Still in Motion

The Art of the No-Hand Aerial: Tristan Patterson DRAGONSLAYER

Read my interview with Dragonslayer director, Tristan Patterson on BOMB here.

Rrugë e hapun / Open Road

Open road, speak to me of hearth and home

Vow to express your longing, loneliness,

and fevered future dreams

I am listening.

 

Rrugë e hapun, fol me mua për vatër e shtëpi

Betohu që ki me i shprehë lirshëm andjet, vetminë,

dhe andrrat plot ethe për ardhmëninë

Po ndëgjoj.

 

Image by Lindsay Isola

Translation by Sokol Ferizi

 

 

Berlinale Talent Campus 2012

The opening day for project submissions for the 2012 Berlinale Talent Campus (11 - 16 February), is set for this coming Wednesday, July 20.  The deadline is 5 October.  Reading the submission guidelines is important, of course.  But, in general, if you're wondering if you qualify, take a look at last year's participants.  You might be surprised at who gets to attend the Talent Campus, for the population is extremely diverse in terms of nationality, age and professional experience. 

In the interests of providing a unique POV on the Talent Campus, I asked my friend from Chicago, producer Lisa Gildehaus, to share her experiences from last year.  Every time I met with her for a quick coffee or dinner in Berlin during last year's fest, she was glowing with excitment and energy, telling me that it was absolutely the best way she knew to experience the Berlinale.  So without further ado, here is her guest blog for SIM; thanks so much for sharing, Lisa.

Why you should apply to the Berlinale Talent Campus (yes, YOU, 40 year old filmmaker, with a mortgage and a kid and a film that’s halfway done):

A year ago today, five days after I’d turned 39, I sat down to start my application for the Berlinale Talent Campus.  It was my second year in a row applying and part of me thought, "Am I wasting my time?"

But ever since I found out about the Talent Campus, I’d been harboring a dream to get accepted and spend February in Berlin. (A girl’s gotta dream.) The previous year, along with my rejection letter, I’d received one brief additional sentence: "The selection committee noticed potential in your work and we sincerely hope that you will consider applying again next year."

That packs a lot of promise into one little sentence. After exchanging a few emails with programmers, I received one other tidbit that made me feel even more optimistic.  It said, "We have a lot of people apply as directors. But you have a great deal of experience as a producer.  We strongly encourage people to apply in other categories if they’re qualified--as producers, editors, sound mixers, DPs etc."  So I took that to heart and, when the application opened on July 15, 2010, I sat down to get started.

On December 21, I got the email that said I was accepted. I was ecstatic.  (Although I was secretly convinced I was going to get an email by noon that said "Oops! We didn’t mean to accept you!"). By 5 p.m., I was terrified. Was I going to make a fool of myself? Was I qualified? Was everyone else going to be younger than me?!  (The answers to these questions are:  Maybe; Yes, I think so; and, No, not at all.)

If by this point you’re thinking, "I don’t really know what the Talent Campus is so I’m failing to understand why you’re so excited," I’m going to let the smart Sydney Levine (whom I met at the BTC) explain it to you in her excellent rundown of the 2010 BTC program.

Now let me tell you the most amazing part: In addition to panels and seminars and meeting people who are in the program with you and presenters from all over the globe, you get a magical badge when you’re in the BTC. That badge gets you into any movie in the festival, any event, any discussion, the European Film Market, Embassy parties (as we discovered), and generally anything you want to do. It gives you free reign to go up to people and introduce yourself, to join conversations and ask questions. It’s a free pass to learn and experience. Life after a week of that feels pretty lame.

In terms of my costs, the American Embassy covered part of my airline ticket. Some people got more, others less. The festival covers lodging at a totally decent hotel/hostel near the main train station. They’ll give you a dorm room that you share with five other BTC members for free or, for ten euros per night, you can upgrade to a room of your own, which is what I did. It was nothing fancy but it was clean and secure. There’s also a bar/lounge on the main level so there’s always a place to go looking for fellow Talent Campus participants.

If you’ve never been to Berlin, it’s a pretty damn awesome city. It's stuffed with artists and is incredibly cosmopolitan. The trains make it so simple to get around (although last winter was pretty mild so I did a lot of walking). And Berlin hosts an abundance of cheap, good eateries.  I hear it’s glorious in the summertime.  But the city has a special charge during the film festival that brightens up the grey February days.

I met dozens of filmmakers I’m still in touch with from Australia, Norway, Lithuania, all over Europe, Argentina, Nigeria, Hong Kong.  I've had great conversations with them about filmmaking in their home countries. I’ve started collaborating on potential projects with some people I met. I’ve also been in touch with some of the presenters and production companies. The BTC opened a vast network of connections for me, which was one of the stated goals of my application.

I’m a mid-career filmmaker but I’ve never done very well on the festival circuit. The Talent Campus and their incredibly hard working organizers are there to help you get out of it what you want, meet who you want to meet, get into the events you want to get into. But it helped me to go in with clear objectives and a sense of purpose… as well as a hunger to learn and socialize.

The prospect of spending a week at a film festival like the Berlinale and getting to meet 350 other filmmakers from around the globe lived up to everything I’d hoped it would. Wish I could apply again this year.

Black and white photos courtesy, Lisa Gildehaus.  Photo of Gildehaus courtesy, Berlinale Talent Campus.

 

Love After Love by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

 

Interview: Alma Har'el, Director BOMBAY BEACH

 

Thinking of a series of dreams

Where the time and the tempo fly

And there's no exit in any direction

Except the one that you can't see with your eyes

Wasn't makng any great connection

Wasn't falling for any intricate scheme

Nothing that would pass inspection

Just thinking of a series of dreams.    --Bob Dylan

 

This interview originally appeared on the Hammer to Nail site.

Israeli-born filmmaker, Alma Har’el’s first feature film, Bombay Beach, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival this past winter to quiet but consistent accolades, and will have its American premiere in competition at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York today, April 22.  Shot in the surreal environs of the Salton Sea, a man-made body of water that sits in the middle of the California desert, the film itself has plenty of surreal aspects of its own.  It is, in certain respects, a recognizable vérité piece about several people who inhabit the seaside town of Bombay Beach and the nearby community of Slab City. But Har’el is also an award-winning music video director and so has collaborated with her subjects to tell part of their stories in sequences where they interpret their lives through dance, accompanied by the haunting voice and horn of Zach Condon of the band, Beirut. In an article for New York Magazine in 2006, a very young (and exceedingly stage-frightened) Condon said of his music, “It’s impossible for me to play these songs and not feel joy.”  It’s impossible to listen to them without experiencing loads of it, as well.  The film also contains some musical selections from an upstart named Bob Dylan. 

Bombay Beach is a tremendously moving piece of cinema—human scale, intimate and warm—with gorgeous cinematography by Har’el, and tender and playful dance sequences choreographed by Paula Present, a long-time collaborator of the director’s.  A couple of weeks after the film’s début in Berlin, I had a chance to speak to Har’el via Skype at her home in Los Angeles about the magical encounters she experienced in making this piece of work.  And meeting and befriending an extraordinary little boy named Benny Parrish who will be making his very first trip on a plane out of his little hometown to New York City this week.  If you're there, you should go meet this little dude because he's spectacular.

Hammer to Nail (H2N):  Without any confines of traditional documentary storytelling, you went about making this film in a very low-key way, working intuitively and almost completely on your own. What are you learning about this film from audiences who are now sharing with you what they think about this unique collaboration that took place between you and your subjects?

Alma Har’el (AH):  I find myself quieting down quite a bit and listening intently to what people have to say.  And in doing that, it’s allowing me to learn about what it was I did do exactly. Because I’m not really sure what that was. [laughter]  It brings me a bit closer to understanding the film.

H2N:  What led you to focus your efforts on these extraordinary protagonists; how did you go about establishing such intimacy and trust with them?

AH:  Several years ago, very early on in my career, I worked for National Geographic, doing an interview show for them about the Middle East. At the time I was a TV presenter, hosting a music show on Israeli television.  When the National Geographic people offered me this presentation job, I told them I would only do it if I could also direct.  And they agreed.  A man with a high position there came to talk to our crew and he said something that has really stuck with me.  He was talking, in particular, about interviewing techniques and how to talk to people for the camera.  Mostly people will just show you what they want you to see, the story that everybody sees.  If you’re good, you might get to see some of their personal lives.  And, once in a while, you might get to see their secret lives.  The way he explained all this, I got the distinct feeling from how and what he told us, that you were supposed to steal these secrets, almost without them knowing. I knew he was right, that that’s what makes it interesting. But instinctually I didn’t really relate to it at all. There was something about it that didn’t click. 

Back then, I don’t think I really knew what intimacy was, but during the making of this film, I understood that I didn’t want to steal anything from these people.  I wanted to reach a state of intimacy with them that was genuine and to be honest about what I wanted to do.  Although neither did I want to completely ruin the magic of discovering things together by explaining too much.  The trust and intimacy was a process and the friendships grew as I continued to film with them.  We would do creative things together or I would help them out with certain things.  It was really special.  But saying that reduces the process, somehow, since I’m sure most documentary filmmakers experience that in one way or another.  But I think doing those creative things together gave them insight into what I was trying to do, making me less “the enemy behind the camera” who was trying to steal things from them, and more like a collaborator.

H2N:  It seemed to me that these people, considering where and how they live, don’t have that much to occupy their time and attention, making it a ripe situation for someone like you to come in and orchestrate something extraordinary—the dance numbers on the beach, the ways in which they can express themselves verbally, storytelling about their lives.  But there’s also a huge capacity to play and invent and break out of difficult existences.  They are playful; they do dance around; they do sit around and ponder things deeply.  You tapped into something intuitively that you must have recognized, which is to say that that childlike ability to improvise and play is still very much innate, perhaps because of the lack of other things to do. The strong creative aspect is still very much on the surface and not buried under more, let’s say, “sophisticated” ways in which we entertain ourselves.

AH:  This is the very thing I picked up on when I first came to that place.  I first went there to do a music video with Beirut and Zack Condon [their video, entitled, The Concubine, was shot partly on location in Bombay Beach in 2009]. That’s Mike [Parrish] Jr., Benny’s older brother, who stars in that video.  You can also see Pamela doing the dishes and Benny and Sarah, as well, appear briefly.  It was really hard to find the time to do this video and it was getting a bit frustrating, so I decided to go do a random location scout.  A friend of mine told me about this desolate Salton Sea area. The first time we went there, I became so intrigued by the place, I had to go back the very next day. California was the place I learned to drive since I never learned in Israel.  Being a really nervous driver, I never took the freeway; it just terrified me. I couldn’t do it. But I had to learn how to drive on the freeway to get to Salton Sea.

One of the first things that impressed me was just what you were speaking about—this direct connection to childhood.  I met these kids, the Parrishes and their friends, at the beach when we shot the music video.  They invited me into their house. And even though my family and my experience is so different, there was something about the easy access of this mode you can get into when you’re a child.  Your perspective is really limited to the world in which you’re growing up.  You don’t yet have any context to who you are, your country, where you live, your social demographic, or what have you. In a way, you’re in the most accepting place in terms of your family. 

I know many children are not like that.  CeeJay [one of the film’s three main protagonists, a black teenager who moved to the area to live with his father shortly after his young cousin was gunned down in a gang-related incident in LA] is an example of that; he certainly has perspective on his family and where he comes from and he definitely has judgments about all that.  He knew he wanted something different at a very early age, wanted to be the first of his family to go to college, and definitely did not want to be part of the violence he grew up with all around him. He has a lot of criticism for his family and the way they live their lives.

Opposing that, the Parrish kids and their parents are more romantic when it comes to their feelings about family.  No matter what happens, as a family, you hold on to this cohesive unit and infuse it with love all the time, into every relationship, even if they’re not so great or they’re dysfunctional.  But there is romance about life and a focus on what they do have together. I also didn’t really want to know anything about the Salton Sea, the place itself, its history.  I wanted to feel like one of the kids, more like how Benny feels about the place, this sea he lives beside with all the dead fish.  But the beach is a fun place, a place where you go swimming, “when you want to be happy,” as he says in the film.  When we remember our childhoods—at least when I do—we forget the “in-between” stuff and only very certain specific things remain in our memories.  I wanted to experience that with them in this place that feels like it’s outside of time.

H2N:  The way in which a lot of the scenes were shot did make it seem like you were on some abandoned movie set. It felt like a place unattached to the rest of the world, a universe unto itself. In my opinion, you really could have foregone the bit of archival info we learn at the beginning of the film about this place.  While it’s interesting and the footage is delightfully kitschy, it’s really not that relevant to the stories you tell about the people living there.  The dance numbers you stage with your protagonists, however, do feel quite organic; they might spring up out of nowhere at any given moment. It’s such a lovely, non-verbal way they’re able to express their feelings for one another.  That’s one of cinema’s strengths, and, perhaps, why people love the music video format so much.

AH:  Making this film was a real process for me and that includes discovering these various story arcs. I just landed in that place and decided to make a film, not knowing what I would find.  I knew I wanted to do something magical, with dance sequences, in this place.  When I moved there, I didn’t have any subjects.  I met CeeJay once in the street and met the Parrish family while shooting the video for Zach.  So when I got there, I just called them up and started to hang out with them.  I lived in Indio [a desert community in the Coachella Valley, about one hour’s drive from Salton Sea] for four or five months and drove back and forth every day—on the freeway.

Very early on in the process, I started editing as I was shooting.  I’d edit and then I’d go back every few weeks to shoot more.  This was my process for over a year—edit, go back, edit, go back.  So even then, I was weaving the stories together as I was shooting them.  I also knew where I wanted the dance sequences to be, based on what I was shooting.  For example, there is the scene where a group of older kids are making fun of Benny, telling him he can’t participate in their games because he has “no class,” leaving him out completely. Then they went outside and played with those carts that later became a part of that dance sequence.  After editing that scene together, the choreographer, Paula Present, and I rehearsed with them at the community center and we had them wear the same clothes that they wore that day and shot it over two days at the same time of day.  So it really looks like they just stepped out to play and then started to dance.  The gazebo dance with CeeJay and his girlfriend was shot more like a real scene, although a lot of their dialogue was improvised.  I record everything with lav mics so I don’t really have to be that close to them all the time; I can just film and let them talk in a more intimate way.  We were just finding things as we were going along.

H2N:  There is a real sense of discovery.  The structure of your film has all of these interwoven story arcs where we follow different protagonists.  We intuit they know of one another, yet in the film, their lives really don’t intersect.  But, for me, the spine of this piece is Benny’s story, specifically the story of his “illness and treatment.”  You have portrayed one of this country’s many drug-addicted children in such a pure way and I connected to him so viscerally. I can honestly say that my emotional attachment to this kid stemmed mostly from his victimization from a negligent medical establishment, something that enrages me like very few other things do.  The doctors’ and caregivers’ solutions to making Benny “better” is to bombard him with more medications and higher dosages until his poor little body and mind are malfunctioning.  You documented this deterioration over the course of the time you were shooting.  Obviously, you didn’t set out to make any kind of hard-hitting social issue statement about anything, but that’s the real beauty and artistry of the film.  The way in which it’s edited, however, very much drives home certain points about what has happened and is happening to these people and how they cope.

AH:  Yes, and the solutions that they’re offered. I was very aware of all of this while it was happening.  It was, and still is, something I deal with every day—how to react to it, how to be supportive of the situation.  I try to provide as much information as I can that might help.  But that’s as much as I feel I can do.  It’s tricky as a filmmaker and it’s tricky as a human being.  The people around Benny are doing what they think is the best thing to do. Bluntly, the truth is that that area is notorious for lots of doctors that are practicing there that have, let’s say, failed elsewhere.  There are a lot of doctors and health care people in that area who are in training, just starting practices. They don’t necessarily have the right information or attitude and the “expertise” they can offer is limited in many ways.

It’s particularly enraging, because to me, Benny is not only smart, he’s probably one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met in my entire life.  His spirit and imagination I would like to think will be stronger than anything that’s happening to him physiologically.  The only hope is that he won’t be damaged by all of this forever.  These people really do play a kind of Russian roulette with these kids’ brains.  It is unbelievable that they give those drugs to kids that age.  He’s been receiving them since he was four.  The amounts increase, the medications change, and the definition of “bi-polar,” which is what he’s diagnosed with—well, you can’t say that a kid has a bi-polar disorder.  That kind of condition is only diagnosable in adults according to the DSM-IV [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders].  There’s no such thing as a bi-polar condition in children.  They impose that diagnosis because they don’t know what else to call it.  They might say, “Well, this is where we think it’s going,” and start doing drug trials.  They’re experimenting and don’t really know the outcomes.

But this film can only serve to show glimpses into some of the larger issues one can pick out from these people’s lives and the way in which they live their lives in this particular place.  All these things that can be perceived as wrong or right, or bad or good, all reside together, side by side.  This is the human experience of life and that’s what I wanted to illustrate more than anything, how things co-exist, all the wrongs and the rights together, the love and the violence, the broken dream and the persistence of dreams.  I hope the film gives a feeling of a more rounded feeling of life, not something dissected into pieces.  I don’t want to say if this certain thing or that certain thing was remedied everything would be okay.  I don’t believe in that.  Benny’s predicament is one heartbreaking element of everything else going on.  As a friend, I intend to do what I can do to educate and help with things.  But as a filmmaker, this is what I’m interested in illustrating.

My stance is not one of criticism for films that are more blatantly “social issue” films.  I watch those, too, and learn from them and think they’re so important.  But the film I made didn’t have room to supply that kind of information; that’s not what I set out to do. Going back to the context of the place itself:  up until the last minute, there was a debate on whether we should include the introduction that is there—the history of the Salton Sea and the genesis of this place.  I think the film would have been fine without that, too, because, in essence, not knowing where you are doesn’t matter.  But it does, of course, give context to this idea of the broken American dream. 

Red and CeeJay and the Parrishes all have so much to do with this kind of mythology for me.  I have only experienced this “American Dream” from afar as anyone who isn’t from this place does.  As I’ve gotten closer, I still see the “football dream,” the “success dream,” where one is lifted from your environment into a new destiny. Red is the traveler, the seeker, who worked in the oil fields.  He represents the loner with deep wisdom smattered with that deep-seated racism that has been handed down to him from older generations.  There’s Mike Parrish’s fantasy of being in the military, the obsession with guns and explosives as a form of entertainment, the love for family in a straightforward and honest way.  All of this is so evocative of America—or, this lost America, more accurately.  Even though the dream is broken, you can still see the people.  And in terms of the place itself, it’s like when you see an old woman: you know she used to be beautiful and vibrant and it gives her another dimension, not because it makes her tragic, but because it makes her heroic.  It moves her from being an object of beauty to being a subject with depth and history.  That place, for me, is redolent of that, a place sold to people as a dream.  And now it’s a place where you can meet yourself in a real way, a grounded way, and there’s beauty in that, too.  Because the only thing that’s left is the intimacy you can have with the other people who are there with you.

H2N:  Your collaboration with Condon provides a really lovely ingredient in all this, his voice and horn so evocative of something both melancholy and joyful.

AH:  That sound is how I feel when I’m honest about my life, that juxtaposition of melancholy and loneliness with the absolute enjoyment and happiness of being alive.  Ever since the first time I heard his music and his voice, it’s been such an influence and there are always wonderful surprises along the way.  I feel like that when I’m around him, when we work together.  We collaborated for three or four years doing all these music videos.  I started feeling a bit tied down to that form.  I did videos for other artists and just didn’t feel that inspiration, that spark or connection with other musicians as much as I did with him.  I wrote him an email at one point telling him I needed to do my thing, that the music video work was limiting for me at that point and that I had found something I wanted to make a film about.  I told him I would love it if he did the music.  I sent him the scene with Benny and Pamela and the pink wig at the beach, which was one of the first things I shot, and based on that scene, he started making music for the film.

H2N:  This bond, this relationship between Benny and his mom, is the absolute heart of this film.  She really is his only friend.  The parent/child relationship is so often portrayed as one of antagonism and strife these days.

AH:  I agree with you and I also deeply appreciate the deepness of their bond.  It’s a very honest, but very kind relationship.  Pamela's a mom that has energy and space left to explore the good parts of her children. She loves being a mother.  She also feels frustrated and, in a lot of ways, stuck on certain things but she wants her children to have what she doesn’t, which is also something very much a part of the American character, to make sure your children might have a different destiny than the one of the generation before.  That’s universal, of course, but the reward of that seems to be higher in people’s fantasies here.  But despite her high hopes for her kids, she’s still the one who gives Benny his medication, insists on it, making sure he takes everything the doctors give him.  Pamela does have a lot of problems dealing with his behavior and controlling it.  He takes up a lot of her time and energy.  But that’s parenting—you’re often the best thing and the worst thing to happen to your child.  But, I don’t know too many people who just do good things all the time.  The most important thing to give your child is love and acceptance because no matter what he has to deal with later, he will always have that.

H2N:  Then there’s the old man, Red, who’s totally estranged from his whole family and very much alone.  He seems like a very loving person, but he also seems like he might have been someone who was not brought up with a lot of love and acceptance.  Can you talk a bit about growing a relationship with him?  You’re a young woman “from the big city” showing up with your camera, an interloper.  What did he make of you?  I would imagine his attention and respect was hard-won.  He’s a great storyteller with a wonderful voice.  And he’s a hell of a snappy dresser.

AH:  I was hanging out at Slab City hoping to discover a great subject.  I met this guy who was a hitchhiker and filmed him for a bit.  He told me about a trip he took with a guy named Red.  He took me to see him and Red came out in a bright red shirt.  He was tanned and he worked every day in a little garden right outside his trailer.  There are very few men like him anymore.  He can sit outside in his chair and just think for hours.  He thinks deeply about things and then thinks about how to articulate those thoughts in a way that will capture people’s attention, almost as a poet would do.  He would come up to me and say, “You know, I sat outside my trailer today and was thinking about blah, blah, blah, and this is what I think . . .” and he’d be off.  He was definitely not very trusting in the beginning.  I was some girl from LA with a camera and he wanted to know what I wanted, what I was trying to get.  But he would go and sit with me on the beach and I’d ask him pretty general things, what he thought about certain things.  I was kind of trying to talk to him about things that were bothering me while I was filming the Parrishes, what he thought about love, travel, family, etc.  I was building up this Red library of beautiful things that he’d say.  So we ended up spending a lot of time together.  Initially I was thinking of using only his voice as some kind of narrator. I was touched by his life.

But he would ask me to call before I came and was angry when I’d just show up.  With the Parrishes, I’d just drop in, throw down my bags and hang out the whole day or sometimes I would stay the night on their couch.  That was my base camp.  But Red always had a very tight schedule [laughs] and would only give me an hour or so of his time, always scheduled in advance.  Once we became friends, he took me on a long trip on his dune buggy; we went on a four- or five-hour ride into the desert and you see some of this footage in the film.  It was beautiful and intense, sometimes scary.  I would think that if anything happened to him, we’d just be stuck there in the middle of the desert with no reception [laughter].  It was a real adventure.  From then on, after that trip, I was all right in his book.  He opened up to me a lot more. He was very surprised to get that attention, very taken by the fact that someone cared that much for him and was interested in what he had to say.  He definitely is lonesome and keeps certain people at a distance.  But he has a lot of friends and the ones that do get close to him love him dearly.  He has intimacy in his life; he’s not always alone.

H2N:  Circling back to this interview technique you were taught by the NatGeo guy, about how to get close to people to learn about their secret lives or intimate aspects of themselves they don’t normally share with just anyone.  Obviously, you are adept at getting people to trust you, open up to you, befriend you without stealing anything from them. It’s pretty exciting to think of other subjects with whom you can collaborate in this way.

AH:  I love a good story.  I also write and am working on a script right now.  You never know, but I have a feeling, whatever I will do, it will be wide open in terms of style or genre.  I don’t think it’s necessary to be confined to one thing or another.  Once I discover a story, I just want to feel free to use the things that I love in art in order to tell it, dance or what have you.  Film is such an incredible format to explore other arts.  I’m not a cinephile at all, one of those people that have been sitting inside a dark cinema since childhood watching every film that comes out.  I think the diversity of what inspires me will make its way into what I create. I like learning as I do something—it deepens my understanding in such a profound way.  Whatever inspires you in life can find its way into your filmmaking; it’s just a matter of feeling free enough to do it.  And you just hope that other people like it, too.

All photos courtesy Alma Har'el.

 

My 25 + 1

This will be the lazy woman's version of Jennifer Merin's very cool Top 25 list of docs by and/or about women that she feels are must-sees.  Here, instead of a description by me, you get a link to the film's website, or to a site that says something interesting about the film--infinite numbers of worlds to choose from, that I would never deny anyone.  Writing film synopses right now, not so much. 

However, I have supplied an extra added bonus--a special mention to a special film about girls/women that was one of the first things I saw that countered every rubric about genre in one movie, and made me weep like a baby, to boot.  (Herzog's Little Dieter Needs to Fly was another one, but Werner makes man-films, so has no place in this conversation.)  Apologies to my friends on the Continent if this is still too much of a US-centric list; I tried to give it some international flava.  We white Europeans overlook lots of stuff.  In no particular order, just as they came to me:

The Gleaners and I, Agnès Varda, 2000.  (Still above of Varda's hand holding a heart-shaped potato.)

The Devil's Playground, Lucy Walker, 2002.

Flag Wars, Linda Goode Bryant and Laura Poitras, 2003.

Prodigal Sons, Kimberly Reed, 2008.

Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman, Jennifer Fox, 2006.

Protagonist, Jessica Yu, 2007.

Blue Vinyl, Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand, 2002.

A Lion in the House, Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, 2006.

The Boys of Baraka, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, 2005.

My Country, My Country, Laura Poitras, 2006.

Freeheld, Cynthia Wade, 2007.

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, Nick Broomfield, 2003.

To See If I'm Smiling, Tamar Yarom, 2007.  (Still pictured.)

The Mother, Pavel Kostomarov and Antoine Cattin, 2008.

Family Affair, Chico Colvard, 2010.

Off and Running, Nicole Opper, 2009.

3 Rooms of Melancholia, Pirjo Honkasalo, 2005.

O Amor Natural, Heddy Honigmann,1996.

The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun, Pernille Rose Grønkjaer, 2006.

La Sierra, Scott Dalton and Margarita Martinez, 2005.

Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement, Susan Muska and Gréta Olafsdóttir, 2009.

Sisters in Law, Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi, 2005.

Billy the Kid, Jennifer Venditti, 2007.

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, Jessica Oreck, 2009.

The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, Pietra Brettkelly, 2008.  (Still pictured.)

 

BONUS FILM!!  Rabbit-Proof Fence, Phillip Noyce, 2002.

I hope this helps to further generate an epidemic of lists of kick-ass women and their accomplishments--in film or in anything.  Personally, I think we should get rid of International Women's Day and just take over the world already.

 

 

 

It Was Waiting for Me: A Conversation with Marie Losier

Filmmaker, artist and curator, Marie Losier, was born in France in 1972, and has been living and working in New York City for the past seventeen years. She creates singular portraits of vanguard filmmakers, musicians, composers and artists, although many of them are far from obscure.  Losier has given her distinctive filmic treatment to the likes of Mike and George Kuchar, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman, Tony Conrad and Genesis P-Orridge, the subject of her latest piece called The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye. She also has intimate friendships with all of these talents.  Here’s what filmmaker Charles Burnett wrote to her in 2006 about her work, “I sit with a smile on my face. I wish there were more people like the characters in your films, in the world. It takes you on a ride that weaves the real and surreal.” And Maddin has dubbed her “Edith Sitwell’s inner Tinkerbell.”  

Her films have shown widely in museums, galleries, biennials and festivals all over the world, including P.S.1 in New York City, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Biennial, Rotterdam International Film Festival, La Fondation Cartier, The Tate Modern, The Wexner Art Center, Luxe Gallery, White Column Gallery, the Ismailia International Film Festival in Egypt, Anthology Film Archives (where she also curates experimental film and video shows), Ocularis, British Film Institute, the Musée d’Art Contemporain, among many others. She was recently the subject of a full retrospective at the Buenos Aires Festival of International Cinema.

Since 2000, Losier has also worked full-time as the film curator at The French Institute Alliance Française in New York City, where she presents a weekly film series and has hosted the likes of Raoul Coutard, Claire Denis, Chantal Akerman, Jane Birkin, Jeanne Moreau, Jackie Raynal, and Anouk Aimée.  As well, she has performed in films by George and Mike Kuchar, and Jackie Raynal, and in plays by Juliana Francis and Tony Torn.

Her work with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, born Neil Andrew Megson in Manchester, England in 1950, has been a seven-years-long collaboration, and has resulted in her first feature film, which will début as part of the Forum at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye is a glorious pastiche that features the story of the incredible love between Genesis and Lady Jaye. Tragically, in the midst of creating this project, Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge unexpectedly passed away at the age of 42 on October 9, 2007.

Most famous for the bands, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, the 63-year-old Genesis  currently resides in the house in Brooklyn, New York where he lived together with Jaye.  There, Genesis reads, paints and writes.  He also tours extensively, giving lectures, talks and performances throughout the world.  As part of the Forum Expanded section, Genesis and Tony Conrad will perform an improvised violin concert together on February 19^th at Berlin’s Hebbel-am-ufer Theatre.

During a trip to New York at the very beginning of this year, I met with Marie at the charming East Village coffee and pastry palace, DeRobertis Caffe.  In walked a tiny figure, bundled up in a long coat and chapeau against the winter chill—an utterly charming and warmly-smiling gamine—to talk to me about her latest project, her unique and intimate relationship with Genesis, and the long and hard road she traveled to complete this film:

 

Still in Motion (SIM):  I think it’s always pretty easy to tell when the subject or subjects of a film have encountered the maker that’s meant to record their story.  I’ve seen wonderful examples of that several times in the last few years.  You have a distinctive way in which you do portraiture in film. Some of the first footage I saw of this piece was where you and Genesis were playing a game of hide-and-seek amongst the shelves of a gigantic home archive. It was so playful and so lovely.  And, of course, it’s an amazing and deeply moving love story.

Marie Losier (ML):  Very moving.  Gen is amazing.

SIM:  When and how did you first meet one another?

ML:  Seven years ago, I went to see a concert of Alan Vega with Suicide at the Knitting Factory [in New York City].  I was really excited because I loved his work but, unfortunately, it was a terrible concert—really bad.  However, the third part of the concert was Genesis, of whom I didn’t know anything.  It was Three Majesty, her third band.  So it was Bryan Dall, Genesis and Lady Jaye on bass, and she was reciting poems and it was so amazing, her energy and her presence were astounding.  I had no idea who they were.

The next day I went to an opening—which I never do—right in Soho.  I walked into this gallery and it was a show about music and painting.  It was packed with so many people.  I was crushed against a wall because I’m so small and I stepped on someone’s foot.  I turned around to apologize and it was Gen. She looked at me and all I saw were huge gold teeth in a big smile.  I told her that I had seen her concert the evening before, told her how beautiful I thought it was, how moved I was.  She looked at me for a couple of seconds, gave me her card and asked me to call her.  When I called, she asked me to come over.

When I got there, I was introduced to the basement where she greets people when she doesn’t know them.  I was sitting on this gigantic plastic chair shaped like an open palm. She was staring at me and then called Lady Jaye.  Jaye walked down the stairs, looked at me and asked me if I’d like a coffee.  She asked me what I did, what kinds of films I made, so I talked a little bit about my work. 

Something passed between the two of them and Jaye looked at me and said, “She’s the one. She’s the one who’s going to film our life.  We’ve been waiting for you.”  Ten days later, they took me on tour with Psychic TV. I didn’t know their music at all, but it had been a dream of mine to go on tour with a band.  It was really intense.  I jumped in.  That’s how we met.

SIM:  It sounds like you had no choice in the matter.

ML:  It was like it was waiting for me, yes.  I always wanted to be in a rock band and this was it.  And then, through the years, I learned about Gen and Lady Jaye.  I lived with them for a time.  It was then I saw the love story.  Also, filming the concerts and being on tour made me really sure I didn’t want to do a film about a rock band.  It’s very repetitive and a bit cliché.  I wanted something more.  Discovering their archives made me realize how much was there.

SIM:  The film belongs to Genesis, in essence, since he, she?  I notice you refer to Gen as “she.”

ML:  Yes.

SIM:  She’s front and center in this film.  It appeared to me that Jaye, at times, was a bit reticent about being filmed.  She could ham it up for the camera like in home movie fashion, but she seemed to almost shy away a bit once in a while.

ML:  She was more of a private person.  But also she had a very strong personality.  They would do everything together.  There was a complete energy balance with everything they did, all day long.  The pandrogyny project was as much Jaye as it was Gen. They were muses to, and for, one another.  So I saw something really balanced.  Jaye was much less comfortable being filmed.  I first did spend more time with Gen because she was so open. And then, suddenly, in 2007 Jaye died.

I thought that would be the end of the film, really, because it was so tragic, but I kept filming up until last year, 2010. I did really think that would be the end, though.  Her death was a complete shock and Gen was completely devastated.  It was the end of the band; it was the end of everything.  Gen stayed at home crying for about a year.  I spent a lot of time there and she said to me that she didn’t want me to stop.  She wanted me to keep making the film in memory of Jaye.  I had to adjust to both taking care of her and supporting her and also to keep the film going. It was just really painful and hard, so heavy.  I film alone so it’s not like I have a crew to make it a bit less intimate, so it tends to be very emotional.  You have to be careful—sometimes, you get taken into things you don’t want to and it’s very painful and, at times, very forceful.  Sometimes you see things you really don’t want to see and there’s no protection.

SIM:  One senses that vulnerability.  There is one scene where she’s sitting listening to a song and starts to weep and the camera gets put down immediately as you go to her.  There would be a lot of filmmakers that would have just sat there and kept shooting.

ML:  I’m really close to Gen; she’s a very dear friend.  We’ve been through so much and she knows me inside out.  She also knows how hard I’ve worked on this and that I’ve done it entirely by myself, including negotiating music rights, archival rights, credits, and other things where I really have no idea what I’m doing.  It’s endless—building a website, on and on.  Steve Holmgren, who came on as a producer after the film was made, is helping, but I’ve had to do everything else by myself.  Not to mention the fact that no funding for which we applied came through.  It’s been a hard film to pull out since I also work fulltime so it’s been one roll [of film] at a time.  I think the film is just too experimental for many funders, and I think Gen scares some people.

SIM:  Ironically, their story has been an inspiration for other films.  I think of Jake Yuzna’s Open, which won a Teddy at Berlin last year, for instance.  Also, the times that they lived through and the incredible people that Gen calls friends and colleagues is pretty damned impressive.  You’ve captured an important piece of literary, art and music culture in the 20^th century.

ML:  Yes, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, the list goes on and on.

SIM:  It’s possible you would have been supported more extensively if you had been making this film in Europe.

ML:  Well, it was also one of those instances where I just started filming.  There wasn’t a choice in the matter and I have never really worked with a producer before so I didn’t have one on this film either.  To then look for money three or four years into the project was difficult.  Thankfully, I had a few grants that supported me during that time. But the film was basically self-funded. I also didn’t want to bend at all in my creative vision for this piece.  When I did the IFP market, I met with a lot of people who really wanted to help but the film needed to be a bit more “commercial” for them to be able to do that, more of a traditional bio-pic, I guess.  So that made it clear that I just had to keep making my film my way.  I have so much material that is not going to be in the final film.  I’ve done many, many interviews that I’m not using and I have interviews of people who are no longer here, like Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle, who died a month ago, people like Gibby Haynes [of the Butthole Surfers], Peaches [Mermaid Café, The Shit].  I decided in order for me to really make it my piece, it would have to be Gen’s voice and Jaye’s voice.

SIM:  There are also these wonderful, whimsical interludes that you use where you dress Gen up in costumes and do little “passion plays” and such.  You externalize the flights of imagination she’s used throughout her career to express herself.  For anyone who knows your work, “playtime” sessions with your subjects are de rigueur.

ML:  I also live this way.  I do a lot of that playtime type of thing in my daily life with my friends.  It was great to push Gen to do it without a lot of thought; she just trusted me and dressed up and did what I asked.  She’s always portrayed as a rock icon, very posed, the whole concert/fan thing.  But I know the Gen who can be so whimsical and so out-there in another way.  I wanted to turn her into this other character.  She lives her life as a sort of fiction, anyway.  Gen fears nothing.  Yet she’s the most sensitive and emotional person, and quite shy, actually.  She loves being alone, reading books.  Everything else she releases on stage.

SIM:  Berlinale is, of course, one of the most important film festivals in the world.  Are you excited, intimidated, nervous?  You’ve exhibited films there before, but this time, Genesis is also going to perform a live show with Tony Conrad at the fest, which should be amazing.

ML:  Gen is nervous.  I introduced her to him for a scene in my film about Tony.  She saw the film [Tony Conrad DreaMinimalist, 2008] and just fell in love with him and asked me about him. She didn’t know his music or anything.  And I knew Gen’s favorite instrument is the violin.  So I set up a scene where both of them are playing the violin. I organized something more formally, since people really wanted to see this unique collaboration.  We made it into a two-day concert at ISSUE Project Room and also did an album.  They became really good friends and now are touring together.  I should be an agent [laughing].  So in Berlin, they’ll do their concert, which will be totally improvised.  (Still of Tony Conrad and Genesis in "Slap the Gondola," 2009, photo by Bernard Yenelouis.)

The curators in the Forum Expanded section are really amazing about pushing the edge, creating events for the festival. Vaginal Davis and Bruce LaBruce are always creating something really unique and special there, all these amazing artists that live in, or come through, Berlin regularly.

SIM:  What’s so delightful for me, always, is the fabulous sense of humor that accompanies all this madness. It’s great fun.  Gen, too, is a very funny person, almost like an old vaudeville performer.  The sections without synch sound are so evocative of the silent movie era

ML:  Well, the use of no synch sound in the film was a bit scary.  I worked for years without that.  I was afraid it would put a viewer too much outside the film.  But I think I found ways to bring a viewer in.  Gen’s always worked with cut-ups.  So, in a way, certain parts of the film act as kinds of cut-ups.  It works with the subject.

SIM:  Have you edited the whole film on your own, as well?  It’s beautifully edited.

ML:  Yes, essentially, but the editing started with the support and help of friend, Charlotte Mangin.  She went through all the footage with me and helped shape and build the story.  I also had invaluable help after eight months when everything was assembled, including sound.  My friend, Marc Vives, came in and helped me to move things around when I couldn’t see anymore.  The story needed some shaping and I wanted it to have more of a feature narrative storyline.  I’m not a narrative person.  And I couldn’t move the pieces anymore.  I’ve always edited my own films; it’s an essential part of the process for me.  It wouldn’t have my touch otherwise.  I had about 20 hours of 16mm film and about 60 hours of interviews on HD.  I also have non-HD video; there’s a lot.  I could make many movies [laughing].

SIM:  I would think that someone, at some point, would be very interested in the archive you’ve gathered.

ML:  Yes, I always keep an extensive archive.  Gen’s used some of the material for music videos or projections for her concerts.  You see some of that footage being projected during some of the shows—a movie within a movie.

SIM:  The way in which Genesis has recreated herself over and over again speaks to that way in which your footage will probably be manifested in several different ways. That’s the joy of making art and, to me, that’s apparent in all the film work you do.  Your pieces remind me in a way of handmade quilts, excuse the quaint analogy.  I guess what I’m saying is that no one else can weave together these elements like you can considering your emotional proximity to your subjects.

ML:  I’ve also learned so much from living next to Gen for so long.  As an artist, it opened many doors in ways of thinking about things and ways of being.  I see someone who is fearless, who doesn’t have a lot of money but lives in this uncompromising way and keeps going, really experimenting.  To me, that’s the key of life—that freedom.  It’s really hard to do it.

SIM:  How does she survive?

ML:  She sells some of her paintings.  Now it will be a bit difficult since Throbbing Gristle doesn’t exist anymore.  That was paying a good amount touring with that band.  Psychic TV also doesn’t exist.  There will be some shows here and there, but not enough to make a living.  She also lectures, sells artwork.  (Lady Jaye, second from left, and Genesis, center, in a Psychic TV publicity still.)

SIM:  Can you talk about your impressions of the pandrogyny experiment, this living art piece that Genesis and Lady Jaye created together?  It’s been called performance art.  It’s been called a lot of different things.

ML:  Well, I will say that, for me, that was not the subject of the film and not something I was interested in focusing on.  Their “credo” about all that and why they did it was not really the interesting thing for me, so much as the love it expressed.  What I saw in all that, almost exclusively, was the love story.  To do a story on two people who engaged in plastic surgery to transform themselves to look like one another as a piece of performance art wouldn’t be up my alley, frankly.  But I’ve known her for years and have an archive of rock music and so that pandrogyny was part of the cut-ups, being male and female simultaneously.  It’s part of the “performance” but it’s also so much about being Gen and Jaye and their love.  It became something else for me.  People might be disappointed because this is not a “fan” film about Throbbing Gristle or Psychic TV.  It’s a disturbing love story.

It was a bit difficult for me since I was moved by both Gen and Jaye, as people.  But I was compelled to tell this story of this unique transformation.  These are real people.  As strange as it is, when you think about what they go through, it’s just a human story.  For Gen, it’s not about becoming a woman or being transgender.

SIM:  But the “he” has become a “she.”

ML:  She likes being “she” right now.

SIM:  A way to stay close to Jaye.

ML:  Jaye is always there.  She’s unbelievably present.  Gen still uses the pronoun “we,” not “I.”  It’s both of them, all the time.  I’ve only known Gen as a “she,” so it’s pretty straightforward for me.  It’s much harder for people who’ve known Gen as a man to say “she,” the daughters, for instance.  They call her Dad.

SIM:  To me, the most important thing this portrait of a life says is that all of us are separate but equal to everyone else and we can do whatever we want with our lives. Genesis is inspiring in that way of never asking permission from anyone about how she feels she needs to realize and validate her existence.  I really hope audiences will tap into that more than anything else in your film.  That and the amazing music she creates.

ML:  Yes, the music is something that has attached me most strongly to the film.  Seeing her perform makes me remember that, how much I love the music she makes, her voice, that singing / talking voice that carries everything.  Gen’s voice, for me, is just beyond.  I want this film to be a musical ballad; this is why that word is in the title.  It’s also, of course, a love ballad.

SIM:  There must have been moments over the past several years when it all became too much for you considering this devotion you’ve had to Gen and Jaye and their story.

ML:  [She laughs, shaking her head.]  There were moments when it was really hard and I wasn’t really that strong yet.  Gen was hard on me, as was the band, at the beginning.  They were testing me.  I had to go through a lot.  And there were some really heavy times, emotionally.  I was fragile and sometimes it ate me up.  There were times I wanted to stop.  I was also making other projects and keeping up with my everyday life.  It’s hard to only be with one person for so long.  Gen also saw how stubborn I am and has discovered other things I do, all the friends I have, the life I have.  But she also knew I would never give up on her and the story and the project.

But now that the project is finished, I am looking forward to just going to a movie together with her, eating ice cream together, and not be filming everything!  But I relate to people mostly through my work, working and collaborating on something.  And our relationship is based on this creativity so I’m sure we’ll keep doing things together.  And we have several months ahead touring together with the film, of course.

SIM:  Gen’s life, post-Jaye—what does that look like?  I know from what you say, Jaye’s presence is always there, but do you think she will want to spend the rest of her life alone?

ML:  She explains it this way: Jaye was the ultimate love of her life.  She told me that in order to be with someone else—which she would love because it’s hard to be alone all the time—that person would have to love Jaye, as well, and accept that Jaye will always be there.

SIM:  That would take a pretty expansive individual. It sounds highly romantic, but difficult.

ML:  That person will be very hard to find.  Most of the time I see Gen, she’s alone and she seems to be okay with it because Jaye’s there.  And she’s also surrounded by a few, genuine, really good people who care for her deeply and have been a part of her life for a very long time.

SIM:  You chose a very open ending for this film which is, obviously, appropriate for a life far from finished.  What were some of the harder editing choices you had to make for the cut audiences will see at festivals?

ML:  There were some really, really beautiful scenes with Peaches dancing that were really great.  There were some fantastic and funny scenes with Gibby Haynes. Those kinds of things were hard for me to let go.  There were some with Sleazy.  But it became too cliché to have those scenes in the film.  They really belong to any kind of “extra” material.  Ultimately, they distracted from the main story.  There were also some beautifully shot, very whimsical scenes with Gen with great costumes and things that were hard to let go.

SIM:  What’s the distribution plan post-festival run?

ML:  The only thing I know for sure right now is that the film will be distributed by Arsenal in Germany.  Stephanie [Schulte-Strathaus, co-director of Arsenal—Institute for Film and Video Art, member of the selection committee of the Berlinale Forum, and founding director of Forum Expanded] was the first person to show my work at a major festival and has had a huge influence on my ability to exhibit my films.  I owe her a lot; she’s been an incredible mentor. 

But other than that, I don’t really know.  Steve has some ideas.  It’s so nice to have someone working with me with so much passion and excitement, someone who’s working so hard without getting paid.  It’s such a gift to have such a dedicated producer; I’m not used to that.  Also, I must mention, too, that Martin Marquet, a dear friend, is working on the producing and publicity aspect.  And Elyanna Blaser-Gould, my assistant, has my eternal gratitude.  Without her constant support, I could not have done any of it.

SIM:  I’m looking forward to meeting you and Genesis in Berlin.  People there will love the film; I know it.

ML:  We’re both so nervous and anxious, but also incredibly excited.  Yes, see you there!

 

(All photos courtesy marielosier.net, with the exception of Psychic TV still, courtesy Dan Mandell, www.danielmandell.com.)

 

 

 

2010

 

Love, sex, snow, Helsinki, heartbreak, sadness, pain, snow, movies, writing, friends, sauna, sadness, Sweden, sadness, pain,  Berlin, movies, movies, movies, writing, writing, writing, Columbia, MO, Austin, TX, NYC, madness, despair, whirling pinball, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Warsaw, movies, fun, inspiration, Herzog, laughter, NYC redux, Berlin, heat, German, friends, summer, books, writing, decisions, Kosova, joy, happiness, movies, raki, friends, movies, friends, movies, raki, writing, writing, writing, Berlin, nesting, wandering, deciding, pondering, MMX, freefall, autumn, German, German, German, friends, wein trinken, nesting, deciding, pondering, writing, writing, writing, Sheffield, Copenhagen, friends, Amsterdam, new crush, movies, movies, movies, writing, writing, writing, producing, programming, Kino Satellite, winter, sadness, loneliness, cozy flat, confusion, uncertainty, longing, friends, food, work, loneliness, food, uncertainty, cold, snow, dark, sleep, NYC, winter travel, anxiety, cleaning house, friends, Gossamer, tin rocket and robot, secret boxes, no Ski, loss of another year, anticipation of new, questions, questions, questions, questions.

 

 

Winter's Sleep (Notes from the Overlook Hotel)

If you're wondering why I haven't blogged in over a month, it's because I've been depressed and woefully uninspired. Not that I haven't encountered inspiring things (and people) on a regular basis, but there is a logjam between my head, my heart and my brain that somehow is preventing me from writing, at least not easily or very coherently without a lot of pain and anguish involved.  

And I'm a bit crabby that no one asked me for my Top 10 anything. Actually, I don't really care.  Yes, I do.

I think this blog from now on, or maybe just for right now (did I mention indecision is an issue, too?) might consist of interviews (I'm still a good talker when it comes to that and the filmmakers I wrassle with are, as well); highlights of overlooked festivals that are displaying some bespoke, thoughtful and engaging programming in overlooked places; and, if you're lucky, more poetry or song lyrics or odes to my cute, but overlooked, belly button.  Let's just hope I don't pull a Jack Torrance my first winter in Berlin.  

To tide you over and appease my blogging network from dropping me, here's a poem I wrote that is an ode to this dreary, dark season:  (ahem)

I want to slow these days--

a sun oblique, pale

too quick

brittle dawn to dusk.

I want to linger on the southern slopes

foraging like a brown bear

after roots, berries, and honey stumps

of autumn's last red camp.

Something in me slows against my will--

heart, fire, and hunger.

The past fills up and holds the

most proportion of brightness.

And there is nothing to do for it

but shuffle into my cave

worrying round and around the shadows

until I slump down in a long winter's sleep.

If only it were that bear simple,

to lie down in darkness,

to wake in a new season of light,

and know exactly what is necessary.

And in more exciting news:  Posted here soon will be a wonderful chat I just conducted with Los Angeles-based filmmaker, Jeff Malmberg, creator and director of Marwencol, a small documentary that is, thankfully, not being overlooked, and has taken the critics and viewing audiences by storm with its inspirational story of one man's mission to rebuild his life.  This film, I would imagine, will appear on many top 10 lists this year.  It certainly would have been on mine if I'd been asked to supply one.  So stay tuned for the soothing sounds of Jeff Malmberg.

And to wrap up this strange post, in more great doc news, you can now own two of the most fabulous nonfiction films to come out of the US of A in a while courtesy of Carnivalesque Films: Darius Marder's grossly overlooked Loot, and Bradley Beesley's slightly less overlooked (it's all relative), Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo. Seems like team Carnivalesque is busy building a very impressive roster of films--kudos.    

Oh wait, here's another poem you might like called The Art and Science of Guilt:

Upturned faces of ponds, lakes

wear thick-skinned masks now,

and the rifle crack of splitting trees

is heard; approaching another century's

end, nearer life forms burst

in sudden monstrous spasms

of growth, and distant mountain

ridges vanish in smoke,

reappear in sulfuric haze;

it is summer's end, not

the world's.  Surely as snakes shed

their skins whole, the seasons

will turn sweet or bitter,

sap and blood will sleep and rise,

and we will drift from shadow to sun

again, crying out like hawks on the hunt.

Together in tribal darkness we forgive

the actors and ourselves: nothing

except the movies works.  Uncountable

layers of space flattened on a screen

deliver up inner-outer union:

exotic home, familiar dangers pure

and depraved, unjudging, unjudgeable.

From the first scene to last tracking shot,

we dream of going from movie to movie,

out-of-body out-of-mind,

to freedom.

 

It turns out I'm still inspired by the movies, after all.  Happy holidaze.

 

 

Ken Jacobs at KINO SATELLITE (and Other Paraphernalia)

A quick post betwixt fests:  just coming down from Sheffield Doc/Fest and a very active marketplace--wow!  I just filed my report for DOX Magazine; look here for film reviews in the coming weeks.  Loved, loved, loved Marwencol (and felt very honored to host the Q&A at Sheff).  This was the film's UK premiere and during the Cinema Eye Roller Disco party, it was announced that the film had garnered nominations for Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking (CEH's version of "best film"), as well as nominations for outstanding achievement in direction, editing, and début feature.  The film opens this Friday the 12th at the Landmark Nuart in LA, Malmberg's hometown.  Don't miss it!

I also saw The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, a 187-minute tour de force from director, Andrei Ujica, and also a nominee for a Cinema Eye Spotlight award.  Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop was another film I was lucky enought to host with its producer, Jamie D'Cruz, and editor, Chris King.  Exit is nominated for six Cinema Eyes: best film, production (award goes to the producer), editing, international feature, début feature, and the audience award.  Quadrangle, an outstanding piece directed by Amy Grappell, was a film I saw at the last SXSW, but I had a chance to see it again at Sheffield where it played with Catfish.  (I loved Catfish so much!)  Quadrangle is one of the nominees in the CEH best short film category (which is new this year), along with Andreas Koefoed's Albert's Winter, Arsy-Versy by Miro Remo, an amazing student film that has won many awards around the world, James Blagden's Dock Ellis and the LSD No-No, and Vance Malone's The Poodle Trainer.  I also got a chance to see the world premiere of Jerry Rothwell's excellent Donor Unknown, a totally ready-for-primetime doc--that's a compliment.  Delights out of the Scottish Documentary Institute Focus strand:  Calling Home, Surpriseville and Twinset.  More coherent thoughts beyond "I loved it!" on all of these outstanding films at some undefined free moment in the future.  And to see the rest of the categories and nominees for the Cinema Eyes, taking place at The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens on January 18 (and broadcast on The Documentary Channel), visit the site here.

Early tomorrow morning, I fly to Copenhagen for CPH: DOX to spend a few days taking in their incredible program.  I've already seen quite a few pieces out of there which has just whet my growing appetite for more visionary programming.  I mentioned to a colleague recently that it's getting harder and harder for me to watch more traditional docs when I see all the innovative ways in which young filmmakers are stretching, mashing and creating new ways in which to storytell.  Very exciting stuff, indeed.  Look for articles on the New Vision category out of CPH in DOX and on the program that Harmony Korine curated for the fest this year on Senses of Cinema.  (Pictured, still from Israeli artist Roee Rosen's staggering film, Out.)

The call for entries is open for the International Women's Film Festival Dortmund | Cologne.  The theme for 2011 is NOW WHAT:  Films About Getting Out of Here.  They are looking for films by women directors that deal with topics on Quest for Meaning, Orientation, Confidence, Antagonism, Rebellion, Utopia.  There are no restrictions on genre, running time or year of production.  You can find more detailed information here.  Entry deadline is 29 November. 

There is also an International Fiction Feature Competition endowed with 25,000 Euro; that entry deadline is the 7th of January and the film must have been finished within two years of the festival date in April.  As well, there is a National Director of Photography Award endowed with a 5,000 Euro prize for fiction, and a 2,500 Euro prize for documentary.  This is an advancement award for an up-and-coming German cinematographer/DP.  They also accept films by DPs who either live and work in Germany, or finished their training here.  Entry deadline is 31 January.  Vist the web site for updates and to download entry forms.  The festival will take place in Köln, Germany 12 - 17 April 2011.  (Pictured, still from Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir's Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement, 2009.)

In New York, the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival opens once again at the Museum of Natural History, 11 - 14 November.  On Saturday the 13th, the festival will present the New York premiere of Human Terrain with filmmakers David and Michael Udris and their collaborating Watson Institute Research Fellow, James Der Derian, for a post-screening discussion.  In a co-presentation with the Goethe-Institut in New York, the festival's opening night will honor Veterans Day with Dustin Grella's Prayers for Peace and the New York premiere of Jens Schanze's Plug & Play, a documentary starring some of science's most famed researchers.  In another strand, the fest will celebrate The World's Children with films that address the unwavering hope of children around the globe faced with difficult circumstances.  Featured films will be Born Sweet, Shelter in Place, Jean-Pierre Duret and Andrea Santana's exquisite Because We Were Born, and one of the most moving shorts I've seen this year, Carol Salter's Unearthing the Pen.  Visit the web site for more info and on how to purchase tickets.  (Pictured, still from Unearthing the Pen, 2009.)

Lastly, but far from leastly, our second KINO SATELLITE show happens tomorrow night in Berlin with a selection of work from filmmaker, Ken Jacobs.  We're pleased to present a program of recent works by the legendary filmmaker, one of the pioneers of the New York avant-garde.  The program includes the German premiere of his most recent film, a loft, which just premiered at the 2010 Viennale (still from film, pictured).  The show will be introduced by Ekkehard Knörrer of Die Tageszeitung, Cargo and Perlentaucher.  We will show The Day Was a Scorcher (2009), 8 minutes, color, silent; an excerpt from THE SKY SOCIALIST Stratified (2009),19 minutes, color, sound, music by Olivier Messiaen and Michael Schumacher; Capitalism: Slavery (2006), 3 minutes, color, silent; Capitalism: Child Labor (2006), 14 minutes, color, sound; Ron Gonzalez, Sculptor (2009), 20 minutes, color, sound; and, a loft (2010), 16 mintues, color, silent.  I will, of course, be in Copenhagen, as mentioned above, but Andrew Grant will be on hand to welcome you to Direktorenhaus--doors and bar will open at 7:30 p.m., and the screening will start at 8:00. 

Goodnight, London.

KINO SATELLITE: Convergence

Warning:  This blog post contains inordinate amounts of shameless self-promotion.

Next Tuesday, November 2, a new screening series will launch at Berlin's Direktorenhaus in the Mitte district.  Film critic and co-director of Benten Films, Andrew Grant, and I will début our weekly series.  We've dubbed it KINO SATELLITE.  Our lovely logo was created--in record time--by filmmaker and designer, Eliane Lazzaris.  We'll be hosting shows in a newly-built micro-cinema every Tuesday evening, curating programs of new, innovative and groundbreaking work from some of today's most talented filmmakers, animators and multi-media artists.  Material will consist of original programming, as well as co-presentations, with an emphasis on the illustrative arts.

Direktorenhaus is a newly-renovated art and performance space "where a simulation of a temporary Gesamtkunstwerk, the total artwork, is explored.  Traditional methods are coupled with analogue technology and digital media, presenting an experimental directive with social resonances, breaking down the boundaries between art and design."  It also happens to be located in a super sexy spot, housed in a big mansion that sits directly on the riverbank of the Spree.

The owners of the gallery, Pascal Johanssen and Katja Kleiss, were looking to host a weekly screening series in their new space, a renovated two-floor gallery (with studio space for visiting artists).  The house was the dwelling of the director of the State Mint (thus, Das Direktorenhaus).  Clare Molloy, the invincible programs coordinator, and I had conversations about this in late summer.  A bit daunted by taking something like this on all on my own, I found the perfect producing and curating partner in Andrew Grant.  He moved here about a month after I did, and when I took him to see the space and asked him if he'd be interested in collaborating with me, he jumped out of his skin with excitment at the opportunity.  He and I believe strongly that the only way underrepresented work gets seen is through this bespoke way of creating a community of like-minded individuals--the people that make the work and the people that want to access it for a regular dose of inspiration.  The gallery's dedication and commitment to support such work makes them an ideal partner.

Opening the series on Tuesday will be Alison S.M. Kobayashi, a Japanese / Canadian multi-disciplinary artist.  She was one of the guest artists at the Flaherty Seminar in 2008 when I was there as a Fellow.  Kobayahsi will be presenting four of her distinctive video pieces.  Joining us for the second half will be Christopher Allen, creative director and founder of Brooklyn's UnionDocs documentary collaborative.  Both of them will be there in person.  In fact, Kobayashi and Allen happen to be on their European honeymoon.  Lucky for us Berlin was on their itinerary.  We're thrilled that they'll be here with us.  As well, all of the work they will be showing will be Berlin premieres.  (Pictured, Kobayashi in Dan Carter.)

Shows to come include an evening dedicated to the films of avant-garde filmmaker, Ken Jacobs; a screening of Berlin-based producer and director Zoran Solomun's wonderful feature-length doc, Super Art Market (with the director and special guests in attendance for a post-screening discussion); a co-presentation with the Warsaw-based animation and special effects production house, Platige Image, with brand-new works by some of Poland's most incredible animation artists; a co-presentation with Portland, Oregon-based distributor, A Million Movies a Minute, run by Steady Diet of Film's Erin Donovan; a show of new German animation and an AnimaDoc show fresh from the Leipzig fest; a co-presentation with Rotterdam-based film collective, WORM.kino; an evening of music, food and multiple projections of London-based artist Max Hattler's work; and more.

Right now, we are a "satellite" on Direktorenhaus' website and on their Facebook page.  That's where you can look for info on upcoming shows.  Andrew and I are also very open to receiving submissions and ideas for collaborations, particularly from Berlin-based artists.  We look forward to meeting our audiences.  (Pictured, still from Michal Socha's Chick, Poland, 2008.)

Next week, I'm off on a European tour of my own as I make my way to Sheffield in the UK, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, a few days back in Berlin to host a show, and then off again to Amsterdam for IDFA.  It's bound to be an invigorating, sleepless, alcohol-infused joyride--pitching projects, screening films, meeting filmmakers, partying.  Rinse, repeat.  And I'm so looking foward to seeing friends I haven't seen in a while.  Wir sehen uns im Kino, meine Schätze.

DOK Leipzig 2010

From the 18th to the 24th of this month, DOK Leipzig will be presenting its 53rd edition.  As one of the world's most established and important documentary and animation festivals and markets, this year they will present close to 350 films from 58 countries, 223 of them docs.  The festival reports that it received about 2,800 submissions (!!!) from 97 different countries.  The festival will kick off its amazing program with Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia de la luz.

In addition to the international documentary and international animated film competitions, the German documentary competition and the International Young Talent Competition (aka, Generation DOK), for the first time there will be a competition for best short documentary film.  Also new this year, an award presented by the Peaceful Revolution Foundation, which includes a cash prize of 5,000 euro, will go to the film that artistically demonstrates "a commitment to democracy and human rights in an exemplary manner, or that was created in the face of resistance and limitations to freedom of the press and opinion due to great personal dedication and courage on the part of the director."  The award will be presented in a special ceremony at the Nikolai Church (pictured), the spot from which the Monday demonstrations were launched.  RealScreen has a list of the nominated films for the prize here.

Special programs will include:  a focus on the still roiling region of the Caucasus called "Caucasian Lessons," curated by Barbara Wurm.  As part of this special strand, there will be an appearance by filmmaker, Andrei Nekrasov (Russian Lessons, 2010).  Wurm states that Nekrasov "is not only one of the most controversial Russian documentary filmmakers, human rights activists and partisan denouncers, but also a man who will question the flippant associations of press and media images."  (Pictured, still from The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia by Inna Sahakyan and Arman Yeritsyan)

"Money Matters" will consist of six programs featuring 23 short and feature-length nonfiction, animated and experimental films with money as their core subject.  The section was curated by Luc-Carolin Ziemann, who states, "Hardly anyone out there understands what is now happening with money in the global network of stock exchanges and banks.  The economy appears to have become a kind of natural phenomenon over which humans exercise no influence.  Economic crises break like storms or floods over the world and tear our lives apart."  (Pictured, still from The Anarchist Banker by Jan Peter Hammer)

There will also be a significant spotlight on the brilliant work of New York-based animator, Signe Baumane ("Love, Sex & Signe Baumane").  Baumane's work will be celebrated with a comprehensive retrospective.  In her work, the artist focuses on  alternative versions of conventional images of the female.  Curator, Annegret Richter:  "Signe Baumane's animations are definitely no child's play.  Cheeky, fresh and always unconventional, the Latvian-born New Yorker focuses on the issue of sex in her cartoons.  . . . They are provocatively erotic yet don't send the audience forth blushing, as the subtle satirical elements of the stories also provide much humor."  Baumane moved to New York from Riga in 1995 where she met film director, Bill Plympton (who will be doing a masterclass at the fest), whom she worked for until 2002.  Baumane will also be presenting  "Signe's Favourites," a series of animated films that influenced her own work.  As well, she and Plympton will also be re-presenting a program they did at the IFC Center in New York (read about it here) called Battle of the Sexes: Animated!  As the New York audience had a chance to do, the audience in Leipzig will get to decide who makes animated films better--men or women.

The festival will also pay homage to 80-year-old documentary flmmaker, Klaus Wildenhahn (The Quiet Moment of Improvisation).  Festival director, Claas Danielsen:  "Wildenhahn's work is the polar opposite of Formalism, as it is the documentary content that seeks and defines the form.  In the patient observation of the unspectacular and the gestures and details of everyday life, an instinctive search for peaceful moments emerges, in which humans find themselves in front of the camera.  The 'moment of improvisation' in which the existence of a human unfolds and its inner magic becomes manifest, creates a feeling of joy--and this is the sensation that Wildenhahn's films leave behind."  (Pictured, still from What Do Pina Bausch and Her Dancers Do in Wuppertal? / Was tun Pina Bausch und ihre Tänzer in Wuppertal? by Wildenhahn)

To see the full listings for the entire film program, master classes, talks, and other special events, visit DOK Leipzig's website here.  As a budding animation curator, I will be focusing almost exclusively on the animation program since there is a wealth of riches here.  But never fear, I will be doing the Sheffield, Copenhagen, Amsterdam trifecta next month, so will have plenty of new discoveries to write about.  More from Leipzig soon.

Herbst, Meine liebste Jahreszeit

The reason why you're seeing pink, is that every year at this time, I write a blog post in this color to focus on breast cancer awareness, adding my voice to the effort of encouraging everyone (both men and women) to pay attention and respect to their bodies before something catastrophic happens. 

Autumn is my favorite season (so says the title of this post).  I am one of the few people I know who actually looks forward to winter.  I love this time of year when one can feel a profound energy shift in the air, knowing it's time to hunker down, find a cozy spot and commune with your inner muse in a quiet but invigorating way, reflect on the past (frenetic) year, and plan what will be necessary to the soul and spirit when a new lighter season rolls around again.  (Berlin street photo courtesy Nizhal Nijamagiradhu's photostream.) 

I can't say I'm surprised to still find myself in this city since I had a feeling a more permanent stay than the month of July was in the works.  As has been my habit in the past few years, I travel extremely lightly, realizing that in my maturing years (ahem) the burden of possessions (and sometimes the burden of places and certain people) can be easily discarded, when once upon a time they meant way too much.  To most of those people, in fact, I'm sure it's as if I was never there. 

So it was with just one lousy suitcase that I landed here and felt embraced according to my expectations--which were nil.  Unlike my expectations when I moved to NYC--goodness, what a load, what a burden, of expectations!  But I realize, as well, that I wouldn't be here where I am now, doing the things I'm doing and getting the opportunities that are coming my way, if I hadn't settled there (and I use that term very loosely) for a while.  So I will continue my quest to become a "new European" in a more legitimate way, since I've found a place that feels like it could be a true home.  I would not be the first artist, and won't be the last, to experience that in this "poor but sexy" city.  As most of us know, there are very few places where poor but sexy people can survive these days with our dignity intact.

Some interesting things (at least to me) of note in NYC this month, a place that will have to serve merely as another spiritual home instead of a physical one:  Just in time for Halloween, Carnivalesque Films will release the DVD for Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher's October Country on the 19th of this month.  It's no secret to readers of this blog that I adore this film and the filmmakers (pictured right) have become precious friends.  I will be conducting an interview with them that will be published soon somewhere--we're hoping for Senses of Cinema!  However, to legitimize the proceedings, some other critics love it, too, and here's what they've written about OC:  AO Scott of the New York Times says, "Like a Joyce Carol Oates novel rendered as a documentary.  The filmmakers are as sensitive to visual nuances as they are to details of behavior."  Andrew Barker at Variety calls it "breathtaking."  And S. James Snyder of ARTFORUM calls it, "An hypnotic, impressionistic spectacle."  I just showed it here in Berlin to an extremely appreciative audience.

Filmmaker, James T. Hong, was one of the guest artists when I attended the Flaherty Film Seminar as a Fellow in 2008.  During that week, guest curator, Chi-hui Yang, showed us selections of Hong's work, all of his pieces shocking, haunting and incendiary.  He is a filmmaker who breathes fire into some of the most heinous instances of historical and modern-day revisionism and propaganda, searing away the encrusted detritus of deeply-embedded public lies to expose the truth behind carefully constructed ideologies.  It's powerful stuff.

The October Flaherty screening on the 11th at the Anthology Archives will feature Hong's and Yin-Ju Chen's Lessons of the Blood with a post-screening discussion with Hong and Yang.  In 2008, the participants of that year's Flaherty only got to see a small portion of this 106-minute film, as it was a work-in-progress then.  "Stylistically aggressive and often controversial, the films of James T. Hong tackle the things of which we'd rather not speak, in ways designed to provoke us to respond.  Focusing on the history and victims of Japanese biological warfare, Lessons of the Blood is a meditation on propaganda, historical revisionism, and the legacy of World War II in China.  This arresting film highlights how nationalism and the United States have influenced the Sino-Japanese conflict, and how governments, ideology, and propaganda affect the reception and perception of 'historical truth.'"  (You can watch the riveting trailer here.)  Hong and Yang will also be appearing at UnionDocs in Brooklyn this weekend.  Don't miss seeing this film.  I hope to show it here in Berlin soon with the cooperation of the filmmakers.

Julia Bacha's award-winning documentary, Budrus, will open in theaters this month in the US.  The Quad Cinemas in NYC will open the film on the 8th; the Music Hall in Los Angeles will open the film on the 22nd; and, on the 29th, the film will open at the West End Cinema in Washington, DC.  I saw this extraordinary film at the Berlinale this past February where the audience was treated to a wonderful post-screening discussion with the filmmakers and the amazing main protagonist, Palestinian community organizer, Ayed Morrar.  I cried from the first frame to the last--and also through the entire Q&A.  (Look for my review coming soon on Hammer to Nail.)

The International Documentary Association will host a Doc U session with Bacha at the Tribeca Cinemas in New York City this Tuesday, the 5th.  IDA Board President, Eddie Schmidt, will be in discussion with the producer, writer, director, editor of Budrus.  You can register and buy a ticket for the event here.  (Pictured, film still of Morrar's 15-year-old daughter, Iltezam, who joins her father in the fight to save their village.)

Okay, Berlin stuff:  I just posted my interview with Philippine filmmaker, writer and musician, Khavn de al Cruz on the BOMBLOG.  Please read our great conversation here!  de la Cruz will also be touring Denmark with his band, Vigo, this month.  I met de la Cruz at Dokufest in Prizren, Kosova in August where we both served on various competition juries; the festival featured a program of eight of his short film works.

Coming soon on SIM:  the third in my series, Projects on the Brink, essays featuring long-form documentary projects about to launch into the world.  I will be talking to Marie Losier about her new feature film, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye.  Frenchwoman, Losier, has made intimate film portraits of Guy Maddin and The Kuchar Brothers, theater director, Richard Foreman and composer, Tony Conrad.  Her work has been presented regularly at museums and festivals around the world, such as the Tate Modern, the Whitney Bienniel, PS1, MoMA, Centre Georges Pompidou, the Berlin Film Festival and Rotterdam.  The New York-based artist is currently the film curator at the French Institute Alliance Française.

This month, I will introduce twice-monthly film nights at my friend Giampiero's warm and intimate wine and antipasti bar, Speziale!, in my neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg.  On Thursday the 7th, we will be showing an incredible documentary from 2007 directed by Raúl de al Fuente called Nomadak TX.  Click here for more info.  Then on the 14th, courtesy of Benten Films, I will be showing Azazel Jacobs' brand new film, The GoodTimesKid.  Films will start at 8:30 but it's a good idea to come early to grab a seat since space is limited.  There will be a lovely selection of wines, beers and yummy snacks.  Join Speziale!'s Facebook page for more upcoming events, including poker nights and film screenings.  It's a great, cozy place to eat, drink and commune with international friends on chilly winter evenings. 

Benten Films' Andrew Grant (also a new Berliner) and I will launch our new weekly screening series at Das Direktorenhaus Tuesday, October 26.  Our first show will be devoted to the recent work of Ken Jacobs; most pieces will be German premieres.  Jacobs (Azazel's pop) is one of the founding fathers of the New York cinematic underground and a major figure in the world of avant-garde cinema.  So far, the program is shaping up to show the following pieces:  Nymph (2007, 2 min, silent); Sky Socialist (2007, 18 min, color, sound); Capitalism: Slavery (2006, 3 min, silent); Capitalism: Child Labor (2006, 14 min, sound); Pushcarts of Eternity Street (2006, 11 min, silent); Ron Gonzales, Sculptor (2009, 20 min, sound); The Pushcarts Leave Eternity Street (2010, 13 min, silent); and, a loft (2010 16 min, silent, 3D).  More information coming very soon on our fall/winter program! 

Another Benten acquisition, Modern Love is Automatic, will open the 5th Porn Film Festival Berlin (October 28 - 31), new friend Jürgen Brüning's celebration of all things porno.  Ambitiously, Brüning has put together a program of 134 films to exhibit over the course of four days.  He's also planning a naked smoking lounge, topless arm wrestling, and "hands-on" workshops such as "A Whore's Guide to Safer Sex for Queers" with Berlin/San Francisco-based sex worker, Sadie Lune; an introduction to Japanese bondage "including basic knots, bondage of upper and lower body, securing a suspension rope, health and safety," with Hamburg-based Matthias T.J. Grimme; and, "Porn and Feminism" with Amsterdam-based erotic film director, Jennifer Lyon.  All workshops are limited to 20 people and include a buffet.  :)  This fest I will not miss.  However, about five kilos will have to come off my body between now and then if I'm to enter the smoking lounge sans culotte. 

As for other upcoming festivals (not in Berlin):  Because I've enrolled myself in German classes full-time, like the good school kid I am, I have to wait for proper vacations to go anywhere.  However, I will be playing a bit of hooky since this is the season of many important European documentary film festivals, and I do tend to brake for documentary.  Instead of sitting here on a calm Saturday afternoon blogging, I was supposed to be at the International Hamburg Film Festival; however, one week ago I ended up at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin hospital undergoing emergency surgery.  I am recovering fine, but damn, I really was looking forward to going to Hamburg!

On a happier note, I do have a school break coming up mid-October and am deciding to go to one of three fests:  the 8th Zagreb Film Festival in Croatia (October 17 - 23), a festival that features only first and second directorial efforts; DOK Leipzig in Germany (October 18 - 24), one of the oldest and most important documentary exhibition and market events; or, the Viennale (October 21 - November 3) in Austria.  I'll keep you posted on where I end up as soon as I know--a wealth of riches, to be sure.  November will bring Sheffield in the UK, CPH:DOX in Denmark and the IDFA in the Netherlands.  And, of course, more news from sexy Berlin.  Haben Sie einen schönen Herbst!

Abu Dhabi Film Festival Announces Sanad Grants

Today, the festival in Abu Dhabi (which takes place next month from the 14th to the 23rd) announced the recipients of the recently launched Sanad (support in Arabic) Film Fund with over $500,000 in grant money for development and post-production to twenty-eight feature-length narrative and documentary films.  Established this past April, the fund has two categories of grants: development funds of up to US$20,000, and post-production funds of up to US$60,000, per project.  The selection committee noted a marked trend towards artistic innovation and unconventional cinematic styles and approaches in the inaugural round of submissions.

Peter Scarlet, executive director of the ADFF, says, "I am not sure there has been a comparable trend towards artistic independence here since the late 60s.  These filmmakers are breaking the mold and developing a new cinematic vocabulary that is unique to the Arab region.  It is our mission to provide these inspired artistic experiments with the support they need." 

This is the first film fund in the region tied to a festival so this means that these films will benefit from international exposure from festival screenings, as well as year-round publicity.  There are two open calls for applications per year; the second round of grants will be announced in February 2011.  The Abu Dhabi Film Festival (formerly the Middle East International Film Festival) was established in 2007 and is presented by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, its main goal that of nurturing the growth of the regional film industry.

The documentary project recipients for post-production grants are In My Mother's Arms by Atia and Mohamed Al-Daradji (Iraq / UK) and Mohammad Saved From the Waters by Safaa Fathy (Egypt/France).

The documentary project recipients for a development grant are Lebanese Rocket Science by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige (Lebanon/France), My Jinn by Dalia Al Kury (Jordan/Germany), In Search of Oil and Sand by Philippe Laurent Dib (Egypt), As If We Were Catching a Cobra by Hala Alabdalla (Syria/France), and Seduction by Omar Amiralay (the great Syrian director, pictured above).

For more information on the festival and the Sanad grant, visit the web site.

Aa. Be. Ce. Eins. Zwei. Drei. . .

Goodness, my head is spinning.  For all kinds of reasons, but life changes particularly profoundly when you start to learn a new language.  German will be the fifth language I've learned (including English).  It doesn't get any easier.  But I like this part, when you're hearing (and seeing) double, everything through the eyes and ears of your native tongue (the one you think and dream in), and things seeping through in the way an infant starts to take in the world, naming and identifying things little by little, everything disjointed and a bit janky at first.  And then, slowly, alles becomes klar.  And your pronunciation will even improve enough so that you're actually understood when you speak!  Imagine.  Yes, it's back-to-school season and I just cracked the spine on my brand new German grammar.  Thankfully, I'm only one of two Yanks in a class of international kids (actually we're of all ages) seeking refuge in civilized Berlin.  But it's not that great, so don't even think of coming here. 

I am happy to report that fellow Yank (although he passes for British when he can--ha!) and film critic extraordinaire, Andrew Grant, aka, The Film Brain, has just moved here from New York, too, and we are in the midst of brainstorming on some interesting collaborations--more on that in a bit.  He's also here to launch the European arm of Benten Films, the discerning and distinctive distribution company he runs with fellow critic and filmmaker, Aaron Hillis.  Andrew and I are both interested in bringing the best of American and world cinema to Berlin in a series of curations at some really fantastic venues and spaces, pieces that have been grossly overlooked, or underwhelmingly exhibited in their countries of origin (or anywhere else for that matter).  My audiences, right now, consist mostly of artists--fine artists, performance artists, video artists, installation artists, writers, musicians and a few filmmakers in the crowd, as well.  Excellent group all around--open, inquisitive, patient, attentive, intelligent, engaged--a dream audience if ever there was one.  And did I mention appreciative, since they (and, frankly, no one else) would ever have a chance to see some of this remarkable work anywhere.

This month, I have three screenings booked, the first of which is this Sunday at the MMX Open Art Venue, my home away from home.  Ever since I arrived in Berlin, they have given me an opportunity to host several evenings in their micro cinema at the beautiful (and huge) space in the lovely Mitte section of the city.  This Sunday the 5th, with the cooperation of the Scottish Documentary Institute in Edinburgh, I will be exhibiting eight short films from Scotland.  The SDI was created in 2004 and is an internationally recognized documentary research center at the Edinburgh College of Art, specializing in documentary training, production and distribution.  There is a wealth of cinematic riches coming out of that place, let me tell you, and I'm really pleased that I can share some of that work with my fellow Berliners.  You can read about the MMX program (in German) here.  Then, on Sunday the 12th, I will be bringing another program to MMX.  Since I'm rabid about Danish films, I will be bringing selections from Denmark, program TBD for right now.  You can keep checking the MMX site or join their Facebook page for updated info.  (Film still from Julian Krubasik's hilarious Melissa Immaculate.)

On Thursday, September 16, I am very excited to announce that I will host my inaugural screening (hopefully, a full-blown series is in the works) at das Direktorenhaus, a brand new art venue with two floors of exhibition and event space that overlooks the River Spree.  Das Direktorenhaus is an art space that aims to combine traditional art and craft methods with analog technology and digital media.  The building that houses the venue was built as part of the German State Mint in 1935 and artworks from Berlin's state museums were protected in a secured vault there during WWII.  The doors will open at 7:30 p.m. so people can come and tour the space, order a cocktail from the bar and take in the beautiful view.  The screening will begin at 8:30.  Called "Futuristic Cinema," the program will start with a premiere of the very first film to be shot in Direktorenhaus called "Live Animals," with the artists in attendance.  Then, I will show two exceptionally beautiful (and multiple award-winning) films:  The Shutdown (2010) from the UK, and October Country (2009) from the US.  The event is free.  I'm working on some other venues and collaborations, so stay tuned.

In future posts, I will write more about my experiences in Rome this past weekend at Giona Nazzaro's Gender DocuFilm Festival, the event's maiden voyage.  It was part of the summer celebrations at Rome's Gay Village.  Kimberly Reed's Prodigal Sons won the grand prize, and Turkish filmmaker, Ismail Necmi's haunting Should I Really Do It? won the audience award.  I will post some thoughts on this film soon, as well as Israeli filmmaker and singer Zohar Wagner's Stretch Marks (pictured) which also exhibited at the fest, one of the most deeply impressive, original and honest portraits of pregnancy and new motherhood I've seen.  Congratulations to Giona, his amazing right-hand man, Filippo Ulivieri, and activist, politician and "human volcano," the aptly-named Imma Battaglia, president of Di'Gay Project, on one hell of an accomplishment, staging something like this in the midst of an appallingly conservative city and state government--and il Vaticano, as well!  They are starting small but making huge strides for equality, inclusion and a very vocal "leftist" voice in the maelstrom of modern-day fascism.  (And if an American can't recognize and relate to modern-day fascism, I don't know who can.)

Also, more news soon from my incredible friends in Damascus who run ProAction Film, the only independently-run documentary production company in Syria, and the people who launched the DOX BOX festival three years ago:  They are about to launch a new quarterly publication and website dedicated to the documentary arts.  TAFASEEL is a new trade magazine that will be débuting soon.  Planned to publish four times a year, the online version will equal about 120 pages of original articles, reviews, festival calendars, and much more.  The print version will be distributed at international festivals and markets.  Since they're starting this up with exactly zero financing, they will start to fundraise shortly after the journal's launch.  Meant to reach Arabic filmmakers all over the world, TAFASEEL will be published in both Arabic and English.  There is nothing like it that exists right now, not even close.  I will publish another post upon the official launch with links and an opportunity to subscribe and contribute.  (Pictured, ProAction Film's Orwa Nyrabia.)

Lastly, some news from Hamburg-based friends, A Wall Is A Screen:  This Friday, September 3, AWIAS will perform their 100th short film tour!  This will be in conjunction with the anniversary of their 6th performance at the Hamburg Mümmelmannsberg.  Since 2003, the small group of unpaid film curators have illuminated many walls and wandered through many cities in more than fifteen countries (including Dokufest in Kosova last month).  They are headed to Hyderabad in October and are calling for entries for short films from or about India.  All dates for upcoming shows and more info can be found on their website here.

Fürs Erste, wünsche ich Ihnen eine gute Nacht und Süssen Träume.

DAVID WANTS TO FLY: Enlightenment Comes with a Hefty Pricetag

It is said that you should never meet your heroes.  It's bound to be a disappointing encounter when all is said and done, your naive hopes pinned on the fantasy you've created in your mind about the outcome: an instant rapport, a mutual recognition that you are kindred spirits, the admiration and respect no longer just flowing one way, anymore--perhaps, even life-long friendship will transpire.

Young David Sieveking has just graduated from film school, another broke budding filmmaker looking for inspiration, when we first meet him in his apartment in Berlin.  His personality and demeanor are instantly appealing--sweet-faced, charming and a bit of a bumbler, he states in voice over, "I wanted to make dark films like my idol, David Lynch.  But I was lacking the darkness."  Yet the journey he takes to meet his idol in this wonderful début feature leads the wide-eyed searcher into some very dark places, indeed.

David Wants to Fly, which premiered at the 2010 Berlinale, showcases a new presence, a new voice in documentary that deserves much attention, for Sieveking has made a highly-entertaining, very funny, thought-provoking, disturbing and penetrating investigation into the inner workings of a very wealthy and powerful organization--don't let the sweet-faced, charming, bumbler fool you.  (Think Mr. M. Moore circa Roger & Me.)  I meant to write about this film after seeing it at the Doc Planete Film Festival in Warsaw, Poland in the spring where our jury gave it an honorable mention, all of us recognizing the profound accomplishment in storytelling artistry this piece contains, the artificial and, sometimes, awkward, contrivances, a constant wink and nod to his audience to stay the course with him.  And we're happy to.  It is a wild journey, slyly paying homage to Lynch while what he represents is simultaneously being stripped down to size.  (It recently played, out of competition, at Dokufest in Kosova, where I had a chance to watch it again.)

It is currently booked for wide national theatrical distribution here in Germany through the end of the year.  But since it's been on the circuit starting the early part of this year, there hasn't been much of a response from festivals in the States.  In some instances, there was great interest; yet, ultimately, it hasn't been programmed anywhere.  I can only attribute that to the fact that there is fear of a Lynch backlash (meaning: lawsuit) and festivals have just shied away from any of that madness.  I hope there's someone hardy enough to show it anyway, for it is an expertly structured, beautifully shot film that also happens to be a mighty powerful exposé into a rarely-glimpsed world.  Also, there are few docs that are as highly entertaining as this one, and methinks the genre could definitely use a lot more of that there E-word.  Please.

When David finds out from the Internet that Lynch will be in Fairfield, Iowa, to speak about the  source of his creative inspiration, he promptly scoots himself over the Atlantic, rents a car and drives himself into the American heartland.  Why Iowa?  Fairfield is where the palatial campus for the Maharishi University is located and, for the first time, Lynch will speak publicly about transcendental meditation (TM), something he's been practicing for decades.  The auditorium is packed with young people, a lot of them, we assume, budding filmmakers, there to eagerly receive pearls of wisdom from one of today's master filmmakers.  The Maharishi, old and infirm and residing in India, sends a video message to the audience:  "Go by the advice that you have received from the artist, Dr. Lynch."  Lynch extols the virtues of the Maharishi's teachings, describing it as "money in the bank."  Yes, but whose money?  And whose bank?

David is mesmerized, inspired, electrified with excitement.  He even lands a private audience with Lynch when his live-in girlfriend miraculously gets assigned an interview from a German magazine with the director.  Marie, an eccentric, whip-smart, no-bullshit girl with a distinct fashion flair, sits quietly as David takes over, grilling Lynch on TM, asking him to explain its magic.  Ignoring the dubious stance of Marie (some of the most delightful scenes in the film feature the two of them in combat), David dives right in.  Once back in Germany, he gets himself an appointment at the German TM headquarters in Hanover for his initiation into the practice; there, he will receive his own personal mantra so he can go about transforming himself from the inside out.  He is told to bring six fresh flowers, sweet fruits, a white handkerchief.  And 2,380 euros.  In cash.  But never mind that, he is swept away and becomes a valiant acolyte, meditating every day, a novice believer--the most vulnerable kind. Yet, the more he learns about the movement and its inner workings, the more puzzled and disturbed he becomes, hero worship notwithstanding.  It is great fun to watch him use his innate earnestness, his suit and tie, his spectacles and suspenders and jaunty hat, to gain the most incredible access over and over again.

On February 6, 2008, the Maharishi passes away and David takes himself to India for the funeral, camera equipment in tow.  He sees Lynch there, a VIP in the proceedings, and Lynch greets him warmly, shakes his hand, asks him how the film project is going.  This is the last time the two will share such a friendly exchange.  Based on what he's shot so far, David receives backing and funding for the project from some German producers, and it's full steam ahead--the filmmaking becoming more and more grand (gorgeous cinematography by Adrian Stähli), the rabbit hole going deeper and deeper.  In a whirlwind world tour, Sieveking's blind faith clears into razor-sharp vision, his "nice little documentary on the TM movement" becoming a hard-hitting, in-depth investigation into something really insidious.  It becomes dangerous territory, both for the filmmaker and his subjects.  As he delves deeper, his life and well-being devolve into an existential nightmare.  This is where this young man shows what he's made of; overcoming his fear and trepidation, he kicks things into high gear, pulling out all the stops, continuing to gain open access by being effervescent, polite, friendly, nodding enthusiastically, encouraging his subjects with a wide open smile to skewer themselves in front of his camera. 

The film took Sieveking five long years to make and we can visibly see him age--his hair gets peppered with gray, some wrinkles start to radiate from the corners of his clear, blue eyes, an exhausted pall pulls his boyish features down a bit as he carries on.  The surreality of the worlds he encounters have to be seen to be believed.  I, for one, am a believer in this new filmmaker's talent.

Dokufest Balkan Documentary Competition Winners, Part 2

Turkish filmmaker Doga Kilcioglu's Kamerayla Izdivac (Married to the Camera) won the much-coveted audience award at this year's Dokufest.  The award was calculated from votes cast by the general audience.  It's a very meaningful award to any director and Kilcioglu's film is certainly a crowd-pleaser. 

Made for television and commissioned, in part, by ARTE/France, the film focuses on the unknown faces that make up the audience of a hugely popular show in Turkey called "Marriage with Esra Erol."  A take on The Dating Game, the aim is to match-make in front of the camera and get people married as quickly as possible (and not always for love).  The film also follows some of the contestants, ranging in age from early 30s to 75.  In one hour's time, the filmmakers capture a rich and multi-layered world that reflects the riotous warp and weave of a very complex and complicated culture. 

What's so enjoyable about the film is that everyone on camera, both those that create the show and those that provide the Greek chorus commentary, i.e., the audience members, is willing to reveal and talk about the absolute fakery and artifice that goes into making a television show that means to take a nation by storm in a very competitive medium where everyone is gunning to out-sequin and out-spangle the other shows that rely on both staged audience participation and the cult of personality of their hosts.  Without the audience, it's an empty exercise and they are encouraged to participate, schooled by the crew in the ways in which they can become celebrities, too--and possibly find a bride or groom of their own!

In the opening scene, a restless mob of spectators stands in the hallway, having been kept waiting an exceedingly long time to get into the studio, their bags and bodies searched as if going through airport security.  One of them shouts impatiently, "Let us in!  We aren't terrorists!  We're the audience!!"  To my mind, one of the best movie lines ever.  (Pictured above, sophisticated but superstitious hostess, Esra Erol, praying backstage before the show.  Her dream is to become her country's Oprah.)

For this piece, which she co-edits, Kilcioglu (pictured) partners with her brother and producing partner, Can Kilcioglu, who does wonderful camera work; soundperson, Ögünc Hatipoglu; and co-editors Pierre Haberer and Cem Yildirim to create absolutely wonderful vérité, the camera stealthily capturing subjects in incredibly funny and unguarded moments--that is, when they're not directly engaging with the camera since most have become super savvy in the ways of entertainment.  One such unguarded moment which made me laugh out loud was when the president comes to visit a houseful of women to listen to their grievances and to "acknowledge their oppression."  One of the regular audience "plants" for the show is also a campaign worker and organizes citizen meetings with campaigning or elected officials.  (Television = Politics--one nonexistent without the other.)  The consummate politician walks through the door and someone shoves a child in his arms as flashes frantically pop away.  He grins for the media's cameras, but it is Kilcioglu's camera that lingers to capture him practically dropping the little girl to the floor when the lights go off, his smile simultaneously cascading to a frown of annoyance.  Married to the Camera is a delight from start to finish.

Romanian filmmaker Alexander Nanau's The World According to Ion B. (a co-production with HBO Romania) won best film in the Balkan Documentary Competition, the jury noting that, "the director's filmmaking skill merges seamlessly with the character he portrays, leaving no opportunity wasted in the telling of his story.  It is a deeply intimate portrait told with a grace and humor that won us over unanimously."  Nanau's portrait of late-to-the-dance art celebrity, Ion Barladeanu, is indeed, full of grace, the most graceful aspect, at least to this viewer's mind, the relationship between subject and filmmaker.  The partnership in making a personal cinematic portrait of an individual is everything in documentary, the energy exchanged between subject and filmmaker through the agency of a camera lens a mysterious and alchemical process that is either successful--or not.  When it's not, it's obvious.  When it works, it's great.  But when there is a profundity that goes deeper than merely capturing a story, it is transcendent and makes for an exhilarating journey for the viewer.  And that doesn't happen very often.  (I saw one other film at Dokufest where this is also the case which I will talk about very soon.) 

The fact that Nanau accomplishes this in just 61 minutes is remarkable, the economy of scale between meaningful dramaturgy and high emotional impact impeccably balanced--please take note all you "feature-length" filmmakers!!

In 2008, when the filmmaker discovers him, Ion B. is still living on the streets, or more precisely in the back alley of an apartment building in Bucharest, a place he's called home for over 20 years, taken in by the building manager and kept like a pet in the backyard.  Ion B. is also a drunkard and as his story unfolds, we learn little by little why he felt the need to anesthetize himself from his past.  In these alcohol-infused years, Ion has created an astounding body of work, making 900 brilliant drawings and collages dating from the 70s to the mid-90s.  In one of the most affecting opening scenes in recent memory, as Ion is addressing Nanau's camera, telling him that he'll "die where he lays in an alleyway, a drunkard and a useless piece of junk," someone from an upstairs window starts throwing their trash down onto the street, the detritus falling several stories and crashing loudly onto the ground around Ion where he lolls on his pallet.  This, we learn, is the genesis of his art, the flotsam that people discard.

Then Dan Popescu comes along, a young successful art gallery owner who recognizes the absolute goldmine in Ion's work and goes about marketing his discovery to the art world.  "We'll have a normal artist / gallery owner relationship," he tells Ion.  Yet, there is nothing "normal" about this man's life and he would never in a million years be able to insinuate himself into the art world no matter how hard Popescu tries to pull a My Fair Lady number on Mr. B, a new set of choppers notwithstanding.  There are many humorous scenes that transpire from this (seemingly) mutually beneficial relationship, but time after time, Ion is unwilling or unable to play along.  He doesn't want to understand his work in the context of Warhol and Otto Dix--he doesn't know who they are and he doesn't care.  When they read the culture section of the local newspaper together, which bestows the title of "Forefather of Pop Art" on Ion, he asks Dan what Pop Art is.  When Dan tries to explain the late-60s, early 70s art movement, he also notes that during that time, Romania was run by dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, who blocked any information from the West.  Ceausescu damaged Ion's life in many ways, as he did most of the population of his country, and the artist used the image of the dictator in his art quite a bit.  We realize that he would probably be a dead man if his art had been "above ground" at the time.  Ion's own father, a communist activist and leader and Ceausescu supporter, in fact, at one time had Ion and his brother arrested.  But instead of engaging in any direct (and exceedingly painful) discussion of his former life before coming to Bucharest, Ion rubs his bushy eyebrows and proclaims, "I really need to get a haircut today."

I won't describe the entire journey this film takes (one of the stronger sections is when Ion returns to his native village of Zapodeni after a 17-year absence to confront his past), but by the time the film finishes, Ion B. is a very famous art star, showing at the Basel Art Fair in 2009 where the word "genius" is pronounced by one pretentious art denizen; his works are exhibited in London together with works by Andy Warhol (who?) and Marcel Duchamp; and in February of this year, he had his first solo exhibition at the Anne de Villepoix gallery in Paris.  What's even more encouraging, however, is that after a decade of not making anything new, he's created 160 new collages.

As for the "normal artist / art gallery owner relationship"?  I hear there's a lawsuit brewing, big surprise. 

Neue Anfänge - New Beginnings

This New York to Berlin transition is proving to be a bit tricky in the context of what I want to choose to write about on this blog right now.  Unlike my move to New York three years ago, my expectations are tempered with the knowledge that I am not a member of the native culture (although, seemingly, foreigners are starting to outnumber Germans), nor do I speak its language proficiently (yet), nor do I know the specific social mores and aspects of living comfortably and happily here (yet). 

I would suppose they're similar to how one does that anywhere, but I've been getting earfuls about the, sometimes, rocky terrain that can exist when you're living as a "foreigner" in the German culture.  But I like the energy of the city of Berlin; it allows for a certain sense of breathing space, a human pace to the days.  The rabid drinking and partying all night is familiar, though--but it's summertime when everyone is trying to soak enough warmth into their bones to last through the long winter ahead.  (Photo courtesy of Lindsay Isola.)

So, it's not that I don't care anymore about the things that I cared greatly about while residing in NYC, but they do have a different impact on my daily existence.  And while I will certainly continue to celebrate the successes and accomplishments of friends and colleagues there, I hope to spend more time doing the same in a different milieu for new friends and colleagues and those whose work I admire and feel a need to call attention to.  I will admit that there is a feeling of tedium for me in writing about certain things at this juncture and I look forward to new discoveries, both personal and professional, that might help to replenish my depleted tank.  Emotionally and otherwise, I have been running on fumes for far too long.  So here's some select "new stuff," both from NYC and here:

Sara Kiener, former manager of exhibitor relations at Magnolia Pictures (and my former outreach partner-in-crime) and Merrill Sterritt, former head of the production assistance program at Women Make Movies, have partnered to create Film Presence, a marketing and outreach company serving the independent film community.  Continuing the work Kiener started doing independently, the company will produce "event-based theatrical screenings with strong outreach partnerships to boost box office sales and maximize the word of mouth leading up to theatrical engagements."  Their summer/fall slate includes Tamra Davis' Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child which opened recently at New York City's Film Forum; Yael Hersonski's A Film Unfinished; the incredible Frederick Wiseman's latest, Boxing Gym; and Doug Block's newest film, The Kids Grow Up.  Visit their newly-launched website to learn more about what they do.  Go, girls.

Producer Christian Niedan has launched a great new blog called Camera in the Sun.  Neidan will write on how film and television have shaped how we view various places around the globe.  Starting domestically, he will soon be posting interviews with film commissioners across the US, and then expand to include Mexico, Canada and countries in northern and western Europe.  Check in at Niedan's blog here.

There are a few new spots open at Brooklyn's UnionDocs Collaborative for both residents and non-residents beginning in September.  The deadline to apply is next Sunday, August 1st.  The collaborative is a one- or two-year program for emerging media producers, offering both a rigorous platform for exploring contemporary approaches to documentary (with an emphasis on cross-media work), and a process for developing a group project using ever-burgeoning innovations in the field.  The program focuses on mentorships, structured exchange with visiting artists, regular group critique, and exposure through a toured exhibition and/or publication of an annual project.  Click here for more info and the application.

First Run Features has some new DVD releases for July, most notably, Kimberly Reed's Prodigal Sons and Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith's The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.

Philadelphia-based filmmaker, Cheryl Dunye, has just arrived in Berlin to begin production on her new work, Mommy Is Coming.  Her most recent film, The Owls, played at the Berlinale this past year and has been touring the festival circuit in the States.  Billed as a raunchy adult comedy of errors, Mommy should placate the audience member who complained at Dunye's Q&A at Newfest in June that The Owls didn't have enough great lesbian sex scenes in it.  Dunye's response was, "Wait until you see my new film."  Produced by Jürgen Brüning Filmproduktion, principal photography begins here in early August.

From July 15 - 27, The Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art is hosting a retrospective of Canadian filmmaker Bruce LaBruce's work simply called, LaBruce.  On opening night, the show consisted of five short pieces ranging from his early work in the 1980s with Candy Pauker to more recent selections, including a commissioned work from the ladies that make up the Toronto-based burlesque collective, The Scandelles, called Give Piece of Ass a Chance (still from film, pictured).  LaBruce was in attendance (the director and "reluctant pornographer" is currently living and working in Berlin), and the program was followed by a conversation moderated by Marc Siegel with LaBruce, Susanne Sachsse (star of 2009's The Bad Breast Video and 2004's The Raspberry Reich  which will play tomorrow night), and the hilarious and whip-smart, Berlin-based Miss Vaginal Davis (who also stars with Sachsse in Bad Breast).  Click here to see the full program.

Triple Canopy hosted a talk this past Wednesday at PROGRAM, the initiative for art and architecture collaborations.  The editors of Canopy, in partnership with the editors of 032c, XYM and Fillip, discussed how print culture is being changed by the manifold forms of online publications.  The discussion centered around the changing nature of publishing and its related artistic and business practices (design, layout, defining audience(s), circulation, archiving back issues, etc.).  032c is a Berlin-based magazine of contemporary culture published twice a year; XYM is a Norwegian online publisher of temporarily available PDF projects; and Fillip is a Canadian magazine of art, culture and ideas published three times a year.

This Wednesday the 28th at PROGRAM (Invalidenstrasse 115 in Mitte) at 7:30 p.m., artist Oraib Toukan will talk about The Equity Is in the Circle, a "corporate intervention" that purports to auction off nation states under 100-year-old leaseholds. For this project, Toukan has contacted international market advisors and consultants about the steps needed to auction off territory.  This has led to a branded initiative called Nayruz Holdings: The Middle East Auction.  The Jordanian-born Toukan is a multimedia artist currently residing in Berlin.  Her work looks fascinating to me.

Also on Wednesday from 9:00 - 11:00 p.m., I will be hosting what will be the first in a series of international film curations at the MMX Open Art Venue (Linienstrasse 142 / 143, also in Mitte) run by artists Rebecca Loyche, Jonathan Gröger, Daniel Wilson and Philip Eggersglüss.  At the end of last year, the four of them transformed the 1000 square meter space from a dilapidated squat into one of Berlin's most popular alternative art scenes with hundreds of people drifting through the space during opening and closing exhibitions.  Wednesday's program entitled, Quiet City--Helsinki, Finland, consists of two experimental pieces, the 13-minute Maa Jossa Voi Leikklä Elämää (Land for Playing Out Life) by Sanni Priha, the 31-minute Valon Lapset (The Illuminous Ones) by Jaakko Ruuska, and the 74-minute nonfiction piece, Kansakunnan Olohuone (The Living Room of the Nation) by Jukka Kärkkäinen.  Thank you to Ina Rossow of Deckert Distribution here in Berlin for generous permission to show Living Room.  Next month, I will be hosting an evening of selections from the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Warsaw, Poland and, another program of selections from the Balkans discovered at this year's Dokufest in Prizren, Kosovo where I will be jurying next week (more on this in a bit).

Lastly, I'd like to give a shout-out to new friends, Laurie and Barrett, for successfully launching the first-ever taco truck in Berlin, bringing yummy and authentic Mexican food to the city's jalapeño-starved denizens.  Look for Tacos Berlin coming to a location near you!