A sold-out crowd welcomed Keven McAlester’s film THE DUNGEON MASTERS to the IFC last night. Audience members included film subject Scott Corum, members of the band Blonde Redhead (who provided the film’s score) and many avid film-lovers and “D&D”ers.
The Q&A included producer Jeff Levy-Hinte of Antidote Films, Corum, McAlester (L to R, see photo) discussing their different perspectives on the filmmaking. Watching over a year of his life compressed into the 90 minute film, Corum said: “it was like a trip to Disney Land in 5 minutes, and a car crash that lasts 2 hours.”
Last night the IFC Center screened PICTURES FROM A REVOLUTION by Susan Meiselas (see photo) as part of their Still to Film: Moving Images by Documentary Photographers series. The film begins with Meiselas’ gentle voice leading us down the road of the Nicaraguan countryside, her car a visiting shadow upon the landscape. She speaks slowly and deliberately and as she explains her project – to return to Nicaragua a decade after the Final Insurrection and find the men and women she had photographed ten years earlier – I got a sense that she had a deep connection to her subject matter and a need to understand her role as a documentary photographer within the war-torn country.
Starting today and running through November 13, The 2nd Annual Other Israel Film Festival will take place at The Jewish Community Center (JCC) in Manhattan and Cinema Village. The purpose of the festival is to present films that celebrate the diversity of Israeli life, with a specific focus on the daily lives of the Arab Citizens who are rarely seen outside the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Last night at the IFC, I walked tentatively into the theatre. The returns had just started to come in and it was hard to pry myself away from the TV screen downstairs—even though all the pundits, experts, and media mouths had little to say at 7:45 pm. But I went into the theatre to watch STF’s screening of CHISHOLM ‘72, an amazing film about Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, a self-described “mavericky,” African-American woman from Brooklyn who sought the democratic nomination for the presidency in 1972.
Chisholm failed to win the nomination and the film makes it clear that she was campaigning at a time when the US was never going to see an African-American woman as a viable candidate. When asked why she made the film, director Shola Lynch explained that she wanted to know why someone would enter a race, knowing that winning was not an option, but in working on the film she realized that winning, “wasn’t black and white, it was nuanced.” Chisholm ran because she had every right to. For those who may have said to Chisholm, you can’t run, I imagine her replying, “Yes, I can.” Her campaign was an ideological victory.
Members of the Black Documentary Collective, STF regulars and film-fans alike came out for a special evening of remembrance. It was a tribute to the late St. Clair Bourne, who passed away last year at the age of 64 (see NYT obituary). The evening began with introductory remarks by his sister, Judith Bourne, and was followed by a screening of his documentary MAKING DO THE RIGHT THING .
Some snapshots of the evening:
1) From L – R: Kathe Sandler (director of A QUESTION OF COLOR), William Greaves (who gave Bourne an early opportunity on the TV show BLACK JOURNAL), Thomas Allen Harris (director of 12 DISCIPLES OF NELSON MANDELA) and Sam Pollard (editor of various Bourne and Spike Lee films, not to mention CHISHOLM 72 – playing at STF on Nov. 4) – who all participated in a Q&A after the screening.
