Following its acclaimed release of Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, Milestone is proud to announce the first-ever theatrical distribution of another great "lost" independent film, Kent Mackenzie's remarkable 1961 debut feature THE EXILES, presented by award-winning Native American author Sherman Alexie and noted Los Angeles director Charles Burnett.
THE EXILES is a documentary/drama chronicling one night in the lives of young Native American men and women living in the Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles. Based entirely on interviews with the participants and their friends, the film follows a group of exiles - transplants from Southwest reservations - as they flirt, drink, party, fight, and dance.
While attending the University of Southern California, director Kent Mackenzie made his first film, the controversial short documentary Bunker Hill 1956, chronicling the planned demolition of a vibrant urban community. Excited by the challenge of working with nonprofessionals, filming on location and collaborating with his fellow film school grads, Mackenzie turned away from the mainstream moviemaking of the 1950s and embarked on a new kind of cinema. With such other free-spirited and groundbreaking filmmakers as John Cassavetes, Lionel Rogosin and Shirley Clarke, Mackenzie helped create an innovative American Independent movement that profoundly influenced the resurgent Hollywood new wave of the late 1960s.
Bunker Hill, where most of THE EXILES is set, was once the glory of downtown L.A. - a haven for wealthy Los Angelenos set on a steep hill with a magnificent view. But by 1960, the area was a run-down neighborhood of decayed Victorian mansions and skid-row apartment buildings. The seedy charms of Bunker Hill have been celebrated in the novels of John Fante, Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski. For the men and women featured in THE EXILES, the neighborhood is an escape from the monotony of life "back home." The guys spend their night barhopping and gambling while the women try to hold their homes together and go to the movies to dream.
THE EXILES is now a precious artifact of a lost time and place. In the early 1960s, developers and city planners not only razed the existing homes and tenements of Bunker Hill, they actually leveled much of the hill itself - replacing a residential neighborhood with high-rises, office buildings and more recently, the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Gritty, realistic and far ahead of its time (in a period when Hollywood films featured noble savages), the script for THE EXILES was created exclusively from recorded interviews with the participants and with their ongoing input during the shooting of the film. Native American writers and activists have long considered the film as one of first works of art to portray modern life honestly and as an important forerunner for the cultural renaissance of American Indian fiction, poetry, filmmaking and theater starting in the 1970s.
Tragically, this moving and brilliantly shot collaboration between filmmaker Mackenzie and the young men and women whose lives he documented never received a commercial release. For years the film was almost impossible to find. So, when filmmaker Thom Andersen included glowing night scenes from THE EXILES in his 2003 compilation documentary, Los Angeles Plays Itself, viewers were enthralled with the poetry of the images.
Milestone partnered with Mackenzie's daughters, the University of Southern California Moving Image Archive (which held the original 35mm negative and soundtrack), the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the National Film Preservation Foundation on a joint mission to preserve and restore this breakthrough portrait of Native Americans in Los Angeles. Placed in charge of the restoration, UCLA's Ross Lipman (Killer of Sheep, Faces) worked with John Morrill and Erik Daarstad, the cinematographers of THE EXILES, to restore the film's glistening images. Lipman also worked on the film's amazing soundtrack, featuring raucous rock-and-roll songs by The Revels. (You can hear their most famous contribution to cinema at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3s5rPZQLK4)
The film opens in New York on July 11, 2008, the 30th anniversary of The Longest Walk and the concluding day of The Longest Walk 2 led by AIM (American Indian Movement) activist leader Dennis J. Banks. (See www.longestwalk.org/)
According to Milestone's president, Amy Heller, "In addition to being a dazzling work of art, THE EXILES is extremely important in terms of cinema history and Native American literature. Its first-ever theatrical release in 2008 will be a revelation to theatrical audiences around the world and an inspiration to independent filmmakers."
"THE EXILES deserves to be ranked with John Cassavetes' Shadows. Its moving portraiture is refreshingly free of clichés and moralizing platitudes, and the high-contrast black-and-white photography and dense, highly creative soundtrack are equally impressive ...
Mackenzie lived only long enough to make one other feature, but this film's lower-case urban poetry suggests a major talent." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Screeners for NYC and National Press are available now.
Screeners for local press will be available during the theatrical run.
Film's Cinematographers are available for interviews.
Please contact Dennis Doros at Milestone Film & Video
Email: milefilms@aol.com
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