
December 17, 2016
Actress
(Dir. Robert Greene, 2014)
Co-presented by Cinefamily.
Sponsored by MUBI.
Los Angeles premiere! Robert Greene in conversation with AJ Schnack (Kurt Cobain: About a Son; co-founder of Field of Vision) following the screening!
DOORS
5:30 PM
SCREENING
6:00 PM
LOCATION
Cinefamily
611 N. Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Brandy Burre had a recurring role on HBO's iconic drama The Wire when she got pregnant with the first of her two children. She gave up her career and moved to a small town to raise her new family with her partner, Tim. Things were fine for a while. But when Brandy decides to get back into acting, the foundations of her domestic life prove too fragile for her ambitions and the way she sees herself. As she tries to find balance between being a good mother and her desires for a life she once walked away from, Brandy is forced to make painful choices that will affect her family forever. Using elements of melodrama and cinema verité, Actress is both a present tense portrait of a dying relationship and an exploration of a complicated woman, performing the role of herself, in a complex-yet-familiar story. It's a film about starring in the movie of your life. When a woman performs the roles of mother, wife and actor, what's real? How far will Brandy go to remake her life? Actress chronicles what happens when we break the rules. (Cinema Guild)
~ Join us for a post-screening reception on Cinefamily's back patio.
One of the greatest documentaries I've ever seen.
- Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine
Mesmerizing. A modern day Sunset Boulevard.
- Eric Kohn, Indiewire
Extraordinary. Few films have presented the notion of self-performance as perceptively or provocatively as Actress.
- Guy Lodge, Variety
[Burre's] story is the stuff of classic melodrama, and that’s how Greene, astonishingly, films it: his images, with their shrieking colors and vertiginous geometry, suggest the intimate grandeur and bitter irony of a Douglas Sirk romance come to life.
- Richard Brody, The New Yorker
It’s a testament to Greene’s skill that this movie about a woman who likes to break things holds together so smartly, but it’s equally true that it takes its cues from its subject in this regard: above all else, the film resonates as a portrait of a woman remaking herself in her own image.
- Adam Nayman, Cinema Scope
(Available to download after screening date)