Join us for the CCA’s year-long Frederick Wiseman Retrospective, where we will showcase twelve of Wiseman’s rarely seen masterworks. Enjoy a Sunday matinee each month from October 2024 through September 2025. Each unique film will be screened just once on our massive Cinema Theater screen. Each film in CCA’s Frederick Wiseman Retrospective has recently been meticulously restored using original 16mm film negatives and sound elements, and has previously never been available in digital format. This monumental five-year long restoration project, overseen and approved by Wiseman himself, is a collaboration between Zipporah Films, the Library of Congress, DuArt Labs and Goldcrest Post Production. Merchandise Alert: Grab your Limited Edition Wiseman Retrospective t-shirts in the cinema lobby, available while supplies last! BALLET is a profile of the American Ballet Theatre, an important classical ballet company. The film presents the company in rehearsal in their New York studio and on tour in Athens and Copenhagen. Choreographers, ballet masters and mistresses are shown at work with principal dancers, soloists and the corps de ballet. Other sequences involve the administration and fundraising aspects of the company. "Ballet is an eloquent statement about the crucial role of art in bringing extra dimensions to our lives … As much as any seminarian, dancers have a special calling, an intense dedication. In classes and rehearsals, we see youngsters with ideal bodies looking for direction from those who have gone before. Outside the studios, they are just ordinary young people going to the beach… Then the lights go down, the curtain goes up and they are transformed into the vessels of incredible beauty." –John J. O'Connor, The New York Times "[Wiseman] follows American Ballet Theatre’s dancers, choreographers, and backstage personnel through the arduous construction of a dance. Whether he’s recording a ballet master’s interview with a young hopeful or observing Natalia Makarova giving instructions in the projection of glamour and allure, Wiseman remains transfixed by the rigorous and highly traditional notion of beauty that the workers are trying to honor." – The New Yorker "BALLET, in its characteristic unadorned, unsentimentalized manner, remains unique, and its portrait of ballet dancers at work has no parallel." –Alan M. Kriegsman, The Washington Post Total runtime: 129 mins

Presented as part of CCA’s monthly series on arthouse classics and underseen cinema, Closer Looks. This month’s selection was made by CCA staff member, Matthew Cannella, who will offer a brief introduction before the screening. ONE NIGHT ONLY! With her ravishingly sensual take on Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, Claire Denis firmly established herself as one of the great visual tone poets of our time. Amid the azure waters and sunbaked desert landscapes of Djibouti, a French Foreign Legion sergeant (Denis Lavant) sows the seeds of his own ruin as his obsession with a striking young recruit (Grégoire Colin) plays out to the thunderous, operatic strains of Benjamin Britten. Denis and cinematographer Agnès Godard fold military and masculine codes of honor, colonialism’s legacy, destructive jealousy, and repressed desire into shimmering, hypnotic images that ultimately explode in one of the most startling and unforgettable endings in all of modern cinema. Total Runtime: 93 mins “A dazzling riff on Melville’s Billy Budd. You’ll never forget the final scene, when the amazing Denis Lavant starts to dance.” -Susan Sontag, Artforum “[Claire] Denis has crafted a psychological portrait as exquisite and harsh as the East African landscape so gorgeously captured by cinematographer Agnès Godard.” -CineWomen “Ardent and unflinching, Beau Travail looks beyond homoeroticism to the subtle, savage power games of an all-male world.” -Out Magazine “The movie is a mass of engorged muscles and entwined limbs; desire rerouted through conformity and cruelty in the rhythm of the night.” -WBUR’s Arts & Culture

Presented as part of CCA’s monthly Cult Film series & programmed specifically for Valentine’s Day! ONE NIGHT ONLY! After serving five years in prison, Billy Brown (Vincent Gallo) heads home to impress his parents (Anjelica Huston and Ben Gazzara) who believe he is a successful businessman about to be married. Billy kidnaps a teenage dance student named Layla (Christina Ricci) and forces her to pose as his loving fiancée. To Billy’s dismay, Layla takes to her role enthusiastically. She breaks through to Billy’s obsessive Buffalo Bills football fan mother and hard-edged father, and falls for Billy while doing so. After a night of bowling and not touching each other, Billy comes to the realization that his arch-enemy is actually a pretty decent guy and that love is possible. TOTAL RUNTIME: 1 hr 50 mins “Gallo’s combination of crudeness and sophistication has a preternatural power.” -Slate “Though bleak and at times brutal, Buffalo ’66 manages to evoke a world of sensitivity that’s, dare I say, rather feminine.” -Erica Peplin, Vague Visages “The intimate, idiosyncratic and very funny Buffalo ’66 –directed by and starring Vincent Gallo, from a semi-autobiographical script co-authored with Alison Bagnall –feels like a projection of Gallo’s very psyche.” -Washington Post “Gallo’s directorial debut is one of a kind, an eccentric, provocative comedy which laces a poignant love story with both a sombre, washed-out naturalism and surreal musical vignettes.” -Time Out “Alternately satirical and romantic, full of pain and humor, Buffalo ’66 is a winner.” -LA Times “Gallo does a handsome job of creating a world and a set of characters that feel wholly authentic, and that in itself is a rare enough treat.” -Ray Green, Box Office Magazine

Presented as part of CCA’s monthly series on arthouse classics and underseen cinema, Closer Looks. This month’s selection was made by CCA staff member, Grace Davis, who will offer a brief introduction before the screening. ONE NIGHT ONLY! Maybe the Czechoslovak New Wave’s most anarchic entry, Věra Chytilová’s absurdist farce follows the misadventures of two brash young women. Believing the world to be “spoiled,” they embark on a series of pranks in which nothing—food, clothes, men, war—is taken seriously. Daisies is an aesthetically and politically adventurous film that’s widely considered one of the great works of feminist cinema. Presented from a 4K Restoration! Total Runtime: 76 mins “With its recent 4k restoration, “Daisies” endures as a New Wave masterpiece and hyper-feminine smorgasbord of sensory pleasure.” -Hyperallergic “Madness follows austerity, arbitrariness follows discipline, an orgy of colors follows gray. The inconsistencies in the story, the strangeness of the setting feel effortlessly modern, as does the extremely original use of photography.” -Cahiers du Cinema “Brace yourself for some of the most exuberant and disjunctive Pop Art imagery ever put onscreen, including scenes in which the scissors-happy hedonists shred not only objects and each other but the movie itself.” -New York Magazine

PRESENTED WITH CLOSED CAPTIONING FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER! Join us for the CCA’s year-long Frederick Wiseman Retrospective, where we will showcase twelve of Wiseman’s rarely seen masterworks. Enjoy a Sunday matinee each month from October 2024 through September 2025. Each unique film will be screened just once on our massive Cinema Theater screen. Each film in CCA’s Frederick Wiseman Retrospective has recently been meticulously restored using original 16mm film negatives and sound elements, and has previously never been available in digital format. This monumental five-year long restoration project, overseen and approved by Wiseman himself, is a collaboration between Zipporah Films, the Library of Congress, DuArt Labs and Goldcrest Post Production. Merchandise Alert: Grab your Limited Edition Wiseman Retrospective t-shirts in the cinema lobby, available while supplies last! The School for the Deaf at the Alabama Institute is organized around a theory of total communication i.e. the use of signs and finger spelling in conjunction with speech, hearing aids, lip reading, gestures and the written word. The film shows sequences dealing with various aspects of this comprehensive training such as teaching students and parents to sign; speech therapy; psychological counseling; regular academic courses; vocational training; disciplinary problems; parents visits; sports and recreational activity; training in living and working independently; and developing skills in home and money management. Total runtime: 164 mins "Not only does Wiseman present an empathetic picture of the disabled students and loving staff, but he makes his way into organizational meetings, the parental decision making process — all the facets of the lives of the disabled, as they find an increasing role in today’s society." –Arthur Unger, The Christian Science Monitor "Some of the teachers are deaf themselves, and their earnest professional devotion obviously draws on reservoirs of personal experience." –Robert Coles, The New Republic "If a time capsule were prepared today for opening in a couple of hundred years, ‘DEAF’ and ‘BLIND’ would be an ideal choice for inclusion. There’s no doubt that a society is reflected in its institutions. The Alabama Institute catches us at our most caring and compassionate moments.: –John J. O'Connor, The New York Times "Never a word of narration, never a voice telling us what we are seeing, guiding our reactions, advising us how to feel. We are on our own… The reward is a new awareness not only of the blind and deaf, but of those who work with them." –Michael Keman, The Washington Post

Join us for the CCA’s year-long Frederick Wiseman Retrospective, where we will showcase twelve of Wiseman’s rarely seen masterworks. Enjoy a Sunday matinee each month from October 2024 through September 2025. Each unique film will be screened just once on our massive Cinema Theater screen. Each film in CCA’s Frederick Wiseman Retrospective has recently been meticulously restored using original 16mm film negatives and sound elements, and has previously never been available in digital format. This monumental five-year long restoration project, overseen and approved by Wiseman himself, is a collaboration between Zipporah Films, the Library of Congress, DuArt Labs and Goldcrest Post Production. Merchandise Alert: Grab your Limited Edition Wiseman Retrospective t-shirts in the cinema lobby, available while supplies last! Essene (1972) is about daily life in a Benedictine monastery and the resolution of conflict between personal needs and the institutional and organizational priorities of the community. In the Order, where the focus of life is the relationship of individual work and worship to the community as a whole, the brethren must cope with the same issues that arise in any community: rules, work, worship, values, love, and play. Total runtime: 86 mins "ESSENE is one of the best religious films ever made… Fred Wiseman’s cinema verite look at life inside a monastery also studies the essential meanings inherent in any institutional framework… It is fluid, extraordinarily honest and non theatrical experience… Wiseman conveys humility without resorting to humble expressions, an awareness of profound piety without mock spirituality… ESSENE raises the question of God urgently and eloquently." –Malcolm Boyd, The New York Times "Mr. Wiseman has given the viewer a superb human comedy — funny, pathetic, touching, absurd, moving." –John J. O'Connor, The New York Times

Presented as part of CCA’s monthly Cult Film series! Meet Big and Little Edie Beale: mother and daughter, high-society dropouts, and reclusive cousins of Jackie Onassis. The two manage to thrive together amid the decay and disorder of their East Hampton, New York, mansion, making for an eerily ramshackle echo of the American Camelot. An impossibly intimate portrait, this 1976 documentary by Albert and David Maysles, codirected by Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer, quickly became a cult classic and established Little Edie as a fashion icon and philosopher queen. Total Runtime: 94 mins

Join us for the CCA’s year-long Frederick Wiseman Retrospective, where we will showcase twelve of Wiseman’s rarely seen masterworks. Enjoy a Sunday matinee each month from October 2024 through September 2025. Each unique film will be screened just once on our massive Cinema Theater screen. Each film in CCA’s Frederick Wiseman Retrospective has recently been meticulously restored using original 16mm film negatives and sound elements, and has previously never been available in digital format. This monumental five-year long restoration project, overseen and approved by Wiseman himself, is a collaboration between Zipporah Films, the Library of Congress, DuArt Labs and Goldcrest Post Production. Merchandise Alert: Grab your Limited Edition Wiseman Retrospective t-shirts in the cinema lobby, available while supplies last! HIGH SCHOOL (1968) was filmed at a large urban high school in Philadelphia. The film documents how the school system exists not only to pass on "facts" but also transmits social values from one generation to another. HIGH SCHOOL presents a series of formal and informal encounters between teachers, students, parents, and administrators through which the ideology and values of the school emerge. Total runtime: 75 mins "HIGH SCHOOL, a wicked, brilliant documentary about life in a lower-middle-class secondary school." –Richard Schickel, Life "HIGH SCHOOL shows no stretching of minds. It does show the overwhelming dreariness of administrators and teachers who confuse teaching with discipline. The school somehow takes warm, breathing teen-agers and tries to turn them into 40-year old mental eunuchs… No wonder the kids turn off, stare out windows, become surly, try to escape… The most frightening thing about ‘HIGH SCHOOL’ is that it captures the battlefield so clearly; the film is too true." –Peter Janssen, Newsweek "The high school is the very heart of America, and Wiseman has captured its strength and rhythm perfectly." –Edgar Z. Friedenberg, The New York Review of Books

BRAZIL, 1971 - Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva, a mother of five children is forced to reinvent herself after her family suffers a violent and arbitrary act by the government. The film is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva's biographical book and tells the true story that helped reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history.

Thursdays, 4:30-6:30p May 8, 15, 22, 29 Cost: $250 (For all four classes) Location: CCA Conference Room This spring, poet Elizabeth Jacobson is offering a new session of her popular workshop series Intimate Immersion. During this four-week in-person intensive, the focus is on generating new poems, critiquing each participant’s work, revising poems, and looking at elements of craft. Each meeting, participants are invited to bring a new poem (with copies for everyone) for workshop discussion. Since this is the first look, the process creates a deep. concentrated attention different from preparing critique notes ahead of time. Additionally, contemporary poems are provided as a catalyst for the following week’s writing prompt. This is an intimate, focused immersion to reinforce the writing practice and foster the evolution of new poems. To apply for a scholarship, contact [email protected] About Elizabeth Jacobson: Elizabeth Jacobson was the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her third collection of poems, "There Are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of Coral" is just out from Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press. Her previous book, "Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air," won the New Measure Poetry Prize (FVE/Parlor Press, 2019) and the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for both New Mexico Poetry and Best New Mexico Book. She is the reviews editor for the online literary journal Terrain.org. This program is supported by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry

Thursdays, 4:30-6:30p October 2, 9, 16, 23 Cost: $250 (For all four classes) Location: CCA Conference Room This fall, poet Elizabeth Jacobson is offering a new session of her popular workshop series Intimate Immersion. During this four-week in-person intensive, the focus is on generating new poems, critiquing each participant’s work, revising poems, and looking at elements of craft. Each meeting, participants are invited to bring a new poem (with copies for everyone) for workshop discussion. Since this is the first look, the process creates a deep. concentrated attention different from preparing critique notes ahead of time. Additionally, contemporary poems are provided as a catalyst for the following week’s writing prompt. This is an intimate, focused immersion to reinforce the writing practice and foster the evolution of new poems. To apply for a scholarship, contact [email protected] About Elizabeth Jacobson: Elizabeth Jacobson was the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her third collection of poems, "There Are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of Coral" is just out from Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press. Her previous book, "Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air," won the New Measure Poetry Prize (FVE/Parlor Press, 2019) and the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for both New Mexico Poetry and Best New Mexico Book. She is the reviews editor for the online literary journal Terrain.org. This program is supported by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry

Join us for the CCA’s year-long Frederick Wiseman Retrospective, where we will showcase twelve of Wiseman’s rarely seen masterworks. Enjoy a Sunday matinee each month from October 2024 through September 2025. Each unique film will be screened just once on our massive Cinema Theater screen. Each film in CCA’s Frederick Wiseman Retrospective has recently been meticulously restored using original 16mm film negatives and sound elements, and has previously never been available in digital format. This monumental five-year long restoration project, overseen and approved by Wiseman himself, is a collaboration between Zipporah Films, the Library of Congress, DuArt Labs and Goldcrest Post Production. Merchandise Alert: Grab your Limited Edition Wiseman Retrospective t-shirts in the cinema lobby, available while supplies last! JUVENILE COURT shows the complex variety of cases before the Memphis Juvenile Court: foster home placement, drug abuse, armed robbery, child abuse, and sexual offenses. The sequences illustrate such issues as community protection vs. the desire for rehabilitation, the range and the limits of the choices available to the court, the psychology of the offender, and the constitutional and procedural questions involved in administering a juvenile court. "Literally and figuratively, Wiseman opens the doors of perception in the daily routine of a juvenile court… (A) master educator, (he) refuses to preach or even teach, but we learn — and are immeasurably enriched by the experience." –Jerrold Hickey, The Boston Globe "The film’s chief impact stems from its graphic, often grim glances at the unforgettable subjects who are brought before the court… JUVENILE COURT does not attack the institution it explores, nor does it suggest new or different solutions to age old human problems." –David Sterritt, The Christian Science Monitor

Join us for the CCA’s year-long Frederick Wiseman Retrospective, where we will showcase twelve of Wiseman’s rarely seen masterworks. Enjoy a Sunday matinee each month from October 2024 through September 2025. Each unique film will be screened just once on our massive Cinema Theater screen. Each film in CCA’s Frederick Wiseman Retrospective has recently been meticulously restored using original 16mm film negatives and sound elements, and has previously never been available in digital format. This monumental five-year long restoration project, overseen and approved by Wiseman himself, is a collaboration between Zipporah Films, the Library of Congress, DuArt Labs and Goldcrest Post Production. Merchandise Alert: Grab your Limited Edition Wiseman Retrospective t-shirts in the cinema lobby, available while supplies last! La Comédie-Française is the oldest continuous repertory company in the world, founded in Paris in the late 17th century. This is the first time a documentary film-maker has been allowed to look at all the aspects of the work of this great theatrical company. Sequences in the film include sections of plays, casting, set and costume design, administrative meetings and rehearsals and performances of four classic French plays, Don Juan by Molière, La Thebaide by Racine, La Double Inconstance by Marivaux and Occupe-toi d’Amelie by Feydeau. “LA COMÉDIE-FRANÇAISE is a multifaceted exploration of the art and commerce of theater…What emerges from this epic work of nonfiction is a rare glimpse into what makes theater theater and what makes film, in the right hands, an art.” –Michael Blowen, Boston Globe “This film is about a culture that takes serious culture very seriously… Ever the master documentary maker, Wiseman, brings home his points without saying a word.” –Laurie Winters, L.A. Times “At various points the viewer might be standing in line to buy tickets, watching a seamstress working on costumes and wigs, viewing a set being erected — or listening to an erudite discussion by actors and their director about what Marivaux intended in his play ‘La Double Inconstance,’ one of four seen in rehearsal (Moliere, Racine and Feydeau are also represented.). During the easily flowing three hours, the viewer can also drop in on administrative meetings, listen to budget woes and hear an actress eloquently plead for financial aid for retirees. One of the fun highlights: a 100th birthday party for a retired actress who calls the Comédie-Française ‘a religion.’ I call it a wonderful, exciting, thoroughly enlightening place to visit for a few wonderful hours of television. This is indeed, a Wiseman winner!” -Kay Gardella, New York Daily News Total runtime: 223 mins

This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.

Join us for the CCA’s year-long Frederick Wiseman Retrospective, where we will showcase twelve of Wiseman’s rarely seen masterworks. Enjoy a Sunday matinee each month from October 2024 through September 2025. Each unique film will be screened just once on our massive Cinema Theater screen. Each film in CCA’s Frederick Wiseman Retrospective has recently been meticulously restored using original 16mm film negatives and sound elements, and has previously never been available in digital format. This monumental five-year long restoration project, overseen and approved by Wiseman himself, is a collaboration between Zipporah Films, the Library of Congress, DuArt Labs and Goldcrest Post Production. Merchandise Alert: Grab your Limited Edition Wiseman Retrospective t-shirts in the cinema lobby, available while supplies last! RACETRACK (1985) is about the Belmont Race Track, one of the world’s leading race tracks for thoroughbred racing. The film highlights the training, maintaining and racing of thoroughbred horses. Everyday occurrences are shown: in the backstretch — the grooming, feeding, shoeing, and caring for horses and the preparation for races; at the practice track the various aspects of training, exercising, and timing the horses; at the paddock — the pre-race presentation of the horses; and in the grandstand — betting and watching the races. The film also has sequences showing the variety of work done by trainers, jockeys, jockey agents, grooms, hot walkers, stable hands, and veterinarians. Total runtime: 114 mins “Beginning with the birth of a thoroughbred and running through to the conclusion of the 1981 Belmont Stakes in which Summing upset heavily-favored Pleasant Colony, RACETRACK makes all other movies about horse races, including the few cute ones look like a ride on a cute little merry-go-round.” -Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune “Wiseman wanders around Belmont finding ripe, illustrative material, most of which fits into the abiding themes of his films, the melancholia peculiar to industrial societies, the emotional wages of materialism. Horse racing is a small industry comparatively, but it serves as a rich microcosm… It’s a super super film, from a super super filmmaker” -Tom Shales, The Washington Post “The film is not about winning or losing; the show is about an institution, an industry, and its rituals. In RACETRACK, the industry Wiseman reveals is a peculiar one, pervaded by both a romantic respect for the magnificent animals at its center and an almost corporate atmosphere.” -Cathleen Schine, Vogue

Rude Boy is a semi-documentary, part character study, part 'rockumentary', featuring a British punk band, The Clash. The script includes the story of a fictional fan juxtposed with actual public events of the day, including political demonstrations and Clash concerts.

Presented as part of CCA’s monthly series on arthouse classics and underseen cinema, Closer Looks. This month’s selection was made by CCA Cinema Manager, Jayson Jacobsen, who will offer a brief introduction before the screening. ONE NIGHT ONLY! PRESENTED FROM A NEW 4K RESTORATION! In the psychedelic crucible of 1970s cinema, Alejandro Jodorowsky emerged as a revolutionary force with EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN - films that shattered conventional boundaries between avant-garde artistry and visceral entertainment. In 1989, this maverick auteur returned with SANTA SANGRE, a haunting masterwork that plumbs the depths of human consciousness. At its dark heart lies the tale of a traumatized circus performer, whose soul is fractured by an act of violent passion. His subsequent descent leads him through a phantasmagoric underworld, where he must confront his past - embodied by his armless mother and a deaf-mute tightrope walker who captured his heart. This hallucinatory journey blends religious ecstasy with carnal horror, divine revelation with sacrilege, and transcendent beauty with the grotesque. SANTA SANGRE stands as a singular achievement in cinema - a fever dream that defies categorization. Starring Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, and Guy Stockwell, this surrealist odyssey continues to hypnotize and disturb audiences with its radical vision, cementing Jodorowsky's legacy as one of film's most daring innovators. Total Runtime: 123 Minutes “A movie like none other I have seen before...a film in which the inner chambers of the soul are laid bare.” —Roger Ebert "Like a circus show glimpsed through shattered stained glass, Santa Sangre reconstructs reality according to its own delirious logic - an experience that's so rad it will brand itself into your brain and have your synapses hosting a three-ring circus of surrealist spectacle long after the credits roll, leaving you to wonder if movies have been holding out on us this whole time." —Jayson Jacobsen

A man journeys to a small Eastern European coastal town where he finds unexpected connections despite being the only black person in the area.

Escaping post-war Europe, visionary architect László Toth arrives in America to rebuild his life, his work, and his marriage to his wife Erzsébet after being forced apart during wartime by shifting borders and regimes. On his own in a strange new country, László settles in Pennsylvania, where the wealthy and prominent industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren recognizes his talent for building. But power and legacy come at a heavy cost...

In Copenhagen, young pregnant Karoline takes on a position as a wet nurse for an older woman named Dagmar to help support herself. Dagmar operates a clandestine adoption agency under the guise of a candy shop, assisting disadvantaged mothers place their unwanted newborns in foster homes. Karoline grows close to Dagmar, but she is soon faced with the nightmarish reality she unwittingly entered.

Join us for the CCA’s year-long Frederick Wiseman Retrospective, where we will showcase twelve of Wiseman’s rarely seen masterworks. Enjoy a Sunday matinee each month from October 2024 through September 2025. Each unique film will be screened just once on our massive Cinema Theater screen. Each film in CCA’s Frederick Wiseman Retrospective has recently been meticulously restored using original 16mm film negatives and sound elements, and has previously never been available in digital format. This monumental five-year long restoration project, overseen and approved by Wiseman himself, is a collaboration between Zipporah Films, the Library of Congress, DuArt Labs and Goldcrest Post Production. Merchandise Alert: Grab your Limited Edition Wiseman Retrospective t-shirts in the cinema lobby, available while supplies last! ZOO is a film about the zoo in Miami, Florida, the care and maintenance of the animals by the keepers, the work of the veterinarians and their staff, and the visits to the zoo by people from all over the world. The film presents the wide diversity of interests and activities at the zoo and the interrelatedness of the animal, human, ethical, financial, technical, organizational and research aspects of operating the zoo. Total runtime: 130 mins "ZOO is a brooding, poignant, poetic consideration of nothing less than the human condition… The awe and wonder and the gratitude we all feel is up there on the screen, but it is humbling, because as Rabbi Wiseman shows us, we are not adequate to be keepers, no matter how hard we may try or how fervently we may pray for help and guidance." –David R. Slavitt, Chronicles "Zoo visitors busily photograph, videotape, and peer through various ocular apparatuses as if they couldn’t see without them; the dedicated, caring staff assiduously records every aspect of their animal charges’ lives, loves, and deaths." –Melissa Pierson, Vogue