Documentary / Ethnography

documentary / ethnography

Trailer: LIMBO (2012) by Eliot Rausch

23 April, 2012 by Andrew Rosinski

LIMBO / Trailer from Eliot Rausch + Phos Pictures on Vimeo.

After winning the 25k Grant from the Vimeo Awards, director Eliot Rausch partnered with Producer Mark Schwartz and the Dreamers of Los Angeles to create LIMBO. This 19 minute film exposes the lives of three undocumented students, living in the US without legal status. Never having touched a camera, the three students were gifted with a small handycam and trained for half a day by Lukas Korver and Matt B. Taylor. They were asked to film everyday for three months. Through their lens, this is their story.

Click here for three moments from the film.

Premiering at the 2012 VIMEO Festival + Awards.

CREDITS

camera one / undocumented
camera two / undocumented
camera three / undocumented

directed / Eliot Rausch
produced / Mark Schwartz
original score / Adam Taylor
intro and credit footage / Lukas Korver, Matt B. Taylor, David Carstens
edited / Mark Schwartz, Eliot Rausch
assistant editor / Edgar Andres
special thanks / dreamteamla.org, vimeo.com, ubercontent.com, the gargage board shop

Eliot Raush’s website

Eliot Rausch + Phos Pictures

Posted in documentary / ethnography
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DINCA Coverage of the 50th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival

27 March, 2012 by Andrew Rosinski

DINCA will be in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from 3.28–4.1, reporting on the 2012 Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Today is the first day of the 50th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival. The AAFF has a superlative lineup of events this year, with over 200 independent and experimental works, including new work by Deborah Stratman, Ben Rivers, Ben Russell, Michael Robinson, David Gatten, Laida Lertxundi, Kerry Laitala, Scott Stark, Mary Helena Clark, Fern Silva, Bobby Abate, Jodie Mack, Evan Meaney, and many more, plus some very special treasures and gems from avant-garde cinema.

If you’re in midwest, this is a week of events worth road-trippin’ to; if you’re not in the midwest, this is a week of events worth road-trippin’ to.

The 50th AAFF will include special programs of work by Peter Rose, Robert Nelson, Barbara Hammer, Michael Robinson, a juror presentation by Kathy Geritz, Phil Solomon, Paul Clipson, a Leighton Pierce gallery walkthrough, and three Bruce Baille retrospectives.

As part of the AAFF’s 50 Screen initiative, Phil Solomon has installed his “American Falls” installation at the Work Gallery; Leighton Pierce has installed his “Threshold of Peripheral Induction” at the University of Michigan’s Slusser Gallery; and the Michigan Theater installations, the Gallery Project exhibition, the Nickels Arcade exhibition feature plenty more treats.

More on the AAFF’s 50 Screen Initiative:

The 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival presents 50 SCREENS, a city-wide series of free film, video and moving image installations. Throughout film festival week local, national and international artists will illuminate more than fifty screens in galleries, theaters, shops, outdoor locations and non-traditional screening spaces in Ann Arbor. The intention of this expansion beyond traditional cinema screenings is to more widely engage the public with film as an art form in celebration of the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival, taking place March 27 – April 1, 2012.

As aforementioned, DINCA will be in Ann Arbor reporting on the AAFF from Wednesday, March 28 – Sunday, April 1, 2012. Andrew Rosinski and Theodore Darst will be representing DINCA; if you, too, are at the AAFF, let us know.

This week on dinca.org is AAFF week, so stayed tuned for some interesting coverage of the festival — also checkout our twitter profile for some menial updates — dinca.org, dedicated to disseminating Sacred Visions 2 U.

2012 AAFF Schedule

AAFF 50 Screens schedule & overview

AAFF: 50 Screens

Posted in avant-garde, documentary / ethnography, experimental film, film
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ScanOps (2011) & Workers Leaving the Googleplex (2011) by Andrew Norman Wilson

24 February, 2012 by Andrew Rosinski

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations – 365

The Inland Printer - 164

Wohlgemeynte Gedanken über den Dannemar – 281

Wohlgemeynte Gedanken über den Dannemar – 113

Wealth of Nations – 4

The Inland Printer – 152

The Economic Review – 592

Libraries – 109

ScanOps
by Andrew Norman Wilson
2011

Some of Andrew Norman Wilson’s work, especially his work pertaining to google, explores the modern day digital proletariat class, and Google’s surreptitious marginalization of their lower-tier employees. Workers Leaving the Googleplex (2011) and ScanOps (2011) are two components of Wilson’s effort to examine Google’s colored badge worker system.

Workers Leaving the Googleplex (2011) is an essay video that Wilson filmed during his employment at Google, and the corollary of his filming of Workers resulted in his termination from Google. The film is an interesting and earnestly curious look at google’s colored badge worker system, with particular focus on the subordinate yellow badge workers that work in building 3.14159, scanning and digitizing books for Google Books.

ScanOps also plies the territory of internal Google operations. The images are culled from Google Books and are images, “in which software distortions, the scanning site, and the hands of ScanOps employees are visible.”

“ScanOps is (or was) the internal department name for Google’s onsite book scanning contractors.”

So the images (above) are distorted results of the work the yellow badge book scanners have completed during their 4am–2pm shift — a nice visual component to the film — Wilson plans on making analog reproductions of these digital images, perhaps in form of a book or “image/sculptures.”

Apart from his google-related efforts, Andrew Norman Wilson’s work typically carries a warm ingredient of white-collar levity (vide his pond5 remix videos and his FlowSpot Test videos made for pond5).

At his “Quicktime Playback Demo and Networking Session” screening at the Nightingale back in 2011, he would intermittently clunk down the stairs wearing rollerblades, descending from the projection area to grab a sports drink from DJ Office Max — who was spinning Yello’s “Oooooh Yeah” song — and Mr. Wilson quickly slaked his thirst with electrolites, only to sidle his way through the crowded venue and clunk back up the stairs to the projection booth to screen more pond5 remix videos.

Wilson deservedly has a forthcoming solo show at Chicago’s Threewalls gallery, we’ll keep you updated on that.

Workers Leaving the Googleplex, Andrew Norman Wilson, 2011, HD video, 11 min, color, sound

Workers Leaving the GooglePlex investigates a top secret, marginalized class of workers at Google’s international corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley. As I documented the mysterious yellow badged “ScanOps” Google workers, I simultaneously chronicled the complex events surrounding my own dismissal from the company. The reference to the Lumiere Brother’s 1895 film Workers Leaving the Factory situates the video within the history of motion pictures, suggesting both transformations and continuities in arrangements of labor, capital, media, and information.

Andrew Norman Wilson’s website

Andrew Norman Wilson on Vimeo

FlowSpot by Andrew Norman Wilson

http://books.google.com/

How to Remove Your Google Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

Posted in documentary / ethnography, film, new media art, print / graphic design
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2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards: Last Day To Submit + New Judges Added

20 February, 2012 by Andrew Rosinski

Today — February 20, 2012 — is the last day to submit your work to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards. The submission process is simple, and if you already have your work hosted on Vimeo, and if you have an existing paypal account, this is an easy-breezy process that takes minutes.

Entrants can submit any original work as long as it premiered online between July 31, 2010 and February 20, 2012, or any original work that has never premiered anywhere. The winner of each category receives a grant of $5,000 and the Grand Prize winner receives a $25,000 grant to produce new work.

Click here to submit. You have until 11:59pm on 2.20.2012.

It was recently announced that Peter Greenaway (A Zed & Two Noughts, 1985) will be a judge of the experimental category, and Steve James (Hoop Dreams, 1994, The Interrupters, 2011) will judge the documentary category.

The panel consists of three judges per category across 13 categories, and includes actor and director James Franco; Parks and Recreation Star Aziz Ansari, 2012 Oscar Nominee Lucy Walker; Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World director Edgar Wright; snowboard superstar Travis Rice; Thierry Mugler and UNIQLO creative director Nicola Formichetti; Shelly Page of DreamWorks Animation; Barbara London of The Museum of Modern Art; advertising legend David Droga; and many more.

The current list of judges includes:

Action Sports

Advertising

Animation

Captured

Documentary

Experimental

Fashion

Nick Knight
Nicola Formichetti
Humberto Leon, Opening Ceremony+Kenzo

Lyrical

Motion Graphics

Music Video

Narrative

Original Series

Remix

Beardyman
David Dewaele, 2manydjs + Soulwax
Kasumi

7 Question Interview with Jeremy Boxer, Vimeo Festival

2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards

Posted in animation & motion design, documentary / ethnography, event, experimental film, film
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7 Question Interview with Jeremy Boxer, Director of the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards

13 December, 2011 by Andrew Rosinski

Dec. 13, 2011 — Vimeo, the amiable filmmaker and artist friendly video-hosting service, opened submissions today for the second Vimeo Festival + Awards, “which celebrates the most creative and original videos online and the individuals that make them.”

Beginning today through February 20, 2012, filmmakers can submit their works for consideration in one of 13 different judged categories.

Last year, the judge panel was impressive — David Lynch judged the “experimental” category — and this year the judges will be equally impressive; however, the judges are to be announced sometime in early January.

Submit your work to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards ———> click here. Vimeo will award Grants of $5,000 to all of the 13 category winners, as well as awarding a Grant of $25,000 for the Grand Prize winner.

Jeremy Boxer, the Director of the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards, spoke with us yesterday. Mr. Boxer explains now, more than ever, is a propitious time to be an artist producing work that’s disseminated on the internet.

(1) Why should a filmmaker submit to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards?

The main difference from traditional film festivals is we only accept work that has premiered online — anywhere — not just Vimeo. The majority of film festivals do not accept work that has premiered online. Our hope is that in the future every festival will accept work that has premiered online.

(2) What categories/genres are in competition in the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards?

There are 13 categories. Experimental, which is of course of interest to your readers. Lyrical is a new category this year. The Lyrical category encompasses poetic videos based on a personal world-view. These are personal representations of the way the creator looks at the world. For example, travelogues or time-lapses of a local neighborhood. Captured is a category not based on filmmaking technique but more on what is being captured by the video, for example, a performance based work or projection art.

The other new categories include Advertising, Action Sports, and Fashion and returning categories from our inaugural Vimeo Festival + Awards are:

Narrative
Animation
Original Series
Motion Graphics
Music Video
Documentary
Remix

(3) Will David Lynch return to judge the experimental category?

We are announcing a few of the judges now. The remainder of the judges will be announced January. The judges will be equally as impressive as in 2010.

(4) Filmmakers can submit their work using Vimeo via the Internet; are there post-internet distribution/exhibition opportunities in place for the winners? Will there be a time to P-A-R-T-Y?

We will have an Awards ceremony, talks, workshops and a bunch of screenings as part of the festival. As we are 6 months out, we’re currently in the planning process and are open to ideas. As we get closer to making that announcement, we’ll reach out to you with all of those specifics.

(5) Last year, Chris Beckman won the Experimental category award for his film OOPS.

Shortly thereafter, Beckman’s film was named an official selection of the corporate-industry-driven 2011 Sundance Film Festival and Beckman directed a commercial for Motorola, for whom he made a branded short film directly inspired by OOPS.

What potential professional opportunities are available to a filmmaker submitting to the 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards?

Our intention is to provide filmmakers with opportunities they would never have had before. We want to provide the gold standard for what you can find online and in so doing provide filmmakers the potential to be seen by a much wider audience which could lead to their big break. Because of Vimeo’s reach, we can put a filmmaker’s work in front of an audience of hundreds of thousands.

After its discovery at the Vimeo Festival + Awards, Chris Beckman’s Oops was chosen as an Official Selection at Sundance Film Festival 2011. Chris then went on to direct for such brands as Motorola. Sundance reached out to me directly to ask for Chris Beckman’s information for him to be entered into the festival. This was great, as it was the first time I heard Sundance was accepting films that had premiered online.

Another inaugural award winner was Onur Senturk, he had just graduated university when he entered the Vimeo Festival + Awards. After winning for his film Triangle, due to the Festival’s exposure, Paramount asked him to create the motion design title sequence for Transformers: The Dark Side of the Moon.

The Overall + Documentary winner, Eliot Rausch, has been showered with media attention that landed him a spot on the Carson Daily Show and more commercial work than he ever expected to see in his lifetime. He’s in post- production on his latest documentary — a film he was able to produce with the grant money he received from winning the 2010 Vimeo Festival + Awards. He has gone on to be offered more work than he knows what to do with.

To give you a sense of what Vimeo can do for filmmakers, here is another very recent example. A few weeks ago, James Curran, a 28 year old from UK, put up his own homage credit sequence for “Tin Tin.” The beautiful animated piece came to the attention of Steven Spielberg who hired him for his next film.

You never know who might be watching.

(6) If you could send a submitting filmmaker one special message, what would it be?

The goal of Vimeo Festival + Awards is to expose your film to a much wider audience. We welcome you to submit and we wish you all good luck!

(7) Anything else you want to add?

We’re just hoping that more filmmakers will submit so that more of them have a chance at all of these incredible opportunities in existing and new categories added for 2012.

————> Submit

2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards

Jeremy Boxer on Vimeo

Submit : : 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards

Posted in animation & motion design, documentary / ethnography, event, experimental film, film, interview
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Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999) by Mark Leckey

26 September, 2011 by Andrew Rosinski

Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore by Mark Leckey (15:00, video, 1999)

Everybody dance now.

Described by one commentator as the best thing they’d ever seen in a gallery, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore is an extended paean to the unadulterated bliss of nocturnal abandon. A documentary of sorts, Leckey’s video chronicles the rites of passage experienced by successive generations of British (sub)urban youth.
— Matthew Higgs, ArtForum

Mark Leckey: Wikipedia

Mark Leckey: Rhizome Interview

Turner Prize Winner Mark Leckey

Posted in documentary / ethnography, experimental film
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Robert Gardner on that Unique Pattern, or Entelechy

13 September, 2011 by Andrew Rosinski

“I suppose I should wish you success, but that is too easy. I would like to wish you something that is harder to come by. So I am going to wish you meaning in life. And meaning is not something you stumble across like the answer to a riddle or prize in a treasure hunt.

Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you; out of your own talent and understanding, out of things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something, the ingredients are there.

You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”

— Robert Gardner

Posted in documentary / ethnography, quotes
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HH 47: A Young Star Jet Expands

5 September, 2011 by Andrew Rosinski

HH 47: A Young Star Jet Expands
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, & P. Haritgan (Rice U.)

Things are moving fast in the best possible sense. Happy Labor Day to all. Don’t work too hard, repose is important, too.

Explanation: Stars remain where they are. Nebulas appear the same. Day after day. Year after year. Given the vast distances in astronomy, even fast moving objects will not appear to change their appearance in a human lifetime. Typically. A recent spectacular exception to this, however, is the supersonic jet in the star forming Herbig Haro 47. HH 47 is so close — and the jets are moving so fast — that images from the Hubble Space Telescope from 1994 to 2008 have been combined into a time-lapse movie that actually shows a powerful jet expanding. Visible above, jets of plasma extending over 10,000 times the Earth-Sun distance shoot out from a forming star at speeds in excess of 150 kilometers per second. Studying how these jets evolve gives clues not only to how the star in HH 47 is forming, but how stars like our Sun formed billions of years ago. HH 47 is located about 1,500 light years away toward the constellation of Sails of a Ship (Vela).

Source: Astro Pic of the Day

Posted in documentary / ethnography, early times
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Down the Cosmic Path of the Cassini Orbiter

19 June, 2011 by Andrew Rosinski

CASSINI MISSION from Chris Abbas on Vimeo.

Views from Cassini at Saturn
Credit: Images: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA; Video Compilation: Chris Abbas.
Music Credit & License: “Ghosts I-IV” by Nine Inch Nails.

Saturn, master of time. So staid and stately; the one guide that tells us ‘no’ when he means ‘yes.’ He teaches (forces) us to be patient, prudent, and to acknowledge the confining linear timeline of our world; however, this is a good thing. Saturn teaches us that we have more to do: more knowledge and experience to assimilate, more responsibilities to tend. He teaches us that under one’s own volition, we find what we seek. The rings of time, much like a tree: plant your seeds, love, care, nuture them, and watch your seeds grow into something beautiful and worthwhile. It’s a simple and lovely universal law of existence. Koolgrow.

Saturn teaches us to enjoy our continuance down ye merry path. Bubblemagic.

Indubitably, the Cassini orbiter has collected indelible, Earth-shattering imagery and here is a mystifying amalgamation of images assembled by Chris Abbas, with imagery from the Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL. ESA, NASA.

Explanation: What has the Cassini orbiter seen since arriving at Saturn? The above music video shows some of the highlights. In the first time-lapse sequence (00:07), a vertical line appears that is really Saturn’s thin rings seen nearly edge-on. Soon some of Saturn’s moon shoot past. The next sequence (00:11) features Saturn’s unusually wavy F-ring that is constrained by the two shepherd moons that are also continually perturbing it. Soon much of Saturn’s extensive ring system flashes by, sometimes juxtaposed to the grandeur of the immense planet itself. Cloud patterns on Titan (00:39) and Saturn (00:41) are highlighted. Clips from flyby’s of several of Saturn’s moon are then shown, including Phoebe, Mimas, Epimetheus, and Iapetus. In other sequences, moons of Saturn appear to pass each other as they orbit Saturn. Background star fields seen by Cassini are sometimes intruded upon by bright passing moons. The robotic Cassini spacecraft has been revolutionizing humanity’s knowledge of Saturn and its moons since 2004.

Posted in documentary / ethnography, film
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Space Program: MARS, or War Huh Yeah What Is It Good For Absolutely Nothing Say It Again, 5/1/2011

29 April, 2011 by Andrew Rosinski

Crossroads by Bruce Conner (36:00, 16mm, 1976)

SPACE PROGRAM presents
“MARS, or War Huh Yeah What Is It Good For Absolutely Nothing Say It Again”

Sunday the 1st of May at 7:30pm
at Thalia Hall, 1807 S Allport, Chicago, IL (map)
$5 suggested donation
this space is unheated, so bring warm clothes, sleeping bags, blankets, etc
curated by Ben Russell

**this space is unheated, so bring warm clothes, sleeping bags, blankets, etc

“ Oh, rust-surfaced sphere, with your receding polar ice caps and optical illusion canals! If not for your half-mass, your eccentric orbit, and your global dust storms, we would call you sister or cousin; but it was your fiery red-lit temperament and your thin atmosphere that led the Romans to name you after their God of War, and we at SPACE PROGRAM shall do the same. We shall land our newest craft upon the peak of your Olympus Mons, and from that vantage point (highest in the solar system) we shall survey the entire galaxy stretched out before us. Unlike the 2/3rds of failed Mars voyages that left before us, we shall traverse your Valles Marineris with the understanding that the power of Mars as the power of War is a power best used to secure the peace. Our childhood wargames (Geissler/Sann), our damaged soldiers (Single Spark Film Collective), our flicker destruction (Sharits), our media paralysis (Smith), and our transcendent explosions (Conner) are herewith submitted as evidence. With a question on our lips we shall raise our flag upon your soil, its single dollar/Euro sign fluttering in the solar wind: Oh, Mars – if it costs $309,000 per kilogram to land upon your basalt surface, what (pray tell) is the average cost of peace? ” — BR

FEATURING:
Fuck the War by Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann (4:00, video, 2007)
Winter Soldier by Single Spark Film Collective (20:00, 16mm, 1971)
T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G by Paul Sharits (12:00, 16mm, 1968)
Frozen War by John Smith (11:00, video, 2002)
Friendly Fire by Thorsten Fleisch (7:30, 16mm, 2003)
Crossroads by Bruce Conner (36:00, 16mm on video, 1976)
TRT 90:00

***
MARS PROGRAMME DETAILS
Fuck the War by Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann (4:00, video, 2007)
The film is, on the one hand, a contemporary Lord of the Flies, which evokes the ongoing senselessness of violence and war, bringing the message home by allowing German (rather than Iraqi or Sierra Leonese) children to explore the giddy chaos of military power. At the same time, it speaks to the innate instincts and primitive impulses that remain only shallowly buried beneath our civilized surfaces.

Winter Soldier by Single Spark Film Collective (20:00, 16mm, 1971)
Vietnam vets give testimony at the Winter Soldier tribunals. Vet after vet talks about what he personally experienced in Vietnam, what he was made to do as a soldier in an imperialist army. Revealed by nightmarish firsthand account are the atrocities committed against the Vietnamese people.

T.O.U.C.H.I.N.G. by Paul Sharits (1969)

T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G by Paul Sharits (12:00, 16mm, 1968)
“Merges violence with purity.” – P. Adams Sitney

Frozen War by John Smith (11:00, video, 2002)
A disorientating experience while attempting to watch the TV news in an Irish hotel room triggers a spontaneous response to the bombing of Afghanistan.

Friendly Fire by Thorsten Fleisch (7:30, 16mm, 2003)
… Friendly Fire (2003) literally burned what you could see, and it was the light of the fire, the projector’s beam, that played out in stunning violence onscreen. With so much attention dedicated to the preservation of film, FriendlyFire proposed a cathartic alternative: ruined figures of melted celluloid and crackling ash. in death film comes alive, more vital, reborn by the very forces that destroy it. (Genevieve Yue ‘Senses of Cinema’)

Crossroads by Bruce Conner (1976)

Crossroads by Bruce Conner (36:00, 16mm, 1976)
The 1945 atomic-bomb explosion at Bikini Atoll becomes a thing of terrible beauty and haunting visual poetry when shown in extreme slow motion, shown from 27 different angles, and accompanied by avant-garde Western classical music composed for electric organ by Terry Riley.
+++

Posted in avant-garde, documentary / ethnography, event, experimental film, film
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Seven Question Interview with Matt McCormick, Portland-based Filmmaker and Artist

20 April, 2011 by Andrew Rosinski

Matt McCormick is an ardent filmmaker and artist who resides in Portland, Oregon. He is an eminent maker in the avant-garde and independent sphere of cinema — voted one of the best filmmakers of the 21st century, according to a poll conducted by the Film Society of the Lincoln Center — Matt found early success with his well-known short The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal (2002, narrated by Miranda July), which was named in ‘Top 10 / Best of 2002’ lists in both The Village Voice and Art Forum magazine.

Matt collaborates with notable artists; Matt makes music videos for recognized bands: Broken Bells, The Shins, Miranda July, Sleater-Kinney, The Postal Service, YACHT, Al Burian, Eluvium, Patton Oswalt, and Calvin Johnson, to name a few.

Matt McCormick has an aptitude for successfully distributing his films, whether it be D.I.Y. and starting his own distribution label (Peripheral Produce) and founding the PDX Film Festival, or simply just making great work and having it exhibit in a theatre, gallery, or festival.

“Matt has had three films screen at the Sundance Film Festival, and has had work screened or exhibited at MoMA, The Serpentine Gallery, The Oslo Museum of Modern Art, the Reykjavik Art Museum, The Seattle Art Museum, and in 2007 he was selected to participate in both the Moscow Biennial and Art Basil. He has received awards including Best Short Film from the San Francisco International Film Fest, Best Experimental from the New York Underground Film Fest, and Best Narrative from the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Matt’s debut feature film Some Days are Better Than Others premiered at SXSW and was invited to screen in the New Directors / New Films series presented by MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Starring Carrie Brownstein and James Mercer, the film was acquired by Palisades Tartan and will be released theatrically in the spring of 2011.”

(1) During your early days of filmmaking, what were the challenges, and how did you surmount? What are the onerous aspects of the filmmaker’s journey?

I get the sense that the challenges never really cease. Even when I talk to my super successful filmmaker friends, I am always surprised to hear how difficult things can be. For me, the early challenges were as simple as getting access to equipment and finding venues that would screen my work. From there, the challenges largely became more internal — wanting to grow as an artist and make work that felt like a progression, or simply arranging your life so that the demands of filmmaking are not impeded on by other lifestyle choices. But I think the challenges are almost always there, from being frustrated because you want to make something, but lack the resources, to having made something, but being disappointed with how it turned out or was received. And then there is the whole “how am I going to make a living?” to boot. I think as a filmmaker, you just have to deal with it, and understand that there are challenges around every corner.

(more…)

Posted in avant-garde, documentary / ethnography, experimental film, film, interview
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