Tag Archives: film about a father who

Lynne Sachs: Tender Nonfictions / DAFilms

Lynne Sachs: Tender Nonfictions
DAFilms
May 12, 2023
https://dafilms.com/newsletter/view/FaqDIISJsPCIxhEQvdVwfizORrvkbdETtieFAcWaMWuoX-SxpZLAmWQ-SOhznon_/106ef47c25871c598ee634962a34aeab4134f54c

Lynne Sachs: Tender Nonfictions

Spend the weekend with Tender Non-Fictions, a program of films by experimental feminist filmmaker Lynne Sachs, who has been prolifically creating works for cinema for four decades. Her non-fiction films, represented here in 11 works of varying lengths, powerfully evoke the curiosity and richness of a life lived through art.

Based in Brooklyn, New York, Sachs defies easy classification. Instead, her work is best understood collectively as a sprawling adventure playground, stretching across continents and blending influences across the borders of distinct art forms.


Film About a Father Who
Lynne Sachs

RECENTLY ADDED, BIOGRAPHIES, EXPERIMENTAL

From 1984 to 2019, Lynne Sachs shot film of her father, a bon vivant and pioneering businessman. This documentary is her attempt to understand the web that connects a child to her parent and a sister to her siblings.


House of Science: A Museum of False Facts
Lynne Sachs

RECENTLY ADDED

Available free for registered users.

A defiant feminist mosaic on the ways that science enters our culture and defines what it is to be a woman.


A Month of Single Frames
Lynne Sachs

RECENTLY ADDED

In 1998, filmmaker Barbara Hammer had an artist residency in a shack without running water or electricity. While there, she shot film, recorded sounds and kept a journal. In 2018, she gave all of her images, sounds and writing from the residency to Sachs and invited her to make a film with the material.


Drawn and Quartered
Lynne Sachs

RECENTLY ADDED

In Medieval Europe, a criminal could be “drawn and quartered”, ripped into our four parts by heavy ropes pulled by horses. Here, Sachs appropriates this violent conceit for her own artistic purposes.


Which Way is East: Notebooks From Vietnam
Lynne Sachs

RECENTLY ADDED

In 1994, two American sisters – a filmmaker and a writer – travel from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi. Together, they attempt to make a candid cinema portrait of the country they witness. Their conversations with Vietnamese strangers and friends reveal to them the flip side of a shared history.


States of UnBelonging
Lynne Sachs

RECENTLY ADDED

Delving into the religious and political conflicts of the Middle East is never goiny to be easy, but Lynne Sachs spends three years making an effort. She attempts to make a portrait of Israeli filmmaker Revital Ohayon, a mother and peace activist who was killed near the West Bank.

Film About a Father Who streaming on Filmin / Filmin, Portugal

Film About a Father Who
Filmin
May 4, 2023
https://www.filmin.pt/filme/film-about-a-father-who?origin=searcher&origin-type=unique

Film About A Father Who

Lynne Sachs · Documentário
2020 · 1h 14min
HD

A irmã do cineasta Ira Sachs, Lynne Sachs, investiga a controversa figura do seu pai: um extravagante bon vivant de Utah, manipulador, egoísta e sedutor.

Sinopse

A irmã do cineasta Ira Sachs, Lynne Sachs, investiga a controversa figura do seu pai: um extravagante bon vivant de Utah, manipulador, egoísta e sedutor.

Um retrato caleidoscópico filmado entre 1984 e 2019 em vários formatos – Super 8, 16mm, VHS e HD – no qual Lynne Sachs mergulha na polémica figura do seu pai, Ira Sachs Sr., um bon vivant de aparência extravagante de Utah, empresário da indústria hoteleira, manipulador, egoísta e carismático sedutor, que levou uma vida cheia de segredos, pai de nove filhos (incluindo também o cineasta Ira Sachs Jr.) com cinco mulheres, alguns dos quais permaneceram escondidos para o resto da família durante anos. Reflexão sobre a vida deste homem e como as suas decisões afectaram toda a família, é também um estudo da passagem do tempo tanto na forma como no conteúdo. 


English:

Filmmaker Ira Sachs’ sister, Lynne Sachs, investigates her controversial father figure: an extravagant Utah bon vivant, manipulative, selfish and seductive.

Synopsis

Filmmaker Ira Sachs’ sister, Lynne Sachs, investigates her controversial father figure: an extravagant Utah bon vivant, manipulative, selfish and seductive.

A kaleidoscopic portrait filmed between 1984 and 2019 in various formats – Super 8, 16mm, VHS and HD – in which Lynne Sachs delves into the controversial figure of her father, Ira Sachs Sr., a flamboyant-looking bon vivant from Utah, industry entrepreneur hotelier, manipulator, selfish and charismatic seducer, who led a life full of secrets, father of nine children (also including filmmaker Ira Sachs Jr.) with five women, some of whom remained hidden from the rest of the family for years. A reflection on this man’s life and how his decisions affected the entire family, it is also a study of the passage of time in both form and content.

BLOOD TIES: REIMAGINING INTERCONNECTION / PLEASURE DOME

Blood Ties: Reimagining Interconnection (In-person screening: May 23)
Pleasure Dome
May 23, 2023
https://pdome.org/2023/reimagining-interconnectedness-in-person-screening-may-23-new-world-cinema/

BLOOD TIES: REIMAGINING INTERCONNECTION
(IN-PERSON SCREENING: MAY 23)

Join us for our second in-person screening of the year at Small World Music Centre at Artscape Youngplace in Toronto. Guest programmed by Clare Samuel, this screening features works Lynne Sachs, Elisa Gonzalez, Keisha Rae Witherspoon, Tanya Lukin Linklater, and Hao Zhou. Curated into a screening called “Blood Ties,” each film reflects different understandings and re-imaginings of what it means to be interconnected with each other and the world around us. Featuring an in-person talk by Brooklyn-based filmmaker Lynne Sachs. Co-presented by Pleasure Dome, the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, and Kino Rebelde.

Part of Spring 2023


When: Tuesday, May 23 from 6pm-9pm ET

Where: Small World Music Centre, Artscape Youngplace, 110 Shaw Street, Unit 101

This is a co-presentation between Pleasure Dome, Kino Rebelde (Lisbon, Portugal), and the CFMDC (Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre).

The screening will be followed by a live, in-person conversation by Brooklyn-based filmmaker Lynne Sachs.

Screening programme:

Lynne Sachs, Maya at 24, 04:27
Elisa Gonzalez, Freya, 22:13
Tanya Lukin Linklater, We Wear One Another, 25:13

Intermission

Keisha Rae Witherspoon, T, 13:50
Hao Zhou, Frozen Out, 5:00
Lynne Sachs, Film About a Father Who, 1:14:00

Following the screening, we will have a Q&A with the artist Lynne Sachs. The screening is free and open to the public. Everyone is invited to attend.

Crucial Viewing / Cine-file by Kat Sachs

Crucial Viewing
Cine-file
February 17, 2023
https://www.cinefile.info/cine-list/2022/02/17/022323

CRUCIAL VIEWING

Lynne Sachs x 2
Gene Siskel Film Center

Lynne Sachs’ FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO (US/Documentary) Review by Kat Sachs
Monday, 6pm

In Horace’s Odes, one among many texts where this sentiment endures, the Roman poet wrote, “For the sins of your fathers you, though guiltless, must suffer.” It’s hardly an esoteric dictum, but nevertheless it’s duly reflected in experimental filmmaker Lynne Sachs’ wholehearted documentary portrait of her father, Ira Sachs Sr. Something of a longstanding work-in-progress, the film draws from decades of footage shot by Sachs, her father, and her filmmaker brother, Ira Sachs Jr. (whose own 2005 film FORTY SHADES OF BLUE was inspired by the same so-called “Hugh Hefner of Park City”), plus others, documenting not just the sybaritic “hippie-businessman” patriarch, but also his numerous descendants. Sachs’ knotty chronicle reveals that her father has a total of nine children with several different women, two of whom the other siblings found out about only a few years back. (The film opens with Sachs brushing her elderly father’s hair, working out a particularly unpleasant snarl. “Sorry, dad,” she says. “There’s just one part that’s very tangly.” The irony is faint and benevolent, but present even so.) Sachs considers the enveloping imbroglio from her own perspective, but also takes into account the viewpoints of her eight siblings, her father’s ex-wives (including her own mother) and girlfriends, plus Ira’s mother, a gracefully cantankerous old woman in a certain amount of denial over her son’s wanton predilections and the role she played in his dysfunction. FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO—the title an homage to Yvonne Rainer’s FILM ABOUT A WOMAN WHO…—is comprised of footage recorded between 1965 and 2019 and shot on 8mm, 16mm, VHS, Hi8, Mini DV, and digital; the fusion of all this material (by editor Rebecca Shapass) ranks among the most astounding use of personal archives that I’ve ever seen. It all exists in a state between documentary and home-movie footage, a paradigm that aptly reflects the conflict between reality and perspective, and the uncomfortable middle-ground that bisects the two. Sachs’ work often features her family, but this feels like an apotheosis of her autobiographical predisposition, likewise a question—why do the sins of the father linger?—and an answer. Among the most affecting scenes are roundtable discussions between the siblings where they consider revelations about their father and the implications of his actions. These scenes are heartrending not for their sadness, but rather for their naked honesty; it’s not just a film about a father who, but also a film about a love that defines a family. Sachs’ filmography is centered on infinite poetic quandaries (in voice over, she explores some of them here, such as when she muses on her father’s profession as a developer in Utah: “What happens when you own a horizon?”) and this feels like a logical conclusion to a lifetime of such profound impasses, though I’ve no doubt she’ll continue to probe life and its enigmas in a similarly masterful fashion. For all the suffering on display, Sachs has created an indelible work that, like those within it, perseveres by way of honesty and love. Followed by a post-screening conversation between Sachs and local filmmaker Lori Felker. (2020, 74 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]

Lynne Sachs and Lizzie Olesker’s THE WASHING SOCIETY (US Documentary)
Thursday, 6pm

Much like filmmaker Lynne Sachs’ acclaimed 2013 documentary hybrid YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT, THE WASHING SOCIETY, a medium-length quasi-documentary she co-directed with performer-playwright Lizzie Olesker, penetrates the hidden worlds that exist adjacent to us. Just as in YOUR DAY Sachs explored the circumstances of immigrants living in “shift-bed” apartments in New York City’s Chinatown, she and Olesker here probe the mysterious world of urban laundromats, where workers—often immigrants or those from similarly disenfranchised groups—take on a task that’s historically been outsourced, at least in some capacity—that of washing and folding peoples’ laundry. The historical evocation is literal; the film’s title and one of its recurring motifs refer to a real organization from the 1880s called the Washing Society, which started in Atlanta and was comprised of washerwomen (most of them Black) who came together to demand higher pay and opportunities for self-regulation. A young actor, Jasmine Holloway, plays one such laundress, reading from texts written by the organization and whose presence haunts the modern-day laundromats. Soon other ‘characters,’ both real and fictitious, take their places in this mysterious realm, hidden away in plain sight. Ching Valdes-Aran and Veraalba Santa (actors who, along with Holloway, impressed me tremendously) appear as contemporary laundromat workers, representing ethnicities that tend to dominate the profession. It’s unclear at first that Valdes-Aran and Santa are performing, especially as real laundromat workers begin to appear in documentary vignettes, detailing the trials and tribulations of their physically demanding job. The stories are different, yet similar, personal to the individuals but representative of a society in which workers suffer en masse, still, from the very injustices against which the Washing Society were fighting. The actors’ scenes soon veer into more performative territory, a tactic which Sachs deployed, albeit differently, in YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT. Much like that film, the evolution of THE WASHING SOCIETY included live performances in real laundromats around New York City, some scenes of which, it would seem, are included in the film. There’s a bit of voiceover from Sachs, explaining the directors’ mission to go into many different laundromats, and from voice actors who read monologues that are tenuously connected to Valdes-Aran and Santa’s ‘characters.’ There are also visceral interludes involving accumulated lint that add another layer to the experimentation; there’s a bluntness to the filmmakers’ artistic ambitions, as with much of Sachs’ work, that makes the intentions discernible but no less effective. Sachs has previously employed egalitarian methods, such as considering the people she works with to be collaborators rather than subjects, cast, and crew. In a film about unseen labor, seeing that labor—notably in a self-referential scene toward the end in which a group of said collaborators prepare to exit a laundromat after shooting—is important. In light of what’s happening now, when so much essential labor is either coyly unseen or brazenly unacknowledged (or both), it’s crucial. Like the 1880s’ washerwoman, the victims (and, likewise, the combatants) of capitalism are ghosts that haunt us. Followed by a post-screening conversation between Sachs and Cine-File managing editor Kat Sachs. (2018, 44 min, Digital Projection) [Kat Sachs]

Screening as part of a shorts program entitled “A Collection & a Conversation,” which includes Sachs’ short films DRIFT AND BOUGH (2014, 6 min, Digital Projection); MAYA AT 24 (2021, 4 min, Digital Projection); VISIT TO BERNADETTE MAYER’S CHILDHOOD HOME (2020, 3 min, Digital Projection) and SWERVE (2022, 7 min, Digital Projection).


MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs

CONTRIBUTORS // Rob Christopher, Maxwell Courtright, Steve Erickson, Marilyn Ferdinand, Raphael Jose Martinez, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Michael W. Phillips, Jr., Joe Rubin, Harrison Sherrod

:: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10 – THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16 :: →

Cine-File is a volunteer run resource for Chicago cinephiles. Subscribe to our weekly email and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Best of DAFilms 2022: “Film About a Father Who” / DAFilms.com

Best of DAFilms 2022: “Film About a Father Who”
Dafilms.com
December 28, 2022
https://dafilms.com/program/1315-best-of-dafilms-2022?utm_source=newsletter-int&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=best-of-2022

Earlier in the year, we presented Tender Non-Fictions, a program of films by experimental documentarian Lynne Sachs, who has been prolifically creating works for cinema for four decades. Her non-fiction films, represented in our program in 11 works of varying lengths, evoke the curiosity and richness of a life lived through art.

Which brings to her most recent feature documentary, Film About a Father Who. From 1984 to 2019, Sachs shot film of her now-deceased father, a bon vivant and pioneering businessman. This documentary is her attempt to understand the web that connects a child to her parent and a sister to her siblings. A perfect film to end the year with, remembering those we may have lost along the way.

Lynne Sachs: A Poet’s Perspective / Gene Siskel Film Center – School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Lynne Sachs: A Poet’s Perspective
Gene Siskel Film Center, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
December 23, 2022
Screenings on February 20 & 23, 2023
https://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/lynnesachs

LYNNE SACHS: A POET’S PERSPECTIVE

Committed to a dialogue between cinematic theory and practice, experimental filmmaker and poet Lynne Sachs searches for a rigorous play between image and sound, pushing the visual and aural textures in each new project. Embracing archives, letters, portraits, confessions, poetry, and music, her films take us on a critical journey through reality and memory. Regardless of the passage of time, these films continue to be extremely contemporary, coherent, and radical in their artistic conception.

Lynne has produced over 40 films as well as numerous live performances, installations, and web projects. 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. Minh-ha. Sachs’ films have screened at MoMA, Tate Modern, Image Forum Tokyo, Wexner Center for the Arts, the New York Film Festival, Oberhausen Int’l Short FF, Punto de Vista, Sundance, Vancouver IFF, Viennale, and Doclisboa, among others. In 2021, Sachs received awards from both Edison Film Festival and Prismatic Ground Film Festival at the Maysles Documentary Center for her achievements in the experimental and documentary fields. 

The Film Center, in collaboration with Conversations at the Edge and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Film, Video, New Media, and Animation program, is honored to welcome Sachs to the Film Center in person for two evenings of her work, followed by in-depth conversations. Photo credit: Inés Espinosa López.


MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 6:00PM

FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO

2020, dir. Lynne Sachs
USA, 74 min. In English / Format: Digital

Over a period of 35 years between 1984 and 2019, filmmaker Lynne Sachs shot 8mm and 16mm film, videotape, and digital images of her father, Ira Sachs Sr., a bon vivant and pioneering businessman from Park City, Utah. FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO is her attempt to understand the web that connects a child to her parent and a sister to her siblings. With a nod to the Cubist renderings of a face, Sachs’ cinematic exploration of her father offers simultaneous, sometimes contradictory, views of one seemingly unknowable man who is publicly the uninhibited center of the frame, yet privately ensconced in secrets. With this meditation on fatherhood and masculinity, Sachs allows herself and her audience to see beneath the surface of the skin, beyond the projected reality. As the startling facts mount, she discovers more about her father than she had ever hoped to reveal. (Cinema Guild) Post-screening conversation with Lynne Sachs.


THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 6:00PM

A COLLECTION & A CONVERSATION

2018-2022, dir. Lynne Sachs
USA, 64 min., In English / Format: Digital 

This program of four short and medium-length pieces highlights Sachs’ filmography from a poetic, personal perspective, as she uses her camera to capture the essence of people, places, and moments in time. The scope of this work includes DRIFT AND BOUGH (2014, USA, 6 min., No dialogue / Format: 8mm on digital), an assemblage of 8mm footage from a winter morning in Central Park. Set to sound artist Stephen Vitiello’s delicate and assured score, the contrasting darkness – of skyscrapers, fences, trees, and people – against bright snow, gives way to a meditative living picture. In MAYA AT 24 (2021, USA, 4 min., No dialogue / Format: 16mm on digital), Sachs presents a spinning, swirling cinematic record of her daughter Maya, chronicled at ages 6, 16, and 24. As Maya runs, she glances – furtively, lovingly, distractedly – through the lens and at her mother, conveying a wordless bond between parent and child, and capturing the breathtakingly quick nature of time. Presented for the first time publicly, in VISIT TO BERNADETTE MAYER’S CHILDHOOD HOME (2020, USA, 3 min., In English / Format: 16mm on digital), Sachs visits poet Bernadette Mayer’s childhood home in Queens to celebrate Mayer’s work, through a reverent, flowing collage. Queens, New York is also the backdrop for the poetry of Paolo Javier in SWERVE (2022, USA, 7 min., in various languages with English subtitles / Format: Digital), a “COVID film” that documents people emerging – cautiously, distanced, masked – from the global pandemic, finding their way in the liminal space between “before” and “after,” and connected by language and verse. In collaboration with playwright Lizzie Olesker, THE WASHING SOCIETY (2018, USA, 44 min., In English / Format: Digital) explores the once ubiquitous but now endangered public laundromat. Inspired by “To ’Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War” by Tera W. Hunter, THE WASHING SOCIETY is an observational study of lather and labor, a document of the lives of working class women who – largely overlooked and underappreciated – load, dry, fold, and repeat. Post-screening conversation with Lynne Sachs. 

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.

Producers’ Forum with Lynne Sachs: “Film About a Father Who” / Scribe Video Center

Producers’ Forum with Lynne Sachs: “Film About a Father Who”
Scribe Video Center
Event on November 18, 2022
https://scribe.org/events/producers-forum-lynne-sachs-film-about-father-who

Producers’ Forum with Lynne Sachs: “Film About a Father Who”

November 18, 7:00 PM

Cost: 
$7.50 General Admission, $5 Students/Seniors, $4 Scribe Members

Over a period of 35 years between 1984 and 2019, filmmaker Lynne Sachs shot 8 and 16mm film, videotape and digital images of her father, Ira Sachs Sr., a bon vivant and pioneering businessman from Park City, Utah. Film About a Father Who is her attempt to understand the web that connects a child to her parent and a sister to her siblings.

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.

Contact Email Address: 
inquiry@scribe.org

Contact Phone Number: 
215-222-4201

Event Type: 
Screening
Producers’ Forum


Lynne with Tim Corrigan (host)

“Lynne Sachs: Film Festivals used to be perceived as exclusive and snobbish, but that has changed.” / Diario de Mallorca

“Lynne Sachs: Film Festivals used to be perceived as exclusive and snobbish, but that has changed.”
Diario de Mallorca
Interview by Montse Terrasa
Translation by Guillermo Amengual
October 5, 2022
https://www.diariodemallorca.es/cultura/2022/10/05/lynne-sachs-gente-pensaba-festivales-76794424.html

Lynne Sachs (Memphis, 1961) prefers to define herself as a filmmaker rather than a director. She claims to prefer to feel a member of a group of people working on a project. Now she is at Palma (Majorca, Spain) to perform as the guest of honor of the MajorDocs film festival, a meeting for she’s profoundly excited for having the opportunity to talk about films and ideas during several days.

Yesterday, she presented her documentary focused on her father, Ira Sachs Sr., whom she describes as a good living: seducer, extravagant and entrepreneur. In this feature film, she uses family archive films made for over thirty years.

Interviewer: Film About a Father Who. Is this your most personal film?

Lynne Sachs: I think that the word personal is used in a very obvious way and we need to fragment and analyze what it really mean “to do something personal”, because it can be more ambiguous and it could be referred to your print, your style in the project.

I think that what we call personal is like a thread that connects all my films. Film About a Father Who took me to another personal level because I show my fears and my ambiguity toward my relationship with my father, and I think I took a risk there, as I first wanted to do a very angry film that afterwards turned into something that was more focused on forgiveness…

I exposed all of my feelings, my vulnerability. In that sense, we could perhaps refer to it as my most personal film. When I was making it, I had the feeling that I needed to. I had to get it out of me. I thought nobody would want to watch it. This time I didn’t think about audience. I just thought about myself and maybe that’s the key to reaching more people.

I: When did you decide to do the film?

L.S.: Back in 1991, when I wanted to do a film divided in three parts. I wanted to explore in what way we (people) can really know another human being but ourselves. A child, a friend… The first part would be about a total stranger, the second one about a departed family member who I get to know through his letters, and the third one was going to be about my father, who I could call whenever I wanted and ask him questions, and I thought that would be the easiest part. It wasn’t at all.

I: Filmmaker, poet, teacher, feminist… What adjective describes you the best? Or does it depend on the moment?

L.S.: Yes, it does. I feel more like a filmmaker than a director. That noun refers to the industry matters. It expresses who stands at the top of the pyramid and makes the decisions. I prefer to

call myself a filmmaker because I feel like I’m part of a project where I work side by side with people. No hierarchy involved. Historically women were tied to their homes. They were homemakers. Then we freed ourselves and we stood up and show to the world that we are capable of doing a lot more than that. But at the same time if we look closely to the word filmmaker, it still has that connection with the word homemaker, it can mean to take care of cinema as a house, as a home.

I: Is now a good time for documentaries? In addition to these film festivals, many streaming platforms encourage this way of moviemaking…

L.S.: Yes, of course. Things have change a lot, over the years. Back then if someone asked me where they could watch my films I just could say that they where only screened in film festival or museums. Nowadays, 15 of my films are available on DAfilms and also in The Criterion Channel… Those streaming services are very useful for documentaries, but also for those who work in very low Budget independent films or even features made with their own phones or

digital cameras… People thought that Film Festivals where exclusive and elitist, but that has changed.

I: How do you feel about being the Guest of Honor of this edition of the MajorDocs film festival?

L.S.: I feel that I don’t deserve it. Two days ago I still couldn’t believe it. I was intimidating. But I love Film Festivals like this one where they encourage the audience not only to watch documentaries, but also to talk about them during the whole week. There are conversations about what they’ve seen and about what feelings and ideas struck out at them, and that is very important.

I: Is now a good time for documentaries? In addition to these film festivals, many streaming platforms encourage this way of moviemaking…

L.S.: Yes, of course. Things have changed a lot, over the years. Back then if someone asked me where they could watch my films I just could say that they were only screened at film festivals or museums. Nowadays, fifteen of my films are available on Dafilms and also in The Criterion Channel… Those streaming services are very useful for documentaries, but also for those who work in very low Budget independent films or even features made with their own phones or digital cameras… Film festivals used to be perceived as exclusive and snobbish, but that has changed.

I: As a viewer, as a spectator, what kind of films do you like?

L. S.: My family makes fun of the fact that I might not have seen a movie if it’s very popular. However, that’s not true. I like to see films that make me think, that challenge me to see the world in a different way. I like to take notes while watching these kind of films, even in the darkness of the theatre. I do the same thing while reading a book. I cannot watch a Godard film without taking notes.

“The 4th edition of MajorDocs claims calm and pause in domestic audiovisual creation” / IB3 News

“The 4th edition of MajorDocs claims calm and pause in domestic audiovisual creation”
IB3 News
October 4, 2022
https://ib3.org/la-quarta-edicio-del-festival-majordocs-reivindica-la-calma-i-la-pausa-en-la-creacio-audiovisual-domestica

English translation:

The 4th edition of MajorDocs claims calm and pause in domestic audiovisual creation

From October 4 to 8, 8 films from around the world will be screened, and professional conferences will be organized, such as the master class of the Venezuelan Goya nominee Andrés Duque

‘Film about a father who’ is an autobiographical documentary by American filmmaker Lynne Sachs . The experimental filmmaker from Brooklyn spent 35 years recording this film from digital images of her father.

“I’m very happy to have done it, but also very scared every time I have to show it. It is a vulnerable film for me and my father, although it is also a project that has given me many opportunities . I was able to talk to people about their relationship with their parents and what they learned from it, as well as what they don’t want to repeat from their parents,” explained Sachs.

In this way, the fourth edition of MajorDocs has started . In a current situation in which cinema is consumed in haste, the festival claims calm and pause in domestic audiovisual creation .

From October 4 to 8 , 8 films from around the world will be shown; all, from the author’s subjective point of view . Professional conferences are also organized , where the master class offered by the Venezuelan Andrés Duque , nominated for a Goya for the documentary ‘Iván Z’ , stands out.


Spanish original:

La 4a edició del MajorDocs reivindica la calma i la pausa en la creació audiovisual domèstica

Del 4 al 8 d’octubre, es projectaran 8 pel·lícules d’arreu del món, i s’organitzaran jornades professionals, com la classe magistral del veneçolà nominat als Goya Andrés Duque

‘Film about a father who’ is an autobiographical documentary by American filmmaker Lynne Sachs . The experimental filmmaker from Brooklyn spent 35 years recording this film from digital images of her father.

“I’m very happy to have done it, but also very scared every time I have to show it. It is a vulnerable film for me and my father, although it is also a project that has given me many opportunities . I was able to talk to people about their relationship with their parents and what they learned from it, as well as what they don’t want to repeat from their parents,” explained Sachs.

In this way, the fourth edition of MajorDocs has started . In a current situation in which cinema is consumed in haste, the festival claims calm and pause in domestic audiovisual creation .

From October 4 to 8 , 8 films from around the world will be shown; all, from the author’s subjective point of view . Professional conferences are also organized , where the master class offered by the Venezuelan Andrés Duque , nominated for a Goya for the documentary ‘Iván Z’ , stands out .