Filmspotting hosts and cinephiles Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson culminate their Cannes Golden Palm Marathon with a one-night-only screening of Afterschool, an Un Certain Regard selection at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with writer/director Antonio Campos and featured actor Michael Stuhlbarg, who can also be seen as the lead in the latest Coen Bros. film, A Serious Man.
Written, directed and edited by Campos, Afterschool was in the running for the Camera d'Or awarded to the Festival's best first feature film. The 25 year-old New York City native was previously recognized at the 2005 Cannes Festival where his short film Buy It Now was honored with the Cinéfondation First Prize. Afterschool tells the story of a disaffected high school student at an elite prep school who accidentally captures the death of two popular classmates on camera.
"With Afterschool", Campos has said, "I wanted to examine a community that has become accustomed over time to an almost abnormally sheltered and safe existence that has to confront the sudden impact of violent death on its own grounds. My hope is that the viewer will go into Afterschool with an open mind and leave with a series of questions about this world and about this boy."
Campos and Stuhlbarg will join the Fimspotting hosts on stage for a post-screening Q&A that will also cover some of the Cannes Film Festival winners that influenced the director and the film, including if... (1969), The Conversation (1974) and Elephant (2003), followed by a complimentary beer and wine reception.
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Adam Kempenaar is the co-host and executive producer of the popular film discussion podcast Filmspotting, also broadcast on WBEZ. Kempenaar holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Iowa and bachelor's degrees in Film Studies (Iowa) and English (Grinnell College). A member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, he wrote the foreword for Jon J. Muth's recent graphic novel adaptation of the Fritz Lang classic M.
Matty Robinson is an actor and acting teacher who serves as co-host for the popular Filmspotting podcast/WBEZ broadcast. Robinson holds an MFA in Acting from Brown University and a B.A. in Creative Writing and Drama from Kenyon College.
Kempenaar and Robinson have also collaborated to teach two film classes at the University of Chicago's Graham School -- "The Auteur and the Hack: Hawks vs. Curtiz" and "The New Hollywood: Films of the '60s and '70s".