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Queen of Diamonds + The Bloody Child at Billy Wilder Theater June 15th

March 26, 2019

NINA MENKES in person JUNE 15th at Ucla’s BILLY WILDER with QUEEN OF DIAMONDS and THE BLOODY CHILD!<br /><p>

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A VERY LOW BARR by Mark Leydorf

GREAT WORDS FROM Mark Leydorf: A Very Low Barr

If you see me, don’t ask, “How’s it going?” You all know how it’s going.

It’s bad enough to be told the conspiracy you watched unravel in front of your eyes never happened. Yes, No. 1 begged Putin to deliver the death blow to Hillary on national TV; and yes, vile slug Junior and Damien doppelgänger Jared orchestrated the finer points during meetings with assorted Russian agents in the asshole’s own gilded tower; yes, Flynn, Manafort, Gates, Stone, et alia were all indicted during their attempts to cover the tracks of these shenanigans; and yes, No. 1 blatantly, repeatedly lied when he claimed to have no business deals with the Russians at absolutely the same moment he was planting his hilariously insecure Sharpie signature on a contract to erect his most hideous tower yet (and that’s saying something) in Moscow.

Also, no, you weren’t imagining things when he gave secrets to the Russian ambassador in the Oval Office, or when he stood by Putin’s side to repudiate the NSA, CIA, FBI, etc., or when he drove the Secretary of Defense to resign over his naked furtherance of Russian policy in Syria.
It’s horrible, all of it. But who are you to say that the man isn’t simply dangerously inept, tragically gullible, and psychotically eager to please new playmates? Or maybe No. 1 really is a genius, and pulled off the crime of all time without leaving his actual fingerprints anywhere on the merchandise?
Who are you to second-guess such a mind?

Right?

That’s all bad enough. But how much worse to learn that Lady Justice is blind, in fact, but only where tax-cheating millionaire traitors are concerned. And that, in fact, No. 1 and his spawn ARE above the law, fancy fair-seeming Revolution-era documents aside. How much more awful to realize the daily servings of witness-tampering, pardon-dangling, FBI-director-firing, jury-poisoning, justice-obstructing shitcake—iced, one might add, by Giuliani regularly admitting No. 1’s guilt, saying “collusion isn’t a crime” and “there is no truth,” etc.—were apparently fictions of our own fever dreams.

Barr’s novel conclusion that the underlying crime only needs to be narrowly debunked—since, say, the actors in the obviously successful conspiracy to install the corrupt puppet weren’t known representatives of Putin’s government—means all that obstruction was irrelevant. No matter that No. 1 was daily attacking the inquiry that sought to prove said conspiracy.
OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE IS AN ESPECIALLY SERIOUS CRIME WHEN IT WORKS.

The very low Barr allows No. 1 to get away with the second crime since it succeeded in covering up the first. (Can we all do that now, too? Somehow I doubt it.)

It’s all just terrible; hard to believe the country can even continue without the rule of law—and what else can it mean?

But it gets even worse still. Consider that there are hundreds of Republicans who are witnessing this same shitstorm and gleefully grabbing handfuls of the excrement to fling in our faces.

Yesterday, the Huckabee, in an unparalleled fit of projection, is calling Democrats who believe the Mueller Report conceals other messages traitors. I mean, Barr came out of fucking retirement for this! I guess he looked in the history books at Roy Cohn and Gordon Liddy and Ollie North and thought, I can top that. And he’s only one of many craven opportunists—the A.G., Mitch, Lindsey, Devin—who are eager to play Cersei to our King Joffrey.

It’s soul sickening, all of it. And why? What sick fuck would want this to be happening? I guess it’s the same sort of psychopath who wants to promote a raving alcoholic rapist to the Supreme Court? To kidnap children and lock them in cages? To prop up the dying coal industry (etc.) despite the indisputably gathering apocalypse of climate change? To police people’s bedrooms, bodies, and bathroom stalls? To deny basic health care and a dignified retirement to millions? To get assault rifles into the hands of suicidal folks, maniacs, and white supremacists? The people who want all this immoral insanity want it all so badly they will put up with this abdication of ethics, integrity, and common sense to get it.

And who are the morons, gerrymandered far above their weight class, cheering on this cabal?

My dear Fox-watching shut-in Aunt, who hovers just below the poverty line yet cheers on tax cuts for millionaires; whose answer to Mueller’s investigation is simply “Please, Clinton made a speech to the Russians!”; who’s still enraged about the blow-job lie after 20 years but believes No. 1 is getting a raw deal—do you and I even inhabit the same goddamn universe?

Are we to be just another nuclear-armed kleptocracy?

Is the American experiment well and truly over? Is there any hope for planet earth?

Exclusive: Nina Menkes’ “Queen of Diamonds” Has Been Restored, Will Be Re-Released

November 3, 2018

November 1st

By Laura Berger

Originally released in 1991, Nina Menkes’ subversive drama “Queen of Diamonds” was heralded as a feminist masterwork. Now the film about a struggling Blackjack dealer is getting a second life. A newly restored version of the pic will be screening on November 10 at AFI Fest, where Menkes will be giving a talk on how women are disempowered on screen. Those who can’t attend the Hollywood fest will also have the opportunity to watch the film. Arbelos has acquired world rights to “Queen of Diamonds,” and will be releasing the film theatrically in spring of 2019, with VOD and Blu-ray to follow.

Set in Las Vegas, “Queen of Diamonds” tells the story of Firdaus (Tinka Menkes), a Blackjack dealer contending with a missing husband and neighboring domestic violence. Her “world unfolds as a fragmented but hypnotic interplay between repetition and repressed anger,” the film’s synopsis details.

“’Queen of Diamonds’ is my very personal portrait of the U.S.: an over-enlarged, profit-motivated core surrounded by mute and arid alienation,” said Menkes. “The female protagonist is both deeply estranged and psychically powerful. Her loner position is the backside of centuries of Western Heroes: she stands in the center as watcher and victim of a system which is starting to crack.” She continued, “The film polarized audiences when it came out in 1991. I’m thrilled about the new restoration and curious to hear reactions from a new generation of movie goers!”

Eos World Fund (EOS), a global initiative that supports women directors, is co-presenting the film at AFI Fest.

“Nina Menkes’ films have broken new ground in cinematic language; she is one of America’s great auteurs. From the time of her first films unspooled, Menkes has been compared to Michelangelo Antonioni and David Lynch. She has created powerful points of view and startlingly, provocative imagery like no one else in cinema,” said Eos World Fund founder Gwen Wynne.

Menkes’ next film, “Minotaur Rex,” is slated to start production next year. Her other credits include “The Great Sadness of Zohara” and “The Bloody Child.”

Check out information about Menkes’ AFI talk below.” The new restoration of “Queen of Diamonds” is by The Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by The George Lucas Foundation.

https://womenandhollywood.com/exclusive-nina-menkes-queen-of-diamonds-has-been-restored-will-be-re-released/

EOS WORLD FUND LAUNCH, Jan. 19th, 11AM at Sundance Film Fest 2018

January 11, 2018

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EOS WORLD FUND LAUNCH at SUNDANCE 2018
 
Recipients Julie Dash and Nina Menkes
 
Nina Menkes’s Cinematic talk:
“Sex and Power: the Visual Language of Oppression”
 
EOS to support Nina Menkes’s
“MINOTAUR REX”
with Ziad Bakri and Nina Hoss
 
 
JANUARY 19, 2018- 11AM-12:30pm–The Black House,
Sundance Film Festival 2018
reception immediately following!
 
Dear Friends:
 
I’m delighted to invite you to the THE EOS WORLD FUND launch, featuring my cinematic talk: “Sex and Power; The Visual Language of Oppression”, at Sundance 2018.
 
The Eos World Fund is a new global initiative that supports bold and innovative women directors.  Created by Apricot Films’ visionary producer/director Gwen Wynne, EOS is a concrete, productive response to the crisis involving the severe lack of women helmers in cinema.
 
Gwen Wynne’s EOS World Fund is notably different than other similar initiatives, in that it seeks out material and artists who are known for their unusual, innovative and provocative cinematic work, in both form and content.
 
I’m thrilled to be one of the first two recipients, along with feminist film pioneer, Julie Dash.
 
The Eos World Fund launch at Sundance 2018
will take place at The Black House,
Friday, January 19th, 11am-12:30pm.
Reception following
 
The launch will be featuring my presentation, “Sex and Power; The Visual Language of Oppression”, in which I discuss how the recent tidal wave of sexual abuse and assault revelations connect  to the visual grammar of cinema.  Drawing on insights from Laura Mulvey’s sadly, still highly relevant essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, my talk shows clips from a variety of iconic films, starting in the 1940’s through the present, to show how women are photographically disempowered on screen.
 
I first wrote about this issue in my FILMMAKER magazine article on November 30, 2017: “The Visual Language of Oppression: Harvey Wasn’t Working in a Vacuum”.  Much to my amazement, the article was named FILMMAKER’s #1 most popular post of 2017, and Amazon Movies’ Ted Hope, tweeted that my talk is “now my @Sundance2018 #1 MUST SEE!”
 
Read the original article here: http://filmmakermagazine.com/103801-the-visual-language-of-oppression-harvey-wasnt-working-in-a-vacuum/
 
I’m also very happy that the EOS World Fund is providing significant seed financing for my new feature project, MINOTAUR REX, a radical re-telling of the ancient Greek myth. Set in contemporary Jerusalem the film is both a thriller, and an allegory for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Palestinian actor Ziad Bakri, and German star Nina Hoss are attached.
 
Julie Dash, the first African American woman to direct a theatrically released feature film, DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991), is a feminist film pioneer.  Julie will be present at the launch and we’ll be participating in a panel discussion after my talk: Women in Charge: Through a New Lens.
The panel will be moderated by Rachel Wattanbe-Batton
A reception will follow.
 
I well remember that both Julie Dash and I were among the first women to present features at Sundance, back in 1991. Julie was there with DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST; I showed QUEEN OF DIAMONDS.
 
So, it feels happily synchronous to announce that Scorsese’s Film Foundation has just awarded a restoration grant to Mark Toscano at the Academy Film Archives, to photochemically (means: on 35mm film) restore my feature film, QUEEN OF DIAMONDS, with additional funds for creating a high quality digital copy! Grants are given to work that is considered “culturally and historically significant”.
 
The EOS World Fund Launch is presented by The Black House at Sundance, and sponsored by New York Women in Film, and the African, woman-owned production house: Moon Valley Studios, Hyphenate and California Institute of the Arts.
 
For any other additional information, please contact me directly at: nina@ninamenkes.com
 
I hope to see some of you soon, at Sundance 2018.
In the meantime, with my very best wishes for happy, healthy and creative new year.
 

Sundance Talk on Sex-and-Power in Shot Design, January 19th!

December 31, 2017

HOLY MACARONI and HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!
My “Visual Language of Oppression” article was shared over 5200 times on facebook alone, and was the #1 most popular Filmmaker magazine post of 2017!! Glad the subject of film-and-feminism is coming up popular for the first time in forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOPE TO SEE YOU AT SUNDANCE, January 19th, 11am at the Black House for launch of Gwen Wynne’s EOS WORLD FUND, and my talk “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression”, with real film clips! 🙂  as well as Gwen Wynne, Julie Dash, Rachel Watanabe-Batton and Morgan Stanley’s Jurgen Alexander, in person!!! 
Here’s the original FILMMAKER article:

The Visual Language of Oppression: Harvey Wasn’t Working in a Vacuum