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News Release

Last modified: Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Acclaimed film director Peter Bogdanovich to help dedicate new IU Cinema

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan. 18, 2011

WHAT: Dedication of the new Indiana University Cinema
WHEN: Jan. 27, 4 p.m.
WHERE: IU Cinema, 1213 E. 7th St., Bloomington, Ind.

EDITORS: The dedication ceremony will be available to Indianapolis TV stations via the IU Video Link and will be streamed live on the Web at https://www.broadcast.iu.edu.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An appearance by internationally acclaimed film director Peter Bogdanovich will help mark a historic occasion at Indiana University Bloomington -- the formal dedication of the new IU Cinema on Jan. 27.

A two-time Academy Award nominee, Bogdanovich will join a host of campus and community officials at the 4 p.m. dedication ceremony -- including IU President Michael McRobbie, IU Bloomington Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson and City of Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan -- in heralding the arrival of the new, nearly 260-seat IU Cinema, one of only about 10 THX-certified facilities on college campuses anywhere in the nation. During the ceremony, McRobbie will present Bogdanovich, whose professional papers and film collection (consisting of more than 100,000 items) are housed near the new cinema at the IU Lilly Library, with an honorary degree recognizing his achievements as a film director and for his major contributions to the scholarship of film.

All tickets to the dedication ceremony have been distributed, but the ceremony can be viewed live on the Web at https://www.broadcast.iu.edu. In addition, several public events featuring Bogdanovich are planned for the celebratory weekend.

Bogdanovich will discuss his career in the cinema on Jan. 28 at 3 p.m. as part of the new Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Lecture Series, which will bring renowned filmmakers and industry leaders to the IU Bloomington campus. He also is expected to introduce one or more of the John Ford-directed films that are part of the "John Ford Searches West" series, scheduled for the weekend. Bogdanovich's critically acclaimed documentary on Ford, Directed by John Ford (2006), will be showcased at the IU Cinema on Thursday (Jan. 20).

"We are very excited to mark the opening of what will be the best-equipped university cinema in the country," said IU Bloomington Provost Hanson. "In this state-of-the-art venue, student and community audiences will be able to see classic and contemporary films from around the world as they were meant to be seen. The Indiana University Cinema will be a wonderful addition to the vibrant arts culture on campus and a wonderful complement to the serious study of film at IU."

On Thursday last week (Jan. 13) the IU Cinema opened its doors to the public for the first time with a screening of the Academy Award-winning Lawrence of Arabia (1962), restored in 1992 by Robert Harris.

The screening kicked off a busy and diverse spring calendar at the cinema, which includes several "acclaimed filmmaker" series (John Ford, Michelangelo Antonioni, Albert and David Maysles), an international children's film series, an international arthouse series and an underground film series, among other events. With few exceptions, most IU Cinema events will be free to all ticketholders, and tickets can be acquired through the IU Auditorium box office during regular ticket office hours hours (Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or 30 minutes prior to any IU Cinema screening.

"Our goal is for the IU Cinema to become one of the nation's premier venues for world-class cinema, and we are off to an outstanding start," said Vickers, who, prior to coming to IU, served as managing director of the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at the University of Notre Dame.

"Indeed, we are absolutely delighted that a filmmaker as renowned and accomplished as Peter Bogdanovich has agreed to help us dedicate our new facility, which promises to provide an invaluable resource for scholars and moviegoers here at IU and within the surrounding community."

About the IU Cinema

Located in the fine arts corridor of the IU Bloomington campus, at the site of the historic 1930s University Theatre, the new IU Cinema will serve as an exhibition space for IU film courses, film festivals sponsored by various IU departments, campus cine-clubs such as City Lights and Underground Films, and annual showings of 16mm films directed by IU students in film production courses. It will provide a venue for major film conferences such as Film Indiana or the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, as well as for occasional visits by well known filmmakers and scholars. Additionally, the cinema will operate as a film museum, offering programs to students and the public showcasing motion pictures from local, national and international archives.

During his 2007 inaugural address, IU President Michael McRobbie announced plans to convert the University Theatre into a state-of-the-art facility that would strengthen the university's reputation with regard to the scholarly study of film in its traditional and modern forms. A groundbreaking in October 2009 began a renovation process that has resulted in space for film festivals and premieres as well as areas for rehearsals and performance, a dance studio and offices for the IU Department of Theatre and Drama. Messer Construction Co. of Indianapolis oversaw refurbishment of the building, which was once known as the "Little Theatre" and home to a flourishing campus tradition of drama and performance.

As one of just a few THX-certified theaters housed at a university in the country, the IU Cinema will join an elite group of world-class film institutions across the nation.

Vickers sees potential for the IU Cinema to become a top-tier contemporary with theaters that include the American Film Institute Silver Theater, Billy Wilder Theater, Cary Grant Theatre, Gene Siskel Film Center and Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

In addition to housing several panels of the recently restored Indiana Murals by Thomas Hart Benton (initially displayed at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair), the IU Cinema will provide a space for the university's substantial holdings in film, including those of the David S. Bradley Film Collection, the Black Film Center/Archive, the archives of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, the Lilly Library and the Department of Communication and Culture. Rare prints from archives and museums around the world and new films by national and international directors also will be screened.

To learn more about the IU Cinema, view a calendar of upcoming events and find information about tickets and directions, go to https://www.indiana.edu/~iucinema.

About Peter Bogdanovich

Peter Bogdanovich began directing plays Off-Broadway and in New York summer theater at just 20. He wrote a series of three monographs on Orson Welles, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock for the Museum of Modern Art and wrote a classic series of feature articles and profiles for Esquire, including a groundbreaking Humphrey Bogart tribute and definitive pieces on James Stewart, Jerry Lewis and John Ford.

In 1966, he began working in movies first as Roger Corman's assistant on The Wild Angels; within a year, Corman financed Bogdanovich's first film as director-writer-producer-actor with the cult classic Targets, starring Boris Karloff in his last great film role. In 1971, Bogdanovich commanded the attention of both critics and public with The Last Picture Show -- starring then-unknowns Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd, Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman -- a look at small-town Texan-American life in the early 1950s. The film, which was recently designated a National Treasure by The Library of Congress, earned eight Academy Award nominations, including for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Bogdanovich's 1972 film What's Up, Doc?, a romantic farce starring Barbara Streisand and Ryan O'Neal, won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay. One year later, he recreated a memorable vision of rural 1930s America with Paper Moon, a Depression Era-tale about a pair of unlikely con artists. The film earned four Academy Award nominations, among numerous major honors, and nabbed a Supporting Actress Oscar for nine-year-old Tatum O'Neal (in her screen debut), the youngest performer ever to win an Academy Award.

His body of work over the past three decades has included the critically acclaimed version of Henry James' classic Daisy Miller; Saint Jack, starring Ben Gazzara and Denholm Elliot; They All Laughed, featuring Audrey Hepburn in her final starring role on screen; the Academy Award-winning Mask, starring Cher and Eric Stoltz; Noises Off, Michael Frayn's classic theater comedy, written for Steven Spielberg's company; Texasville, the sequel to The Last Picture Show; and The Cat's Meow, featuring Kirsten Dunst, Eddie Izzard, Edward Herrmann and Jennifer Tilly.

Bogdanovich has published more than a dozen books on films and filmmaking, among them This is Orson Welles, Who the Devil Made It and his most recent book, Who the Hell's in It. In 2004, his three-hour ABC Special, "The Mystery of Natalie Wood," premiered, along with his docudrama Hustle about infamous baseball player Pete Rose. He directed an episode of HBO's "The Sopranos" ("Sentimental Education," for the fifth season of the award-winning series) and had a recurring role as Lorraine Bracco's therapist.

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