Category Archives: SECTIONS

Meet Our Guests 2022 / Centre Film Festival

Meet Our Guests 2022
Centre Film
October 31, 2022
https://centrefilm.org/meet-our-guests-2022/

MONDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2022

Arash Azizi | HOLY SPIDER — MON, OCT 31, 6:00PM
Arash Azizi is a writer living in New York City. He is the author of the book, The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran’s Global Ambitions (Oneworld, 2020.) His writings on cinema, politics and history have also appeared in numerous outlets including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He is a regular at film festivals around the world and has covered every Cannes film festival since 2016. He has also written and produced movies which can be found on his IMDB profile. Into Schrodinger’s Box, a film he co-write and co-produced, is available to watch on Fandor via Amazon.

Savita Iyer Ahrestani | Editor of the Penn Stater magazine — MON, OCT 31, 6:00PM
Savita Iyer Ahrestani is the senior editor of the Penn Stater magazine, Penn State University’s alumni magazine. Before joining the Penn Stater in 2017, she was a freelance journalist for 14 years, writing on a wide range of topics for magazines and websites including VOGUE India, Teen Vogue, Yahoo Life, SELF.com and Refinery 29’s U.K. edition. Born in Calcutta, India, Savita grew up in Geneva, Switzerland and has been living in State College for 10 years.

Elham Nasr | PSU post-doc, from Iran — MON, OCT 31, 6:00PM
Ellie Nasr has overcome lots of barriers to now be an international post-doctoral scholar at Pennsylvania State University. Before coming to the US, despite all limitations for women, she was an independent entrepreneur in Iran, focusing on environmental education and facilitating the relationship between nature and modern society. She has always been interested in empowering young girls through nature-related experiences to make them competent to release from restrictive stereotypes for women in traditional societies.

Maryam Shahri | Instructor & researcher, PSU Dept of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, from Iran — MON, OCT 31, 6:00PM
An instructor and researcher with Penn State’s department of agricultural and biological engineering specializing in public sustainable behavior and sustainable governance.

Nargess Kaviani | Endocrinologist with Geisinger, from Iran — MON, OCT 31, 6:00PM
My name is Nargess Kaviani. I am born and raised in lran, in a secular family. After graduating from medical school with honors, l moved to US to pursue my postgraduate trainings. I did my residency and fellowship training in NY state and after completing my fellowship moved back to State College with my family and started my new job as an endocrinologist in Geisinger.

I am the CEO and founder of a nonprofit organization called MDSPS, Medical Doctor Suicide Prevention Services. I love art, outdoors, hiking, cooking, socializing with friends and family, as well as reading and writing.

Storai Jalali | Editorial Assistant, PennStater Magazine, from Afghanistan — MON, OCT 31, 6:00PM
A women’s rights activist who was working as assistant director for FRDO organization in Kabul, Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover in August 2021, she is a BBA Graduate from RANA university in Kabul, In April 2022 moved to State College with her husband and 2 kids, now working as Editorial Assistant for Penn State university (PennStater Magazine).

Toyosi Olanrewaju | Registered Nurse, from Nigeria — MON, OCT 31, 6:00PM
As a Registered Nurse and experienced mental health professional with almost a decade of full-time work for the largest psychiatric hospital in Nigeria, Mrs. Olanrewaju also registered in 2019 to practice as a Mental Health Nurse in United Kingdom. She is currently United States Registered Nurse.

She started her education at the Oyo State College of Nursing and Midwifery, for her professional training in Nursing. Her passion for less privileged and underserved population motivated her to specialize in psychiatry/mental health nursing.

Thus, she chose to specialize in the field of psychiatry, and I proceeded to the School of Psychiatric Nursing, Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Aro-Abeokuta, Nigeria for her training in psychiatric/mental health nursing. Her quest for more knowledge also led her to University of Derby, United Kingdom where she earned a Bachelor of Nursing Sciences {BNSc} degree. She had several professional certificates, and she has attended conferences both at national and international level.

She is happily married with kids.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Byron Hurt | HAZING — TUE, NOV 1, 6:00PM
Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer, lecturer, activist, Emmy-nominated TV show host, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University. Hurt is also a short video content creator for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Forward Promise program.

James Vivenzio | HAZING — TUE, NOV 1, 6:00PM

Dr. Stevan Veldkamp | Penn State’s Timothy J. Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research and Reform — TUE, NOV 1, 6:00PM
Dr. Stevan Veldkamp leads Penn State’s Timothy J. Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research and Reform – where he sets and implements a national research agenda collaborating with scholars here and nationwide on studies to eradicate hazing and hazardous behaviors, strengthen leadership education, and monitor the state of Greek life. With a career spanning three decades, Dr. Veldkamp has directly advised students in all Greek life traditions and is a frequent campus and headquarters consultant. A first-generation college student, Steve is a two-time graduate of Grand Valley State University and holds a doctoral degree from Indiana University in Higher Education and Student Affairs.

Tierra Williams | Vice President, State College Chapter, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority — TUE, NOV 1, 6:00PM
Tierra D. Williams is a Mississippi Native hailing from Thee Jackson State University majoring in Speech Communication with a Theatre concentration. Tierra has always had a love for the arts, and throughout high school she participated in Speech & Debate, Poetry Out Loud, and acted in various plays. In college, she landed the lead role in the play RUINED by, Lynn Nottage, and was nominated to go to Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) in Roanoke, Virginia- where she placed as a semi-finalist. In March of 2022 she hosted the “Women’s Voices”, where she sang and danced as the MC. She is a Blacktivst and an Actorvist and is unapologetic about both, and uses her talent to address local and national issues. She moved to State College in 2018, where she got involved with plays written and directed by Charles Dumas. and poetry events led by Cynthia Mazzant or Elaine Medar-Wilgus. She also began her Vegan Bakery and sells  goods at Webster’s Bookstore & Cafe.  She received a grant from 3 Dots Downtown to start her own show “Black Tea” a community engagement show meant to spark dialogue around difficult conversations.  With Pablo Lopez, filmmaker and creator of Dark Mind Productions, Tierra’s dream became reality. She then began hosting events for National Black Poetry Night, Politic & Poetry, and other workshops. Tierra is determined to make a space for Black Art on every stage, “By any means necessary.” 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Bhawin Suchak | OUTTA THE MUCK — WED, NOV 2, 6:00PM
An educator, filmmaker, and founding member/co-executive director of Youth FX, a media arts organization focused on empowering young people of color in Albany, NY and around the world by teaching them creative and technical skills in film and digital media.

Fritz Bitsoie | THE TRAILS BEFORE US — WED, NOV 2, 6:00PM
Fritz Bitsoie is a Diné Director from Gallup, New Mexico and a graduate of the film program at the University of New Mexico. In his first short film, The Trails Before Us, Bitsoie aims to reclaim the Western film genre as a way to share contemporary stories about the Native American experience.

Lynne Sachs | SWERVE — WED, NOV 2, 6:00PM
Sachs is an experimental filmmaker and poet based in Brooklyn. 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.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Art Johnston and Pep Peña | ART AND PEP — THUR, NOV 3, 6:00PM
They are civil rights leaders whose life and love is a force behind LGBTQ+ equality in the heart of the country. Their iconic gay bar, Sidetrack, has helped fuel movements and create community for decades in Chicago. But, behind the business and their historic activism exists a love unlike any other.

Mercedes Kane | ART AND PEP — THUR, NOV 3, 6:00PM
Mercedes Kane is forever fascinated by the human experience and the many ways to explore and express that experience. She most recently directed WHAT REMAINS: THE BURNING DOWN OF BLACK WALL STREET (director, 2021) about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.

Martine N. Granby | NO SIREN LEFT BEHIND — THUR, NOV 3, 6:00PM
Martine N. Granby is a nonfiction filmmaker, producer, video journalist, and an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Connecticut. She has worked as a documentarian, producer, editor, video journalist, and educator.

Shirin Barghi | NO SIREN LEFT BEHIND — THUR, NOV 3, 6:00PM
Shirin Barghi is an Iranian journalist, audio producer and documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. She currently works as a Senior Producer for BRIC TV, where she covers issues of social justice, immigration, inequality and more.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2022

Mykyta Kozlov | KLONDIKE — FRI, NOV 4, 6:00PM
After graduating from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Mykyta Kozlov started to work in the cultural industries, from GogolFest Contemporary Art Festival to Molodist Kyiv IFF, Odesa IFF and Toronto IFF. Eventually, he shifted to the production side working as 1st Assistant Director in commercials, TV series and films. In 2021, he started his career as a producer mainly focusing on creative documentaries.

Yuliya V. Ladygina | Assistant Professor of Slavic and Global & International Studies PSU — FRI, NOV 4, 6:00PM
Yuliya V. Ladygina’s research in Eastern European literatures and cultures focuses on questions of cultural memory and cultural exchange. She is the author of Bridging East and West: Ol’ha Kobylians’ka, Ukraine’s Pioneering Modernist (2019), and she is currently working on her second book project, The Reel Story of the EuroMaidan and Russia’s War on Ukraine, which examines the post-2014 cycle of Ukrainian war films and their perspective on the hybrid nature of modern war and its mediatization. Before joining Penn State, Ladygina was a Research Fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian at Williams College, and a Teaching Assistant Professor of Russian and Humanities at The University of the South (Sewanee).

Ido Glass | DEAD SEA GUARDIANS — FRI, NOV 4, 8:00PM
Ido Glass is a graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem (1994).He has been creating, editing, writingscripts and working as a freelance director.He specializes in documentaries dealing with social, human and historical issues surrounding Israeli society.

Shaina Feinberg | MY MOM’S EGGPLANT SAUCE — FRI, NOV 4, 8:00PM
Shaina Feinberg is a filmmaker from New York City. She specializes in micro-budget filmmaking. Her first film, The Babymooners, blends documentary and narrative fiction and was picked up for distribution by Screen Media.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2022

Arno Michaelis | REFUGE — SAT, NOV 5, 1:30PM
Arno was a leader of a worldwide racist skinhead group and a lead singer of the hate-metal band Centurion, which is still popular with hate groups today. Single parenthood, love for his daughter, and the forgiveness shown by people he once hated all helped to turn Arno’s life around.

Mubin Shaikh | REFUGE — SAT, NOV 5, 1:30PM
Mubin Shaikh is a deradicalized former extremist turned undercover human source for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and police agent with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET – Toronto).

Tierra Williams | The 3/20 Coalition — SAT, NOV 5, 1:30PM
Tierra D. Williams is a Mississippi Native hailing from Thee Jackson State University majoring in Speech Communication with a Theatre concentration. Tierra has always had a love for the arts, and throughout high school she participated in Speech & Debate, Poetry Out Loud, and acted in various plays. In college, she landed the lead role in the play RUINED by, Lynn Nottage, and was nominated to go to Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) in Roanoke, Virginia- where she placed as a semi-finalist. In March of 2022 she hosted the “Women’s Voices”, where she sang and danced as the MC. She is a Blacktivst and an Actorvist and is unapologetic about both, and uses her talent to address local and national issues. She moved to State College in 2018, where she got involved with plays written and directed by Charles Dumas. and poetry events led by Cynthia Mazzant or Elaine Medar-Wilgus. She also began her Vegan Bakery and sells  goods at Webster’s Bookstore & Cafe.  She received a grant from 3 Dots Downtown to start her own show “Black Tea” a community engagement show meant to spark dialogue around difficult conversations.  With Pablo Lopez, filmmaker and creator of Dark Mind Productions, Tierra’s dream became reality. She then began hosting events for National Black Poetry Night, Politic & Poetry, and other workshops. Tierra is determined to make a space for Black Art on every stage, “By any means necessary.” 

Shaheen Pasha | assistant teaching professor of journalism, Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications — SAT, NOV 5, 3:30PM
Shaheen Pasha, an assistant teaching professor at Penn State, is a co-founder and co-executive of an initiative called the Prison Journalism Project. The non-profit organization gives a voice to people behind bars who want to learn and share their experiences from inside their cells.

Divine Lipscomb | State College Borough Council member — SAT, NOV 5, 3:30PM
“I am a native New Yorker. Born, bred, fed,” says Divine Lipscomb. Recalling his childhood in Brooklyn, he sees a kid “buried in trauma,” struggling with addiction, and who was a “prime candidate” for gang membership. By age 16, he had two felony arrests for armed robbery and was sentenced to four years in state prison — 15 months of which he spent in solitary confinement. Not surprisingly, reentry into society was difficult: “You come home the same age you were when you went in. So, mentally I was 16 when I came home — in a grown man’s body.”

After his release, despite setbacks and relapses, he found success as an entrepreneur. The self-sufficiency and freedom he felt inspired his vision for Corrective Gentlemen, Divine’s non-profit organization. Its mission is to provide support and mentoring for returned citizens, a term Divine prefers to “former inmate.” He also returned to school. At Penn State, Divine is a rehabilitation and human services major and works as the special projects coordinator for PSU’s Restorative Justice Initiative. In addition, he volunteers at the local drop-in shelter to support returning citizens and is active in organizations that allow his experience to lend a voice to the unheard. In 2020, his academic achievements and advocacy were honored: Divine was awarded PSU’s 2020 “Outstanding Adult Learners Award” and the Rock Ethics Institute’s 2020 “Stand Up Award”.

Today, Divine wears many hats: student, husband, father, advocate, entrepreneur, public speaker, board member, volunteer, teacher, executive director, and returned citizen. He has his eye on law school and hopes to one day sit in public office.

Keith Wasserman | DEAR ANI — SAT, NOV 5, 6:00PM
For twenty years Keith Wasserman has made and delivered elaborate art mail packages-all in the hopes of befriending his muse. Dear Ani explores what can happen when you present your truest self, and risk total failure. It is an intimate account of psychotic mania, personal mastery, and creative triumph.

Micah Levin | DEAR ANI — SAT, NOV 5, 6:00PM
In 2006, Micah founded the creative content studio, Movie Magic Media, where he and Keith have collaborated on dozens of short films, music videos and feature films. Together they made their Tribeca Film Festival debut in 2015 with the climate themed sci-fi short film, Grow.

Emily, Tom, and Kari Whitehead | OF MEDICINE AND MIRACLES — SAT, NOV 5, 6:00PM
Tom Whitehead, Kari Whitehead, and their daughter Emily are founders of the Emily Whitehead Foundation, which raises funds and awareness for pediatric cancer immunotherapy research.

Justin Zimmerman | SOLDIER, NOV 5, 8:00PM
Justin Zimmerman, MFA in Film, is a nationally recognized comic writer, director and professor. His narrative and documentary work has appeared in over 200 film festivals across the globe and has been broadcast on national public television, where he won two international television awards. He’s also been the recipient of multiple grants and fellowships, he contributed a story to the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel Love Is Love, and his script and comic creations have been optioned on multiple occasions. You can see more of Zimmerman’s personal work at his website: www.brickerdown.com.

Tierra Williams | Former US Army Reserver — SAT, NOV 5, 8:00PM
Tierra D. Williams is a Mississippi Native hailing from Thee Jackson State University majoring in Speech Communication with a Theatre concentration. Tierra has always had a love for the arts, and throughout high school she participated in Speech & Debate, Poetry Out Loud, and acted in various plays. In college, she landed the lead role in the play RUINED by, Lynn Nottage, and was nominated to go to Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) in Roanoke, Virginia- where she placed as a semi-finalist. In March of 2022 she hosted the “Women’s Voices”, where she sang and danced as the MC. She is a Blacktivst and an Actorvist and is unapologetic about both, and uses her talent to address local and national issues. She moved to State College in 2018, where she got involved with plays written and directed by Charles Dumas. and poetry events led by Cynthia Mazzant or Elaine Medar-Wilgus. She also began her Vegan Bakery and sells  goods at Webster’s Bookstore & Cafe.  She received a grant from 3 Dots Downtown to start her own show “Black Tea” a community engagement show meant to spark dialogue around difficult conversations.  With Pablo Lopez, filmmaker and creator of Dark Mind Productions, Tierra’s dream became reality. She then began hosting events for National Black Poetry Night, Politic & Poetry, and other workshops. Tierra is determined to make a space for Black Art on every stage, “By any means necessary.” 

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2022

Carleen Maur | TRACES — SUN, NOV 6, 11:00AM
Carleen Maur is an experimental filmmaker living and working in Columbia, SC where she teaches at the University of South Carolina. She received her MFA in Cinematic Arts from the University of Iowa in 2017. Her work focuses on hybrid methods of both film and video that examine the intersections between gender, sexuality and camouflage.

Matt Whitman | THAT WAS WHEN I THOUGHT I COULD HEAR YOU — SUN, NOV 6, 11:00AM
Matt Whitman (b. West Chester, PA) works with 16mm and Super8 motion picture film. His work has recently screened at the 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival, San Francisco Cinematheque’s CROSSROADS 2022, the 2022 Chicago Underground Film Festival, the 2022 Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, the 2022 Prismatic Ground Festival at Maysles Documentary Center, the 2022 Athens International Film and Video Festival, Fracto Experimental Film Encounter in Berlin, the Suspaustas Laikas traveling festival in cities across Lithuania, and at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York.

He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, currently films much of his work in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and has taught at Parsons School of Design since 2014.

Crystal Z Campbell | FLIGHT — SUN, NOV 6, 11:00AM
Crystal Z Campbell (they/them), a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts, is a multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and writer of Black,  Filipinx, and Chinese descents. Campbell finds complexity in public secrets—fragments of information known by many but undertold or unspoken. Campbell’s recent works use underloved archival material to consider historical gaps in the narrative of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, revisit questions of immortality and medical ethics with Henrietta Lacks’ “immortal” cell line, ponder the role of a political monument and displacement in a Swedish coastal landscape, and salvage a 35mm film from a demolished Black activist theater in Brooklyn as a relic of gentrification.

A featured filmmaker at the 67th Flaherty Film Seminar programmed by Almudena Escobar López and Sky Hopinka. Campbell’s films and art have screened and exhibited internationally: MIT List Visual Arts Center, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Center, The Drawing Center, Nest, ICA-Philadelphia, Museum of Modern Art, BLOCK Museum, REDCAT, Artissima, Studio Museum of Harlem, Bemis, Project Row Houses, SculptureCenter, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, amongst others.

Honors and awards include a 2022 Creative Capital Award, Harvard Radcliffe Film Study Center & David and Roberta Logie Fellowship, Pollock-Krasner Award, MAP Fund, MacDowell, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Skowhegan, Rijksakademie, Whitney ISP, Franklin Furnace, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and Black Spatial Relics.

Campbell’s writing is featured in two artist books  published by Visual Studies Workshop Press, World Literature Today, Monday Journal, GARAGE, and Hyperallergic. Founder of the virtual programming platform archiveacts.com, Campbell is currently a Visiting Associate Professor in Art and Media Study at the University at Buffalo. Campbell lives and works in New York & Oklahoma.

Berndt Mader | CHOP & STEELE — SUN, NOV 6, 1:00PM
Berndt Mader is an Emmy Award winning film, television and commercial director. He has directed the feature films, Booger Red (2016) and Five Time Champion (2011). In 2021 Mader co-directed a television series for Discovery+ based on his film, Booger Red. In 2022, the comedy documentary he co-directed, Chop & Steele, premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. He is a co-founder of the Austin based production company, The Bear. Xander Chauncey | THE MOLOK — SUN, NOV 6, 1:00PM
Chauncey’s career in the arts has spanned more than 20 years. He works as a writer, director, producer, actor, singer & dancer. No matter his role, Xander is a passionate storyteller and approaches the material from the inside out; connecting the emotional truth of the piece to his audience in every moment. Jorge

Antonio Guerrero | WE ARE LIVING THINGS — SUN, NOV 6, 3:00PM
Jorge Antonio Guerrero (born June 28 1993) is a Mexican actor. He is most noted for his performance as Fermín in the 2018 film Roma, for which he was an Ariel Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor at the 61st Ariel Awards in 2019.

He has also appeared in the television series Luis Miguel: The Series, Narcos: Mexico, Crime Diaries: The Candidate, Sitiados: México and Hernán, and in the film Drunken Birds (Les Oiseaux Ivres). He received a Vancouver Film Critics Circle nomination for Best Actor in a Canadian Film at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards 2021, and a Prix Iris nomination for Revelation of the Year at the 24th Quebec Cinema Awards in 2022, for Drunken Birds.

Andrew Li | WE ARE LIVING THINGS — SUN, NOV 6, 3:00PM
Andrew K. Li is a filmmaker based in New York. A graduate of the MFA Film Program from Columbia University, his student film was shortlisted for a BAFTA nomination and films he produced have screened at festivals around the world including official selection at Cannes, SXSW, Deauville and Toronto IFF. He and his work have received fellowships from Producers Guild of America, EAVE, and IFP. Currently, he’s in production on Pet Shop Boys and developing feature film projects.

Nic Natalicchio | WATCHING THE WILDS — SUN, NOV 6, 3:00PM
Professional filmmaker with over a decade of hands-on experience across multiple industries. He currently teaches in the Department of Cinema & Television at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. His debut short documentary film, The Tides That Bind, screened at over 25 festivals and won numerous awards.

Centre Film Festival – Pearl Gluck Director, Lynne, Fritz Bitsoie, Bhawan Sushak with host John Curley
State College, Pennsylvania

“They’ve got catfish on the table” / Keeping Up — Substack by Ashley Clark

“They’ve got catfish on the table”
Keeping Up
By Ashley Clark
October 29, 2022
https://ashleyclark.substack.com/p/theyve-got-catfish-on-the-table

They’ve got catfish on the table
They’ve got Ghostwatch in the air

Hello! Thank you for signing up to, or stumbling on, this no-news-newsletter written by me, Ashley Clark. If you do choose to subscribe—and it’s free—you’ll receive bulletins about whatever’s on my mind: usually some combination of art/film/music/literature/football. If that sounds good, hit the button!

This week’s quick rec is “Freedom Flight”, the closing track from the 1971 LP of the same name by the American musician Shuggie Otis. Otis, who is of African American, Filipino, and Greek descent, is probably best known for his song “Strawberry Letter 23” which, as recorded by The Brothers Johnson and produced by Quincy Jones, was a big chart hit in 1977, and later featured on the score for Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997).

Anyway, “Freedom Flight” is wonderful: a near 13 minute instrumental soundscape of pealing horns, chiming guitars, and delicate, melodic bass noodling (my favorite kind.) I must confess I have no idea whether the songs’s title is inspired by the real-life so-called Freedom Flights (Los vuelos de la libertad) that transported Cubans to Miami in large numbers between 1965 to 1973, but either way, it’s a monumentally transporting and relaxing piece of music, and I’ve been listening to it a lot.

I had a very nice time at last week’s Indie Memphis film festival, which was celebrating its 25th edition. Highlights of my visit included a screening of Benjamin Christensen’s berserk witchcraft horror/essay film/comedy Häxan (1922) featuring a live, theremin-fueled, and curiously (but somehow appropriately) smooth-jazzy score; the good vibes/sounds/eats of the Black Creators Forum brunch; and the privilege of serving on the Departures (experimental/avant-garde film) jury alongside two people I greatly admire: writer/scholar Yasmina Price; and critic/filmmaker Blair McClendon. We handed out three awards: short film to Maya at 24 by Lynne Sachs, mid-length film to Civic by Dwayne LeBlanc, and feature film to Cette Maison (This House) by Miryam Charles. We loved all three, and I would suggest keeping an eye out to catch any of them when and where you can.

If I’m being honest, though, my real high point of Indie Memphis was attending a rather unexpected late night screening of the television special Ghostwatch, a true oddity which was broadcast once on BBC1, on Halloween night of 1992… and never again.

Indie Memphis managing director Joseph Carr told me before the screening that he stumbled across Ghostwatch on streaming service Shudder a few years back, and was so shaken that he felt the need to share it with a wider audience. It also didn’t hurt that this year marked the thirtieth anniversary of its first and only broadcast. I’d read about the show in the past, and vaguely recall it airing at the time, but I hadn’t actually seen it until last week. I found it to be a staggeringly effective piece of television: intelligent, technically astonishing, and genuinely haunting. I’ve been turning it over in my mind since.

You can watch Ghostwatch here for free. It’s a tight 90 minutes, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Now, there’s a reason why I’ve been so absurdly vague about what Ghostwatch actually is, and that’s because I think this is one of those rare occasions where, even thirty years after the fact, a spoiler alert is justified, and coming to it completely cold—opening yourself up to the world it creates, and imagining that you had tuned into that initial broadcast moments after the BBC announcer had cued up the show with some context—could be beneficial to your viewing experience.

That said, there’s plenty of information about the backstory, intent and legacy of Ghostwatch freely available online, and you’re welcome to look it up if you’re someone who prefers to have a little bit of foreknowledge. I assume my British readers are likely to be much more familiar with the show and its milieu than my American and other international readers. After you’ve watched, you may wish to check out this entertaining and informative episode of the “Criminal” podcast about the show (thank you to artist Onyeka Igwe for flagging that one for me!) And it’s also out on Blu-ray soon, too.

If you do check out Ghostwatch, let me know what you think, and if you saw it at the time it was first broadcast, I’d love to know what the experience was like. Until next week!

Mark Alice Durant Presents “Maya Deren: Choreographed for Camera” with Lynne Sachs, David Levi Strauss, and Laura Valenza / McNally Jackson Books

Mark Alice Durant Presents Maya Deren: Choreographed for Camera with Lynne Sachs, David Levi Strauss, and Laura Valenza
McNally Jackson Books
October 28, 2022
https://www.mcnallyjackson.com/mark-alice-durant-presents-maya-deren

Mark Alice Durant Presents Maya Deren: Choreographed for Camera with Lynne Sachs, David Levi Strauss, and Laura Valenza

Thursday
November 10th
7pm

McNally Jackson Seaport

RSVP Required — see below

Drama and myth frame the life and death of Maya Deren. Born in Kiev in 1917, at the start of the Russian Revolution, she died forty-four years later in New York City. In her brief life, she established herself as a pioneering experimental filmmaker, prolific writer, accomplished photographer, and crusader for a personal and poetic cinema. With its dreamy circular narrative and enigmatic imagery, her first film, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), has inspired generations of artists, filmmakers, and poets. Deren collaborated with numerous mid-century cultural luminaries, including Katherine Dunham, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Anais Nin, and Gregory Bateson. In 1953, she published Divine Horsemen, a ground-breaking ethnographic study of Haitian religious culture. Although Deren completed only six short films in her lifetime, her impact on the history of cinema is immeasurable. She has become the patron saint of 20th century experimental film. The aura that suffuses Deren’s legend emanates from the power of her films, magnified by her bohemian glamour and visionary intelligence.

This is the first full biography of Deren. Based on years of research, interviews with some of Deren’s closest collaborators, and generously illustrated with film stills and photographs, author Mark Alice Durant creates a vivid and accessible narrative exploring the complexities and contradictions in the life and work of this remarkable and charismatic artist.

We recommend that guests wear masks on the night. 

​​Mark Alice Durant is an artist and writer living in Baltimore. He is author of Maya Deren, Choreographed for Camera, 27 Contexts: An Anecdotal History in Photography, and co-author of Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology, and the Paranormal. His essays have appeared in numerous journals such as Aperture, Art in America, Photograph Magazine, Dear Dave, and many catalogs, monographs, and anthologies including Rania Matar: She, Seeing Science: How Photography Reveals the Universe, and Vik Muniz Seeing is Believing. He teaches in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Maryland and is publisher / editor of Saint Lucy Books.

Lynne Sachs is a filmmaker and poet living in Brooklyn. Her work explores the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences. Lynne embraces hybrid forms in her essay films, experimental documentaries, and performances. With each project, she investigates the connection between the body, the camera, and the materiality of film itself. Recently, Tender Buttons Press published Lynne’s book Year by Year Poems.

David Levi Strauss is the author of Co-illusion: Dispatches from the End of Communication (MIT Press, 2020); Photography and Belief (David Zwirner Books, 2020, and in an Italian edition by Johan & Levi, 2021); Words Not Spent Today Buy Smaller Images Tomorrow (Aperture, 2014); In Case Something Different Happens in the Future: Joseph Beuys and 9/11 (Documenta 13, 2012); From Head to Hand: Art and the Manual (Oxford University Press, 2010), Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics, with an introduction by John Berger (Aperture, 2003, 2012 and in an Italian edition by Postmedia Books, 2007) and Between Dog & Wolf: Essays on Art and Politics (Autonomedia, 1999 and 2010). From 2007–21, Strauss directed the graduate program in Art Writing at the School of Visual Arts, New York, US.

Laura Valenza is a film editor at the Brooklyn Rail. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in or are forthcoming at Literary Hub, Los Angeles Review of Books, Gulf Coast, and Cream City Review.

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A Reality Between Words and Images: Films by Lynne Sachs / Screen Slate

A Reality Between Words and Images: Films by Lynne Sachs
Screen Slate
By Sarah Fensom
October 27, 2022
https://www.screenslate.com/articles/reality-between-words-and-images-films-lynne-sachs

A Reality Between Words and Images: Films by Lynne Sachs

At the center of Lynne Sachs’s short film Task of the Translator (2010), a group of classics scholars are translating a contemporary New York Times article about Iraqi burial rituals into Latin. Sachs’s intimate camera probes the faces and scribbling hands of the instructor and her students as they wring the right words out of each other (cadaver for dead body, vestigia for footsteps, but aegritudo for grief? Maybe luctus instead.). Sachs uses sound poignantly—fading and layering the scholars’ suggestions, affirmations, and nervous laughter so that the exercise feels arduous and drawn out. As form changes, can meaning remain? It’s a question for translators and experimental filmmakers.

Task of the Translator is one of six films in “A Reality Between Words and Images: Films by Lynne Sachs,” a program screening at e-flux Screening Room. Though not explicitly about translation, a number of the other films in the program deal with how meaning is communicated and what can stand in the way of its conveyance. In The House of Science: A Museum of False Facts (1991), Sachs explores the representation of women in science and art through a collage of home movies, original narration, and found footage and audio. Detailing misconceptions, humiliations, private rituals, and even a bit of wry humor, the film showcases how the changing female body is willfully denied understanding in a patriarchal society.

Which Way Is East: Notebooks from Vietnam (1994) is a diaristic travel film that switches between the perspective of Sachs, a brief visitor to Vietnam, and that of her sister Dana, who has been in the country for a year. Sachs layers gorgeous footage she shot on a northward trek from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi with poetic narration and subtitled conversations with Vietnamese strangers and friends. Sachs initially tries to make sense of Vietnam through an understanding of the war. But as the film and her trip wears on, and Dana’s more nuanced observations take over the narration (including a moving anecdote about the region’s seasonal fruit cycle), Sachs develops a meaningful account of experiencing a place as it is.

In Carolee, Barbara & Gunvor (2018), Sachs visits a trio of filmmakers in their own spaces: Carolee Schneeman in her 18th-century farmhouse, Barbara Hammer in her New York studio, and Gunvor Nelson in her childhood village in Sweden. Through these brief portraits, Sachs communicates something essential about these artists (Hammer’s boundless energy, for instance) and how their personalities influence the language of their cameras.

In contrast to much of the other work in the program, Window Work (2000) feels purely experiential. Shot on video, a woman sits near her window, drinking tea, reading the paper, cleaning. Passages of time elapse in idleness without narration; instead the sounds of running water, a child playing, and a passing jet drone on. Two boxes dot the video image, hurling abstracted images onto the screen—taken from celluloid home movies. Though Window Work features two distinct film languages, it resists translating between them; it doesn’t attempt to parse out a mode of communication. Daylight beats on the window, and its glass becomes a mirror. In its iridescent reflection, the viewer understands solitude, reminiscence, the heat of the sun she’s felt before wherever she is.

“A Reality Between Words and Images: Films by Lynne Sachs” screens tonight, October 27, at e-flux Screening Room as part of the series “Revisiting Feminist Moving Image.” Filmmaker Lynne Sachs and her collaborators Kristine Leschper and Kim Wilberforce will be in attendance for a conversation.

Investigation of a Flame / Wikipedia

Investigation of a Flame
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigation_of_a_Flame

Investigation of a Flame
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Investigation of a Flame
Directed byLynne Sachs
CinematographyLynne Sachs
Benjamin P. Speth
Edited byLynne Sachs
Running time43 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Investigation of a Flame is a 2001 documentary by Lynne Sachs about the Catonsville Nine, nine Catholic activists who became known for their May 17, 1968 nonviolent act of civil disobedience in burning draft files to protest the Vietnam War.[1]

The 45 minute film includes interviews with six members of the pioneers from the 1968 expression, including Daniel and Philip Berrigan, John Hogan, Thomas Lewis, and married couple Marjorie and Tom Melville. The film also includes commentary by historian Howard Zinn.

Contents

Reviews

Francis X. Clines of The New York Times described the film as “a documentary about the protest events that made Catonsville, Maryland, an unpretentious suburb on the cusp of Baltimore, a flash point for citizens’ resistance at the height of the war. . . . Sachs found assorted characters still firm to fiery on the topic. She came to admire the consistency of the mutual antagonists in an argument that still rages (today).”[1] Michael O’Sullivan of The Washington Post wrote that Sachs “uses a mosaic technique and seemingly random shots of plants and houses to create a moody, subjective portrait of an era as much as a group of people.”[2] Molly Marsh of Sojourners magazine called the film “wonderfully intimate; Sachs brings the camera within inches of her subjects’ faces, capturing their thoughtful reminisces and personal regrets.[3] Fred Camper of the Chicago Reader called it a “poetic essay” with “no omniscient narrator talking down to the viewer . . . while “images like a newspaper going in and out of focus remind us that shifting contexts alter our understanding of complex events.”[4]

Lee Gardner of the Baltimore City Paper wrote that “Sachs cannily avoids the usual documentary dance of talking heads and file footage by interspersing impressionistic shots. (The film) provides a potent reminder that some Americans are willing to pay a heavy price to promote peace.”[5]

Awards

  • San Francisco International Film Festival
  • New Jersey Film Festival
  • Ann Arbor Film Festival
  • First Prize Documentary Athens Film Festival
  • Vermont Film Fest. Social Issue Doc. Award

References

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b Francis X. Clines, “Catonsville Journal; Keeping Alive the Spirit of Vietnam War Protest”, The New York Times, May 3, 2001.
    1. ^ Michael O’Sullivan, “Experimental Cinema At the Corcoran”, The Washington Post, January 4, 2002  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required).
    1. ^ Molly Marsh, “Worth noting. (Investigation of a Flame: a Documentary Portrait of the Catonsville Nine)(Movie Review)”[dead link] Sojourners, May 1, 2003
    1. ^ Fred Camper, Review of Investigation of a Flame, Chicago Reader (accessed 2012-01-07).
    1. ^ “Press & Reviews” at Lynne Sachs official website[third-party source needed].

External links

Indie Memphis 2022 Wrap-Up / Memphis Flyer

Indie Memphis 2022 Wrap-Up
Memphis Flyer
By Chris McCoy
October 26, 2022
https://www.memphisflyer.com/indie-memphis-2022-wrap-up

Indie Memphis 2022 Wrap-Up

The annual film festival honors the best of their 25th anniversary year.

The 25th Indie Memphis Film Festival concluded last Monday with a film that made a case for the importance of the 1970 Blaxploitation wave, and a film that proved its point. Is That Black Enough For You? is the first movie by Elvis Mitchell, a former New York Times film critic and cinema scholar turned documentary director. Mitchell traced the history of Black representation in film from the era of silent “race” pictures and D.W. Griffith’s pro-KKK, proto-blockbuster Birth of a Nation through the foreshortened careers of Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge to the wave of low-budget, Black-led gangster, adventure, and fantasy films which started in the late 1960s and crested with The Wiz. Films like Superfly and Coffy, Mitchell argues in his voluminous voice-over narration, presented the kinds of rousing heroes that attracted film-goers while the New Hollywood movement presented visions of angst-filled antiheroes.

Blaxploitation films also introduced a new kind of music to films and the concept of the soundtrack album, which was often released before the movie itself in order to drum up interest. The prime example was Shaft, which featured an Academy Award-winning soundtrack by Isaac Hayes. Mitchell introduced the classic with Willie Hall, the Memphis drummer who recorded the immortal hi-hat rhythm that kicks off Hayes’ theme song. Mitchell revealed in Is That Black Enough For You? that Hayes had been inspired by Sergio Leone’s score for Once Upon a Time in the West, and the score he penned for Shaft still holds up, providing much of the detective film’s throbbing propulsion.

The winners of the competitive portion of the 2022 film festival were announced at a hilariously irreverent awards ceremony Saturday evening at Playhouse on the Square. After a two-year hiatus, Savannah Bearden returned to produce the awards, which were “hosted” by Birdy, the tiny red metal mockingbird which has served as the film festival’s mascot for years. But amidst the nonstop jokes and spoof videos, there were genuinely touching moments, such as when Craig Brewer surprised art director and cameraperson Sallie Sabbatini with the Indie Award, which is given to outstanding Memphis film artisans, and when former Executive Director Ryan Watt was ambushed with the Vision Award.

The Best Narrative Feature award went to Our Father, the Devil, an African immigrant story directed by Ellie Foumbi. Kit Zauhar’s Actual People won the Duncan Williams Best Screenplay Award. The Documentary Feature award went to Reed Harkness for Sam Now, a portrait of the director’s brother that has been in production for the entire 25 years that Indie Memphis has been in existence.

The Best Hometowner Feature award, which honors films made in Memphis, went to Jack Lofton’s The ’Vous, a moving portrait of the people who make The Rendezvous a world-famous icon of Memphis barbecue. (“We voted with our stomachs,” said jury member Larry Karaszewski.) The Best Hometowner Narrative Short went to “Nordo” by Kyle Taubken, about a wife anxiously waiting for her husband to return from Afghanistan. Lauren Ready earned her second Indie Memphis Hometowner Documentary award for her short film “What We’ll Never Know.”

In the Departures category, which includes experimental, genre, and out-of-the-box creations, This House by Miryam Charles won Best Feature. (This House also won the poster design contest.) “Maya at 24” by legendary Memphis doc director Lynne Sachs won the Shorts competition, and “Civic” by Dwayne LeBlanc took home the first trophy in a new Mid-Length subcategory.

Sounds, the festival’s long-running music film series, awarded Best Feature to Kumina Queen by Nyasha Laing. The music video awards were won by the stop-motion animated “Vacant Spaces” by Joe Baughman; “Don’t Come Home” by Emily Rooker triumphed in the crowded Hometowner category.

Best Narrative Short went to “Sugar Glass Bottle” by Neo Sora, and Best Documentary Short went to “The Body Is a House of Familiar Rooms” by Eloise Sherrid and Lauryn Welch.

Some of the Special Awards date back to the origin of the festival in 1998, such as the Soul of Southern Film Award, which was taken by Ira McKinley and Bhawin Suchak’s documentary Outta The Muck. The Ron Tibbett Excellence in Filmmaking Award went to Me Little Me by Elizabeth Ayiku. The Craig Brewer Emerging Filmmaker Award went to Eric Younger’s Very Rare.

The IndieGrants program, which awards $15,000 in cash and donations to create short films, picked Anna Cai’s “Bluff City Chinese” and A.D. Smith’s “R.E.G.G.I.N.” out of 46 proposals submitted by Memphis filmmakers.

25th Annual Indie Memphis Film Festival Announces Jury & Festival Awards / Indie Memphis Film Festival

25th Annual Indie Memphis Film Festival Announces Jury & Festival Awards
Indie Memphis Film Festvial
October 23, 2022
https://www.indiememphis.org/news/25th-annual-indie-memphis-film-festival-announces-jury-amp-festival-awards


The 25th Annual Indie Memphis Film Festival Announces 2022 Award-Winners, Including Ellie Foumbi’s Best Narrative Feature OUR FATHER, THE DEVIL and Reed Harkness’ Best Documentary Feature SAM NOW

Indie Memphis Film Festival, presented by Duncan-Williams, Inc. and Duncan Williams Asset Management, is pleased to announce this year’s award-winners. The awards show, sponsored by Eventive, was held in-person in Memphis, as well as online, on the evening of October 22th. The awards were presented by festival staff, as well as members of the awards juries. The 2022 festival screened over 184 feature films, shorts, and music videos, with most screenings followed by in-person filmmaker Q&As. 

Jury Award highlights include Best Narrative Feature for OUR FATHER, THE DEVIL (Dir. Ellie Foumbi, $1K cash prize), Best Documentary Feature for SAM NOW (Dir. Reed Harkness, $1K cash prize), Best Hometowner Feature for THE ‘VOUS (Dir. Jack Lofton’s, $1K cash prize – World Premiere), Best Departures Feature for THIS HOUSE (CETTE MAISON) (Dir. Miryam Charles, $500 cash prize), and Best Sounds Feature for KUMINA QUEEN (Dir. Nyasha Laing, $500 cash prize), among others. 

The festival also awarded two yet-to-be-produced short films with Indie Grant prizes: “Bluff City Chinese” (Dir. Anna Cai) and “R.E.G.G.I.N.” (Dir. A.D. Smith). These films from Memphis-based filmmakers were chosen by a jury and were each awarded with $39K; grant support comprised of $15K cash provided by sponsor Mark Jones and $24K of cash-equivalent rentals and donations provided by sponsors Firefly Grip & Electric, LensRentals, Music + Arts Studio, and VIA. Three winners will each receive grant packages worth $13K.

The Festival Awards, decided by Indie Memphis Festival staff, include the Ron Tibbett Excellence in Filmmaking Award for ME LITTLE ME (Dir. Elizabeth Ayiku) and the Craig Brewer Emerging Filmmaker Award for VERY RARE (Dir. Eric Younger  – World Premiere), among others.

Audience Awards will be announced following the festival.

2022 Indie Memphis Film Festival Jury & Festival Award-Winners

Winners by Category

JURY AWARDS

Narrative Features
Awarded by Jury Members Marlowe Granados, Doreen St. Félix

  • Best Narrative Feature, OUR FATHER, THE DEVIL (Dir. Ellie Foumbi) – $1K Cash Prize
  • Duncan Williams Best Screenplay Award, ACTUAL PEOPLE (Dir. Kit Zauhar) – $1K Cash Prize, sponsored by Duncan Williams, Inc.

Documentary Features
Awarded by Jury Members Brooke Marine, Tara Violet Niami, Tchaiko Omawale; Sponsored by Classic American Hardwoods

  • Best Documentary Feature, SAM NOW (Dir. Reed Harkness) – $1K Cash Prize
  • Special Jury Mention for Revolutionary Cinema, SILENT BEAUTY (Dir. Jasmin Mara López)
  • Special Jury Mention for Transcendent Cinema, OUTTA THE MUCK  (Dir. Ira McKinley, Bhawin Suchak)

Hometowner
Awarded by Jury Members Jessica Chriesman, Brandon Harris, Larry Karaszewski; Sponsored by Tennessee Entertainment Commission

  • Best Hometowner Feature, THE ‘VOUS (Dir. Jack Lofton) – $1K Cash Prize
  • Best Hometowner Narrative Short, “Nordo” (Dir. Kyle Taubken) – $500 Cash Prize
  • Best Hometowner Documentary Short, “What We’ll Never Know” (Dir. Lauren Ready) – $500 Cash Prize

Departures
Awarded by Jury Members Blair McClendon, Ashley Clark, Yasmina Price

  • Best Departures Feature, THIS HOUSE (CETTE MAISON) (Dir. Miryam Charles) – $500 Cash Prize
  • Best Departures Mid-Length Film, “Civic” (Dir. Dwayne LeBlanc)
  • Best Departures Short, “Maya at 24” (Dir. Lynn Sachs)

Sounds
Awarded by Maya Cade, Rōgan Graham, Sydney Urbanek

  • Best Sounds Feature, KUMINA QUEEN (Dir. Nyasha Laing) – $500 Cash Prize
  • Best National Music Video, “Vacant Spaces” (Dir. Joe Baughman)
  • Best Hometowner Music Video, “Don’t Come Home” (Dirs. Emily Rooker & Mitchell Carter)

Shorts
Awarded by Jury Members Laure Bender, Faridah Gbadamosi, Kate Gondwe

  • Best Narrative Short, “Sugar Glass Bottle” (Dir. Neo Sora)  – $500 Cash Prize
  • Best Documentary Short, “The Body is a House of Familiar Rooms” by Eloise Sherrid + Lauryn Welch – $500 Cash Prize

IndieGrants
Awarded by Jury Members Mandy Marcus, Soraya McDonald, Maria Santos; Sponsored by Mark Jones with rentals and donations provided by Firefly Grip & Electric, LensRentals, Music + Arts Studio, and VIA.

  •  “Bluff City Chinese” (Dir. Anna Cai)- $15K Grant ($7.5K cash, $7.5K In-Kind Filmmaking Services)
  • “R.E.G.G.I.N.” (Dir. A.D. Smith) – $15K Grant ($7.5K cash, $7.5K In-Kind Filmmaking Services)

Poster Design
Awarded by Jury Members Brittney Boyd Bullock, Coe Lapossy, Mia Saine

  • THIS HOUSE (CETTE MAISON) (Dir. Miryam Charles)

FESTIVAL AWARDS

Ron Tibbett Excellence in Filmmaking 

  • ME LITTLE ME (Dir. Elizabeth Ayiku)

Craig Brewer Emerging Filmmaker

  • VERY RARE (Dir. Eric Younger)

Soul of Southern Film Award

  • OUTTA THE MUCK by (Dir. Ira McKinley, Bhawin Suchak)

Vision Award

  • Ryan Watt

Indie Award

  • Sallie Sabbatini

Best After Dark Film

  • “Gussy” (Dir. Chris Osborn)

Flowers and Bodies (Departures Shorts) / Indie Memphis Film Festival

Flowers and Bodies (Departures Shorts)
Indie Memphis Film Festival
Screening on October 22, 2022
https://imff22.indiememphis.org/schedule/631e94be3fcb9c0096f815db

WHEN WE ARRIVE AS FLOWERS

Diovanna, a dancer realizes her transfemme identity through a choreographic journey of self-discovery, celebration, and the poetic metaphor of a flower coming to bloom.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 5 minutes
  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Susan C OBrien
  • Screenwriter: Diovanna LaBeija
  • Producer:Susan O’Brien, Elizabeth Raia, Giselle Byrd, Margaret Montavon

FREE NOIR PAPILLON

A short dance film about a mother’s relationship to her pregnancy, as she deals with fear and hope about bringing a black baby boy into the world in 2020.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 11 minutes
  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Lev Omelchenko
  • Screenwriter: Lev Omelchenko
  • Producer: Kevin Wall
  • Cinematographer: Amber L. N. Bournett

PANDROG

Pandrog is an exploration of the subversiveness of the gender binary within the confines of Blackness. It is about Black people escaping the terms and identities created by western imperialism.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 1 minutes
  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Jard Lerebours
  • Screenwriter: Jard Lerebours
  • Cast: Oluseyifunmi Akinlade
  • Cinematographer: Oluseyifunmi Akinlade

DUE NORTH

A dance film about life, embodiment of the wild.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 23 minutes
  • Language: No Dialogue
  • Country: Canada
  • Director: Chantal Caron
  • Screenwriter: Chantal Caron
  • Producer: Chantal Caron
  • Cinematographer: Richard Saint-Pierre
  • Editor: Mirenda Ouellet
  • Music: Pierre-Marc Beaudoin, Vivianne Audet

MAY WE KNOW OUR OWN STRENGTH

May We Know Our Own Strength’ is an abstract and expressionistic narrative document centered around artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s similarly-titled piece exploring collective healing after sexual assault within AAPI communities, created tragically in the wake of the Atlanta spa shootings. In the spirit of the installation itself, ‘May We Know Our Own Strength’ recreates the process of trauma, the hurdles of healing, and the strength that can be found in sharing and community.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2021
  • Runtime: 6 minutes
  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Jih-E Peng
  • Producer: Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, Jih-E Peng,
  • Editor: Emily Nine
  • Music: Sugar Vendil

INVENTORY

A living inventory of the body.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2021
  • Runtime: 3 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Bailey Plumley

IN BEAUTY IT IS UNFINISHED

A voice creates a meditative portrait of two tropical landscapes-separated by 100 miles of ocean-and two men dancing at twilight; the distance of their bodies both measured and infinite.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 16 minutes
  • Language: English, Spanish
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Greko Sklavounos
  • Screenwriter: Greko Sklavounos
  • Producer: Olivia Lloyd, Ale Marie Odriozola

THE PAST

Two people mourn an unsaid tragedy in this silent play in cinematic narrativity and melodrama, telling an elegiac tale in portraiture.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2021
  • Runtime: 5 minutes
  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Rajee Samarasinghe
  • Screenwriter: Rajee Samarasinghe
  • Producer: Rajee Samarasinghe
  • Cast: Paige McGhee, Bobbi Yost

MAYA AT 24

Lynne Sachs films her daughter Maya at 6, 16 and 24. At each iteration, Maya runs around her mother, in a circle – clockwise – as if propelling herself in the same direction as time, forward.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2020
  • Runtime: 4 minutes
  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Lynne Sachs
  • Cast: Maya Street-Sachs

AD MELIORA

Ad meliora, or “towards better things” combines hundreds of separate images that create a deep meditation on being, creativity and nature; a mandala of forms that becomes highly symbolic of life, death, yesterday, now, and the next moment. Flowers, plants and textures were photographed in places such as nature conservatories, cultivated gardens, vacant properties and parking lots. The familiar landscape appears molten, luminous and renewed. Ad meliora is suggestive of adaptation, resilience and transformation.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2021
  • Runtime: 3 minutes
  • Language: No Dialogue
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Katherine Balsley, Irina Escalante-Chernova

BREAST FRIEND

When a girl wakes up from having a breast reduction she receives a letter from her former breast fat tissue.

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Showings – select to order tickets:

[Available October 22, 12:01 AM – October 24, 11:59 PM, 2022] Stream online…

Sat, Oct 22nd, 1:15 PM @ Studio on the Square

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 3 minutes
  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Aysha Wax
  • Screenwriter: Aysha Wax
  • Producer: Sarah Bigle, Elba Flamenco, Casey Graf

Studio on the Square
2105 Court Ave Memphis, TN 38104
October 22, 2022, 1:15 – 3:15 PM CDT
Get directions · More events at venue

Part Time Reverie – Curated by Aaditya Aggarwal / Canyon Cinema Discovered

Part Time Reverie
Canyon Cinema Discovered
Curated by Aaditya Aggarwal
October 15, 2022
https://connects.canyoncinema.com/program/prime-time-reverie/#essay

About the Program

From cosmetic commercials to women-led talk shows to narrative melodrama, television catered to feminized viewers is a formally diverse genre, nudging, socializing, and mirroring its spectators in intimate and discerning ways. Capturing the urgent, anchoring spirit of prime time telecasts, Prime Time Reverie stages a fragmented history of television as a women’s medium. The works in this program engage multiple tides of broadcasting, from soapy to confessional, from sensationalist to documentarian. Weaving an absent or corporeal presence through each work, televised portrayals of womanhood—hermetic, large, versatile—incite daydreams among a mass populace, flirting with histories of technology, desire, and visuality.

Screening Premiere: October 2, 2022 @ 3:30pm, Roxie Theater, San Francisco
Streaming Online: October 9-15, 2022

Films in this Program

Introduction to Prime Time Reverie
Aaditya Aggarwal
Program Curator

Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron)
Cauleen Smith
1992, 6 minutes, color, sound, 16mm
CHRONICLES OF A LYING SPIRIT (BY KELLY GABRON) is less a depiction of ‘reality’ than an exploration of the implications of the mediation of Black history by film, television, magazines and newspapers. Using her alter ego, Kelly Gabron, Smith fabricates a personal history of her emergence as an artist from white-male- dominated American history (and American film history). Smith collages images and bits of text from a scrapbook by ‘Kelly Gabron’ that had been completed before the film was begun, and provides female narration by ‘Kelly Gabron’ that, slowly but surely, makes itself felt over the male narration about Kelly Gabron (Chris Brown is the male voice). The film’s barrage of image, text and voice is repeated twice, and is followed by a coda. That most viewers see the second presentation of the imagery differently from the original presentation demonstrates one problem with trusting any media representation.  – Scott MacDonald

Rent from Canyon Cinema

No No Nooky T.V.
Barbara Hammer
1987, 12 minutes, color, sound, 16mm
NO NO NOOKY T.V. posits sexuality to be a social construct in a “sex-text” of satiric graphic representation of” dirty pictures.” Made on an Amiga Computer and shot in 16mm film, NO NO NOOKY T.V, confronts the feminist controversy around sexuality with electronic language, pixels and interface. Even the monitor is eroticized in this film/video hybrid that points fun at romance, sexuality, and love in our post-industrial age.

Restored print of No No Nooky T.V, courtesy of Academy Film Archive, 2018. page1image65823472
Digital file for online presentation courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix
Rent from Canyon Cinema

Removed
Naomi Uman
1999, 6 minutes, color, sound, 16mm
Using a piece of found European porn from the 1970s, nail polish, and bleach, this film creates a new pornography, one in which the woman exists only as a hole, an empty, animated space.

Rent from Canyon Cinema

Waiting for Commercials
Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut
1966-72, 1992, 7 minutes, color, sound, digital video
Part of a restored collection of rare early works by Nam June Paik, Waiting for Commercials is a hilarious compendium of Japanese TV commercials. This early example of Paik’s use of appropriated television imagery as pop cultural artifact was originally created for a performance piece of the same name, which featured Charlotte Moorman and her cello.

Rent from Electronic Arts Intermix

No Land
Emily Chao
2019, 1 minute, b&w, silent, 16mm
no land / no song / nowhere / no now / no home. Dedicated to Black Hole Collective Film Lab.

Rent from Canyon Cinema

MTV: Artbreak
Dara Birnbaum
1986, 30 seconds, color, sound, digital video
Produced for an Artbreak segment on MTV Network, this dynamic “
abbreviated history of animation according to the representation of women, from the cell imagery of Max Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell series to the contemporary digital effects of television. In Birnbaum’s vision, Fleischer’s spilled inkwell releases cartoon bubbles containing images of women from MTV music videos. With wit and panache, Birnbaum reverses the traditional sexual roles of the producer and product of commercial imagery: The final image is that of a female artist on whose video “ Fleischer.

Music/Audio Collaboration: Dara Birnbaum, Peter Eggers. Commissioned by MTV Networks, Inc.
Rent from Electronic Arts Intermix

Kiss the Girls: Make them Cry
Dara Birnbaum
1979, 7 minutes, color, sound, digital video
Birnbaum manipulates off-air imagery from the TV game show Hollywood Squares in Kiss The Girls: Make Them Cry, a bold deconstruction of the gestures of sexual representation in pop cultural imagery and music. Minor celebrities (who Birnbaum terms “iconic women and receding men”) confined in a flashing tic-tac-toe board greet millions of TV viewers, animating themselves as they say “hello.” Birnbaum isolates and repeats these banal and at times bizarre gestures of male and female presentation — “repetitive baroque neck-snapping triple takes, guffaws, and paranoid eye darts” — wrenching them from their television context to expose stereotyped gestures of power and submission. Linking TV and Top 40, Birnbaum spells out the lyrics to disco songs (“Georgie Porgie puddin’ and pie/kissed the girls and made them cry”) with on-screen text, as the sound provides originally scored jazz interpolation and a harsh new wave coda. The result is a powerful, layered analysis of the meaning of the gestures of mass cultural idioms.

“Yellow Bird”: Spike and Allan Scarth. Vocals: Dori Levine. Audio Mix: William and Allan Scarth. Technical Assistance Thanks: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Fred McFadzen/Ed Slopek, Exploring Post #1, Ted Estabrook, Halifax Cablevision, Bruce Nickson, Madelaine Palko. Soundtrack: “Found a Cure,” Ashford and Simpson, “Georgy Porgy,” Toto. Television Footage: “ Hollywood Squares.” Aired in NY on CBS/NBC.

Rent from Electronic Arts Intermix

That Woman
Sandra Davis
2018, 22 minutes, color, sound, digital video
That Woman uses as source material the original Barbara Walters interview with Monica Lewinsky, which is intercut with a “re-creation ” of the interview. This re-staging uses transcripts of the actual dialogue, as well as a few interpretive scenes that I scripted. Additional visual elements include the “commercial breaks” from the original broadcast, as well as a “breaking news” segment, which announced the death of a film giant.

Ms. Lewinsky is played by a woman bearing a remarkable physical resemblance to the original, and Barbara Walters is played by George Kuchar. The make-up, costumes, set, lighting, and camera set-ups, are a facsimile of the original, albeit without the stunning high-production values displayed in the network original.

Recalling elements of this scandal, the performers bravely made their improvisational way through scenes including a cigar, and an audio performance by our actress of HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. PRESIDENT.

Rent from Canyon Cinema

10:28,30
Paige Taul
2019, 4 minutes, color and b&w, sound, digital video
10:28,30 examines the relationship between myself and my sister, and our relationship to our mother. I am interested in the dissonance of our lives apart and the tension in the desire to be together.

Rent from Canyon Cinema            

Still Life with Woman and Four Objects
Lynne Sachs
1986, 4 minutes, b&w, sound, 16mm
A film portrait that falls somewhere between a painting and a prose poem, a look at a woman’s daily routines and thoughts via an exploration of her as a “character”. By interweaving threads of history and fiction, the film is also a tribute to a real woman – Emma Goldman.

Rent from Canyon Cinema

The Televisual Woman’s Hour
Essay by Aaditya Aggarwal

In what is now widely regarded as the world’s first public demonstration of television, a human face could not be fully transmitted. In 1926, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird came close, visualizing a ventriloquist’s cartoonish dummy named “Stooky Bill” with the help of radio technology. This puppet-like caricature presented stark enough contrasts in color required, at the time, to transmit an image.

Over the years, the television began to capture figures, faces, and objects with sharper clarity. During the 1920s, film laboratories started to photograph stock models to better calibrate desired exposure and color balance of black-andwhite film reels. In the essay “The China Girl on the Margins of Film,” Genevieve Yue describes the use of the inappropriately named “China Girl” in Western countries as a figure used as a color tone “next to color swatches and patches of white, gray, and black.”1 She was almost always unknown, young, female, conventionally attractive, and contrary to the name’s racial connotations, white. Never screened on film or television, her likeness offered engineers a so-called normative “skin-tone” to mute and elevate contrasts for film, so that the white face could be better visualized on screen.

It wasn’t until the 1940s that a televised woman could be perceived in full color. Post-World War II, TV became widely popular across homes and businesses in North America and the United Kingdom. In 1940, Baird began working on creating a fully electronic color television system called Telechrome. This system revealed an image that veered between cyan and magenta tones, within which a reasonable range of colors could be visualized. By the mid 1960s, this television box set began to depict an even wider range of colors. A growing influx of pinks, purples, yellows, and greens in our home screens began to shape newer practices of looking.

Frequently sighted on analog televisions was a rainbow screen, formally known as SMPTE color bars. A testing pattern employed by video engineers, this arrangement compared and recalibrated a televised image to the National Television System Committee’s (NTSC) accepted standard. Often used in tandem with images of the China Girl, SMPTE bars were typically presented at 75% intensity, setting a television monitor or receiver to reproduce chrominance (color) and luminance (brightness) correctly. Its vertical bars—positioned in the screen from left to right, in white, yellow, cyan, green, magenta, red, and blue—were often accompanied by a high-pitched tone.

Enabling more sophisticated, accurate, and textured imagery, this new color television began to usher a distinctly erotic encounter between the appliance and its viewer. From the early 1970s onwards, with the arrival of subscription-based cable networks like HBO, soft-core porn became a staple of private viewing. In her video work No No Nooky T.V. (1987), Barbara Hammer references this genre of late-night, often pay-perview programming, deconstructing its portrayals of female pleasure and physicality. Lensing an Amiga computer with her 16mm Bolex, the artist stages and contorts the alphabet with sensual and cryptic animation. A remix of patterns, shapes, and letters accompanies a sterile, computerized voiceover: “By appropriating me, the women will have a voice.”

Reappropriating pornographic language, No No Nooky T.V. reflects on the tactility of the television. One glimpses a TV in bondage, wrapped in black cloth and white twine. Later, it is clasped in multiple bras. Typed into a computer, one message reads: “Does she like me? WANT ME? DESIRE ME? KILL FOR ME? LUST FOR ME?” Another artfully scribbles “dirty pictures” in bejeweled cursive. There is a hilarity in Hammer’s harnessing of a screen in this material way, made absurd by technoincantations of text littered in different fonts.

Echoing Hammer’s sapphic television, mostly bereft of live bodies or physical performers, is a work like Removed (1999) by Naomi Uman. Using bleach and nail varnish on found European porn films from the 1970s, Uman selectively erases and manually empties out physical bodies of actresses. Whitened, unrecognizable female silhouettes clash against magenta-tinted bedroom surroundings, depicting the televised woman as an open, blank, animated space.

The artist’s removal of the corporeal feminine starkly contrasts against color television’s historic hypervisibility of women’s bodies. Typifying the latter is a work like Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut’s Waiting for Commercials (1966- 72), where a montage of found Japanese commercials from the 1960s is populated by gleeful stock performers, mostly composed of young women. Inhabiting the screen in between programs, female models in ad breaks market a range of products—from Pepsi-Cola to cosmetics to apparels. In Paik and Yalkut’s selection, the televised woman bursts as an object of curiosity for her viewers; albeit in heightened artifice, her joy of selling drink or dress is unparalleled.

Intrigued by representations of femininity and desire, Waiting for Commercials evidences the ubiquity of the televised corporeal feminine; one that Removed visually effaces or that No No Nooky T.V. only teases with mere glimpses—sing-song figures, euphoric, ecstatic, enthralled by touch, excited by commodity These works engage multiple figurations of the “televised woman,” a conception that continually structures and stages a viewer’s sense of tedium, anticipation, and disclosure.

—

When I approach the history of television, the appliance reveals itself as a predominantly women’s medium. From cosmetic commercials to exclusive interviews to narrative melodrama, women’s television—or television catered specifically to female viewers—is formally diverse, nudging and mirroring its spectators in intimate and discerning ways. Of its many subgenres, one that offers its viewers both entertaining and pedagogical conceptions of womanhood is the soap opera. Whether it is the exaggerated intensity in plot twists of Days of our Lives (1965-present) or the moral polarity of female characterization in Dynasty (1981-89), soap operas instill in us a measure of persistent expectation. In her essay “The Search for Tomorrow in Today’s Soap Operas: Notes on a Feminine Narrative Form,” Tania Modleski emphasizes a soap’s tendency to inevitably return towards anticipation. She notes: “Soap operas invest exquisite pleasure in the central condition of a woman’s life: waiting—whether for her phone to ring, for the baby to take its nap, or for the family to be reunited shortly after the day’s final soap opera has left its family still struggling against dissolution.”

2 In its most effective moments, a soap avoids narrative resolution to unrealistic ends. Dramatizing traditional ideas of motherhood and wifehood, soap protagonists and antagonists continually revert to domestic cliffhangers. In a scene from Days of Our Lives, for example, a slyly dainty and theatrically erudite Alexis Colby (played by a breathy, extravagant Joan Collins) makes eye contact with her ex-husband’s current wife. The camera zooms in on Alexis, the antagonist, as her eyebrow arches and head tilts in quiet disdain and alerted defense. Seesawing between seduction and virtuosity, soap characters surprise each other with turns of phrase. And while each episode oscillates between familial bliss and disorder, a soap never ends.

In certain video works that employ techniques of appropriation and repetition, one can invert and rethink the soap’s televised woman and the format’s grammar of female interiority. Opening Lynne Sachs’s black-and-white experimental diaristic short Still Life with Woman and Four Objects (1986), for instance, is a tight close-up of a woman putting on a fall coat. We are immediately transported into an urban home with a female occupant—an introductory premise that is outwardly ripe for soap opera. As Sachs’s camera steadily studies the creases and folds of her subject’s clothing and her strands of hair, a voiceover announces: “Scene 1: Woman steps off curb and crosses street.” Sachs repeats the same shot, while the voiceover seemingly jumps ahead in time: “Scene 2: Holding a bag of groceries, she opens the front door of Blue Plymouth.” In its third repetition, there is further narrative disjuncture. The same woman puts on her coat as the voiceover narrator reveals her limitations, casually puzzled: “Scene 3: I can’t remember.” The muted recitation of screenplay directions both embraces and negates the lack of resolution of a TV soap. We are left wondering about the events that may have transpired in the protagonist’s life in the empty gaps of voiceover between scenes. However, Sachs’s repeated, naturalistic mundanity of domestic chores defies the desirous expectation—or the incomprehensible plot turn—that one historically expects of women’s melodrama.

Similarly, Cauleen Smith’s faux-memoirist recollection of her alter-ego Kelly Gabron plays on narrative gaps, unreliable narration and spectatorial mistrust, all elements that fuel television. In her video, Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron) (1992), a series of photographs are revealed by competing voiceovers. A montage of personal archives and found images sparsely captures a scattered history of Black American television, film, and media.

Stripped of any moving bodies or live action, Smith’s experimental biography rejects the commandments of a televisual motion picture. In a static slideshow of film reels, her work repeats its tellings. She employs two voiceovers: in the first narration, a sterile, automated male voice booms over Kelly’s inaudible narration; the second time, Kelly’s voice is clearer, more comprehensible, eclipsing the man’s. Simultaneously, both voiceovers narrate conflicting accounts of Kelly’s life as a Black woman artist navigating a predominantly white male art world. While the man’s narration flattens her narrative into racist tropes of Black deprivation, Kelly’s account is affective, specific, and anecdotal. Concluding the work, the latter’s narration corrects the errors of the former. Deeply invested in an aesthetics of self-portraiture or autofiction, the works by Sachs and Smith read as artistic variations on or intentional detours from the soap format. Historically, women’s television is also informed by slice-of-life profiles that capture the quotidian feminine in documentary style—the woman-led talk show is, in this sense, an uncanny cousin to the oft-ludicrously fictional soap opera. This subgenre of programming arguably originated from scripted sketchbased programs like the Lucille Ball-led I Love Lucy (1951-57) as well as daytime reality-based shows like The Loretta Young Show (1953-61) and The Betty White Show (1952-54). From BBC’s Woman’s Hour (1946-present) to the French program Dim Dam Dom (1965-73), dramatized stories of real-life female figures often blended with interview-based programs. A female presenter, in turn, became a hyper-televised woman. Her success relied on her performance as a triple-threat in roles of cultural commentator, comedian, and confidante. In solo interviews, journalists like Barbara Walters adroitly shifted or affirmed national narratives, oftentimes muddying their newsworthy interviewees’ vulnerable reputations.

Sandra Davis’s That Woman (2018) wryly replays and reenacts one such cultural moment on television. Airing on March 3, 1999, the now-infamous interview between Barbara Walters and Monica Lewinsky ruled the prime-time slot—a block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening—across television screens. Satirizing a mythos of televised womanhood, Davis’s work begins as the text “20/20 WEDNESDAY” flashes on ABC’s news network from the original interview. In this archival footage, an iridescent background shimmers while an energetic piano interlude plays. In Davis’s reenactment, conversely, a Lewinsky lookalike impersonates the original’s expressions and responses. She is seated before George Kuchar, who plays Walters in a blonde wig with laughable earnestness. One anecdote from fake-Lewinsky follows another, as the low-budget, camp reenactment is interrupted by selective outtakes from the original conversation. A stern Walters interrogates, while Lewinsky nervously gestures. At one point, there is a close-up of fake Lewinsky’s black leather strapped stiletto boots.

Davis’s reappraisal of this episode captures the coercive candor and pronounced intensity of appointment television, where primetime interviews oddly invoke the narrative melodrama of soap opera. For instance, much like the soap heroine, a talk show’s subject is also activated by the zoom-in, a technique frequently employed in sensationalist news telecasts and scandalous journalistic exposes.

Writing on the invention of the close-up in silent film, Béla Balázs describes its “intimate emotional significance” and “lyrical charm” in Theory of the Film, recalling “audience panic” at the first sight of a close-up of a smiling face in a movie theater.3 The format of a televisual soap furthers Balázs’s argument of a close-up’s ability to reveal “unconscious expressions,” in discomfitingly proximate confines, scanning a poreless, powdered face. In moving close-up, the televised woman spans the expanse of a screen, intimating what Rawiya Kameir describes as the “pointed drama” of a zoom-in in her 2016 review of Solange’s A Seat at the Table. “Moments later,” she writes, “the world beyond her falls away…”4

A zoomed-in figure becomes as solitary as a television box set, her presence both disarmingly novel and routinely domestic. But what are the limits of her close-up? Does the televised woman ever exit our saturated screens? Emily Chao’s hermetic close-up in her black-and-white work No Land (2019) comes to mind. Over the course of two minutes, she zooms into a square-shaped, TV-like black sheet pinned on a tree trunk, surrounded by wild, dense forestry. Invoking the early invention of analog screens, one is unable to visualize any corporeal form or countenance in its frame; the transmitter of images instead becomes the image itself, bearing a haptic imprint of its televisual women—invisibilized stock model, adorned brand ambassador, exalted porn star, scheming soap vamp, jovial female presenter, overexposed subject—always visible in the interiors of your living room.

Edited by Girish Shambu

______________

1 Genevieve Yue, “The China Girl on the Margins of Film,” October 153 (2015): 96–116.

2 Tania Modleski, “The Search for Tomorrow in Today’s Soap Operas: Notes on a Feminine Narrative Form,” Film Quarterly 33, no. 1 (1979): 12–21.

3 Béla Balázs, Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art, trans. Edith Bone (Dover Publications, 1970). 4 Rawiya Kameir, “Solange, In Focus,” The Fader, Oct. 6, 2016, https://www.thefader. com/2016/10/06/solange-a-seat-at-the-table-essay.

4 Rawiya Kameir, “Solange, In Focus,” The Fader, Oct. 6, 2016, https://www.thefader. com/2016/10/06/solange-a-seat-at-the-table-essay.

MajorDocs and ‘Film About a Father Who’ / RTVE Play – Días de Cine

Días de Cine. 14-10-2022
RTVE Play Días de Cine
October 14, 2022
https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/dias-de-cine/dias-de-cine-14-10-2022/6713891/

MajorDocs and Film About A Father Who Featured at 45:44–50:00.

English translation:

Movie days. 14-10-2022

Full program. Sitges Festival, Little Pig, Halloween ends, Wild Sunflowers, Orio Tarragó as Godfather guest, Angela Lansbury, and much more.

Spanish original:

Días de Cine. 14-10-2022

Programa completo. Festival de Sitges, Cerdita, Halloween ends, GIrasoles silvestres, Orio Tarragó de invitado Padrino, Angela Lansbury, y mucho más.