A Sense of Time and Place: Peter von Bagh

Scholar, author, teacher, critic, commentator, and remarkably prolific filmmaker Peter von Bagh (b. 1943) holds legendary status in his native Finland and in the world of cinema at large. Famous for writings that embrace film studies (his texts on filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki are especially well known), Von Bagh has also published nearly forty works about his homeland undefined including Song of Finland, awarded a Finlandia Prize for nonfiction. Using mostly archival materials, his layered films construct a social landscape that is local and specific, yet somehow universal and timeless, and his impassioned work for the preservation of film culture is renowned (he serves as artistic director for two unique annual film forums undefined one in the north of Finland, and the other in Bologna, Italy). The series is a collaboration with the Finnish Film Foundation, Finnish Film Archive, Embassy of Finland, and the National Portrait Gallery.

The Count

September 6 at 5:30
McEvoy Auditorium, National Portrait Gallery

The “count” of The Count is Pertti Ylermi Lindgren (b. 1936), con artist extraordinaire. Engaged to seventy-six women and married to none, he charmed them all into giving him money. “Lindgren is the real thing, as far as swindlers go. Playing himself in a film that would reconstruct his greatest moments, trying to get by, being charming in dancehalls and pavilions. Filled with lewd humor and a sprightly sense of the all-too human, Von Bagh’s only venture into fiction filmmaking is nonetheless a documentary in its own way” — Tromsø International Festival. (1971, subtitles, 92 minutes)

Place 
McEvoy Auditorium, National Portrait Gallery

Street address 
8th and F St. Washington DC

Links 
National Gallery of Art