Category: Art

The film "My Tale Of Two Cities" (www.MyTaleOfTwoCities.com), a funny and hopeful comeback story, kicks off the final weekend of The Cape Ann Film Festival (www.CapeAnnFilmFest.com) on Friday, Oct. 15th at 7:00pm at the Rockport Music Cinema (www.RockportMusic.org) at the Shalin Liu Performance Center at 37 Main Street in Rockport with Guest of Honor, David "Mr. McFeely" Newell of the long-running kids’ staple, "Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood." The film is an entertaining and inspiring story about coming home again and people and cities reinventing themselves for a new age.

After the screening, Newell, who is featured in the film and is Guest of Honor of the 2010 Cape Ann Film Festival, will lead a special "Won’t You Be My Neighbor?" sing-along. The film’s director, "St. Elmo’s Fire" screenwriter and "Saved By The Bell" producer Carl Kurlander, will also participate in a Q&A after the screening.

As an additional special treat for Cape Ann moviegoers, Sunday Oct. 17 at 2:00pm at the Cape Ann Community Cinema (www.CapeAnnCinema.com) at 21 Main Street in Gloucester, the Festival will present "Speedy Delivery" (www.SpeedyDeliveryMovie.com), a heartwarming documentary focusing on the quest of actor David Newell (aka "Mr. McFeely" the delivery man from "Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood") to keep alive the legacy of Fred Rogers and "The Neighborhood." Newell will also appear at that screening and will conduct a "Won’t You Be My Neighbor?" sing-along after the film.

The two-venue Cape Ann Film Festival opened on Friday, October 1st with a sold-out presentation of the local interest documentary "The Gloucester 18," and wraps on Sunday, October 17th at 5:00pm at Rockport Music Cinema with a presentation of the restoration of Fritz Lang’s silent 1927 masterpiece, "Metropolis" with a live score by the renowned Cambridge trio, The Alloy Orchestra. Local cellist Kristen Miller will open the show with a new score for Maya Deren’s experimental 1944 short, "At Land."

MORE ABOUT "MY TALE OF TWO CITIES":

When "St. Elmo’s Fire" screenwriter and "Saved By The Bell" producer Carl Kurlander left Los Angeles for what he thought would be a one-year Hollywood sabbatical to teach at the University of Pittsburgh, little did he think the journey would land him as a guest on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on a program about people who had changed their lives, much less inspire a feature documentary. But shortly after, Kurlander told Oprah how happy he and his wife were raising their daughter in Pittsburgh — the real-life "Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood" where Mister Rogers had produced his TV show for 40 years — Pittsburgh and America’s favorite neighbor Fred Rogers passed away and the City of Pittsburgh went bankrupt. With both himself and his hometown in a mid-life crisis, Kurlander set out on a Don Quixote quest to make a film to help the city he had grown up in.

Armed with a cranky cameraman, funded by his dermatologist, and often battling his wife, who longs to return to the sunny West Coast, Carl asks his neighbors from the famous (Steeler Franco Harris, Teresa Heinz Kerry) to the not-so-famous (his old gym teacher, the girl who inspired St. Elmo’s Fire) how this once great industrial giant, which built America with its steel, conquered polio, and invented everything from aluminum to the Big Mac, can reinvent itself for a new age.

Kurlander goes cheese shopping with Teresa Heinz Kerry where they discuss her late husband John Heinz’s belief that sometimes your worst problems can become your best opportunities; tosses a football with legendary Pittsburgh Steeler Franco Harris; visits with Andy Warhol’s nephew at a local scrapyard, and goes fishing in Pittsburgh’s once polluted rivers with his brother actor Tom Kurlander and, after eating a catfish, consults with famed coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht to find out if they will live. Along the way, the film documents one of the most inspiring urban comebacks in recent history as, during the course of filming, Pittsburgh went from the brink of bankruptcy to being named in 2010 "America’s Most Livable City."

As comedian Louie Anderson jokes in the film, "My Tale Of Two Cities" is not a "Roger & Me," but a "Mister Rogers  & Me" — a feel-good movie which explores whether you can go home again and how all of us can make a difference in the communities in which we live. But in the end, this quirky, personal, and often funny, film may be most about what Oprah said to Kurlander when he was on her show — the search for a more "authentic life."

On March 23, 2010, "My Tale Of Two Cities" became the first movie ever to play Capitol Hill at the new U.S. Visitor’s Center where many shared Congressman Mike Doyle’s sentiment that this is "a comeback story that can inspire cities around the country." The film has gone on to play in theaters across North America including Windsor Ontario, Pittsburgh, Tempe, Harrisburg, New Haven, Cleveland, Boston, Portland and Louisville.

For more information and media inquiries or screeners, email Marketing Director Chelsea Strub at MyTaleOfTwoCities@gmail.com. "My Tale Of Two Cities" is distributed by Panorama Entertainment.  

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT "MY TALE OF TWO CITIES":

"Made in the first-person style of Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock, and Bruce Weber, this witty and heartfelt documentary interweaves Kurlander’s personal odyssey with an account of the rise-and-fall-and-rise-again of The Steel City, touching upon such touchstones as TV icon Mr. Rogers (who also went back to Pittsburgh), onetime local filmmaker George Romero ("Even the dead left Pittsburgh!"), football legend Franco Harris ("The Immaculate Reception"), Andy Warhol, and many more." -The Gene Siskel Film Center

"A story of comebacks, coming back, and what a beautiful day in the neighborhood can mean." -Barb Vancheri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A movie that is timely, moving, and – above all – entertaining.  You can’t get an entire city into therapy– but this film is the next best thing." -Mitch Teich, Milwaukee Public Radio

"… a wry, funny tale….  A cross between Woody Allen and Fred Rogers, Kurlander reminds us that our cities are the real "Real America in which we can best renew ourselves, our country, and our hope for all humanity." -Howard Fineman, Newsweek

"Delightfully quirky" -Chicago Reader

"Schlubbier than Michael Moore." -The Boston Globe