The Bobby Stone Film Series presented by West Village at the Tivoli Theatre continues to bring the very best in cinema magic to our friends and community.
This is a new way for audiences to watch new releases from the safety of their homes during this unprecedented time while also supporting the Tivoli Theatre Foundation.
New this week:
Coming Home Again
Acclaimed director Wayne Wang’s (The Joy Luck Club, Chan Is Missing) moving new film, Coming Home Again, is based on a personal essay by award-winning Korean-American writer Chang-rae Lee that was published in The New Yorker.
This emotional, intimate family drama about a mother, a son, and the burden of family expectations, world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and now begins its North American Theatrical Premiere Run, from Outsider Pictures and Strand Releasing.
The film’s main character, also named Chang-rae (the charismatic Justin Chon), a first generation Korean-American, returns to his family home in San Francisco to care for his ailing mother (powerful Jackie Chung). Wanting nothing more than to fulfill his role as the supportive son, he must come to terms with his own conflicted emotions.
The film takes place over the course of one full day during which Chang-rae attempts to prepare a traditional Korean New Year’s Eve dinner; like the one his mother always cooked for the family (and for the film, all food was actually prepared by acclaimed Korean American chef Corey Lee). The care and precision that goes into preparing this meal gives him time to reflect on the intense relationship between them. Memories become a doorway into a woman who was so much more than the mother he thought he knew. Now, Chang-rae is faced with the dilemma of living with the permanent scars of unresolved family sacrifice, or the risk of opening new wounds as cancer shadows their lives.
While acknowledging the influences of iconic filmmakers Yasujirō Ozu, Chantal Akerman and Michael Haneke, Coming Home Again is all Wayne Wang, who continues to authentically pioneer exploring the lives of Asian-Americans on screen, and the roles of women today.
Tickets: $11.99 – This film is provided by our friends at Outsider Pictures.
Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something
Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something is the inspiring story of Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter/activist Harry Chapin (“Cat’s in the Cradle”). Chapin sold over 16 million albums and was one of his generation’s most beloved artist-activists who spent his fame and fortune trying to end world hunger before his tragic passing.
The film features Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Peter Seeger, Sir Bob Geldof, Kenny Rogers, Graham Nash, Pat Benatar, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Robert Lamm, Richie Havens, and Harry Belafonte intimately reflecting on Chapin’s larger-than-life impact on music and the world including his founding, along with Bill Ayres, of WhyHunger – the nonprofit organization leading the movement to end hunger and advance the human right to nutritious food in the U.S. and around the world.
Tickets: $4.99 - This film is provided by our friends at Greenwhich Entertainment.
Nationtime
Best known for his avant-garde meta-documentary Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, William Greaves (1926–2014) was also the director of over 100 nonfiction films, the majority focused on African American history, politics, and culture.
Nationtime is a report on the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, a historic event that gathered black voices from across the political spectrum, among them Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Betty Shabazz, Richard Hatcher, Amiri Baraka, Charles Diggs, Isaac Hayes, Richard Roundtree and H. Carl McCall.
Narrated by Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, the film was considered too militant for television broadcast at the time and has since circulated only in an edited 58-minute version. This new 4K restoration from IndieCollect, with funding from Jane Fonda and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, returns the film to its original 80-minute length and visual quality.
Tickets: $10 – This film is provided by our friends at Kino Lorber.
For a complete list of films in the The Bobby Stone Film Series, visit tivolichattanooga.com/events/bobby-stone-film-series/virtual-cinema
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