Stranger Than Fiction - Winter 2009

Free popcorn and DVDs are two of the treats you get when you subscribe to Thom Powers' always exciting Stranger Than Fiction documentaries screening series. STF's Winter 2009 season kicks off at NYC's IFC Center on Tuesday, January 13, with director Ben Kempas' Upstream Battle (2008), about the extraoridinary efforts of west coast Native American tribes to remove four huge dams--run by a company owned by billionaire Warren Buffet--so that Klamath River salmon swimming upstream don't dead head into concrete. Kempas, always an excellent talker, will be present for a Q&A after the 8 PM screening. Admission is $15--but, if you subscribe to the entire series for $95, each screening costs just $9.50, plus you get the freebies.

The other nine films in the Winter 2009 season are:

• Jan 20: The Education of Shelby Knox (2005) - Shelby Knox, a Texas high schooler, shocks her bible belt community by campaigning for better sex education in a culture that teaches abstinence-only. Post-screening Q&A with directors Rose Rosenblatt and Marion Lipschutz and Shelby Knox.
• Jan 27: Parallel Lines (2003) - Traveling across America post-9/11, Nina Davenport (director of Operation Filmmaker) documents surprising and very poignant concerned citizens' reflections. Post-screening Q&A with Nina Davenport.
• Feb 3: Must Read After My Death (2008) - Morgan Dews documents an unusual family history by using an archive of home movies and recordings. Post-screening Q&A with Morgan Dews.
• Feb 10: Axe In The Attic (2007) - Filmmakers Lucia Small and Ed Pincus chronicle New Orleans residents' lives after they've been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Post-screening Q&A with Ed Pincus and Lucia Small.
• Feb 17: William Greaves Tribute - An evening of film clips and speakers honoring William Greaves, the ground-breaking director of works such as Black Journal and Symbiopsychotaxiplasm. Q&A with Greaves and special guests.
• Feb 24: Intimate Stranger (1991) - Famed documentarian Alan Berliner uses archival footage to reveal his Jewish grandfather's unusual career in Egypt and Japan. Post-screening Q&A with Alan Berliner.
• Mar 3: Girls Like Us (1997) - Directors Jane C. Wagner and Tina DeFeliciantonio follow four inner city Philadelphia girls as they make their way through a life-changing four years in high school. The film won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. Post-screening Q&A with Jane C. Wagner and Tina DeFeliciantonio.
• Mar 10: Arguing The World (1998) - Director Joseph Dorman looks at the divide that grew between New York intellectuals who came of age during the 1930s and, over the course of the 20th century, veered politically to the left and right. Post screening Q&A with Joseph Dorman.
• Mar 17 (Closing Night): American Swing (2008) - Raunchy and hilarious, this history of New York's Plato's Retreat traces the sex club's rise and fall through interviews with Ed Kock, Melvin Van Peebles, Buck Henry and other eyewitnesses. Post-screening Q&A with directors Mathew Kaufman and Jon Hart.

(PHOTO: 'Upstream Battle' poster. Courtesy Arte Productions)