Thursday, Aug. 1
If you’ve ever felt like there wasn’t enough time in the day, the filmmakers and actors who participated in The 48 Hour Film Project can likely relate. Last weekend, participants were challenged to write, shoot, edit and score a film in just two days, and this weekend those films will be screened. There’s also an opening night and wrap party. Info here.
Tulane’s Summer Lyric series ends with Kiss Me Kate, the Cole Porter musical about the hijinks and romantic drama behind the scenes in a production of a musical Taming of the Shrew. Katie Howe, Colby McCurdy, Jaune Buisson Hebert, Peter Elliott, Alton Geno and Bob Edes Jr. star in the production, which includes hits like “Too Darn Hot.” Info here.
Friday, Aug. 2
Satchmo Summerfest, the festival honoring Louis Armstrong, kicks off today at the Old U.S. Mint. The three-day festival features three stages of music, seminars, children’s activities, a jazz Mass and more. Info here.
The New Orleans Film Society’s annual French Film Festival begins tonight with Renoir, a biopic of the Impressionist painter. The festival also includes a mini retrospective of the early films of Jacques Demy, an obscure filmmaker whose The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (which will be shown in the retrospective) launched Catherine Deneuve. The festival screens two films from the The Weinstein Company that won’t be released until the fall —Haute Cuisine and Populaire. NOFS Artistic Director John Desplas says the festival aims to bring foreign language films to New Orleans and to fill a void in a summer movie season typically rife with brainless blockbusters.
“Over the years it’s been difficult to get audience for foreign language films," Desplas said in a phone conversation last month. "In the ’60s, the college audience was a big demographic for foreign language films. An overwhelming (percent of that) audience is still that group — they’re now in their 50s and 60s — who go to non-English language films. It’s a challenge now to get non-English language films to show in theaters. One of our missions is to bring things to our city that otherwise you might not see in the theaters. This comes at a time of year where there’s a dearth of movies for adults. In the summertime, if you look at what’s playing, it’s usually blockbusters. The fall is usually when big studios put out their prestige movies — movies meant to win awards. Summer is something of a desert for more sophisticated fare. This is an opportunity for something other than popcorn fare.” Festival info here.
Attention children of the ’90s: as part of a series at Mid-City Theatre that celebrates “guilty pleasures of stage and screen,” the newly formed Company of Men troupe present a staged reading of “Saved By the Bell” episodes. Let’s hope they reenact that Jessie Spano caffeine pills episode. Info here.
Saturday, Aug. 3
Find your most breathable white linen – or something close to it – attire and prepare to sweat: tonight’s White Linen Night, a celebration of local art galleries where it’s often impossible to actually fit inside the galleries. But besides art openings, there’s live music, specialty cocktails and food at booths on Julia Street, and there’s an after party at Bellocq at the Hotel Modern. You can pre-purchase food and drink tickets online to cut down on some of the line-waiting. Info here.
