Still in Motion

40/40 Vision

Still a week away but this will give you plenty of time to get your tickets to the first of a series of cocktail events in support of Rooftop Films called 40/40 Vision.  These fundraising evenings are hosted by Rooftop and one of their advisory board members, Tad Barnes--at Tad's place in the BK.  (Note: this photo is not a pic of Tad's place.)

There will be five parties that will feature the best of Rooftop's programming and will probably prove to be a key networking spot to boot.  Each evening will begin with your $40 admission price (all tax deductible, BTW) for a full cookout and all the Radeberger beer you can drink.  (Well, maybe half of what you can drink.)  There will be a screening and a chance to mingle with Rooftop staff and featured filmmakers in an intimate setting, Tad's terrace in Williamsburg.

The 9:00 p.m. Saturday night parties will be on September 26 (Benh Zeitlin's exquisite Glory at Sea will play); October 10 (Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher will show excerpts from October Country, their award-winning feature doc); October 24 (Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed's highly-entertaining Bronx Princess will play); November 11 (Jesse Epstein's 34 x 25 x 36, the latest short work in her body image series will be featured); and November 21 (Carlin by Brent Green; the screening will include a live musical performance by Green). 

Click here to choose a date and buy your tickets in advance.

UP AND COMING Benefit for Film Project on Female Immigrant Artists

This Tuesday evening, September 1st, I and Nancy Wong of 011 Design Collective, will be hosting a small fundraising benefit for a project called Up and Coming at DCTV.  The evening will begin at 7:00 p.m. with cocktails, music and schmoozing, and then at 7:45 p.m., we will be showing the first 10-minute installment of this multi-part, multimedia project followed by a Q&A with director, Eliane Lazzaris, and artists Priscila De Carvalho (pictured working in her studio) and Lina Puerta. 

Following the Q&A, author Charlotte Noruzi will discuss her design collaboration with Eliane Lazzaris on her book, Urban Iran, profiles and perspectives of independent Iranian artists.  There will be signed copies of the book available for purchase.  The event is a benefit to raise funds for a new microphone and for production costs on the next installment of the series, featuring Puerta. 

Up and Coming features film portraits of emerging female immigrant artists living and working in NYC today.  Each artist will tell her own story in a stand-alone segment that will focus on the strategies she has found to continue to seek to define her cultural and artistic identity in her adopted country.

Lazzaris is a multimedia artist residing in Long Island City, Queens.  She came to New York from her native Brazil in 2004.  Her book and design credits include projects for DCTV, the Inaugural Cinema Eye Honors (2008), Urban Iran and Translating Hollywood, a book by Sam Sarowitz on movie posters.  This project is her film directorial début. 

Lazzaris says that, "The art world continues to be dominated by men and immigrant rights continue to be debated in Congress, so I devoted this project exclusively to female immigrant artists as an opportunity to further recognize our important artistic and cultural contributions. 

"The idea for the project began shortly after I arrived in New York in '04 when I realized the difficulties I would face, as both an immigrant and as a woman, as I continued my commitment to sustaining an artistic practice in my life.  Looking for support and inspiration, I became increasingly involved with other immigrant artists. 

"This documentary series presents film portraits of female artists from around the world as they face the challenges of uprooting themselves from their home countries and relocating to the US.  To document their lives and work, I will follow each individual for a period of about eight months, focusing on the strategies they adopt as they seek to define their cultural and artistic identities on their own terms.  Each artist will be featured separately in an individual video. 

"I plan to further expand on the perspectives provided in the film series through a companion book project that will explore new directions in the material and offer more in-depth bios of the artists."

Please join us Tuesday evening to meet the director and the artists. We are asking for a suggested donation at the door of just $10 and there will be other opportunities to offer support throughout the evening with a raffle of items donated by some generous sponsors.  DCTV is at 87 Lafayette Street in Tribeca; we'll be in the big back room on the ground floor.  You can RSVP and/or send donations to eliane@nadela.org.  Hope to see you there!

Let's Party Like It's 2009

It seems like it just gets rougher and rougher to be an independent artist and keep your antlers above water, but man, we know how to party. 

This Friday the 28th, in fact, Shooting People and DCTV are hosting the Endless Summer Party at the Firehouse in Tribeca.  From 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m., at 87 Lafayette Street, there will be reveling and drinking and snacking and dancing.  Meet some folks who could become your next creative partners-in-crime--or just new friends. 

There will be an open bar for the first hour courtesy of Stella Artois, and drink specials all night long; DJ Miss Modular from Mondo will be rocking the house; Renegade bakery project Sweet Tooth of the Tiger--cupcakes!; discounted memberships to join DCTV on offer, and more.  Admission is FREE.  See you there!

Why I Love New York, Reasons #849 - #854

Because you get to wake up in a Polish neighborhood in Brooklyn that's a throwback to 1978 Krakow, but with better shoe stores.  On the carpet in front of you are the two biggest, fattest, laziest cats to greet you with a blank morning stare, which uncannily matches their blank afternoon stare and their blank evening stare.  One of them (the female) has woken you up at some ungodly morning hour by trying to pounce on your head, but you've found the spiritual space in which to forgive her.

You then shuttle your way into the city with a coffee of Stumptown in your hand from the Variety Café on Graham, and arrive early enough at your first meeting point to breakfast alone with your book--a brioche and a cup of coffee, both the approximate size and heft of one of those aforementioned cats.

About an hour later, some absolutely lovely woman, who has taken a chunk out of her busy day to talk with you, sits across from you, orders some food and beverage and we then proceed to have the most wonderful conversation, gabbing like we chicks do.  That interview, with Cactus Three's Julie Goldman, will be posted here soon, so that's something to look forward to.  I learned a lot; I hope you will, too.

Then on to visit some of my favorite peeps in New York and get my bag filled with DVDs to view--the good, the bad, the ugly.  Again, I learn lots.  And sometimes, I'm lucky enough to see an entire film, finished by the grace of whomever,  a year after my last viewing of said film when it was just a few minutes long, dubbed a "work-in-progress," but, nonetheless, wrenched my sensibility around pretty good about my naïve relationship with history and the repercussions of what that naïveté might entail.  I'm obsessed with history right now for some reason and have luckily been asked to expound upon those thoughts for some articles--I'll keep you posted on that.  But suffice to say, that this imperative of nonfiction filmmakers today seems to be, not unsubtly stated, that we must take over where the world's corporate media stops short.  And it's stopping shorter and shorter lately, have you noticed that?

Then I met up with a filmmaker with whom I'm working who makes it possible for me to have a living, breathing model of what a graceful creature a human being can be.  That's a good thing to aspire to, I think; especially when I'm twisted up like a pretzel in all kinds of ways about my life right now.  It'll all be okay; we'll get through this.  Sentiments not spoken out loud, but expressed in the ways that she trusts you and has confidence in you and sees the worth that's hiding under a bushel.  I'll stop here 'cause I'm welling up.

Suffice to say that I did the pretentious, incomprehensible art opening bullshit and then went to have a lovely meal in a French outdoor bistro (where actual French people eat) with two of the most interesting people I've met in awhile, most interesting because they're so open and so enigmatic, simultaneously.  If the company you keep is any indication of your view of yourself, then things are looking kind of okay. 

KING CORN Releases on DVD

The Boston Globe called director Aaron Woolf's King Corn "a moral, socio-economic odyssey through the American food system."  This very entertaining and eye-opening doc feature has its DVD release tomorrow.

We follow best friends (and the film's co-producers), Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, as they move to the heartland of the US to learn where their food comes from.  They plant and grow a huge crop of corn on just one acre using genetically modified seeds and strong herbicides.  As they track their product through the food system--traveling through 30 states and Mexico--what they find raises important questions about how we eat and about how we farm.

Last year, the film had its domestic premiere at South by Southwest and its international one at Hot Docs one month later.  Last September, they had a theatrical release in New York at the Cinema Village and this month the film had its broadcast premiere on PBS' Independent Lens.  King Corn is also programmed into the current season of the Sundance Channel's The Green as one of thirteen featured docs.  Click here to order your very own copy.

Let's Get It On--Re-Creating Marvin Gaye DC-Style

Eric Hilton of Thievery Corporation has a beautiful new restaurant/lounge dedicated to Marvin Gaye in the heart of DC.  My friend, Brian Liu, and his partner, Nick Pimentel were commissioned by Hilton to design something spectacular for the restaurant's centerpiece.  Here's a time-lapse film documenting the installation of their 6' x 10' masterpiece.  Check it out.

Sex, Love and Hot Fudge--A Sneak Peek for Valentine's Day

My friend, Sarah Feinbloom (yep, that's her pictured at left), makes pretty hard-hitting, intense documentaries and lots of fundraising videos for good causes.  Based in the Bay Area of California for many years, Sarah's been a long-time member of the distribution collective, New Day Films. Her film on the religious lives of teenagers, What Do You Believe?, screened on PBS, and her beautiful piece on child trafficking in Thailand, Daughters and Sons, was featured on NPR.  It also won for Best Short Film on Child Advocacy at the 3rd Annual Artivist Awards, which I produced in the fall of '06 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.

Shortly after that, Sarah told me that she was working on something a little more light-hearted (and delicious!) and that her work-in-progress film, In Search of the Heart of Chocolate, would be more of a sensually-conscious journey rather than the socially-conscious fare that is her normal bent.  It centers around her search for the origins of her chocolate obsession.

On February 12th, a couple of days before that day where everyone's supposed to do something romantic for his or her sweetie--like buying chocolate!, there will be two screenings at the Delancey Street Screening Room at 600 Embarcadero in San Francisco.  This "chocumentary" features Bay Area chocolatier, Jack Epstein, who runs Chocolate Covered in Noe Valley, and some of his die-hard chocoholic customers, all consumed by the discovery of the perfect chocolate experience.  An all-chocolate reception will follow the later screening.  I saw an earlier cut of this and it is, indeed, quite a treat!

If you live in the area, or are planning a romantic weekend in the city by the bay, you can reserve a spot by emailing info@chocumentary.com. 

Wanna Go to a Really GOOD Party?

GOOD Magazine is one year old!  And they're celebrating their anniversary by having a series of parties in various cities, New York being one of them, natch.

Join in the celebration on Saturday night, September 29 from 7:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.  The party is being held at the beautiful Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.  Performances by Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys, A.D.J. (Aaron, Didi & Jesse of the Brazilian Girls), Tim Sweeney of Beats in Space/DFA and Sam Valenti IV of Ghostly International.

You can RSVP here.  The event is for subscribers only.  So subscribe!  It's a great mag filled with tons of useful and inspiring information on how to be a better citizen in your neighborhood, in your community, in your city, in your country, on your planet.

GOOD's anniversary party in L.A. (on the eastside) is happening on October 12 at the Natural History Museum.

Cute Name, Nice Site

Still reeling (har, har) from my long weekend at Sundance (even though it's Tuesday already) and am taking my time to digest, for a change, before I post something about that--in fact, other things by me about the Conference will be published sooner on other sites, probably, than on here.  Too many new things have been whizzing past me, I'm a bit on overload these days.

So instead of writing and finishing various articles, writing assignments and postmortems, follow-ups, etc., etc., etc., I was just aimlessly site surfing and came upon Gimundo (I think it's supposed to be said like the Australians say "gidday," meaning Good World.)  Like in Patti Smith's song, "Cartwheels."  Anyway, saw it advertised on The Daily Reel site.  (And that's awesome that Patti Smith has a myspace page.)

So wanted to share--go there, read, contribute, spread it around.

Or maybe just the California sunshine's got me loopy.  I could use some loopy.  Like someone said shortly before the Conference this past weekend was over:  "I could use some Dumb and Dumber."  No aspersions cast, I assure you.