By Charles Paikert
Special to the News-Record
Gerard Amsellem is on a mission to bring independent movies from around the world to South Orange.
Watching a movie in a dark theater surrounded by other people is, for Gerard Amsellem, a religious experience.
“You’re absorbed in a world that’s not your own,” says Amsellem, who will debut a new film series, “Independent World Cinema at SOPAC,” on April 21. “You can’t stop it. You are seeing something you’ve never seen before. It’s an extraordinary experience.”
At its best, film is an art form, according to Amsellem, a local filmmaker who taught at Livingston High School for 24 years.
“A good film is a medium of expression that forces you to question yourself,” he explains. “The filmmaker is presenting his vision of the world. It should stay with you, make you feel something and see things in a new way.”
Since starting the La Cinémathèque Film Club 17 years ago, Amsellem, a native Frenchman, has been on a mission to bring the world’s best movies to New Jersey audiences. He began showing films by Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Jean Luc Godard and other acclaimed directors at the Baird Center in South Orange in 2009.
La Cinémathèque’s foreign film series has since moved to the Cinelab Theater at SOPAC and Amsellem has also screened classic films at the West Orange Film Society, the Springfield Public Library and the Williams Art Center in Rutherford. His most recent series, “Legends of the Italian Cinema,” is currently screening at The Clairidge Theater in Montclair.
“Independent World Cinema at SOPAC,” is Amsellem’s first contemporary program. “The Eight Mountains,” which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022 and was named Best Film by the Italian Cinema Academy, opens the series.
“It’s a beautiful film shot in the Alps about human beings from very different social backgrounds who discover they are not actually far from each other,” Amsellem says.
Despite the film’s critical acclaim, “The Eight Mountains” — as well as the other two films in the series, “Afire,” winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival and the French-Moroccan film “The Blue Caftan, ” winner of the prestigious Lumieres Award — received only limited distribution in the United States.
The impetus behind the series, Amsellem says, is to correct that imbalance and allow New Jersey movie lovers to see great contemporary films by international directors.
To be sure, finding an audience for little known foreign films will be challenging.
The number of movie theaters in general and those showing “arthouse” films in particular have declined, theaters in Maplewood and Milburn among the victims; people can now watch almost any movie they want thanks to streaming services on large, high-definition screens in their own home and special effects-driven commercial Hollywood movies are heavily promoted to a mass market.
But Amsellem is optimistic that quality films can also attract viewers. “Entertainment and escapism are fine,” he says. “It’s understandable why people want that. But there is also room for art. It’s the difference between fast food and a good restaurant.”
A sense of community will also be a draw, Amsellem believes. “Going to the movies is a communal experience,” he says. “People will have different feelings that they can bring up and discuss after the movie.”
His own love of movies began with the French New Wave of the 1960s while attending college in Paris, says the 69-year old Amsellem. “It was a time when Godard, Truffaut and others were mainstream, you questioned everything and believed that art could change the world.”
After traveling around the world and living in Israel, Amsellem moved to the United States in 1982, studied film at New York University and exhibited his paintings at local galleries.
Amsellem began teaching French at Livingston High School in 1999 and soon after launched the school’s film program. His short film “Bartleby” was awarded a “Director’s Citation” at the Black Maria Film Festival in 2013. Amsellem’s most recent film, “La Creation jusq’au bout,” a documentary about the French painter Bernard Requichot, will premiere later this year.
The success of independent foreign films like “The Zone of Interest,” which was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and “Perfect Days,” by German director Wim Wenders, which was nominated for Best International Feature Film, gives Amsellem hope as he prepares to debut his own program of independent films.
“These films are not about action and visuals,” he says. “They concentrate on the story of human beings who go through something. When the movie is finished you should have questions. You should have a reaction, even if it’s negative, as long as something happened to you. People ask what I do for fun. For me this is fun. It makes me think. It makes me feel that I’m alive.”
For more information about “Independent World Cinema at SOPAC,” go to www.newwaveproductions.org.
Charles Paikert is a South Orange journalist and co-author of “Variety’s History of Show Business” and “Madness: The Ten Most Memorable NCAA Basketball Finals.” He is a board member of La Cinémathèque.
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