Staunch: The Grey Gardens Festival, this weekend!

This raccoon just received an email from Al Maysles himself, inviting to the third annual Staunch! It's this weekend at Maysles Cinema in New York City.

By Albert Maysles, on 9 June 2011

Hi Buster,

Thought you and your fans might be interested in this year's Grey Gardens Staunch Celebration–a weekend exploring "staunch" families on film–families whose members despite everything 'don't weaken, no matter what', for better or worse. I'll be discussing the film following the Sunday screening at 7pm.

All the best,

Albert

From Maysles Cinema, by Albert Maysles, on 9 June 2011

Friday, June 10th–Sunday, June 12th

Staunch 3: The Grey Gardens Festival

Curated by Rebekah and Sara Maysles

From Friday, June 10th to Sunday June 12th Maysles Cinema presents, for the third year in a row, Staunch: The Grey Gardens Festival, a film festival celebrating the film Grey Gardens and its legacy.  Curated by Rebekah and Sara Maysles, the theme this year is families. Then on Saturday, June 11th at ... 5:30 pm the original Grey Gardens will be shown. On Sunday, June 12th at 5:00 pm The Beales of Grey Gardens, also directed by Albert and David Maysles will be shown and at 7:00 pm Grey Gardens will be shown again followed by a Q&A with filmmaker and Maysles Cinema founder Albert Maysles. The festival will close with a reception sponsored by Sugar Hill Ale.

Albert and David Maysles were part of a pioneering movement in documentary filmmaking that came to be known as cinema verite or direct cinema. Armed with lightweight cameras and synchronous sound equipment Albert and his brother were able to penetrate into the private interiority of their subject's lives without the need for an authoritative voice-over. This approach was utilized perfectly in the original Grey Gardens, giving the documentary and the brothers unparalleled access to the inner universe that Big and Little Edie Beale had constituted for themselves overtime. In this way the idea of exploring the intimate, inner world of a family and the conventions of direct cinema go hand-in-hand, as that movie proved. It is in this dual creative legacy of direct cinema and honoring the intimacy, singularity and universality of various families, not to mention simply great filmmaking, that the Grey Gardens Festival takes place now for the third year.

Saturday June 11th

Staunch 3

Curated by Rebekah and Sara Maysles

5:30pm

Grey Gardens

Dir. Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde & Muffie Meyer, 1976, 94 min.

Meet Big and Little Edie Beale—high-society dropouts, mother and daughter, reclusive cousins of Jackie O.—thriving together amid the decay and disorder of their ramshackle East Hampton mansion. An impossibly intimate portrait and an eerie echo of the Kennedy Camelot, Albert and David Maysles's 1976 Grey Gardens quickly became a cult classic and established Little Edie as a fashion icon and philosopher queen. The film and the Beales themselves have since inspired fashion lines, songs, a broadway musical, several off-Broadway shows, and a 2009 HBO film.

Special Bonus Material TBA

Sunday, June 12th

Staunch 3

Curated by Rebekah and Sara Maysles

5:00pm

The Beales of Grey Gardens

Dir. Albert Maysles & David Maysles, 2006, 91 min.

The 1976 cinema vérité classic Grey Gardens, which captured in remarkable close-up the lives of the eccentric East Hampton recluses Big and Little Edie Beale, has spawned everything from a midnight-movie cult following to a Broadway musical, to a Hollywood adaptation. The filmmakers went back to their vaults of footage to create part two, The Beales of Grey Gardens, a tribute both to these indomitable women and to the original landmark documentary's legions of fans, who have made them American counterculture icons.

7:00pm

Grey Gardens

Dir. Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde & Muffie Meyer, 1976, 94 min.

Meet Big and Little Edie Beale—high-society dropouts, mother and daughter, reclusive cousins of Jackie O.—thriving together amid the decay and disorder of their ramshackle East Hampton mansion. An impossibly intimate portrait and an eerie echo of the Kennedy Camelot, Albert and David Maysles's 1976 Grey Gardens quickly became a cult classic and established Little Edie as a fashion icon and philosopher queen. The film and the Beales themselves have since inspired fashion lines, songs, a Broadway musical, several off-Broadway shows, and a 2009 HBO film.

Q&A with co-Director Albert Maysles

Reception to Follow Sponsored By Sugar Hill Ale

Maysles Cinema
343 Lenox Ave
(127th and 128th Streets)
New York, NY 10027