The 2013 Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust presented the Steinberg Playwrights Awards to Rajiv Joseph and Annie Baker and a Special Recognition to 2012 Steinberg Distinguished Award recipient David Henry Hwang. The three excellent playwrights received their well deserved awards at the Awards Ceremony, with cocktails before and a reception afterwards. Guests included William Ivey Long, Arian Moayed, Ellen Fairey and many more at this splendid party.

 

Former New York Post gossip columnist Flo Anthony (I've known her for 30 years) celebrated the launch of her novel Deadly Stuff Players with a book party at the State Office Building, 163 West 125th St. She read selections from the book, as the guests drank champagne and wine and ate Melba's 125's delicious food. It was a lovely affair.

The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation celebrated its 16th Annual Collaborating for a Cure Dinner & Auction honoring Arthur Imperatore and Tadashi Shoji at the Park Avenue Armory. As always, it was a delightful affair.

 

The launch of a week of an Indian Food Festival was held at the Indian Consulate. The lunch served was delicious, sponsored by Etihad Airways and Kingfisher Beer.

 

Film Society of Lincoln Center is presenting  Ozu and his Afterlives December 4 - 12. I attended a press screening of An Autumn Afternoon/Sanma no aji, by Yasjiro Ozu, Japan, 1962, the great filmmaker's last film. Chishu Ryu plays a lonely widower, who wants to arrange his daughter's wedding. His other two sons reflect changing attitudes among the generations in this beautiful film, that depicts a modern, consumer oriented Japan. The widower's two old friends reunite to dine frequently. One has married a much younger woman. Another is a realist and organizes a collection to help their former professor, now an alcoholic and fallen on hard times. One leaves the film with a sense of sadness, and wisdom about Japanese life and family relationships.

 

MoMA in An Auteurist History of Film presented America, America, by Elia Kazan, USA, 1963, is about the director's uncle making the perilous journey from Anatolia to America, to escape the oppressive conditions in his native country. It is a powerful film.
 

I attended a press screening of Mauvais Sang, by Leo's Carax, France, 1986, which will be presented at the Film Forum, November 29-December 5. This film is of historical interest, because two French actresses, Juliette Binoche and Julie Delpy, were beginning their successful careers in film. A young man (Denis Lavant) joins two gangsters to commit a robbery, but falls in love with the mistress (Binoche) of one of the criminals (Michel Piccoli). It is a romantic tale, that has a tragic ending. The film is stylish and unrealistic, and the dialogue is stilted, but the filmmaker focuses on Binoche, who is radiant. It is an unusual film, which, in many ways, enchants the viewer.Cousin Jules, by Dominique Benicheti, France, 1973, is a rediscovered masterpiece in Cinemascope and stereo. For five years, the filmmaker filmed an elderly farming couple, watching them work, cook, tend to their land and animals. It is a simple pastoral life, and quite charming.