• 12Jul

  Coming Thursday July 22 – Classic Film Night & Dinner with La Plancha del Mar

  Film Presentation 1 Comment

  Free Movie Night
  7:00 pm
  Marketplace 3rd Floor, St John

  CASABLANCA by Michael Curtiz (102 min) 1942

  They had a date with fate in Casablanca!

  This classic romantic melodrama, set in the Vichy controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca, is a masterful tale of two men vying for the same woman’s love. Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, must choose between his love for Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and doing the right thing by helping her and her Resistance leader husband escape from Casablanca.

  This story of political and romantic espionage is set against the backdrop of the wartime conflict between democracy and totalitarianism. The film, wrapped in a rich, smoky atmosphere and accompanied by  a superb musical score, is filled with suspense, unforgettable characters and memorable lines of dialogue.

  One of the most popular, magical and flawless films of all time – focused on the themes of lost love, honor and duty, self-sacrifice and romance within a chaotic world.

  PRE SHOW DINNER 5:30 to 7:00 PM

  Our friends at La Plancha del Mar will be serving a Moroccan-inspired Buffet Dinner in the 3rd floor courtyard before the show. The buffet will feature scrumptious braised beef and preserved lemon chicken, a variety of vegetarian items and a special dessert. Seating will be limited, so please make your reservation today!

  $30 pp OR $25 for Film Society Members. (Memberships sold at the door) CALL 777-7333

  Click the La Plancha del Mar logo (above) to visit their website and view their menu.

  Tags: Classic Film, Cruz Bay, Dinner, La Plancha del Mar, Marketplace, Morocco

• 22Apr

  April 22nd – St John Film Kicks Off Reef Fest 2010

  Film Presentation No Comments
  

  Leatherback Sea Turtle

  Free Movie Night
  7:00 pm Thursday April 22nd
  Marketplace 3rd Floor, St John

  THE LEATHERBACKS OF ST CROIX

  a work in progress by Steve Simonsen

  St John photographer and filmmaker Steve Simonsen presents his documentary about the conservation of Leatherback sea turtles at Sandy Point Wildlife Refuge on St Croix. Working alongside members of the Fish and Wildlife Service and The West Indies Marine Animal Research and Conservation Service, Steve hopes the film will help raise awareness of the endangered creatures to help protect, recover and sustain the threatened and endangered marine animals of the West Indies.

  Come hear Steve tell of his experiences in making this beautiful and moving film.

  

  Steve Simonsen

  Come hear Steve tell of his experiences in making this beautiful and moving film.

  Steve Simonsen is widely known for his breathtaking underwater images. He is the creator of the award winning coffee table book “Living Art, St. John” and a regular contributor to Caribbean Travel & Life, Scuba Diving and Sport Diver magazines among others.  Steve and his wife Janet base their stock photography business, “Marine Scenes”, year round on St John.  Steve also teaches photography and video production classes to high school students. He is passionate about passing on knowledge to the next generation while pursuing his own lifelong desire to make films.

  Click on Steve’s image to visit his website.

  Click on Steve’s image to visit his website.

  
  

  Also Screening:

  

  Nassau Grouper (Click for info)

  SEAS OF CHANGE: Spawning Aggregations in the Virgin Islands

  by Tim Kelly and Perry Pickert (28 min) 2006

  “In the Virgin Islands, the bond between man and sea is timeless.”

  Once huge schools of spawning fish provided a seemingly endless bounty, but today spawning schools are disappearing and fishing grounds are being closed. Fishermen are struggling to preserve their livelihoods, and scientists from the University of the Virgin Islands are racing to understand how these huge schools of spawning fish can restore and maintain fish populations across the Caribbean.

  “No fish, no fishery, but how can a fisherman resist a gathering of fish so dense that a good catch is guaranteed?”

  In the Virgin Islands, a few years back, not many did. The result: Nassau grouper disappeared. Other species were headed for the same fate, until the government, scientists, and fishermen together decided a little TLC would be a good idea.

  LINK: Interview with “Seas of Change” filmmaker

  
  

  Also Featuring:

  

  Indo-Pacific Lionfish

  AN UPDATE ON THE INVASIVE LIONFISH

  Presented by Karl Pytlik and Jessica Hornbeck

  Click on the image for more information from NOAA.

  Tags: Cruz Bay, Documentary, Earth Day, Perry Pickert, Reef Fest, Steve Simonsen, The Marketplace, Tim Kelly

• 18Mar

  March 18th 2010

  Film Presentation No Comments

  Free Movie Night
  7:00 pm Thursday March 18th
  Marketplace 3rd Floor, St John

  THE AGRONOMIST by Jonathan Demme (90 min) 2003

  The life of tireless Haitian human rights acitivist Jean Dominique:

  This fascinating profile of inspired, and inspiring, Haitian independent radio broadcaster Jean Dominique is informative about the history of Haiti’s political strife and includes news film clips and interviews with family members and colleagues. Despite increasing threats and violence, Dominique maintained his radio station as a haven of truth and free speech.

  For the film Demme interviewed Jean Dominique and his wife Michele Montas, both in Haiti and during periods of their exile in New York.

  “…Jean Dominique embodies the fragile, perpetual hope that Haiti, so long tormented by foreign meddlers and domestic dictators, might someday nurture a just and decent political order…a lively immediacy unusual in documentaries of its kind.”                                                                   The New York Times

  
  

  Tags: Cruz Bay, Documentary, Free Speech, Haiti, Human Rights, Independent Radio, Jean Dominique, The Marketplace

• 18Feb

  February 18th 2010 – Meet the Filmmaker

  Film Presentation No Comments

  

  Rivers of Corn

  Free Movie Night
  7:00 pm Thursday February 18th
  Marketplace 3rd Floor, St John

  SARAYAKU: Rivers of Corn

  a documentary by Marta Noemí Bautis (63 min) 2009

  Click the image at left to view the film’s website.

  In the year 2002 the people of Sarayaku successfully resisted the invasion of an international oil company. Sarayaku: Rivers of Corn is a journey to this Kichua 
community in the south of the Ecuadorian Amazonia, five years 
after the frustrated invasion.

  This documentary recreates the story through the memory of several women that participated in the events of 2002, and contrasts daily life scenes with those of the struggle 
of the people of Sarayaku to defend their ancestral lands.

  Meet the Filmmaker!

  Filmmaker Marta Noemí Bautis will be present to introduce her film and participate in discussion with the audience afterwards. She was born in Argentina and has traveled throughout Latin America as a photojournalist. She is an award winning documentary filmmaker whose videos have been screened at numerous national and international festivals. Ms Bautis is a faculty member at the School of Contemporary Arts, Ramapo College of New Jersey and founder of Tiempo Azul Productions.

  Don’t miss the opportunity to meet Ms Bautis and hear her personal experiences in creating this important film.

  
  

  SPECIAL PRIX FIXE DINNER with Filmmaker Marta Bautis! 5:30 PM

  
  

  Our friends at La Plancha del Mar will be serving a lovely three course meal, including appetizer, dessert and wine tasting!  Seating will be limited, so please make your reservation today!

  $35 pp OR $25 for Film Society Members.                                     (Memberships sold at the door) CALL 777-7333

  Click the La Plancha del Mar logo (above) to visit their website and view their menu.

  
  

  Tags: Cruz Bay, Ecuador Documentary, Kichua, Marta Bautis, Oil, The Marketplace

• 21Jan

  January 21st 2010

  Film Presentation No Comments

  
  

  YOUNG@HEART

  a heartwarming documentary by Stephen Walker & Sally George (107 min) 2007

  !!! ROCK AND ROLL WILL NEVER DIE !!!

  Click the image at left to visit the film’s website.

  Prepare to be entertained by the inspiring individuals of Young@Heart Chorus, a New England senior citizens chorus that has delighted audiences worldwide with their covers of songs by everyone from The Clash to Coldplay. As the film begins the retirees, led by their demanding musical director, are rehearsing their new show, struggling with Sonic Youth’s dissonant rock anthem “Schizophrenia” and giving new meaning to James Brown’s “I Feel Good”. What ultimately emerges is a funny and unexpectedly moving testament to friendship, creative inspiration, and defying expectations.

  Watch Young@Heart Trailer

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  “…offers an encouraging vision of old age in which the depression commonly associated with decrepitude is held at bay by music making, camaraderie and a sense of humor.” New York Times

  Click the image at left for more on info on the Young@Heart Chorus.

  Tags: Chorus, Cruz Bay, Documentary, Music, Senior Citizens, The Marketplace

• 17Dec

  December 17th 2009

  Film Presentation No Comments

  
  

  THE BLACK CANDLE: A Kwanzaa Celebration by M.K. Asante, Jr. (71 min) 2008

  2009 Winner, Best Documentary, Africa World Documentary Film Festival

  “More than a film about a holiday, this is the celebration of a people.” ~ Maya Angelou

  Click the image at left to visit the film’s website.

  The Black Candle uses Kwanzaa as a vehicle to explore and celebrate the African-American experience. Narrated by world renowned poet Maya Angelou and directed by award-winning author and filmmaker M.K. Asante, Jr., The Black Candle is about the struggle and triumph of the African-American family, community, and culture.

  The first feature film on Kwanzaa, The Black Candle traces the holiday’s growth out of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s to its present-day reality as a global, pan-African holiday embraced by millions of celebrants.

  
  

  

  “A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture.”

  Kwanzaa is celebrated annually from December 26th to January 1st.

  Click the image at left for more information about this important holiday.

  
  

  ALSO FEATURING: Master Drummer Eddie Bruce!

  Don’t miss the Live Drumming demonstration at 6:30 PM. Bring a drum and join in the fun before the movie!

  
  

  Tags: Cruz Bay, Documentary, Holiday, Kwanzaa, Marketplace

• 10Nov

  November 19th 2009

  Film Presentation 1 Comment

  
  

  THE UNFORESEEN

  a documentary by Laura Dunn, produced by Robert Redford and Terrence Malick (88 min) 2007

  Winner Independent Spirit Award 2008

  “The best film at the 2007 Sundance Film festival, hands down…” Roger Koehler, Variety

  The tragedy of overdevelopment is made painfully clear in this film that traces the ambition of a Texas developer and the threats his project imposes on the local environment. When the development threatens the local treasure Barton Springs, a fragile limestone aquifer and spring-fed swimming hole, the community organizes to fight back. Contains clips from interviews with Robert Redford, Willie Nelson, Wendell Berry and Texas governor Ann Richards.

  “The kind of transformative viewing experience that has made the current period a golden age for nonfiction film.”

  
  

  Tags: Austin, Cruz Bay, Development, Documentary, Robert Redford, Texas, The Marketplace

• 22Oct

  October 22nd 2009

  Film Presentation 12 Comments

  
  

  DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE by Hubert Sauper (107 min) 2004

  “…a tale about humans between the North and the South, about globalization, and about fish.”

  Some time in the 1960′s, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, the new fish multiplied so fast, that its white fillets are today exported all around the world.

  This booming multinational industry has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake: an army of local fishermen, World bank agents, homeless children, African ministers, EU-commissioners, Tanzanian prostitutes and Russian pilots.

  Tags: Cruz Bay, Documentary, Lake Victoria, Nile Perch, Tanzania, The Marketplace

• 15Sep

  September 15th 2009

  Film Presentation No Comments

  
  

  One man’s fight for a fair price in the coffee trade

  BLACK GOLD by Marc and Nick Francis (74 min) 2006

  “As westerners revel in designer lattes and cappuccinos, impoverished Ethiopian coffee growers suffer the bitter taste of injustice.”

  While the wealthy parts of the world delight in exotic coffees, Ethiopian coffee farmers aren’t paid enough to feed their families and send their children to school. This riveting film tells the story of one man’s fight to obtain a fair price for his farmers’ coffee on the world market. As Tadesse Meskela travels to London and Seattle, the unfair trade practices of the multi-nationals and the World Trade Organization become obvious.

  The film is guaranteed to raise your awareness about the coffee you drink and will hopefully lead you to decide to buy only freely traded coffee.

  
  

  Tags: Coffee, Cruz Bay, Documentary, Ethiopia, Free Trade, Marketplace

• 18Aug

  August 18th 2009

  Film Presentation No Comments

  An entertaining look at a fading subculture…

  THE RECYCLERGY by Jeremy Kaller (33 min) 2006

  The history of the recycling movement in the San Francisco area, starting with the first Earth Day celebration in 1970.

  “The Bay area is still home to a unique community of recyclers who push the envelope of possibilities.”

  Additional Feature:

  
  

  THE STORY OF STUFF by Annie Leonard (20 min) 2007

  The way you look at all the stuff you accumulate may change forever. Lighthearted and educational.

  A special thanks to our guest speakers from St John’s Recycling Forum!

  Tags: Cruz Bay, Documentary, Double Feature, Marketplace, Recycling, Sustainability

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