All Posts Tagged With: "anthology film archives"

Flaherty NYC

September 25th, 2008 • Agnes Varnum • Comments Off • Related Posts • Tags

If you haven’t been to a Flaherty Seminar and you are a doc lover, you are missing out on a truly unique event that is just for you. It takes place for a week in June and while in some ways, it has a rarefied academic feel, the program is also very much at the core of discussions on the genre as well as the subjects the films explore. I’ve never been to any other film program that is as intelligent. With that seriousness said, it’s fantastic that the will now be screening monthly in at . It’s great news for those who can’t or are intimidated by the June week-long program. From their release:

The series premiere will feature the New York City debut of films by Oliver Husain, a German-Indian artist currently based in Toronto, who uses visual media to explore ideas of geography, migration, and globalization. His award-winning short films range from documentary to live-action composite to Bollywood dance sequences to most anything you can and can’t imagine. He carefully crafts worlds that are somewhat familiar to the viewer, but are also vaguely bizarre, visually captivating, and fantastically delightful. This inaugural program perfectly typifies the ’s history of celebrating independent and groundbreaking media by showcasing the unique and undiscovered films of Oliver Husain.

The event is on October 13 @ 7:30 PM. Tickets here. Enjoy! I wish I could be there.

Bound to Lose, Dec. 7 in NYC

December 2nd, 2007 • Agnes Varnum • Comments Off • Related Posts • Tags

rounders2.jpgA critic who appears in Bound to Lose, opening December 7 at Anthology Film Archives in , notes that The Holy Modal Rounders have never really achieved critical or financial success from playing music, a hobby (?) they have been pursuing for over 40 years – in fits and starts, kind of like an on-again-off-again relationship. So why, one might ask, should I watch a film about them? What I found so intriguing is that we get a kind of longitudinal view of Peter Stampfel’s and Steve Weber’s lives over many years. What is the sum of a life? How does it look when you are many years along and take a look backwards? Have you made the right choices? Do you have regrets?

Like most of us, they are flawed human beings. They have failed relationships, they’ve done a lot of drugs, they’ve tried to make it as musicians, they’ve had day jobs, they’ve known famous people and are known themselves. Life is not only about success but also about failure, and these guys have seen a lot of that but they keep on keepin’ on. They recognize that it doesn’t really matter what others think of you; that you have to do what makes your own heart full even if it doesn’t jive with the expectations of others.

I don’t think I’m giving up too much about this film because each person that watches it will filter the of the film through their own lens. Filmmakers Paul Lovelace and Sam Wainwright Douglas followed Peter and Steve for quite a while, and speak to many who have known them over the years. This 3-dimensional view of these men through these many vantage points, plus their own appearances, will give you a lot of fodder for thought. The music? Well, you’ll dig or hate it, but in terms of the evolution of folk, psychedelica and punk, their contribution is visible and probably more important than they get credit for.

The New York screenings will be presented with a host of live music and other rare, related short films. It looks like it’s going to be a fantastic way to connect with this scene of old-time New York folks. If you loved A Mighty Wind, you’ll need to be a part of this. Get the full schedule>>

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The good, bad and ugly

February 19th, 2007 • Agnes Varnum • Comments Off • Related Posts • Tags

I am a bit late in posting about it, but I had the chance to see Tara Wray’s doc at ’ New Filmmakers Series a couple of weeks back and was really moved by her effort.

The story revolves around Tara’s relationship with her mother and their reunion in her Kansas hometown after many years apart. Their relationship is one fraught with high expectations on both sides, and as is usually the case with mothers and daughters, their expectations are rarely met.

Her mother is a woman who lives in a world all her own, and it is an alternate reality to the one that Tara and probably the majority of viewers live in. To Evie Wray, Tara and those of us like her, are wound too tightly. We bind ourselves with, dare I say, expectations, whereas Evie prefers to take life as it comes, without an eye toward the future or the past. She speaks as though she were in a perpetual dream, but when I listened closely to her and Tara trying to communicate, it was so obvious that they are living on different planes. Evie wants Tara to accept her as she is and Tara needs for her mother to come down to the earthly plane once in a while to check in, to let her know that she is safe and happy. Tara’s personality requires roots while her mother has only wings.