One of the wonderful things about having an independent theater in your community is that such theaters tend to be receptive to ideas that other, bigger theaters might dismiss as not worth the effort: mini-festivals about farming, or free screenings of films about social justice issues. But these are the programs that, without necessarily bringing in a huge box office, engender goodwill and a real sense of involvement in the community. And once in a while, the community itself is the show.
That’s what happens this week during the Best of Five College Film Showcase, which unspools (do we have an equivalent term for the digital age yet?) at Pleasant Street Theater in Northampton beginning at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 7. Admission is just five dollars for the full slate of award winners.
The top five overall films include Smith entrant Elizabeth Thompson’s “modified Russian folktale” The Cat & The Fox, and the UMass winner Two Men Drowning In Quicksand, which filmmaker Ben Leonberg describes as “a light-hearted existential twist on the adventure genre.” In addition, the showcase will feature a half dozen other films that rose to the top of their individual categories, including documentary, experimental, and animated work, the last being Lauren Flinner’s Where Are We Going?, which tells its story using cut-paper dolls.
Pleasant Street’s sister cinema in Amherst shows another side of the independent life with its ongoing Essential Cinema series, which serves to highlight films that have changed both how films are made and how we perceive them as audiences. On April 4 and 7, Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 classic The Bicycle Thief arrives, ready to take advantage of the big screen with a sparkling new print.
The neo-realist landmark has become a touchstone of foreign film history, even winning a specially created Academy Award for “most outstanding foreign film” some seven years before the category as we know it officially existed. In it, the unemployed Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) finally finds a job during the postwar depression, only to have his bicycle—essential to his work—stolen on his first day of work. As he and his son race to recover it, De Sica—largely with natural light and a focus on outdoor, on-location shoots—highlights the workaday lives of ordinary Italians, using non-actors and professionals alike, on a quest to find the art in the everyday.”
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
