Gus Van Sant
Milk (2008)
Past dates
8/23/22
8:00 PM
With this film, Gus Van Sant created a milestone of the auteur film in Hollywood: MILK was nominated for eight Academy Awards – winning two for Best Screenplay and one for Best Leading Actor: Sean Penn, embodying the American gay rights activist Harvey Milk. In an emotional and stirring biopic, the film tells the tragic story of America's first openly gay public official, illuminating the facets of his career in the 1970s, when homosexuality was largely forbidden by law and punishable by law. In his cineastic biography, Van Sant combines archival footage and original tape recordings of Harvey Milk with his own cinematic signature, creating a portrait of a freedom fighter who changed American society with
politically strategic shrewdness - and was shot dead together with the mayor after serving eleven months in the San Francisco City Council.
Gus Green Van Sant Jr. (b. 1952) is an American filmmaker, painter, screenwriter, photographer and musician from Louisville, Kentucky. With films in both independent and mainstream cinema, Van Sant has
become one of the most prominent film auteurs in the world over the past 35 years and is considered an outstanding representative of a New Queer Cinema movement. In addition to the Palme d'Or in Cannes and two Academy Awards, Van Sant has won numerous awards. His best-known films include »My Own Private Idaho«, »Good Will Hunting«, »Finding Forrester«, »Elephant«, »Last Days«, »Milk« and »The Sea of Trees«. Also running at the Summer Festival this year is TROUBLE, Van Sant’s first production for the theater and a Summer Festival co-production.
More films by Gus Van Sant at Alabama Kino as part of the Kampnagel Summer Festival:
MON 8/22: My Own Private Idaho (1991)
WED 8/24: Last Days (2005)
SAT 8/27: Gucci Presents: Ouverture Of Something That Never Ended (2020)
FAZ»Van Sant and his cast, which also includes Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna and, as Milk's assassin, Josh Brolin at the center, sweep us into a world of imagination in which hope, struggle and sex and freedom were for a short time one and Harvey Milk brought a vibrancy to politics that is without precedent.«
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