Film Forum Selects 6 Movies for Socrates Sculpture Park’s
21st Annual Edition of Outdoor Cinema;
8-Week Free International Festival Begins Wednesday, July 3

Film Forum, in partnership with Socrates Sculpture Park, has once again selected six films for the free summer Outdoor Cinema series at the Long Island City, Queens sculpture park. Outdoor Cinema 2019 features a summer’s worth of movies shown under the stars in the 5-acre waterfront park on Wednesday evenings, July 3 through August 21.
 
The festival highlights Socrates Sculpture Park as a community space for the celebration of many cultures in one of the world's most diverse places – the borough of Queens. There are more languages spoken in Queens than any other place on Earth, and as such, Socrates’s Outdoor Cinema is unique in its emphasis on foreign films. The films are presented in their original language with English subtitles and films are paired with pre-movie music, dance performances, and cuisine from each film’s country of origin.
 
This summer’s lineup includes films from Mongolia, Chile, France, Argentina, and Ethiopia. Six of the eight films are selected by Karen Cooper, Director, Film Forum, with two selections made by Rooftop Films.  
 
Pre-screening performances begin at 7:00pm, and films begin at nightfall. Admission to films and performances is free of charge. The evening’s food and performance line-up is announced the week prior, and weather updates are posted regularly on the Park’s web site: socratessculpturepark.org/films
 
"Outdoor Cinema at Socrates, one of our longest running and most beloved programs, brings a diverse crowd together to enjoy international films from all over the world. This year, Film Forum’s exciting selection of films will transport you from the Park’s Long Island City waterfront to some of the most remote locations on Earth including the Atacama Desert, Mongolia, and Antarctica.” – John Hatfield, Executive Director, Socrates Sculpture Park

 

OUTDOOR CINEMA 2019 FILM SCHEDULE
Films programmed by Karen Cooper, Film Forum, unless otherwise indicated

 
July 3
CIELO
Directed by Alison McAlpine; 2018, 78 mins.                          CANADA/CHILE
 
The sublime night sky over Chile’s Atacama Desert, as experienced by astronomers, peasants, cowboys, and miners, is the subject of CIELO. Alison McAlpine’s meditation on the heavens is a mystical paean to the otherworldly beauty of these skies and an inspiring vision of a universe that we both see and cannot see. “Using time-lapse cameras…to create a visual symphony of the moon, stars, sun and clouds… these images have a transporting power that comes close to approximating what it must be like to actually stand in Atacama, gazing up in awe. Shooting stars fly by like paint slashed on a cosmic canvas… The Milky Way itself rotates through the heavens with breathtaking clarity.” – Keith Uhlich, The Hollywood Reporter.

 
 
July 10
PURPLE NOON 태양은 가득히
Directed by René Clément; 1960, 117 mins.                           FRANCE / ITALY

This ripe, colorful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s vicious novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, directed by the versatile René Clément, stars Alain Delon as Tom Ripley, a duplicitous American charmer in Rome on a mission to bring his privileged, devil-may-care acquaintance Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet) back to the United States. What initially seems a carefree tale of friendship soon morphs into a thrilling saga of seduction, identity theft, and murder. Featuring gorgeous location photography of coastal Italy, and an equally gorgeous Alain Delon at his swoon-worthy best.
 
 
July 17
ANBESSA
Directed by Mo Scarpelli; 2019, 96 mins.                               ETHIOPIA/ITALY
 
A brand new condominium has shot up in the Ethiopian countryside, pushing farmers off their land for the construction, promising thousands of others a “better” way of life. Anbessa follows one boy caught between the two as he navigates modernization on his own terms in order to survive in a brave new world. Anbessa is preceded by a short film: The Orphan (O Órfão). Directed by Carolina Markowicz; 2018, 15 mins.
Programmed by Rooftop Films
 
 
July 24
THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL
Directed by Byambasuren Davaa & Luigi Falorni, 93 mins.
GERMANY/MONGOLIA
 
A nomadic family in Mongolia's Gobi Desert is confronted by a mother camel whose difficult delivery of a white colt leads to her rejection of the baby. As repeated efforts by the extended family to get the mother to nurse her baby fail, the colt plaintively cries for its mother and the family worries that he will not survive. The two young sons travel to a nearby town to find a musician who can perform a ceremony that will resolve the camel crisis. Their journey leads to their delightful first encounter with television. This is a wonderful and wonderfully poignant film for children, camel-lovers, and anyone who likes a happy ending.

July 31
EN EL SEPTIMO DIA
Directed by Jim McKay; 2017, 92 mins.                                              USA
 
Stalwart independent director Jim McKay’s EN EL SÉPTIMO DÍA (ON THE SEVENTH DAY) follows a group of undocumented Latino immigrants living in Sunset Park, Brooklyn over the course of one week. The cast of non-professionals, led by Fernando Cardona as José, work long hours six days a week as bicycle delivery men, construction workers, dishwashers, deli workers and cotton candy vendors – but their real passion is soccer. When their team makes it to the finals, team captain José is faced with a difficult choice between his job and his team. “Confident and captivating... the movie has a bone-deep humanity that transcends technique and reaches right back to Cassavetes.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

August 7
DARK TOONS
Various Short Films, 78 mins.                                                             EUROPE
 
Take a trip to the dark side of European animated movies with Rooftop Films’ annual program of uncanny and surreal short ‘toons. Featuring delightfully absurd morphing forms, horrifying explorations of divine terror, and felt figurines traipsing through nightmarish colonial landscapes, Dark Toons surveys the extraordinary work being done by daring international independent animators. Highlighted by De Swaef and Roels’ masterful This Magnificent Cake!, the films in this program utilize groundbreaking visual innovations, eerie sound design, and rhythmic scores to amplify the powerful emotions embedded in their deeply affecting personal and political narratives.
Programmed by Rooftop Films

August 14
LA CIENAGA
Directed by Lucrecia Martel; 2001, 101 mins.                         ARGENTINA
 
An astonishing debut film from Argentine writer/director Lucrecia Martel whose ZAMA was a recent major international success. There are shades of both Buñuel and Pinter in LA CIENAGA (THE SWAMP), a densely atmospheric film whose sensibility balances precariously between black humor and palpable foreboding. Two large families – complete with middle-aged boozers, noisy children, oppressed servants and pets – spend a torpid summer in a faded resort town. Soon the rough-and-tumble domestic situation strains everyone’s nerves and repressed family mysteries are exposed as this long, hot summer threatens to erupt into violence. Graciela Borges (“The great actress of Argentine cinema” – Vogue, Paris) plays the presiding matriarch, the first among equals in a brilliant ensemble cast.

August 21
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS
Directed by Luc Jacquet; 2005, 80 mins.                                            FRANCE
 
Each autumn, the emperor penguins of Antarctica travel hundreds of miles from the sea to their inland mating grounds, subjected to one of the harshest climates on the planet. French director Luc Jacquet shot these regal creatures for over 13 months to capture one annual cycle. Winner of the Best Documentary Oscar in 2005, MARCH OF THE PENGUINS “tracks a deadly dance of life at the edge of the world, with exquisite footage of a beautiful, forbidding locale that most of us will never visit. An accessible score and Morgan Freeman's avuncular narration make this march family-friendly, too. Birth, death, romance, danger: All play a role in Jacquet's homage to a remarkably endearing creature.” – Damon Smith, Time Out New York

Socrates Sculpture Park is located at 32-01 Vernon Blvd (at Broadway)
in Long Island City, Queens

  
Public Transportation to Socrates Sculpture Park:

BY SUBWAY
The closest station -  N / W train at the Broadway stop - is closed for renovations through early 2019. Instead, take the N/W train to the 30th Avenue stop and walk west (toward the East River), then south (left turn) on Vernon Boulevard to the intersection of Broadway. This is an approximately 25-minute walk.

BY BUS
Q103, Q104 to Broadway and Vernon Boulevard (until 9:00 PM only)
Q69, Q100 to 21st Street at Broadway

BY CITIBIKE
Two Citi Bike stations are located near Socrates on Vernon Boulevard. The southern station is at the intersection of Vernon and 10th Street and the northern station is at the intersection of Vernon and 31st Avenue.

BY FERRY
Take NYC Ferry’s Astoria route to Astoria landing, then walk south on Vernon Boulevard to the intersection of Broadway (consult www.ferry.nyc for ferry schedules and locations).

ABOUT SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK

For more than thirty years Socrates Sculpture Park has been a model of public art production, community activism, and socially inspired place-making. Known for fostering experimental and visionary artworks, the Park has exhibited more than 1,000 artists on its five waterfront acres, providing them financial and material resources and outdoor studio facilities to create large-scale artworks on site. Socrates is free and open to the public 365 days a year from 9am to sunset. socratessculpturepark.org

https://socratessculpturepark.org/programs/films