Cinema
Opens Friday 4/7!

No Bears
Jafar Panahi is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly identified with the Iranian New Wave film movement. This film bears witness to Panahi's incisive filmmaking, while urging viewers to examine the complex layers of a deceptively simple story: a man oppressed and suppressed by his country. Panahi was recently released from prison in Iran.
In Persian with English subtitles.
"A fierce critique of small-town traditionalism and religious dogma...surprisingly playful and inventive." - NPR
"A complex work of novelistic density, this is among the boldest and most accomplished statements from one of the world’s exemplary filmmakers..." - Screen International
"...Its very existence is an act of defiance, a metafictional portrait of a dissident artist still at work." - Financial Times

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Held Over For a Third Week!

The Quiet Girl
Nominated for Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards.
Set in rural Ireland in 1981, nine-year-old Cait is sent away from her overcrowded, dysfunctional family to live with foster parents for the summer. She blossoms in their care, but in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one painful truth.

In Irish with English subtitles.

"The Quiet Girl technically lives up to its name, but speaks volumes about the transformative power of what it means to be loved." - Globe and Mail

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Last Days Wednesday (4/5) & Thursday (4/6)!

Home Again: Carole King Live in Central Park
This film presents musical icon Carole King’s triumphant May 26, 1973 homecoming concert on The Great Lawn of New York City’s Central Park before an estimated audience of 100,000.
Alongside the complete performance is the behind the scenes story of King’s remarkable transformation from a staff songwriter to an iconic music artist.

Showtimes, Trailer, Tickets

Last Days Wednesday (4/5) & Thursday (4/6)!
In Viaggio: The Travels of Pope Francis
Composed entirely of archival footage, this film grants rare access to the public life of Pope Francis over a decade, including his travels across all corners of the world.
In Italian with English subtitles.
“A balance of impossibly high-profile subject and low-key, humanizing perspective.” Variety
“Fascinating. Remarkable for its access into Pope Francis’s life.” – IndieWire

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Aidan Levy and Tom Reney in Conversation on Sonny Rollins Friday 4/7 7pm Free Admission!
Author Aidan Levy, a West Hartford native, will be joined by Tom Reney in a conversation about Levy’s new book Saxophone Colossus, the Life and Music of Sonny Rollins.
“A revealing, comprehensive biography… [and] a brimming and organized compendium, something to keep returning to like Rollins’s records…” ?

New York Times

This event is in collaboration with the Hartford Jazz Society. Books will be available to purchase courtesy of our friends at River Bend Bookshop in West Hartford.

Aidan Levy is the author of Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins and Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed, and editor of Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters. A former Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, The Nation, and elsewhere.

Tom Reney is the producer/host of Jazz à la Mode on New England Public Media. Tom was honored by the Jazz Journalists Association with the Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Career Excellence in Broadcasting in 2019. In addition to hosting Jazz à la Mode since 1984, Tom writes the jazz blog and produces the Jazz Beat podcast at NEPM. He began working in jazz radio in 1977 at WCUW, a community-licensed radio station in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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Riverwood Poetry Series Wednesday 4/12 7pm Free Admission!

The second to last installment of our annual poetry series!
Riverwood Poetry takes place in-person on the second Wednesday of the month from Sept. 2022-May 2023. Each night begins with a poetry reading featuring regionally- or nationally- known poets, followed by an open mic - one poem, one page!

Featuring:

January Gill O’Neil

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Mark Your Calendars! Creative Cocktail Hour (CCH) Thursday 4/20 6pm
An experience of art, community, and connection in Hartford.

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Knuckleball Sunday 4/23 2:30pm
Stephen Haynes returns to Real Art Ways to share his latest project – delayed for three years by the pandemic – a pocket brass band called Knuckleball. Expect the unexpected!
Funding for this performance is provided by New England Foundation for the Arts.

The performance will feature:
Stephen Haynes on cornet, flugelhorn
Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet, flugelhorn
Herb Robertson on cornet, flugelhorn
Sam Newsome on soprano saxophone
Josh Roseman on tenor trombone
Ben Stapp on tuba, sousaphone
Eric Rosenthal on drums / percussion

Stephen Haynes is an improviser, arts organizer and recording artist. His practice ranges from small groups to large orchestras with a focus on working directly with composers in the development of new music. Over the past 40 years, he has worked with a range of vanguard composers including Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, George Russell, Butch Morris, Rhys Chatham, LaMonte Young and Earle Brown.

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Celebrate Earth Day With Real Art Ways!
Friday 4/21 9:30am
To kick off Earth Day, we're organizing a neighborhood cleanup!

Sign Up Here to Volunteer!

In Our Galleries:

Kate Bae
A Rite of Passage
On view through Sunday 4/9!
Societal barriers and personal relationships, hope, inclusion, uncertainty, and love in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alan Neider
'Round About Midnight
Circular paintings that incorporate quilted blankets and fabric.

Real Wall:
Karl Goulet
Layered abstract forms that embody concepts of identity and memory.

Gallery Information

We Love Our Members!
When you become a member of Real Art Ways, you immerse yourself in a vibrant, accepting arts community.

Become a Member Today

Wadada and Vijay at the Hartford Art School
Wadada Leo Smith and Vijay Iyer will be performing at the Hartford Art School on Wednesday, April 12th, at 7:30 p.m. in Millard Auditorium with visuals by artist Chiraag Bhakta in a performance entitled Prism 1965.

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Thank you to our sponsors.
Major support for Real Art Ways programs comes from The Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving; Zachs Family Foundation; Howard and Sandy Fromson; The Wallace Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Bank of America; Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, Office of the Arts; Greater Hartford Arts Council's United Arts Campaign; Hartford Foundation for Public Giving; M&T Bank; National Endowment for the Arts; New England Foundation for the Arts through the New England Arts Resilience Fund; Raytheon Technologies Corporation; Edward C. & Ann T. Roberts Foundation; The Gawlicki Family Foundation and Mary C. and Theodore M. Gawlicki, The Ruth Foundation; Travelers; & Real Art Ways Members.