All posts by lynne

Ela Bittencourt’s Essay on “Film About a Father Who” / Cinema Guild


Essay on Cinema Guild’s DVD & Bluray monograph insert for Film About a Father Who directed by Lynne Sachs

Information on the DVD & Bluray here.

“He knows he will live in me
after he is dead, I will carry him like a mother.
I do not know if I will ever deliver.”

Sharon Olds, from the book of poems, The Father

There are so many possible entry points into Lynne Sachs’s A Film About a Father Who, an incredibly poignant and astute film sonnet on the director’s father, Ira Nathan Sachs, that over my repeated viewings I’ve begun to think of the film as a kind of quilt. Each of its patches unique and carefully hand-stitched into the fabric of its mosaic parts. Or perhaps a wondrous maze that a viewer winds her way through, and out, by pulling a delicate Ariadne’s thread. 

I think it’s apt that the Greek mythology should have sprung to my mind. Aren’t all families somehow mythic, especially the troubled ones? The patriarch of the Sachs clan is certainly very Sphinx-like: an object, at once, of boundless adoration and love, but also a slippery man of mystery whose acts arouse genuine puzzlement in all his children. A god whose many faces are like a visage of a broken statue — bits that can never be whole again, but only awkwardly pieced, with glue, disjointed surfaces showing through, sharp edges painful to the touch. 

In the film’s first introductory clip, the scionSachs, Sr. appears with his characteristic wisps of blond hair clinging to his skull, his bushy moustache, and somewhat restless and piercing blue eyes. He’s a “hippie businessman,” who “works as little as possible,” and “bottles water he can never stock.” In one shot, he stands framed by a mountainous vista (it turns out that Sachs developed hotels in Park City, Utah, where the Sundance Film Festival is held). The father speaks of his love for skiing, where you “go up slow and come down fast.” A comment that Sachs comments on in her own presciently clipped way: “To own a mountain from which there is nothing you can do but come down.”

I was struck by how this sentence is a gorgeous metaphor for pretty much how we relate to our parents — the most primordial love, which turns them into heroic, mythical, statue-like beings, mountain slopes from which, indeed, they can only come down. And how much of growing into adulthood is about the sudden vertigo of having to rewind, recalibrate our memories of the familial bind, from the times when we were still too innocent, too small, to have truly understood it. If we love them enough, we catch them coming down. We are mindful to pick up the pieces, glimpsing in their downfall from immortal heights the first sightings of our own fragility.

A Film About a Father Who is then an origin story, but one that’s never smug about its certainties, and always self-doubtful of how “it all” began. Sachs opens the film with a scene in which she’s cutting her elderly father’s hair, a moment so low-key yet so potent, because it is non-verbal. Everything else in the film – the tale of how the father managed to lie and cheat for so many years, how he hid his multiple affairs and his many children by different women from each other, for decades – all this will need to be explained. But the hair-cutting, with Sachs holding the scissors, untangling the knots, so that to snip them, lives outside language, time, it is an act of generosity and love, through which a small portion of  care may me given back. Then there’s the scissors, which once again circle back to the metaphor of quilting, cutting things to pieces, and stitching them together — film editing itself like quilting, the kind of hands-on experimental cinema that Sachs practices, in particular, like the intricate, patient, artisanal task. 

Sachs begins her story with the immediate family nucleus, her father, mother and her siblings, Dana and the filmmaker Ira Sachs. In this first central patch, there is still a certain sense of cohesion, as if the rest of the film could shoulder the illusion of producing a unified body of work; as if the process of delving into the past could heal, through rendering the small patches whole. Nothing like this occurs, it turns out. The more there is to discover, the more women and children enter the picture, the more quilt-like the film’s overall composition becomes. It demands to be seen as unruly, with each person, each story and heartache, finding its own proper place.

Among the father’s lovers are Diana, whose faint voice betrays terrible shyness, both on the subject’s part, but perhaps also the filmmaker’s. The inherent question of how to probe without hurting, how to make space for learning and empathy, but also establish a critical distance, is always keenly felt. Over the course of the film, this empathetic investigation becomes emboldened — either reflecting the director’s natural progression, or perhaps a mere artifact of thoughtful, painstaking editing, through which each woman’s testimony enriches the others. With Diana, for example, Sachs plants the idea of “companionship,” which apparently Sachs’s father used to seduce the young immigrant, Diana. And yet, Diana’s profile, cast against a dim window, is so lonely, so desolate, the word gains a heartbreaking, bitterly ironic twang. 

If, as Tolstoy believed, all happy families are alike, but the unhappy ones suffer in distinct ways, Sachs’s film is indeed an epic that embodies a Tolstoian ethos. “I’ve been making this film about my father for twenty-six years now,” Sachs says at one point. In another she adds, “Can I make myself forget that for the first twenty years of my sister’s life I didn’t know of her existence?” 

It’s a challenge to tell a story of such breadth without giving in to the tyranny of summary. But Sachs is never guilty of it, perhaps because, from the start, she strikes a patient but also an ironic tone. She holds out each cesura and is never rushed. Her carefully planted voiceovers, which echo, like refrains, emphasize dissonance, slippage, and paradox—as if to borrow Emily Dickinson’s motto, “Tell the truth, but tell it slant.” It’s a particularly poignant approach to a subject who is himself quite unable to offer this level of complete honesty, or transparency. We might have grown frustrated with such a subject, as too illusive, too coy, and yet, when centered in and filtered through Sachs’s voice, her father’s slipperiness becomes part of the game, a psychological, moral, philosophical quest for a glimmer of comprehension, and solace.

Again and again, this filmic richness emerges, where the previous parts of the film serve as a commentary on what comes next. Take the early family videos, for example. There is so much light, the children bouncing about, the colors overexposed, pushed, which on one hand reminds us of the fragility of earlier technologies, but on the other, doesn’t let us forget that family videos are a particular brand of narrative—or, one might say, fantasy. One makes a family. One constructs a memory. The film contains these small patches of idealized moments, frozen in time, it holds them in, like quilted patches, but it can also reveal them as such. 

What’s brilliant about A Film About a Father Who is that this commentary on the past, on the nature of memory, on storytelling, on love, so often arises directly through its own filmic material. For example, the first dialogue with the mother is framed by a window with a bright light behind it, and it too seems part of the established idealized childhood space. As if the previous Impressionist brushes of light and movement, it too seems to point to brighter times. But when the dialogue continues, with some footage in the kitchen, a subtle change can be felt: It’s as if in a Rorschach test, what first seemed like light, now is the reverse, the shadow, the impermeability that beams into the kitchen, whereas the light is shut out, outside.

Thus the film builds and sustains its own cognitive dissonance. Sometimes, Sachs’s commentary seems to almost spill over, frame to frame, like a river, sometimes lyrical, sometimes critical, on her father’s behavior—while the image occasionally stops, holds almost still, desperately focusing the lens, surrendering to a blur. Somewhere in this tension, there’s language that fails, phrases like “a hippie businessman,” which try to establish just what the father is, how he might be summed up, then slowly letting go of substantive terms, and allowing adjectives, “caring,” “selfish,” “careless,” “loving” to cast their spell. If there’s a vertigo in these descriptions, it’s once again because the Sphinx-like puzzle isn’t meant to be solved. The film presents no solution; it can only ask, but this asking is also somehow enough. It is the necessary work. 

The extended family grows, and so do group meetings, to include the younger generations. Some of the father’s children are born roughly around the same time as Sachs’s own daughter, Maya. In one scene, the young woman, Beth, expresses anger at having been cast out, and grown up in a harsh financial situation. Yet another mentions that she felt like the family’s powerful matriarch, Grandmother “Maw-Maw,” was going to disinherit her son, if more children surfaced, and so her existence was hidden. Earlier hesitations or questions are recast in a more discerning light. The careful trudging around fraught issues give in to Sachs’s direct question to her father about the lies. And if there is no immediate healing within the film’s constructed timeframe, there is a gesture and a reconciliation in a therapeutic exchange, in which each person voices her own hurt.

“Daughter, sister, mother, I cleave from one to another,” Sachs comments in the voiceover, heeding the lexical and experiential complexity of her many roles. And so the film never settles. It presents no center from which to control, contain, or judge. Instead, like Ariadne’s thread, it tugs, pulls, apart, anew, and so we’re guided the maze, enlightened, by the strings of love.



About Ela Bittencourt
Ela Bittencourt is a critic and cultural journalist, currently based in São Paulo. She writes on art, film and literature, often in the context of social issues and politics.

‘Swerve’ in Shorts 9: Skin I’m In / Chicago Underground Film Festival

Shorts 9: Skin I’m In
Chicago Underground Film Festival
July 6, 2022
https://cuff29.eventive.org/schedule/62ab91e07f0b04006863ac10


SHORTS 9: SKIN I’M IN

Swerve

Wearing the tell-tale masks of our daunting now, five NYC performers search for a meal in a Queens market while speaking in verse. A meditation on writing and making images in the liminal space between a global pandemic and what might come next. Inspired by the writing of Filipino-America poet Paolo Javier.

Showings:
Sun, Jul 31st, 4:30 PM @ Logan Theatre

Year: 2022                                                       Director: Lynne A. Sachs
Runtime: 7 minutes                                      Screenwriter: Pablo Javier
Language: English, Tagalog                        Cast: Inney Prakash, Ray Ferriera,
Country: United States                                           Jeff Preiss, Juliana Sass,
Premiere: Chicago Premiere                                 Caredral


Counter Compositions – Truth to Material

This work started with a single reel of B/W silent film.
This found footage having been disassociated from its intention raises questions about the unseen and forgotten aspects of workers lives and technological histories.
The images focus on the bodies and gestures of the persons working within this factory environment.

Showings:
Sun, Jul 31st, 4:30 PM @ Logan Theatre

Year: 2022                                                       Filmmaker: Simon Rattigan
Runtime: 14 minutes
Language: English
Country: United Kingdom


Amnesia

I get rid of memories selectively, as a form of self-salvation. A playback of the episodes I have lived renders no clue of who I think I am in the present. I guess many “me” reside in different parts of my memory. And the me of the present chooses to eliminate one of them.

Like the replicant interrogated in Blade Runner, the person I am now is subjected to the scathing gaze of others. And now he decides to disintegrate his existential consciousness, by sending that of the past into exile, to the horizon where it truly belongs.

Showings:
Sun, Jul 31st, 4:30 PM @ Logan Theatre

Year: 2020                                                       Filmmaker: Yan Zhou
Runtime: 6 minutes
Language: English, Mandarin Chinese
Country: China, United States
Premiere: US Premiere


Fraktura

Fraktura is an abstract horror evoking a unique German expressionist atmosphere. Featuring lead type from the Gutenberg Museum (Mainz) and printing blocks from the Hatch Show Print (Nashville), the typographic forms, printed directly on 35mm film, move to the rhythm of an original score performed on a church organ.

Showings:
Sun, Jul 31st, 4:30 PM @ Logan Theatre

Year: 2021                                                       Director: Judith Poireir
Runtime: 5 minutes                                      Producer: Judith Poirier
Country: Canada, Germany                        Music: Jean-François Gauthier
Premiere: US Premiere


For Haruko

“I made this film for the artist Haruko Tanaka. It is footage I shot in the summer of 2018 when I was in residence at the Putnam Cottage at MacDowell, a studio Haruko had worked in the winter before. I often thought of her in the month I was there. Haruko passed a few months after I returned; I made this film in her memory.” – Lee Anne Schmitt

Showings:
Sun, Jul 31st, 4:30 PM @ Logan Theatre

Year: 2021                                                       Director: Lee Anne Schmitt
Runtime: 10 minutes                             Screenwriter: Lee Anne Schmitt
Language: English                                         Producer: Lee Anne Schmitt
Country: United States
Premiere: World Premiere


A City w/o A Map

signal communications proliferate across borders.
incongruent shapes subtracted from form.
fractal topographies without document.

Showings:
Sun, Jul 31st, 4:30 PM @ Logan Theatre

Year: 2021                                                       Director: Josh Weissbach
Runtime: 8 minutes                                      Producer: Josh Weissbach
Language: English
Country: United States, Cuba, Israel
Premiere: US Premiere


Nullo

A fascinating portrait of an individual with penis dysmorphia who appears to be much happier and content without the very appendage that provides many men – especially gay men – with their entire raison d’être. (Bruce LaBruce)
read full text: https://www.sixpackfilm.com/en/catalogue/2679/

Showings:
Sun, Jul 31st, 4:30 PM @ Logan Theatre

Year: 2021                                                       Director: Jan Soldat
Runtime: 16 minutes
Language: German
Country: Australia, Germany
Premiere: Midwest Premiere


Incantation

A serendipitous ritual of memory
Colliding archives of body and place
A cine-incantation to freedom and (be)longing

Showings:
Sun, Jul 31st, 4:30 PM @ Logan Theatre

Year: 2021                                                       Filmmaker: Kalpana Subramanian
Runtime: 9 minutes
Language: English
Country: United States, India


A.I. Mama

A young programmer attempts to resurrect their lost mother by building an A.I. with human memories

Showings:
Sun, Jul 31st, 4:30 PM @ Logan Theatre

Year: 2020                                                       Director: Asuka Lin
Runtime: 5 minutes                                      Screenwriter: Asuka Lin
Country: United States                                 Producer: Giuliana Foulkes
Premiere: Midwest Premiere                     Cast: Reinabe


Logan Theatre
2646 N. Milwaukee Avenue
July 31, 2022, 4:30 – 6:30 PM CDT
Get directions · More events at venue

Poets of Queens Reading Series at Q.E.D. Astoria / Poets of Queens

Poets of Queens Reading Series at Q.E.D. Astoria
Poets of Queens
July 5, 2022
Reading on October 16, 2022
https://www.poetsofqueens.org/reading-series
https://qedastoria.com/products/poets-of-queens

Cynthia Andrews was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in both Brooklyn and Queens. She is a former actress, dancer and singer, as well as a notable performance poet and veteran of the NYC poetry circuit. Her performance at The Nuyorican Poets Café was one of the first to be archived at Poet’s House. She has been published in various publications including ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets CaféThe Voice Literary SupplementThe 2020 Beat Poets Anthology, and Tribes Literary Journal, where she has also written film and book reviews. She is the author of two chapbooks: Saving Summer and Homeless (The New Press), and one poetry collection: A Little Before Twelve (Poets of Queens). She holds a Certificate of Language and Culture from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, as well as a B.A. from Adelphi University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College.  

Pauline Findlay is a poet, filmmaker of shorts (poetry in motion) and chef. Her new book Dysfunction: A Play On Words In the Familiar, released by Pink Trees Press is one that will walk you down a winding road to leave you to choose; the road of redemption or a dysfunctional circus. One of the original Silver Tongued Devils her work appears in their anthology as well as Brownstone Poets. She’s performed at Fahrenheit, Women of Color and Tree of Cups the Rimes Series. Findlay has judged poetry contests and collection of videos can be viewed on YouTube. Her method towards writing is simple, “I don’t write in things I don’t believe in.”

tova greene (they/them) is a non-binary, queer, jewish poet who recently graduated with a bachelor in liberal arts from sarah lawrence college in yonkers, new york. they were one of seven members of the class of 2022 to submit a senior thesis; at a whopping 375 pages, “the poetic is political” specialized in the intersection between twentieth century american poetry & feminist theory. as a part of this year-long endeavor, they created a chronological anthology of the american feminist poetry movement from 1963-1989 entitled who can tolerate the power of a woman (after “propaganda poem: maybe for some young mamas” by alicia ostriker). their debut collection lilac on the damned’s breath was published via bottlecap press in june of 2022. they are currently working on their second book of poetry, ohso. they are a two-time gryphon grant recipient & received the dean’s scholarship throughout their undergraduate education. after interning with the poetry society of new york from march to august of 2021, they were invited back as the program coordinator in may 2022. in this capacity, they are currently producing the new york city poetry festival. their work has been featured in eunoia reviewmidway journallove & squalorclickbaitsoul talk magazine, & primavera zine. they currently live in manhattan with their partner & cat.

Emily Hockaday’s first full length book, Naming the Ghost, is out from Cornerstone Press September 2022. She is the author of five chapbooks, most recently the ecology-themed Beach Vocabulary from Red Bird Chaps. Her poems have appeared in a number of journals in print and online, and she can be found on the web at www.emilyhockaday.com. She tweets @E_Hockaday.

Ananda Lima is the author of Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, 2021), winner of the Hudson Prize, and four chapbooks: Vigil (Get Fresh Books), Tropicália (Newfound, winner of the Newfound Prose Prize), Amblyopia (Bull City Press), and Translation (Paper Nautilus). Her work has appeared in The American Poetry ReviewPoets.orgKenyon Review OnlineGulf CoastColorado ReviewPoet LorePoetry NorthwestPleiadesThe Hopkins Review, and elsewhere. She has been awarded the inaugural Work-In-Progress Fellowship by Latinx-in-Publishing, sponsored by Macmillan Publishers, for her fiction manuscript-in-progress. She has an MA in Linguistics from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Rutgers University, Newark. 

Since the 1980s, Lynne Sachs has created cinematic works that defy genre through the use of hybrid forms and collaboration, incorporating elements of the essay film, collage, performance, documentary and poetry. Her films explore the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences. In 2019, Tender Buttons Press published her first book Year by Year Poems.

Please watch the January 17th PoQ reading here.
Please watch the March 14th PoQ reading here.
Please watch the May 16 PoQ reading here.


Mission

Poets of Queens creates a community for poetry in Queens and beyond. 

Readings create a connection between a diverse group of poets and an audience. In 2020 an anthology of poetry by a group of twenty-five poets was published. This paved the way for Poets of Queens to start to publish individual collections to help poets connect to their community through their work. Connections are furthered when visual artists respond to poets and poets respond to visual artists as part of special projects. Poets also become mentors and teachers to fellow poets in all stages of their careers, strengthening community.


Stream These Three Great Documentaries / The New York Times

Stream These Three Great Documentaries
The New York Times
By Ben Kenigsberg
June 29, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/movies/documentaries-streaming.html

This month’s nonfiction picks include a reflection on a father, a immersive dive into the fishing industry and an alternative approach to the rock band biopic doc.

The proliferation of documentaries on streaming services makes it difficult to choose what to watch. Each month, we’ll choose three nonfiction films — classics, overlooked recent docs and more — that will reward your time.


‘Film About a Father Who’ (2020)

Stream it on the Criterion Channel. Rent it on Apple TV and Vudu.

In “Film About a Father Who,” the director Lynne Sachs sorts through her feelings about her elusive, problematic dad, Ira Sachs Sr. The movie, which mixes film and video formats, brings together footage that Lynne shot over more than 30 years along with other material from her filmmaker brother, Ira Sachs Jr. (“Love Is Strange”), and Ira Sr. himself.

Right from the start, Ira Sr. sounds like a bit of a flake. Lynne, explaining what her dad did for a living, calls him “a hippie businessman, buying land so steep you couldn’t build, bottling mineral water he couldn’t put on the shelves, using other people’s money to develop hotels named for flowers.” He also seems to have been a serial compartmentalizer. That trait may have been harmless enough when it came to extravagances (he owned twin Cadillac convertibles and kept one secret), but it caused a great deal of drama for his family. Lynne interviews some of the women Ira Sr. had been involved with and the many children he fathered, including two grown half sisters Lynne didn’t know about until 2016. Did she have suspicions, you might ask? Lynne suggests that Ira Sr.’s secret-keeping led her and her siblings to adopt a stance of what she calls “complicit ignorance.” And Ira Sr.’s mother, called Maw-Maw by Lynne, only complicated matters when she was alive, because, Lynne says, she “could not take the constant flow of people that she was supposed to, quote, ‘love,’ in the way that we’re taught to love family.”

In interviews, Ira Sr. nevertheless comes across as a genial lug — maybe fun at parties, but surely a handful to have as a father or a partner. “Film About a Father Who,” whose title was inspired by Yvonne Rainer’s “Film About a Woman Who,” is a consideration of how one man’s easygoing attitude yielded anything but an easy family dynamic as it rippled across generations. The movie runs only 74 minutes, but it contains lifetimes.


‘Leviathan’ (2012)

Stream it on Kanopy or Mubi. Rent it on Google Play and Vudu.

Some documentaries aim to impose order on the world. “Leviathan,” by contrast, revels in abstraction and disorientation, as Dennis Lim noted in 2012 when profiling the filmmakers for The New York Times. The co-directors Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, a group that merges the academic discipline of ethnography with the artistic possibilities of filmmaking, shot it during six trips aboard a Massachusetts fishing trawler. But it’s hardly an exposé or elucidation of the fishing industry. It opens with a quote from the Book of Job and unleashes a furious torrent of images in which it’s often difficult to know which way is up or even whether it’s day or night.

As the title implies, the human presence is something of a secondary concern next to the monstrous churn of the sea or the clanking, threatening chains of the boat’s equipment. The waterlogged, slicker-wearing fishermen aren’t identified until the closing credits; their voices are often barely possible to understand (the distortions of their words suggest Charlie Brown’s teacher fed through some sort of metallic feedback), and their routines are never explained.

In interviews, the filmmakers noted that they sought to surrender some of their agency to the elements. Waterproof cameras get dragged underwater like a fishing net or pulled above the surface to skip along with some hovering seabirds. They slosh around on the floor with the day’s catch, as much a part of the detritus as the ginger-ale can that rattles around in a pile of shells. Shooting at ultra-close-range from boot height or at odd angles, Paravel and Castaing-Taylor offer perspectives on the way the boat looks and sounds that seem untethered from where our eyes would naturally dart for meaning. It’s so vivid that at times, you swear you can smell the ship as well.


‘The Velvet Underground’ (2021)

Stream it on Apple TV+.

Todd Haynes doesn’t exactly reinvent the rock-band-biopic documentary in “The Velvet Underground,” but there are times when he seems pretty close to it. The title is in some ways a misnomer: The focus isn’t so much on the band as the Warholian cultural ferment of the 1960s that the group grew out of. (It’s more underground and less, uh, velvet.) Dedicated to the memory of Jonas Mekas, who appears, and featuring excerpts from films by him and film-artist contemporaries like Bruce Conner, Stan Brakhage and many others, Haynes’s movie is as interested in picture, sound and sensation as it is in recording history.

The copious use of split screen evokes Warhol’s “Chelsea Girls,” a work that places imagery from two projectors side by side while the soundtrack alternates between the film strips, allowing viewers to draw connections. In a similar spirit, Haynes is devoted to capturing the cultural crosscurrents that shaped the band and its members.

John Cale, one of the band’s founders, speaks of the influence of experimental musicians like John Cage and La Monte Young on the music he was making. Later, offering a fan’s perspective, the musician Jonathan Richman talks about hearing “overtones that you couldn’t account for” while seeing the Velvet Underground play. The film critic Amy Taubin draws a link between Warhol’s silent films — meant to be played at the slower-than-standard speed of 16 frames per second — and the avant-garde music scene: “It was all about extended time.”

Haynes’s film doesn’t avoid standard biographical details. There are tales of Lou Reed’s prickliness and a long section about what happened to the band after its game-changing (if famously not best-selling) first album. But you don’t have to be interested in the music, or music at all, to appreciate “The Velvet Underground” as a movie.

The Academy Invites 397 New Members for 2022: See the Full List / A.frame

The Academy Invites 397 New Members for 2022: See the Full List
A.frame
June 28, 2022
https://aframe.oscars.org/news/post/the-academy-new-members-2022-the-full-list

The invitations have been sent!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to 397 distinguished artists and executives to join the organization in 2022. Membership selection is based on professional qualifications, with an ongoing commitment to representation, inclusion and equity. This year’s class of invitees includes 71 Oscar nominees, including 15 winners.

A selection of this year’s invitees includes Michael Greyeyes (Wild Indian) to the Actors branch, Elodie Demey (Summer of 85) to Casting Directors, Martin Ruhe (The Tender Bar) to Cinematographers, Paul Tazewell (West Side Story) to Costume Designers, Andrew Ahn (Fire Island) to Directors, and Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh (Writing With Fire) to Documentary.

Also, Shannon Baker Davis (The Photograph) has been invited to Film Editors, Stacey Morris (Coming 2 America) to Makeup Artists and Hairstylists, Leo Heiblum and Jacobo Lieberman (Frida)to Music, Shih-Ching Tsou (The Florida Project) to Producers, set decorator Ellen Brill (Being the Ricardos) to Production Design, Charlotte De La Gournerie (Flee) to Short Films and Feature Animation, production sound mixer Denise Yarde (Belfast) to Sound, Hayley Hubbard (The Old Guard) to Visual Effects, and Jeremy O Harris (Zola) to Writers.

Finally, Amber Rasberry (Sr. Creative Film Executive at Amazon) to Executives, Stephanie Dee Phillips (EVP of Publicity at Focus) to Marketing and Public Relations, and Ilda Santiago (Executive Director of Programming, Festival do Rio) are among those invited to Members-at-Large.

The 2022 invitees are:

ACTORS

Funke Akindele

Caitríona Balfe

Reed Birney

Jessie Buckley

Lori Tan Chinn

Daniel K. Daniel

Ariana DeBose

Robin de Jesús

Jamie Dornan

Michael Greyeyes

Gaby Hoffmann

Amir Jadidi

Kajol

Troy Kotsur

Vincent Lindon

BarBara Luna

Aïssa Maïga

Selton Mello

Olga Merediz

Sandra Kwan Yue Ng

Hidetoshi Nishijima

Rena Owen

Jesse Plemons

Sheryl Lee Ralph

Renate Reinsve

Marco Rodriguez

Joanna Scanlan

Kodi Smit-McPhee

Suriya

Anya Taylor-Joy

CASTING DIRECTORS

Rich Delia

Elodie Demey

Yngvill Kolset Haga

Louise Kiely

Meagan Lewis

Karen Lindsay-Stewart

Juliette Ménager

Kate Ringsell

Toby Whale

CINEMATOGRAPHERS

Ava Berkofsky

Josh Bleibtreu

Alice Brooks

Daria D’Antonio

Mike Eley

Sturla Brandth Grøvlen

Ruben Impens

Shabier Kirchner

Martin Ruhe

Kasper Tuxen

COSTUME DESIGNERS

Joan Bergin

Antonella Cannarozzi

Andrea Flesch

Lizzy Gardiner

Dorothée Guiraud

Suzie Harman

Tatiana Hernández

Louise Stjernsward

Paul Tazewell

Mitchell Travers

DIRECTORS

Newton Aduaka

Andrew Ahn

Bruno Villela Barreto

Mariano Barroso

Rolf de Heer

Jeferson Rodrigues de Rezende

Pawo Choyning Dorji*

Blessing Egbe

Briar Grace-Smith

Reinaldo Marcus Green

Ryusuke Hamaguchi*

Sian Harries Heder*

Gil Kenan

Amanda Kernell

Mary Lambert

Blackhorse Lowe

Nalin Pan

Jonas Poher Rasmussen*

Isabel Sandoval

Amy Seimetz

Rachel Talalay

DOCUMENTARY

Julie Anderson

Susan Bedusa

Opal H. Bennett

Shane Boris

Joe Cephus Brewster

Ellen Bruno

Traci A. Curry

Jason DaSilva

Emílio Domingos

Sushmit Ghosh

Lyn Goldfarb

Susanne Guggenberger

Cristina Ibarra

Oren Jacoby

Isaac Julien

Deborah Kaufman

Firouzeh Khosrovani

Jessica Kingdon

Mehret Mandefro

Mary Manhardt

Amanda McBaine

Peter Jay Miller

Elizabeth Mirzaei

Gulistan Mirzaei

Bob Moore

Omar Mullick

Mohammed Ali Naqvi

Sierra Pettengill

Ben Proudfoot

Jonas Poher Rasmussen*

Gabriel Rhodes

Lynne Sachs

Brett Story

Thorsten Thielow

Rintu Thomas

Nathan Truesdell

Jenni Wolfson

Jialing Zhang

EXECUTIVES

Steve Asbell

Carole Baraton

Steven Bardwil

Jeff Blackburn

Liesl Copland

Kareem Daniel

Eva Diederix

Scott Foundas

Brenda Gilbert

Joshua Barnett Grode

Gene Yoonbum Kang

Jenny Marchick

Ori Joseph Marmur

Anna Marsh

Katherine Oliver

Joel Pearlman

Elizabeth Polk

Louie Provost

Amber Rasberry

Brian Robbins

Marc Schaberg

Ron Schwartz

Aditya Sood

Frederick Tsui

Dana Walden

Clifford Werber

FILM EDITORS

Geraud Brisson

Olivier Bugge Coutté

Shannon Baker Davis

Billy Fox

Myron Kerstein

Jeremy Milton

Úna Ní Dhonghaíle

Heike Parplies

Joshua L. Pearson

Peter Sciberras

Aljernon Tunsil

Azusa Yamazaki

MAKEUP ARTISTS AND HAIRSTYLISTS

Jacenda Burkett

Nana Fischer

Sean Flanigan

Massimo Gattabrusi

Stephanie Ingram

Anna Carin Lock

Heike Merker

Stacey Morris

Justin Raleigh

Kerrie Smith

Nadia Stacey

Julia Vernon

Wakana Yoshihara

MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS

Dana Archer

Debra Birnbaum

Tatiana Detlofson

Bethan Anna Dixon

Britta Gampper

Jane Gibbs

Sheri Goldberg

Jonathan Helfgot

Jessica Kolstad

Cortney Lawson

Vivek Mathur

George Nicholis

Stephanie Sarah Northen

Jodie Magid Oriol

Gina Pence

Stephanie Dee Phillips

Chrissy Quesada

Stuart Robertson

Jerry Rojas

Evelyn Santana

Sohini Sengupta

Michelle Slavich

James Verdesoto

Katrina Wan

Glen Erin Wyatt

MUSIC

Billie Eilish Baird O’Connell

Amie Doherty

Lili Haydn

Leo Heiblum

Natalie Holt

Nathan Johnson

Jacobo Lieberman

Ariel Rose Marx

Hesham Nazih

Finneas O’Connell

Dan Romer

Nerida Tyson-Chew

PRODUCERS

Mariela Besuievsky

Cale Boyter

Chad Burris

Damon D’Oliveira

Luc Déry

Michael Downey

Yaël Fogiel

Cristina Gallego

Laetitia Gonzales

Pauline Gygax

Margot Hand

Jojo Hui

Eva Jakobsen

Lucas Joaquin

Lizette Jonjic

Thanassis Karathanos

Kim McCraw

Sev Ohanian

Christina Piovesan

Natalie Qasabian

Philippe Rousselet

Sara Silveira

James Stark

Riccardo Tozzi

Shih-Ching Tsou

Nadia Turincev

Tim White

Trevor White

Teruhisa Yamamoto

Olena Yershova

PRODUCTION DESIGN

François Audouy

Laura Ballinger Gardner

Chris Baugh

Ellen Brill

Joanna Bush

Christina Cecili

John Coven

Carol Flaisher

Sandy Hamilton

Ellen Lampl

Enrico Latella

Steven Lawrence

Melissa Levander

Drew Petrotta

Jean-Vincent Puzos

Maya Shimoguchi

SHORT FILMS AND FEATURE ANIMATION

Murad Abu Eisheh

Olivier Adam

Michael Arias

Evren Boisjoli

Maria Brendle

Sean Buckelew

Olivier Calvert

Enrico Casarosa

Karla Castañeda

Hugo Covarrubias

K.D. Dávila

Charlotte De La Gournerie

Luc Desmarchelier

Anton Dyakov

Brian Falconer

Youssef Joe Haidar

Andy Harkness

Pierre Hébert

Aneil Karia

Brooke Keesling

Nadine Lüchinger

Tadeusz Łysiak

Joe Mateo

Sharon Maymon

Kathleen McInnis

Yvett Merino

Alberto Mielgo

Les Mills

Jetzabel Moreno Hernández

Dan Ojari

Brian Pimental

Mikey Please

Erin Ramos

Mike Rianda

Doug Roland

Leo Sanchez

Marc J. Scott

Sarah Smith

Daniel Šuljić

Conrad Vernon

Pamela Ziegenhagen-Shefland

SOUND

Douglas Axtell

Nerio Barberis

Amanda Beggs

Adrian Bell

Joshua Berger

Paul (Salty) Brincat

Tom Yong-Jae Burns

Benjamin A. Burtt

Simon Chase

Brian Chumney

Richard Flynn

Albert Gasser

Lewis Goldstein

Theo Green

James Harrison

John Hayes

Ruth Hernandez

Huang Zheng

Thomas Huhn

David Husby

Allison Jackson

Paul Ledford

Leff Lefferts

Nancy MacLeod

Charles Maynes

Alan Meyerson

Casey Stone

Edward Tise

Jana Vance

Tara Webb

Waldir Xavier

Denise Yarde

VISUAL EFFECTS

Ivy Agregan

Geeta Basantani

Aharon Bourland

Ivan Busquets

Joe Ceballos

Richard Anthony Clegg

Mark Curtis

Markus Degen

Jack Edjourian

Eric Enderton

Marcos Fajardo Orellana

Joel Green

Earl Hibbert

Hayley Hubbard

Maia Kayser

Garrett Lam

Jake Maymudes

Catherine Ann Mullan

Charlie Noble

J. Alan Scott

Tefft Smith

Alan Travis

Michael Van Eps

Sean Noel Walker

Vernon Wilbert

Eric Jay Wong

Kevin Wooley

Wei Zheng

WRITERS

Zach Baylin

Henry Bean

Pawo Choyning Dorji*

Michael Grais

Ted Griffin

Ryusuke Hamaguchi*

Jeremy O Harris

Sian Harries Heder*

Mike Jones

Reema Kagti

Adele Lim

Craig Mazin

Margaret Nagle

Takamasa Oe

Alex Ross Perry

Adam Rifkin

Jordan Roberts

Katie Silberman

Randi Mayem Singer

Jon Spaihts

Małgorzata Szumowska

Mark A. Victor

MEMBERS-AT-LARGE

Keith Adams

Josiah Akinyele

Richard Berger

Andrew Birch

Andrew Cannava

George Drakoulias

Andrew Dunlap

Erin Dusseault

James Farrell

Valerie Flueger Veras

Andy Fowler

Glenn Kiser

Anne Lai

Susan Lazarus

Joe Machota

Leonard Maltin

Deborah McIntosh

Julia Michels

Daniel Rabinow

Ilda Santiago

Danie Streisand

Matt Sullivan

Anne Lajla Utsi

Matt Vioral

Michael Zink

(*Four individuals — noted by an asterisk — have been invited to join the Academy by multiple branches. These individuals must select one branch upon accepting membership.)

Film Academy Invites 397 People to Become Members, Including Billie Eilish, Jamie Dornan, Dana Walden and Leonard Maltin / The Hollywood Reporter


Film Academy Invites 397 People to Become Members, Including Billie Eilish, Jamie Dornan, Dana Walden and Leonard Maltin
The Hollywood Reporter
By Scott Feinberg
June 28, 2022
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/oscars-2022-new-academy-members-1235173080/

According to an Academy-provided breakdown of the new invitees, 44 percent are women, 37 percent are non-white and 50 percent are non-Americans (54 different countries are represented).

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited 397 members of the global film community to join the organization, it was announced Tuesday.

Among those who will henceforth be able to vote for the Oscar nominations and winners if they accept, as the vast majority of people who have received invites historically have: newly-minted Oscar winners Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell (music branch) and Ariana DeBose and Troy Kotsur (actors); Paramount chief Brian Robbins and Disney general entertainment chief Dana Walden (executives); and film critic Leonard Maltin (members-at-large).

According to an Academy-provided breakdown of the new invitees, 44 percent are women, 37 percent are non-white and 50 percent are non-Americans (54 different countries are represented). If they all accept, the Academy’s overall membership will be 34 percent female, 19 percent non-white and 23 percent non-American.

Seven branches invited more women than men (actors, casting directors, costume designers, documentary, makeup artists/hairstylists, marketing/public relations and producers); three branches invited more non-whites than whites (actors, directors and documentary); and nine branches invited more non-Americans than Americans (actors, casting directors, cinematographers, costume designers, directors, makeup artists/hairstylists, producers, short films/feature animation and visual effects).

This year’s list of invites is two longer than last year’s, which was, by far, the smallest since the #OscarsSoWhite uproar prompted a massive expansion of the organization. The most invites came from the short films/feature animation branch (41), followed by the documentary branch (38) and the actors branch (30).

Other notable names invited to join the Academy this year include 2021 standout actors Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan (Belfast), Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter), Gaby Hoffmann (C’mon C’mon), Robin de Jesus (Tick, Tick … Boom!), Vincent Lindon (Titane), Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog) and Anya Taylor-Joy (Last Night in Soho); director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard); documentarians Traci A. Curry (Attica) and Ben Proudfoot (The Queen of Basketball); producers Tim White and Trevor White (King Richard); and writers Zach Baylin (King Richard) and Jeremy O Harris (Zola),

Veteran entertainment industry figures who received invitations not tied to a specific recent projects include Sheryl Lee Ralph (actors); Amy Seimetz (directors); Scott Foundas (executives); Craig MazinAlex Ross Perry and Katie Silberman (writers); and George Drakoulias (members-at-large).

Among those invited to join the marketing and public relations branch were DDA chief Dana Archer, Amazon awards chief Debra Birnbaum, international features specialist Tatiana Detlofson, personal reps Sheri Goldberg and Jessica Kolstad, Magnolia Pictures publicity chief George Nicholis, Apple TV+ awards chief Gina Pence (who was central to CODA‘s winning Oscar campaign), Focus Features’ executive vp publicity Stephanie Phillips, Shelter PR evp awards and events Jerry Rojas and Netflix’s US publicity chief Michelle Slavich.

Several people were invited to join multiple branches and will have to select one, including: Drive My Car‘s Ryusuke Hamaguchi (directors/writers), CODA‘s Sian Heder (directors/writers) and Flee‘s Jonas Poher Rasmussen (directors/documentary)

A full list of those invited to join the Academy follows.

Actors
Funke Akindele – “Omo Ghetto: The Saga,” “Jenifa”
Caitríona Balfe – “Belfast,” “Ford v Ferrari”
Reed Birney – “Mass,” “Changeling”
Jessie Buckley – “The Lost Daughter,” “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”
Lori Tan Chinn – “Turning Red,” “Glengarry Glen Ross”
Daniel K. Daniel – “The Fugitive,” “A Soldier’s Story”
Ariana DeBose – “West Side Story,” “The Prom”
Robin de Jesús – “tick, tick…BOOM!,” “The Boys in the Band”
Jamie Dornan – “Belfast,” “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar”
Michael Greyeyes – “Wild Indian,” “Woman Walks Ahead”
Gaby Hoffmann – “C’mon C’mon,” “Wild”
Amir Jadidi – “A Hero,” “Cold Sweat”
Kajol – “My Name Is Khan,” “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham…”
Troy Kotsur – “CODA,” “The Number 23”
Vincent Lindon – “Titane,” “The Measure of a Man”
BarBara Luna – “The Concrete Jungle,” “Five Weeks in a Balloon”
Aïssa Maïga – “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” “Mood Indigo”
Selton Mello – “My Hindu Friend,” “Trash”
Olga Merediz – “In the Heights,” “Adrift”
Sandra Kwan Yue Ng – “Echoes of the Rainbow,” “Portland Street Blues”
Hidetoshi Nishijima – “Drive My Car,” “Cut”
Rena Owen – “The Last Witch Hunter,” “The Dead Lands”
Jesse Plemons – “The Power of the Dog,” “Judas and the Black Messiah”
Sheryl Lee Ralph – “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit,” “The Distinguished Gentleman”
Renate Reinsve – “The Worst Person in the World,” “Welcome to Norway”
Marco Rodriguez – “El Chicano,” “Unspeakable”
Joanna Scanlan – “After Love,” “Notes on a Scandal”
Kodi Smit-McPhee – “The Power of the Dog,” “Let Me In”
Suriya – “Jai Bhim,” “Soorarai Pottru”
Anya Taylor-Joy – “The Northman,” “Last Night in Soho”

Casting Directors
Rich Delia – “King Richard,” “The Disaster Artist”
Elodie Demey – “Happening,” “Summer of 85”
Yngvill Kolset Haga – “The Worst Person in the World,” “One Night in Oslo”
Louise Kiely – “The Green Knight,” “Sing Street”
Meagan Lewis – “Blast Beat,” “Free State of Jones”
Karen Lindsay-Stewart – “Marie Antoinette,” “Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone”
Juliette Ménager – “A Bag of Marbles,” “As Above/So Below”
Kate Ringsell – “The Lost City of Z,” “Justice League”
Toby Whale – “Dunkirk,” “The History Boys”

Cinematographers
Ava Berkofsky – “The Sky Is Everywhere,” “Free in Deed”
Josh Bleibtreu – “Dark Phoenix,” “Shazam!”
Alice Brooks – “In the Heights,” “tick, tick…BOOM!”
Daria D’Antonio – “The Hand of God,” “Ricordi?”
Mike Eley – “The Duke,” “Woman Walks Ahead”
Sturla Brandth Grøvlen – “The Innocents,” “Another Round”
Ruben Impens – “Titane,” “Beautiful Boy”
Shabier Kirchner – “Small Axe,” “Bull”
Martin Ruhe – “The Tender Bar,” “The Midnight Sky”
Kasper Tuxen – “The Worst Person in the World,” “Riders of Justice”

Costume Designers
Joan Bergin – “The Prestige,” “In the Name of the Father”
Antonella Cannarozzi – “A Five Star Life,” “I Am Love”
Andrea Flesch – “Midsommar,” “Colette”
Lizzy Gardiner – “Hacksaw Ridge,” “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”
Dorothée Guiraud – “Murder Party,” “French Tech”
Suzie Harman – “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” “Extinction”
Tatiana Hernández – “The Japon,” “Lope”
Louise Stjernsward – “Made in Italy,” “The Mercy”
Elisabeth Tavernier – “The Man in the Basement,” “Tanguy Is Back”
Paul Tazewell – “West Side Story,” “Harriet”
Mitchell Travers – “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” “Hustlers”

Directors
Newton Aduaka – “One Man’s Show,” “Ezra”
Andrew Ahn – “Fire Island,” “Spa Night”
Bruno Villela Barreto – “Four Days in September,” “The Kiss”
Mariano Barroso – “Ants in the Mouth,” “Ecstasy”
Rolf de Heer – “Charlie’s Country,” “Bad Boy Bubby”
Jeferson Rodrigues de Rezende – “The Malê Revolt,” “Bróder!”
Pawo Choyning Dorji* – “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”
Blessing Egbe – “African Messiah,” “Iquo’s Journal”
Briar Grace-Smith – “Cousins ,” “Waru”
Reinaldo Marcus Green – “King Richard,” “Monsters and Men”
Ryusuke Hamaguchi* – “Drive My Car,” “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”
Sian Harries Heder* – “CODA,” “Tallulah”
Gil Kenan – “City of Ember,” “Monster House”
Amanda Kernell – “Charter,” “Sami Blood”
Mary Lambert – “The In Crowd,” “Pet Sematary II”
Blackhorse Lowe – “Chasing the Light,” “5th World”
Nalin Pan – “Last Film Show,” “Samsara”
Jonas Poher Rasmussen* – “Flee,” “Searching for Bill”
Isabel Sandoval – “Lingua Franca,” “Apparition”
Amy Seimetz – “She Dies Tomorrow,” “Sun Don’t Shine”
Rachel Talalay – “A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting,” “Tank Girl”

Documentary
Julie Anderson – “God Is the Bigger Elvis,” “Arthur Ashe: Citizen of the World”
Susan Bedusa – “Procession,” “Bisbee ’17”
Opal H. Bennett – “A Broken House,” “Águilas”
Shane Boris – “Stray,” “The Edge of Democracy”
Joe Cephus Brewster – “American Promise,” “Slaying Goliath”
Ellen Bruno – “Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy,” “Samsara: Death and Rebirth in Cambodia”
Traci A. Curry – “Attica,” “Boss: The Black Experience in Business”
Jason DaSilva – “When We Walk,” “When I Walk”
Emílio Domingos – “Favela Is Fashion,” “L.A.P.A.”
Sushmit Ghosh – “Writing with Fire,” “Timbaktu”
Lyn Goldfarb – “Eddy’s World,” “With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade”
Susanne Guggenberger – “Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes,” “The Beekeeper and His Son”
Cristina Ibarra – “The Infiltrators,” “Las Marthas”
Oren Jacoby – “On Broadway,” “Sister Rose’s Passion”
Isaac Julien – “Derek,” “Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Mask”
Deborah Kaufman – “Company Town,” “Blacks and Jews”
Firouzeh Khosrovani – “Radiograph of a Family,” “Fest of Duty”
Jessica Kingdon – “Ascension,” “Commodity City”
Mehret Mandefro – “How It Feels to Be Free ,” “Little White Lie”
Mary Manhardt – “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl),”
“Racing Dreams”
Amanda McBaine – “Boys State,” “The Overnighters”
Peter Jay Miller – “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1,” “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport”
Elizabeth Mirzaei – “Three Songs for Benazir,” “Laila at the Bridge”
Gulistan Mirzaei – “Three Songs for Benazir,” “Laila at the Bridge”
Bob Moore – “Dope Is Death,” “China Heavyweight”
Omar Mullick – “Footprint,” “These Birds Walk”
Mohammed Ali Naqvi – “Insha’Allah Democracy,” “Among the Believers”
Sierra Pettengill – “Riotsville, USA,” “The Reagan Show”
Ben Proudfoot – “The Queen of Basketball,” “A Concerto Is a Conversation”
Jonas Poher Rasmussen* – “Flee,” “Searching for Bill”
Gabriel Rhodes – “The First Wave,” “Time”
Lynne Sachs – “Film about a Father Who,” “Investigation of a Flame”
Brett Story – “The Hottest August,” “The Prison in Twelve Landscapes”
Thorsten Thielow – “The First Wave,” “Mayor Pete”
Rintu Thomas – “Writing with Fire,” “Dilli”
Nathan Truesdell – “Ascension,” “Balloonfest”
Jenni Wolfson – “Pray Away,” “One Child Nation”
Jialing Zhang – “In the Same Breath,” “One Child Nation”

Executives 
Steve Asbell
Carole Baraton
Steven Bardwil
Jeff Blackburn
Liesl Copland
Kareem Daniel
Eva Diederix
Scott Foundas
Brenda Gilbert
Joshua Barnett Grode
Gene Yoonbum Kang
Jenny Marchick
Ori Joseph Marmur
Anna Marsh
Katherine Oliver
Joel Pearlman
Elizabeth Polk
Louie Provost
Amber Rasberry
Brian Robbins
Marc Schaberg
Ron Schwartz
Aditya Sood
Frederick Tsui
Dana Walden
Clifford Werber

Film Editors
Geraud Brisson – “CODA,” “Dark Hearts”
Olivier Bugge Coutté – “The Worst Person in the World,” “Thelma”
Shannon Baker Davis – “The Obituary of Tunde Johnson,” “The Photograph”
Billy Fox – “Dolemite Is My Name,” “Hustle & Flow”
Myron Kerstein – “tick, tick…BOOM!,” “Crazy Rich Asians”
Jeremy Milton – “Encanto,” “Zootopia”
Úna Ní Dhonghaíle – “Belfast,” “Stan & Ollie”
Heike Parplies – “Invisible Life,” “Toni Erdmann”
Joshua L. Pearson – “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” “What Happened, Miss Simone?”
Peter Sciberras – “The Power of the Dog,” “The King”
Aljernon Tunsil – “Attica,” “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution”
Azusa Yamazaki – “Drive My Car,” “Asako I & II”

Makeup Artists and Hairstylists
Jacenda Burkett – “King Richard,” “Concussion”
Nana Fischer – “Encounter,” “The Lost City of Z”
Sean Flanigan – “The Many Saints of Newark,” “The Irishman”
Massimo Gattabrusi – “Loving Pablo,” “Volver”
Stephanie Ingram – “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” “It”
Anna Carin Lock – “House of Gucci,” “Borg/McEnroe”
Heike Merker – “The Matrix Resurrections,” “Anonymous”
Stacey Morris – “Coming 2 America,” “Dolemite Is My Name”
Justin Raleigh – “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” “Army of the Dead”
Kerrie Smith – “Motherless Brooklyn,” “John Wick”
Nadia Stacey – “Cruella,” “The Favourite”
Julia Vernon – “Cruella,” “Maleficent”
Wakana Yoshihara – “Belfast,” “Spencer”

Marketing and Public Relations
Dana Archer
Debra Birnbaum
Tatiana Detlofson
Bethan Anna Dixon
Britta Gampper
Jane Gibbs
Sheri Goldberg
Jonathan Helfgot
Jessica Kolstad
Cortney Lawson
Vivek Mathur
George Nicholis
Stephanie Sarah Northen
Jodie Magid Oriol
Gina Pence
Stephanie Dee Phillips
Chrissy Quesada
Stuart Robertson
Jerry Rojas
Evelyn Santana
Sohini Sengupta
Michelle Slavich
James Verdesoto
Katrina Wan
Glen Erin Wyatt

Music
Billie Eilish Baird O’Connell – “No Time to Die”
Amie Doherty – “Spirit Untamed,” “The High Note”
Lili Haydn – “Strip Down, Rise Up,” “Broken Kingdom”
Leo Heiblum – “Maria Full of Grace,” “Frida”
Natalie Holt – “Fever Dream,” “Journey’s End”
Nathan Johnson – “Nightmare Alley,” “Knives Out”
Jacobo Lieberman – “Maria Full of Grace,” “Frida”
Ariel Rose Marx – “Shiva Baby,” “Rebel Hearts”
Hesham Nazih – “The Guest,” “Born a King”
Finneas O’Connell – “No Time to Die”
Dan Romer – “Luca,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Nerida Tyson-Chew – “H Is for Happiness,” “Anacondas: The Hunt for the
Blood Orchid”

Producers
Mariela Besuievsky – “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” “The Secret in
Their Eyes”
Cale Boyter – “Dune,” “Pacific Rim Uprising”
Chad Burris – “Collisions,” “Drunktown’s Finest”
Damon D’Oliveira – “The Grizzlies,” “Love Come Down”
Luc Déry – “Gabrielle,” “Monsieur Lazhar”
Michael Downey – “Elvis Walks Home,” “Light Thereafter”
Yaël Fogiel – “Memoir of War,” “Latest News of the Cosmos”
Cristina Gallego – “Birds of Passage,” “Embrace of the Serpent”
Laetitia Gonzales – “Plot 35,” “Tournée”
Pauline Gygax – “With the Wind,” “My Life as a Zucchini”
Margot Hand – “Passing,” “Brittany Runs a Marathon”
Jojo Hui – “Better Days,” “Dearest”
Eva Jakobsen – “Miss Viborg,” “Godless”
Lucas Joaquin – “Mayday,” “Love Is Strange”
Lizette Jonjic – “12 Dares,” “Guerrilla”
Thanassis Karathanos – “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” “Tulpan”
Kim McCraw – “Drunken Birds,” “Incendies”
Sev Ohanian – “Run,” “Searching”
Christina Piovesan – “The Nest,” “Amreeka”
Natalie Qasabian – “Run,” “All about Nina”
Philippe Rousselet – “CODA,” “Source Code”
Sara Silveira – “Good Manners,” “Vazante”
James Stark – “Prayers for the Stolen,” “Mystery Train”
Riccardo Tozzi – “La Nostra Vita,” “Don’t Move”
Shih-Ching Tsou – “Red Rocket,” “The Florida Project”
Nadia Turincev – “The Insult,” The Boss’s Daughter”
Tim White – “King Richard,” “Ingrid Goes West”
Trevor White – “King Richard,” “LBJ”
Teruhisa Yamamoto – “Drive My Car,” “Wife of a Spy”
Olena Yershova – “Brighton 4th,” “Volcano”

Production Design
François Audouy – “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” “Ford v Ferrari”
Laura Ballinger Gardner – “The Irishman,” “Joker”
Chris Baugh – “Steve Jobs,” “Argo”
Ellen Brill – “Being the Ricardos,” “Bombshell”
Joanna Bush – “La La Land,” “Life of Pi”
Christina Cecili – “Cyrano,” “A Quiet Place”
John Coven – “The Lion King,” “Logan”
Carol Flaisher – “Wonder Woman 1984,” “Miss Sloane”
Sandy Hamilton – “tick, tick…BOOM!,” “Joker”
Ellen Lampl – “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Jurassic World”
Enrico Latella – “Tenet,” “All the Money in the World”
Steven Lawrence – “Death on the Nile,” “Cinderella”
Melissa Levander – “The Tender Bar,” “The High Note”
Drew Petrotta – “The Suicide Squad,” “Captain Marvel”
Jean-Vincent Puzos – “Jungle Cruise,” “Amour”
Maya Shimoguchi – “Ford v Ferrari,” “Men in Black 3”

Short Films and Feature Animation
Murad Abu Eisheh – “Tala’vision,” “Ta Hariri”
Olivier Adam – “Sing 2,” “Minions”
Michael Arias – “Harmony,” “Tekkonkinkreet”
Evren Boisjoli – “Fauve,” “What Remains”
Maria Brendle – “Ala Kachuu – Take and Run,” “The Stowaway”
Sean Buckelew – “Drone,” “Hopkins & Delaney LLP”
Olivier Calvert – “Bad Seeds,” “Animal Behaviour”
Enrico Casarosa – “Luca,” “La Luna”
Karla Castañeda – “La Noria (The Waterwheel),” “Jacinta”
Hugo Covarrubias – “Bestia,” “The Night Upside Down”
K.D. Dávila – “Please Hold,” “Emergency”
Charlotte De La Gournerie – “Flee,” “Terra Incognita”
Luc Desmarchelier – “The Bad Guys,” “Open Season”
Anton Dyakov – “Boxballet,” “Vivat Musketeers!”
Brian Falconer – “Saul & I,” “Boogaloo and Graham”
Youssef Joe Haidar – “Scoob!,” “Animated American”
Andy Harkness – “Vivo,” “Get a Horse!”
Pierre Hébert – “Thunder River,” “Memories of War”
Aneil Karia – “The Long Goodbye,” “Work”
Brooke Keesling – “Meatclown,” “Boobie Girl”
Nadine Lüchinger – “Ala Kachuu – Take and Run,” “Puppenspiel (Puppet
Play)”
Tadeusz Łysiak – “The Dress,” “Techno”
Joe Mateo – “Blush,” “Big Hero 6”
Sharon Maymon – “Skin,” “Summer Vacation”
Kathleen McInnis – “Mama,” “Downturn”
Yvett Merino – “Encanto,” “Wreck-It Ralph”
Alberto Mielgo – “The Windshield Wiper,” “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-
Verse”
Les Mills – “Affairs of the Art,” “The Canterbury Tales”
Jetzabel Moreno Hernández – “The Followers,” “Plums and Green Smoke”
Dan Ojari – “Robin Robin,” “Slow Derek”
Brian Pimental – “Tarzan,” “A Goofy Movie”
Mikey Please – “Robin Robin,” “The Eagleman Stag”
Erin Ramos – “Encanto,” “Frozen II”
Mike Rianda – “The Mitchells vs. the Machines”
Doug Roland – “Feeling Through,” “A Better Way”
Leo Sanchez – “The Windshield Wiper,” “Over the Moon”
Marc J. Scott – “The Boss Baby: Family Business,” “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”
Sarah Smith – “Ron’s Gone Wrong,” “Arthur Christmas”
Daniel Šuljić – “From Under Which Rock Did They Crawl Out,” “The Cake”
Conrad Vernon – “The Addams Family,” “Shrek 2”
Pamela Ziegenhagen-Shefland – “Abominable,” “The Emperor’s New Groove”

Sound
Douglas Axtell – “True Grit,” “I Am Sam”
Nerio Barberis – “Violeta al Fin,” “Find a Boyfriend for My Wife…Please!”
Amanda Beggs – “The Forever Purge,” “Finding ’Ohana”
Adrian Bell – “Mothering Sunday,” “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”
Joshua Berger – “King Richard,” “The Lost City of Z”
Paul (Salty) Brincat – “The Invisible Man,” “The Thin Red Line”
Tom Yong-Jae Burns – “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “Blade Runner
2049”
Benjamin A. Burtt – “Dolittle,” “Black Panther”
Simon Chase – “Belfast,” “Artemis Fowl”
Brian Chumney – “West Side Story,” “The Croods: A New Age”
Richard Flynn – “The Power of the Dog,” “Slow West”
Albert Gasser – “Straight Outta Compton,” “Dances With Wolves”
Lewis Goldstein – “In the Heights,” “Hereditary”
Theo Green – “Dune,” “Blade Runner 2049”
James Harrison – “No Time to Die,” “Captain Phillips”
John Hayes – “The King’s Man,” “Tom and Jerry”
Ruth Hernandez – “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” “Brooklyn’s Finest”
Huang Zheng – “Better Days,” “Chongqing Hot Pot”
Thomas Huhn – “The Wife,” “White God”
David Husby – “Tomorrowland,” “Elf”
Allison Jackson – “Don’t Think Twice,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Paul Ledford – “One Night in Miami,” “Logan”
Leff Lefferts – “Vivo,” “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”
Nancy MacLeod – “The Revenant,” “The Hunger Games”
Charles Maynes – “After Earth,” “Letters from Iwo Jima”
Alan Meyerson – “Dune,” “Inception”
Casey Stone – “Frozen,” “Tsotsi”
Edward Tise – “Into the Wild,” “Full Metal Jacket”
Jana Vance – “Cast Away,” “Saving Private Ryan”
Tara Webb – “The Power of the Dog,” “Mortal Kombat”
Waldir Xavier – “From Afar,” “Central Station”
Denise Yarde – “Belfast,” “Dumbo”

Visual Effects
Ivy Agregan – “India Sweets and Spices,” “Wakefield”
Geeta Basantani – “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Vivo”
Aharon Bourland – “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” “Venom”
Ivan Busquets – “Malignant,” “The Irishman”
Joe Ceballos – “Skyscraper,” “Thor: Ragnarok”
Richard Anthony Clegg – “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms,” “Blade
Runner 2049”
Mark Curtis – “Sully,” “Spectre”
Markus Degen – “The King’s Man,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”
Jack Edjourian – “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Tenet”
Eric Enderton – “Shark Tale,” “Jurassic Park”
Marcos Fajardo Orellana – “Thor,” “Monster House”
Joel Green – “No Time to Die,” “The Kid Who Would Be King”
Earl Hibbert – “The Fate of the Furious,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”
Hayley Hubbard – “The Old Guard,” “Dumbo”
Maia Kayser – “Rango,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”
Garrett Lam – “Limbo,” “Shock Wave 2”
Jake Maymudes – “Dune,” “Terminator: Dark Fate”
Catherine Ann Mullan – “Dumbo,” “Maleficent”
Charlie Noble – “No Time to Die,” “Wonder Woman 1984”
J. Alan Scott – “Finch,” “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”
Tefft Smith – “Alice through the Looking Glass,” “Tomorrowland”
Alan Travis – “Black Widow,” “The Irishman”
Michael Van Eps – “Deepwater Horizon,” “Poseidon”
Sean Noel Walker – “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” “Black
Widow”
Vernon Wilbert – “Stealth,” “I, Robot”
Eric Jay Wong – “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Lucy”
Kevin Wooley – “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” “Jurassic World”
Wei Zheng – “Mank,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Writers
Zach Baylin – “King Richard”
Henry Bean – “The Believer,” “Deep Cover”
Pawo Choyning Dorji* – “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”
Michael Grais – “Cool World,” “Poltergeist”
Ted Griffin – “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Ravenous”
Ryusuke Hamaguchi* – “Drive My Car,” “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”
Jeremy O Harris – “Zola”
Sian Harries Heder* – “CODA,” “Tallulah”
Mike Jones – “Luca,” “Soul”
Reema Kagti – “Gully Boy,” “Gold”
Adele Lim – “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Crazy Rich Asians”
Craig Mazin – “Identity Thief,” “The Hangover Part II”
Margaret Nagle – “With/In,” “The Good Lie”
Takamasa Oe – “Drive My Car,” “Beautiful Method”
Alex Ross Perry – “Her Smell,” “Listen Up Philip”
Adam Rifkin – “Giuseppe Makes a Movie,” “Small Soldiers”
Jordan Roberts – “Big Hero 6,” “3, 2, 1…Frankie Go Boom”
Katie Silberman – “Booksmart,” “Isn’t It Romantic”
Randi Mayem Singer – “Tooth Fairy,” “Mrs. Doubtfire”
Jon Spaihts – “Dune,” “Doctor Strange”
Małgorzata Szumowska – “Never Gonna Snow Again,” “Elles”
Mark A. Victor – “Cool World,” “Poltergeist”

Members-at-Large
Keith Adams
Josiah Akinyele
Richard Berger
Andrew Birch
Andrew Cannava
George Drakoulias
Andrew Dunlap
Erin Dusseault
James Farrell
Valerie Flueger Veras
Andy Fowler
Glenn Kiser
Anne Lai
Susan Lazarus
Joe Machota
Leonard Maltin
Deborah McIntosh
Julia Michels
Daniel Rabinow
Ilda Santiago
Danie Streisand
Matt Sullivan
Anne Lajla Utsi
Matt Vioral
Michael Zink

QUEENS ON SCREEN: Entre Nos + Swerve / Museum of the Moving Image


QUEENS ON SCREEN: Entre Nos + Swerve
Museum of the Moving Image
June 28, 2022
Screenings on July 15 & 17, 2022
https://movingimage.us/series/queens-on-screen/
https://movingimage.us/event/entre-nos-swerve/2022-07-15/

QUEENS ON SCREEN

Ongoing

Originally launched under the stars in 2020 at the celebrated Queens Drive-In at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, MoMI’s Queens on Screen series comes home to the Redstone Theater for a monthly program spotlighting films set or filmed in our home borough of Queens, New York. From early silent films shot at Astoria’s legendary Paramount studios, whose history is entwined with this very Museum; to productions shot at various local studios that have proliferated in recent years; to films shot on the iconic streets, parks, waterways, airports, apartments, and storefronts of the borough—sometimes with Queens playing itself, sometimes disguised—to the Queens of the imagination, the borough is represented at a fanciful or dystopic slant in ways that only cinema is capable of. The series will also showcase films made by Queens-born and Queens-based artists, representing a diversity of form, subject, genre, maker, and era, all illustrating, exploring, and exemplifying the most diverse community in the world. 


Entre Nos + Swerve

Friday, Jul 15 at 7:15 PM
Sunday, Jul 17 at 1:30 PM
Location: Bartos Screening Room

Part of Queens on Screen

July 15: With filmmakers Paolo Javier and Lynne Sachs in person 

Dir. Paola Mendoza and Gloria La Morte. 2009, 81 mins. In Spanish with English subtitles. With Paola Mendoza, Sebastian Villada, Laura Montana Cortez, Anthony Chisholm. Newly arrived in New York City and deserted by her husband, Mariana (Mendoza) must find a way to financially and emotionally provide for her family in a strange city where she barely speaks the language. Directed by and starring the extraordinary Mendoza, Entre Nos is a tale of love, family, and a woman’s defiant pursuit of stability, set and filmed in Queens and featuring remarkable visual texture by Academy Award–nominated cinematographer Bradford Young (Arrival).

Preceded by: Swerve

Dir. Lynne Sachs. 2022, 7 mins. With performances by Emmy Catedral, Ray Ferriera, Jeff Preiss, Inney Prakash, and Juliana Sass. Five New York City performers search for a meal at a market in Queens, New York, while speaking in verse. Inspired by Paolo Javier’s Original Brown Boy poems, Swerve becomes an ars poetica/cinematica, a meditation on writing and making images in the liminal space between a global pandemic and what might come next.

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / Free or discounted ($11) for MoMI members. Order online. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.


Eric Hynes (Curator of Film), Lynne Sachs, Paolo Javier, Emmy Catedral, Inney Prekash at Screening of Swerve at the Museum of the Moving Image.   

Photo by Camila Galaz
Paolo Javier, Emmy Catedral, Lynne Sachs, Inney Prekash

Interview with filmmaker Lynne Sachs: experimental explorer of reality / La Nación


Interview with filmmaker Lynne Sachs, experimental explorer of reality
La Nación
By Jorge Arturo Mora
Translated by Marichi C. Scharron
June 25, 2022
https://www.nacion.com/viva/cine/entrevista-con-la-cineasta-lynne-sachs-exploradora/I2B53KS5MZCGVKYTHLI6ZMDNYI/story/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1656169505

While visiting CRFIC2022, the American director spoke with “La Nación” about what it meant to film her family for 30 years, the contradictions of the term “non-fiction,” and her fascination with Julio Cortázar.

Rather than the feeling of being inside a dream, Lynne Sachs’ cinematographic work feels like sneaking into another person’s memory; making yourself small and tiptoeing into a room where a cassette is playing memories of days gone by, of a past times that only years later consecrate themselves into golden postcards.

Her last film, Film about a Father Who, condenses the emotions of Sachs’ own family, whom she filmed for close to 30 years. While the recording of this project never ceased, she produced many other films during this period (her prolific career includes more than 30 films). Among them, a sentimental piece titled Con el pelo en el viento (Wind in Our Hair), in which she explores the transition to adulthood, inspired in Julio Cortázar short stories.

“To me, everything is about exploring and challenging reality,” says the filmmaker, smiling and charismatic, on the third floor of the Centro de Cine in Costa Rica, while one of her films is being projected below. On this premise, the Memphis-born director conversed with “La Nación” about how these two films have marked her life.

What are your thoughts about the films selected for your retrospective at CRFIC?

Honestly, I feel honored that my films are alongside Memoria, Drive My Car… films that make me feel like I’m on a film adventure. I feel grateful on so many levels to the Costa Rican community for giving me this space. I think the film selection speaks to my interest in looking at reality’s textures.

About your latest film, Film about a Father Who, what was your primary interest?

It took me 30 years to make this film, so even if I could tell you what my first interest was when I started, it definitely changed and evolved. Let me tell you that this film is a testimony to the belief that certain projects should not be made in a hurry, they should be gestated like a baby, but making a film is more difficult than gestating a baby (laughs). I have two daughters (laughs) but with a film you have to decide when it’s ready. Regarding this film, I wanted to do it because I was intrigued by my father and I loved that, at that moment, he was such an iconoclast; a classic rule breaking person, who always created his own cosmos, but at the same time had to deal with a lot of changes in our lives at that time, and the film could give me that perspective.

I wanted to explore what it was like to be his daughter and always having that door open for him. I couldn’t finish the film because I didn’t know how to put all those things together. I felt I was ready to film his life but not to confront all the footage afterwards. I made a lot of movies while shooting this one, but this film was always breathing down my neck.

When did you feel it was the moment to stop?

A couple years before I stopped filming, I realized that I wasn’t making a film about a father and daughter; it’s a film about a family that makes you ask what is the soul of a family. What connects a family? Blood? What happens when suddenly someone who seems like a “stranger” to that family arrives? How do you deal with that? So I needed to listen to the rest of my siblings to know and decide when the appropriate moment would be.

And to not only understand my father but also my siblings and their experiences. My brother is gay, and there is a scene in the film where you can see how alienated he is feeling. The rest of my siblings have had other lives that also give a lot to think about.

The people that I know that have seen your film loved it. Where do you think resides the emotional component that achieves that?

Oh, thank you so much. I am moved to hear you say that because my family thought that I was doing this for myself and not for them. They saw that I only talked about the movie and how I did things in order to have more profound conversations, and at the end of the day the film was a ticket to having these moments that I think all families want to have. Even my mom said: “Will anyone be interested in this movie?” (laughs) and well, I told her that most of us think our families are abnormal, that they’re weird. That we want to be like other families because sometimes we feel ashamed of our own. But this is natural and the film allows us to feel vulnerable about everything that being part of a family entails. There is a catharsis there.

In the end, how did you find the courage to confront all that footage?

It was very difficult. My initial fear was seeing how old I had become (laughs), but I leaned on an ex-student of mine who worked with me as an assistant. She helped me confront all that footage in the studio. We wanted to open those boxes containing 30 year’s worth of material and decide what to do with it, if we were going to digitize it or what other possibilities there were. She gave me the courage to watch it all.

In one of the workshops I gave here in San José, I told them how she helped me understand that I did not have to explain my family tree, because the story is not about who is who but about emotions. This helped so much: to determine that this is about emotions.

What is the most exciting thing about filming nonfiction?

For me, the term “nonfiction” is complicated because I like to think about how we see the world beyond a label. Fiction and nonfiction are terms that make the world seem binary, when it isn’t. I know I don’t do fiction but I prefer to say I work with reality, that I confront reality because I give myself the opportunity to play with the people that appear in front of the camera. I like to explore the real world, but I don’t try to explain it. For me, if a film is successful, it is because the public questions things about the world that they had not questioned before.

Let’s now see this from another perspective. In your film Con el pelo en el viento (Wind in Our Hair) you introduce yourself to fiction. What brought you to make that film?

Oh, in that one reality is out of focus. In 2007 there was a retrospective in Argentina and I wanted to go back and make a film there because I met so many talented people. I have two daughters and wanted to find more girls to make this story about growing up. We knew we wanted to reinterpret some of Julio Cortázar’s short stories, so we chose the story El fin del juego (The end of the game) which refers precisely to that end of childhood and what comes after with your body, with your sexuality and with your mind. I wanted to portray it, thinking about my daughters and all the social changes that they might face. In fact, I find it curious to watch this film now, because the girls in the film are already 25 years old. It’s very sweet to see the passage of time like this. The magnificent thing about making films is feeling connected to different communities.

It’s a very powerful story. Since we are talking about this, what do you think about Julio Cortázar?

Well, I love him (laughs). I love how perceptive he is and playful with language. Of course, there is the tremendous experiment that he did with Rayuela (Hopscotch), a book that is very liberating and has definitely inspired my filmmaking. But I’m even more fascinated by his short stories, even though they seem more traditional. For this film, I tried to portray that sensitivity of seeing girls confronting a period of their life and wanting to deal with it.

I love the short story Casa Tomada (House Taken Over), a two-page text. In fact, the first part of the film was inspired by that story, with that almost Cold War fear of feeling being watched. I am thinking that now it feels so current with the Alexas that live in our homes and listen to everything we say. Cortázar, without a doubt, was a visionary because the girls actually feel that the walls are listening, a very contemporary feeling.

Maybe a Costa Rican book could inspire your next film…

I would love to! I’ve been given an anthology that I am very excited to start reading and I definitely would like to learn more. I love to explore traditions that can inspire my work.

At this moment in your life, what is your main interest around making movies?

It has a lot to do with my next film, Every Contact Leaves a Trace (Cada contacto deja un rastro). It is a feature film that is about expressing, using forensics theory, how there is a footprint in everything we do, like criminals who are chased using their traces. My film does not have anything to do with crime but with how people whom we meet leave us with a perception for the rest of our lives. Over many years, I’ve collected thousands of contact cards. Most of their owners I never see again, but they leave their fingerprints on those cards. It’s as if their trail follows me forever.

It is an allegory for how I can reconnect and reflect on what people leave to me after a lifetime. It is not the same as a family relationship – their memories may stay with you for longer – but about people you meet in stores, your first psychologist, a journalist, like you… It’s a reflection that I’m very excited to explore.

REVIEW: SWERVE (SHORT FILM, 2022) / Movie-Blogger.com

REVIEW: SWERVE (SHORT FILM, 2022)
Movie-Blogger.com
By Paul Emmanuel Enicola
June 24, 2022
https://www.movie-blogger.com/review-swerve-short-film-2022/

Experimental filmmaker Lynne Sachs’ latest outing, “Swerve,” begins with a shot of a street in Queens, followed shortly by a voiceover spoken in Tagalog. As the next shot features the famed Hong Kong Food Court in Elmhurst, the voiceover continues.

“‘Mi Ultimo Adios‘, ayon kay Original Brown Boy” (“‘Mi Ultimo Adios’, according to the Original Brown Boy”).

This nod to one of the most famous poems written by Philippine national hero Jose Rizal before his death makes sense. Rizal was, after all, lamenting the need for his countrymen to learn from the past to see how to move forward. And Sachs’ source for this film, Philippine-born poet Paolo Javier, yearns for those same tenets.

Based on the words by Javier from his book “OBB” (acronym for ‘Original Brown Boy’); “Swerve” sees filmmaker Lynne Sachs on a regular Tuesday directing this 7-minute short. Equal parts experimental, incisive, and introspective; the film works as a quick examination of one’s identity—and how it stacks up to their endless dreams.

In 2015, The New Yorker featured a profile on Paolo Javier, who served as poet laureate of Queens from 2010 to 2014. It, however, prefaced the profile with an interesting piece of information: More languages are spoken in Queens than in any place of comparable size on earth.

This explains “Swerve’s” unconventional structure. Then again, With Sachs behind the camera, this should surprise no one. What’s interesting to note is the filmmaker’s reaction upon reading Javier’s book for the first time. Sachs had stated that she began hearing the lines in her head; some of the verses, she said, played out with people walking through a food court full of distinct restaurant kiosks and stalls. And to support The New Yorker’s observation, the Hong Kong Food Court in Elmhurst has long served as a gathering spot for immigrant and working class people from the neighborhood.

Javier, for his part, knew that poetry is an artistic expression to be shared as a gift. He himself believed that being a poet laureate does not involve any monetary compensation at all; on the contrary, it’s a privilege for one to be able impart poetry to others.

Sachs manages to translate Javier’s attempt to deconstruct the modern Filipinx identity; and through the latter’s words, the expressions of passion, ambition, and the search for identity overflow.

In a world—all the more compounded by the global pandemic—where people still repress their self-expression for fear of ridicule, “Swerve” gets its message across loud and clear. As it nears its end, the film exhorts the audience: “Give. Love. Want. Fight.”

“Adore your endless monologue.”

If that call to action isn’t enough encouragement, then I don’t know what is.

Directed by Lynne Sachs, “Swerve” will have its world premiere on June 26th at BAMcinemaFest.

Lynne Sachs reads EDEN by Robert Frede Kenter / Rare Swan Press

Lynne Sachs reads EDEN by Robert Frede Kenter
Rare Swan Press
By Lynne Sachs
June 24, 2022
https://rareswanpress.com/2022/06/24/lynne-sachs-reads-eden-by-robert-frede-kenter/

A REVIEW by Lynne Sachs

While Eden may at first appear as an image book, to be devoured with the eyes with the freedom of a journey without plan, engaging with the book in this way will cause you to miss its immersive, linear construction of meaning.  The pages of images with occasional text are not numbered per se, but this is a book that, like a film, moves forward in time. I started with Kenter’s introductory text, one that claims that the art within the book was found, like flora in “wetlands or between clover and lace umbrellas discarded”.  The ambiguity of a made object and a found object had begun.  We will be asked to parse a “ventriloquism of dots” in the next few pages, words that become images and images that morph into words.  Next, I discovered a series of overlaid, Cubist-esque faces, confronting me directly and in profile. This multiplicity of perspectives accentuates a human countenance that speaks to me, even with closed lips. A ventriloquist for the author perhaps?  

Turn page to another face, this time in the darkness, like the moon’s face but in negative. Here, I am already wondering what we find in any face.  Aren’t they all the same, really? Soon, a two-page combination that reminds me that we are in what Kenter calls a “menagerie of planned and found” when I see collaged images of educational treatises and abstracted line drawings.  Detritus or culture? It matters not. Immediately after, nature reveals its own spontaneous culture, what appears to me as ephemeral prints in the snow are here documented, and that is enough. Next, we say goodbye to everything made, just observing the slightest crevice of light in the dark — suggested by white on black, black on white, the optics give us such liberty to see things as we want to see them.  

Each pairing in this book is critical.  Together they create suggestions of trompe l’oeil, make us play with what we think we should see and what we see at first glance. I relish these shifts in perception.  In a later image, a slit of light, like a key hole becomes explicitly a little angel, not because I saw this but because the words on the page told me. I am seeing with Kenter, transporting abstraction into a spirit. This is what art can do, and I am grateful for the guidance. 

Soon, I see a musically inspired page and another sense is sparked, I hear culture in my mind, I am aware of the work of writing notes and having them read by a person with an instrument. I am a musician without instruments, reading and reproducing soundless sounds.  What a journey I have taken, already. What is left in my hands are a series of word/ image engagements that stretch and expand upon the place of poetry in all frames of culture – signage, information tech, children’s tales.  If a book is a toy, here I hold “six toys” and I will continue to play with them when and if I wish.  Now they are mine. 


Starfish Aorta Colossus


Film by Lynne Sachs, Poem by Paolo Javier

Poetry watches film. Film reads poetry. Paolo Javier’s text is a catalyst for the digital sculpting of an 8mm Kodachrome canvas. Syntactical ruptures and the celebration of nouns illuminate twenty-five years of rediscovered film journeys.” 


Lynne Sachs.
Filmmaker & Poet

Lynne Sachs is an American experimental filmmaker and poet based in Brooklyn, New York. Strongly committed to a dialogue between cinematic theory and practice, she searches for a rigorous play between image and sound, pushing the visual and aural textures in each new project. Over the course of her career, Lynne has worked closely with fellow filmmakers Craig Baldwin, Bruce Conner, Barbara Hammer, Chris Marker, Gunvor Nelson, Carolee Schneemann, and Trinh T. Min-ha.

Lynne has produced over 40 films as well as numerous live performances, installations and web projects. She has tackled topics near and far, often addressing the challenge of translation — from one language to another or from spoken work to image. These tensions were investigated most explicitly between 1994 and 2006, when Lynne produced five essay films that took her to Vietnam, Bosnia, Israel/Palestine, Italy and Germany — sites affected by international war — where she looked at the space between a community’s collective memory and her own subjective perceptions.

Lynne is also deeply engaged with poetry. In 2019, Tender Buttons Press
published her first book “Year by Year Poems”.

Her film catalogue is represented in North America by Canyon Cinema and the Filmmaker’s Cooperative with selected features at Cinema Guild and Icarus Films. Her work is distributed internationally by Kino Rebelde.

Contact: info@lynnesachs.com
Instagram@lynnesachs1
Twitter@LynneSachs1
Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/lynne.sachs.3