COMMON PEOPLE | Grey gardens
For its fifth (anniversary!) season, the beloved documentary film cycle COMMON PEOPLE, embraced by both Kaunas residents and city visitors, is making its return! In this latest cycle, we extend an invitation to indulge in an array of films. These films include both famous classics from documentary history and modern ones that expand the genre's limits.
The first two screenings of this cycle, in partnership with the "Culture to Courtyards", won't be held at the usual place – Kaunas Artists' House. Instead, we offer the chance to enjoy a summer evening in the courtyards of residential neighborhoods.
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The FIRST SCREENING will feature an American documentary classic – the unique and eccentric 1976 film titled "Grey Gardens."
"Grey Gardens" is the unbelievable but true story of Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie, the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Mother and daughter live in a world of their own behind the towering privets that surround their decaying 28-room East Hampton mansion known as "Grey Gardens," a place so far gone that the local authorities once threatened to evict them for violating building and sanitation codes. The incident made national headlines -- American royalty, living in squalor! For the Beales were nothing short of the upper crust. Mrs. Beale, a.k.a. "Big Edie," was a born aristocrat, sister of "Black Jack" Bouvier, Jackie O's father. "Little Edie" was an aspiring actress of striking beauty who put her New York life on hold to care for her mother - and never left her side again. Together they descended into a strange life of dependence and eccentricity that no one had ever shared until the Maysles arrived with their camera and tape recorder.
The film will be presented by the independent cinema curator Aistė Račaitytė.
Dir. David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer
Documentary, USA, 1976. English with Lithuanian subtitles, 94 min.
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The screening will be held in August 23rd, 9PM at Antanavos g. 17a - 19, Aleksotas, Kaunas, at the residential neibourhood courtyard.
The screening is a part of the "Culture to Courtyards" programme.
The COMMON PEOPLE screening series aims to discuss not only the content of documentary films, but also the whole notion of documentary cinema. The series addresses questions of ethics, directorial decisions. To film or not to film? When does a director cross the line of closeness with their subject? Should documentary cinema reflect ‘reality’ or the vision of its creator? These questions and others are raised and discussed by looking at films who maintain a close look at people telling their own stories: sensitive, creative, eccentric and based somewhere in the margins.
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The event is FREE of charge.
The project is curated by Karolis Žukas (Kitas Kinas) and Edvinas Grinkevičius (Kaunas Artists' House).
The project is financed by the Lithuanian Film Center and organized by Kaunas Artists' House.
