Ana Tzarev Gallery Common Ground Film Series

Films from the Common Ground Film Series are shown at the Ana Tzarev Gallery, which officially opened in November 2008. The Gallery is located in an architecturally stunning building on W.57th Street & 5th Avenue in New York City. "The central characteristic of Tzarev’s art is the generosity of its response to new experiences, its hunger for visual stimulation, its glorious color, and its accessibility. Her paintings evidently pour out of her in an almost continuous stream."

The Cats of Mirikatani

Director & Producer: Linda Hattendorf
Lucid Dreaming, Inc.
2006
Time: 74 min.

Eighty-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani survived the trauma of WWII internment camps, Hiroshima, and homelessness by creating art. But when 9/11 threatens his life on the New York City streets and a local filmmaker brings him to her home, the two embark on a journey to confront Jimmy's painful past. Blending beauty and humor with tragedy and loss, THE CATS OF MIRIKITANI is an intimate exploration of the lingering wounds of war and the healing power of art.

A heart-warming affirmation of humanity that will appeal to all lovers of peace, art, and cats -- the film has won more than 25 awards at top film festivals around the world.

“A profoundly gripping film, with a cumulative impact that may well wipe you out.” New York Magazine

The Flute Player

Director: Jocelyn Glatzer
Producers: Jocelyn Glatzer and Christine Courtney
Over The Moon Productions, Inc.
2003
Time: 53 min.

If the Khmer Rouge military regime hadn’t taken over Cambodia in 1975, Arn Chorn-Pond probably would have followed in his family’s footsteps and become an opera star. Instead, at the age of nine Arn was thrust into the darkness of Cambodia’s ghastly “ killing fields.” While his family and culture were destroyed, Arn avoided death by playing Communist propaganda songs on his flute on orders of the Khmer Rouge. During 1975-79, approximately 1.8 million people were killed in Cambodia. To survive, Arn played his flute on order and he killed on order. “ To survive, I had to kill my heart every day.” Two decades later, Arn travels from the old U.S. mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts to the back streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia to revive Cambodia’s traditional music, and to face the dark shadows of his war-torn past. When the film begins, Arn is 37, and he has launched the Cambodian Master Performers Project to heal his country through the re-emergence of traditional music and culture. The Flute Player is a chronicle of an extraordinary response to extraordinary violence and injustice and an astonishing promise of renewal in a war-torn country.

Promises

Directors/Producers: Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg
Co-Director & Editor: Carlos Bolado
Promises Films
2003
Time: 106 min.

PROMISES follows the journey of one of the filmmakers, Israeli-American B.Z. Goldberg. B.Z. travels to a Palestinian refugee camp and to an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and to the more familiar neighborhoods of Jerusalem where he meets seven Palestinian and Israeli children.

Though the children live only 20 minutes apart, they exist in completely separate worlds; the physical, historical and emotional obstacles between them run deep.

PROMISES explores the nature of these boundaries and tells the story of a few children who dared to cross the lines to meet their neighbors. Rather than focusing on political events, the seven children featured in PROMISES offer a refreshing, human and sometimes humorous portrait of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.