PREVIEW SCREENING OF COPPERHEAD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE           

April 23, 2013    

CONTACT: Kelly Kiebala, Executive Director

585-343-9313 / kkiebala@goart.org

GO ART! TO HOST PREVIEW SCREENING OF COPPERHEAD IN JUNE

BATAVIA, NY…The Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council (aka GO ART!) is honored to be working together with local author Bill Kauffman to host a preview screening of Copperhead, the third film in director Ron Maxwell’s (GETTYSBURG, GODS & GENERALS) American Civil War anthology, screenplay written by Bill Kauffman. The film, starring Billy Campbell and Peter Fonda, will be released in theatres on June 28, 2013. This special preview screening takes place on Thursday, June 13th at 7:00pm at the Stuart Steiner Theatre, Genesee Community College, Batavia. Following the screening is a short presentation by Screenwriter Kauffman along with a Q&A with Kauffman and Director Maxwell, who will be in attendance.

The event is a benefit for GO ART!, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that supports and promotes art and culture in Genesee and Orleans Counties. Tickets are $20 for GO ART! members and $25 for non-members and will be available soon at GO ART!, 201 East Main Street, Batavia and online at http://www.goart.org/. For more information on the event or to reserve your ticket, please contact GO ART! at 585-343-9313 orinfo@GOart.org. For more information on the film Copperhead and to view the official trailer, visit copperheadthemovie.com.

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Director: Ron Maxwell

Screenwriter: Bill Kauffman

Based on the Novel by: Harold Frederic

Producer: Ron Maxwell

Cast: Billy Campbell, Angus Macfadyen, and Peter Fonda

Running time: 120 minutes

Release Date: In theatres June 28, 2013

Synopsis: Copperhead is unlike any Civil War movie to date. A story of the violent passions and burning feuds that set ablaze the home front during the Civil War, Copperhead is also a timeless and deeply moving examination of the price of dissent, the place of the individual amidst the hysteria of wartime, and the terrible price of war.

Based on the extraordinary novel by Harold Frederic, which the great American critic Edmund Wilson praised as a brave and singular book that “differs fundamentally from any other Civil War fiction,” Copperhead is the story of Abner Beech, a stubborn and righteous farmer of Upstate New York, who defies his neighbors and his government in the bloody and contentious autumn of 1862.

With Copperhead, director Ron Maxwell, who with Gettysburg and Gods and Generals established himself as our foremost cinematic interpreter of the American Civil War, takes on the War from a stunning, unexpected and richly, unforgettably humanist angle. Copperhead is a parable of the Civil War and perhaps for our own time.

It's a Wrap I

Script No. 417, June 25, 2005

Well, we've spent over six moths visiting 1829 New York. I know; it doesn't seem possible; surely it hasn't been a minute over 5 3/4 months. How time does fly! Anyway, before we move on to other times and climes we'll spend two final weeks on a few ends and odds we've missed along the way; sort of a potpourri, or, if you will, Simon, a Salmagundy.

We'll start here in Buffalo and work our way backwards to our New York City starting point. A branch of the Bank of the United States is established here in Buffalo in September. When bank president Nicholas Biddle visits the area he takes a side trip to Niagara Falls and is impressed enough to pay for a circular staircase into the gorge. The structure will remain a popular adjunct to Mother Nature for close to hundred years.

Monsieur Louis Stephen LeCouteulx de Chaumont, a French gentleman, arrived here twenty-five years ago, the area's first permanent Roman Catholic. This year he is donating land for a combination church and school - St. Louis.

Buffalo is not the only community opening banks and military schools this year: Batavia's Bank of the Genesee (later part of M&T), beat out the U. S Bank by a few months, becoming the first bank west of the Genesee River. And back at the beginning of the year Whitesboro's Scientific and Military Academy of Western District was accredited by the state's Board of Regents. / East coast architects Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis open a branch in Buffalo, the village's first architectural office. They must have chosen their location well; there's no mention of them losing it during the November fire that did $25,000 worth of damage to the west side of Main Street.

To the east of Batavia the village of Le Roy is host to one of the high-profile social events of the season in December, when Caroline Le Roy, daughter of New York City financier Jacob Le Roy, is married to politician/widower Daniel Webster at the family's upstate home. Presumably he smiled more than he does in his portraits.

James Stuart had run into some of the early prototypes of the health spa during his visit last year to Saratoga Springs. Not to be outdone by the Hudson Valley, the Genesee Valley welcomed Dr. Derrick Knickerbocker of Rochester, when he builds the two-and-a-half story Knickerbocker Hall spa in Avon. Knickerbocker wasn't the first person in Avon to make money off the local waters. In 1792 a local inhabitant had come down with what was probably the infamous Genesee Fever. When he recovered he was left with a skin infection which he bathed in local waters. The condition cleared up almost immediately. Three years later a case of rheumatism yielded to Avon's soothing waters. A Richard Wadsworth built a bathhouse in 1821, which he enlarged in 1823. Now two other entrepreneurs are erecting hotels to rival Knickerbocker's. The village's main springs, the Upper and Lower, will each gain their adherents.

Transportation into the central part of the state from the south will become easier in a few years as the state legislature in April approves construction of a Chemung Canal, linking Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes to Elmira, sitting on the Chemung River, down near the Pennsylvania border. The Chemung connects to the west branch of the Susquehanna and eventually Chesapeake Bay. The state's canals are erasing barriers.

We'll finish 1829 in the eastern part of the state and Manhattan in another month’s time.

[ For that we’ll head back to the “Eagles Byte” blog: http://www.eaglesbyte.blogspot.com/ ]

© 2005 David Minor / Eagles Byte

GREECE HISTORICAL SOCIETY EVENTS

WORLD WAR I AND THE FLU PANDEMIC OF 1918

Tuesday, April 9, 2013, 7:00 p.m. Greece Town Hall

By Robert Brown, PhD

The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than World War I.  It has been cited as the most divesting epidemic in modern history and the worst epidemic in American history killing over 600,000 Americans.  The subject of this talk will be the relationship between two of the 20^th century’s worst human disasters, the First World War and the flu pandemic of 1918.

Dr. Robert Brown, grew up in the Town of Greece and is recognized as an international authority on the 1918 flu pandemic.  For over 10 years he was a research associate in the History of Medicine at the University College London and is currently as associate professor of history at SUNY Finger Lakes Community College.  He has contributed numerous articles and TV/radio documentaries on the 1918 flu (including PBS’s Secrets of the Dead: Killer Flu).  Public welcome. Reservations are not required. Greece Historical Society members free.  A $2.00 (or more) donation is appreciated from others.

ART SHOW , Sundays, April 14 & 21 1:30 - 4:00 p.m. Greece Museum, 595 Long Pond Rd. Featuring paintings and art work by the Greece Community & Senior Center Art Club.  Several different styles and media will be shown. Much of the work will be for sale and club members will be in attendance. Society members’ art will also be on display in the museum.

THE MANITOU TROLLEY STORY by Bill Sauers Monday, April 15 7:00 p.m. at the Gates Historical Society meeting, Gates Town Hall Annex, 1605 Buffalo Road. 

HISTORY OF THE YATES-THAYER HOUSE 710 Latta Rd by Marie Poinan and Mabel Thayer. Thursday, April 18, 11:00 a.m., Fleming Point Senior Living Residence 720 Latta Rd.  Society members are invited to join the residents at Fleming Point.