Sunday, September 22, 2019

Rova Saxophone Quartet LIVE!


The world-renowned Rova Saxophone Quartet has been inspiring and challenging audiences for over 40 years. They are a pioneering avant-garde ensemble that explores the dual paths of composition and collection improvisation. Their music defies genre, exploring post-bop, free jazz, avant-rock and contemporary classical music. The San Francisco Public Library is honored to present a concert of new works by the Rova Saxophone Quartet -- Bruce Ackley – soprano saxophone / Steve Adams – alto saxophone / Larry Ochs – tenor saxophone / Jon Raskin – baritone saxophone. The concert will conclude with a Q&A with the audience.

Saturday, 9/28/2019
3pm -5pm
Koret Auditorium, Main Library

To learn more about Rova, visit the Art, Music & Recreation Center to access Rova Saxophone Quartet's vertical file that houses a variety of articles, program flyers, letters, etc.

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Tuesday, September 10, 2019

The New Romanian Cinema


At the beginning of 2019, San Francisco Public Library’s Art, Music, and Recreation Department launched World Cinema Time, a program featuring foreign films with English subtitles. The screenings happen once a month on Tuesday evenings in the Koret Auditorium.

Tonight's screening at 5:30 PM will be Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer’s film Child’s Pose, the winner of the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013.

Although cinema arrived in Romania at the end of the 19th century, the nation has only begun to make award-winning films in the 21st century with the so-called New Romanian Cinema.  The Death of Mr. Lazarescu directed by by Cristi Puiu which won the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 2005 opened the floodgates for Romanian films to bag 28 international awards by the end of 2018.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (dir. Cristian Mungiu) became the first Romanian film to win Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2007, and caused a controversy when it didn’t make the Foreign Language Film shortlist for Oscars. This film perhaps remains the Romanian film with the strong reputation.
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Scholarship on Romanian cinema is scant by international standards. But a basic keyword search (Romanian cinema) in databases such as Art Full Text and Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text will yield a wealth of information on various aspects of Romanian cinema.

We can recommend the DVDs in our collection:

 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days (2007)
 
Child's Pose (2013)
 
Beyond the Hills (2012)

The way I Spent the End of the World (2006)
 
Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

12:08 East of Bucharest (2006)