The documentary "Chekhov for Children," will be shown at the Little Art on Saturday, December 4th at 4pm. The film tells the inspiring story of an ambitious undertaking – the 1979 staging on Broadway of "Uncle Vanya" by New York City 5th & 6th graders, directed by the celebrated writer Phillip Lopate. Using a wealth of never-before-screened student documentary videos and dramatic super 8mm films from the era, "Chekhov for Children" explores the interplay between art and life for a dozen friends across 30 years – including the filmmaker.The Telluride Film festival (where the film premiered in September 2010) wrote that "Chekhov for Children" is "a moving, honest exploration of the nature of childhood, a loving paean to the Upper West Side of the late '70s, and a celebration of the joyous possibilities of arts education... Freyer's unexpected and charming film transcends simple nostalgia to explore deeper, more complex emotional terrain."
Click here to view the trailer.
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2 comments:
Chekhov, in the autumn - doesn't get any better than that, does it? This year (2010) is the 150th anniversary of Chekhov's birth, and the result has been even more productions in the U.S. than usual (Chekhov is actually the SECOND MOST FREQUENTLY PRODUCED playwright in English, after Shakespeare! - not to take anything away from Oscar Wilde, of course...).
I took my daughter to see THREE SISTERS in a Temple University production this summer. Her response: "It was a little boring." That is the point, sometimes, in Chekhov - life can be boring and slow, too, but that doesn't make it any less compelling. And I'm pretty sure that "Chekhov for Children" will be anything but boring...
Sasha Freyer Waters is coming to OH in part because I'm throwing a big Chekhov conference in Columbus at OSU the weekend of December 2-4, and we'll screen her documentary there on the 3rd.
So unfortunately I'll miss the showing of "Chekhov for Children" in YS. But I can think of lots of folks who should go - from 4th and 5th graders to YSKP enthusiasts to our documentary film community.
Check it out! And thanks to Jenny for bringing Sasha to our village.
Angela Brintlinger (Russian professor, OSU, and YS denizen)
Grrr. Sasha Waters Freyer, not Freyer Waters...
Ah well. I'm not too good at this posting stuff.
Angela
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