Happy Lunar New Year from the USC US-China Institute!
IFP Screen Forward Presents: HOOLIGAN SPARROW
Theatrical Premiere - July 15th - July 21st
Made in NY Media Center by IFP - DUMBO, Brooklyn
World Premiere - 2015 Sundance Film Festival (World Documentary Completition)
Official Selection - Hot Docs Film Festival 2015
Opening Night Selection - Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2015 (New York)
When:
July 15, 2016 12:00am to July 21, 2016 12:00am
Where
Theatrical Premiere - July 15th - July 21st
Made in NY Media Center by IFP - DUMBO, Brooklyn
World Premiere - 2015 Sundance Film Festival (World Documentary Completition)
Official Selection - Hot Docs Film Festival 2015
Opening Night Selection - Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2015 (New York)
The danger is palpable as intrepid young filmmaker Nanfu Wang follows maverick activist Ye Haiyan (a.k.a Hooligan Sparrow) and her band of colleagues to Hainan Province in southern China, to protest the case of six elementary school girls who were sexually abused by their principal. Marked as enemies of the state, the activists are under constant government surveillance and face interrogation, harassment, and imprisonment. Sparrow, who gained notoriety with her advocacy work for sex workers’ rights, continues to champion girls’ and women’s rights and arms herself with the power and reach of social media.
Filmmaker Wang becomes a target along with Sparrow, as she faces destroyed cameras and intimidation. Yet she bravely and tenaciously keeps shooting, guerrilla-style, with secret recording devices and hidden-camera glasses, and in the process, she exposes a startling number of undercover security agents on the streets. Eventually, through smuggling footage out of the country, Wang is able tell the story of her journey with the extraordinary revolutionary Sparrow, her fellow activists, and their seemingly impossible battle for human rights.
A film by Nanfu Wang
SHOWTIMES
FRIDAY, July 15th
7pm
Special Q&A Guest: Filmmaker Nanfu Wang and Jean Tsien – Consulting Editor
Jean Tsien has been working in the field of documentary for over 30 years as an editor, producer, and consultant. Her notable editing credits include: the 2001 Academy Award, Best Documentary Feature nominee; Scottsboro: An American Tragedy; three Peabody Award-winning films: Malcolm X: Make It Plain, Travis and Solar Mamas; Please Vote For Me, a 2008 Grierson award recipient for most entertaining documentary; Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing and Miss Sharon Jones! both directed by two-time Academy Award-winning director Barbara Kopple. Tsien is a member of American Cinema Editors, Rough Cut Service, and the Documentary branch of the Academy.
SATURDAY, July 16th
4pm
Special Q&A Guest: Filmmaker Nanfu Wang
SUNDAY, July 17th
4pm
MONDAY, July 18th
Special Q&A Guest Alison Klayman – Executive Producer
7pm
Alison Klayman's feature documentary AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY won a Special Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The film went on to be released theatrically around the globe and was shortlisted for an Academy Award, nominated for two Emmys and two Cinema Eye Honors, and earned Alison a Director's Guild of America nomination. She is a regular contributor to the New York Times’s Op-Docs series and was named one of the “20 Directors to Watch” on A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis’s list of international filmmakers under 40.
TUESDAY, July 19th
5pm
WEDNESDAY, July 20th
7:00pm
Special Q&A Guest: Nathan Halpern – Composer
Nathan Halpern is a Brooklyn-based composer, recently named one of Indiewire's "15 Composers to Watch.” His score for RICH HILL, winner of the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary, was praised as "one of the best non-fiction scores we've heard in years" (Indiewire). He is also known for his score for The Emmy and Peabody Award-winning MARINA ABRAMOVIC: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT (HBO Films). In 2015 he re-teamed with RICH HILL co-director Andrew Droz Palermo for the Kiernan Shipka-starring supernatural thriller ONE AND TWO (IFC Films), which Variety called "hauntingly scored." In 2016 he re-teamed with RICH HILL co-director Tracy Droz Tragos for ABORTION: STORIES WOMEN TELL (HBO DOCUMENTARY FILMS), which premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Early 2016 saw the Sundance premiere of THE LOVERS AND THE DESPOT (Magnolia Pictures), praised by Indiewire for Halpern's "excellent score." June 2016 saw Edinburgh Film Festival premiere of Amanda Sharp's STICKY NOTES starring Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones) and Ray Liotta. Currently playing in theaters are three films he's scored: HOOLIGAN SPARROW (Sundance 2016), INDIAN POINT (Tribeca 2015 / First Run Features), and THE WITNESS (New York Film Festival 2015 / FilmRise).
THURSDAY, July 21st
7pm
Where
Made in NY Media Center by IFP - 30 John Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 - View Map
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