This month’s nonfiction picks include a reflection on a father, a immersive dive into the fishing industry and an alternative approach to the rock band biopic doc.
The proliferation of documentaries on streaming services makes it difficult to choose what to watch. Each month, we’ll choose three nonfiction films — classics, overlooked recent docs and more — that will reward your time.
In “Film About
a Father Who,” the director Lynne Sachs sorts through her feelings about her
elusive, problematic dad, Ira Sachs Sr. The movie, which mixes film and video
formats, brings together footage that Lynne shot over more than 30 years along
with other material from her filmmaker brother, Ira Sachs Jr. (“Love
Is Strange”), and Ira Sr. himself.
Right from the
start, Ira Sr. sounds like a bit of a flake. Lynne, explaining what her dad did
for a living, calls him “a hippie businessman, buying land so steep you
couldn’t build, bottling mineral water he couldn’t put on the shelves, using
other people’s money to develop hotels named for flowers.” He also seems to
have been a serial compartmentalizer. That trait may have been harmless enough
when it came to extravagances (he owned twin Cadillac convertibles and kept one
secret), but it caused a great deal of drama for his family. Lynne interviews
some of the women Ira Sr. had been involved with and the many children he
fathered, including two grown half sisters Lynne didn’t know about until 2016.
Did she have suspicions, you might ask? Lynne suggests that Ira Sr.’s
secret-keeping led her and her siblings to adopt a stance of what she calls
“complicit ignorance.” And Ira Sr.’s mother, called Maw-Maw by Lynne, only
complicated matters when she was alive, because, Lynne says, she “could not
take the constant flow of people that she was supposed to, quote, ‘love,’ in
the way that we’re taught to love family.”
In interviews,
Ira Sr. nevertheless comes across as a genial lug — maybe fun at parties, but
surely a handful to have as a father or a partner. “Film About a Father Who,”
whose title was inspired by Yvonne Rainer’s “Film About a Woman Who,” is a
consideration of how one man’s easygoing attitude yielded anything but an easy
family dynamic as it rippled across generations. The movie runs only 74
minutes, but it contains lifetimes.
Some
documentaries aim to impose order on the world. “Leviathan,” by contrast,
revels in abstraction and disorientation, as Dennis
Lim noted in 2012 when profiling the filmmakers for The New York
Times. The co-directors Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab,
a group that merges the academic discipline of ethnography with the artistic
possibilities of filmmaking, shot it during six trips aboard a Massachusetts
fishing trawler. But it’s hardly an exposé or elucidation of the fishing
industry. It opens with a quote from the Book of Job and unleashes a furious
torrent of images in which it’s often difficult to know which way is up or even
whether it’s day or night.
As the title
implies, the human presence is something of a secondary concern next to the
monstrous churn of the sea or the clanking, threatening chains of the boat’s
equipment. The waterlogged, slicker-wearing fishermen aren’t identified until
the closing credits; their voices are often barely possible to understand (the
distortions of their words suggest Charlie Brown’s teacher fed through some
sort of metallic feedback), and their routines are never explained.
In interviews,
the filmmakers noted that they sought to surrender some of their agency to the
elements. Waterproof cameras get dragged underwater like a fishing net or
pulled above the surface to skip along with some hovering seabirds. They slosh
around on the floor with the day’s catch, as much a part of the detritus as the
ginger-ale can that rattles around in a pile of shells. Shooting at
ultra-close-range from boot height or at odd angles, Paravel and
Castaing-Taylor offer perspectives on the way the boat looks and sounds that
seem untethered from where our eyes would naturally dart for meaning. It’s so
vivid that at times, you swear you can smell the ship as well.
Todd Haynes
doesn’t exactly reinvent the rock-band-biopic documentary in “The Velvet Underground,”
but there are times when he seems pretty close to it. The title is in some ways
a misnomer: The focus isn’t so much on the band as the Warholian cultural
ferment of the 1960s that the group grew out of. (It’s more underground and
less, uh, velvet.) Dedicated to the memory of Jonas
Mekas, who appears, and featuring excerpts from films by him and
film-artist contemporaries like Bruce Conner, Stan Brakhage and many others,
Haynes’s movie is as interested in picture, sound and sensation as it is in
recording history.
The copious use
of split screen evokes Warhol’s “Chelsea Girls,” a work that places imagery
from two projectors side by side while the soundtrack alternates between the
film strips, allowing viewers to draw connections. In a similar spirit, Haynes
is devoted to capturing the cultural crosscurrents that shaped the band and its
members.
John Cale, one
of the band’s founders, speaks of the influence of experimental musicians like
John Cage and La Monte Young on the music he was making. Later, offering a
fan’s perspective, the musician Jonathan Richman talks about hearing “overtones
that you couldn’t account for” while seeing the Velvet Underground play. The
film critic Amy Taubin draws a link between Warhol’s silent films — meant to be
played at the slower-than-standard speed of 16 frames per second — and the
avant-garde music scene: “It was all about extended time.”
Haynes’s film
doesn’t avoid standard biographical details. There are tales of Lou Reed’s
prickliness and a long section about what happened to the band after its
game-changing (if famously not best-selling) first album. But you don’t have to
be interested in the music, or music at all, to appreciate “The Velvet
Underground” as a movie.
According to an Academy-provided breakdown of the new
invitees, 44 percent are women, 37 percent are non-white and 50 percent are
non-Americans (54 different countries are represented).
Among those who
will henceforth be able to vote for the Oscar nominations and winners if they
accept, as the vast majority of people who have received invites historically
have: newly-minted Oscar winners Billie Eilish and Finneas
O’Connell (music branch) and Ariana DeBose and Troy
Kotsur (actors); Paramount chief Brian Robbins and
Disney general entertainment chief Dana Walden (executives);
and film critic Leonard Maltin (members-at-large).
According to an
Academy-provided breakdown of the new invitees, 44 percent are women, 37
percent are non-white and 50 percent are non-Americans (54 different countries
are represented). If they all accept, the Academy’s overall membership will be
34 percent female, 19 percent non-white and 23 percent non-American.
Seven branches
invited more women than men (actors, casting directors, costume designers,
documentary, makeup artists/hairstylists, marketing/public relations and
producers); three branches invited more non-whites than whites (actors,
directors and documentary); and nine branches invited more non-Americans than
Americans (actors, casting directors, cinematographers, costume designers,
directors, makeup artists/hairstylists, producers, short films/feature
animation and visual effects).
This year’s
list of invites is two
longer than last year’s, which was, by far, the smallest since the
#OscarsSoWhite uproar prompted a massive expansion of the organization. The
most invites came from the short films/feature animation branch (41), followed
by the documentary branch (38) and the actors branch (30).
Other notable
names invited to join the Academy this year include 2021 standout actors Caitriona
Balfe and Jamie Dornan (Belfast), Jessie
Buckley (The Lost Daughter), Gaby Hoffmann (C’mon
C’mon), Robin de Jesus (Tick, Tick … Boom!), Vincent
Lindon (Titane), Jesse Plemons and Kodi
Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog) and Anya Taylor-Joy (Last
Night in Soho); director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King
Richard); documentarians Traci A. Curry (Attica)
and Ben Proudfoot (The Queen of Basketball);
producers Tim White and Trevor White (King
Richard); and writers Zach Baylin (King Richard) and Jeremy
O Harris (Zola),
Veteran
entertainment industry figures who received invitations not tied to a specific
recent projects include Sheryl Lee Ralph (actors); Amy
Seimetz (directors); Scott Foundas (executives); Craig
Mazin, Alex Ross Perry and Katie Silberman (writers);
and George Drakoulias (members-at-large).
Among those
invited to join the marketing and public relations branch were DDA chief Dana
Archer, Amazon awards chief Debra
Birnbaum, international features specialist Tatiana Detlofson,
personal reps Sheri Goldberg and Jessica Kolstad, Magnolia
Pictures publicity chief George Nicholis, Apple TV+ awards
chief Gina Pence (who was central to CODA‘s
winning Oscar campaign), Focus Features’ executive vp publicity Stephanie
Phillips, Shelter PR evp awards and events Jerry Rojas and
Netflix’s US publicity chief Michelle Slavich.
Several people
were invited to join multiple branches and will have to select one,
including: Drive My Car‘s Ryusuke Hamaguchi (directors/writers), CODA‘s Sian
Heder (directors/writers) and Flee‘s Jonas Poher
Rasmussen (directors/documentary)
A full list of
those invited to join the Academy follows.
Actors
Funke Akindele – “Omo Ghetto: The Saga,” “Jenifa”
Caitríona Balfe – “Belfast,” “Ford v Ferrari”
Reed Birney – “Mass,” “Changeling”
Jessie Buckley – “The Lost Daughter,” “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”
Lori Tan Chinn – “Turning Red,” “Glengarry Glen Ross”
Daniel K. Daniel – “The Fugitive,” “A Soldier’s Story”
Ariana DeBose – “West Side Story,” “The Prom”
Robin de Jesús – “tick, tick…BOOM!,” “The Boys in the Band”
Jamie Dornan – “Belfast,” “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar”
Michael Greyeyes – “Wild Indian,” “Woman Walks Ahead”
Gaby Hoffmann – “C’mon C’mon,” “Wild”
Amir Jadidi – “A Hero,” “Cold Sweat”
Kajol – “My Name Is Khan,” “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham…”
Troy Kotsur – “CODA,” “The Number 23”
Vincent Lindon – “Titane,” “The Measure of a Man”
BarBara Luna – “The Concrete Jungle,” “Five Weeks in a Balloon”
Aïssa Maïga – “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” “Mood Indigo”
Selton Mello – “My Hindu Friend,” “Trash”
Olga Merediz – “In the Heights,” “Adrift”
Sandra Kwan Yue Ng – “Echoes of the Rainbow,” “Portland Street Blues”
Hidetoshi Nishijima – “Drive My Car,” “Cut”
Rena Owen – “The Last Witch Hunter,” “The Dead Lands”
Jesse Plemons – “The Power of the Dog,” “Judas and the Black Messiah”
Sheryl Lee Ralph – “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit,” “The Distinguished
Gentleman”
Renate Reinsve – “The Worst Person in the World,” “Welcome to Norway”
Marco Rodriguez – “El Chicano,” “Unspeakable”
Joanna Scanlan – “After Love,” “Notes on a Scandal”
Kodi Smit-McPhee – “The Power of the Dog,” “Let Me In”
Suriya – “Jai Bhim,” “Soorarai Pottru”
Anya Taylor-Joy – “The Northman,” “Last Night in Soho”
Casting Directors Rich Delia – “King Richard,” “The Disaster Artist” Elodie Demey – “Happening,” “Summer of 85” Yngvill Kolset Haga – “The Worst Person in the World,” “One Night in Oslo” Louise Kiely – “The Green Knight,” “Sing Street” Meagan Lewis – “Blast Beat,” “Free State of Jones” Karen Lindsay-Stewart – “Marie Antoinette,” “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” Juliette Ménager – “A Bag of Marbles,” “As Above/So Below” Kate Ringsell – “The Lost City of Z,” “Justice League” Toby Whale – “Dunkirk,” “The History Boys”
Cinematographers
Ava Berkofsky – “The Sky Is Everywhere,” “Free in Deed”
Josh Bleibtreu – “Dark Phoenix,” “Shazam!”
Alice Brooks – “In the Heights,” “tick, tick…BOOM!”
Daria D’Antonio – “The Hand of God,” “Ricordi?”
Mike Eley – “The Duke,” “Woman Walks Ahead”
Sturla Brandth Grøvlen – “The Innocents,” “Another Round”
Ruben Impens – “Titane,” “Beautiful Boy”
Shabier Kirchner – “Small Axe,” “Bull”
Martin Ruhe – “The Tender Bar,” “The Midnight Sky”
Kasper Tuxen – “The Worst Person in the World,” “Riders of Justice”
Costume Designers Joan Bergin – “The Prestige,” “In the Name of the Father” Antonella Cannarozzi – “A Five Star Life,” “I Am Love” Andrea Flesch – “Midsommar,” “Colette” Lizzy Gardiner – “Hacksaw Ridge,” “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” Dorothée Guiraud – “Murder Party,” “French Tech” Suzie Harman – “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” “Extinction” Tatiana Hernández – “The Japon,” “Lope” Louise Stjernsward – “Made in Italy,” “The Mercy” Elisabeth Tavernier – “The Man in the Basement,” “Tanguy Is Back” Paul Tazewell – “West Side Story,” “Harriet” Mitchell Travers – “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” “Hustlers”
Directors Newton Aduaka – “One Man’s Show,” “Ezra” Andrew Ahn – “Fire Island,” “Spa Night” Bruno Villela Barreto – “Four Days in September,” “The Kiss” Mariano Barroso – “Ants in the Mouth,” “Ecstasy” Rolf de Heer – “Charlie’s Country,” “Bad Boy Bubby” Jeferson Rodrigues de Rezende – “The Malê Revolt,” “Bróder!” Pawo Choyning Dorji* – “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” Blessing Egbe – “African Messiah,” “Iquo’s Journal” Briar Grace-Smith – “Cousins ,” “Waru” Reinaldo Marcus Green – “King Richard,” “Monsters and Men” Ryusuke Hamaguchi* – “Drive My Car,” “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” Sian Harries Heder* – “CODA,” “Tallulah” Gil Kenan – “City of Ember,” “Monster House” Amanda Kernell – “Charter,” “Sami Blood” Mary Lambert – “The In Crowd,” “Pet Sematary II” Blackhorse Lowe – “Chasing the Light,” “5th World” Nalin Pan – “Last Film Show,” “Samsara” Jonas Poher Rasmussen* – “Flee,” “Searching for Bill” Isabel Sandoval – “Lingua Franca,” “Apparition” Amy Seimetz – “She Dies Tomorrow,” “Sun Don’t Shine” Rachel Talalay – “A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting,” “Tank Girl”
Documentary Julie Anderson – “God Is the Bigger Elvis,” “Arthur Ashe: Citizen of the World” Susan Bedusa – “Procession,” “Bisbee ’17” Opal H. Bennett – “A Broken House,” “Águilas” Shane Boris – “Stray,” “The Edge of Democracy” Joe Cephus Brewster – “American Promise,” “Slaying Goliath” Ellen Bruno – “Satya: A Prayer for the Enemy,” “Samsara: Death and Rebirth in Cambodia” Traci A. Curry – “Attica,” “Boss: The Black Experience in Business” Jason DaSilva – “When We Walk,” “When I Walk” Emílio Domingos – “Favela Is Fashion,” “L.A.P.A.” Sushmit Ghosh – “Writing with Fire,” “Timbaktu” Lyn Goldfarb – “Eddy’s World,” “With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade” Susanne Guggenberger – “Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes,” “The Beekeeper and His Son” Cristina Ibarra – “The Infiltrators,” “Las Marthas” Oren Jacoby – “On Broadway,” “Sister Rose’s Passion” Isaac Julien – “Derek,” “Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Mask” Deborah Kaufman – “Company Town,” “Blacks and Jews” Firouzeh Khosrovani – “Radiograph of a Family,” “Fest of Duty” Jessica Kingdon – “Ascension,” “Commodity City” Mehret Mandefro – “How It Feels to Be Free ,” “Little White Lie” Mary Manhardt – “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl),” “Racing Dreams” Amanda McBaine – “Boys State,” “The Overnighters” Peter Jay Miller – “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1,” “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport” Elizabeth Mirzaei – “Three Songs for Benazir,” “Laila at the Bridge” Gulistan Mirzaei – “Three Songs for Benazir,” “Laila at the Bridge” Bob Moore – “Dope Is Death,” “China Heavyweight” Omar Mullick – “Footprint,” “These Birds Walk” Mohammed Ali Naqvi – “Insha’Allah Democracy,” “Among the Believers” Sierra Pettengill – “Riotsville, USA,” “The Reagan Show” Ben Proudfoot – “The Queen of Basketball,” “A Concerto Is a Conversation” Jonas Poher Rasmussen* – “Flee,” “Searching for Bill” Gabriel Rhodes – “The First Wave,” “Time” Lynne Sachs – “Film about a Father Who,” “Investigation of a Flame” Brett Story – “The Hottest August,” “The Prison in Twelve Landscapes” Thorsten Thielow – “The First Wave,” “Mayor Pete” Rintu Thomas – “Writing with Fire,” “Dilli” Nathan Truesdell – “Ascension,” “Balloonfest” Jenni Wolfson – “Pray Away,” “One Child Nation” Jialing Zhang – “In the Same Breath,” “One Child Nation”
Executives Steve Asbell Carole Baraton Steven Bardwil Jeff Blackburn Liesl Copland Kareem Daniel Eva Diederix Scott Foundas Brenda Gilbert Joshua Barnett Grode Gene Yoonbum Kang Jenny Marchick Ori Joseph Marmur Anna Marsh Katherine Oliver Joel Pearlman Elizabeth Polk Louie Provost Amber Rasberry Brian Robbins Marc Schaberg Ron Schwartz Aditya Sood Frederick Tsui Dana Walden Clifford Werber
Film Editors Geraud Brisson – “CODA,” “Dark Hearts” Olivier Bugge Coutté – “The Worst Person in the World,” “Thelma” Shannon Baker Davis – “The Obituary of Tunde Johnson,” “The Photograph” Billy Fox – “Dolemite Is My Name,” “Hustle & Flow” Myron Kerstein – “tick, tick…BOOM!,” “Crazy Rich Asians” Jeremy Milton – “Encanto,” “Zootopia” Úna Ní Dhonghaíle – “Belfast,” “Stan & Ollie” Heike Parplies – “Invisible Life,” “Toni Erdmann” Joshua L. Pearson – “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” “What Happened, Miss Simone?” Peter Sciberras – “The Power of the Dog,” “The King” Aljernon Tunsil – “Attica,” “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” Azusa Yamazaki – “Drive My Car,” “Asako I & II”
Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Jacenda Burkett – “King Richard,” “Concussion” Nana Fischer – “Encounter,” “The Lost City of Z” Sean Flanigan – “The Many Saints of Newark,” “The Irishman” Massimo Gattabrusi – “Loving Pablo,” “Volver” Stephanie Ingram – “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” “It” Anna Carin Lock – “House of Gucci,” “Borg/McEnroe” Heike Merker – “The Matrix Resurrections,” “Anonymous” Stacey Morris – “Coming 2 America,” “Dolemite Is My Name” Justin Raleigh – “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” “Army of the Dead” Kerrie Smith – “Motherless Brooklyn,” “John Wick” Nadia Stacey – “Cruella,” “The Favourite” Julia Vernon – “Cruella,” “Maleficent” Wakana Yoshihara – “Belfast,” “Spencer”
Marketing
and Public Relations
Dana Archer
Debra Birnbaum
Tatiana Detlofson
Bethan Anna Dixon
Britta Gampper
Jane Gibbs
Sheri Goldberg
Jonathan Helfgot
Jessica Kolstad
Cortney Lawson
Vivek Mathur
George Nicholis
Stephanie Sarah Northen
Jodie Magid Oriol
Gina Pence
Stephanie Dee Phillips
Chrissy Quesada
Stuart Robertson
Jerry Rojas
Evelyn Santana
Sohini Sengupta
Michelle Slavich
James Verdesoto
Katrina Wan
Glen Erin Wyatt
Music Billie Eilish Baird O’Connell – “No Time to Die” Amie Doherty – “Spirit Untamed,” “The High Note” Lili Haydn – “Strip Down, Rise Up,” “Broken Kingdom” Leo Heiblum – “Maria Full of Grace,” “Frida” Natalie Holt – “Fever Dream,” “Journey’s End” Nathan Johnson – “Nightmare Alley,” “Knives Out” Jacobo Lieberman – “Maria Full of Grace,” “Frida” Ariel Rose Marx – “Shiva Baby,” “Rebel Hearts” Hesham Nazih – “The Guest,” “Born a King” Finneas O’Connell – “No Time to Die” Dan Romer – “Luca,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Nerida Tyson-Chew – “H Is for Happiness,” “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid”
Producers Mariela Besuievsky – “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” “The Secret in Their Eyes” Cale Boyter – “Dune,” “Pacific Rim Uprising” Chad Burris – “Collisions,” “Drunktown’s Finest” Damon D’Oliveira – “The Grizzlies,” “Love Come Down” Luc Déry – “Gabrielle,” “Monsieur Lazhar” Michael Downey – “Elvis Walks Home,” “Light Thereafter” Yaël Fogiel – “Memoir of War,” “Latest News of the Cosmos” Cristina Gallego – “Birds of Passage,” “Embrace of the Serpent” Laetitia Gonzales – “Plot 35,” “Tournée” Pauline Gygax – “With the Wind,” “My Life as a Zucchini” Margot Hand – “Passing,” “Brittany Runs a Marathon” Jojo Hui – “Better Days,” “Dearest” Eva Jakobsen – “Miss Viborg,” “Godless” Lucas Joaquin – “Mayday,” “Love Is Strange” Lizette Jonjic – “12 Dares,” “Guerrilla” Thanassis Karathanos – “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” “Tulpan” Kim McCraw – “Drunken Birds,” “Incendies” Sev Ohanian – “Run,” “Searching” Christina Piovesan – “The Nest,” “Amreeka” Natalie Qasabian – “Run,” “All about Nina” Philippe Rousselet – “CODA,” “Source Code” Sara Silveira – “Good Manners,” “Vazante” James Stark – “Prayers for the Stolen,” “Mystery Train” Riccardo Tozzi – “La Nostra Vita,” “Don’t Move” Shih-Ching Tsou – “Red Rocket,” “The Florida Project” Nadia Turincev – “The Insult,” The Boss’s Daughter” Tim White – “King Richard,” “Ingrid Goes West” Trevor White – “King Richard,” “LBJ” Teruhisa Yamamoto – “Drive My Car,” “Wife of a Spy” Olena Yershova – “Brighton 4th,” “Volcano”
Production
Design
François Audouy – “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” “Ford v Ferrari”
Laura Ballinger Gardner – “The Irishman,” “Joker”
Chris Baugh – “Steve Jobs,” “Argo”
Ellen Brill – “Being the Ricardos,” “Bombshell”
Joanna Bush – “La La Land,” “Life of Pi”
Christina Cecili – “Cyrano,” “A Quiet Place”
John Coven – “The Lion King,” “Logan”
Carol Flaisher – “Wonder Woman 1984,” “Miss Sloane”
Sandy Hamilton – “tick, tick…BOOM!,” “Joker”
Ellen Lampl – “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Jurassic World”
Enrico Latella – “Tenet,” “All the Money in the World”
Steven Lawrence – “Death on the Nile,” “Cinderella”
Melissa Levander – “The Tender Bar,” “The High Note”
Drew Petrotta – “The Suicide Squad,” “Captain Marvel”
Jean-Vincent Puzos – “Jungle Cruise,” “Amour”
Maya Shimoguchi – “Ford v Ferrari,” “Men in Black 3”
Short Films and Feature Animation Murad Abu Eisheh – “Tala’vision,” “Ta Hariri” Olivier Adam – “Sing 2,” “Minions” Michael Arias – “Harmony,” “Tekkonkinkreet” Evren Boisjoli – “Fauve,” “What Remains” Maria Brendle – “Ala Kachuu – Take and Run,” “The Stowaway” Sean Buckelew – “Drone,” “Hopkins & Delaney LLP” Olivier Calvert – “Bad Seeds,” “Animal Behaviour” Enrico Casarosa – “Luca,” “La Luna” Karla Castañeda – “La Noria (The Waterwheel),” “Jacinta” Hugo Covarrubias – “Bestia,” “The Night Upside Down” K.D. Dávila – “Please Hold,” “Emergency” Charlotte De La Gournerie – “Flee,” “Terra Incognita” Luc Desmarchelier – “The Bad Guys,” “Open Season” Anton Dyakov – “Boxballet,” “Vivat Musketeers!” Brian Falconer – “Saul & I,” “Boogaloo and Graham” Youssef Joe Haidar – “Scoob!,” “Animated American” Andy Harkness – “Vivo,” “Get a Horse!” Pierre Hébert – “Thunder River,” “Memories of War” Aneil Karia – “The Long Goodbye,” “Work” Brooke Keesling – “Meatclown,” “Boobie Girl” Nadine Lüchinger – “Ala Kachuu – Take and Run,” “Puppenspiel (Puppet Play)” Tadeusz Łysiak – “The Dress,” “Techno” Joe Mateo – “Blush,” “Big Hero 6” Sharon Maymon – “Skin,” “Summer Vacation” Kathleen McInnis – “Mama,” “Downturn” Yvett Merino – “Encanto,” “Wreck-It Ralph” Alberto Mielgo – “The Windshield Wiper,” “Spider-Man: Into the Spider- Verse” Les Mills – “Affairs of the Art,” “The Canterbury Tales” Jetzabel Moreno Hernández – “The Followers,” “Plums and Green Smoke” Dan Ojari – “Robin Robin,” “Slow Derek” Brian Pimental – “Tarzan,” “A Goofy Movie” Mikey Please – “Robin Robin,” “The Eagleman Stag” Erin Ramos – “Encanto,” “Frozen II” Mike Rianda – “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” Doug Roland – “Feeling Through,” “A Better Way” Leo Sanchez – “The Windshield Wiper,” “Over the Moon” Marc J. Scott – “The Boss Baby: Family Business,” “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” Sarah Smith – “Ron’s Gone Wrong,” “Arthur Christmas” Daniel Šuljić – “From Under Which Rock Did They Crawl Out,” “The Cake” Conrad Vernon – “The Addams Family,” “Shrek 2” Pamela Ziegenhagen-Shefland – “Abominable,” “The Emperor’s New Groove”
Sound Douglas Axtell – “True Grit,” “I Am Sam” Nerio Barberis – “Violeta al Fin,” “Find a Boyfriend for My Wife…Please!” Amanda Beggs – “The Forever Purge,” “Finding ’Ohana” Adrian Bell – “Mothering Sunday,” “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” Joshua Berger – “King Richard,” “The Lost City of Z” Paul (Salty) Brincat – “The Invisible Man,” “The Thin Red Line” Tom Yong-Jae Burns – “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “Blade Runner 2049” Benjamin A. Burtt – “Dolittle,” “Black Panther” Simon Chase – “Belfast,” “Artemis Fowl” Brian Chumney – “West Side Story,” “The Croods: A New Age” Richard Flynn – “The Power of the Dog,” “Slow West” Albert Gasser – “Straight Outta Compton,” “Dances With Wolves” Lewis Goldstein – “In the Heights,” “Hereditary” Theo Green – “Dune,” “Blade Runner 2049” James Harrison – “No Time to Die,” “Captain Phillips” John Hayes – “The King’s Man,” “Tom and Jerry” Ruth Hernandez – “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” “Brooklyn’s Finest” Huang Zheng – “Better Days,” “Chongqing Hot Pot” Thomas Huhn – “The Wife,” “White God” David Husby – “Tomorrowland,” “Elf” Allison Jackson – “Don’t Think Twice,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Paul Ledford – “One Night in Miami,” “Logan” Leff Lefferts – “Vivo,” “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” Nancy MacLeod – “The Revenant,” “The Hunger Games” Charles Maynes – “After Earth,” “Letters from Iwo Jima” Alan Meyerson – “Dune,” “Inception” Casey Stone – “Frozen,” “Tsotsi” Edward Tise – “Into the Wild,” “Full Metal Jacket” Jana Vance – “Cast Away,” “Saving Private Ryan” Tara Webb – “The Power of the Dog,” “Mortal Kombat” Waldir Xavier – “From Afar,” “Central Station” Denise Yarde – “Belfast,” “Dumbo”
Visual Effects Ivy Agregan – “India Sweets and Spices,” “Wakefield” Geeta Basantani – “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Vivo” Aharon Bourland – “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” “Venom” Ivan Busquets – “Malignant,” “The Irishman” Joe Ceballos – “Skyscraper,” “Thor: Ragnarok” Richard Anthony Clegg – “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms,” “Blade Runner 2049” Mark Curtis – “Sully,” “Spectre” Markus Degen – “The King’s Man,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” Jack Edjourian – “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Tenet” Eric Enderton – “Shark Tale,” “Jurassic Park” Marcos Fajardo Orellana – “Thor,” “Monster House” Joel Green – “No Time to Die,” “The Kid Who Would Be King” Earl Hibbert – “The Fate of the Furious,” “Guardians of the Galaxy” Hayley Hubbard – “The Old Guard,” “Dumbo” Maia Kayser – “Rango,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” Garrett Lam – “Limbo,” “Shock Wave 2” Jake Maymudes – “Dune,” “Terminator: Dark Fate” Catherine Ann Mullan – “Dumbo,” “Maleficent” Charlie Noble – “No Time to Die,” “Wonder Woman 1984” J. Alan Scott – “Finch,” “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” Tefft Smith – “Alice through the Looking Glass,” “Tomorrowland” Alan Travis – “Black Widow,” “The Irishman” Michael Van Eps – “Deepwater Horizon,” “Poseidon” Sean Noel Walker – “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” “Black Widow” Vernon Wilbert – “Stealth,” “I, Robot” Eric Jay Wong – “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Lucy” Kevin Wooley – “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” “Jurassic World” Wei Zheng – “Mank,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Writers
Zach Baylin – “King Richard”
Henry Bean – “The Believer,” “Deep Cover”
Pawo Choyning Dorji* – “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”
Michael Grais – “Cool World,” “Poltergeist”
Ted Griffin – “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Ravenous”
Ryusuke Hamaguchi* – “Drive My Car,” “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”
Jeremy O Harris – “Zola”
Sian Harries Heder* – “CODA,” “Tallulah”
Mike Jones – “Luca,” “Soul”
Reema Kagti – “Gully Boy,” “Gold”
Adele Lim – “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Crazy Rich Asians”
Craig Mazin – “Identity Thief,” “The Hangover Part II”
Margaret Nagle – “With/In,” “The Good Lie”
Takamasa Oe – “Drive My Car,” “Beautiful Method”
Alex Ross Perry – “Her Smell,” “Listen Up Philip”
Adam Rifkin – “Giuseppe Makes a Movie,” “Small Soldiers”
Jordan Roberts – “Big Hero 6,” “3, 2, 1…Frankie Go Boom”
Katie Silberman – “Booksmart,” “Isn’t It Romantic”
Randi Mayem Singer – “Tooth Fairy,” “Mrs. Doubtfire”
Jon Spaihts – “Dune,” “Doctor Strange”
Małgorzata Szumowska – “Never Gonna Snow Again,” “Elles”
Mark A. Victor – “Cool World,” “Poltergeist”
Members-at-Large
Keith Adams
Josiah Akinyele
Richard Berger
Andrew Birch
Andrew Cannava
George Drakoulias
Andrew Dunlap
Erin Dusseault
James Farrell
Valerie Flueger Veras
Andy Fowler
Glenn Kiser
Anne Lai
Susan Lazarus
Joe Machota
Leonard Maltin
Deborah McIntosh
Julia Michels
Daniel Rabinow
Ilda Santiago
Danie Streisand
Matt Sullivan
Anne Lajla Utsi
Matt Vioral
Michael Zink
While
visiting CRFIC2022, the American director spoke with “La Nación” about what it
meant to film her family for 30 years, the contradictions of the term
“non-fiction,” and her fascination with Julio Cortázar.
Rather than the feeling of being inside a
dream, Lynne Sachs’ cinematographic work feels like sneaking into another
person’s memory; making yourself small and tiptoeing into a room where a
cassette is playing memories of days gone by, of a past times that only years
later consecrate themselves into golden postcards.
Her last film, Film about a Father Who, condenses the emotions of Sachs’ own
family, whom she filmed for close to 30 years. While the recording of this project
never ceased, she produced many other films during this period (her prolific
career includes more than 30 films). Among them, a sentimental piece titled Con el pelo en el viento (Wind in Our Hair),
in which she explores the transition to adulthood, inspired in Julio
Cortázar short stories.
“To me, everything is about exploring and
challenging reality,” says the filmmaker, smiling and charismatic, on the third
floor of the Centro de Cine in Costa Rica, while one of her films is being projected
below. On this premise, the Memphis-born director conversed with “La Nación”
about how these two films have marked her life.
What
are your thoughts about the films selected for your retrospective at CRFIC?
Honestly, I feel honored that my films are
alongside Memoria, Drive My Car…
films that make me feel like I’m on a film adventure. I feel grateful on so
many levels to the Costa Rican community for giving me this space. I think the
film selection speaks to my interest in looking at reality’s textures.
About
your latest film, Film about a Father
Who, what was your primary interest?
It took me 30 years to make this film, so even
if I could tell you what my first interest was when I started, it definitely
changed and evolved. Let me tell you that this film is a testimony to the
belief that certain projects should not be made in a hurry, they should be gestated
like a baby, but making a film is more difficult than gestating a baby
(laughs). I have two daughters (laughs) but with a film you have to decide when
it’s ready. Regarding this film, I wanted to do it because I was intrigued by
my father and I loved that, at that moment, he was such an iconoclast; a
classic rule breaking person, who always created his own cosmos, but at the
same time had to deal with a lot of changes in our lives at that time, and the
film could give me that perspective.
I wanted to explore what it was like to be his
daughter and always having that door open for him. I couldn’t finish the film
because I didn’t know how to put all those things together. I felt I was ready
to film his life but not to confront all the footage afterwards. I made a lot
of movies while shooting this one, but this film was always breathing down my
neck.
When
did you feel it was the moment to stop?
A couple years before I stopped filming, I
realized that I wasn’t making a film about a father and daughter; it’s a film
about a family that makes you ask what is the soul of a family. What connects a
family? Blood? What happens when suddenly someone who seems like a “stranger” to
that family arrives? How do you deal with that? So I needed to listen to the
rest of my siblings to know and decide when the appropriate moment would be.
And to not only understand my father but also my
siblings and their experiences. My brother is gay, and there is a scene in the
film where you can see how alienated he is feeling. The rest of my siblings
have had other lives that also give a lot to think about.
The
people that I know that have seen your film loved it. Where do you think
resides the emotional component that achieves that?
Oh, thank you so much. I am moved to hear you
say that because my family thought that I was doing this for myself and not for
them. They saw that I only talked
about the movie and how I did things in order to have more profound
conversations, and at the end of the day the film was a ticket to having these
moments that I think all families want to have. Even my
mom said: “Will anyone be interested in this movie?” (laughs) and well, I told
her that most of us think our families are abnormal, that they’re weird. That
we want to be like other families because sometimes we feel ashamed of our own.
But this is natural and the film allows us to feel vulnerable about everything
that being part of a family entails. There is a catharsis there.
In the
end, how did you find the courage to confront all that footage?
It was very difficult. My initial fear was seeing
how old I had become (laughs), but I leaned on an ex-student of mine who worked
with me as an assistant. She helped me confront all that footage in the studio.
We wanted to open those boxes containing 30 year’s worth of material and decide
what to do with it, if we were going to digitize it or what other possibilities
there were. She gave me the courage to watch it all.
In one of the workshops I gave here in San
José, I told them how she helped me understand that I did not have to explain
my family tree, because the story is not about who is who but about emotions.
This helped so much: to determine that this is about emotions.
What is
the most exciting thing about filming nonfiction?
For me, the term “nonfiction” is complicated
because I like to think about how we see the world beyond a label. Fiction and
nonfiction are terms that make the world seem binary, when it isn’t. I know I
don’t do fiction but I prefer to say I work with reality, that I confront
reality because I give myself the opportunity to play with the people that
appear in front of the camera. I like to explore the real world, but I don’t
try to explain it. For me, if a
film is successful, it is because the public questions things about the world
that they had not questioned before.
Let’s
now see this from another perspective. In your film Con el pelo en el viento (Wind in Our Hair) you introduce yourself
to fiction. What brought you to make that film?
Oh, in that one reality is out of focus. In
2007 there was a retrospective in Argentina and I wanted to go back and make a
film there because I met so many talented people. I have two daughters and
wanted to find more girls to make this story about growing up. We knew we
wanted to reinterpret some of Julio Cortázar’s short stories, so we chose the
story El fin del juego (The end of the
game) which refers precisely
to that end of childhood and what comes after with your body, with your
sexuality and with your mind. I wanted to portray it,
thinking about my daughters and all the social changes that they might face. In
fact, I find it curious to watch this film now, because the girls in the film
are already 25 years old. It’s very sweet to see the passage of time like this.
The magnificent thing about making films is feeling connected to different
communities.
It’s a
very powerful story. Since we are talking about this, what do you think about
Julio Cortázar?
Well, I love him (laughs). I love how perceptive
he is and playful with language. Of course, there is the tremendous experiment
that he did with Rayuela (Hopscotch), a
book that is very liberating and has definitely inspired my filmmaking. But I’m
even more fascinated by his short stories, even though they seem more
traditional. For this film, I tried to portray that sensitivity of seeing girls
confronting a period of their life and wanting to deal with it.
I love the short story Casa Tomada (House Taken Over), a two-page text. In fact, the first
part of the film was inspired by that story, with that almost Cold War fear of
feeling being watched. I am thinking that now it feels so current with the
Alexas that live in our homes and listen to everything we say. Cortázar,
without a doubt, was a visionary because the girls actually feel that the walls
are listening, a very contemporary feeling.
Maybe a
Costa Rican book could inspire your next film…
I would love to! I’ve been given an anthology
that I am very excited to start reading and I definitely would like to learn
more. I love to explore traditions that can inspire my work.
At this
moment in your life, what is your main interest around making movies?
It has a lot to do with my next film, Every Contact Leaves a Trace (Cada contacto
deja un rastro). It is a feature film that is about expressing, using
forensics theory, how there is a footprint in everything we do, like criminals
who are chased using their traces. My film does not have anything to do with
crime but with how people whom we meet leave us with a perception for the rest
of our lives. Over many years, I’ve
collected thousands of contact cards. Most of their owners I never see again,
but they leave their fingerprints on those cards. It’s as if their trail
follows me forever.
It is an allegory for how I can reconnect and
reflect on what people leave to me after a lifetime. It is not the same as a
family relationship – their memories may stay with you for longer – but about
people you meet in stores, your first psychologist, a journalist, like you… It’s
a reflection that I’m very excited to explore.
Opening the Family Album Costa Rica International Film Festival San José, Sala Gomez, Costa Rica Film Archive Part of Lynne Sachs Retrospective May and June, 2022 with in-person meetings June 11 and 12 https://www.costaricacinefest.go.cr/categorias/retrospectiva
Opening the Family Album is a three day (two hours each day) workshop in which we will explore the ways in which images of our mother, father, sister, brother, child, cousin, grand-parent, aunt or uncle might become material for the making of a personal film. Each participant will come to the workshop with a single photograph (both in hand and digital) they want to examine. During the workshop, you will write text in response to this image by incorporating storytelling and performance. In the process, we will discuss and challenge notions of truth-telling and language. Your final work will then be a completed film with sound or a film with live narration. Previous filmmaking and editing experience is appreciated but not required. Participants may use their own digital cameras or cell phones to make images and sounds. Please register early so that you can be part of our first meeting which will be virtual.
This workshop is inspired by the work of Italian novelist Natalia Ginzburg, whose writing explores family relationships during the Fascist years and World War II. Ginzburg was a prescient artist who enjoyed mixing up conventional distinctions between fiction and non-fiction: “Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist, I have felt compelled at once to destroy it. The places, events, and people are all real.”
All of the films made in this workshop will be presented publicly on our last day of meeting.
Director: Lynne Sachs, USA, 2020, 74 min., ENG + ENG subtitles
For
Minizoom Lynne Sachs, we are organizing two screenings, the first of which is
the feature documentary Film About A Father Who. For
35 years between1984 and 2019, filmmaker Lynne Sachs recorded on 8 and 16 mm
film, VHS cassettes and digital footage of her father Ira Sachs, Sr., a bon
vivant and businessman from Park City, Utah. Film About A Father Who is
her attempt to grasp the web that connects a child with her parent and a sister
with her siblings.
Lynne Sachs is an American filmmaker and poet who focuses on documentary and short experimental films, film essays and live performances. Her work often pushes on the boundaries of genre, relying on a feminist approach and an introspective form to explore the complex relationship between personal observation and universal historical experience. She is interested in the implicit connection between body, camera and the materiality of film. Lynne Sachs currently lives and works in Brooklyn.
About us A4 – Space for Contemporary Culture is an independent cultural centre focusing on contemporary forms of professional theatre, dance, music, film, visual art and new media. Established in 2004 as a result of a joint effort between several civic cultural organisations, it became one of the first cultural centres in Slovakia founded by a bottom-up initiative. Since its beginning, A4 has been a vivid and active location on the Central European cultural scene, an open field for creative experimentation as well as a home for fresh and unique experiences. Besides presenting innovative contemporary art, it actively supports the new creative activities and education. A4 engages in public debate on important social issues, and attempts to foster conditions for non-commercial cultural activities, culturing of public space, urban development, etc.
“Thought, Word, Image: Introduction to Lynne Sachs Retrospective” Costa Rica International Festival of Cinema, 2022 Written by Fernando Chaves Espiniche, Artistic Director Translated from Spanish by Maria C. Scharron
There
are films that seem small but on screen they expand until we are overwhelmed.
That is what happens with the images and words that Lynne Sachs pieces
together: her films seem fragile, transparent, but they hit us with the force
bestowed by the mind behind them.
Since
the late 80s, this American artist has been building a group of work that
expands and blurs the limits of fiction, documentary and the experimental
expressions of cinema art. In more than 40 films, between feature films, short
films, performances, web projects and installations, Sachs has demonstrated to
be one of the most authentic voices of American experimental cinema. She
provokes, challenges, and proposes. Her
movies give the impression of simplicity, which the emotional and intellectual
weight betrays. Even when the films are straightforward, they raise deep
questions that make them expand beyond their short duration.
But,
what does someone like Lynne Sachs have to say about the Costa Rican and
Central American context? Although her movies are intimate, Sachs’ films speak
about what we call universal themes: home, memory, time, family, and cinema as
a device to inquire into everything. It is her modest scale, (and we already
mentioned that this should not distract us from her incisive glance), which
lead us to think about other ways to approach cinema as producers, critics and
spectators. Something is burning in these images of Sachs’, something that
motivates us to imagine another way of narrating: the drive to film everything,
transforming it all with voice, editing, thought and rhythm.
In Films About a Father Who (2020), which
we had the pleasure to show in the 9th Cosa Rica International
Festival de Cine, the director dissects her father’s presence with deep empathy
and an objective eye. The debris of memory accumulates around a very complex
figure. This challenges our understanding of him, but without leaving affection
and tenderness behind. Personal history is made of small fragments recorded and
filmed throughout the years, an accumulation of interactions and moments that
reveal, even through their apparent banality, a compromise with the world and
its inhabitants. By putting them together and letting the editing do its work
and make them speak, these fragments expose other truths, they open fissures to
other intimacies.
Sachs
also sketches these family portraits through gestures: in Maya at 24 (2020), her daughter runs around her at ages 6, 16 and
24. Filmed in 16mm, it fuses the emotional landscapes of each age –ages, by the
way, that are crucial in a woman’s life–, letting herself be surrounded by love
and energy. Lynne is at the center of this gesture: this act also touches and
affects her.
We also have to talk about the material nature of film itself, which brings us closer to, we could say, the manual process of transforming those images into a narrative-poem-gesture that summons us and invites us to get involved with these lives. The passage of time is inscribed in these films; the film is affected by light, movement, time and manipulation. Even in digital films we can still feel the presence of the artist’s touch, which is key. Sachs’ works are an invitation to dive deep into the vast archive of images and sounds that we generate, not only to dig into our childhood or hidden stories, but to find ourselves in the process.
It’s weird. With Sachs’ films, we end up feeling like we already know her, that we have talked to her for hours and hours. As in any conversation, one topic leads to another, images repeat, ideas come and go. But as every word turns, another angle reveals itself. In this sense, the power of the minimum inscribes Sachs’ work in a long history of women who have used the moving image as a tool to find themselves, to transform their bodies and their environments and register the beat of a century that learned to see itself through cinema. In Carolee, Barbara and Gunvor (2018), we witness the visits Lynne made to the pioneers of experimental cinema: Carolee Schneeman, Barbara Hammer, and Gunvor Nelson. Visits to the places they called home. They speak about their body and their body of work. They share pieces of their thoughts so we can participate in a different way with their films. Lynne Sachs’ films are an exercise in memory, an expanding memory. From the minimal to the immense, from gesture to revelation. Like glimpses, her movies invite us to be part of a poem: we are just another verse that rhymes with changes of direction, scattered dialogues, the movement of objects and the cuts that link moments that without Lynne’s diligent gaze we would never have found. At CRFIC we are thrilled to present this cinema of what is possible, of what is close. We want to converse with Lynne and her films, and we are fortunate she has opened that door for us.
Translated from the Spanish Original by Maria C. Scharron
“Pensamiento, palabra, imagen” de Fernando Chaves Espinach Director Artístico, Costa Rica Festival International de Cine
Existe cierta clase de cine que parece pequeño pero que, en la pantalla, se
expande hasta abrumarnos.
Así sucede con las imágenes y palabras que hilvana Lynne Sachs: parecen películas frágiles, transparentes, pero nos
golpean con la
contundencia que les confiere el profundo pensamiento que las genera. Desde finales de los años 80, esta cineasta estadounidense ha estado
construyendo una obra que expande y
confunde los límites de la ficción, el documental y las expresiones experimentales del arte cinematográfico. En más de
40 películas, entre
largometrajes y cortometrajes, así como performances, proyectos web e instalaciones, Sachs ha demostrado ser una de
las voces más auténticas del
cine estadounidense experimental. Provoca, desafía y propone. Sus películas aparentan una sencillez que su carga
emocional e intelectual
traiciona; incluso cuando son directas, plantean hondas preguntas que las expanden más allá de su breve duración.
Pero, ¿qué dice alguien como Lynne Sachs a un contexto como el costarricense y
centroamericano? Incluso cuando
son íntimas, las películas de Sachs hablan de lo que llamamos temas “universales”: la casa, la memoria, el tiempo,
la familia y el cine como
dispositivo para indagar en todo aquello. Asimismo, es en su modesta escala, que como ya hemos dicho, no debe
distraer de su incisiva
mirada, que nos mueve a pensar otras formas de acercarnos al cine como realizadores, críticos y espectadores. Algo
arde en estas imágenes de Sachs que
nos impulsa a imaginarnos otra forma de contar: es la voluntad de filmarlo todo y transformarlo con la voz, la
edición, el pensamiento, el ritmo.
En Film About a Father Who (2020), que tuvimosel placer de mostrar en el 9CRFIC, la directoradisecciona la figura de su padre con profundaempatía y una mirada objetiva. Los escombros dela memoria se acumulan en torno a una figuracompleja que nos reta a comprenderlo, sin dejarde lado los momentos de cariño. La historia personalse conforma de pequeños fragmentos grabadosy filmados a lo largo de los años, una acumulaciónde interacciones e instantes que revelan, apesar de su aparente banalidad, un compromisocon el mundo y con sus habitantes. Al unirlos ydejar que la edición les permita hablar en conjunto,los fragmentos emanan otras verdades, abrengrietas a otras intimidades.
Sachs también esboza estos retratos familiarespor medio de los gestos: en Maya at 24 (2020), suhija corre a su alrededor a los 6, 16 y 24 años,filmada en 16mm, fusionando los paisajes emocionalesde cada edad –edades, por otra parte,cruciales en la vida de una mujer–, dejándoserodear por su amor y su energía. Lynne está en elcentro de ese gesto: el acto la trastoca a ellatambién.
Hay que hablar también de la materialidad del filme mismo, que nos aproxima al
proceso manual, diríamos, de
transformar estas imágenes en una narrativa-poema-gesto que nos convoca y nos invita a inmiscuirnos en estas
vidas. En las películas está inscrito
el paso del tiempo; la cinta se deja afectar por la luz, el movimiento, las horas y la manipulación. También en lo
digital se nota esta “mano de la
artista”, que es clave. La obra de Sachs es una invitación a hundir las manos en el vasto archivo de imágenes y
sonidos que generamos, no solo para
excavar momentos de nuestra niñez o historias ocultas, sino para encontrarnos en ellas.
Es raro. Con el cine de Lynne Sachs uno siente quela conoce, que ha conversado con ella por largashoras. Como en cualquier charla así, un tema llevaa otro, se repiten imágenes, ideas van y vienen.Pero en cada giro de la palabra, se devela otroángulo posible. En ese sentido, ese poder de lomínimo inscribe la obra de Sachs en una historiaextensa de mujeres que han tomado la imagen enmovimiento como herramienta para encontrarse,transformar su cuerpo y su entorno, y registrar elpulso de un siglo que aprendió a mirarse en el cine. En Carolee, Barbara and Gunvor (2018), vemoslas visitas que Lynne hizo a Carolee Schneeman,Barbara Hammer y Gunvor Nelson, pioneras delcine experimental, en los lugares que han llamadohogar. Hablan de su cuerpo y de su obra. Noscomparten algunas piezas de su pensamientopara que participemos de otro modo en sus películas.
Así, el cine de Lynne Sachs es un ejercicio dememoria, de una memoria que se expande. De lomínimo a lo inmenso, del gesto a la revelación.Como en destellos, sus películas nos invitan aformar parte de un poema: somos un verso más,que rima con los giros, los diálogos sueltos, elmovimiento de los objetos y los cortes que unenmomentos que, sin la mirada acuciosa de Lynne,jamás se hubieran encontrado. En el CRFIC nosilusiona presentar este cine de lo posible y de locercano. Queremos conversar con Lynne y susfilmes, y para nuestra dicha, nos ha abierto lapuerta.
“Thought, Word, Image” by Fernando Chaves Espinach Artistic Director, Costa Rica International Film Festival
Preamble kicks off June with screenings of the Lynne Sachs Retrospective
Preamble kicks off June with the presentation of the Lynne Sachs Retrospective as a preview of the American filmmaker’s visit to the Costa Rica International Film Festival to be held June 9-18.
To kick off the billboard on Thursday, June 2, starting at 7:00 pm, an exhibition of Film About a Father Who (United States, 2020) .
From 1984 to 2019, Lynne Sachs filmed her father, a lively and innovative businessman. This documentary is the filmmaker’s attempt to understand the networks that connect a girl with her father and a woman with her brothers. The show is for ages 12 and up.
On Friday June 3 starting at 7:00 pm screening of short films. A selection of short films by Lynne Sachs that shows her aesthetic and thematic searches and the experimentation that characterizes a good part of her creations.
The program includes the works: DRAWN AND QUARTERED, STILL LIFE WITH WOMAN AND FOUR OBJECTS, FOLLOWING THE OBJECT TO ITS LOGICAL BEGINNING, THE HOUSE OF SCIENCE: A MUSEUM OF FALSE FACTS, PHOTOGRAPH OF WIND, SAME STREAM TWICE, 2012, CUADRO BY CUADRO , CAROLEE, BARBARA AND GUNVOR, A MONTH OF SINGLE FRAMES, E•PIS•TO•LAR•Y: LETTER TO JEAN VIGO and MAYA AT 24.
For Saturday, June 4, at 7:00 pm presentation of the documentary Tip of my Tongue . To celebrate her 50th birthday, filmmaker Lynne Sachs brings together other people, men and women, who have lived the exact same years but hail from places like Iran, Cuba, Australia, or the Lower East Side of Manhattan, but not Memphis, Tennessee, where Sachs grew up.
The documentary takes place with all these people discussing the most remarkable, strange and revealing moments of their lives, in a brazen and self-reflective examination of the way events outside our own domestic universe impact who we are.
SPANISH
Costa Rica Festival Internacional de Cine que se realizará del 9 al 18 de junio.
Para dar inicio a la cartelera el jueves 2 de junio a partir de las 7:00 p.m exhibición de Film About a Father Who (Estados Unidos, 2020).
Desde 1984 hasta 2019, Lynne Sachs filmó a su padre, un animado e innovador hombre de negocios. Este documental es el intento de la cineasta por entender las redes que conectan a una niña con su padre y a una mujer con sus hermanos. La función es para mayores de 12 años.
El viernes 3 de junio a partir de las 7:00 p.m. proyección de cortometrajes. Una selección de cortos de Lynne Sachs que muestra sus búsquedas estéticas, temáticas y la experimentación que caracteriza buena parte de sus creaciones.
La programación incluye las obras: DRAWN AND QUARTERED, STILL LIFE WITH WOMAN AND FOUR OBJECTS, FOLLOWING THE OBJECT TO ITS LOGICAL BEGINNING, THE HOUSE OF SCIENCE: A MUSEUM OF FALSE FACTS, PHOTOGRAPH OF WIND, SAME STREAM TWICE, 2012, CUADRO POR CUADRO, CAROLEE, BARBARA AND GUNVOR, A MONTH OF SINGLE FRAMES, E•PIS•TO•LAR•Y: LETTER TO JEAN VIGO y MAYA AT 24.
Para el sábado 4 de junio en función de 7:00 p.m. presentación del documental Tip of my Tongue . Para celebrar su cumpleaños 50, la cineasta Lynne Sachs reúne a otras personas, hombres y mujeres, que han vivido exactamente los mismos años pero que provienen de lugares como Irán, Cuba, Australia o el Lower East Side de Manhattan, pero no de Memphis, Tennessee, lugar donde creció Sachs.
El documental transcurre con todas estas personas discutiendo sobre los momentos más destacados, extraños y reveladores de sus vidas, en un examen descarado y autorreflexivo de la forma en que los eventos fuera de nuestro propio universo doméstico impactan quiénes somos.
– The retrospective category has been dedicated to the American filmmaker and poet Lynne Sachs –
Displaying independent films from 37 countries and in 15 different languages, the tenth edition of the Costa Rica International Film Festival begins on Thursday.
According to the Ministry of Culture, the festival will take place in two parts. First from June 9 to 18 and then from June 29 to Aug. 26.
The categories of the festival include retrospective films, panorama, young people and pioneers of cinema, among others.
The retrospective category has been dedicated to the American filmmaker and poet Lynne Sachs, who has made 37 films, some of which have won awards or have been included in retrospectives at major festivals.
Sachs’s 2019 film, “A Month of Single Frames,” made with and for Barbara Hammer, won the Grand Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 2020.
In 2021, both the Edison Film Festival and the Prismatic Ground Film Festival at the Maysles Documentary Center awarded Sachs for her body of work in the experimental and documentary fields.
Last year the Festival displayed “Film About a Father Who” (2020), directed by Sachs, which is defined as “a poignant and moving film,” by Fernando Chaves-Espinach, director of the festival. “(Sachs) mixes fiction, documentary, experimental film, performance among others,” he said.
“Sachs demonstrates the energy of contemporary cinema and the multiple forms that this art takes, from an intimate and reflective perspective that dialogues with certain forms of filmmaking in our context,” Chaves said.
The festival will be held in several movie theaters in San José, as well as in different communities of the country in rural areas so that more people can enjoy the event, the ministry said.
In San José, the films will be shown at Cine Magaly, the Film Center of the Ministry of Culture and the French Alliance of the France Embassy in Costa Rica.
In rural areas, the festival will be presented at the CCM movie theaters, located in San Ramón and San Carlos in Alajuela Province, in Jacó Beach in Puntarenas Province.
Also, CitiCinemas movie theaters in rural areas will present the festival in Grecia in Alajuela Province, Limón City in Limón Province and Paso Canoas in Puntarenas Province.
In addition, the festival will be presented at Multiplexes in Liberia, Guanacaste Province.
The jury is made up of directors, producers and people of the film industry from Costa Rica and other places such as Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, Colombia, the Basque Country, Germany and Hungary.
The festival will award three mail films for their formal quality and content. In addition, the winning films will receive about $11,000 in prizes in the categories such as Best National Short; Best Costa Rican Feature Film, Best Central American and Caribbean Feature Film, among others.
People interested in participating in the festival can buy tickets, priced between $3 and $4, on the Festival weband Magaly Theater web.
The American filmmaker and poet Lynne Sachs will be the dedicatee of the tenth edition of the Costa Rica International Film Festival (CRFIC10), which will take place from June 9 to 18.
Sachs will visit the country during the festival, as he will be honored in the Retrospective section with a sample of 14 films of his authorship , characterized by a poetic, intimate, experimental and reflective tone with very personal themes.
The Sachs retrospective is made up of the films Epistolary: Letter to Jean Vigo (2021), Maya at 24 (2021); Film About a Father Who (2020) , Carolee, Barbara & Gunvor (2018), Tip of my Tongue (2017), Same Stream Twice (2012), With the Wind in Her Hair (2010), Frame by Frame (2009), Photograph of The Wind (2001), The House of Silence: A Museum of False Facts (1991), Drawn and Quartered (1987), Following the Object to It’s Logical Beginning (1987), and Still Life with Woman and Four Objects (1986).
According to the artistic director of the festival, Fernando Chaves Espinach , “We are interested in Lynne Sachs’s visit because with her films, made with few resources, she tells us about a very particular form of expression that seems relevant to our context. We are proud to present different ways of making cinema and, above all, to share it in a workshop with filmmakers and visual artists who can learn from his methodology and his approaches to cinematographic art”.
In addition to the presentation of his works, the festival has scheduled that Sachs give a face-to-face tutorial to a group of people linked to Costa Rican cinematography.
The main venue for the 10CRFIC will be the Cine Magaly and it will have three more screening rooms in the capital of San José and five outside the Greater Metropolitan Area: San Ramón, San Carlos, Jacó, Grecia, Limón and Paso Canoas.
SPANISH
Costa Rica Festival Internacional de Cine rinde homenaje a la cineasta Lynne Sachs
La cineasta y poeta estadounidense Lynne Sachs será la dedicada de la décima edición del Costa Rica Festival Internacional de Cine (CRFIC10), que se llevará a cabo del 9 al 18 de junio.
Sachs visitará el país durante el festival, pues se le rendirá homenaje en la sección Retrospectiva con una muestra de 14 películas de su autoría, caracterizadas por un tono poético, intimista, experimental y reflexivo con temáticas muy personales.
La retrospectiva a Sachs está constituida por los filmes Epistolary: Letter to Jean Vigo (2021), Maya at 24 (2021); Film About a Father Who (2020), Carolee, Barbara & Gunvor (2018), Tip of my Tongue (2017), Same Stream Twice (2012), Con el viento en el pelo (2010), Cuadro por cuadro (2009), Photograph of The Wind (2001), The House of Silence: A Museum of False Facts (1991), Drawn and Quartered (1987), Following the Object to It’s Logical Beginning (1987) y Still Life with Woman and Four Objects (1986).
De acuerdo con el director artístico del festival, Fernando Chaves Espinach,“Nos interesa la visita de Lynne Sachs porque con su cine, hecho con pocos recursos, nos habla de una forma de expresión muy particular que nos parece relevante para nuestro contexto. Nos enorgullece presentar distintas maneras de hacer cine y, sobre todo, compartirlo en un taller con cineastas y artistas visuales que pueden aprender de su metodología y sus acercamientos al arte cinematográfico”.
Además de la presentación de sus obras, el festival ha programado que Sachs imparta una tutoría presencial a un grupo de personas vinculadas con la cinematografía costarricense.
La sede principal del 10CRFIC será el Cine Magaly y contará con tres salas de proyección más en la capital de San José y cinco fuera de la Gran Área Metropolitana: San Ramón, San Carlos, Jacó, Grecia, Limón y Paso Canoas.
The tenth edition of the CRFIC is celebrated from June 9 to 18, in its first stage, and from June 29 to August 26, in a second itinerant stage, in communities outside the GAM.
The public will be able to enjoy 87 films in competition and screening, from 37 countries and in 15 different languages.
69% of the films in programming are directed or co-directed by women.
With the presence in the country of the American filmmaker Lynne Sachs, the CRFIC10 pays tribute to her career.
RETROSPECTIVE DEDICATED TO LYNNE SACHS
The CRFIC Retrospective section is dedicated to the renowned American filmmaker and poet Lynne Sachs (1961), who has 37 films to her credit, including short films and feature films, some of which have won awards or have been included in retrospectives at major festivals. .
Regarding the Retrospective, the artistic director of CRFIC10, Fernando Chaves, mentioned that last year the Festival showed Film About a Father Who , a poignant and moving film.
“In this tenth edition of the CRFIC we have the honor of having its director, Lynne Sachs, as a guest of our retrospective,” continued Chaves, “whom we are excited to present for her mixture of fiction, documentary, experimental cinema, performance and other media. ”
According to Chaves, with this solid filmography, Sachs demonstrates the energy of contemporary cinema and the multiple forms that this art takes, from an intimate and reflective perspective that dialogues with certain ways of making cinema in our context.
To close with a flourish, Sachs will hold a workshop where he will experiment with national artists.
Program includes: • Film About a Father Who • Con viento en el pelo • Tip of My Tongue • A Month of Single Frames • Carolee, Barbara & Gunvor • Epistolary: Letter to Jean Vigo • Drawn & Quartered • Following the Object to Its Logical Beginning • Maya at 24 • Same Stream Twice • Photograph of Wind • Still Life with Woman and Four Objects • House of Science: a museum of false facts • Cuadro por cuadro
San José, Costa Rica, May 20, 2022- With a program of outstanding independent films from 37 countries and in 15 different languages, the tenth edition of the Costa Rica International Film Festival (CRFIC10) is held from May 9 to June 18, in a first stage, and from June 29 to August 26 in a second itinerant stage.
The CRFIC10 will be held in person in downtown San José, as well as in different communities in the country outside the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM), with the aim of reaching larger audiences that can enjoy the alternative audiovisual experience proposed by the festival program of the Costa Rican Center for Film Production (Cinema Center).
The artistic director of the 10CRFIC, Fernando Chaves Espinach, stated that “the Festival brings us the opportunity to confront ourselves with the most challenging, innovative and inspiring cinema that is being made today, with different languages and approaches, from very different countries. We have chosen winning films at renowned festivals such as Sundance, San Sebastián and Locarno, films nominated for Oscars and winners at other competitions, but we have also rescued titles that otherwise would not reach our theaters, true discoveries that show us the effervescence of contemporary cinema and its ability to shake us” .
The venues of the Festival will be located in the Magaly Cinema (the Main Hall and La Salita), the Gómez Miralles Hall of the Cinema Center, the French Alliance (in Barrio Amón) and the CCM San Ramón, CCM San Carlos, CCM Jacó rooms. , CitiCinemas Grecia, CitiCinemas Limón, Paso Canoas and Multiplexes Liberia.
In the itinerant stage, it will take place in the communities of Matambuguito, Shiroles, Boruca, Térraba, Sarapiquí and Grano de Oro.
OUTSTANDING CINEMA
The 10CRFIC program is made up of a careful selection of 87 international, regional and national films directed and co-directed, 69% by women, with varied content for audiences of all ages.
“We are proud to present a diverse programming in gender and geographical origin, which shows that cinema has never been monolithic in its language or in its origin; this programming allows us to articulate a defense of cinema as a diverse, complex art whose permanence as a vehicle of artistic expression requires spaces for debate and enjoyment such as festivals” , commented Chaves.
OPENING WITH UTAMA FEATURE FILM For the inauguration of the 10CRFIC, the curatorial team chose the feature film Utama (2022), by Bolivian director Alejandro Loayza Grisi.
The feature film is a co-production between Bolivia, Uruguay and France and is set in the arid Bolivian highlands, where an elderly Quechua couple have lived the same daily life for years.
In the middle of a drought, Virginio (80 years old) gets sick and aware of his imminent death, he lives his last days hiding the illness from Sisa (81 years old).
Loayza Grisi (1985) began her career in still photography and later entered the world of cinema through film photography.
As director of photography, he worked on the documentary series Planeta Bolivia, and on multiple short films such as Aicha, Dochera and Polvo.
Attracted by the stories that can be told through moving images, he ventured into writing and directing his first feature film titled Utama.
The competitive categories of the programming for this tenth edition are the following: Central American and Caribbean Feature Film Competition, with films from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and the Dominican Republic; and the National Short Film Competition, with eleven Costa Rican productions.
The 10CRFIC will award a statuette to three films that stand out for their formal quality and content, as well as 8 million colones (approximately US$11K at the exchange rate) in total in incentives and support to the filmmakers selected as winners of the Competitive categories: a 1 million colones prize for Best National Short Film, a 3 million colones prize for Best Costa Rican Feature Film, and a 3 million colones prize for Best Central American and Caribbean Feature Film, as well as two 500,000 colones prizes for special mention Jury Mention in Feature Films and Jury Mention in Short Films, respectively.
The other sections of the program are: Panorama, Radar, Approach, Last batch, Young people, Memory, Pioneers of cinema and Retrospective.
COMPETITION JURIES The jury for the Central American and Caribbean Feature Film Competition is made up of Peter Taylor (Northern Ireland), programmer and curator, and currently director of the Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival; Christina Newland (United Kingdom), journalist for Vice, Sight & Sound, BBC, Mubi and Empire, on topics such as cinema, pop culture and boxing; and Pablo Hernández Hernández, (Costa Rica), professor at the University of Costa Rica with a doctorate in Philosophy from the Universität Potsdam and specialist in Aesthetics, philosophy of art and culture.
The jury of the National Short Film Competition is Alexandra Latishev (Costa Rica), a filmmaker who graduated from the New Film and Television School of the Véritas University; Juan Soto (Colombia), editor, director and archivist, who currently works at the Filmoteca de Catalunya as Film Preservation Project Manager; and Vanesa Fernández (Basque Country), director of the Zinebi Festival and coordinator of the Degree in Audiovisual Communication at the University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU).
For their part, the CRFIC Industry juries are Gudula Meinzolt (Germany), with training and experience in cultural management and cinema in areas such as research, promotion, organization of festivals, distribution, exhibition and co-production; Karolina Hernández (Costa Rica), founder and general producer of Dos Sentidos SA and coordinator of the Audiovisual Production area of the Office of Communication and Marketing of the Tecnológico de Costa Rica and professor at the University of Costa Rica; and Zsuzsi Bankuti (Hungary), who since 2020 directs the Cutting Edge Talent Camp, since 2022 is the interim director of Open Doors, and also works as an international strategy consultant for the Doha Film Institute, the Torino Film Lab and Cinemart.
