MoMA PRESENTS ALLAN KING FILM RETROSPECTIVE Filmmaker to Introduce Three-Week Series of Fiction and NonFiction Work, Which Includes Warrendale, A Married Couple, and a Week-Long Run of Dying at Grace Allan King May 9 31, 2007 The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters NEW YORK, April 24, 2007 The Museum of Modern Art presents a comprehensive retrospective of Canadian filmmaker Allan King in a 22-film, 50-year survey of his fiction and nonfiction work. Allan King, presented May 9 through May 31, 2007, in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, includes such seminal work as Warrendale (1966) and A Married Couple (1969). The series culminates with Dying at Grace (2003), King s quiet observation about the end of life, which is presented for a weeklong run, May 23 to 28. The filmmaker will be in attendance to introduce the opening night screening of Warrendale on Wednesday, May 9. Allan King is organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, with the support of Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Consulate General in New York. Allan King (Canadian, b.1930) has made some of cinema s most moving and humane documentaries including Warrendale, which looked at the then-experimental treatment of emotionally disturbed children, and A Married Couple, which focuses on the collapse of a marriage and he has been a major influence on nonfiction filmmaking. King studied philosophy at the University of British Columbia. After working with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Vancouver in the mid-1950s, where he was involved in Skidrow (1957), he pioneered a documentary style in which subjects spoke directly to the camera. After some time travelling as an independent filmmaker, King moved to London in 1961, where he made a number of documentary films, before returning to Canada, where he varied his output between fiction and nonfiction work. King remains an active filmmaker and has completed three features over the past four years, including his most recent, Empz 4 Life (2006), a documentary about at-risk youths in the suburbs of Toronto. He has perfected a style that is at once straightforward and nuanced, allowing his subjects to retain their dignity while revealing their pain, confusion, and joys. King made his first dramatic feature film, Who Has Seen the Wind, in 1976, followed by a filmed version of Carol Bolt s celebrated play One Night Stand (1978). He also directed Colleen Dewhurst in her last starring role in Termini Station (1990). King s career is marked with a wide range of awards, including an honorary doctorate and a lifetime achievement award in Canadian cinema. Warrendale won the Prix d'art et d'essai at Cannes in 1967, as well as the British Academy of Film and Television and New York Critics
Awards. Later this year Allan King Films Limited will release a DVD collection of his films to commemorate the director s half-century of filmmaking. The exhibition has been made possible with the assistance of Nick Hector, Michael MacMillan Deluxe Post-Production, Queen s University, Telefilm Canada, Library and Archives Canada, Planet3 Communications, and The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Please join us for the following press screenings in the Warner screening room (4 W 54 St): Thurs, April 26, 10:00 a.m. - Dying at Grace (147 min.) Thursday, April 26, 1:15 p.m. Warrendale (100 min.) Thurs, May 3, 10:00 a.m. - Dying at Grace R.S.V.P. to Paul Power No. 42 Press Contact: Paul Power, (212) 708-9847, or paul_power@moma.org For downloadable images, please visit www.moma.org/press Call for user name and password Public Information: The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019 Hours: Museum Adm: Film Adm: Subway: Bus: Wednesday through Monday: 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday: 10:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Closed Tuesday $20 adults; $16 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $12 full-time students with current I.D. Free, members and children 16 and under. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs) Target Free Friday Nights 4:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. $10 adults; $8 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $6 full-time students with current I.D. (For admittance to film programs only) E or V train to Fifth Avenue/53rd Street On Fifth Avenue, take the M1, M2, M3, M4, or M5 to 53rd Street. On Sixth Avenue, take the M5, M6, or M7 to 53rd Street. Or take the M57 and M50 crosstown buses on 57th and 50th Streets. The public may call (212) 708-9400 for detailed Museum information. Visit us at www.moma.org Wednesday, May 9 ALLAN KING SCREENING SCHEDULE 6:00 Warrendale. 1966. Canada. Warrendale was one of the earliest facilities in which emotionally disturbed children were treated in a familial setting. Outbursts of feeling were encouraged. This nonjudgmental, narration-free actuality-drama about this once experimental mode of helping young people in psychological turmoil was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, whose executives refused to air it at the time. Warrendale opened to great critical acclaim in New York theaters, and Penelope Gilliatt wrote in The New Yorker, It is
a wonderful movie, extending a charity to aberration and distress like no other of its sort I have ever seen. 100 min. 8:15 Empz 4 Life. 2006. Canada. The summer of 2005 was known as a particularly violent time in poor suburban neighborhoods around Toronto, and black youths were particularly at risk. King follows two community activists, Brian Henry and John Mighton, as they try to convince angry and skeptical young men to get off the streets and back into the educational system. King tracks the teenagers as they cope with both their families and constant police surveillance and harassment. 113 min. Thursday, May 10 6:00 A Married Couple. 1969. Canada. Exquisitely painful and mordantly funny, A Married Couple explores the emotional devastation of a modern marriage on the verge of collapse, revealing the profound loneliness at the center of many relationships. The documentary, shaped from seventy hours of unrehearsed footage, is molded into a narrative of remarkable intimacy as it charts the fraying bond between Billy Edwards, an upwardly mobile advertising copywriter, and his wife Antoinette, who craves individuality and fame. Their three-year-old son also appears. 96 min. 8:15 Early Work I: Documentaries: Skid Row. 1956. Canada. In this seminal work, filmed on Vancouver s skid row during eighteen-hour days, King locates the humanity in vagrants who use alcohol to block out life. King was one of the earliest filmmakers to use direct interview as a central narrative device. 37 min. A Matter of Pride. 1960. Canada. A middle-class man finds himself unemployed, which causes a domestic crisis and emotional distress within his close-knit family. This television film so moved the public that the Canadian Parliament denounced King for subverting government policy. 51 min. Program 88 min. Friday, May 11 6:00 Who Has Seen the Wind. 1977. Canada. Screenplay by Patricia Watson, based on the novel by W. O. Mitchell. With Brian O Connal, Helen Shaver, Gordon Pinsent, Jose Ferrer. A sweet, generous reverie of a movie about growing up on the prairies of Saskatchewan during the Depression. It touches on all of the topics obligatory in small-town fiction, including life, death, hypocrisy, bigotry, all as they are observed by one little boy. [The film has] the effect of an unretouched memoir (Vincent Canby, The New York Times). 100 min. 8:15 Allan King Abroad: Rickshaw. 1980. India/Canada. A young rickshaw driver in Calcutta takes his first fare, his father, to the train station so that the older man can finally return home to his impoverished village. 27 min. Joshua A Nigerian Portrait. 1963. Nigeria/Canada. Screenplay and narration by Wole Soyinka. The author s cousin, a rent collector in Lagos, struggles in the big city and wonders why he left his idyllic village. 57 min. Program 84 min.
Saturday, May 12 2:00 War, Its Aftermath, and Repression: Where Will They Go? 1959. Austria/Canada. Twelve years after WWII, refugees from Eastern Europe were still displaced and living, angry and depressed, in Austrian internment camps. King captures their despair. 27 min. Field Day. 1963. USA/Canada. King films the climactic scene from one of the most celebrated productions of New York s Living Theater, headed by Julian Beck and Judith Molina. Cameraman Richard Leiterman shot the Field Day scene from Kenneth Brown s play The Brig in three takes using a handheld camera. 12 min. Six War Years. 1975. Canada. Screenplay by Norman Klenman, based on the book by Barry Broadfoot. With Blair Brown, Janet Amos, Thomas Hauff. Blending dramatic recreations with stock footage, King elevates oral histories into a lively docudrama in which Canadians share very different memories of WWII. 57 min. Program 96 min. 4:30 Come On Children. 1973. Canada. In this film, which King considered one of his favorites, urban teenagers are taken from the city to a farm for ten weeks. Away from adults they discover who they really are. As the film ends, the youngsters return to real life. 95 min. 7:00 Termini Station. 1990. Canada. Screenplay by Colleen Murphy. With Colleen Dewhurst, Megan Fellows, Gordon Clapp. In Dewhurst s last role, which some critics consider her strongest, she portrays an embittered but still dreaming-of-romance older woman confined to a bedroom in her estranged son s house in a small mining town. Years earlier, she had an affair that caused her husband s suicide and her daughter s current crisis of identity. 105 min. Sunday, May 13 2:00 Empz 4 Life. See Wednesday, May 9, 8:15. 5:00 Warrendale. See Wednesday, May 9, 6:00. Monday, May 14 6:00 One Night Stand. 1978. Canada. Screenplay by Carol Bolt, based on her play. With Chapelle Jaffe, Brent Carver. A lonely woman desperate for intimacy picks up a young singer at a disco; he is very much the wrong man. King describes his film translation of a notable Canadian stage play as a claustrophobic comedy thriller. 90 min. Wednesday, May 16 6:00 Early Work I: Documentaries. See Thursday, May 10, 8:15. 8:00 Who Has Seen the Wind. See Friday, May 11, 6:00. Thursday, May 17 6:00 Termini Station. See Saturday, May 12, 7:00.
8:30 One Night Stand. See Monday, May 14, 6:00. Friday, May 18 6:00 A Married Couple. See Thursday, May 10, 6:00. 8:15 Two Dramas on Labor: Maria. 1976. Canada. An Italian Canadian woman tries to start a union in the clothing factory where she and her mother work. Under threats from the factory owner, Maria battles chauvinism, patronage, and her own family. 48 min. Red Emma. 1976. Canada. Screenplay by Carol Bolt, based on her play. Using a handheld camera, King films a performance of Bolt s musical theater piece about the early life of Emma Goldman. 57 min. Program 105 min. Saturday, May 19 2:00 Early Work II: A Question of Fiction: Dreams. 1961. Canada. A young man fancies himself a bohemian, and breaks up with his girlfriend to lead the solitary life of an artist. 27 min. Running Away Backwards. 1964. Spain/Canada. Screenplay by Robert C. Goldston. A comedy about four expatriate Canadians who struggle with the notion of moral freedom in paradise Ibiza. The freedom of Ibiza was a paradox since it was still governed by Franco and his Falange (King). 57 min. Program 84 min. 4:30 The Dragon s Egg: Making Peace on the Wreckage of the Twentieth Century. 1999. Estonia/Canada. One third of Estonia s people are Russian; most of them put there by Stalin. An Estonian says it s like having a dragon s egg laid in your nest: you wait in fear for it to hatch. The Russians living in an abandoned Soviet army base struggle to build a community with their Estonian neighbors but the Estonians would rather not give the Russians citizenship, residence, or even a job. However, the University of Virginia offers a charitable incentive if groups of ten or more can work together for a common goal (King). 113 min. 7:00 Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company. 2005. Canada. A bracing view of the elderly residents of the Jewish Home for the Aged at the Baycrest Center for Geriatric Care in Toronto. King s candid and humane observations on growing old and the cognitive changes brought on by advanced age affirm the need for companionship at all stages of life. 112 min. Sunday, May 20 2:00 Two Dramas on Labor. See Friday, May 18, 8:15. 5:00 Allan King Abroad. See Friday, May 11, 8:15.
Monday, May 21 6:00 Who s in Charge? 1983. Canada. An explosive conference invited thirty Canadians to explore their experience of employment and unemployment. Many fought ferociously to avoid the task of expressing their feelings and winning authority for their own lives. Some won it, some lost it, and most ended up uncertain (King). 120 min. 8:30 Who Has Seen the Wind. See Friday, May 11, 6:00. Wednesday, May 23 6:30 Dying at Grace. 2003. Canada. This work is about the experience of dying. Five patients in a palliative- care ward for the terminally ill agreed to share their experience in the hope it would be useful to the living (King). Perhaps King s bravest and most compassionate film, Dying at Grace made at The Salvation Army s Grace Health Center in Toronto unflinchingly records society s greatest fear: the approach and onset of death. 147 min. Thursday, May 24 6:00 Dying at Grace. See Wednesday, May 23, 6:30. Friday, May 25 5:30 Early Work II: A Question of Fiction. See Saturday, May 19, 2:00. 7:30 Dying at Grace. See Wednesday, May 23, 6:30. Saturday, May 26 2:00 Dying at Grace. See Wednesday, May 23, 6:30. 6:00 Warrendale. See Wednesday, May 9, 6:00. Sunday, May 27 2:00 Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company. See Saturday, May 19, 7:00. 4:30 Dying at Grace. See Wednesday, May 23, 6:30. Monday, May 28 5:00 Dying at Grace. See Wednesday, May 23, 6:30. 8:00 War, Its Aftermath, and Repression. See Saturday, May 12, 2:00. Wednesday, May 30 6:00 The Dragon s Egg: Making Peace on the Wreckage of the Twentieth Century. See Saturday, May 19, 4:30. 8:00 Who s in Charge? See Monday, May 21, 6:00.
Thursday, May 31 8:00 Come On Children. See Saturday, May 12, 4:30.