Schnitzer Cinema Fall 2017 Season Focuses on Eminent Filmmakers with Ties to Eugene

This annual film series begins on Wednesday, October 18 with “Citizen Blue” with Richard Blue and director Daniel Miller

EUGENE, Ore. -- (September 26, 2017) – The Fall 2017 season of Schnitzer Cinema, curated by Richard Herskowitz, JSMA Curator of Media Arts, will be devoted to highlighting influential filmmakers who have resided in Eugene, Oregon. The programs take place at 7 p.m. on the third Wednesday of October and November at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on the University of Oregon campus and include free refreshments.
"With this fall program, we are celebrating the fact that Eugene has been home to some of our most important film directors. Both James Blue and Edward Feil have had films admitted into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, repository for this country's most important and lasting films,” says Herskowitz.

On Wednesday, October 18, Schnitzer Cinema will open with the world premiere of “Citizen Blue,” a documentary by the UO School of Journalism and Communication professor, Daniel Miller. Both Miller and James Blue’s brother, Richard Blue, will be in attendance. This film focuses on the unjustly neglected career of American filmmaker James Blue (1930-1980). Blue, who grew up in Portland and majored in Theater at the University of Oregon, became an award-winning filmmaker and influential educator whose students included Francis Ford Coppola and Jim Morrison. This documentary features rare clips and images from the James Blue Archive in UO Special Collections and interviews with Blue’s colleagues David MacDougall, George Stevens, Jr., Joan Churchill, Colin Young, and many others.

“In 2014, Schnitzer Cinema presented a yearlong retrospective of the films of James Blue,” says Herskowitz. “We brought several of Blue's colleagues during that season. Miller’s interviews with them became the foundation of ‘Citizen Blue.’”

Notably, Blue’s work, “Les Oliviers de la Justice (The Olive Trees of Justice)” earned the Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962, while “A Few Notes on Our Food Problem” (1968), earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. His landmark Civil Rights documentary “The March” was named to the National Film Registry in 2008 and was preserved by the National Archives in 2013.
On Wednesday, November 15, the series will continue with “The Inner World of Aphasia” with local filmmakers Edward and Naomi Feil. The Schnitzer Cinema series is made possible in part with a grant from the UO Office of Academic Affairs.

About the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
The University of Oregon's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is a premier Pacific Northwest museum for exhibitions and collections of historic and contemporary art. The mission of the museum is to enhance the University of Oregon’s academic mission and to further the appreciation and enjoyment of the visual arts for the general public. The JSMA features significant collections galleries devoted to art from China, Japan, Korea, Europe, and the Americas as well as changing special exhibition galleries. The JSMA is one of seven museums—and the only academic art museum-- in Oregon accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is located on the University of Oregon campus at 1430 Johnson Lane. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for senior citizens. Free admission is given to ages 18 and under, JSMA members, college students with ID, and University of Oregon faculty, staff and students. For information, contact the JSMA, 541-346-3027.

Contact: Debbie Williamson Smith, 541-346-0942, debbiews@uoregon.edu

Links: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, http://jsma.uoregon.edu