Film Screening

Directed by Freida Lee Mock

Karen Cooper of Fllm Forum writes:
"Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America; Caroline, or Change; Homebody/Kabul; co-writeer, Munich) is one of America's most prodigiously talented and politically engaged artists. In this entertaining portrait from Academy Award-winning director Freida Lee Mock (Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision), Kushner takes us on a trip through his life and time, from his Jewish boyhood in small-town Louisiana to his development as a writer, politically active gay man, and endlessly quotable globe-trotting force for a more literate and compassionate universe.

"Mock follows the now 50-year-old writer from just after 9/11 to the 2004 presidential election, capturing the fierce moral responsibility that pervades his work as well as the unique dynamics of his creative process. We go behind the scenes of early rehearsals and performances of his musical Caroline, or Change and the children's Holocaust opera Brundibar; visit Mike Nichols on the set of HBO's Angels in America; and make a trip to Kushner's hometown. Writing from the Sundance Film Festival, David Ansen (Newsweek) praises Kushner's 'humor, ambitioin, vision and dazzling braininess.' With Maurice Sendak, Marcia Gay Harden, Meryl Streep, Tonya Pinkins, George C. Wolfe, Oskar Eustis, Frank Rich, and others."

There was a discussion following the film featuring Terry Sanders, the Producer of Wrestling with Angels.

This screening was made possible courtesy of Freida Lee Mock and Balcony Films. The evening's event was presented in collaboration with Film Forum, New York's leading nonprofit cinema for independent film premieres and repertory programming. This was one of a number of events arranged as a collaboration between Film Forum and the Philoctetes Center. Wrestling with Angels opened at Film Forum on October 4.