSATION | USA | 13 mins | 2020 – Director: KRIS BOWERS, BEN PROUDFOOT
Synopsis: The story of virtuoso jazz pianist and film composer Kris Bowers as he tracks his family’s lineage through his 91-year-old grandfather from Jim Crow Florida to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
DO NOT SPLIT | USA, NORWAY | 35 MINS | 2020 – Director: ANDERS HAMMER
Synopsis: Told from within the heart of the Hong Kong protests, the story begins in 2019 as a proposed bill allowing the Chinese government to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China escalated protests throughout Hong Kong.
HUNGER WARD | USA | 40 mins | 2020 – Director: SKYE FITZGERALD
Synopsis: Filmed inside two of the most active therapeutic feeding centers in conflict-ridden Yemen, the film documents two women fighting to thwart the spread of starvation against the backdrop of a forgotten war.
A LOVE SONG FOR LATASHA | USA | 19 mins | 2019 – Director: SOPHIA NAHLI ALLISON
Synopsis: The film traces the injustice surrounding the shooting death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins at a South Central Los Angeles store, and a flashpoint for the city’s 1992 civil uprising.
Read all about the nominees in each category HERE. Watch the Oscars live on April 25, 8pm ET!
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Watch all three programs at a special bundle price of $30. Pre-order today.
PREDICT THE WINNERS!
Print out this BALLOT to cast your vote. See if the nominees you choose win the Oscars on April 25!
PRESS COVERAGE
Short films, big Oscar hopes: Inside 4 Academy Award contenders for Best Live Action short – Gary M. Kramer, SALON
Interview: Short Film “One Small Step” Pays Homage To Those Who Chase Their Dreams – James Prestridge, CLOSE-UP CULTURE
This illuminating documentary explores the life of a unique American artist, a man with a remarkable and unlikely biography. Bill Traylor was born into slavery in 1853 on a cotton plantation in rural Alabama. After the Civil War, Traylor continued to farm the land as a sharecropper until the late 1920s. Aging and alone, he moved to Montgomery and worked odd jobs in the thriving segregated black neighborhood. A decade later, in his late 80s, Traylor became homeless and started to draw and paint, both memories from plantation days and scenes of a radically changing urban culture.
Having witnessed profound social and political change during a life spanning slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, and the Great Migration, Traylor devised his own visual language to translate an oral culture into something original, powerful, and culturally rooted. He made well over a thousand drawings and paintings between 1939-1942. This colorful, strikingly modernist work eventually led him to be recognized as one of America’s greatest self-taught artists and the subject of a Smithsonian retrospective.
Using historical and cultural context, Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts brings the spirit and mystery of Traylor’s incomparable art to life. Making dramatic and surprising use of tap dance and evocative period music, the film balances archival photographs and footage, insightful perspectives from his descendants, and Traylor’s striking drawings and paintings to reveal one of America’s most prominent artists to a wide audience.
Jeffrey Wolf | Documentary | 75 minutes | USA | $12
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Reviews
“Bill Traylor’s art speaks to the universal language of humanity – a cry for justice, dignity and resilience.” – Andrew J. Young Jr., 14th US Ambassador to the UN.
“Critic’s Pick! A sincere, nourishing account of the artist. Wolf makes excellent use of photo and film archives, laying out the territory that fed Traylor’s vision.” – Glenn Kenny, The New York Times
“Jeffrey Wolf celebrates the work of Bill Traylor, who survived slavery to become an artist in his mid-80s. An invaluable addition to our still-developing understanding of an artist whose fame raises thorny questions, Jeffrey Wolf’s Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts introduces a man whose distinctive drawings depict life during the final years of slavery and the decades that followed.” – John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter
“Speaks volumes on the life and times of the artist. The pieces themselves… lend those ghosts of his past a persistent, ethereal relevance.” – Michael Rechtshaffen, Los Angeles Times
“Jeffrey Wolf’s exceptional documentary Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts seeks to tells its subject’s story in a deeply personal way, while also pulling back when needed to contextualize his work.” – G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
“An extraordinary artist… Traylor’s pictures stamp themselves on your eye and mind.” – Peter Schjeldal, New Yorker
“Brings the spirit and mystery of Traylor’s art to life and shines a spotlight on a creative gift that was long ignored and marginalized.” – Dave McNary, Variety
“In Traylor, we can see the power of individual voice… the work is transcendent and essential.” – Jerry Saltz, NY Magazine