"What I do is use my position as a programmer is to try and educate in terms of those areas of film history that either need review or need discovery."
Without the help of Richard Peña, Peter would probably have never become interested in directors like István Szabó, Kim Ki-Young, or Souleymane Cisse, among countless others. As a professor at Columbia and the former programmer of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the New York Film Festival, Richard used his years to expand the conversation of film history: as NYFF brought in directors from the cinemas of Iran, China, and Brazil, his yearly programming and classes expanded to search out those histories as well. Now a year out from his time at Lincoln Center, Richard sits down to recount his first curiosities toward cinema, his programming philosophies, and to lament the director he can never convince his students to love as much as he does. Finally, the two discuss Memories of Underdevelopment, a landmark film in Cuban film history, which provides a complex portrait of identity.
0:00-1:42 Opening
2:48-6:50 Establishing Shots - Alain Guiraudie
8:42-51:03 Deep Focus - Richard Peña
51:58-1:08:09 Double Exposure - Memories of Underdevelopment (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea)
1:08:14-1:09:53 Close
Richard Pena's home page at Columbia, and an interview with him by Kent Jones on the New York Film Festival.
