23 April 2007

Tribeca Film Institute and the Tribeca Film Festival present North American premiere of PASSIO

Warning: I'm going to seriously, deeply, and utterly film-geek out now.

This week the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival is presenting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the North American premiere of
Passio, a new film by film curator, critic, and writer Paolo Cherchi Usai.

An unprecedented work of visual and auditory revelation, Passio is more an experience than an event, one that transcends filmic norms and enters a realm of internal perception and lost memory. Inspired by and set to Arvo Pärt’s musical interpretation of the Passion in St John’s Gospel
“Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secondum Johannem,” one of the last musical masterpieces of the 20th century Cherchi Usai’s experimental silent film draws on a century of world cinema to call attention to the overlooked and suppressed, penetrating the extremes of human existence pull hope even from our moments of deepest failure and despair. "The images for this work have been chosen from the countless manifestations of our neglected or repressed collective memory,” reads the press kit, “ranging from documents of political and racial oppression to scientific experiments, depictions of human suffering turned into mass spectacle, and the deliberate destruction of moving images." Ephemeral and shocking, exultant and humbling, Passio is truly a passion of its own of the soul, of humanity, of cinema itself.

TFF is honored to be presenting this extraordianry work in The Cathedral Church of St John the Divine, and at Trinity Church, Wall Street. This will be only the second time — the first was in Adelaide, Australia in February of this year — the work has been presented accompanied by live music.

April 27, 8 p.m., The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
April 28, 7 p.m. & 10 p.m., The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine
April 29, 3 p.m. & 5.30 p.m., Trinity Church, Wall Street
*tickets available online, by phone, and at any Walk-Up Box Office location.



PASSIO

2007, Netherlands, Italy, U.S.A., 74 min.
black&white/color/handcoloring, 35mm
Silent with live music

DIRECTOR: Paolo Cherchi Usai
PRODUCERS: Peter Limburg, Livio Jacob
CALLIGRAPHY AND HANDCOLORING: Brody Neuenschwander
VISUAL EFFECTS: Gerard de Haan, Paulo Fonseca
ORIGINAL MUSIC: “Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secondum Johannem,” by Arvo Pärt
MUSIC PERFORMED BY: The Trinity Choir, The Caleb Burhans Ensemble
CONDUCTOR: Owen Burdick
ORGANIST: Robert P. Ridgell

MUSICIANS:
Jesus: Andrew Nolen
Pilatus: Matthew Hughes
Evangelist Quartet: Martha Cluver (Soprano), Matthew Hensrud (Countertenor), Daniel Mutlu (Tenor), Tim Krol (Baritone)

TFF EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Mark Steele
TFF PRODUCTION MANAGER: David Shelley

An Isabella Rossellini Presentation

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