Third Ward, TX a documentary about art, life and real estate Directed by Andrew Garrison Produced by Nancy Bless & Noland Walker Friday, Feb 1, 6:30pm @ Center for Architecture 536 LaGuardia Place, NYC RSVP: www.aiany.com/calendar FREE
Project Row Houses is the unlikely home of cutting-edge art and visionary thinking about inner-city renewal. Third Ward, TX introduces artists and neighbors who are breathing new life into their historically black community in Houston. But art, life and real estate collide when deep-pocketed developers arrive. Project Row Houses' unexpected response offers new, creative solutions.
In 2007, Rooftop Films was proud to screen Third Ward, TX as part of our INDUSTRIANCE series -- films about the changing landscape in industry, architecture, agriculture, and about the way individual lives are affected by these shifts. This film is everything we're looking to say in that series: it's a great story, told with charm and dexterity, and really has universal appeal, addressing are issues facing every city in America, including Brooklyn. Our country needs more innovative ideas like Project Row Houses. A first step is for people to see Third Ward, TX, so if you missed it on the roof, go check it out this week.
We at Rooftop Films are proud to be co-presenting this film because we certainly consider ourselves descendents of Amos Vogel's Cinema 16. I think one of the great legacies of Vogel's work was the way he and his compatriots placed a great social and moral significance on independent and experimental cinema. They recognized the power of motion pictures, and used film to challenge people's aesthetics, their values, their ways of thinking. This is something that we've always tried to do at Rooftop as well. And much the way that Cinema 16 was famous for showing varied programs short films, at Rooftop we also like to mix genres, styles and voices, programming around a central theme to encourage people to see new and unexpected films.
I know that Vogel wrote about the importance of the total immersion in the theater-going experience, so I hope he would approve of Rooftop's outdoor model. I think the key to Rooftop's success is that we get people to engage with cinema beyond the theater. They are watching films relevant to the very communities they are sitting in, which we hope gets them to engage with the issues and ideas presented in the film. I'm eager to ask Amos if he has any thoughts about Rooftop.
The bottom line is that Cinema 16, Rooftop Films and Stranger Than Fiction are all vital to the cultural dialogue in New York because we get people to come out to see challenging films they otherwise wouldn't see. So it's a thrill for us to all be working together on this presentation, and we hope you all come out and enjoy Paul Cronin's documentary "Film as a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel and Cinema 16."
In 1974, Philippe Petit committed one of the world's greatest "art crimes": walking across a tightrope strung between the then unfinished World Trade Center towers. It's a gorgeously ephemeral stunt. Walking some 1,200 feet above the street, Petit was barely visible, and might not have been noticed if not for his own assistants looking up (and shouting with joy). And the very nature of the stunt is marvelous for it's delicacy and subtlety--walking gently on a rope--magnified by the extreme height and the impending iconic status of the buildings. When he came down, arrested by police officers who recognized the wondrous singularity of what they had just seen, he was asked repeatedly: Why? "It's such an American question," Petit says. "I have done something extraordinarily beautiful. There is no why."
[All quotations are paraphrases to the best of my memory and notes.]
James Marsh's inspiring documentary "Man On Wire" tells Petit's story from his early days as an aspiring performer of circus arts, through his wire walks between the towers of Notre Dame and across the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and up through the lengthy planning and execution of his famous WTC walk. There is marvelous footage and photos from the early walks, but only still photos exist of the walk in NYC (I've heard contradicting reports about the cameraman's hands being too tired from hauling the wire, and about the cameraman having to flee arrest before being able to film.) Yet in spite of this lack of footage, the still photos are truly gorgeous, and lend a mythical quality to the event. The film plays out with marvelous tension and drama, not unlike a bank robbery. In part the drama comes from the complexity of the operation: the practice, the trial runs, the planning, the costumes, the sneaking around guards with hundreds of pounds of equipment. With a tight team working stealthily, overnight, on a deadline, recounting the fascinating details of the story is mesmerizing.
But moreover the drama comes from the glorious sense of destiny Petit was aiming to fulfill. He tells us, in the film, that from the time he was a teenager, when he first saw an architect's rendering of the towers, he knew he had to walk between them, to do something impossible and beautiful, something that was against the law, but not wicked or mean. Petit was so taken with that initial photo of the towers that he ducked out of a dentist's appointment, "And so I still had a tooth ache, but what is a little pain compared to finally having my dream? Only the towers weren't built, so the object of my dream did not even exist."
He had to wait years for the opportunity to fulfill his dream, and Petit's passion and energy are so palpable that, as I said, the tension is enthralling as we hear him and his team recount the tale. He knew the walk was tremendously dangerous, but was thrilled and calmed by the idea that he might "die in the exercise of one's passion."
Petit was just as charming and inspiring in real life, at the Q & A following the film's premiere. When asked how he financed his stunt, he said, "I'm sorry, I don't know what money is. And anyway, this was illegal; it doesn't cost anything to rob a bank." Also in the Q & A, he told us that he knew that his mission would be a success when he came to America and was stopped twice at customs. The first time, he had a suitcase full wire-walking equipment, but also items for magic tricks. The customs agent pulled Petit aside to search his bag, and Philippe was worried that he would get in trouble. But, in front of a long line of impatient people waiting for their flight, the customs agent pulled out the deck of cards, and asked Philippe to choose one. That the agent was trying his hand at magic instead of enforcing security made Philippe fall in love with America. Then, on his second trip, when he had all his equipment for the wirewalk, the customs agent asked him what he was going to do with all this stuff. Not knowing what to say, Petit tried honesty: "'I'm going to walk between the towers of the World Trade Center,' I told him. And he laughed so hard and said, 'Yeah, right, good luck," and let me through."
Petit turned more serious when asked about how the events of September 11th affected him. "The towers were more than my friends, they were inside of me. I fell in love with them when they were born, when they came of age I married them. So when they fell, it felt like a part of me had died. Of course, it doesn't sound right to say that when in fact so many people died that day. But I feel proud to have made that walk, and to have this film, so that the towers and all the people can be remembered with sadness, but also with joy and beauty and laughter."
"Man on Wire" has indeed created exactly that, a poetic memorial and a stirring legend, and I hope that we can bring this film, fittingly, to the Rooftop.
I think that Dan's going to write a post as well, but "Sugar" is such a rich film there's plenty to write about, and I'm eager to share my delight with this film. What I love about Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's films is that they find ways to externalize internal struggles. Unlike most films, in which resilient characters battle outside forces, in their wonderful new film "Sugar" the drama is all about the lead character's internal fear, or even cowardice. It's rare in films to see characters succumb to uncertainty: the feeling is subtle, but in this film the writing and acting render it as potent and powerful as any grand emotion you'll ever see in narrative filmmaking.
The film tracks about a year in the life of a professional baseball prospect (nicknamed "Sugar," and played by Algenis Perez Soto, a non-professional actor plucked from the ballfields of his native Dominican Republic), and as a baseball fan and player myself, I was really eager to check this film out. But "Sugar" is much more than a baseball movie: it is an immigrant tale, a coming-of-age story, and an examination of to what extent we all have the courage to truly follow our dreams.
As a young prospect, Sugar faces incredibly long odds of actually making the major leagues. But the game is not the hard part--leave that to Hollywood sports melodramas. Acclimating to life away from home is the real challenge, sent off as he is to the strange foreign land of Bridgetown "Eye-A," as Sugar pronounces 'IA' (Iowa) in the first indication of the daunting (and often humorous) language barrier facing Sugar.
Again, the struggles are always fascinatingly internal as Sugar has to discern friends from enemies with only scraps of language available to him. There's the compassionate waitress who helps him order new food, and the thugs in the club who attack him for unknown reasons. There's the concerned foster family, who only confuse things further with their sweet but futile attempts at Spanish ('soap' comes across as 'sopa,' the Spanish word for 'soup.') But most importantly there's the kind-hearted manager, who tries to relate to downtrodden Sugar, but can't get through the linguistic differences. When the ballplayer finally hears some words he understands, "work hard," he lashes back that he does work hard, and you can just see the reputation of another "hard-to-coach Latino ballplayer" growing.
In the end, Sugar can't take the pressure. He leaves the team and heads to the Bronx, looking for low-pressure work as a dishwasher and a carpenter. Will he give professional baseball another try eventually? Will he regret not playing out the string? Perhaps. The stakes in this film are not artificially high--it's not the World Series he's missing; when he flees to New York, he's not facing life or death drama. The brilliance of the film is the simple and thereby universal struggle that is rendered in intimate detail. Sugar's debatable cowardice is an act that hit me at the core of my own self-confidence: do I have the courage to give myself completely to my dream? Would it be okay if I didn't? "Sugar" is an emotionally complex and astonishingly touching portrait of a young man playing out these same questions.
Here at Rooftop, we're hoping we'll get a chance to take this wonderful film to the ball fields of New York and provide a powerful and unique viewing experience where so many baseball dreams have been born, and where so many have faded into the dirt.
There is no film I'm more pleased and proud to see here at Sundance than "Trouble the Water," directed by Rooftop's neighbors and friends Carl Deal and Tia Lessin. Dan and I first saw a rough cut of this film about a year ago and the material was so powerful and the story so compelling we would've shown it right then. But after a year of hard work editing, the film has truly become a masterpiece.
Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott (pictured above) had just gotten a video camera a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina, and "Trouble the Water" includes their astonishing footage documenting the experience in their neighborhood, New Orleans' 9th Ward. The incredible power of the film comes directly from Kim and Scott's strength, insight, charm, and from the potent symbolism of their story, representing the story of so many people in America today--those whose lives were ruined (or lost) to Katrina, and those across the country who are being left behind by an uncaring government.
Kim and Scott are somewhat cavalier about the impending storm, and in a subtle but striking moment, we hear that Kim is a drug dealer, and that she's raising prices because she expects a shortage soon. At the same time, though, we see the early signs that Kim is a remarkably thoughtful and caring person. As she wakes her uncle Nat from a drunken stupor and tries to send him home to safety, she also turns to some nearby kids and tries to convince them not to be like Nat.
Kim's narration of these sections is both biting and poetic. "If I had wheels [a car] I'd be gone, too," Kim says to some neighbors, a direct articulation of a point later made by critics of the government's initial failure to help evacuate the city. When the rains come, and the water begins to rise, she points the camera at the wind-lashed streets while her off-camera monologue mixes prayers and bravado, fear, resignation and hope.
The flooding forces Kim and Scott into their attic, along with neighbors and children they rescue into their taller house. In an absolutely heartbreaking sequence, we see the family trapped by the water, and hear desperate 9-1-1 callers being told, point blank, that no rescue teams are coming until the flooding recedes, leaving thousands to die. But when the police and the coast guard can't or won't help, locals do: Kim and Scott's neighbor, a rival dealer named Larry Simms, swims from house to house with a large punching bag, floating women and children to safety.
Larry's astounding heroism is contrasted, later, with the actions of the men at the local Navy base. The gated base was on the highest ground in the neighborhood, was running emergency generators for power, and, because of government cutbacks, had some 500 empty apartments. But when Scott and others approached the base, they were greeted with automatic weapons, and told to leave. "What good is it to have a military if they can't serve us," Scott says ruefully. Yet in spite of this harsh treatment, Scott thanks the individual National Guardsmen he encounters who have come to help rebuild New Orleans after the storm. "I hope you don't have to go back to Iraq," Scott's friend says, "Because that ain't our war. Our war is here."
The film follows Kim and Scott for over a year as they try to rebuild their lives, and, quite literally, their city. The battle FEMA for their pitifully small relief assistance checks, struggle to start a new life in a new city, and are still looked-down upon by the very authorities meant to serve them. Rooftop alum PJ Raval shot the post-hurricane footage, and he has done a brilliant job showing the destruction of the city without fetishizing the ruins, as so many films do. His intelligent cinematography highlights the heartfelt compassion the filmmakers feel for their subjects, creating a perfect balance between Kim's footage and the "professional" footage shot later, drawing the audience into the story.
There are moments of poignant heroism and tragedy throughout, and the climax of the film is the final reveal of Kim's talents and spirit: a hip-hop song about her life that she belts out directly at the camera. She has a dynamic gift for rhythm and rhyme, and the insightful and intimate lyrics that lay her emotions bare are extraordinary. I've seen this film four times, and I still don't think I've ever been able to take a breath when Kim performs. It may be the most magnificent piece of music I've ever seen in a film.
The raw footage which the filmmakers were given to work with is incredibly compelling, but what really makes "Trouble the Water" such a significant movie is the way Deal, Lessin and editor T. Woody Richman have been able to cull from the material parallels and contradictions--the heroism and ingenuity of supposedly "bad" people; the cowardice and incompetence of those supposed to protect us--which tell a grand socio-political story through a tragic personal narrative. I've seen quite a few excellent Katrina documentaries and narratives, but none so perfectly encapsulates the human tragedy in New Orleans and across the country. I hope everyone in America can see this film. Maybe Rooftop can start by screening it on the White House lawn.
I almost never agree with the Academy Awards (hey, if I did, what would be the point of Rooftop Films anyway?), but I'm certainly thrilled that three films that played at Rooftop in 2007 have been nominated for awards. The films are "Freeheld" (directed by Cynthia Wade), "Salim Baba" (directed by Tim Sternberg and Francisco Bello), and "Sari's Mother" (directed by James Longley).
I was on the Short Film Jury at Sundance in 2007, and we awarded "Freeheld" a "Special Jury Prize," so I've been a big supporter of this film for a while. The documentary covers the inspiring tale of New Jersey Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester, who is dying of cancer, and her battle to win the right to pass her pension on to her domestic partner. We showed the film at our Romance program on June 22, 2007, a daring programming choice that greatly pleased the film's director, who was glad to see the film reach a wide audience who might not otherwise go to see such a tragic story.
"Salim Baba" is a stunningly beautiful film about a man in India who operates a home made "Cinema Cart," a box on wheels which houses a modified 35mm projector and room for three kids to duck their heads under a curtain to see a two-foot wide image. He uses found and appropriated objects, and we screened the film July 26th on the roof of the Westbeth Artists Community, in conjunction with the Friends of the High Line, in a program about people who find meaning and value in the pieces and places that others have left behind.
"Sari's Mother" is directed by the Academy-Award nominated director of "Iraq in Fragments," and it tells the story of a mother in Iraq who tries to find medical care for her 10-year-old son Sari. He contracted AIDS during a blood transfusion and is tormented by pain and fatigue. The labyrinth of Iraqi health care is unfathomable, and Sari's mother gets sent around in circles. The war and the terror make it hard to determine who she can and cannot trust. But Sari's mother is convinced that her son deserves the best possible care, so she persists. Screened in our July 20th program "The Way We Get By" --deeply philosophical, desperately inspiring short films about the illogical lives we lead--that Sari's mother commits so much of her soul to his care represents the antithesis of logic, and the definition of love.
Those films make up three of the four nominees for the award for Best Documentary Short, so Rooftop has a 75% chance of having an alum take home an Oscar this year. Good luck to all of them!
"Made in America" is a radical film about the history of African-Americans in the infamous neighborhood of South Central, Los Angeles. The film outlines the early migrations of former slaves to Los Angeles, and discusses the post-WWII boom of skilled industrial careers which brought large numbers of blacks to LA for the first time. But by the mid-1960s, industry was leaving the city, and African-Americans were losing their jobs. Young men, with little hopes of finding beneficial careers, and even barred from the Boy Scouts, began to form street gangs, looking for social and physical support. These were fighting gangs, but of a somewhat more tame nature than we know now: "You used to make an appointment for an ass-whupping," says one former gang member. "I'd beat your hairline back and knock your sideburns off."
[All quotations are paraphrased to the best of my abilities in dark-theater note-taking and memorization.]
Unwilling to accept the implicit racism and segregation in the city which their ancestors had put up with in the South, in 1967 thousands of angry blacks finally fought back in the infamous Watts riots. In the years since, many people have disparaged the riots for the looting which occurred within black neighborhoods. But one man who participated in the riots defiantly pointed out, "The looting didn't undermine anything, because we're talking about desperate people here." Hemmed in by thousands of national guardsmen during the riots, and by the racist police during the rest of their lives, given the generations of brutal oppression and total lack of economic salvation, when you hear the people tell their stories in this film, you can understand why they might loot anything from food for their children to a new color TV.
The years following the riots showed an upswing of social and political activism and a decrease in gang activity. But by the end of the 1970s, with the government reneging on promises to help and little having been accomplished, white LA hemmed South Central in even more, allowing an influx of drugs and crime. The main element of the government's "War on Drugs" and "War on Crime" is the constant harassment of African-Americans--essentially waging a war on blacks. South Central has dived deeper into despair than ever before. In the last 30 years, brutal gangs have ruled the streets. In the last 10 years alone, there have been 15,000 gang-related deaths in Los Angeles, more than in the entire history of the civil war in Northern Ireland.
Most of the people in South Central are, of course, desperate to stop the violence. Social groups are springing up--without much support from outside the community--which work to convince young black men not to join gangs, and to try to find alternatives for them, from after-school activities, to lasting careers. But without major changes to the socio-economic system in Los Angeles, the cycle is bound to renew itself.
I said that this is a radical film, and it is. But the filmmaking is not what's radical here. The fast editing and effects, the constant use of music, may in fact put many people off. And frankly, the history being told is also not radical territory: many movies, books, articles have discussed the treatment of African-Americans which has lead to such widespread alienation, depression, rage, and violence. Other truly excellent films here at Sundance, even, such as "The Order of Myths," deal in some part with these issues.
No, what is radical here is who is telling this story, and how they are saying it. The power and significance of hearing this story from the mouths of angry black men cannot be discounted. When 1 in 4 African-American males is expected to go to jail at some point in their lives, a film like this cannot be dismissed just because it seems overly flashy, or because we think we've heard it before. "What right have you got," says one former gang member in the film, speaking of the daily police stops he faced, "to ask me where I'm going, what I'm doing? It's none of your damn business. But every day I'm fed this spoonful of hatred. It's my daily diet. And I'm gonna erupt. The question is when."
If we simply say to ourselves that we've heard about the problem--and don't acknowledge the deep-seated, widespread, and justified anger represented in " Made in America"--that eruption will come again soon.
Rooftop showed Chris Waitt's humorous narrative short "Dupe" a couple years ago, so I was very eager to check out his debut feature. The slick short starred Chris as an extremely lazy hipster who orders off the internet a cloning machine (that looks like an crappy old photocopier) so he can send his dupes off to work for him. (We actually showed that film in a program, about labor and industry; indicative of Rooftop's attempt to mix serious and silly films in themed programs.)
"A Complete History of My Sexual Failures" is a hysterical and inventive personal documentary which reveals that Chris is every bit the extremely lazy hipster he appeared to be in "Dupe." After realizing that he'd been dumped by every woman he'd ever dated, Chris decides to try to make a film of self-discovery: why do ladies drop him as easily as he drops his dirty clothes on the floor?
The first handful of exes he contacts dismiss him out of hand, with Chris demonstrating his deadpan ability to get rejected and to say the wrong thing. When interviewing a young lady on the street, he asks her how long her boyfriend's penis is. Her reply: a shy smiling "Uhh, me mum's right there." It's only when Chris' mum gets out some old love/hate letters sent to her son (one of which is addressed "Dear Shit-Fuck), and negotiates interviews on his behalf, that he is able to even really communicate with any other woman.
And that's when we get to see that his awkwardness and social irresponsibility isn't just limited to pestering women on the street; his failures run far deeper. From the interviews, a pattern emerges: he's uncaring, constantly late, a liar, and in one instance even tried to kiss his girlfriend's mother. One woman is so ashamed of having dated him, she only agrees to be interviewed behind a curtain, typing her humiliatingly harsh answers into a computerized voice machine. In the Q & A following the screening, Chris pointed out that he'd really allowed these women to "discover their inner anger."
One former fling who is a self-described sex addict reminds Chris that he was unable to perform in bed, he is forced to admit (in front of a wide-eyed female hotel clerk) that he's impotent. The film then really goes wild, with Chris seeking medical help, getting advice from drunks on the street, and visiting a dominatrix who literally whips his balls, in full view of the camera, in an uproariously funny sequence which is sure to vindicate many of his former lovers. Finally, Chris OD's on Viagra (and beer), and runs around the streets asking women to fuck him. Call it his own "Super Size Me" moment.
The film is certainly part of the growing trend of "stunt" documentaries, with these numerous set pieces that wouldn't be happening if not for the camera. One has to wonder at points if Chris isn't hamming up his own lack of awareness, his own ignorance of basic human relationships. But I think Chris and these women are being pretty earnest. The fact is, Chris is a charming, attractive, creative, hip guy: women really want to love him. But he's also solipsistic and painfully uncaring, and so he disappoints his girlfriends badly. If he was just a dumb schmuck, none of these women would care one way or the other. But the fact that he does have so much potential makes the sting of his failures all the more poignant, and makes the film all the more compelling.
Chris does learn some lessons from the process. For one, he heals his relationship with his longest-running girlfriend, and now that she's had a baby, Chris seems to gain more respect for her, and seems to actually acquire some sense of responsibility. Even more amazingly, Chris ends up in a long-term relationship with one of the women he accosted during his little blue pill freak-out. At the Q & A, she said that remarkably she hadn't seen the film until now (a sign of both his insecurity and his callousness, it would seem), but though she was quite shocked by the film, she claims he's been a much better boyfriend.
When asked if there was anything that was too embarrassing to put in the film, Chris said that it was all damn embarrassing, "but I had gotten some funding, and there comes a point when people have put all this time and effort into the thing, and I couldn't go back. I wondered when it would ever end, because after all, it's my life. And believe me, it wasn't good news for me when the film got into Sundance. I was like, 'Oh no, now even more people are going to know what a fuck-up I am."
That he is, but a charming and delightful one, who has made a daring, insightful and hilarious film, one which really fits with Rooftop's ethos of showing personal documentaries, even "home movies."
Jay and Mark Duplass' "Baghead" is a miraculous film that succeeds in two genres for one simple reason: the characters are amazing. Four struggling actors--two guys and two girls--head off to a cabin in the woods to write a screenplay in the hopes that it will launch their careers. But flirtations, lust, jealousy, competitiveness and paper bags all intercede in their plans.
This simple set up is all the Duplass brothers, and their four talented improvising actors, need to launch a rich and honest, emotionally intricate film that is one of the most exciting pieces of cinema I've seen in a long time. To explain exactly why it's so stunning would sort of ruin it, but suffice it to say that the Mark and Jay have proven that by creating characters who are real but surprising, their remarkable talents can be used successfully to build any style of film they choose.
Though it's shot in a documentary style, that's never an excuse for lazy filmmaking, instead using the realism as a base to forge evocative genre-work in sections that are poetic and quiet, sequences which mix shock and comedy, and intercut scenes which layer the intricate drama. Use of silence at three key moments--twice accompanied by a guitar score reminiscent of Will Oldham's work for Kelly Reichardt's "Ode," and once when the characters sit around in stunned quiet--highlight the Duplass brothers' deft cinematic skills, as the three scenes parallel each other, but each have distinct emotions.
So, without getting more into the plot and the styles, I'll just say that this film should give any filmgoer all that they would want out of a movie: it's hilarious, touching, lyrical, disquieting. Any one aspect of the film would be sufficient to carry it, and that they've struck such a brilliant and delicate balance of emotions makes "Baghead" a delight to watch. I'm sorry I can't explain it better, but see the movie, email me, and we'll talk about it for hours. Or, even better, I sincerely hope we can get a chance to screen it at Rooftop this summer.
Katrina Browne can trace her family's history back to the early American colonial days . . . back when they ran one of the largest slave trade operations in the world. What do you do with knowledge like that? It's been at least 140 years since anyone in your family owned or traded other human beings--it's not your fault. Many people in Browne's position ignore that part of their heritage (check out Margaret Brown's fascinating "Order of Myths" to see some similar denial in action), or make excuses for it. But Browne decided to contact 200 of her known relatives, and invite them on an exploration of their family's past. 9 agreed to come, and the documentary "Traces of the Trade" is one of the many results.
The family members travel from Rhode Island (where the family was based) to Ghana (where they purchased slaves) to Cuba (where they owned plantations, worked by slaves, which fueled the cycle). One might wonder what these (mostly) privileged white people, in the 21st Century, would gain from such a trip--if it would merely end up as a guilt-assuaging tour of near-forgotten horrors. But for me, the film faces down complex moral turmoil and emotional anguish, and it's all split open on the family's first day in Ghana, where they see that these atrocities are not nearly as forgotten in Africa, and by African-Americans, as they may seem in to white Americans.
One relative says, [to paraphrase] "I had always excused my ancestors, saying that they were only a product of their times, that trading slaves was just the way of the world. But after being in one of the slave prisons, where hundreds of people were held in cramped, dark cells before being shipped across the Middle Passage, now I know that's bullshit. What they were doing was evil, and they had to know it was evil, and they did it anyway. I wouldn't have thought that if I hadn't come here."
That crucial admission, and the knowledge that he could only have reached that revelation by confronting the past directly, is the moral crux of the film. By making that admission he opens up the possibility of his own complicity, acknowledging that there are aspects of this horrible past which he may be suppressing, thereby continuing the legacy of denial, ignorance, racism. And so the 9 press on, opening themselves up to learn and understand and attempt to do the right thing. They realize that even though slavery was abolished a century and a half ago, the problems of racial inequality persist, largely because the root causes have never been fully acknowledged. In the end, they each find ways to try to make amends, and Browne and a few others begin to advocate for large-scale reparations, with the funds earmarked for social programs that might help end the systems of racism and inequality.
It could be easy to dismiss this family's journey as a limited example, relevant only to them and other direct descendents of slave-owners. But such a dismissal would avoid the important point that Browne's film makes: morality cannot be complacent. We all have beliefs--we're against the wars in the Middle East, we fear for the environment, we're outraged by the myriad inequalities in our society, for example--but are we doing enough? If we rationalize away our inactivity, our morals will crumble and fail. At a certain point, we have to examine at our excuses and simply say, "That's bullshit." It's time to do something.
Towards the middle of The Linguists, Seth Kramer, Daniel Miller and Jeremy Newberger's documentary about two adventurous, globe trotting academics, the subjects wander into a small village deep in the heart of India and find that they have stumbled upon a huge celebration of some sort--apparently a wedding. The entire village is singing, chanting and celebrating with hundreds of women locking arms together and swaying about in unison as the men dance joyously around them. The villagers spot the academics and the film crew and immediately invite them all into the center of the celebration. The two professors gladly join in and the bemused villagers embrace their visitors, dancing with them for hours and bringing them drinks and food. Linguist David Harrison says later, "you should get out and dance with the people. That is the easiest way to learn a language quickly."
Scenes such as these make The Linguists an easy film to enjoy. The two travellers featured in the film (Harrison and his partner Gregory Anderson) cheerfully venture from one remote location on the planet to another in a sometimes frenzied attempt to document the worlds most endangered languages before they disappear forever. They estimate that the world is losing languages at the shocking rate of one every couple of weeks, and it is obvious that the rapid modernization of some of the larger third-world and developing nations is causing this rate to accelerate exponentially. In villages and small towns in Siberia, Bolivia and India, indigenous populations are succumbing to political and economic pressures and abandoning their traditional customs and languages in order to fit in with society at large and overcome isolation and disenfranchisement.
The doc was shot over the course of more than five years and culled from hundreds upon hundreds of hours of footage shot on five continents. There are at least a half dozen fantastically bizarre moments in the film, including a live guinea pig sacrifice, and as dreary as some of the communities they visit may be, the film maintains a light touch and a buoyant sense of adventure, even as the protagonists squirm their way out of a series of near-disasters.
Focusing more on the travels and ideas of the two main subjects, The Linguists presents a pleasantly objective look at the issues it addresses. Anderson and Harrison have a youthful energy about them, and though they clearly lament the accelerating rate of language loss, they just as certainly take great pleasure in their adventures and exploits. Even when things go wrong, you can tell they are excited to have overcome such strange and varied obstacles (at least after the fact), and there is a sparkle in their eyes as they recount their problems with gift giving in India or the various stomach ailments that befall them in South America.
My only real complaint with the film--and I would barely classify it as a complaint--is that the film fails to shed very much light on the real motivations of the two linguists. In the Q and A following the film the two of them were asked why they took such an interest in languages from such a young age, but the two both responded that they had no idea why they were so obsessed with exotic tongues and their preservation. Watching them travel through warlord-controlled areas to track down the last remaining speakers of ancient languages, it is easy to tell that they embark on these quests more for the sake of adventure than to correct some wrong in the world. I, for one, would have liked for the film to have addressed this element of their personalities more fully. But the film played quite well to a sold out audience, and as the clock crept past 1:15 AM audience members were still posing multi-part questions to the subjects and directors. TheLinguists is a fun and fascinating journey, and it was clear that everyone at the late-night screening was appreciative for the opportunity to tag along.
This is a blog so I can be personal, right? Ok. When I was 17 years old, I bicycled across America. From Sandy Hook, NJ to Florence, OR. I carried all my own gear--clothes, tent, food. Camped out wherever. I had a lot of minor adventures--fell asleep under a bridge on train tracks in Missouri during a lightening storm; drank water from a hose on the lawn of a nuclear power plant after a 112 mile day through the Idaho desert; got hit by a truck on purpose by two jackasses cursing me in West Virginia. But mostly it was a trip of minor observations, ephemeral feelings, and a grand struggle against boredom and exhaustion.
The goal was always the Pacific Ocean, but that final ride to the shore was crushingly anticlimactic. There was no triumphant feeling of accomplishment. No epiphany, or relief, or ecstasy. I was worn down, tired, ready to go home, and yet stasis felt ponderous. Staying in the same place for two nights for the first time in 58 days, I literally felt heavy, and depressed. It was only months later, maybe even years later, that I started to sense and understand the journey. There's still never been any pat lesson I learned, but on the whole I can now feel, in my soul (if I can use that word), a sense who I was on that trip, across these specific lands.
Lee Kazimir's "More Shoes" is a film with a similar feeling. Kazimir was stuck in a dead end job when he heard Werner Herzog proclaim that the best way to become a better filmmaker is to walk 5,000 km alone, for example from Madrid to Kiev. And so that's what Kazimir did.
This film is lyrical, hypnotic, and deeply introspective. Although Kazimir also has a singular destination, the film blissfully lacks a linear direction: a car on a highway has a linear direction; a man on a journey like this travels in all directions at once. Kazimir meets many people, hears some fascinating stories, and has mini-adventures, but to describe any of them would limit the scope of the film. In the end the most remarkably thing about this film is the feeling of being in motion again. It's the most extraordinary feeling in the world.
I got into Park City at about 12:30 in the morning today (Saturday) and was immediately informed that Nacho Vigalondo (Time Crimes) and Magnolia were having a Karaoke party and that I should head over there ASAP. It certainly did not disappoint, as Nacho is as entertaining with a Karaoke mic in his hand as he is in front of and behind the camera, and by 1:05 I was chatting with Trevor Groth, The Zellner Bros., Joanna Arong, the Magnolia guys, Tim League from the Amazing Alamo Drafthouse theaters in Austin, and many others. Everyone complains about Sundance for one reason or another, but there aren't too many other places that you can pull into after midnight and be chatting with such an a good bunch of indie-film folks within 40 minutes of being drpped off at your condo.
On a somewhat non-Park City note, Filmmaker Magazine's annual 25 New Faces of Independent Filmarticle is out and it is packed with Rooftop Films alums, including Moon Molson (Pop Foul), Jennifer Venditti (Billy the Kid), Andy Blubaugh (Scaredycat), Calvin Reeder (Little Farm), Felipe Barbosa (Salt Kiss), and, pictured above, Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky (God Provides, Fish Kill Flea). Congratulations to all who made the list--even if 18 of you haven't screened a film with us yet. Maybe some day...
Sunday, January 20, 6:30 PM Monday, January 21, 6:30PM Sundance New Frontier on Main 333 Main St. (Lower Level) Animation with live music by Califone FREE
Brent Green is the closest thing I've got to a religion. His animations, performed with live scores, with Brent shrieking out the stories, scare the hell out of me, and fill me with hope. Brent's performances play out like he's a singing preacher who not only met god, they built a house together, and had some creative differences along the way. They worked their asses off, scavenging scraps of wood from Santa's sleigh, rigging up wires and pulleys to illuminate the moon, debating the merits and availability of gravity. Some birds died, some firetrucks were misplaced, some birds were resuscitated (briefly), the bedroom was three feet lower than the living room, but in the end they came to an agreement: "Wondrous things happen every day, and to sleep through even one of them would cripple you for life."
I put that last bit in quotes, but all of that wondrous imagery is directly from Brent's films.
Personally, I know Brent has a complicated and fascinating relationship with religion and the supernatural, and I'm a flat out atheist, but I bring it up because Brent really does inspire me in a way that seems to me to represent the essence and power of religion: he points out how scary and terrible and horrifying life and death are, and then he reminds you to see the beauty in that. The beauty and passion in his work are mesmerizing and awe-inspiring. You just have to see it to believe.
(P.S. Dear Sundance, please continue and expand the New Frontier section of the festival. It's great, and will only get better, under the brilliant curatorial guidance of Mike Plante and John Cooper. Next year, Brent should be playing the Eccles.)
Saw a great program at Slamdance today. "City of Cranes," directed by Eva Weber, is exactly the type of film I would hope for in a documentary about construction crane operators: the images are dazzling without being showy, the interviews are lovely without being precious. It tells you things you never thought about cranes, and offers curious insights into the minds of these guys--and the crane operator world is almost exclusively male; the filmmakers were unable to get an interview with the one female operator they found--people who spend countless hours alone in a little box perched hundreds of feet in the air, moving massive objects in what is potentially a very dangerous (and therefore stressful) job. There's a zen-like quality to some operator's approaches, but they stay grounded (pun intended) by innocently spying on the people of the world who would never expect to be seen from that perspective. I didn't get a chance to talk to the directors after the screening, but this could be a great film to show on the rooftops of New York City, particularly in our INDUSTRIANCE series, focusing on architecture, industry and agriculture and the ways they affect individual lives.
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When I first started watching Joanna Vasquez Arong's "Neo-Lounge," a fascinating documentary about (mostly) European expats in Beijing, my first reaction was, "I'm so glad it's not just Americans who make assholes of themselves abroad." But this film is also much more rich than that. Early on in the film, watching the generic party-hardy Euro trash and the two main characters, I recognized the deep nihilism that everyone was exhibiting in the form of decadence. Drunken partying always indicates a certain amount of abandon, a willful amount of self-destruction, an escape. But in the case of the Expat, you can sense a deeper desire for self-erasure. Arong's intricately crafted film is a passionate and intelligent exploration of that pathos.
Throughout the film, Arong's startling editing propels the characters forward in a pulsing freefall. Her sense of narrative is excellent, and her jarring edits create just the right feeling of dislocation and symbolic inevitability. Having shown Arong's "Lao Shan, Lao Yin (Old Mountains, Old Shadows)" at Rooftop last summer, I was really pleased to see her make such an accomplished debut feature.
Also of note, it's great to see a program of films made by women, still underrepresented among film directors.
Yesterday was travel day for Mark and Gen and today is travel day for me, so I figured this was a good time for a short blogging break from Sundance talk and ruminations on terminal coffee sponsorships. Last week, Mark and I checked out a special work in progress sneak preview of Full Battle Rattle at Thom Powers' Stranger Than Fiction series and we both loved the films. Co-Directed by Jesse Moss (who directed the super-fun festival hit doc Speedo, which has nothing to do with bathing suits) and Tony Gerber, Full Battle Rattle is about life inside the US Army's Iraq simulation in California's Mojave Desert from the perspective of the Iraqi-American civilians who work there as "role players" and the US soldiers who train there. I'll write more about it later, but for now I'll just say I found it really fascinating and surprisingly thoughtful, insightful and understated for a film with so much (simulated) violence and action. They edited back at our home base in the Old American Can Factory, making it the 3rd hot new doc to come out of our Gowanus compound in as many years (King Corn was also edited at the Factory, as was Carl Deal and Tia Lessin and which premieres at Sundance in a couple of days--thanks to Mark for reminding me). No New York premiere announced yet for Full Battle, but who knows what might happen...?
The film world migration to Utah is underway, but my journey is hung-up. On my trip out here, I've run into director Gabe Rhodes (August in the Empire State, co-directed by long-time Rooftop collaborator Michael Galinsky) and video artist / Rooftop Alum Seth Price, but neither were going to Sundance. Good for them. Because meanwhile, I'm stuck in O'Hare in a snow storm with Jim Becker and the guys from Califone who are heading to Park City to play the most recent incarnation of the amazing live music/animation show they played at Rooftop with Brent Green in 2006. They're playing Friday, Sunday and Monday evening at 6:30 at the New Frontier on Main, and I highly recommend catching their show.
I was supposed to be flying from JFK to O'Hare to Salt Lake. But with this storm here in Chicago, I find myself waiting in the airport for our plane to get flight attendants. I offered to pour coffees and explain the seatbelts myself, but the airline doesn't seem to want my help.
Meanwhile, I've learned that not only is Terminal 5 at O'Hare now officially "The International Starbucks Terminal," but that there are 10 times more Starbucks at this airport than there are in all of Detroit.
I was at a grants panel recently, where a New York City government official advised us non-profits that if we wanted to find out about the potential gentrification of a neighborhood, we should call Starbucks HQ, because they had the most advanced research.
Take from those related anecdotes what you will. I'll write more about indie film soon, but all I know about Sundance this year is that it's hard to get to.
Rooftop's core artistic staff (Mark Elijah Rosenberg, Dan Nuxoll and Genevieve DeLaurier) will be out in Park City this week, supporting our alumnae filmmakers (see below), scouting for new work, hanging out with filmmakers, festival programmers, funders and friends, and doing what we love best--watching great films. If you're going to be out there, drop us a line to say hi. Together, we'll get a low-alcohol beer, catch at 8:30am screening, or meet up on a line somewhere (tickets, party entrance, ski lift...)
If you're not going to be in Utah, we'll be posting reports to this blog all week long. Our aim is to report on the types of films we show: personal cinema, low-budget movies, maverick and truly independent work, films that show us "where you live and how you live" for people and communities world wide. We'll give you reviews and critiques, but also try to give you behind-the-scenes info we'll get from question and answer sessions and our own talks with filmmakers--the stuff you could only get at the festival. So come along to Park City with Rooftop, literally or bloggerly.
(P.S. Personally, I'm serious about the ski lift line: I always take a day for snowboarding, so email me or comment here if you want to ride.)
Do you ever look at the people around you and think, "My friends are doing pretty amazing stuff"? That's the way I think we all feel at Rooftop Films right now. Entering our 12th year, the community of filmmakers who have shown work at Rooftop now numbers over 1,400, and the films they are making keep getting better and better. We're thrilled to be going out to Park City this year with so many Rooftop alums showing films at two of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, Sundance and Slamdance.
Some of these filmmakers are artists whose work we've been showing for years (Signe Baumane, Tony Gault, Leigh Hodgkinson, among others), and we're so proud to see them gaining the recognition that Sundance and Slamdance accord to filmmakers. Other filmmakers we first encountered out in Park City (Brent Green, Calvin Reeder, Ken Wardrop, to name a few), and we've since developed wonderful relationships with them. We're particularly excited to see the debut features of a number of filmmakers whose shorts we showed (Nacho Vigalando, David & Nathan Zellner, Chris Waitt, Jon Knautz, Joanna Vasquez Arong and Cheryl Furjanic). And I'd like to give a special shout out to Andy Cahill, a young man whose film "The Werewolf" showed at Rooftop when he was only 19 years old, coming out of our pioneering screenings of youth-produced films.
Those different pathways (from Rooftop to Park City and back) indicate the growing importance of Rooftop Films on the international film festival circuit: we're a place to discover new emerging filmmakers, and a place to see established, world-class talent.
Some of these films we've actually shown, others we're eager to see, but if you're going out to the fests, we recommend all of these films as we would the films of our dear friends. If you're not going, expect to see some of them on the roof this summer.
SUNDANCE - Features + "Time Crimes," Director: Nacho Vigalando (pictured above) + "Goliath," Directors: David Zellner, Nathan Zellner + "A Complete History of My Sexual Failures," Director: Chris Waitt + "Trouble the Water," Directors: Tia Lessin, Carl Deal (Rooftop's neighbors), Cinematography: Rooftop Filmmakers' Fund recipient PJ Raval
SUNDANCE - Shorts + "By Modern Measure," Director: Matthew Lessner + "The Rambler," Director: Calvin Reeder + "Carlin," Director: Brent Green + "Salim Baba," Director: Tim Sternberg + "Chonto," Director: Carson Mell + "Teat Beat of Sex," Director: Signe Baumane + "Count Backward from Five," Director: Tony Gault + "The Drift," Director: Kelly Sears + "Farewell Packets of Ten," Director: Ken Wardrop + "Scoring," Director: Ken Wardrop + "Flighty," Director: Leigh Hodgkinson + "Plot Point," Director: Nicolas Provost + "Suspension," Director: Nicolas Provost
SUNDANCE - New Frontier on Main + "The Story is Still Asleep," Film: Braden King + "God Built like Frank Lloyd Wright," Film: Brent Green
SLAMDANCE - Features + "New Year Parade," Writer/Director: Tom Quinn + "Neo-Lounge," Writer/Director: Joanna Vasquez Arong + "Sync or Swim," Writer/Director: Cheryl Furjanic + "Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer," Writer/Director: Jon Knautz
SLAMDANCE - Shorts + "Celestial Riddle," Director: Ondrej Rudavsky + "Son," Director: Daniel Mulloy + "Everything Said," Director: Andy Cahill + "My Life at 40," Director: Laurie Hill + "The Outhouse," Director: Jack Truman
Rooftop Films Artistic Director Mark Elijah Rosenberg (referring to himself here in the 3rd person so as to avoid any hyperbole, positive or negative) recently wrote and directed a music video for the sinister love song "Can't Let Me Go" by the gravel-voiced Brian Grosz, the first track of his album "Bedlam Nights."
I'll try to get a nicer looking copy online somewhere to highlight the enticingly grungy video FX created by Josh Pelzek of Ballooned Eye, and the crisp photography by Sam Cullman (What Would Jesus Buy; King Corn), but for now YouTube will have to do. The clip was produced by Jessica Wolfson (Crazy Sexy Cancer; The Bridge; This Film is Not Yet Rated) and features Shonda Robbins (the upcoming Natural Causes).
Ok, I don't want to name drop too much here, but yeah, Dan and I are dear old college buddies with a guy who is an acclaimed Sundance screenwriter, former bandmate of members of The Bravery, current member of the amazing ukulele rock band The Hazzards, the inventor of the double feature finder, the world record holder in Nintendo Ice Climber, and seen herein as "the man wearing a red pelt."
This gentleman chairperson of the very hoity-toity Red Headed League (who may want to remain anonymous; he can let me know) wrote and directed this series of very funny short Hollywood spoofs called "Casted", which (if my YouTube searches are correct) seem to feature some dudes from "CSI: Miami" and "Die Hard 4."
Just wait till you get to the Parisian haberdasher and the matter duplication ray.
(And really, I love all these guys. Watch more of their stuff here.)
Rooftop Films is truly blessed to work in the The Old American Can Factory (an amazing six-building complex of artists and artisinal manufacturers), surrounded as we are by so many brilliant people. Our friend and neighbor Martin Bisi runs a legendary recording studio in one building, a studio he co-founded with Brian Eno and Bill Laswell. Sonic Youth, Herbie Hancock, John Zorn, Unsane (a personal favorite, back in my angrier days), on up through Serena Maneesh and the Dresden Dolls have all recorded there. That's some heady, heavy music history laying just below the roof you've all stood on.
But no one ever said Martin didn't have a sense of humor too. This hilarious and clever music video fits perfectly with this charmingly bizarre song.
