Dear Screen-L members,
Milestone Films is delighted to announce that on the 30th anniversary of its
completion, Charles Burnett's great African-American classic KILLER OF SHEEP
has been beautifully restored to 35mm and is finally finding commercial release
around the world! The film was one of the first named to the Library of
Congress's National Film Registry and was chosen as one of The A List: The National
Society of Film Critics' 100 Essential Films. We have spent the last six
years researching and clearing the music rights to the array of songs featured in
the film's soundtrack and are very proud to introduce audiences to this
powerful and poetic depiction of everyday working-class family life.
“KILLER OF SHEEP represents the highest example of contemporary black
American life put on screen because of Burnett's integrity to view it purely, without
typical corrupted Hollywood devices.”
- Armond White, Film Comment
You can join our effort and bring this amazing film to your institution, and
at the same time help us defray the sky-high cost of those music clearances.
We are now offering KILLER OF SHEEP for institutional DVD sale to cultural and
educational institutions with public performance rights for $300. The public
performance rights are in effect immediately in most places, in others right
after the film plays in your local theater. Also, if you purchase the
institutional DVD, we will automatically ship you at no cost the deluxe home DVD box set
-- including KILLER OF SHEEP, Burnett's second feature, MY BROTHER'S WEDDING
and three of his short films -- when it comes out in the fall.
More information can be found below and be sure to visit our website at
www.killerofsheep.com and watch the trailer!
Dennis Doros, Amy Heller, Nadja Tennstedt, Victor Vazquez
Milestone Film & Video / PO Box 128 / Harrington Park, NJ 07640
Phone: (800) 603-1104 or (201) 767-3117 / Fax: (201) 767-3035
Email: [log in to unmask] Website: www.milestonefilms.com
STEVEN SODERBERGH AND MILESTONE FILMS
PRESENT
CHARLES BURNETT'S
KILLER OF SHEEP
THE GREAT AFRICAN-AMERICAN CLASSIC FILM NEWLY RESTORED TO 35MM
Steven Soderbergh and Milestone Films are pleased to announce the first-ever
popular release of Charles Burnett's critically acclaimed film KILLER OF SHEEP
, restored in glorious 35mm film by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Despite winning the Berlin International Film Festival Critics' Award and being
named a national treasure by the Library of Congress, the film never saw
distribution due to problems clearing the music rights for the songs featured in its
beautiful soundtrack (Dinah Washington, Etta James, Paul Robeson, etc.). When
it was shown at rare festival and museum screenings it was projected on old,
damaged 16mm prints. Now, thirty years later, KILLER OF SHEEP is restored and
available to be shown in classrooms and theaters worldwide.
KILLER OF SHEEP premiered in February 2007 at the Berlin Film Festival and is
opening in New York at the IFC Center March 30, at the Nuart Theatre in LA on
April 6, at San Francisco's Castro Theatre May 18 and at the E Street Cinema
in DC on June 1, with many more markets and bookings to come.
If you are interested in screening KILLER OF SHEEP in 35mm or in video,
please contact Amy Heller at 800-603-1104 or 201-767-3117 or via email at
[log in to unmask] or at [log in to unmask]
SOME BACKGROUND ON THE FILM
KILLER OF SHEEP was originally submitted as Burnett's thesis at UCLA in
1977. It was made over roughly a year's worth of weekends on a shoestring budget
of under $10,000. Shot on location with a mostly amateur cast, with much
handheld camera work, an episodic narrative and a gritty documentary-style
cinematography, Killer of Sheep has been compared by film critics and scholars to
Italian neorealist films like Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief and Roberto
Rossellini's Paisan. However, Burnett cites Basil Wright's Songs of Ceylon and
Night Mail and Jean Renoir's The Southerner as his main influences.
The film examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s
through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb
from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse. Frustrated by money
problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a teacup
against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife to the radio, holding his daughter.
The film offers no solutions; it merely presents life - sometimes hauntingly
bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and gentle humor.
CRITICS AND SCHOLARS SPEAK ON THE FILM
“KILLER OF SHEEP is one of the most striking debuts in movie history and an
acknowledged landmark in African-American film.” - Terrence Rafferty, GQ
“Like Renoir, Ozu, Altman, Leigh-like Chekov-Burnett presents his characters
in the round, justifying themselves to themselves… What the Italian
neorealists accomplished in the years after World War II… Burnett-a one man
African-American New Wave-achieved with [KILLER OF SHEEP]: he gave a culture, a people, a
nation new images of themselves.” - Nelson Kim, Senses of Cinema
“[KILLER OF SHEEP] is formally one of the most interesting narrative films
ever, since it suggests that poverty deprives people of a third act. If it were
an Italian film from 1953, we would have every scene memorized.” - Michael
Tolkin
“The film at once recalls the episodic nature of John Cassavetes's earlier
works, primarily Shadows and his masterpiece Faces, the plaintive allegory of
Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar and the humanist works of Jean Renoir.
Despite these influences, the film's sad yet proud vision of black life in the
ghetto is distinctly Burnett's own.” - Ed Gonzalez, Slant
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