New Crowned Hope Festival Films
Peter Sellars is renowned worldwide for his innovative treatments of classical material from western and non-western traditions, and for his commitment to exploring difficult human challenges like terrorism, poverty, slavery, genocide and civil war and their aftermaths, and the role of the arts in contemporary society. Through films screened at Montalvo made by directors of seven different nationalities commissioned for the 2006 New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, Sellars gives voice to artists living where "the need is to somehow turn the page of history, and where acts of mercy, imagination, and negotiation are the only hope." Film screenings are offered in Montalvo's Carriage House. As a new commission for Montalvo, Peter Sellars gave the Keynote Address on March 7th on behalf of Montalvo Arts Center's 2009 arts initiative, AGENCY: The Work of Artists.
The seven directors and their films are:
March 10, Opera Jawa, Garin Nugroho (Indonesia)
March 17, Half Moon, Bahman Ghobadi, (Kurdistan)
March 24, Syndromes and a Century, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand)
March 31, Hei Yan Quan (I Don't Want to Sleep Alone), Tsai Ming-Liang (Taiwan)
April 7, Daratt (Dry Season), Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (West Africa)
April 14, Hamaca Paraguaya (Paraguayan Hammock), Paz Encina, (Paraquay)
April 14, Sekalli le Meokgo (Meokgo and the Stickfighter), Teboho Mahlatsi, (South Africa)
