THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES
SEAN BAKER X 3
A SPECIAL DIRECTOR SPOTLIGHT ON THURSDAY, JULY 9 INCLUDES PRINCE OF BROADWAY, STARLET, AND A SNEAK PREVIEW OF HIS LATEST FEATURE TANGERINE, WITH BAKER IN ATTENDANCE
New York, NY (June 12, 2015) – The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today Sean Baker x 3, a special spotlight on the director to be held on Thursday, July 9. The day will include back-to-back screenings of Prince of Broadway, Starlet, and a sneak preview of his latest feature, the bombastic and moving Tangerine (opening at the Film Society on July 10), with Baker in person. Visit filmlinc.com for more information.
Sean Baker, a New York native and NYU film graduate, may have a career that is still relatively young, but he’s already established a seductive, formidable, and consistent body of work with a signature that is unmistakably his—fly-on-the-wall, guerrilla style, working with micro-budgets and featuring actors who largely improvise. Baker’s always surprising approach to naturalism combined with a knack for selecting and portraying charismatic, transfixing subjects make him one of the most exciting American independent filmmakers working today.
He is also co-creator of the cult Fox and IFC hand-puppet series Greg the Bunny and writer/director/producer of its spin-off, the MTV reality show parody series Warren the Ape. In 2009, his films Take Out and Prince of Broadway competed for the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards, and in 2013, he received the Robert Altman Award for Starlet, which focuses on the unlikely friendship between a 21-year-old adult-film actress (played by Dree Hemingway) and an elderly widow in California’s San Fernando Valley. His latest, Tangerine (produced by sibling directors/actors/producers Jay and Mark Duplass), about transgender prostitutes in L.A., was a breakout hit at Sundance earlier this year, having been shot entirely in a month on an iPhone 5s in widescreen format. The film will open theatrically at the Film Society on July 10.
Tickets will go on sale Thursday, June 25. Tickets for the Tangerine Sneak Preview are $18 for the general public; $13 for members, students and seniors. Starlet and Prince of Broadway tickets are $14; $11 for students and seniors (62+); and $9 for Film Society members. See it all and save with the 3-film discount package. For more information, visit filmlinc.com.
FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS
Prince of Broadway
Sean Baker, USA, 2008, DCP, 100m
The third feature from fly-on-the-wall filmmaker Sean Baker stars real-life street hustler Prince Adu (who received a consultation credit) as Lucky, a Ghanaian émigré who hawks knockoff merchandise for kindly Armenian crook Levon (Karren Karagulian). His sordid life is turned upside down when an ex-girlfriend entrusts him with their infant son and disappears. Reminiscent of the Dardennes’ L’Enfant, Baker’s film etches a bustling portrait of NYC’s fashion district and the immigrants living off the grid there. This handmade, no-budget film received numerous prizes including Best Dramatic Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and The New York Times observed that “like its subject . . . the movie is sharp, charismatic and so light on its feet we never know which way it will turn.”
Thursday, July 9, 5:00pm
Starlet
Sean Baker, USA, 2012, DCP, 103m
Starlet explores the unlikely friendship between 21-year-old adult-film actress Jane (Dree Hemingway) and elderly widow Sadie (Besedka Johnson) after their worlds collide in California's San Fernando Valley. Jane spends her time getting high with her dysfunctional roommates and taking care of her Chihuahua Starlet, while Sadie passes her days alone, tending to her garden. After a confrontation at a yard sale, Jane finds something unexpected in a relic from Sadie’s past. Her curiosity piqued, she tries to befriend the caustic older woman. Secrets emerge as their relationship grows, revealing that nothing is ever as it seems. Baker continues in the naturalistic style of his previous films, capturing the rhythms of everyday life with a rare authenticity. Starlet is at once provocative, haunting, unpredictable, and surprisingly sweet.
Thursday, July 9, 9:20pm (Introduction by Sean Baker)
Tangerine
Sean Baker, USA, 2015, DCP, 88m
Sean Baker’s fifth feature is a frenetic, funny, and often moving work that employs the most contemporary of means—it was shot on the iPhone 5S—to present the story of Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), a transgender hooker back on the streets of Los Angeles following a stint in jail. Seeking to confront her unfaithful boyfriend/pimp (James Ransone), Sin-Dee and fellow sex worker Alexandra (Mya Taylor) tear through Tinseltown against a sonic backdrop of blaring trap music, innocent and not-so-innocent bystanders be damned. Baker’s film is nothing short of innovative in the artistic mileage it gets out of the iPhone 5S’s onboard video camera, yielding colorful and vibrant 16:9 images suffused with energy, movement, and anarchic freedom, cut together with the precision of a vintage CinemaScope blockbuster. A Magnolia Pictures release.
Thursday, July 9, 7:00pm (Q&A with Sean Baker and actors James Ransone and Karren Karagulian)
ABOUT FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
Founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year’s most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the Film Society recognizes an artist's unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award, whose 2015 recipient was Robert Redford. The Film Society’s state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at Lincoln Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community.
The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO, Stella Artois, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.
For Media specific inquiries, please contact:
David Ninh, (212) 875-5423
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