Bumper Crop
Though our hands may be calloused, knuckles swollen and knotted as acorn husks from the bone-wrenching toil of the autumn harvest here at the RiverRun Acres Ranch and Preserve Cannery, though the cartilage in our sorrowful joints may be pounded into so much pulp and apple peel leavings from the methodical furrowing of field-acres by ploughshare, still we endure to bring you the finest in cinematic reverlry during the month of October.
This very weekend, in fact, there are two fantastic screenings with RiverRun stripes occurring in different capacities. Sunday night, October 2, director Paul Bonesteel and author Penelope Niven will be at a/perture for an encore screening of the riveting documentary The Day Carl Sandburg Died, which had its World Premiere in competition at RiverRun this past April. The film garnered enormous praise from our audiences and is being shown as a co-presentation of BOOKMARKS, a/perture cinema and RiverRun. Showtime is at 8:00 pm and tickets are available in person at the a/perture box office or through their website.
Also on Sunday, October 2, RiverRun is co-hosting a free screening of the classic 1955 film Friendly Persuasion, directed by the legendary William Wyler (Ben Hur, Funny Girl, Wuthering Heights), at Community Arts Cafe downtown on West Fourth Street, 4:00 pm showtime. The film stars Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire and a pre-Psycho Anthony Perkins, was nominated for five Academy Awards, and is about a Quaker family during the Civil War. RiverRun chose this film to augment the topic of this year's selected book, The Road to Devotion, a thoughtful and inspiring Civil War story by local newscaster Cameron Kent. Laura Hart McKinney, a Professor of Screenwriting from UNCSA's School of Filmmaking, will introduce the film. Friendly Persuasion is being presented as a collaboration between RiverRun and the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Public Library's annual bookreading program "On the Same Page". For further details about the screening click here.
And as usual we have another installment of Cineclub coming up on Monday, October 10th, at a/perture. This Month's film is Life, Above All, an emotional and universal South African drama about a young girl (stunningly performed by first-time-actress Khomotso Manyaka) who fights the fear and shame that have poisoned her community. The film was an official selection of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section, and was South Africa's submission to the Academy for Best Foreign Language Film last year. Showtime is at 8:00 pm, and tickets are $10 or $6 for a/v society members. Full details available here.
Lastly, in the coming weeks keep an eye on our website as we're in the process of unveiling a slick, new-fangled design that we're really excited for you all to see. And don't forget to keep checking back for further details about our exclusive, inaugural Fall screening event coming up on November 9th at the Stevens Center. We'll be announcing the film in mid-October and I can guarantee that you won't be disappointed! It's shaping up to be one of the most dynamic autumns the Festival has ever seen, so start marking up the calendars. But for now I mustn't tarry, there's still daylight shimmering in the amber dustings of freshly corded haybales, and plenty more harvesting to attend to around the homestead. Onward!
