The Light Factory
Join Mailing List
Exhibitions Factory Films Education Giving Member Services Contact
About Factory Films Current Films Past Films Factory Film News Opportunities








"4th and Long"
Directed by Timothy Vandenberg

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
7pm

Knight Gallery
Spirit Square
$5 to members/$7 for non-members


"4th and Long is a laugh out loud comedy that is truly original and destined to become a cult classic"
-Scott Mantz
Access Hollywood


As you walk into your high school football game on a Friday night, you scan the crowd for your friends. Then you spot a familiar face; a man dressed in fashions long past with a foam finger held high and school pride beaming from every pore. There he stands, the super fan, the old strange guy who never misses a game. Who is the man, this local pillar of the game? What does he do? What makes him tick? and how long before he is forced to move out of his mother's garage?


In conjunction with the exhibition
"China Insights "

A View from the Mainland:
Chinese Film Series

January 27, 2009
February 3, 2009
February 10, 2009

$5 to members/$7 for non-members


Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Knight Gallery

STAGE SISTERS (Wutai jiemei)
A Film by Xie Jin
China 1964
Color, Mandarin w/eng st, 112 min

Like a handsome Bollywood epic, STAGE SISTERS has something for everyone -- sympathetic heroines, evil capitalists, great music, Hollywood-style melodrama, and revolutionary fervor. Set in pre-Revolutionary China, it is a tragic melodrama with strong political overtones.

Chunhua, a runaway peasant girl is taken in by an opera troupe and meets Xing Yuehong, and soon the two actresses head off to Shanghai to perform in the Shaoxing Opera. Yuehong and Chunhua become close friends but clearly they are moving in different directions. Chunhua meets a revolutionary cadre who involves Chunhua in the Revolution, while Yuehong marries the Theater Manager and lives in middle class style. They ultimately end up in court for a dramatic climax.

Although the film was completed well before the Cultural Revolution in 1966, it has been argued that in 1963 Jiang Qing, the wife of Mao Zedong and a former Shanghai actress, was responsible for banning STAGE SISTERS, not only because she may have deemed it counter-revolutionary, but allegedly to settle some old scores in Shanghai.

Politics aside, STAGE SISTERS is Socialist Realism at its most entertaining and satisfying best.

 

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Knight Gallery


YELLOW EARTH (Wutai jiemei)
A Film by Kaige Chen
China 1984
Color, English subtitles, 89 minutes

The two leading lights of the Chinese
‘Fifth Generation’ made their mark with the first masterpiece from this emerging movement. Chen Kaige was considered the prodigy of the Beijing Film School, and his colleague Zhang Yimou was just a vastly talented cinematographer, who turned director.

This story is a beautifully choreographed masterpiece about a young girl about to be married off to an old man in a feudal village. It's 1939. Mao's Red Army are sweeping across China against the Guomindang forces, and they're gathering in strength at every turn. But in young Cuiqiao's village, things are still very much unchanged and marriage to a man she doesn't want seems inevitable. That is until a Red soldier comes to visit the village to collect folk songs for the army to turn into propaganda to fuel the souls of the soldiers. He tells her of the great freedom the women of the South enjoy - they fight equally alongside their male comrades and duties are shared. Asking him to take her along, he demurs until he can get proper permission. But Cuiqiao can't wait that long, so she takes the matter into her own hands.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Knight Gallery


TBD


 

A Retrospective featuring
George A. Romero in Charlotte-one weekend only!

Dates: February 20-22, 2009

Charlotte, NC

Tickets on Sale Now!

www.zombiestakecharlotte.com

Every year The Light Factory presents “Meet the Artist,” an event bringing distinguished filmmakers and their work to Charlotte. This year we are delighted to bring the cult favorite, George A. Romero to our city. Schedule of events

Once thought to be an average filmmaker with an affinity for blood and gore, George A. Romero is today, considered to be a revolutionary storyteller, credited with changing the entire horror genre. From Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead to Creepshow, Romero perfected the use of populist zombies and ghouls to make palatable a political subtext on societal issues: corporate greed, terrorism, class conflict, consumerism, and, with his new film, the current media/reality/sensationalist frenzy.

Thanks to our sponsors:


 
 

 

 

 

 

The Light Factory
Spirit Square, Suite 211
345 North College Street
Charlotte, NC 28202
info@lightfactory.org
704.333.9755