Still in Motion

Prishtinë, mon amour

 

There might have been a new breed of creature born this past month. It would be a young man or woman, most certainly Balkan (although not in every case), artistic, open-minded, curious, adventurous and paying careful attention to what is going on around him or her. It's also a person who notices that there are places in the city where the empty spaces have been left null and void for decades. He or she might think that that place could be inhabited and enlivened again, if only. . .  Let's call them Bororamizians.

Since August, there has been a Bororamizian colony setting up shop in one of Prishtinë's old historic landmarks, the Pallati e Rinisë, aka Boro Ramiz. The building's former sports complex is literally, just a shell of itself, its main function now that of a parking lot. The basement has not been touched, everything left just as it was the day the building was abandoned--old flyers, office equipment, chairs, file cabinets. And, most eerily of all, a giant pile of old ice skates, lying like some monument or memorial to things strongly remembered by a certain generation that still inhabits the country's once-great capital. The brainchild for this project belongs to its three  founding members, Astrit Ismaili, Rina Kika, and Tobias Bienz.

The city of Prishtina has its share of spaceship architecture (for want of a better word) amidst its pulverized sidewalks, open construction pits and quiet tree-lined streets with internet-ready coffee, drinking and eating spots filled with people day and night--sitting, smoking, talking, checking one another out. Boro Ramiz, which sits above the now infamous NEWBORN scuplture (which Rita Ora used to dance around on in her new music video that was being shot the same day as the "Prishtinë, mon amour" performance), looms in communist-era fashion above the skyline of the city. Originally built as a sports palace (it still has a pristine basketball court), it's shaped, somewhat, like a pyramid with the front of it featuring an enomous likness of Adem Jasheri, a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, killed with all his family members in Prekaz by Serbian military forces in 1998. 

The group of thirty-two artists and the performers and other people contributing to the "residency" and ultimate one-hour performance called "Repetition," welcomed a vast crowd of close to 500 people that came through the building's doors last Saturday night. The project pays homage to some seminal artistic influences, starting with the title of the collective, named after Alain Resnais' 1959 film, Hiroshima, mon amour. There was an homage to contemporary performance artist, Marina Abramovic, in one of the performance pieces. Even the sequined roller skating couple dancing gracefully and followed by a spotlight in the middle of the concrete parking lot (a work specially created for the exhibition by filmmaker, Shota Bukoshi performed by Lirona Rexhepi and Ergin Abdullahu) conveyed evocations of film, art, sports and youth, creating a kind of nostalgia. This was a nostaliga, however, that was meant to be intentionally obtuse. My impression was that this was the whole point--to allow the spectators who came to see the result of several weeks' worth of planning and building (and much, much cleaning) to come to their own conclusions, to walk through the space in their own personal reverie. And then there were the sheep. But that's another story, coming soon. (All photos, courtesy Still in Motion aka moi)

And a huge Faleminderit to G. Bajri, pictured below--a pleasure to work with and a total pro, what a combo.

(There was also an article published today by Hana Marku of Kosovo 2.0 which I think should be required reading for us all. Read it here.)

And yes, I am remembering September 11 today, of course, but it's much easier to write about the pain of someone else's country than that of your own.

Sound and Vision: CPH:DOX's Sound Design Workshop

The following article appears in the current issue of DOX Magazine.

 

In testing the permeability of the various borders and boundaries between fiction, nonfiction and visual art, the conversations in Copenhagen this year, as in any other, went beyond genre into the actual artistry of storytelling in film. While many filmmakers, artists, and professionals from other disciplines that feel compelled to make films, move deeply into this process in a fairly intuitive way, there are few established festivals and forums that specifically nurture, showcase and help find support for film work that falls into undefined territories.  Continuing to creatively riff upon its founding ethos nine years ago, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival pushed even further with this year’s impressively diverse and challenging program selections, as well as in the 27 projects that were chosen to pitch at this year’s CPH:FORUM.

As part of its ever-growing roster of talks and workshops, this year festival programmer, Niklas Engström, put together a wonderfully inspiring master class / roundtable of filmmakers and sound designers called Sound Design in Documentary Films. In a two-hour discussion, the panelists shared samples of work—most appearing in this year’s program—to illustrate how soundtracks and soundscapes are used as an integrated part of a film’s language, “exploiting all the countless possibilities that exist to support, expand and shape narration,” discovering a film’s identity through the exploration of sound and music in creating cinematic pieces.

I tend to concentrate on the New: Vision and New: Vision Expanded programs when I go to this festival because I know some of my deep-seated ideas about narrative structure and storytelling in film will be turned upside-down and backwards. And this was so, this year more than ever, in terms of how soundscapes not only enhance, but shape, narrative structure. Every natural (or unnatural) sound reproduced by art “colors” the space in which it is presented to the public, not of the space it is supposed to reproduce. If we hear a storm, the howling of the wind, a clap of thunder, etc. in film, we hear it in the timbre appropriate to the soundtrack, not in the timbre of an actual forest, or ocean, or voice, or whatever the scene is supposed to represent.  Every sound bears the stamp of the space in which it is actually produced, but this sound can also be created in a studio with effects, a live orchestra, creating a bespoke aural palette made specifically for a certain story.

Just as a film shot preserves the viewpoint of the camera, a sound recording orientates, as well, whether it is through abstract sound, non-sync sound, collected sound, delayed sound, or effects created in a studio using symphonic instruments. Sound, even more than vision, in film can release the fixed, immutable distance between the spectator and what is happening on screen. Not only as viewers, but as listeners, we are transferred from our seats to the space in which the events depicted on the screen are taking place.  The shapes of visible things have several sides, right, left, front and back. Sounds have no such aspect and layers of sound do not necessarily tell us from which “side” a shot was made.  Thus, using sound filters enables a visual artist to build a defined character for images that might be clichéd in some way, whether the shots are of a person speaking, a portrait of a city or place, or, perhaps, the life of a building, as in Pedro Urano and Joana Traub Csekö’s HU Enigma, which is actually more of a portrait of an idea, about as abstract as one can get in film. 

During the session, when asked about the mechanics of finding one’s way into this kind of aural portraiture, Urano said, “It comes down to being true to yourself; you create it yourself.  It’s a personal thing, organic in essence.”  Urano and Csekö’s 75-minute film from Brazil, features the crumbling structure (and eventual destruction) of a university hospital complex as its main protagonist, an exposed “body” or representation of the past. While the film’s visuals are stunning, it is the sound design that makes this piece incredibly powerful.  Through the perspective of this completely manufactured soundscape, a viewer can constantly alternate between the objective appreciation of the pure beauty of the architectural images, and a more personal relationship with not only the building itself, but the place and time in which it was built and the ghosts of the thousands of people who worked or convalesced there.

Phillippe Grandrieux’s film, It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve - Masao Adachi, won the prize for the New:Vision Award.  This feature documentary, also showcased in the workshop, offers a beautiful example of how a film’s unique aural culture can be increased like any other, how composite sound enables us to “see” the dimension of space and its place in time.  The ear can distinguish more delicate nuances than the eye, and Grandrieux, as a filmmaker in love with sound, knows that there is a considerable difference between perceiving a sound and identifying its source.  He used this knowledge to great affect in his film about the criminalized and long-suffering life of Japanese director, Adachi.  (Pictured above left, Danish sound designer, Peter Albrechtsen, and filmmaker, Phillippe Gandrieux.)

We are accustomed to drawing conclusions about visual things from the sounds that accompany them.  This “defect” can be used nicely in film since the slow recognition of a sound may cause a far more profound tension than the approach of something visually unrecognizable. These possibilities for meaningful dramaturgy create a slow and gradual process of recognition, enabling the natural resistance of the consciousness to give way to a “reality” that is easily audible.  (Film still below from It May Be That Beauty.)

Danish sound designer, Peter Albrechtsen, another participant in the workshop, did the sound design for Vibeke Bryld’s short film, Bedtime Stories from the Axis of Evil, which appeared in the Amnesty Award program.  In Bryld’s film, we visit three countries, all of which are governed by authoritarian regimes.  But, they are also three countries with vastly different cultural narratives, and so Albrechtsen created three distinct and allegorical soundscapes for Baghdad, Tehran and Pyongyang, North Korea. Acoustic “close-­ups” make us perceive sounds which are mixed in with the accustomed noise of day-­to-­day life, but which we never hear as individual sounds because they are drowned in a general din of noise. If a sound can be featured in “close-­up,” such a sound immediately makes us aware of its effect; at the same time, its influence on the action is made manifest.  This appears to be Albrechtsen’s particular forte in his sound work.  After Albrechtsen recounted the director’s shocked reaction to watching her film once the sound mix was added to the fine cut, Bryld told me later that she was, indeed, speechless and immediately needed to view it again, since she was hard pressed to recognize the film she had cut together without these enhancements.

As in a silent film, or a segment of a film whose only sound is silence, film sound can be scarcely perceptible, intimate things conveyed with the secrecy of an eavesdropper. Subtle associations and interrelations of thoughts, emotional or intellectual linkages, can play a decisive dramaturgical part in building emotional resonance for the images. It could be the (authentic) sound of the song that chimes when it’s time for Japanese children to go home for dinner from the playground, as it is in a transcendent scene from Grandrieux’s film.  Or a ticking of a clock in an empty room, a slow drip from a burst pipe, the moaning of a little child in sleep. 

In a close-­up in which the surroundings are not visible, a sound that seeps into the shot sometimes impresses us as mysterious, simply because we cannot see its source. It produces the tension that arises from curiosity and expectation. This use of asynchronous sound, then, acquires considerable importance, for if the sound or voice is not matched with the picture of its source, it can, and does, grow beyond the dimensions of the latter. The creative means by which a director can convey pathos or symbolic significance is precisely to use sound asynchronously, something experimental and jazz musicians have known for decades.  (Film still from Bedtime Stories.)

It is the business of sound in film to reveal for us the acoustic environment, the aural landscape in which we live, the sounds that move beyond human speech, that speak to us in the vast conversation of life going by. Poets hear these significant sounds of life and try to describe them in words. Sound designers allow them to speak to us directly from the screen.  Sound contextualizes story and creates emotional resonance that visuals unaccompanied by sound cannot begin to tap into.  In order for a director to open him- or herself up to a story’s most profound potential in this way, he or she has to create the capacity to go deeply into the “truth” of a story.  There, the right sounds will emerge and in the words of one filmmaker, “You will hear your movie.” 

 

 

I'll Be Your Mirror: Nan Goldin's Film Curation at CPH:DOX

Read my essay on American photographer Nan Goldin's film curation at last month's Copenhagen International Documentary Festival, featured in the Festival Reports section of the just-released issue of Senses of Cinema here.    

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

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

OUTRO -- Life After Death

According to our wise friend, Wikipedia, “In music, the conclusion is the ending of a composition, taking the form of a coda or outro. Pieces using sonata form typically use the recapitulation to conclude a piece, providing closure through the repetition of thematic material, [creating] altogether unexpected digressions just as a work is drawing to its close, followed by a return to a consequently more emphatic confirmation of the structural relations implied in the body of the work.”  (italics mine) 

In Russian, the word outro means "morning" or "morrow."

Julia Panasenko’s film, Outro, which just won the Grand Prix at the Flahertiana documentary festival in Perm, Russia, last week is a fast and furious piece, clocking in at just 43 minutes.  For most of the first half of this brief three quarters of an hour, I was completely disoriented.  (A sensation I experience most of the time, so I don’t panic about it anymore.) And then once I was somewhat orientated to what was happening, the film became a revelation in how breaking every formal "rule" of documentary can take one on a journey of intense discovery, viscerally tapping into extremely deep emotional territory.  So much so, in fact, I found myself shutting down completely while watching it since I didn’t want my molecules to fly apart in front of everyone else in the cinema since that would be messy and embarrassing. I can say that this film has not left my frontal lobe since viewing it.

I've spent the last decade or so of my life pondering the ins and outs of documentary filmmaking in all of its formal aspects—the dramaturgical alchemy of successful nonfiction storytelling; the technical aspects of how you cinematically illustrate the lives of your subjects with vision and sound; how to tap into the most appropriate tempo and pace of your film’s various aspects to build to a satisfying whole; the rhythms of the very complex and intimate dance in which the maker engages with his or her protagonists. It’s bloody hard work and, when you’re doing it as a solo act, it's also a small miracle of an achievement.  (The filmmaker, pictured above.)

And then I see something like Panasenko’s film and realize that the spectrum of creativity in nonfiction storytelling keeps expanding to new depths, and all the parsing of this, that and the other amounts to so much nonsense, really. Panasenko produced, directed, and shot the film on a small digital camera.  The film is, for the most part, pretty raw—not retouched or color corrected, with distorted or bad sound quality in several places, since she didn’t have the resources to do any extensive post-production work.  Panasenko also expertly and intuitively edited the piece, creating a gorgeous and moving homage to a dying friend.  You can feel the filmmaker groping for purchase with her camera, frightened, intimidated, tentative—and then she is completely there, running right up to the precipice with her protagonist.  And then, letting go.

“Judging from my looks, I think I have like three weeks left.”  Time is running out for Svetlana Donskova (pictured below), a vibrant woman in her late thirties whose life force is palpable throughout the film, even though it is quickly dissipating, the last grains of sand in the hourglass accelerating in an unstoppable flow towards the void most of us fear, the last moments of our lives. 

Some of us have allowed certain inalienable beliefs to embed themselves in our psyches and these beliefs provide succor and comfort about what awaits us on the other side.  Others of us question, wonder and ponder endlessly and / or stop our minds from “going there” at all. Others of us are quite sure there is just nothingness—not only our corporeal selves dissolve, but our spirits and consciousnesses flicker out, as well, and only live on in the memories and hearts of those we leave behind, along with some photographs, some recordings, and other documented ephemera that make up a life. 

We experience other, smaller deaths during the course of our lifetimes--heartbreak, the death of a loved one, the loss of something that defines us, such as a job, an identity, a bank account.  Through illness or accident, we sometimes suffer the loss of a limb or an organ or a part of our mind.  And we are often defined (against our will) in terms of what others think of us, how they relate to us, how they judge us and peg us as "that type of person."  It's all somewhat of a trap unless you choose to, somehow, break free of any and all constraints and use most of your energy to craft a personality and presence that is uncompromising.

This last bit, as Panasenko portrays her, describes Donskova.  The tug-of-war in which she engages as she’s dying—with her mother, in particular—is a testament to this uncompromising force.  In a flurry of dialogues, monologues, phone conversations, she seems to be saying, This was my life the way I saw fit to live it, despite all the lack, all the doubts, all the un-leveraged benefits of being young and intelligent, creative and beautiful.  And this is my death, and I will experience it also as I see fit, no compromises. 

The mother has done damage—purposefully / unwittingly, innocently / cruelly, doesn’t matter—love is selfish, love is cruel, love is narcissistic. Donskova makes it clear that her mother will have the rest of her life to deal with the results of the rift between them since she has that privilege still, more life to live. Donskova is moving on relentlessly and bravely towards the end of hers because she has no choice in the matter.  The film contains so many beautifully composed moments of overwhelming emotion unexpressed from Donskova herself, her friends, her father, and, finally, her mother, as well, so many shouts and cries of anger and grief are suppressed, that everyone is imbued with the kind of grace and dignity Sveta’s “good death” demands.

After listening to a lovely, delicate, sweet song composed especially for her by her friend and neighbor, Dima, she says pensively, “I still can’t figure out what I am.  Am I bad or good?  . . .   At least now I know what I am in musical terms.” As her father’s big, rough hands caress the body of his dying daughter, he says to her, “Soon you’ll get rid of your physical self.  At first you’ll fly above us.  And we’ll remember you very, very long.” Her friend, Panasenko, has also left an imprint of Sveta’s spirit in cinematic terms, so she can stay with us all a bit longer.

 

 

DOKUFEST Rides Again, 10 Years Strong

The International Documentary and Short Film Festival, aka, Dokufest (23 - 31 July) is in the midst of launching its new website, and a new look, to celebrate its 10-year anniversary.  But in the meantime, you can read the daily blog by Ardit Bejko for updates and get the latest news about this year's extraordinary program, its largest ever.

Hamburg, Germany's own A Wall Is A Screen returns to the festival for the second year in a row to project fantastic shorts on the walls of lovely Prizren, Kosovo--the bank in the square, the mosque, whatever interesting surface might be available to them, as the audience walks around the town watching the program they put together.  The Stravinsky Portrait will play as a tribute to the recently deceased great Richard Leacock, one of the most influential documentary DPs in the history of the genre.  Patricio Guzmán's elegiac and deeply moving personal essay, Nostalgia de la luz will open the festival on 23 July.  Sheffield Doc / Fest's In The Nursery program will also be returning this year with an outdoor screening of Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera with live musical accompaniment at the Riverbed cinema.  Mohsen Makhmalbaf and James Longley's works will be spotlighted in special programs with both directors in attendance (pictured at top, Makhmalbaf, left, Longley, right).  There will also be an extensive Made in Switzerland program which you can read about here. 

As well, some powerful musical guests will be joining us, as English singer / songwriter, PJ Harvey (pictured middle), and Irish photographer, Seamus Murphy, present the twelve short films on which they collaborated for Harvey's recent album, Let England Shake.  The screening and a Q&A with Harvey and Murphy will follow the closing ceremonies on 30 July.  And lastly (at least for right now), The Sofa Surfers, Wolfgang Frisch and Timo Novotny, are creating a musical / visual evening especially for the fest.

I was invited by Dokufest's Artistic Director, Veton Nurkollari, to curate a strand of nonfiction films about artists, and we will be exhibiting eight fantastic films: Pietra Brettkelly's The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins; Gary Tarn's Black Sun (Tarn will be joining us in person); Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol; Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier's The Five Obstructions (thanks, Thomas); Marie Losier's The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye; Wiktoria Szymanska's Themerson & Themerson; Zoran Solomun's Super Art Market; and, Jeff Feuerzeig's The Devil & Daniel Johnston.  More info on these and other strands will be on the site soon.

I am very excited and honored to be a part of this fabulous festival again.  I had the privilege of serving on the international jury last year, and that week in Prizren was one of the most magical experiences of my life.  And many of the same people will be returning to share the magic once again.  You can read my SIM blog posts from the fest from last year here and here and here and here. 

Viva Dokufest and përgëzime on your ten-year anniversary!

 

 

 

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.

 

Senses of Cinema Issue #58

Read my début article in Senses of Cinema's latest issue on Harmony Korine's film curation at this past year's CPH:DOX here.

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.)

 

 

 

La bocca del lupo: "An Excavation of Memory"

The Dokufest jury for the international competition awarded the Best International Feature Documentary to Italian filmmaker Pietro Marcello's La bocca del lupo (The Mouth of the Wolf) "for its haunting, lyrical and gorgeous depiction of one city and one remarkable love story."  We are not the first jury to give this beautiful film top honors since its début in 2009.  At this year's Berlinale, it won the Caligari Award, as well as Best Documentary at the Teddy Awards.  It also took the Film Critics Prize for Best Film at the 2009 Torino Film Festival, the first time in the northern Italian festival's 27-year history that the prize was given to an Italian film.  It's an exquisite, distinctive work, its director creating a layered story with unrestrained romanticism, a love letter to the port city of Genova in the Liguria region, founded by "abandoned castaways" washed onto its shores by the sea to create a unique culture of its own.  Marcello, in turn, has made a unique film that is hard to define by one genre alone.  Shot in luscious 35mm, it is an epic poem, an elegy, an archaeological excavation, a city symphony, and a true love story for the ages, told in a disorienting, mysterious dreamscape, using sound and vision, spoken word and music, brand-new footage residing beside ancient, fragile pieces of celluloid.

While in the midst of researching this utterly-transformed place for the San Marcellino Foundation, the Jesuits of Genova (an organization that offers aid to indigents and the marginalized, including ex-cons), the director met his extraordinary protagonists by chance.  He met Vincenzo (Enzo) Motta (pictured right) outside a bakery, a ruggedly handsome man who promptly engaged the filmmaker in conversation, showing him the bullet hole marks in his leg from a shootout he'd had with the cops decades ago.  Enzo's wife of 20 years, Mary Monaco, was a bit more reticent to participate, but the two ultimately agreed to share their incredible love story for Marcello's camera.

Enzo is front and center throughout most of the story--visually and aurally, his coiled presence and vibrating machismo and sexuality, the engine that moves us through time and space.  We only hear Mary's voice (and see a couple of photos of her when she was young) through most of the film.  We finally see her when she is sitting by Enzo's side for one of the most captivating interviews ever captured on film.  Marcello purposely fools us into thinking we are seeing the woman who is speaking time and time again.  We realize at the very end of the film, that she is one of the very first images we see, hiding in plain sight, a silhouette in repose.  When we do see her, she is still mostly hidden in shadow, tentative and shy, but her eloquence and emotionalism, the beautiful language she uses to describe their first encounter, her impressions of him, how they saved one another, the synchronicity of their bond, will melt the most stoic heart.  Enzo sits beside her mugging for the camera and flexing his muscles, then turning to her to sing her a love song, a born ham if ever there was one.  He does make one hell of a movie star.  Unfortunately, he's spent most of his life behind bars due to a talent for finding trouble from a very early age, never quite succeeding in getting out from under his own violent temper and hubristic "rule of law." 

The story, like all good fairy tales, has a happy ending, the two lovers living their dream in a small, shabby farmhouse with their dogs, Enzo munching herbs from the ground like a goat as the camera gazes from a high hill overlooking the now-ugly, industrial city built upon the rubble of the old one, that world forever submerged.  "Small, great stories, that's what it was."

There were many films we saw at Dokufest that pushed form, that found new and innovative ways of spinning a true yarn.  Our deliberation was that much more difficult due to the stellar programming, not just in the competitions, but in the festival, as a whole.  Yet a film like La bocca rose above a field of outstanding work because of its unabashed ode to all that we love about cinema, how it can transport and enrich us, capture our imaginations, allow us to be swept away by sheer beauty. Kudos to its creator, and a particular salute of respect to editor and archival researcher, Sara Fgaier, and composers Marco Messina, Massimiliano Sacchi and Nino Bruno (ERA).  Bravissimi, tutti.

Coda:  Sadly, Mary passed away very recently and so this film, in essence, must become a tribute to this remarkable woman, transformed throughout her life in many ways most of us will never experience, or understand.  (Pictured, Mary, Marcello and Enzo celebrating in Torino last year.)

Dokufest Balkan Documentary Competition Winners, Part 1

Jurij Meden, the Slovenian director of 1717 Kilometrov Poletja 2009 (1717 Kilometers of Summer 2009) and Bilijana Garvanlieva, the Macedonian director of Tabakmädchen (Tobacco Girl) shared the Best Newcomer Award at this year's edition of Dokufest.  Tobacco Girl also garnered a special mention for the Human Rights Award, its jury saying that Garvanlieva's film takes the form of a "poetic confrontation of established social norms and multi-layered inequalities."

These filmmakers aren't exactly newcomers in terms of making films, but the Balkan Documentary Competition jurors (Emel Celebi from Turkey, who won the Best Balkan Documentary Award last year for her Sisters of Lilith; Michael Palmieri from the US; and Sissi Korhonen from Finland) decided that they wanted to recognize the fine work these directors presented, particularly since they work so independently, or without direct support from their own countries.  In fact, in her acceptance speech at the awards ceremony, Garvanlieva noted that she's made her films, including this one, "no thanks to my country" of Macedonia.  Recognition and support have come mainly from Germany.

Both half-hour films, in their own unique way, artfully show the traditional versus modern dilemmas and contradictions of their regions, each beautifully illustrating the speed at which life can move when one is determined to rocket through time and space.  In Meden's case, it is a physical journey by car of almost 2000 kilometers through six countries; in the young girl, Mümine's case, she traverses centuries of tradition in an attempt to land squarely in the midst of modern times.  The growing pains are intensely palpable, both for her, and for her family.

Tobacco Girl opens with a haunting song telling of the 600-year-old history of the people that inhabit the high mountain regions of Macedonia, part of the Turkish minority that resides on the land.  As a family unit--mother, father, two daughters and two sons--they do backbreaking work in the tobacco fields, the crop their only source of income.  As the tobacco is meant to be sold for survival, so are the children who work the fields, for they are just as precious a commodity to their parents as the substance they sell at market.  In her direction Garvanlieva shows, to wonderful effect, the claustrophobia of their lives, and I cannot praise highly enough cinematographer Susanne Schüle's camera work, which is absolutely exquisite.  The vibrant, multicolored traditional costumes the women wear stand out in bas-relief, not only from the dun-colored background of the village's dirt and wood, but also against the Western wear the men sport--leather jackets, T-shirts, jeans, all shades of brown, black and gray.

What is so appealing about this story is that instead of presenting some boring ethnographic treatise on these mountain people, the director tells the story from the 14-year-old girl's point of view, gossiping with her girlfriends, flirting with boys, talking incessantly about their crushes and obsessions, their dreams for the future.  But Mümine wants more.  She describes sorting tobacco with her family as pure "agony," and is determined to educate herself enough so that she can marry the person she wants to marry, so that she can move to the capital city of Skopje to go to school and do well enough to become a teacher, in the process, totally breaking "the laws of nature" her people have followed since anyone can remember.  The intimate scenes with the family are painful in their complexity--no raised voices or overly dramatic scenes, but plenty of fierce looks and reprimands, particularly from the matriarch who threatens the girl with permanent expulsion from the family if she runs away to the city. 

Yet the whole family is moving into modern times, using their earnings to buy a new house--but still compelled to sacrifice a goat in honor of their new dwelling; shopping for new appliances--but still discussing marrying off their children for the highest financial advantage, first the eldest son, then the eldest daughter, and then Mümine.  It is determined the youngest girl will fetch the highest price because she is so pretty.  However, the boy she loves is poor, and this angers her mother no end.  The camera consistently captures Mümine's universal beauty throughout the film, yet, oddly, when we do see her in modern dress at the end visiting the school in Skopje decked out in jeans, tennis shoes, hoodie, hair tied back in a ponytail, she appears to be just an ordinary, average, modern teenager.  Yet this is exactly who she wishes to be.

Jurij Meden is a freelance film writer and curator, his catalog bio consisting of this meager information:  "born in Ljubljana in 1977, film worker."  In his glorious experimental piece, 1717 Kilometers, we journey through his native Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzogovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo.  The film is a super 8mm record of summer, filmed by Meden and Vlado Skafar, "filled with idiotic excursions, false goals, prodigal waste, disappointed loves, galling personal insufficiencies, and half-witted associations."  It is a thrilling road movie on speed.  As visually stunning as the piece is, the sound design and score must be noted, as well.  Created by Paulo Raposo, a sound and media artist based in Lisbon, Portugal, the music and ambient recordings add a totally appropriate psychological element, capturing the essence of the hallucinogenic quality of a long road trip, the world flying by, hour after hour, day after day, from the confines of an automobile. 

The film's physicality reflects how much ground gets covered, geographically, emotionally and otherwise.  The road becomes an alternate universe, road weariness creating its own dreamscape, the monotony and hypnotic cast of it all, life passing by as if it's one extended mirage, image after image floating out of the emptiness that surrounds the strip of road one follows until it turns into total and utter abstraction, one image blending into another, coming in and out of focus, one moment the colors overly-saturated, then everything blurry and opaque.  The distinct world of the constant traveler is one of feeling, somehow, captured, even though the journey is through one's own auspices, the "freedom of the open road" a siren call for many, a rite of passage.  But there is a feeling of isolation that is contradictory to the freedom of movement, a feeling that there is no one else in the world that knows where you are since your physical location changes every moment, you're always somewhere different than you were just a second before.  Lost, you have the effortless freedom of a ghost and feel as if you could float on the wind and blow through solid obstacles without touching them.  It is a fantastic journey, one simply signed at its close, as if it's an art piece (which it is), JM 2010.

Eau de Vie, Or: Self-Transformation Through Raki

I don't visit too many places where I meet a third-generation carpenter carrying on the work his grandfather started refurbishing the wooden staircase that leads up to the bell tower in an Orthodox Cathedral.  This particular church is in the center of the town of Prizren, Kosova and is guarded by armed policemen.  It was badly damaged during the ethnic riots of March 2004 and is almost fully repaired, but is still not open to the public.  However, they let me in to take a look in a casual, friendly manner. 

I don't visit too many places where I, and my young, female guide, can interrupt three ancient men engrossed in conversation on a bench in the garden of a mosque (one of several in the town) to ask if they will let us inside the locked sanctuary.  (Oddly, there is a modern LED display board on the side of the building like the ones you see at train stations and airports that informs passerby of daily prayer times.)  With a slight downward tilt of his capped head, one of them shuffles to the front door and unlocks it, gesturing for us to slip off our shoes, but not concerned that our heads aren't  covered or that our arms and legs are bare.  He leaves us to take in the beautiful and peaceful interior, caustics of soft sunlight bouncing on the walls that reveal the private spaces where men meditate and pray.

I don't visit too many places where a waiter in a restaurant that I frequent becomes a friend, someone I look forward to seeing every morning.  He calls me Miss Pamela and I call him Mr. Love, not because his name is Ashkan which means "my love" in Turkish, but because he just is Mr. Love.  A small group of us adopts him as our Balkan mother and he feeds and fusses over us several times a day, only asking for a bit of sympathy when his hands go numb from carrying too many hot, heavy plates of food.  He tells us next week is Ramadan and people in the town are celebrating in a frenzy--several wedding processions pass by every day, there is much eating and drinking, and much promenading in the streets, disco music thumping everywhere.  The place pulses like Ibiza, but it is calm, calm, calm.  I have never met lovelier people.  (Pictured, Ashkan serving breakfast to grateful filmmaker, Rowland Jobson, director of the outstanding short fiction piece, A Girl Like Me, filmmaker, Michael Palmieri, who served on the Balkan jury, still sleeping behind his RayBans.  Unbeknownst to their owner, said shades fell under the table one night, but were found and returned by--you know it--Mr. Love.)

I don't visit too many places where I stay up until 6:00 a.m. every morning, the recorded call of the muezzin at a bit before 5, when the sky's black starts to turn a deep violet, announcing that a new day has begun.  We find ourselves still glued to our chairs around a table in the town square engrossed in conversation, eyes sparkling, faces smiling, nonstop laughter, the proprietor patiently bringing us glass after glass of homemade raki and, occasionally, something to eat--bread with cheese, a plate of spicy meat, pommes frites with lots of salt--nary a sign indicating that he wishes us to get the hell out of his place so he can go to bed.  Instead of stumbling off to our own beds, we slide by our hotel to grab our cameras and go exploring, no one awake in the still-sleeping town except the occasional baker pounding dough to the accompaniment of Arab pop softly playing from a small radio, or the wild pack of dogs that roam the streets, occasionally stopping so that a couple of them can hump for a few seconds before the group moves on.  We refrain from retiring just yet, not because we're that keen on taking pictures (although we are), but because we simply aren't ready to give up one another's company.  Not just yet.  It feels like the beginning of a love affair when you can't stand to be out of someone's presence for a moment. 

Okay, raki, or "rakifuel," as Miss Sonja calls it:  we're puzzled.  Normally, when one stays up all night drinking alcohol, especially something as pure and strong as this anise-flavored spirit quaffed in Turkey, Bosnia and the rest of the Balkans, also known as Lion's Milk (!), one gets completely blotto, right?  Barely able to speak, let alone climb a steep hill to the fortress overlooking the town.  (To be honest, we were a bit wobbly when we reached the top.)  But because we fortify ourselves regularly with food, a local assures us that yes, one can stay up for days drinking raki, carrying on one long, rambling conversation, a mad dialog that fuels the imagination and the soul, that makes everyone as witty as Dorothy Parker, as wise as Socrates--a regular gathering of geniuses, I tell you.  At least that's how it seemed to us.

I don't visit too many film festivals, like Dokufest, which staged its ninth iteration this year, that marry both its program and its surroundings so perfectly.  Executive director, Aliriza Arënliu, and artistic director, Veton Nurkollari, presented an amazing program of international feature and short documentary work, one of the best I've encountered.  And Samir Karahoda's short fiction program was a revelation.  Ironically, since there are no cinemas there besides the ones created specifically for the festival, you can see audiences grappling with how to watch a movie.  They, literally, don't really know how.  So there is usually a lot more going on than movie-watching.  But, somehow, because of the open air venues--on the river, up on the fortress wall, the big outdoor amphitheatre in the middle of town--it only adds to the celebratory quality of the proceedings.  The directors of Hamburg-based A Wall Is A Screen used this to glorious advantage and presented a fantastic shorts program that floated through the town one evening, projecting films on the walls of a bank, a mosque, a restaurant, a residential building, to great effect, a large crowd following along for the 90-minute program.  

It was a very special week and I can only offer up these quixotic and scattered impressions to describe the spectacular experience it truly was.  What I can offer up in a more concrete fashion (more or less) are future posts which talk about some of the films.  In my next installment, I'll start with the stand-outs in the Balkan competition program, some selections from the international competition which I was privileged to jury along with AJ Schnack, Doug Block, Sonja Henrici and Adriatik Kelmendi, and other fare that played in the five competitions, as well as in other special strands.  Stay tuned.

Interview: Marlo Poras, Director THE MOSUO SISTERS; RUN, GRANNY, RUN; MAI'S AMERICA

By most accounts, filmmaker Marlo Poras had reached a pinnacle of success several years ago, albeit in the very circumscribed world of New York-based feature film editing.  She had moved to New York to pursue her true calling, despite discouragement from concerned parents since they felt that filmmaking was not a viable career choice.  She quickly shot up the ladder In a very short time, from someone doing "crap PA jobs," to working beside the top feature editors in Manhattan at the time.  These days, she is on her way to completing her third feature documentary called The Mosuo Sisters.  The project has received funding from Cinereach, The Jerome Foundation and The LEF Foundation, and was also recently named as one of the recipients of a 2010 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund grant. 

The Mosuo Sisters, which Poras is co-producing and co-directing with Yu Ying Wu Chou, is about two sisters from China's last remaining matriarchal society, the Mosuo, a very small ethnic minority of about 40,000 people.  Working in Beijing, the two young women are caught up in the worldwide economic downturn that has hit China very hard, and lose their jobs.  Jua Ma and La Tsuo head for home in a reverse exodus, just like millions of others who have come to the big cities to make their way and support families back home.  Jua Ma and La Tsuo's home is a remote village in the foothills of the Himalayas.  Having been exposed to the modern world, financial independence and the endless possibilities open to them, their views are irreparably changed in relation to their native traditions.  The filmmakers have been following the sisters for close to two years as one gives up her education to stay on the farm and help their ailing mother, while the other heads back to the city to pursue her dreams and to try her luck as an entertainer.  The story and cinematic scope of the project are a bit of a departure for Poras, director of Mai's America and Run, Granny, Run, both multiple award-winning films, the first broadcast as part of PBS' P.O.V. series in 2002, the second broadcasting on HBO in the fall of 2007.

Poras is an extremely likable, open and friendly person, a bit shy and quite modest considering her accomplishments.  And she is full of excitement and passion when talking about the craft of documentary filmmaking.  Born on a US army base in Kentucky during the Vietnam War, she graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in history.  Soon after moving to New York, she became an assistant editor to Thelma Schoonmaker and went on to assist on  several feature films. 

She and I talked a few weeks ago on a glorious spring day, sitting on a park bench in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn amidst a plethora of dogs chasing balls, kids chasing dogs, and contented picnickers sprinkled everywhere under the cherry blossoms.  With the relentless trill of a big ice cream truck parked right behind us, we talked about the perils of becoming successful (and boxed in) doing work that, ultimately, is not that meaningful, the trajectory of the career she always dreamed of having, and the joys and inspirations of mentoring young, precocious Brooklyn teens as they make their first films.

Still in Motion (SIM):  This new project is quite a departure from anything you've done in the past.  Even though, as in your other films, you're concentrating on a small-scale story, you're shooting in a culture and in a language not your own.

Marlo Poras (MP):  Yes, that's right; I speak remedial Mandarin, at best.

SIM:  Why this story?  How did it come across your radar?

MP:  I lived and worked in Vietnam for two years in the 90s, where I made a film about an exchange student from Hanoi who comes to the States to study.

SIM:  Mai's America, which is a really wonderful film.  I liked it even more the second time I watched it.  There's a lot of wonderful stuff going on there.  It's a really graceful film. 

MP:  That's so nice to hear, thank you!  During that experience, I was fascinated by the radical changes happening in Vietnam.  I thought I was going to be able to work that into Mai's story, but the film ended up becoming more about America than Vietnam, which was disappointing to me in certain ways.  When I lived in Vietnam, a friend who was working for an NGO in Hanoi helped me find work producing HIV/AIDS education videos for ethnic minority teenagers.  Working on the videos, I witnessed first-hand the complicated issues ethnic minorities face as the modern world seeps into their everyday lives.  The changes I saw happening in Vietnam were vast, but China has recently been going through a period of seismic change and I've been fascinated for years by how ethnic minorities are faring there.  After completing Run, Granny, Run, I was itching to return to Asia, China in particular, to explore making a film.  When I found out about the Mosuo, I was hooked, inspired by their matrilineal traditions, and by the fact that they think that the institution of marriage is an attack on the family.  Their traditions are so unique and go against the grain of most mainstream societies, including China's, including ours.  In a way, this film has been a return to some of the issues and themes I didn't get to explore in Mai's America.

SIM:  Did you train as a filmmaker?  Was this career intentional?

MP:  No, I didn't go to film school.  I wanted to study film in high school but there weren't any classes or programs available then.  Today, I look at these kids at Reel Works where I've been mentoring.  I'm jealous of all these incredible video programs for young people out there now! 

SIM:  The Tribeca Film Institute just implemented a major program all over New York City to get cameras into kids' hands, especially at the high school level.  They're getting to learn to express themselves and be heard in their own jargon, with their own distinct points of view.

MP:  That's great to hear.  Reel Works is exceptional because of the fantastic staff who provides a mentoring program using professionals in the field.  The program gives structure and feedback in a way that I think the kids learn so much from.

SIM:  The caliber of the mentors is pretty amazing, as well.  You've got the superstars of the documentary world going in there and dedicating their time and attention with such enthusiasm and devotion.  Lucky kids!

MP:  Rodney [Evans] is doing such an impressive job.  There was nothing even close when I was in high school.  But I was always fascinated by film and spent all my free time watching movies.  I wanted to pursue a career in film, but my parents talked me out of it.  "Not realistic."  "It's too competitive."  They didn't want that for me.  So I was a liberal arts student and studied history which is not really any more "realistic" in terms of making a living!  I'm actually very, very glad that I did study history.  I learned how to write and I learned how to research, how to listen, and those skills are invaluable.  I moved to New York after college because in my last year, I started thinking a lot more about film.  I had taken the one documentary class offered at the university which was tremendous and I had a wonderful teacher.  So I had a bit of an academic introduction, at least, to film that made me realize that it was definitely what I wanted to pursue.

After moving to New York, I had a bunch of crap PA jobs, chopping strawberries into ten pieces each for very high-maintenance commercial directors.  I started asking around about other possibilities and most people recommended that I learn a craft; I then could make a living at that craft while exploring ideas about my own films.  I kept being drawn to the edit room.  It might have been because that was the easiest transition from history and research and writing, story structure and things like that.  I was fascinated by editing.  People told me that if I wanted to do editing, it would be better for me to start in features, meaning it was easier to branch out from there to documentaries, to commercials, corporate work; it would give me more job options down the line.  I was more interested in documentary but I heeded the advice given to me.

Like most people starting out, I had a pretty pathetic resume and wondered how the hell I was going to get a job.  This was before the ease of the Internet and I, somehow, was able to find numbers and addresses of people and I would write to them or call them and offer to take them out for coffee.  I can't quite fathom how that was all possible without the Internet, but I did it!  I met mostly male editors in their 40s and 50s, all of whom hated directors and were very crotchety and tried to talk me out of it altogether.  What did they know, all those old, unhappy men?  But the one thing they did say that was useful was that I should visit The Brill Building and visit the different editing houses there, just walk around and meet people and give them my resume.  I was so nervous, so beside myself.  What did I have to offer?  I knew nothing, had no experience.  The night before I was planning on doing this, to go around knocking on doors, I didn't sleep at all.  I was a total wreck with my stack of pathetic resumes.  I get out at Times Square and I was, literally, shaking.  I was walking down the street and that block, for some reason, was totally empty.  No one was on the street.  I looked up and Christopher Reeve was walking towards me.  This was before his accident.  He saw me and looked at me and smiled at me.  And that smile coming from Christopher Reeve at that moment saved me.  It thought, if Superman can do it, so can I!  [laughing]  A highly cheesy moment, but I got my first internship that afternoon.

SIM: And you learned on the job.

MP:  Yes, and it was a great way to learn.  Interestingly, I kept getting jobs that other people who I thought were much more qualified weren't getting.

SIM:  And why do you think that was?

MP:  I was told more than once by employers that my competition were all these 21-year-old, NYU film school grads who thought they were directors already.  They came into the editing room with a lot of attitude, wanting to take direction from no one, least of all the director of the film.  I was a sieve, taking everything in, learning really quickly, having absolutely no ego about any of it.  It was such an amazing learning experience.  And I learned to edit film.  I prefer editing digitally, but I'm so glad that I had that exposure.

So I worked my way up and I finally got a job working under Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese's editor, which was pretty tremendous.

SIM:  Yeah, I would say so!

MP:  Yeah.  It was within three or four years of starting.  I got exactly where I wanted to be; it was incredible.  I got into the editing union and everything.  But after a year, I decided that I wanted out of fiction film; it wasn't the right place for me--all of the money, all of the egos, the serious workaholic syndrome, as in "no life."  It really turned me off, the ways in which this very high end fiction film world operated.  It's your whole world; you live and you breathe it all the time.  It also involved one or two all-nighters every week, working six, seven days a week and it just made me ask myself if that was really what I wanted out of life.  As an apprentice and assistant editor, I only worked on one film that I really loved, Daytrippers [1996].  I thought, in a lifetime, maybe I'd work on four or five films that I really believed in.

SIM:  It's interesting that this happens to many people--one reaches a "pinnacle" of sorts in one's career and realizes that there needs to be more.  Now what? 

MP:  It's a type-A kind of attribute, I think.  You fixate on a goal and do all you can to get there, but in the process, you ignore the warning signs because you're all about the goal.  Once you achieve it, you realize it's not the be all, end all; you want more out of life and then end up pushing in a different direction.

SIM:  I don't know too many creative people that don't go through that on a regular basis.  It's part of the deal.  It's always a bit of a traumatic moment, no doubt, because you're looking into the void again; you feel like you're starting over from scratch.

MP:  You want all that groundwork to pay off and mean something in the end.

SIM:  In essence, it does, but never in the way in which you anticipate.

MP:  Leaving the feature film world led me to documentary, so it did pay off.  Luckily, the second editor that worked under Thelma was someone I became very close with and he saw something in me that was different from other people working there.  James Kwei made it his cause over that year to talk me out of continuing in fiction film.  He ended up leaving, as well.  Jimmy had worked for Scorsese for twenty years or something like that, work most people would die for.  He ended up becoming a veterinary assistant and he's so much happier.  To this day, I'm so grateful to him.  I appreciate and actually savor the work of talented feature film editors, but it wasn't the right place for me at the time.

So then I ran away to Vietnam, very confused, and thought I was getting out of filmmaking altogether.  As I said, I'd always been fascinated by Asia.  I was born on an army base during the Vietnam War and had a particular interest in that country.  I thought I would go for a couple of weeks and ended up staying.

SIM:  How did you meet Mai?

MP:  Well, it was while I was there that these digital cameras came out for the first time, cameras that could shoot something that produced broadcast-quality material.  So after about a year of trashing film and saying I was never going to work in the industry again, reading about the Sony VX1000 pulled me back in.  I was in such a unique position in Hanoi, being exposed to North Vietnamese stories that no one was hearing about in the States.  So I went and bought a camera.  Right around that time, one of my roommates was teaching a group of exchange students from North Vietnam, all of whose parents had fought in the war against America.  These kids had such a strange attitude towards the States.  They were really cocky because they'd won the war.  I, for one, had never really thought about that vantage point, despite having studied that time in history, thinking I knew every nuance of what went on.  They did win that war against this behemoth of a country and had intense national pride about that.  But they also had this stereotypical fascination with everything American--TV, Hollywood, all things Western.  I just felt it was such a novel launching point for a project.

It took me a whole year just to get access to film the students.  I chose four girls to follow over the summer in Vietnam and then I visited each of them when they got to the States.  Luckily, David Sutherland, a wonderful documentary filmmaker, became my advisor.  [Sutherland is also executive producing The Mosuo Sisters.]  I really didn't know what I was doing.  I was in over my head in terms of trying to figure out the storytelling aspects of all of it.  It was also, economically, not feasible.  It was overly ambitious to follow four characters.  He sat me down and gently asked me all of the right questions and really pushed me in honing down the focus of the film.  It was hard because all of the girls were living in such unique and unexpected places in America, even more unique than Mai's situation.  There was one girl who was placed with this very angry Iranian woman in Oregon who thought that Monica Lewinsky was a Jewish-Israeli spy.  Another girl was with one of the few Caucasian exchange families, but they lived on a Hopi Indian reservation.  She was really racist towards all of the Native Americans when she first got there.  Ethnic minorities are very looked down on in North Vietnam.  Very complicated stuff.  So it was actually very hard to narrow it down.  But Mai was the most comfortable in front of the camera, a natural. 

SIM:  How in the world do these people qualify to accept an exchange student?  In the film, there's a lot of discomfort that this girl is just not in the right place at all and it sounds like that was the case for most of these girls.  These families seem inadequately prepared or equipped to take in a foreign exchange student!  Were there any home visits at all?  There's such a distinct lack of cultural sensitivity that it just seems like a recipe for disaster and puts these students in a very vulnerable place.

MP:  I had a lot of problems with the agency that was placing these girls and I let them know it.  That could have been a whole separate film about this exchange program and the state representative and the city representative that placed Mai.  That whole backstory is like a Montel Williams show, really.  But it made me think a lot about what America is and how we define America.  None of the girls expected America to look like the communities in which they landed.

SIM:  We get a sanitized and simplistic version of what this country is, as does the rest of the world.  In your films, you have a talent for capturing these unexpected slices of life that are America, whether we want to acknowledge that or not.  You capture that in Run, Granny, Run, as well.

MP:  I do shy away from stereotypes but when you film people--well, you just never know what to expect.  It's always surprising.  The lived life I've filmed is never anything I could have come up with on my own.  It's a thrill when things expose themselves that way, all of the complexity and strangeness.  Once I started filming these girls, once I started filming Mai, I was totally hooked.

SIM:  Talk a bit about your relationship with her, your first documentary subject?  It was very much a collaboration since she gave you so much.

MP:  We did collaborate a lot and I would tell her what I was after.  We had very long conversations to try to figure out what she was thinking.  Sometimes things would be murky for her and when she could find a way to articulate things from her own unique perspective, it was very exciting.  She enjoyed the process.  She was very alone there and so she loved being seen by the camera.  Growing up, she was always a bit of a shining star.  She appreciated being seen in a place where she was kind of invisible.

SIM:  Your treatment of her sexuality, and that topic in the film in general, is treated with a great deal of nuance.  It's never something that's discussed really overtly.  Her friendship with Chris / Christy is so fascinating, and then he does this 180 turn that's very bittersweet, both for her and for the audience.  You're right; you could not have written that.

MP:  It did turn out to be such rich material and it was completely serendipitous.  The treatment of those identity issues was oblique because it was what it was.  Mai was interesting because I don't think she really ever played around with her sexuality.  She's pretty straight, although I think when she was in Mississippi, she felt so asexual because nobody was interested in her.  I was shocked when she shaved her head.  But in certain parts of Asia, that became a trend for young girls to do that, sort of a reaction against the typical hyper-feminization that's part of the culture.  I think she found it inspiring that people here in the States played with those defined roles.  In that way, meeting Christy was very liberating for her.  I think she also connected with him deeply because, as a transvestite in the rural South, he was another outsider.  It was clear that many people in Mississippi didn't think that Mai was fully human so she connected a lot with him about that.  It was as shocking to anyone as it was to me when he "straightened" out and returned to the church as a heterosexual man.

SIM:  I actually found that incredibly sad.  My heart sank a bit.  And there was a part of it that seemed contrived on his part, even though you realize it really is a genuine desire to fit in and go back to what's familiar and comfortable, I guess.

MP:  The rural South can be so vibrant and surprisingly diverse, but it can also be very oppressive.  The gay bar where he performed was hidden down a long, narrow country road.  Chris' life was very dangerous.  Growing up, he loved being a part of the church, being part of the community, and it was crushing for him to have to leave that behind when he came out.  He wanted to be "normal," to fit in again.  I think his family was pushing him a lot, as well.  He loved his family, was a total mama's boy.  He lived with his parents but had moved out while we were filming.  I think he was so happy to be back in the church, happy to be part of that community again.  But that only lasted for about eight months.  The last time I talked to him, he was living in New Orleans and he told me that he had found someone there to sponsor a sex change operation.  His story could have been a whole separate film. 

SIM:  For your first film, landing a P.O.V. slot was awesome--a promising start to your career as a documentary filmmaker.

MP:  It was amazing.  David Sutherland also helped me along so much.  It got funded by ITVS which was extraordinary, to have that kind of faith in me for my first film.  I'm still very grateful for that.  It got a national broadcast, won some awards.  More than anything, it was my own self-styled film school and I was happy enough with it as just that.  So for it to actually have legs and the kind of life that it had was extremely gratifying.

SIM:  So you could call yourself a filmmaker after that--when did that realization hit you since this was a new transition?

MP:  I think it hit me while I was making Mai's America.  I was going full throttle, living it and breathing it and spending twenty four hours a day doing it.  I put my life on hold for the film.  By the end of it, I knew I had to pursue a career as a documentary filmmaker.  It's what I had been wanting to do all along.  Having said that, there are moments when it does feel absurd, times when I completely lose confidence and feel like I don't know what I'm doing.  My lack of formal training catches up with me and I feel like a hack.  And yet, at other times, I feel very much like an increasingly experienced filmmaker.

SIM:  Going into your second film, what was your mindset?  Did it feel like starting from scratch?

MP:  Each film experience is so different.  The main part of Run, Granny, Run was shot over the course of four months.  I was on location with Doris and the campaign ninety percent of the time.  It was a very transporting experience.  I hadn't done that before.  When I would film Mai, I would visit her depending on what was happening in her life, usually for four days to two weeks at a time.

With Doris, I loved being completely subsumed in what was happening in a concentrated way.  It was a world I never thought I would have penetrated and it was very surreal.  She and her campaign workers were living hard, pursuing a dream they were so deeply passionate about.

SIM:  Did a close bond form between the two of you right away?

MP:  I adored her right away and she was incredibly warm with me, but it took a little while for her son, Jim, and her closest advisor, Dennis, to trust me.  A lot of people had approached her wanting to do a documentary piece on her.  They had dealt with a lot of well-intentioned but slightly flaky people who would talk a good game but rarely came through in any substantive way.  They were warm and welcoming, but I didn't necessarily get the access I wanted right away.  Whenever they'd have an argument or Doris would lose her temper, Dennis would put his hand up in front of the camera and ask me to stop filming.  Everyone around her was very protective.  They didn't know what my intentions were--for all they knew, I was planning to do some kind of Granny smackdown [laughing].

Doris was 94-years-old and had dealt with the media for a long time, so was often on autopilot.  I wanted to do something a little bit different than what she normally gave the media.  She was a really dynamic, incredible woman, but after dealing with the media for that long, it was just very hard for her not to talk in sound bytes, and I was media, even though I didn't think of myself that way.  I didn't know if I was going to be able to get under her skin in a different way.  There's a scene in the film where she was going for one of her first morning walks back in New Hampshire.  Dennis was going over issues with her while she was walking, training for a bigger walk.  She'd been on the road in a van for about a year so she wasn't in the best physical shape and her emphysema was kicking in that day.  She was exhausted and he was pushing her on the issues and she lost her temper and snapped.  But he didn't put his hand up in front of the camera that time.  He trusted me from that point on, trusted that it would be a balanced piece.

I told them that I wasn't interested in hagiography.  What Doris did was so extraordinary, walking across the country at ninety, becoming the Democratic nominee to the US Senate at ninety-four.  Her feats felt almost super-human.  But I knew she fought hard to achieve those things.  She fought the liabilities of old age, the doubts of nay-sayers.  She fought the weather; she fought death.  I wanted to show her for the human being that she was.  I wanted to show that she did have moments of suffering and things were difficult for her sometimes, she did lose her temper and she did get exhausted and overwhelmed.  And yet, in spite of all these things, she was still able to live harder and accomplish more in her 90s than most of us do in a lifetime.  I wanted the film to show her trajectory, how her flinty determination to get through those challenges she faced often led her to accomplish exceptional things.  To me, those human moments, those struggles, made her achievements more heroic, and also more accessible.  [Doris "Granny D" Haddock died at the age of 100 at her home in Dublin, New Hampshire in March of this year.  Poras wrote a wonderful tribute to her on AOLNews.com.  You can read it here.]

SIM:  Well, that access, especially to a subject like that, should be hard-won.  I think that's the real secret to a successful nonfiction filmmaker, really, because that's what you need, that trusted relationship and collaboration with your subjects to really tell a substantive story.  It's not something that can be faked.  You wait for those magical moments and hope they keep coming to make a whole film.

MP:  Oh yeah, those moments are like crack.  But being able to build them together and create something that's layered, that has highs and lows, that's what does justice to the person you're documenting.  I see a lot of documentary portraits that are quite one-dimensional.

SIM:  What we're talking about is actually making me think of your work with Illeen, your Reel Works mentee.  With your help, she was able to create a piece where you can see how that kind of stuff can resonate so strongly.  I know a bit about what her original intention or idea was but this was something quite raw and, as you say, layered.  And it does have those strung together moments where she's getting these genuine reactions.  Not to mention the fact that it's ultra-personal; she took a big risk in so many ways, with camera in hand. 

MP:  Yes, her film is raw and she was very brave in making it.  She is amazing.  She had had her heart broken by this guy and sometimes she would feel victimized and get angry about him, thought he was a real asshole and would swear at his face on the screen while we were editing.  But she was touched that he agreed to be filmed and she really didn't want him to come off negatively in the piece. She wanted him to be able to see the film and still want to be friends with her.  Impressive for a 17-year-old who'd had her heart broken!  She wasn't really interested in making a revenge piece.  Her film was much more complicated and more about what it means to be in love and to then go through hard times with somebody, to give and take, and how we hopefully learn about ourselves in the process.

SIM:  Would you ever think about doing something so personal like that?

MP:  When I was younger, I very much wanted to do a film on my grandmother who had survived Nazi-occupied Germany.  I was just out of college and experimenting with a high-8 camera.  She had a hard edge to her, a unique personality.  She'd been through hell and back and had some amazing stories. But whenever I would try to interview her, she would say [affecting a thick German accent]: "Oh, that was a very hard time, very difficult.  I don't have anything to say about it!  I don't want to talk about it!"  I kept at her for a while, but she always answered the same way.  So I scrapped the film idea because I didn't think I could get anything interesting out of her.  Now, I think I could do something dynamic with that kind of material, with her insistence on not talking about tough times, on burying the past, but back then, I had no clue how to work with it.  Otherwise, I doubt I'd ever do a personal film; I'm too interested in other people's stories.

SIM:  Let's circle back to this project you're working on now, The Mosuo Sisters.  Where do things stand now?  You're almost done shooting, correct?

MP:  We are.  We've been filming Jua Ma and her younger sister, La Tsuo, and their family for the past year and a half.  The process has been much like my other films in that I could not have anticipated the unlikely twists and turns the sisters' lives have taken while we were filming.  It's been far more telling than what I initially thought might happen.  When Yu Ying and I began filming the sisters, we had no idea that the bar they worked in would soon close leaving them out of work just as the global financial crisis was hitting China.  It's been a pivotal year in both their lives, with almost too many dramatic threads to include in the final cut.

Otherwise, we're continuing to fundraise for each stage which is always difficult.  I really admire those filmmakers who can raise money with relative ease.  That's one of my next goals is to figure out how the heck to do that.  Everybody's trying to figure that out, I suppose.  I started this project using my own funds from money I had made on the DVD sales for Run, Granny, Run.  That was my start-up money.  It seems like part of the investment you have to make.

SIM:  It also makes you a self-sustaining artist and that's a huge accomplishment, to use money you've earned from other projects to keep yourself going.  It's a good business model and should be very satisfying, actually.

MP:  I was very happy I was able to do that.  It's just that it's particularly hard with the kinds of stories I tell because I never know where they're going to go at the beginning.  I can't go to a broadcaster or a funder and say that these are the themes I'm interested in exploring and this is the person through which I'll explore them.  Every time I've made a film, it ended up going somewhere radically different than where I thought it would in the beginning.  To me, as a filmmaker, that's tremendously fulfilling, but I think for funders it's nerve-wracking.  It's a little bit easier for filmmakers who are doing more issue-related films or historical films, something with a definitive story arc from the beginning.

Also, the translations for what we've been shooting have taken a long time.  The sisters speak Mandarin when they're with Chinese people, but when they're with one another or their family, they speak Mosuo which is a language only about 40,000 people speak.  We've finally found the right person for the translation job who is meticulous and has that high level of skill to find the nuances in what they're saying.

SIM:  Your co-director, Yu Ying Wu Chou, is Taiwanese.  This is the first time you've had that kind of relationship, sharing that directorial role.  Why did the collaboration take that form?

MP:  The language had a lot to do with it.  She's a native Mandarin speaker and with this kind of film, relationships and gaining trust is fifty percent of the filmmaking.  So that's what she's doing; she is the relationship with the sisters, both when we're filming and when we're not.  She talks to them regularly.  It's all about trust and communication.  She's so trustworthy and has such a beautiful relationship with them and the family.  She works mainly as an editor.  It's her first time as a filmmaker.

SIM:  Another filmmaker would not have necessarily made her a co-director or would even consider that.  She would garner more of a producer role, perhaps.  That's why I asked that question.

MP:  Well, as I said, I really do feel like the relationship with the subjects is half of it for this kind of film since without that collaboration, you really don't have much of anything.  I don't know, is that a producer's role, is that a director's role?  All those roles feel fluid for me.  She was going out on a limb as much as I was, including financially since she put some of her own money into it in the beginning.  I felt like sharing the director credit was fair.  In terms of the actual nuts and bolts directing, that's my job.  But she has a very solid sense of character development and brings good ideas to the table in that regard.  She's getting better and better as we go along, having more vision in that way.  It's a constantly-evolving partnership.

SIM:  The footage I've had an opportunity to see is really, really beautiful.

MP:  It is.  I've always shot all my own stuff, more out of financial necessity than anything.  I just never had the money to work with a DP.  And, I must say, I do really enjoy shooting.  But my shooting is solid, not elegant.  I'm able run around after people and capture important, unexpected moments, but I never felt like my images had tremendous artistry.  When we met these women and spent some time with them and decided that they would be in the film, we immersed ourselves in the bar and their world.  I just felt like there was no way I could have done it justice cinematically all on my own.  It's such a visual story, much more so than anything I've done before.

We had met this cameraman, Al Go, who works in Beijing for BBC China.  I had seen his images and he was eager to expand his shooting horizons and work on something a bit different than the news pieces he normally does.  I had seen his work, which is often exquisite.  He shot and co-produced a BBC mini-series called "White Horse Village" and after seeing that, I thought I'd be lucky to have him on board.  He's only able to join us, however, when he has time so I'm still doing most of the shooting.  I've learned a tremendous amount from him about composition, depth of field and light.  His work has really upped my game, made my shooting skills stronger.  I can do justice to the sisters' world, capture the visual complexity that's necessary for that.

SIM:  I think, as a director, it also helps you to understand the context of certain things you otherwise would not be able to given that you don't speak the language; this is a culture radically different from your own.  What are your expectations for this film?

MP:  My hope is that it will have national and international broadcasts and a solid festival run.

SIM:  And theatrically?  It's a very cinematic piece.  I would love to see it on a big screen.  But, then again, I'm a huge proponent of cinematic nonfiction and think there should be more of it, as financially unrewarding as hell it may be.  I was just wondering if you perceive this piece differently in that way from your other work.

MP:  I think about that, I do.  It would be wonderful.  It's just that it's hard to imagine that.  It feels like the theatrical world is just continuing to fall apart.  I guess I've always felt a bit ambivalent about theatrical for this kind of film, an independent documentary, because it has such a small potential release, a handful of people in New York and Los Angeles would be interested in seeing this exhibited that way, maybe a couple of other cities.  The amount of work and the financial loss is significant to say the least, and I'm always exhausted at the end of a film, deeply, deeply exhausted.  But power to those people who decide to get their films in theaters, for people who fight hard to get their theatrical exhibition.  I don't mean to demean it at all; I'm actually in awe of someone accomplishing that.  It's interesting that so many films out of China have been making me feel that theatrical can be a possibility for this one.  Up the Yangtze [directed by Yung Chang] and Last Train Home [directed by Lixin Fan] are incredibly fantastic cinematic experiences. Those films are just powerhouses.  Damn them for raising the bar so high!  Really inspiring. 

SIM:  That challenge can be worth it, you never know.  A lot depends on opportunities and the right champions with the right resources to help you realize that.  Tempering expectations is probably the best tactic at the end of the day.  What other work have you seen in the recent past that's inspired you artistically, that might inform the way in which you do future work, especially with portraiture in film?

MP:  There are specific films that I've seen that have totally transformed the way I think about making documentary.  [Pernille Rose Grønkjaer's] The Monastery rocked my world.

SIM:  Mine, as well!  I love that film so much; it's extraordinary and so is its maker.  I did a wonderful interview with her in May of 2007.  [It's on this very blog right here!]  That is one of those films that totally transcends genre--I don't care what people want to call it, it's a magnificent piece of filmmaking.  I can't wait to see what she does next.  She dedicated almost a decade of her life to that film.  An extraordinary collaboration between director and subjects.

MP:  She's one of those creative behemoths, someone that has that agility to figure out the story in a situation like that and add that level of visual poetry to it in her shooting.  It took my breath away.  I was at IDFA watching it and I was sitting directly behind her.  I leaned forward and hugged her halfway through the film!  I was so overjoyed.  Here in the States, there's such a tendency towards socially conscious-driven, activist filmmaking, a lot of which I respect.  But it's not necessarily what drives me.  To see her exploring a story that's so deceptively simple, that was not issue-driven and yet speaks to the human condition in such a profound way was so, so inspiring. 

SIM:  When did you start working on The Mosuo Sisters?

MP:  Including pre-production, almost exactly two years ago.

SIM:  So you're looking at probably another year to finish?  Three years for a big project like this is quite efficient, actually.

MP:  Sometimes it seems like a hell of a long time, but three years does seem reasonable.

SIM:  Are there other stories or subjects out there that have grabbed your attention, that are occupying your mind?

MP:  The stories I want to tell are always character-driven so it comes together when I meet that person, or persons.  There are a couple of subjects I'm currently interested in, but we'll see where it goes.  It's like falling in love--things have to click a certain way, and I'm picky. 

The important thing is to keep exploring ideas.  But I do want to do something closer to home next time.  Traveling great distances, going back and forth is exhausting.  It's thrilling, as well, but we've made eight trips to China in two years.  Just the idea of doing something in New York is so titillating.  There are so many amazing stories here and just to be able to take the subway or a taxi to a shoot would be the lap of luxury!

Indocumentales: US/Mexico Interdependent Film Series

A traveling program of films opens tonight in NYC presented by what moves you?, Cinema Tropical and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at NYU.  The documentary film series is committed to enriching the discussion on a wide variety of issues pertaining to Mexican immigration to the US.  All films are in Spanish with English subtitles and all screenings are free and open to the public. 

Indocumentales launches tonight, Cinco de Mayo, at 7:00 p.m. at the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center auditorium on the NYU campus with Al Otro Lado by Natalia Almada from 2005.  The film will be preceded by Subterraneans: Norteña Music in New York by Gaspar Orozco and Karina Escamilla.  Other films in the series are Los que se quedan/Those Who Remain by Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman from 2008 which won the grand jury documentary prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival that year.  Also exhibiting: Mi vida dentro/My Life Inside by Lucía Gajá, and Farmingville by Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini.  The screening series is at various locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, so be sure to check the website for locations, dates and times.

The DeVilles

This was pretty much the best thing I saw at SXSW.  I say "best" in the sense that almost every moment of watching this piece was an enjoyable one--meaning, I was glad my butt was parked in a seat in a theater watching it.  I'm a fidgety girl, so when something holds me completely rapt, it's a big deal, 'cause not much does these days.

The DeVilles, directed by first-time feature director, Nicole Nielsen Horanyi, clocks in at a cool 56 minutes.  And yes, she's a Dane and if you've noticed by now, I love, love, love the nonfiction cinema that comes out of Denmark.  If I were ever to bother going to film school, the only place I would be interested in enrolling would be at the National Film School there. The film was programmed with an excellent 25-minute short called Control from Norwegian director, Hanne Myren; playing the two films together was a great programming call by SXSW's own Jim Kolmar.

The DeVilles tells the story of the 25-year relationship of married couple, Teri Lee and Shawn Geary, who live in a charming, but well-worn, house in the Silverlake section of Los Angeles.  Teri Lee's stage name is Kitten DeVille, and she's a big deal in the world of burlesque; she's been a headline performer for decades and still puts on a scintillating show.  (She also teaches fat housewives how to striptease in her home studio.)  Her husband, Shawn, is a rockabilly singer, who physically channels Joe Strummer, circa 1980.  He and his band still rage like young punks, rehearsing at full throttle during the day in the garage, driving all the dogs in the neighborhood crazy.

The couple, with their three daughters, lives in a nostalgic world of their own making and we soon find out that the long-standing love between Teri Lee and Shawn has fissures and cracks that erupt into full-blown crises once in a while.  While completely devoted to one another and their family, both have indulged in various infidelities over the years, and during a party one evening, Teri Lee has a major drama-queen moment in front of their guests revealing for all to see her private distress and heartache.  She's got one of those wide-mouthed glamorous smiles, that if you look closely enough, reveals a lot of pain.

The film is shot and told as a riveting narrative, the subjects never directly addressing the camera/audience, but acting out the passion play of their family drama.  There are several moments of self-consciousness even though most, if not all, of the scenes are staged explicitly for the camera.  We are always aware that we are watching real people, but neither do we ever lose sight of the fact that they are all performers (including the youngest daughter who appears to be about eleven years old and has a stunning, powerful singing voice of her own).  At the beginning of the film, I was a bit disoriented as to where I was geographically, but this is a tableau that could really only exist in Los Angeles, the city which resides under the relentless shadow of Hollywood dreams that never say die.

Teri Lee and Shawn are fascinating to watch when they're on their own, but together there is definitely "movie magic," the charisma and sexual energy between them quite powerful.  One, literally, cannot exist without the other.  The film, in turn, romanticizes this long-term love affair in all its glory, Laust Trier Mørk's cinematography shot in 16:9 HD-CAM, luscious and fulgent.  The film ends with our hero driving off into the sunset towards Vegas in his pink Cadillac DeVille to rescue and re-kindle the passion of his only true love. 

The DeVilles has no release date yet in Denmark (or anywhere else, at the moment), but is distributed worldwide by First Hand Films.

Filmmakers to Watch from SXSW

[Note: There have been some corrections made for the NY Export section since this was first posted, per the producers.  I sourced incorrect information from a published article in FILMMAKER Magazine.  Apologies.]

For my SXSW wrap-up, a bit anemic as it is, I'd like to mention a few more films/filmmakers that impressed me, and the outstanding doc shorts program presented at the fest. 

I may write almost exclusively on nonfiction filmmaking (although that's changing more and more as I see work that's throwing any sort of idea of "genre" filmmaking out the window--more of this, please), but, no matter what, I still want to be thrilled when I sit and watch a film, transported, told a great yarn, be emotionally engaged and moved, etc.  I'm tired of seeing films not ready for exhibition, hurriedly "completed" to meet a festival premiere, sloppily finished, or what have you.  There's no room for that anymore, if there ever was.

Whether it's a film in the guise of what some are calling "social issue," an intimate portrait, a first-person account, or an historical treatise on a seminal event of the recent past (or some combination, thereof) the focus, intention (and the tenacious hold on that intention) of the maker's vision should be felt viscerally at every moment.

In the case of Jody Lee Lipes, Henry Joost and Matt Porterfield--these are filmmakers we celebrate at Hammer to Nail over and over again.  Why?  Because these are filmmakers who have such intense imperatives in the way they create cinema, such devotion to their craft, such expertise in the way in which they storytell.  Lipes and Joost have collaborated as co-directors on NY Export: Opus Jazz which had its début at SXSW last week.  (Lipes also shot Lena Dunham's SXSW narrative jury prize-winner, Tiny Furniture.)  The film won an audience award in the Emerging Visions category.

This re-creation of Jerome Robbins' 1958 tour-de-force dance story (written for the screen by Lipes) was shot on location in New York City and stars an ensemble of New York City Ballet dancers--all young, lithe, explosively energetic presences.  The film was conceived, created and produced by Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi, soloists in the ballet company, and it took them several years to finance the finished film after getting the rights to the piece from the Robbins Trust.  They shot a 5-minute sequence with funds raised by the producers from private donors to use for further fundraising efforts, and committed to shooting the film in anamorphic 35mm to make it as gorgeous as possible.  You can see a preview here.  Over a year later, PBS came on board and took the film on as a pre-acquisition for its Great Performances dance series.  Remaining steadfast in their vision, the first-time producers had much more fundraising ahead of them, and the finished product shows, to glorious effect, the uncompromising way in which it got made.  Aaron Hillis, writing for IFC.com News, says, it is a "jaw-droppingly gorgeous marriage of choreography and cinematography."  The 45-minute narrative, accompanied by an excellent fifteen-minute "making of" documentary directed by Anna Farrell and Matt Wolf will have its broadcast premiere on PBS' Great Performances as part of the Dance in America series this Wednesday, March 24.  Watch it on as big a screen as you possibly can.

SXSW exhibited a very strong documentary shorts program.  As I've expressed before, shorts programs (watching several short films back to back) is not my fave due to the unevenness, most times, in the quality of films shown together.  While there might be a couple of standouts, one usually has to sit through several that are rather weak, or even worse, pointless.  But the half dozen I saw in this program were all fantastic and I hope they all make many appearances on the circuit in the next couple of years, and beyond. 

Amy Grappell's 20-minute Quadrangle (which premiered at Sundance) took the jury prize, and Travis Senger's White Lines and The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug (26 minutes) received a runner-up nod for his world premiere.  Quadrangle is a fascinating piece, a video art installation more than it is a traditional narrative film.  The physical manifestation of the storytelling resonates so strongly because of the subject matter, that of a family collapsing and tearing itself apart due to a well-intentioned "social experiment" that goes awry.  The reveals come tantalizingly slowly and subtly and we don't know for sure how these people are related to the filmmaker, but we know that they are.  I especially like the way she reveals and implicates herself into the piece, again very deliberately and slowly until she is fully folded into this story that has impacted her life in so many ways.  We never actually see her, but we do hear her and, at one point, see her shadow outlined on the cement as she films.  Intelligent, potent, and artfully conceived and crafted.  She is working on a feature narrative script of the story.

The other film I'll give special mention to is called 6.  Also a world premiere at the fest, this film is just a staggeringly beautiful piece of work.  In its 22 minutes (I would have been more than happy to sit through something feature-length), it shows us a complete and full universe with such intimacy and love.  6 is a portrait of a teeny, tiny town in Texas, extrapolated through its rabid devotion to its high-school football team which consists of only six players; the place is so small it cannot populate a full 11-man team.  Its maker, Jeff Bednarz, has exquisite instincts and finds storytelling soulmates in his editor, Jack Waldrip, his cinematographer, Mark Thomas (stunning work) and, in particular, his subjects, who open up to him in ways in which only an incredibly empathic artist can get subjects to reveal their hearts and souls.  I cannot wait to see more from this team of filmmakers.

The other films in the program were: The deeply personal and beautifully shot Seltzer Works by Jessica Edwards; David Wilson's Big Birding Day with breathtakingly magnificent cinematography by Wilson and Nathan Truesdell; and, Bradley Beesley's hilarious Mr. Hypnotism about the notorious Ron Dante.

SXSW 2010

Well, the general thing I can say after my first SXSW experience is that I feel like I've gone through a blender.  I am, undoubtedly, spoiled by kinder, gentler nonfiction festivals, with manageable programs, a highly-navigable experience (meaning convenient to get from place to place, preferably on foot or plenty of free transportation to get a visitor from hotel to films, parties, etc.), and easy access to everything, especially film screenings.  (Pictured, the ultracool Highball--restaurant, bowling alley, karaoke lounge--modeled on the spot in the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski, adjacent to the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, a main festival venue.)

I would say that I spent about fifty percent of my time at this festival waiting on line.  For coffee, for food, for films, for parties, for rides, everything.  Even as a first-timer, I knew this was due to growing pains.  The staff and volunteers were trying their valiant best to accommodate the floods of people at their festival, and I mean floods.  I almost fainted when I saw the line at registration which was about a mile long.

In her intros to films, festival producer, Janet Pierson, after the event had kicked off in earnest, took to asking audiences if people were having trouble getting into films.  After hearing a resounding yes!, she courteously suggested people make an alternate plan and to really make space for line-standing time into their schedules.  Not all of the cinemas suffered from this glut, but the smaller main venues certainly did.  "A good problem to have," as Pierson said, but hard going when one is trying to see as many films as possible every day.  After desperate suggestions from guests that have been attending for a while to provide a shuttle service (which they charged for), there were only two vans making the main loop, which meant waits of up to 30-45 minutes to get to another spot in town.  The only other option was a taxi ride and a few of those a day really add up and make your pocketbook empty out pretty damn fast.

Anyway, enough bitching, it was fun and fabulous and a great new experience.  With enough sunshine, margaritas, great Tex Mex food, loads of parties, friendly, hospitable Austin-ites, music pouring out of every orifice on 6th Street, and lots of lovely programming comrades on tap, it wasn't half bad.  I'm sure they'll be better prepared for next year and I hope they get the same kinds of crowds they did this year.  It was heart-warming, I tell you, to see lines snaking around the corner for films nobody knew anything about except from a description in a catalog or on the web site.  A personal thanks to new programmer, Jim Kolmar, (also film conference coordinator and web content), a man with great taste, for including The Living Room of the Nation in the SX Global section for its North American premiere. 

I, admittedly, didn't see as much as I had planned due to above-described circumstances, but I tried my best.  And as at most festivals, I did see one film, in particular, that no one's ever heard of and that played exactly once at the smallest venue there (thanks, Mark Rosenberg)--and it's my fave, oddball that I apparently am.  I also attended panels and conferences, the trade show, etc., so I wasn't a total slacker.  Although I did spend a lot of time in the sun drinking beer and munching on chips and salsa.  I've been living in Finland; I was overdue for some sol.  So, without further ado, a few cinematic things worth mentioning:

Futurestates:  ITVS commissioned eleven filmmakers to make short narrative films that examine current events by extrapolating them into the future.  SXSW world premiered six of them, including films by Greg Pak, Garret Williams, Ramin Bahrani, Tze Chun, Aldo Velasco and Annie Howell.  Standouts were Bahrani's Plastic Bag with Werner Herzog as the rapturous, yet ultimately disenchanted, title hero; Tze Chun's Silver Sling about a struggling career surrogate--a woman who is hired to produce babies for high-ranking female workers of a corporation--who has to decide to give away yet another child or keep it, her last chance at motherhood; and Annie Howell's Tio & Marco, about a pregnant border patrol agent who finds an illegal immigrant child hiding in her house.  See more Season 1 selections here.

Tiny Furniture: This was the only film I manged to see in the narrative competition of eight films.  It also walked away with the jury prize at Tuesday night's ceremonies.  As well, its creator was bestowed with Chicken & Egg Pictures' Emergent Narrative Director award.  There is no doubt that 23-year-old filmmaker, Lena Dunham (fellow Hammer to Nail contributing writer) has a very bright future.  This accomplished feature which Dunham wrote, directed and stars in, had one of those crazy lines where not one pass holder got in since the badge holder line was so long.  Meaning the audience consisted mostly of industry supporters and friends, so there was a lot of excitement.  The story is about the recently college-graduated, heartbroken and very confused Aura, played by Dunham, returning to the nest and trying valiantly to live comfortably in the (very antiseptic) family homestead, a giant loft in Tribeca peopled only by her mother, Siri (played by Dunham's real mom, renowned photographer, Laurie Simmons in a fine performance) and her sister, Nadine (played by Dunham's real sibling, Grace).  Taking a dead-end job as a day hostess in a small restaurant around the corner from where she lives, she meets and courts two ne'er do wells, Jed (played by filmmaker, Alex Karpovsky in a sly, subtle performance) who moves into her house and refuses to touch her, and Keith (David Call who gives a superb and, oddly, endearing performance) who fucks her in a huge pipe in a playground.  Dunham creates precocious characters who interact with one another in that numb, detached way people do when all, to a person, are disaffected and lost in some way, their own pain or preoccupations making them only partway "there" for their loved ones.  Or they live a life completely in an alternate universe, like that of her "best friend" since childhood, Charlotte, played by the luminously beautiful and very quirky, Jemima Kirke, in the film's most charming performance.  Dunham has the writing chops for good television and the film has a patina that isn't really conducive to dark and depressing themes.  This left me somewhat emotionally detached, but perhaps I could also say that this is possibly the film's strongest point.  Like Woody Allen, she can easily find humor in painful angst and presents her plump, misshapen body and hangdog expression to great affect.  The scene where she sits on a deflating mattress staring off into the middle distance says it all.  You do want to cuddle her and tell her everything will be all right.  But you also want to slap her pretty hard.  Jody Lee Lipes steps in as DP and does his usual glorious work--he shot the whole film on a still camera.  This might be one of those festival breakout films that will do decent box office given the right marketing spin.  I just hope it doesn't take a bloody year or more--get it out in theaters this summer would be my recommendation.  It's a great seasonal film and millions of graduating college seniors will find the movie that speaks directly to them.

More from SXSW in a bit.

OCTOBER COUNTRY Opens in New York

Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher's multiple award-winning début feature begins its theatrical run in New York City this Friday, February 12, at the IFC Center.  Don't miss the opportunity to go see this gorgeous piece of work.  You can now buy tickets online by clicking here.   

There will be six screenings a day for a week-long limited engagement.  The Mosher family, the subjects of this fine film, will be in the house for a Q&A with the filmmakers at the 6:50 p.m. show on Friday, and Palmieri and Mosher will be appearing throughout opening weekend at select shows.  Also, look for the beautiful DVD package coming soon from Carnivalesque Films.  Read more about the film and watch the trailer here.

Last Week in Havana: THE CLOSEST FARTHEST AWAY Debuts

Today in the Miami Herald's Theater section, reporter, Jordan Levin, covers the story of a groundbreaking multimedia theater performance piece created from an unprecedented collaboration between US and Cuban artists that world premiered at the Havana International Film Festival last week and will have its US premiere at the Global Cuba Fest in Miami Beach, March 11 - 14, 2010.  Last week, the show played three times at the 1,600-seat Teatro Mella in Havana, with a ticket price of just five Cuban pesos (about 20 cents).

La Entrañable Lejania tells the story of an American man in love with a Cuban woman and the show breaks new ground artistically, politically and technologically, with American actors performing onstage while Cuban cast members appear on large video screens, metaphorically representing the political separation of the two countries.  The show evolved over eleven years as 30-year-old California composer, Sage Lewis, traveled half a dozen times between the States and Havana, building the show with many of Cuba's most prominent artists with the idea of using technology to overcome practical and political barriers to collaboration.  He and his company traveled to the island using a US government license for artistic and academic research and garnered grants from various foundations to keep them going, including pro bono legal services and individual donations solicited online.  Audiovisual equipment was donated and brought to the island by Pastors for Peace.

Ever Chavez, the director of FUNDarte, and Beth Boone, artistic and executive director of the Miami Light Project (who exec produced the documentary I made in Cuba with Lisandro Pérez Rey in 2005 called La Fabri_K) came on board and connected the creators with official Cuban sponsors and will present the show's US premiere in Miami in March.  Both artistic organizations specialize in US-Cuba cultural projects.  Lewis emailed Boone a year and a half ago, just as she and Chavez began to hear about the project from friends both here and in Cuba.

Says Boone, "What I find significant about this piece right now, given the context of change, is that, as we've known all along in the arts community, art and artists are the most powerful agents of change.  I think people who take the time to experience Entrañable will be able to see firsthand that artificially imposed political barriers are folly.  Regular people have been making contact for years, whether physical or not, via telephone, the Internet and the making of art."

Lewis says that, "Our generation has a different point of view.  We don't really ignore history, but we just want to go back and forth, make art, have a normal healthy relationship."  The title The Closest Farthest Away is evocative of the fact that, "We're so close geographically [just 90 miles] and have so much in common culturally, yet Cuba is the farthest country from the US, the hardest to talk to, to travel to.  So it's this paradox." 

You can watch a preview of La Entrañable Lejania, and also see the exhaustive documentation of its creation on the website.

Royal Flush Is Coming!

Just a reminder that Royal Flush opens its festival this week in, and around, the East Village of our fair city.  Great program, some really original stuff that you won't see at too many other fests.  Celebrating the artist and the dreamer in all of us would be the main theme I would take away from the current program.  And which one of us couldn't do with a good dose of that now and then?  Here's the program of the films, art happenings and musical performances going on  October 15 - 19.

Also want to plug the panel I'm hosting again since it's chock-full of some of the best filmmakers around these days.  It helps if you're a doc fan, but anyone who loves great cinema will have a swell time participating in a conversation with Ross Kauffman, Laura Poitras, Ian Olds, Eric Daniel Metzgar and Andrew Berends.  That's some heavy talent, so come out and chat with us on Sunday the 18th at 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center on Suffolk Street.  It's free with your festival pass or just 5 bucks if you don't have a pass.  But you should get a pass.  Hope to see you there.

Royal Flush Trumps Evil City: Something for Everyone

A bit over one week away, the East Village of Manhattan will be overtaken by all sorts of artistic shenanigans, musical, cinematic, and otherwise.  The Royal Flush Festival, formerly known as the Evil City Film Fest, has a really innovative lineup of independent films, music videos, live musical performances and underground art openings taking place October 15 - 19 at Anthology Film Archives and other venues throughout New York City.  In autumn of '07, the year I moved back to New York, I participated in a panel at Evil City with Michael Tully, Stu VanAirsdale and Karina Longworth--with lots of cocktails on hand.  It was such a blast that I didn't hesitate when they asked me to jury and lead a panel this year. 

In its current incarnation, it is now named after, and partnered with, Royal Flush Magazine, a nationally-distributed "killer rag" that celebrates underground music, art, video games, pop culture and indie movies.  During this year's fest, the magazine will showcase its 2009 issue featuring Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner, and rock goddess, Joan Jett, appearing on two separate covers. 

To start things off in Royal Flush splendor, the festival kicks off with a free opening night bash on the 15th at the Hiro Ballroom in the Maritime Hotel.  There will be live performances at the Knitting Factory throughout the fest from the likes of British psychedelic punks The Raincoats, and an appearance by Melissa Auf der Maur of Hole and Smashing Pumpkins fame.  The fest has a sneak peek of her self-produced new project called Out of Our Minds, a multimedia concept that includes a musical album, comic and film directed and edited by Tony Stone.  It's breathtakingly beautiful with mesmerizing imagery, and of course, sonically stunning.  Take a look and a listen here.

The film program will open with Merle Becker's ode to American rock poster art, American Artifact: The Rise of American Rock Poster Art, one of several New York premieres.  To take a gander at other filmic fare on offer, click here.  Cool program, eh?  Come join festival directors Jim Muscarella (film), James Galus (music), and Josh Bernstein (art) for a fun-filled four days featuring thirteen New York feature film premieres, six live rock, metal and hip-hop shows, three exclusive art events and a closing night burlesque bash.

I'm also very excited about the stellar filmmaker panel I'll be moderating on Sunday the 18th at 1:30 p.m. called Docs Under Duress at the Soto Clemente Vélez Cultural and Educational Center's Milagro Theater on Suffolk Street.  I will be joined by Ross Kauffman (Born Into Brothels), Andrew Berends (Delta Boys), Eric Daniel Metzgar (Reporter), Ian Olds (Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi), and Laura Poitras (Flag Wars, My Country, My Country).  We will talk about doc filmmakers who take great personal risks to tell important stories from war-torn or impoverished places around the world.  These five artists will share their own personal experiences making their films and how these works impact domestic and international audiences. 

The two other panels will take place on Saturday the 17th in the same location.  The first, at 2:00 p.m., is called How Green Was My Production? with Tony Stone, director of Out of Our Minds, Jesse Ash of GreenerMedia.com, M.J. Magbanua of White Collar, Kerin Ferallo of FX's Damages and Rooftop Films' program director, Dan Nuxoll.  At 4:00 p.m., John Holmstrom of PUNK Magazine will moderate Blog This Panel with Michael K of Dlisted.com, Brandon Harris (Hammer to Nail, FILMMAKER Magazine), Heidi McDonald of Publisher Weekly's The Beat, and Brandon Kim of IFC.com's Indie Ear.  Definitely not the usual suspects at a film fest; praise be for a little originality.

Come out and join the fun and support a hometown fest.  I'll have more updates as Royal Flush approaches and hopefully, if he has a bit of time, a chat with film festival director, Jim Muscarella.

We've Drunk the Kool-Aid: The CIFF Experience

Following hot on the heels of AJ Schnack's laudatory post about the Camden International Film Festival today, I'll weigh into the mix, too.  Thom Powers introduced me to festival founder, Ben Fowlie, and festival producer, Leah Hurley, this past spring when they came to New York to co-host a screening of Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly's crowd-pleasing and deeply moving documentary, The Way We Get By, with Stranger Than Fiction and P.O.V. 

This film had been a work-in-progress screening at last year's CIFF.  Realizing that they had the burgeoning programming chops and the potential to nurture important films such as this one, Fowlie and Hurley were intent on upping the ante a bit and really putting their small, regional nonfiction festival on the map as a circuit destination.  I heard from many local supporters during the fest this year that, indeed, they were well on their way to doing just that; it was a thrilling event for the whole community to have access to a such a powerful slate of films.  Man, the people are friendly there!  (Pictured, still of downtown Camden from the film Peyton Place, shot on location there in 1957.)

For the first time this year, they had juried competitions with cash prizes, starting with a best feature category and an emerging vision category.  Next year, they will also include an Audience Award, a truly meaningful prize to any filmmaker.  Fowlie and Hurley also brought on producer, Dominic Musacchio, to help put on the inaugural Points North forum, bringing a few select industry guests and independent filmmakers together to talk about the current state of things.  It was informal and it was real and it was pertinent.  But more than that, it was fun.  I'm one of those who think the panel presentation format should be put out to pasture.  I have come to loathe the words "paradigm shift" and other phrases of that ilk that have nothing to do with a filmmaker's daily existence.  There was an engaged, smart local audience and we let them into the conversation.

So this year CIFF caught fire and I'm so glad I got to be a part of that.  It's exciting to have another domestic nonfiction fest in such a beautiful spot, run by such talented people.  I call "the princess room" at The Inn at Camden Place.  The ducks and swans are awaiting my return next year.

Blog Surfing

Lest you think I'm ignoring you, my lovely SIM-ites, I'm letting you know that I will be blogging this week on the FILMMAKER Magazine blog site.  I'm covering the Independent Film Week which starts today and goes through Thursday--with a whole day devoted to docs to top it off! 

Please stop by and keep up on the latest and greatest from indie film-dom's elite and erudite crowd.  Also, if you're going to physically be at the market, come find me and say "hi."  I'll be the woman snoring into her laptop.

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 [email protected].  Hope to see you there!

Strength in Numbers: A Little Goes a Long Way

If you value the ability to watch fantastic, hard-to-find films from all over the world on the rooftops of New York City (and beyond); if you value getting to listen to fantastic local bands play live before these cinematic wonders; if you would like to see independent cultural entities that are invaluable to their communities survive through this economic climate and be there waiting for you on the other side; if you would think about donating that twenty-five dollars to that cultural entity instead of spending it on overpriced cocktails at some divey bar, then you'll want to join Rooftop Films' Strength in Numbers campaign--because they need you. 

By becoming one of the 1,000 donors by September 1st, you can help Rooftop soldier through.  They are already more than halfway there since 527 people have joined the campaign thus far.  With just under a month remaining, think about adding your name to the list of people who have shown support for Rooftop's mission and work.  Or just send it to me, I'll take my fifty percent commission, and pass on the rest.  Kidding.

Rooftop is a non-profit org which means that they rely on their constituency's support to operate.  If you've attended just one screening and all the attendant free wine and beer that comes with that, ahem, that means you.  The campaign is not about the dollar amount, but about the numbers of people who join, so even if it's five bucks, pay it forward.  And then ask five or ten of your friends to do the same.

Rooftop is in the midst of their 13th season staging more than 40 nights of incredible films in wonderful outdoor locations whilst having to shill like crazy in the middle of putting all this on and cutting some vital expenses.  Have you seen how skinny Mark Rosenberg is getting?!

In the spirit of community, which is one of the rare things getting all of us through at this time, think about helping out where you can and assist them in reaching their goal of 1,000 donors by September 1.  You can also contact Development Director, Lauren Faria, at [email protected] to find out about other ways to support Rooftop Films. 

To make your tax-deductible donation, you can mail a check to 232 3rd Street, #D101, Brooklyn, New York, 11215; or you can make a credit card donation online via PayPal by visiting the site and clicking on the DONATE button.