Bringing the Set Home

So now we head to Louisville Kentucky to take down our own version of Leonard Wood's house (probably for the last time?), deliver the handmade furniture to those it belongs to now and stack the cloth covered walls in our empty backyard, ending the past year of dragging the Gravity set around the country...sniffle....

I really hope some other place eventually puts Gravity up somewhere but for now I pack my work gloves to take the set down piece by piece for the final time.... here are a few more pieces of attention the installation got while in Louisville which is always a welcome reminder that people are actually seeing the thing you work so hard to, literally, push around the world! Now, to be packed, the anticipatory extra strength pain relief! See you tomorrow Kentucky!

An Unprovoked Ad for a Westcoast Film Legend

I normally don't tend to talk about too many places after we have done a show at them but....can I just tell you again how awesome The Cinefamily is? Every single time an event invite comes up on my calendar for them I have the same reaction: 1. Oh My Goodness! This looks like sooOOoo much fun! 2. Damn! It is in L.A.! Presented by The Cinefamily at The Silent Movie Theater! (shakes fist at The Cinefamily! And the awesome westcoast in general!).

Their Everything Is Festival, in conjunction with the (VHS?) collective Everything is Terrible!, is about to kick off and it is not just awesome but totally awesome! Including Andrew W.K. motivationally speaking on partying, Mark Hosler from the collective Negativland orating on illegal art, The Pelican Brief Project (whose trailer I cannot stop watching!), Brain Bludgeon (self explanatory), that version of Raiders of the Lost Ark a bunch of twelve year olds made in the 80s- and so much more! This in addition to the constant stream of The Cinefamily's themed parties and sleepovers makes me want to pack up everything and head out there! (I must find a way to blog for other movies besides the one's we make in our yard...hmmm...dreams of L.A. sunsets [pictured, or is that a sunrise? Anyone know?]...sigh....anyway...). The Cinefamily is a nonprofit so if you love the movies like they love the movies....donate today! Or at least go to every screening that you can!

Summertime and Screenings

I need to look at the Gravity calendar more often....there are a few more theatrical screenings happening this month and into July in places all over the globe!

Right now, Filmfest Munchen is underway in Munich Germany (which is honoring John Malkovich this year and screening Klimt the film in which he plays the title role of the amazing Austrian artist- check out this comprehensive, beautiful site about Klimt in this link!), International Animation Fest Anca  in Slovakia (whose animated web banner is amazing! As is the trailer for this pixilated short film Stanley Pickle which the fest will be showing!) is fast approaching and South America is having a screening in Brazil at the fantastic Fantaspoa International fest (a fest that seems to be solely dedicated to the magical, fantastical and odd worlds that film is allowed to create, which is such a great breath of fresh air in the reality driven media worlds of late! Also, they are honoring a Bava! Lamberto Bava! The one who made the ever so creepy Demons! And the horror classic Demons 2! My former horror loving heart is honored to be in a fest that would recognize this master! Hope the fest go-ers aren't disappointed in Gravity's lack of fantastic fakeblood....wait! There is some fake blood! Yes!).

 So that is where the film is! And here are pics of where I am - in the barn with deer! And baby deer! And a recently identified mink! While Brent is up at EMPAC building his mad scientist contraptions! Summertime in the woods while our film circles the globe...wonderful!

Micro/Pop Up Cinema Revolution! And A Moment of Silence for Peter Falk

I remember this one time when I was living in Brooklyn I was at a bar with some friends. There was a closed back room and even a guard loosely standing watch. For whatever reason I waded through the beer light, went through the door and found a film projection reel violently clicking in the middle of a room, a small band huddled near the screen (with an amazing brass section), a room full of people on folding chairs or standing in masses to the sides, all transfixed by the images on screen...it was a pop up microcinema! For a hush hush film organization in New York! And it was pretty exhilarating! I also think it reminded me how much I love film (not long after this experience I escaped the clutches of cubicle-dom to move to the woods to embark on Gravity!) and how most of my fondest memories involve me, my friends and a projector stationed below a water tower on top of our apartment or cramped in a creepy college house transfixed by The Red Balloon late into the night.

I don't know the history of pop up or microcinemas but I have noticed a lot more of them springing up lately. Maybe it's because the value of the multiplex is finally waning. Maybe it's because people want more of an experience in their cinema going. Maybe no one wants to sit through 40 minutes of advertisements (!) before the previews even start. Maybe the technology & cost of film projection has become more accessible, mellowed out (or been thrown out, I called our local library to see if I could borrow a projector only to be told "We just threw them all away last week." ?!?). I'm not really sure what the impetus is but it seems  there is a micro/pop up cinema revolution going on out there and I couldn't be happier!

My understanding of microcinemas are that they are small, independently run theaters with very little seating that have progressive programming, catering to the true cinephile! Pop up cinemas are surging too, film screenings outside of a traditional theater, setting up and breaking down in all kinds of places (empty pools, abandoned churches, subway tunnels). We were recently asked about doing a screening in a new little theater in Perth Australia called 1Up, (which I hope works out since we are going there already) and locally we have Moviate in Harrisburg which has a pretty impressive line up screened in the back of a local bar or gallery filled with couches and folding chairs. The wonderful and mysterious James Bond runs his own spectacular (and tiny) theater which is part of a small circle of microcinemas in Chicago. In New York I recently went to Vaudeville Park for a screening of cable access tv highlights and the intense programming of Light Industry also offers a true avant-garde, roaming film experience  (though they recently secured a space in Brooklyn with a few other perfect non profits!).  And the pop up cinema variety is thriving as well with such large scale productions as my beloved Rooftop Films out of NY and Cinespia in L.A. whose screenings mostly take place in a graveyard! There are many more too: Other Cinema out of San Fran (a town with a serious history of this kind of thing!), Aurora Picture Show out of Houston TX....All of these organizations are totally serving an audience who want more out of movies than what multiplexes have to offer and I hope this trend keeps up...who knows, maybe I will have to have a barn screening or two...?

A little while back when we were in Arizona rebuilding our film set town we met this couple at a party who asserted that they "single handedly invented microcinema." I thought it was a funny thing to orate about but when I really think about how important these moments of gathering and screening are to me, I think I understand why they are so, so proud to be a part of micro/pop upcinema history....as am I!

(Also, a moment of silence for Peter Falk please whose work in such legendary films as Husbands, Mikey & Nicky and Wings of Desire made my film obsession what it is!)

Australian for Film Festival

When you are obssessed with birds and go on a trip to the Chesapeake Bay for some trawl line crabbing (a really long rope is baited by separate lines spaced about 10 feet apart and you pull it up and net the crabs as you boat by! I love it! 119 crabs!) and there is a barn swallow nesting on the boat with her tiny, downy baby birds you have to love life! You also have to love life when the movie in which you play a woman obsessed with birds is taking you to Australia!? What?!

Australia is one of those hulking masses I never even imagined I would go to just out of shear distance and confusion over how kangaroos and koalas are (supposedly) real! The Revelation Perth International Film Festival has invited the Gravity live show to be part of their program this year which means not only will Brent & I be travelling over the equator and over a (different!) ocean John, Drew, Mike McGinley (throwing around an upright bass in that link) and his wife Holli will be joining us as well! Can't wait! There is still more paperwork to be done in order for us to be let into this fine country so let's all cross our fingers that it all goes smoothly and our 26 hour flight (jaw drops) has plenty of movies on board as we bring Gravity over the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and into a whole new continent!

Shining Like A National Guitar

I kind of just want to keep writing about Memphis...I can't help it! We really did have such a great time! Saw an Eastern Ribbon Snake on the banks of the Mississippi, ate delicious banana pudding at a perfect diner (pictured below!), drank morning coffee in a cooling backyard, watched the sun disappear behind a giant pyramid & freight train trestles...it was all a bit surreal, intensified by the serious heat ballooning around you like a hazy dreamy mirage! It was also really weird to be in Louisville and Memphis back to back where art is such a huge force in both cities but one (Louisville) has more funding than it knows what to do with and the other seems to be struggling a bit (Memphis).

I used to be highly critical of a lot of arts organizations in inner cities thinking that there are so much more pressing issues that need to be funded but, as I grow up, I realize that art is definitely a valuable resource for any community and can bring a whole lot of good into a place that is in need. In the case of Memphis: The Brooks Museum has a mural program to bring public art to communities throughout the city to bolster creativity in local children, The Blues Foundation seeks to help kids get musical education and also aids in getting healthcare for those in the precarious financial position of blues performer, the National Civil Rights Museum teaches everyone the importance of freedom (a thing I think is extra important in the current climate of marriage rights issues!) and UrbanArt is an amazing nonprofit that also seeks to beautify a slightly decaying Memphis by bringing artists into neighborhoods, libraries and other spaces to create memorable/destination images (I saw this supercool/amazing/captivating mural made through UrbanArt while down there and can't get it out of my head!).

Arts also brings a financial return to a city too, bringing in tourists and attracting outside money to help employ and enrich these cities further (the economic impact of tourism stats in this link about NYC are pretty insane!). Maybe museum going should be seen more as a civic duty that is not only culturally enriching to the museum go-er but enriching to an even greater good...?

Forty Shades of Blue

Bringing Gravity deep down South was a bit of a struggle but, luckily, in the case of getting to Memphis, we were able to find the most awesome curator/rock journalist/dog lover/Punk-Rock-Southern-Belle in the form of Andria Lisle who helped finally get us the farthest South Gravity live has been to date (which will soon be usurped by Australia! Yup, we are crossing the equator to the land down under!)! Andria has done a bunch of everything it seems (she worked for Ike Turner for goodness sake!) and now she is breathing some progressive, sweet new life into The Brooks Museum in such an awe inspiring way! I mean it! She might be my new idol!

Andria is pushing the boundaries of what people think of as museum going (she is planning on having rock bands perform in the Italian masters gallery where the vaulted ceiling acoustics are beautiful, she is organizing a "Let Them Eat Paik" party- with cupcakes!- in honor of Nam June Paik's birthday revolving around his museum commissioned sculpture and, she even brought Brendan's former bandmate Ian MacKaye down for a lecture/discussion in conjunction with an exhibit called Who Shot Rock N' Roll: A Photographic History 1955- Present). Our shows here went great too thanks not only to Andria but also too our sound man/hero Doug. Now Doug is somewhat of a rock sound engineering legend down in Memphis recording such albums as Catpower's The Greatest and Pavement's Wowee Zowee (to name some of my favorites), so working with him was both an honor and a pleasure. He is surely carrying on the musical recording legacy of this town which makes me feel like we've somehow been able to be a part of this local culture in a (tiny, tiny) way...

We did two performances at The Brooks (the first sold out! Mainly due to Brent's morning talk show appearance which was pretty much the single most hilarious thing I have ever seen and will not embarass him any further by discussing!) and both were great! Playing off of the audience made for a buoyant, loud rock show of the first performance and a more somber, contemplative one of the second. Brendan, John, Drew, Brent and I hadn't played together in a bit and, as always, it was so much fun to see these guys and make some improvised music together! Thanks so much to Memphis for welcoming us with open arms and letting us make a tiny little mark on your long lasting musical heritage! And thanks again to Andria! (Psst...Andria? Do you have a fan club? Can I join? Please?)

The Brooks Museum is Also Next to a Zoo!

Driving up to The Brooks Museum in Memphis TN we spiraled around this huge expanse of green in a giant park where this strange sort of modern Grecian looking building sat huddled on a small hillside. Upon entering alone it became clear that this museum is a serious art institution with a strangely eclectic and beautiful collection. A giant Nam June Paik Obelisk is centered in the entrance rotunda composed of stacks of huge old wooden framed television sets, hieroglyphs made of neon, video animations and a projection shooting out of the top and onto the ceiling- and that is just the lobby!

The rest of the collection is just as wonderful with a mix of contemporary and classical work, both international and local, ranging from Holzer to Homer to Monet to Marclay (a still from his video collage Telephones pictured at bottom, a piece that portrays spliced together scenes from Hollywood films to create a nonsense telephone conversation between this common, yet waning, film image & object of communication) to Crespi to Cloar (an amazing Southern artist whose folky surreal paintings are an inspiring vision I've never seen before!) all with a slight hint of oddity that makes the pieces on display coalesce in an underlying feel.

I don't think I ever saw a museum bonded by a feeling rather than by some strict art history rhetoric, not to say the exhibitions weren't well informed-they totally were- but the general sensation from the space and exhibits was the main glue that stuck these awesome pieces together! It really was an amazing place hidden in a park in Memphis Tennessee....a place that we totally rocked! More on that soon!

The Human Trampoline

When we finally got down to Memphis it was hot. Really really hot. We were lucky enough to get out of the heat quickly and into the home of our friends Mike & Theresa (and their two excruciatingly cute children) where we got insider tips on Memphis food (without Mike's slight southern drawl we probably would have been denied access to a lot of serious Tennessee BBQ!), photography, music and Southern hospitality in general. Leading up to the show we had some downtime which we spent with said BBQ and visiting Graceland, the tackiest music destination this side of the Mississippi (actually, now that Liberace's museum is gone it might win for nationally tacky!).

I made the trip band mandatory (pictured below, minus a busy Brendan) because, well, I don't know why. Maybe because we all watched The Burger and the King recently and I thought we should extend our Elvis bonding experience/knowledge? Maybe because there is something about the rise and fall of a musical legend that is really pretty interesting? Regardless, I wanted to share this experience with those musicians I play with often and who I thought might get something out of this insane microcosm!

As the original pop icon, Elvis took exploitation and the political agendas that go with it to a whole new level, one that paved the way for the current type of stardom that is really rotting our culture away (and one that is deftly portrayed in my favorite film of all time, Nashville). Being in his super manufactured home and seeing Elvis' own building of his American dream made me sad yet slightly hopeful for some reason, seeing how creativity can be manipulated into a giant (public) burden is an odd thing to comprehend I guess...I don't really know if I ended up learning much on this excursion other than how much shag carpeting is too much shag carpeting, but I do have this eerie feeling now when I see a tabloid cover or find myself interested in some breaking, scandalous news headline: we all helped make Elvis who he became and we should think about that in our current forms of icon making and idol worship.

Crafty Kentucky

On our way to and from Memphis we stopped off in Louisville to break up the trip. While staying at the lovely Dane & Warren's house (Brent pictured in their magical musical home!) on a beautiful Southern dead end we stopped by to see the set and share it with bandmates Drew & John (the latter of which had never once seen the set in person in any form other than the film!). We also stopped by the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft which is a serious hidden gem in downtown Louisville Kentucky representing art in the name of craft in two floors of beautiful space!

One of the shows currently up was fantastic! Titled Craft Meets Technology, the show features just that: work, both artistic and often functional, at the intersection of the newest of the handmade and the technological. There were too many things to even begin to pick a favorite but the work of Trikoton which produces woven knits that have a coded system of words and phrases (tending toward vibrant progression in the chosen statements) dotted or punched into the fabric is breathtakingly beautiful,  it was an amazing surprise and such an innovative idea that I couldn't help but love it! Other pieces in the show included a solar powered birdhouse (pictured), a wind powered thread sculpture making machine, woven electrical circuits that can control sound through touch, a sharable network of habitrails (both virtual and real) for rodent pet lovers to unite and even a dress that could be manipulated around you into a cocoon of peacefulness to hide from the overwhelming city life. The DIY nature (a thing I have been recently thinking about a lot, be prepared for a lengthy side rant soon!) and the heavy folk feel of the museum really made me happy to see a place that it representing such an underserved artistic genre and that is stealthily promoting the new generation of craft culture -which Brent is undoubtedly a part of!

I can't believe we missed this space during all the time we have spent in Louisville, so glad we finally made it there! And I am so happy to come back through this lovely town once again and wave to our own little  town hidden within it!

Museum Hours

So, where did I leave off? The road trip to Memphis for the show at The Brooks Museum was a long ordeal that started by picking up band members in New York, stopping off in Louisville for sleep and ending with performing two live Gravity shows in Memphis Tennessee! First I'll start with New York! As I talked about before: Jem Cohen is one of the most important independent filmmakers working out there today.  Jem manages to combine an otherwordly artistic vision and ability with a sincere anthropological/historical/documentarian agenda that is so unique and important I don't even know how to begin. When we returned home from our recent travels to a message from Jem (who, if you'll remember even shot a few frames of Gravity- a blurry, unused frame or two posted here!) we returned his call and decided to see him on our way to Memphis through New York. Jem even let Brent and I watch the beginnings of his latest filmic venture Museum Hours.

This film is unlike any film either of us had seen before leaving us speechless and electric from seeing the birth of a new cinematic form. The loose framework revolves around the meeting of a Canadian woman who travels to Austria while visiting her sick cousin and an art museum guard who ponders life as he ages, watching over centuries of other beautiful lives. Everything about the film is a new experience dealing with pasts, presents and futures in image, narrative and philosophies- I don't want to say too much more since it is a work in progress but this film seems like it is a true embodiment of a new independent cinema that I have been desperately looking for (no pressure Jem!) combining such a strong artistic vision and a strong, yet hopeful, voiced skepticism on the current state of the world. I cannot wait for this film to be completed and it is a shame that it is still a struggle for auteurs across the city to receive the overwhelming support they deserve in their creative pursuits (collective sigh for New York City). Which reminds me, Jem's essay The Double Anchor is a great read about the social and artistic responsibility of cultural consumers and producers, an issue that everyone should be a bit more concerned about. I don't know how to end this post other than anxiously await Jem's completed film and invite you to join me in doing so! Can not wait! (Film stills from Museum Hours updated August, 2011)

All The Lights Get Dimmer When You Go

If you really want to get a sense of what Switzerland is all about this story pretty much sums it up: A local Swiss person was telling me that long ago the city of Basel wanted to start collecting art as a city investment. After a public vote it was decided that the town would collectively buy a Picasso. Pablo Picasso was so enamored with the idea of a town buying art he ended up donating a bunch of pieces to the town in addition to the one they were purchasing from him! I think this feeling of artistic appreciation has really carried on to the next generation and can be seen in the evident passion for music & art that is palpable throughout the country! Here is a recording of the last (improvised) song from the live show of Brent Green's short films we performed in Zurich Switzerland to a very warm and loving crowd at El Lokal! Hope you like it!

The King

Here is a decade old photo (by Jonah Schwartz) of me & friends outside of an abandoned glass pyramid arena (the sixth largest pyramid in the world!) situated on the banks of the mighty Mississippi river in Memphis Tennessee! The Elvis nostalgia, the musical heritage, the grand river, the southern poverty all make for an odd yet exciting time where, when I was there back in the day, I felt both at home and on edge with possibilities. Everytime I think of this great city I can't help but think of Jim Jarmusch's depiction of this town in Mystery Train; one story of people looking for The King, one story of people embroiled in drunken mayhem and one story of women who have lost their loves all coming together in a ramshackle hotel under the eye of the Concierge (played by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, seen in the video below in all his insane glory!). Memphis does seem to be this patchwork southern gem which is why I am so excited that Gravity is headed for a live performance at The Brooks Museum in Memphis Tennessee this coming week. I can't wait to head back to this strange place and make some new memories of this cool yet eerie microcosm and to share our own little world with them!

Switzerland Love

Well, now I have even more of a reason to love the Bildrausch Film Fest Basel- Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then won the jury prize at the first year of this spectacular festival! Yay! With a one man jury up against such greats as Meek's Cut Off and Life During Wartime, Gravity left the sole juror with tears in his eyes...! I did not get to meet the juror when we were there which is a shame since I have heard great things about his work and since he respects ours as well but it is nice to know he saw our film and it resonated with him in such a way as to publicly applaud it! Yay!

Another wonderful memory of Switzerland to add to the others...strawberry ice cream with my feet in the Rhine, late night cult films in an audience full of inspiration, being recognized for this film I love so dearly.... sniffle...what a wonderful experience! Thank you so much for the countless, beautiful memories Switzerland!

Zagreb Animafest

Brent and I couldn't figure out why there was a sudden influx of Croatians showing up on the short films page and then we remembered that Gravity is screening at the 2011 Animafest Zagreb Croatia! Featuring a ton of respected, modern animation (Surviving Life, Goodbye Mister Christie, My Dog Tulip) with a bunch of new standards thrown in (Coraline, The Simpson's Movie, Yellow Submarine) this fest looks like it has a great wide range in the animated genre.

Actually, a film they are showcasing, and that has been following us around on the animation circuit, I just got a chance to finally see: The Illusionist. Sylvain Chomet's second feature, based on a concept by Jaques Tati, is absolutely gorgeous. I had heard a lot of mixed things about this film and I don't understand why. It is breathtaking and the story of a magician as he lives through life evaluating value is simple and beautiful. Even though some of the visual details are a bit skimpy (animating is such an intensive process, I can't be too demanding!) Chomet is still a master! And then I realized as the credits rolled that he composed the score as well! Wow! Gravity will be playing at the Animafest tonight (and last night) and I am honored to be in the company of such animated characters!

Zurich is Stained

Zurich!  El Lokal (the venue we played in Zurich) is quite possibly the single best venue in the world. The atmosphere, food, respect, programming (The Mekons are coming! The Mekons are coming!), all exactly what one looks for in a musical experience.  I don't know how they manage to be so cool but, I think it has something to do with the enormous skeleton dangling from the ceiling and the professionalism & nicety exuding from everyone involved. Even the audience was so responsive and encouraging despite our genuine nervousness at performing such a stripped down show since Howe was unable to join us as originally planned. Brent, me (who wasn't even on the bill but did manage to play some melodic Melodica and a bit of foley since Mr. Gelb was a no show) & Jim had an insane bonding experience as we played the hugely improvised show in this perfect Swiss setting!

Jim, playing to the shorts for only the second time, banged out sounds beyond the imagination! Everytime I tell him he is the best I think he thinks I am kidding. I am not. He is like three musicians in the disguise of a drummer. Judging by the way Jim was dancing towards the end of the night and the fact we watched the craziest movie of all time (Papillon. What the hell was that?! Also, what the hell is this site devoted to prison movies?!) whilst drinking tea on a transcontinental flight I think we had a good enough bonding experience (and a good enough performance) to maybe do some more shows with him in the future...? (Crosses fingers!)

After the show the venue presented us with a board mix of the performance...but not just any board mix, a 16 track mixable recording on a usb stick that is also a beer bottle opener! Yay! I told you this place is great! This great venue has also started producing a big new magazine too! The current issue featuring a cd & seven inch of music, recipes from their delicious kitchen and interviews with both local & touring musicians- there is some talk about adding a Brent Green short film to the next edition which I hope comes true! So, if you didn't already get that El Lokal is an awe inspiring venue let me tell you about the fried goat cheese....yes. Fried goat cheese. I am ready to go back to Zurich now. Thank You.

Light My Fire

Not only did we screen Gravity in Basel, we also did a live performance! Me, Brent, Jim White and Howe Gelb (arriving at the last minute, practically whisked from airport to stage, in the dramatic fashion he is known and loved/tolerated for) put on a show of Brent's short animations mixed with a few of Howe's lovely ballads (and an unexpected Doors cover which I hope to soon forget) under the show title of With A Head Full of Dying Crows. The language barrier was a bit odd, Brent's pounding sounds moved a little too quick for most but, as one audience member pointed out, the films have a poetry to them and even if only one line is taken away it can be an unforgettable line that can stay with you forever, not to mention the beauty in the improvised universal musical experience accompanying the films.

The (sold out!) theater piled in and seemed pretty taken with the strange and beautiful thing we presented, causing a lot of people to hang out late into the night and me to have my first taste of real Scotch whiskey! The evening finally ended with me, alone in a movie theater, eating an ice cream cone, watching the incredible film WR: Mysteries of the Organism by Dusan Makavejev (film still below) which was the most perfect ending to my time at the most perfect film festival! The film was unlike anything I have ever seen, collaged together with such a distinct, unique voice it focused on the politics of sexuality and the sexuality of politics and how we are all free thinking and acting humans changing & producing life at the mercy of death. The genre bending, editing and sound art used the medium of film with such a bold and innovative intensity- it was absolutely incredible! The fact that the filmmakers wife created the sound design for this film also resonated with me and my own foley making causing me to relate to the vision of these creative collaborators on many levels and making our time spent with them during the festival extra special!

Seeing this film really did make me excited to think of how visionary these people are, embodying the very things I find lacking in current indie cinema- strong, loud statements discontent with the state of things. It is amazing tht Bildrausch Film Fest Basel honored this filmmaker with a retrospective bringing a new generation of filmmakers this work, work that I hope young filmmakers take away what I did from it: the desire to make and say something new. Having dinner with a group of wonderful film festival people, including Dusan & his partner Bojana, in a courtyard under low slung trees, lightbulbs and stars in Switzerland as I was falling fast from jet lag was really one of those indelible moments that I know I will always remember and that I am still not sure how I am allowed to have! Night after night of beauty & film on the Rhine, what a great fest!

A Very Lovely Image Noise

When we were in Rotterdam for the film festival awhile back we received a handwritten note in our festival mailbox. The note spoke lovingly of our film and invited it to be screened at a new festival in Basel Switzerland. This was the inaugural year for the film festival Bildrausch [Image Noise] Film Fest Basel held at the Stadtkino and good god are they off to a wonderful start!

A mix of modern slickness and a homespun charm made this fest incredible, not to mention the well rounded, passionately curated film program! Nicole Reinhard, the festivals heart, has such a unique and brilliant take on film, each one carefully chosen for its craft, ingenuity, sincerity and unavailibility to the Swiss locals. Her love of film and her desire to bring it to people is intense as were the small touches of thought that went into the fest. Overflowing vases of fresh cut wildflowers,  comfort foods at every moment, the projection of silent, bursting fireworks on the ceiling of the space, the sleek, comfortable, cool style of everything all added to the many thoughtful parts that made this fest the warm embracing family that it is! And the people of course; Simon (production manager extraordinaire, who somehow managed to always have ice cream for me at any moment!), Sibylle donning every hat, Jurgen also carrying some of the load- each person of the small crew floating into all areas of the fest seamlessly, so many beautiful, intelligent, caring faces with so many skills it is unbelievable!

We met some really incredible filmakers too- Brent went to a prison turned hotel with Ziska Riemann (whose new film Lollipop Monster looks wonderful), had dinner with Dusan Makavejev & Bojana Marijan (a retrospect of Dusan's unique visions of experimental, collaged work were a feature of the festival- more on them later!),  and even went to a museum featuring a ton of Picasso & Brancusi & Richard Serra with Athina Rachel Tsangari (the current face of the Greek indie film movement). The fact that Nicole was able to bring together this incredible group of artists in the first year alone is no doubt a sign of things to come! I still cannot believe how great this experience was and I will never, ever forget it. I am so proud to have Gravity be a part of the beginning of what is no doubt bound to be a long lasting film festival legacy!

When The CIty Turns on Her Lights

Being that there are no international flights out of rural Pennsylvania...I once again began (and will end) my Gravity related travels in New York! Seeing the new Woody Allen movie in a movie theater where the rumble of the New York city subway can be felt underfoot will always bring a wave of NY nostalgia on, which is pretty fitting since the new Woody Allen film deals with just that: the desire to look back fondly at seeming eras of greatness. Midnight in Paris is a beautiful film capturing the social responsibility of artists and how the repetition of history is a testament to the need for ongoing cultural progressives all wrapped up in the comedic timing and time transporting genres of classic Allen. Similar to his film  Alice, a kind of sci-fi romantic story of wit and class, Paris seamlessly moves in and out of fantasy in a magical realism movement of perfection.  In his old age Allen is reflecting on his career and reminding us of his timeless genius and, with unexpected agenda, reminding himself and the audience why art, intelligence and humor must exist no matter what time period it is.

To make my NY trip even more cinematic I somehow stumbled past the Dakota early in the breezy Central Park afternoon. A loaded spot, the building is the setting of one of my favorite films of all time Rosemary's Baby. The eerie lullaby intro with the circling birds eye shot of the building, John Cassavetes in all his gruff glory, Mia Farrow (who I saw in person once at a tiny NY film premier and whose mere presence is beautiful and human) the devil! anagrams! poison laced chocolate mousse! Such a perfect film! I can't help my love of New York cinema and, even though we're far removed from the city, I am glad our film has been so embraced by this wonderful cinephile culture- another live screening of Gravity is in the works for the Fall in New York, NY! Yay!