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About the Cinema Revolution Society
The Cinema Revolution Society is a Minnesota 317A Nonprofit Corporation, incorporated in August 2009.
The mission of the Cinema Revolution Society is to invigorate film culture in Minnesota. The Society presents curated Film Society public screenings of some of the best local, domestic and international films. The organization also offers open forums on film theory and history through its Cinema Salon film discussion series, and supports local filmmakers through its commissioning programs Dance Film Project and Revolution Reel.
History:
Cinema Revolution DVD Rental, the organization's for-profit predecessor, began in 2003 as a locally owned and independent video store which quickly became sought out for its selection of hard to find films, recognized by City Pages for "Best DVD Rental" in 2004, 2005, 2006 and "Best Place to Rent Foreign Films" in 2007. Throughout its years of operation the store was active in the community, holding events such as monthly Cinema des Artistes screenings at the Varsity Theater, two Anniversary parties featuring local film and music, the originally commissioned Fortune Cookie Film Project, Wednesday Night Film School and the Film Discussion series.
The store closed in April 2009, but its ideals and dedication to film live on in this new organization. The Society seeks to carry on the spirit that drove the old video store, and to continue to promote and share a love of cinema with the community in new and innovative ways.
Board of Directors:
Kitty Aal
John Behling
Jim Brunzell III
Mary DeYoung
Barry Kryshka
Amy Levine
Peter Schilling
Kathie Smith
Cory Washington
Raysh Weiss
Program Directors:
Cinema Salon – Peter Schilling
Dance Film Project – Vanessa Voskuil
Film Society – Jim Brunzell III
Revolution Reel – John Koch
Executive Director: John Koch
Director Bios:
Kitty Aal studied film at UW-Madison where she programmed the Starlight Cinema underground series and the Blow Up Cinema series at the Elvehjem Museum. In conjunction with Cinema Revolution, Kitty co-curated Cinema des Artistes at the Varsity Theater and served on the Mizna Arab Film Festival's Selection and Planning Committee. Most recently, she helped translate passages from French into English for the Collectif Jeune Cinéma experimental film catalog in Paris.
John Behling graduated with a BA in Film Studies and Creative Writing from St. Cloud State in 2005. As a freelance writer he has contributed film criticism to City Pages, Film Threat, Midnight Eye, Release Print, and Slant Magazine.
Jim Brunzell III has been writing film reviews since he was 9 years old. He currently writes film reviews at Twin Cities Daily Planet and is the producer & host of KFAI’s “Movie Talk” program along with Erik McClanahan & Peter Schilling Jr., which runs at 6 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month. He has also programmed films in the Twin Cities for the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival, Sound Unseen and Beyond Borders Film Festival. He currently resides in South Minneapolis and is working on a novel.
Mary DeYoung received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Currently she is employed as a leasing agent with Highland Management Group. Previously, Mary was the communications coordinator for Independent School District 197. For more than 20 years prior to working for the school district, Mary was self-employed as a freelance writer and project manager, working for a variety of for-profit and nonprofit organizations writing grant proposals, newsletters and marketing pieces.
John Koch is a filmmaker and video artist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He holds a BFA in Photography from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and also studied visual art, photography and flmmaking in Florence, Italy at SACI and the Accademia di Belle Arti. In 2003 he founded Cinema Revolution DVD rental. He has made numerous short films and live performance video collaborations, and his first feature film "Je ne sais quoi" premiered last year at the Ritz Theater. His next film, "The Seducer" will open the 2009 Minneapolis Underground Film Festival.
Barry Kryshka is the owner of AVS, a video production equipment retailer, and the founder of Take-Up Productions, which recently opened the Twin Cities' only full time repertory movie-house, The Trylon Screening Room.
Amy Levine holds a Ph.D. in cinema and other discourses from the University of Minnesota. She has lectured to undergraduates in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Minnesota, on contemporary art at the Walker Art Center during the exhibition on Joseph Beuys, and in Film Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. In addition to her Ph.D. she also holds an M.A. in Art History and an M.A. in clinical social work.
Peter Schilling is a freelance film critic, sportswriter, and author of the critically acclaimed novel, The End of Baseball. He was The Rake magazine's film critic and now publishes with the Star-Tribune and MNDialog as well as his own blog, TheBugBlog.com.
Kathie Smith has been engaged in the Twin Cities film scene since 1990. She was the co-programmer of the Monday Underground Film Series 2003-2004 and Cinema de Artistes 2005-2006. She also programmed films at Pi Bar in 2007. Currently Kathie is a freelance writer who contributes regularly to the Minneapolis Star Tribune and online magazine In Review Online. She also contributes to the MnDialog blog and maintains her a blog under her own name.
Vanessa Voskuil is an independent choreographer, director, performer, teaching artist and creator of interdisciplinary performances, dances, films, and music theater. She is a recipient of a 2009 McKnight Fellowship for Choreography and a 2006 Sage Award for Outstanding Design for her production, "THE WHITE SOLOS." In 2003, Voskuil co-founded LIVE ACTION SET, a critically acclaimed performance group dedicated to the ensemble creation of original work through artistic collaboration.
Raysh Weiss is a third year PhD student in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota and was a 2006-2007 Fulbright research fellow in Berlin. She is also an independent filmmaker whose work has been screened at festivals internationally.
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