feature films a-to-z
83
Rivers Wash Over Me Monday, July 13 • 7:15 • Ritz East 1 Saturday, July 18 • 12:15 • Prince Music Theater Philadelphia Premiere USA 2009, 89 min
A sophisticated gay black teen confronts ignorance, danger and eventually true love in this tense, probing drama set in the rural South. 15-year-old Sequan Green is a lanky, erudite and very much gay New Yorker. Forced to move in with extended family members in the rural South, this fish out of water finds his new surroundings downright poisonous. The town is corrupt and complacent, riddled with crime, drugs, homophobia, a macho thug culture and a willfully ignorant populace. His older cousin Michael, with whom he shares a room, makes a daily habit of degrading and violently abusing Sequan, while his aunt turns a blind (if not jaundiced) eye. Enter Lori, a white bad girl who hangs with local drug dealers and her kind, protective brother… who happens to have something in common with Sequan. Director John G. Young wowed us with his examination of race, class, pop culture and queer love literally under fire in 1995’s Parallel Sons. Rivers heralds a return to similar territory, weaving in a crime mystery and a lone, frustrated moral authority figure for good measure. This is daring, raw and deep work of narrative storytelling art. —Lawrence Ferber Director: John G. Young Cast: Xosha Roquemore, Darien Sills-Evans, Julia Carothers Hughes, Pamela Stewart, Sonequa Martin Screenwriters: Darien Sills-Evans, John G. Young Producers: Jay J. Milla, Darien Sills-Evans Cinematographer: Robert Ansbro Editor: Stephen Thomas Print Source: Dexter Davis
John G. Young’s Filmography: The Reception (2005); Parallel Sons (1995)
St. Trinian’s Saturday, July 11 • 2:45 • Prince Music Theater Saturday, July 18 • 9:15 • Ritz East 2 Philadelphia Premiere Britain 2007, 97 min
Packed with madcap antics, explosive hi-jinks and Rupert Everett in a frock, St. Trinian’s follows a sassy group of bad girls as they try to save their boarding school from foreclosure. Out actor Rupert Everett is reunited with Colin Firth (Mamma Mia!) for the first time since Another Country, in which they played gay lovers. In St. Trinian’s they do kiss again — but as a man and woman! Things are shaken up when the new Minister of Education (Colin Firth) identifies St. Trinian’s as the “worst boarding school in the country”. The all-girl boarding school is the poster child for bad education with its eccentric headmistress, Camilla Fritton (a crossdressing Rupert Everett in a dual role) and her unorthodox ways. Miss Fritton usually retreats to her private quarters with a nice gin cocktail while her devilish students, led by the posh Kelly (Gemma Arterton, Quantum of Solace), wreck the school, cheat at field hockey and terrorize the trembling new student Annabelle (Talulah Riley, Pride & Prejudice). All the frivolity is about to change, as the bank is threatening foreclosure. The girls (along with Mischa Barton) devise an outlandish plan to cheat their way to finals of the Scholastic Challenge, where they will steal Vermeer’s painting “The Girl with the Pearl Earring.” Pulling out all the stops, St. Trinian’s is a fabulously clever, camp remake of the classic British television series (that began in 1954 with The Belles of St Trinian’s) that will have you buckled over with laughter till the credits roll! —Kelly Burkhardt Directors: Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson Cast: Talulah Riley, Rupert Everett, Jodie Whittaker, Gemma Arterton, Kathryn Drysdale, Juno Temple, Antonia Bernath Screenwriter: Piers Ashworth; Jamie Minoprio; Nick Moorcroft; Jonathan M. Stern Producers: Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson Cinematographer: Gavin Finney Editor: Alex Mackie Print Source: Neoclassics Films Ltd.
Sponsored by:
Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson’s Filmography: Oliver Parker: I Really Hate My Job (2007); Fade to Black (2006); The Private Life of Samuel Pepys (2003); The Importance of Being Earnest (2002); An Ideal Husband (1999); Othello (1995) Sponsored by:
more information online • www.phillycinema.org/qfest