Miami International Film Festival Announces Special Programs
Miami International Film Festival
The mission of the Miami International Film Festival is to bring the best of world cinema to South Florida. MIFF uses the unique geographical and cultural position of Miami to make the festival a premiere venue for the exhibition of international and U.S. films, with special focus on Ibero-American cinema. Both juried and audience awards are given in dramatic and documentary categories.
The Miami International Film Festival (MIFF), presented by Miami Dade College (MDC), announced today three special programs to be presented during the 22nd annual Festival to be held February 4-13, 2005. The Festival will honor Liv Ullmann with a Career Achievement Tribute and filmmaker Jean Rouch with a retrospective and symposium showcasing his prolific career. MIFF is also proud to announce a Gusman Special Event – Concert featuring world renowned a cappella singing group, “Sweet Honey in the Rock.”
"The Festival provides us all with the unique opportunity to celebrate those who give so much of themselves to the arts,” said Festival director Nicole Guillemet. "We are pleased that we are able to honor Liv Ullmann for her work both in front and behind the camera, Jean Rouch for a prolific and meaningful career in film, and “Sweet Honey in the Rock” in this, their 30th anniversary as a singing ensemble.”
Career Achievement Tribute: Liv Ullmann
On Tuesday, February 8, MIFF honors the incomparable Liv Ullmann with its third annual Career Achievement Tribute followed by a special tribute screening of Saraband, in which she stars. World-renowned for her stunning work in the Ingmar Bergman films Autumn Sonata, Scenes from a Marriage and The Passion of Anna, Ullmann’s talent extends behind the camera as well; MIFF also honors Ullmann’s work with a special screening of Faithless, a film she directed, on Monday, February 7. This special program will include a retrospective of films and an on-stage discussion led by David D’Arcy, NPR correspondent and print journalist.
“Saraband” Special Career Achievement Tribute Presentation
This sequel to the internationally acclaimed Scenes from a Marriage revisits Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan 32 years after their divorce. When Marianne decides to visit Johan at his summer home, they become embroiled in a volatile family drama between Johan’s widowed son and granddaughter. (Sweden)
Director/Writer: Ingmar Bergman
“Faithless” (“Trolösa”) Special Screening
Scripted by Bergman and directed by Ullmann, Faithless tells the story of Marianne Vogler a beautiful actress married to Markus. Their marriage is destroyed when Marianne has an affair with David, a film director with a volcanic temper. (Italy)
Director: Liv Ullmann
Gusman Special Event – Concert: Sweet Honey in the Rock
On Sunday, February 6 at 3:00 p.m. MIFF presents a Gusman Special Event – Concert featuring “Sweet Honey in the Rock,” the Grammy Award-winning, African American female a cappella vocal ensemble. Founded by activist/singer Bernice Johnson Reagon in 1973, “no other ensemble has so successfully distilled the essence of the musical legacy of Africans in America.” The six African American women, together for 30 years, join their powerful voices, along with hand percussion instruments, to create a blend of lyrics, movement and narrative.
The group is also the subject of a documentary, Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice, by critically acclaimed filmmaker Stanley Nelson. An award-winning filmmaker, Nelson has been making films—producing, directing, and writing documentary films and videos—for more than 20 years. The Murder of Emmett Till, part of PBS's American Experience, was awarded an Emmy for best nonfiction direction, an Emmy nomination for screenwriting, and a Special Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. A World Premiere, Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice will be screening on Saturday, February 5 at the Regal South Beach Cinema 18 and on Tuesday, February 8 at 6:00 p.m. at the Bill Cosford Cinema.
Jean Rouch: A Celebration of Life and Film
MIFF, in partnership with the French Consulate and the University of Miami, will present a tribute to Jean Rouch, one of cinema’s true immortals. A filmmaker of boundless enthusiasm and generosity, Jean Rouch (1917 – 2004) left a legacy of over 120 films. His half century of ethnographic filmmaking in Africa and pioneering experiments in “cinema-verite” made him one of the foremost documentarians of all time. His “ethno-fictions,” made in collaboration with African colleagues, were a formative influence on the Nouvelle Vague.
“Jean Rouch occupies a unique place in film history,” said Kitty Morgan, filmmaker and one of the coordinators of the Jean Rouch event. "This tribute provides a rare opportunity to see extraordinary works by one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers of all time."
Jean Rouch: A Celebration of Life and Film includes a symposium, panel discussions with world-renowned scholars and experts, along with a number of Rouch's friends, and screenings of Rouch’s major films. Screenings and lectures are on Saturday, February 5 and Sunday, February 6 at the Bill Cosford Cinema at the University of Miami and on February 7, 8, 9, and 11 at the Wolfsonian. All sessions are free and open to the public.
Jean Rouch Retrospective:
Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d'un Été)
Funeral at Bongo: The Death of Old Anai (Funéraille à Bongo, le vieil Anai)
Jaguar
Madame L'Eau
Moi, un Noir (Moi, un Noir)
Petit à Petit
The Human Pyramid (La Pyramide Humaine)
Cine Portrait de Margaret Mead
Gare du Nord
The Drums of Yore: Tourou and Bitti
Screening Room
Conversations With Jean Rouch
Saturday, February 5th
9:15 - 11 am / Cosford Cinema - Introduction & Overview
Roundtable discussion with the participants, featuring excerpts from various Rouch films.
11 am – 12 noon / Cosford Cinema - Screening
Conversations with Jean Rouch followed by a discussion with Ann McIntosh, Kitty Morgan, Françoise Foucault.
1 – 3 pm / Cosford Cinema - Rouch as Visual Anthropologist
Presentations by Nadine Wanono and Paul Stoller, featuring excerpts from Rouch films and from Screening Room.
3:15 - 5:30 pm / Cosford Cinema - Screening
The Drums of Yore: Tourou and Bitti
Funeral at Bongo: The Death of Old Anai
7 – 8:40 pm / Learning Center, Room 130 - Screening
Moi, un Noir
8:45 pm / Learning Center, Room 130 - Screening
Chronicle of a Summer
Gare du Nord
Sunday, February 6th
9:15 – 11:45 am / Cosford Cinema - Rouch’s Legacy and Place in World Cinema
Presentations by Richard Peña, William Rothman, Jean-Louis Leutrat and Edmund Abaka. Excerpts from various Rouch films.
1 – 3:45 pm / Cosford Cinema - Screening
Petit à Petit
4 - 6 pm / Learning Center, Room 130 – Screening and Concluding Reflections
Jaguar with reflections by the participants.
7 – 9:10 pm / Learning Center, Room 130 - Screening
Madame L’Eau
9:15 pm / Learning Center, Room 130 - Screening
The Human Pyramid
Participants
• Edmund Abaka (Director, Africana Studies Program, and Assistant Professor of History, University of Miami)
• Françoise Foucault (long-time assistant to Jean Rouch, Comité du Film Ethnographique, Musée de l’Homme, Paris)
• Jean-Louis Leutrat (Professor of Cinema History and Aesthetics, University of Paris 3– Nouvelle Sorbonne)
• Ann McIntosh (filmmaker; director of Conversations with Jean Rouch)
• Kitty Morgan (filmmaker and former Director, Jean Rouch Seminars, Tufts University, Hampshire College and Harvard University)
• Richard Peña (Director, New York Film Festival, and Associate Professor of Film, Columbia University)
• William Rothman (Professor, Motion Pictures, University of Miami School of Communication)
• Paul Stoller (Professor of Anthropology, West Chester University)
• Nadine Wanono (visual anthropologist, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; former doctoral student and colleague of Rouch in Mali, Mozambique and Paris)
Chatelin Bruno 
