Vineyard Haven
Massachusetts
Martha's Vineyard Film Society Highlights - March 2023
Arts and Entertainment
March 3, 2023
From: Martha's Vineyard Film SocietyMARCH HIGHLIGHTS
NEW BLOSSOMS ARE BLOOMING AT THE MV FILM CENTER THIS MONTH
SCIENCE ON SCREEN
EX MACHINA
with Guest Speaker
YOGESH GIRDHAR
Wednesday, March 8th @ 7:30pm
FREE ADMISSION
An initiative of the COOLIDGE CORNER THEATER
With major support from the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION
Alex Garland, writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine,makes his directorial debut with the stylish and cerebral thriller, Ex Machina. Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer at an internet-search giant, wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company’s brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Upon his arrival, Caleb learns that Nathan has chosen him to be the human component in a Turing Test—charging him with evaluating the capabilities, and ultimately the consciousness, of Nathan’s latest experiment in artificial intelligence. That experiment is Ava (Alicia Vikander), a breathtaking A.I. whose emotional intelligence proves more sophisticated––and more deceptive––than the two men could have imagined.
Prior to the film, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Computer Scientist Yogesh Girdhar will give a presentation entitled
“Enabling Ecologically Curious Robots for Monitoring Coral Reefs”
“Enabling Ecologically Curious Robots for Monitoring Coral Reefs”
Yogesh Girdhar is a computer scientist, and the PI of the WARPLab (http://warp.whoi.edu) at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), in the Applied Ocean Physics & Engineering department. He received his BS and MS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY; and his Ph.D. from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. During his Ph.D. Girdhar developed an interest in ocean exploration using autonomous underwater vehicles, which motivated him to come to WHOI, initially as a postdoc, and then later continue as a scientist to start WARPLab. Girdhar’s research has since then focused on developing smarter autonomous exploration robots that, through the use of AI, can accelerate the scientific discovery process in oceans. Some notable recognition of his work includes the Best Paper Award in Service Robotics at ICRA 2020, finalist for Best Paper Award at IROS 2018, and honorable mention for 2014 CIPPRS Doctoral Dissertation Award.
MET OPERA LIVE
LOHENGRIN
Saturday, March 18th @ 12:00pm
Wagner’s soaring masterpiece makes its triumphant return to the Met stage after 17 years. In a sequel to his revelatory production of Parsifal, director François Girard unveils an atmospheric staging that once again weds his striking visual style and keen dramatic insight to Wagner’s breathtaking music, with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct a supreme cast led by tenor Piotr Becza?a in the title role of the mysterious swan knight. Sopranos Tamara Wilson and Elena Stikhina, as the virtuous duchess Elsa, falsely accused of murder, go head-to-head with soprano Christine Goerke as the cunning sorceress Ortrud, who seeks to lay her low. Bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin is Ortrud’s power-hungry husband, Telramund, and bass Günther Groissböck is King Heinrich.
Composed by Richard Wagner
MARY CASSATT
PAINTING THE MODERN WOMAN
Sunday, March 19th @ 4:00pm
Mary Cassatt made a career painting the lives of the women around her. Her radical images showed them as intellectual, curious and engaging, which was a major shift in the way women appeared in art.
Presenting her astonishing prints, pastels and paintings, this film introduces us to the often-overlooked Impressionist whose own career was as full of contradiction as the women she painted.
She printed, sketched, and painted dozens of images of mothers and children yet she never married or had children herself. She was a classically trained artist but chose to join a group of Parisian radicals – the Impressionists – a movement that transformed the language of art.
The world’s most eminent Cassatt curators and scholars help tell this riveting tale of great social and cultural change; a time when women were fighting for their rights and the language of art was completely re-written. Mary Cassatt and her modern women were at the heart of it all.
RETURN TO SEOUL
Starts Friday, March 24th @ 7:30pm
(Multiple showings are planned)
After an impulsive travel decision to visit friends, Freddie, 25, returns to South Korea for the first time, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. Freddie suddenly finds herself embarking on an unexpected journey in a country she knows so little about, taking her life in new and unexpected directions.
FERRIES NOW
FREE EDUCATIONAL EVENT
Friday, March 31st @10:30am
Learn About Electric Ferries and how the Vineyard might use them!
Ferries Now is an educational event for islanders to learn more about the current state of electrical ferry adoption. Speakers from Denmark, Maine and Washington State will speak about their electric propulsion vessels. Following a brief lunch, the Steamship Authority, their consultants and Eversource will speak about the challenges of moving in this direction with our fleet. This event is being offered by the MV Commission and sponsored by MV Vision Fellowship, Vineyard Power, and Vineyard Wind.
SCIENCE ON SCREEN®
FORCE MAJEURE
with Guest Speaker
DR. JOHN DENNINGER
Friday, March 31st @ 7:30pm
FREE ADMISSION
An initiative of the COOLIDGE CORNER THEATER
With major support from the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION
This wickedly funny and precisely observed psychodrama tells the story of a model Swedish family—handsome businessman Tomas, his willowy wife Ebba and their two blond children—on a skiing holiday in the French Alps. The sun is shining and the slopes are spectacular but during a lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche suddenly bears down on the happy diners. With people fleeing in all directions and his wife and children in a state of panic, Tomas makes a decision that will shake his marriage to its core and leave him struggling to reclaim his role as family patriarch.
Prior to the film, Dr. John Denninger will give a presentation entitled
“Fight or Flight: This is Your Brain (and Body) on Stress”
Dr. John Denninger is director of integrative science and clinical training at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He also serves as Psychiatrist at MGH, as Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and as Senior Advisor in the MGH/McLean Psychiatry Residency Research Concentration Program.
After receiving his undergraduate degree from Harvard University, Dr. Denninger completed his MD/PhD—with dissertation work on the biochemistry of the nitric oxide receptor—at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He completed his internship and residency in the MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Training Program and served as chief resident in psychopharmacology at MGH. Dr. Denninger has received many awards for his teaching, including the Harvard Medical School Students Award for Teaching and the Isenberg Teaching Award. He has appeared on Katie Couric’s “Katie” show, CBS This Morning, and CBS Sunday Morning with Mo Rocca.
Dr. Denninger’s work focuses on mind-body interventions such as the Benson-Henry Institute’s evidence-based Stress Management and Resiliency Training program; meditation, mindfulness, yoga and related practices; stress reduction techniques; and resiliency enhancement approaches. Ultimately, he wants to understand—at a biological level—how approaches like these are able to promote wellness and enable flourishing in diverse groups of people.