Gloucester Daily Times
http://www.gloucestertimes.com/
Published: 04/05/2007
German drama opens SeARTS film series
By Gail McCarthy
Staff writer
The Society for the Encouragement of the Arts opens its 2007 film series with a German film, "The Lives of Others," which won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The screening takes place Tuesday, April 10, at 6:30 p.m. at Gloucester Cinema, 75 Essex Ave.
"The Lives of Others" is described as a drama about the ability of people to do the right thing, no matter how far they have strayed down the wrong path.
The film series has been put together by filmmaker Sarah Green of Gloucester, who will lead a discussion following the screening. Green has produced more than a dozen films, including the Academy Award-winning "Frida," "City of Hope," "Passion Fish," "American Buffalo," "State and Main," "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" and "Girlfight," which won prizes at the Sundance, Deauville and Cannes film festivals. Her most recent work is "The New World," an epic film about the founding of Jamestown.
Green said "The Lives of Others" - set in Berlin in what was then East Germany in 1984 - enchanted her.
"This is an amazing film. It knocks my socks off. It has a subtle emotional core and the ending, I found so beautiful and so redemptive," she said.
The main character is a member of the German secret police and the ruling communist party.
"His job is to conduct surveillances of suspicious people," Green said. "While maintaining a surveillance during the course of his job, his own moral center is opened up by simply listening in on another's life."
The film series will continue May 22 with a documentary by Ron Wyman of Portsmouth, N.H., about an African musician.
Admission is $12 for adults, $8 for seniors and students and $6 for children under 12. Tickets are available at the door. For more, visit www.seARTS.org or call 978-281-0680.