The American Film Institute (AFI) announced that Fox Searchlight’s Jackie, directed by Pablo Larraín, will screen as a Centerpiece Gala at AFI Fest 2016. Starring Academy Award® winner Natalie Portman, the film will screen on Monday, November 14, at the TCL Chinese Theatre.
Jackie is a searing and intimate portrait of one of the most important and tragic moments in American history, seen through the eyes of the iconic First Lady, then Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, portrayed by Natalie Portman. Jackie places us in her world during the days immediately following her husband’s assassination. Known for her extraordinary dignity and poise, here we see a psychological portrait of the First Lady as she struggles to maintain her husband’s legacy and the world of “Camelot” that they created and loved so well. Jackie was written by Noah Oppenheim. In addition to Portman, the film stars Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup and Academy Award nominee John Hurt. Jackie is produced by Juan De Dios Larraín, Academy Award nominee Darren Aronofsky (AFI Class of 1992), Mickey Liddell, Scott Franklin and Ari Handel.
Jackie joins this year’s slate of Centerpiece Galas, which as already announced includes 20th Century Women (director Mike Mills) and Elle (director Paul Verhoeven), with Tributes to their respective stars Annette Bening and Isabelle Huppert, and La La Land (director Damien Chazelle).
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More