[OR_Archaeology] Portland archaeology film series continues

[rpettigrew at aol.com]

To friends in and near Portland: We still have two more evenings to go in  
our ArchaeologyFest Film Series:Best of 2009!  (see the blurb on  the series 
below).  Please come to see some outstanding films and help us  support TAC 
Festival 2010 by enjoying our PSU mini-festival at the Fifth Avenue  Cinema 
in Portland on Friday, January 22 and Saturday, January 23.  This  last 
batch includes the top award winners!   Keep in mind that these  are the 
world's best films in this genre.  We also have this posted at _http://
www.archaeologychannel.org/content/PortlandSeries2009.shtml_ 
(http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/PortlandSeries2009.shtml) ,  where you can actually see 
clips from the films.  Please spread the word  where you can.  

Rick Pettigrew
Archaeological Legacy Institute
_www.archaeologychannel.org_ (http://www.archaeologychannel.org/) 
 
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ArchaeologyFest Film Series: Best of  2009
A benefit for The Archaeology  Channel
International Film and Video Festival
 
Portland State University’s
5th Avenue  Cinema
510 SW Hall Blvd.
 
January 15/16 & 22/23, 2010
 
Doors open at 7 pm and programs begin at 7:30 pm on dates indicated.   
Admission $6.  Tickets at the door.  These are the best films from the  2009 
edition of TAC Festival.  (The 2010 edition of TAC Festival takes  place at 
Eugene’s Soreng Theater, Hult Center for the Performing Arts, May  18-22.)
 
Program A: Friday, January 15:
• The Antikythera Mechanism: Decoding an Ancient Greek Mystery  (UK) 14 min.
More than a hundred years ago, sponge divers discovered  the remains of an 
extraordinarily sophisticated astronomical device off the  small Greek 
island of Antikythera.  Previously identified as an  astronomical calculating 
machine used to predict eclipses and to set the timing  of the Olympic Games, 
it shows the ancient Greeks had a higher level of  technology hundreds of 
years earlier than was previously accepted.  In 2006  a research team from the 
Antikythera Mechanism Research Project published a  paper proposing a 
radical new model of how the Mechanism worked.  Using the  latest X-ray and 
imaging technologies and 3D animations developed from the data,  revealing its 
remarkable complexity, Don Unwin, master instrument maker, sets  out to build a 
working model in bronze.  (Special Mention by Jury;  Honorable Mention for 
Animation by Jury; Best Special Effects by  Jury)      
 
      • Treasures of the Fitzwilliam  Museum (UK) 26 min. 
The Fitzwilliam Museum is part of  Cambridge University and houses a 
world-class collection of art and  antiquities.  In this film we uncover the 
secrets of four of its most  precious objects: Titian’s great, late masterpiece, 
Tarquin and Lucretia; the  3000-year old coffins of an Egyptian temple 
official; a rare 13th Century Gothic  manuscript that once belonged to the sister 
of Louis IX of France; and the  haunting impressionist masterpiece, Two 
Women at a Café, by Degas.   (Honorable Mention for Narration, Cinematography 
and Music by  Jury)

• Uncle  Sem and the Bosnian Dream (Italy) 52 min.
In Visoko, a far-flung  town in the heart of Bosnia, there are two hills 
that look like pyramids.   More than two years ago, Semir Osmanagic, an 
American businessman originally  from Bosnia, arrived in this small village 
claiming that the hills surrounding  the town were actually covering pyramids that 
are thousands of years old, the  last evidence of the legendary historic 
greatness of Bosnia.  From that  moment, life in Visoko was never the same.  
And Semir has become a  celebrity.  A true national hero.  Semir and his 
pyramids arrived just  in time.  Bosnia was more in need than ever of a great 
man and a great  tradition that could give importance to a country deeply 
wounded and martyred by  war.  This film is a human comedy that, between its 
light and at times  bitter tones, recounts a year in the life of this microcosm 
just after the  pyramid discovery.  (Special Mention by Jury; Honorable 
Mention for Script  by Jury)
Schedule Continued on Back
 
Program B: Saturday, January 16:
      • From Grief and Joy We Sing  (USA) 53 min.
The Quechua community of Q’eros in the Andes of southeast  Peru is renowned 
for traditional music, weaving, and spiritual rituals that many  other 
Andean communities no longer practice.  Through personal accounts,  this 
documentary shows the annual cycle of Q’eros musical rituals, how Q’eros  people 
use music to express grief and joy, and how an indigenous people adapt to  
urban society.  (Special Mention by Jury; Honorable Mention for Script and  
Most  Inspirational by Jury)
 
      • The Twilight of the Celts  (Switzerland) 52 min.
French-speaking Switzerland is the scene of an  extraordinary discovery.  
On Mormont Hill, diggers have unearthed a huge  Celtic sanctuary, the largest 
known to date.  Two thousand years ago, the  Helvetians dug hundreds of 
shafts in this isolated spot to deposit offerings to  their gods: objects, 
animals, and fragments of human bodies.  The discovery  enables archaeologists 
to inquire into the religious practices of Swiss  ancestors.  Rituals, 
sacrifices and Druids: what do we know, or think we  know, about the remarkable 
Celtic civilization?  In an attempt to answer  this question, this 
thriller-like film follows the excavations of the site and  the archaeologists’ work 
step by step.  Sudden new discoveries immerse us  in a mysterious world 
transitional between the imaginative and the real. 
 
Program C: Friday, January 22:
      • Borneo: The Memory of Caves  (France) 52 min.
In this exceptional scientific adventure up rivers in  the heart of the 
wild tropical rainforest of Borneo, the authors discover an  unexpected rock 
art site more than 10,000 years old during some twelve  expeditions to remote 
caves.  Conducted by Luc-Henri Fage, speleologist and  photographer; 
Jean-Michel Chazine, archaeologist; and Pindi Setiawan, their  Indonesian partner 
from the Bandung Institute of Technology; this research  unveils a forgotten 
culture, lost within remote labyrinthine limestone   peaks, which sheds new 
light on Southeast Asian prehistory. (Honorable Mention  for Music by Jury; 
Honorable Mention in Audience Favorite competition)
 
      • The Last Romans (Belgium) 52  min.
At the beginning of the Fifth Century, Imperial Rome is dying  out.  
However, Greco-Roman civilization lives on.  In the East, cities  surrounding 
Constantinople continue to flourish and experience relative  stability until the 
end of the Seventh Century, when they become the Byzantine  Empire.  One 
city, located in Anatolia in the province of Pisidia, tells  the story of this 
moment in history known as “Late Antiquity.”  Untouched  for centuries, 
the city of Sagalassos sleeps, waiting for Marc Waelkens, a  Belgian 
archaeologist, to play the role of Prince Charming.  The Last  Romans asks the 
question of how people lived during this maelstrom of history  between the Pax 
Romana and the first kingdoms of the Middle Ages.   (Honorable Mention for Best 
Film, Animation, and Script by Jury; Honorable  Mention in Audience 
Favorite competition) 

Program D: Saturday, January 23:
      • Breaking the Maya Code (USA)  116 min.
The complex and beautiful Maya  hieroglyphic script was, until recently, 
the world’s last major   un-deciphered writing system.  Breaking the Maya Code 
is the story of the  200 year struggle, often hampered by misconceptions 
and rivalries, that has  ultimately unlocked the secrets of one of mankind’s 
great civilizations and  re-connected the modern Maya with their 
extraordinary past.  It’s an epic  tale that leads from the jungles of Guatemala to the 
snows of Russia, from  ancient Maya temples to the dusty libraries of 
Dresden and Madrid.  The  film is based on the book of the same title by Michael 
Coe, called by the NY  Times “one of the great stories of twentieth century 
scientific discovery.”  (Best Film, Animation, Script, Music, and Inspiration 
by Jury; Honorable Mention  for Narration, Special Effects, and 
Cinematography by Jury; Audience Favorite by  Festival Audience)
 
TAC Festival 2010 Returns to the Soreng Theater:
 
ALI announces the next edition of The Archaeology Channel  International 
Film and Video Festival, May 18-22, 2010, in the Soreng Theater at  the Hult 
Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Eugene, Oregon.  TAC  Festival 
will bring to Oregon the world’s best films on archaeology, ancient  cultures, 
and the world of indigenous peoples.  Please join us in welcoming  to Eugene 
the people of the world for this cinematic celebration of the human  
cultural heritage.  Details at 
_http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/TACfestival.shtml_ (http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/TACfestival.shtml) .
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