This year’s Fourth BAMcinemaFest, “the city’s best independent film showcase” (The New Yorker), presents three programs that are perfect for families. All tickets for children 12 and under are $10. The events for families include: Take Me to the Balloony Bin! a balloon-themed shorts program, Crazy and Thief is a coming-of-age fantasy; and the oldest animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, with be shown with live musical accompaniment. Below, please find family program descriptions, and visit BAM.org/BAMcinemaFest for the full festival lineup.
Take Me to the Balloony Bin
Take Me to the Balloony Bin! (83min total All films in 35mm!)
Sat, Jun 23 at 2pm
Josh and Benny Safdie’s Sundance prize-winning (Daddy Longlegs) The Black Balloon is an urban fable about a rogue black balloon cruising for companionship in New York City. To complement their latest work, the Safdies curate this program of classic, balloon-themed shorts appropriate for all ages, including Ub Iwerks’ animated short Balloon Land (1935), Buster Keaton’s charming tale of misadventure The Balloonatic (1923), and Albert Lamorisse’s exquisite classic The Red Balloon (1956). Q&A with Josh and Bennie Safdie
Crazy and Thief
Crazy and Thief (2012, 52min) 68min total
Sun, Jun 24 at 2pm
Directed by Cory McAbee. With Willa McAbee, John Huck McAbee.
Filmmaker and sometimes musician McAbee (The American Astronaut) cast his seven-year-old daughter and two-year-old son in this homegrown coming-of-age fantasy-meets-sidewalk movie, which follows two children, Crazy and Thief, on a wide-eyed voyage through the streets of Brooklyn and beyond, embracing star signs, mythologies, and fairy-tale monsters.
Preceded by CatCam Dir. Seth Keal (2012, 16min) A cat, a camera, a new kind of reality show.
Q&A with Cory McAbee
Prince Achmed
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) 65min
Sun, Jul 1 at 6pm
Under the influence of Georges Méliès’ special effects, pioneering avant-garde German filmmaker and artist Lotte Reiniger employed silhouettes of cardboard cutouts on illuminated glass to craft this dreamlike homage to The Arabian Nights, in which a prince joins forces with Aladdin and a magic horse to vanquish an army of demons. Accompanied by live music from BAMcinématek favorites 3epkano, who have previously performed at BAM five times with thrilling scores to Murnau’s Sunrise, Lang’s Metropolis, and Pabst’s Diary of a Lost Girl, among others, the Irish ambient group joins forces with avant-garde cellist Erik Friedlander as they find their muse in the oldest surviving animated feature.