When filmmaker Lynne Sachs turned fifty, she dedicated herself to writing a poem for every year of her life, so far. Each of the fifty poems investigates the relationship between a singular event in Sachs’ life and the swirl of events beyond her domestic universe.
In this Filmwax podcast discussion, we re-unite 4 of the 12 people from that unforgettable weekend a few summers back during the shooting for “Tip of My Tongue”, including myself, Accra Shepp, Andrea Kannapell and Lynne.
Let us begin with the statement “English is spoken here.” I’ve been thinking about what the implications of this pronouncement might be in terms of an anchoring of a singular language and the drowning of others.
My first viewing of Bruce Baillie’s Mass for the Dakota Sioux (1964) sent a shiver through my body and mind that ricochets to this very day.
Jonas Mekas died yesterday, but with this close to a full, feisty and mostly extraordinarily fun life, he leaves us all with so much. From an early age, Jonas came to understand that living the life of an artist to the very fullest meant that you were expected to create something that would last beyond your last breath. Before anyone was really using the word “community”, Jonas was building a formidable infrastructure that would be the very foundation for the survival of the personal cinema he loved so dearly.
BBC Talking Pictures host Tom Brooks interviews Barbara Hammer and Lynne Sachs on the work of Maya Deren.
I feel a closeness to writers, poets and painters, much more than to traditional film directors. For one thing, we ciné experimenters are not bound by the plot-driven mechanics of cause and effect that, for me, often bring the transcendent experience of watching a movie to a grinding halt.
Since 2008, the Experimental Lecture Series has presented veteran filmmakers who immerse themselves in the world of alternative, experimental film. Our intention is to lay bare an artist’s challenges rather than their successes, to examine the gnawing, ecstatic reality of the work of making art.
I was 23 years old when I attended my first Flaherty Seminar as a fellow in 1984.
I’d never taken a cinema studies class. I was just beginning to figure out how film could become the place to bring together my love for art and politics.
“Carolee, Barbara and Gunvor” creates a path that moves from the gesture of an initial encounter to an aesthetic manifestation — through the manipulation of images, textures and movements. In this way, the film presents a different kind of documentary, bringing to the forefront a human landscape that opens up through intimate contact between the director and three women pioneers in the history of experimental film.
