07 05 2007 - NEW DOCUMENTARY ON LEGENDARY DIRECTOR

NEW DOCUMENTARY ON LEGENDARY DIRECTOR
ROUBEN MAMOULIAN TO BE SHOWN AT ALMA

Director Patrick Cazals will present and discuss his new hour-long documentary on the life and work of pioneer film and stage director Rouben Mamoulian entitled Rouben Mamoulian: The Golden Age of Broadway and Hollywood, on Wednesday, May 23, at 7:30 p.m., at the Armenian Library and Museum of America (ALMA), 65 Main St., Watertown, MA. This special event, the first showing of the film in New England, will be co-sponsored by ALMA, the Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance (ADAA), and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
The film is the first ever made on the life of the great Armenian filmmaker from Tbilisi, who in the 1920s and 1930s became one of Hollywood’s leading directors with such classic works as Applause (1929), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Love Me Tonight (1932), the Greta Garbo vehicle Queen Chris-tina (1933), and the first ever three-strip Technicolor film, Becky Sharp (1935). Among his stage tri-umphs were the landmark original productions of Porgy and Bess (1935) and Oklahoma! (1943).
The documentary covers Mamoulian’s life in Tbilisi, New York, Rochester, Los Angeles, and Paris and contains interview footage with Mamoulian recorded shortly before his death. Also featured is com-mentary from Dr. Dickran Kouymjian of California State University, Fresno, Robert Gitt of the UCLA Film Archive, and Mamoulian biographers Pierre Berthomieu and Mark Spergel.
Prolific Documentarian and Author
Cazals is the director of Sergei Paradjanov: The Rebel (2004) and nearly forty other documentary films and portraits. A television producer and director since 1973, Cazals founded Les
Films du Horla in 1987. From 1987 to 1995, he also contributed to the journals Libération and Cahiers du Cinéma. He worked as a radio producer for France Culture from 1989 to 2004.
A $5.00 donation is requested for this event (students with ID’s will be admitted free of charge). The Armenian Library and Museum is located in Watertown Square at the corner of Main Street and Church Street. Parking is available behind the museum building and in adjacent areas. The evening’s program will begin promptly at 7:30 p.m. A reception will follow the program.
More information about the lecture is available by calling NAASR at 617-489-1610, faxing 617-484-1759, e-mailing hq@naasr.org, or mailing NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478; or con-tact ALMA at 617-926-2562 or ADAA at 617-871-6764.
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Belmont, MA
April 30, 2007

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