arts, books and music

Film Festival to dominate Prytania’s schedule

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Screenings of nearly 30 different films in the New Orleans Film Festival will dominate the schedule at the Prytania Theatre from Friday to the following Thursday.The schedule, available at the Prytania’s website, includes the sole showings of some of the festival’s highest-profile features: The Black Swan (by The Wrestler director Darren Aronofsky, starring Natalie Portman), 127 Hours (by Trainspotting’s Danny Boyle, starring James Franco) and festival opener Welcome to the Rileys (by music-video director Jake Scott, starring James Gandolfini of The Sopranos and Kristin Stewart of The Twilight Saga). In addition to an assortment of other features, foreign films and classics, the Prytania will also feature a number of documentaries with specific New Orleans interest, such as Bury the Hatchet (about Mardi Gras Indians), Race (about Mayor Ray Nagin’s re-election), Canal Street Madam, a showing of Harry Shearer’s The Big Uneasy and pieces on authors John Kennedy O’Toole and Walker Percy. The New Orleans Film Festival takes place at a number of other venues around the city, including The Theatres at Canal Place and Contemporary Arts Center. (See the complete schedule.)

film and television

Harry Shearer versus the “myths of Katrina”

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“Nothing is more moving to me than hearing the reaction of the people of New Orleans, the city I adopted, the city that adopted me,” Harry Shearer told an enthusiastic audience at the Prytania Theatre. “But [‘The Big Uneasy’] wasn’t made for us. It was made for the rest of the country.”