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earliest days of the cinema are wound up in a convoluted web of competing, <4F oddly-named machines and mediums dreamed up by dozens of hucksters, geniuses, savvy busi nessmen, and amateur enthusiasts, all of whom seemed to stumble upon strikingly similar ideas at roughly the same time. Consequently, pinning down the origin of ar guably the most substantial advance in mass media over the past century and a half has proven nearly impossible. Among the swarrr. of landmark dates in the art that crowd the final decade of the 19th century, however, one of the most definitively important was Mar. 22, 1895. On that date, two brothers, aptly named Lumiere (as in "light"), debuted 45 seconds of film showing workers leaving their recently-deceased father's photography factory. On Mar. 22, 2007, 112 years to the day after that historic screen ing, Athens will host the opening ceremonies of an event celebrating the art that sprung from that milestone: the third annual Robert Osborne's Classic Film Festival. While the Festival by comparison is still quite young, the idea for it goes back a good deal further. A decade ago, in his old stomping grounds around the University of Chicago, Festival director Dr. Nathaniel Kohn had the idea to screen an uncut, 70mm version of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey to commemorate the day the movie's technological antihero HAL 9000 came online. The response to the screening was so overwhelm ingly positive that Kohn and a fellow Urbana native and well-known film critic decided to turn the one-off screening into an annual event. Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival proved such a success that Dr. Kohn—now a professor at the University Georgia, director of the Peabody Awards, a prolific writer on film and mass com munication, and the producer of such films as Zulu Dawn and last year's locally-made Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominee Somebodies—saw no reason the prospects for a similar festival in Athens shouldn't be equally bright. IMfcr. Kohn hit upon the idea of showing films with which most people had at least passing familiar ity, but, for one reason or another, might never have enjoyed in their full vitality and vibrancy. "Our goal," says Kohn, "is to introduce these films as they were meant to be seen." To this end, he enlisted Robert Osborne to host and curate the Festival. As Dr. Kohn notes, Osborne "has probably seen more films than anyone on the planet and has impeccable taste in mo tion pictures." Osborne is well-known as the host of Turner Classic Movies, author of 75 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards and also for his stint as the Academy's celebrity greeter on the red carpet for the past two years. His consummate suitability for the job, however, was due in large part to the ency clopedic knowledge of cinematic history, both on- and off-screen, which he has amassed as a film critic, historian and journalist. Over the past two years, Mr. Osborne has invited many of his acquaintances, covering a broad swath of the movie-making industry, to share the Classic Center stage with him. Among the guests this year who'll be talking with Mr. Osborne are comedic chameleon, Second City alumnus, and actor in, quite literally, hun dreds of roles (most notably as a Christopher Guest stalwart.) Fred Willard; Marni Nixon, who was the entrancing, lyrical voice behind Audrey Hepburn, Deborah Kerr and Natalie Wood in many of the golden-era movie musicals and will be signing copies of her recent well-received autobiography; and Colleen Camp, whose extensive resume includes films as disparate as Wayne's World and Apocalypse Now. The Festival will also give less immediately recognizable, but still vastly influential voices from the industry an opportu nity to share tales and insights from behind the scenes—such as the storied producer and winner of the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, Roger Mayer; prolific continuity supervisor Angela Allen; and director/ producer Marilyn Agrelo, whose film Mad Hot Ballroom will also be featured. Further, several of these guests, alongside distinguished UGA professor and film scholar Richard Neupert, will join in a panel discussion of the changing demands placed on, roles for, and nature of film actors past and present on Friday, Mar. 23 at 10:30 a.m. Dr. Kohn also mentions the Festival's intention to build student "awareness of classic film and the incredible artistic and sociological treasure they represent." Consequently the staff is both actively encouraging student partici pation in the Classic Film Festival and securing class time so the guests can speak directly to students at the University. At its core, Kohn notes, this festival serves as an opportunity to "bring the University and the local community together in a major cultural event." T here is ample evidence that the Festival has put down abiding roots in its Athens. Dr. Kohn says, "You hear people in bars and restaurants talking about the Festival. It takes about three or four years for a film festival to fully invade the public conscious ness, and we are just about there." One of the more obvious rea sons for the Festival's growing presence on the Athenian cultural landscape has been Mr. Osborne's meticulous selection of films (see facing page for a roster of this year's movies). As the "world's foremost expert on the Academy Awards," many of Mr. Osborne's choices for this year, as has been the case during the past two, will be justly lauded, timeless, award-winning films. But, as Dr. Kohn rightly notes, "we each have our own definition of 'classic'. These films happen to fall within Robert Osborne's definition, and his is a pretty broad one. Robert's goal is to provide a balanced program, with films that appeal to a wide range of individuals." The distinc tion of classic has little to do with box office numbers or gold decorations and everything to do with the immediate and lingering effects they have on scores of people transported from a darkened theatre to a place and time flickering on the screen before them. T his alchemy of light and sound is precisely what sets Osborne's festival apart from simply watching an old movie at home. Once again, under the deft hand of a master craftsman in the art of theatre technology (the appropriately-named James Bond) the U ltimately, this sense of a shared encounter is the Festival's central animus. The directors have planned a show of Ray Ruggeri of Cinemabelia's exceptional movie poster collection to spark conversation in the lobby, a performance by the Georgia Children's Chorus onstage be fore The Sound of Music, and a drawing for those willing to dress like Marilyn Monroe for the screening of Some Like it Hot with a prize from Watkinsville's Ashford Manor Bed and Breakfast. Other local and regional businesses are also joining in on the act. Athens First Bank and Trust will give away a gift basket, as will Turner Classic Movies, for every evening of the Festival. AirTran Airways will give away two business-class roundtrip tickets to any location in the country on Mar. 24, and soon-to-be-opened local arthouse theatre Cine will be giving away memberships. To Dr. Kohn, the broadness of the interest and the sense of community it fosters augur well for cinema in town. "Add what Film::Athens is doing, the opening of the Cine theatre, and the various local productions and films made by Athenians," he says, "and you have the founda tion for a regional film center." Recalling how a similar event in Austin turned that city, in a relatively short span of time, "into the third largest production location in the country; so we see Athens in a few years." Indeed, considering the raft of local businesses and artists stoutly behind the Festival in its third year and the decidedly bullish recent history of movies produced in town, the collective synergy suggests that film—classic and cutting-edge, lo cally-shot and otherwise—as well as Robert Osborne's Classic Film Festival itself, will remain fixtures in the Athens arts community for many years to come. Brandon Waddell Tickets are available at the Classic Center Box Office and at www.classiccen- ter.com. Admission to individual films is $10 (except The Man Who Would Be King, which is FREE!). Panel discussion on Friday, Mar. 23 at 10:30 a.m. is FREE! Passes to all films are $60. $45 for students with valid ID. For more info, see www.grady.uga.edu/osbornefest. WHAT: Robert Osborne’s Classic Film Festival WHERE: Classic Center Theater WHEN: Thursday, Mar. 22-Sunday, Mar. 25 HOW MUCH: $1D—$60 \ / Classic Center Theater will undergo a metamorphosis into a world-class cinema: a 60-foot, perfectly luminescent screen at the front; a magnificent soundsystem on all sides precisely tuned to the space; and a sophisticated 35mm projector for the pristine archival prints of the films upon which the Festival's directors insist. The setup, says Kohn, "is state-of-the-art; we can't make it better than that." Many of the films in this year's line-up were specifically chosen for their "widescreen and CinemaScope ratios" to take maximum advantage of the exceptional setup. In his welcome letter to Festival guests, Osborne recalls being awestruck, despite having seen the movie "probably 25 to 30 times," at one such showing of Casablanca. "It's rare these days when we get such an opportunity," he muses. "As great as it is to be able to see films we love, or great films we've missed, on DVDs or via television screens, there is nothing quite like the impact of seeing them up there on a mammoth screen, sharing the experience with others." Though the majority of attendees will likely have seen many if not all of the movies on the Festival's bill, perhaps many times, few will have had the opportunity to see them with the vivid detail of the original prints, on a grand cinema screen, or in a room suffused with the electric pulse of a thousand other souls each engulfed in the collective experience. The magnetism of the relatively rare event hasn't gone unnoticed in the wider film com munity, says Kohn. The Festival is "starting to bring film lovers from all over the country to Athens." 16 FLAGP0LE.C0M MARCH 21,2007 NEWS & FEATURES I ARTS & EVENTS I MOVIES ! MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS