Progress Report

My central character for dog people/cat people is unavailable for two weeks and non-comittal beyond that. The times he is available are not available times for me, so I am changing directions. The broad topic is media messages directed at young girls. The direction I'm going with it is a portrait of one or several young girls; to see what it is like to exist in their world, to see the issues they are grappling with, how they deal with the issues and how much the media messages affect their decisions. I have 7 candidates for central characters, my granddaughters. Most shooting will be done during spring break. Preliminary research reveals that Caitlin, the oldest has a singing performance during that time that she is nervous about. Also, Sarah is being teased in school because she may not be quite as mature as some of her friends. Still checking on other opportunities with the other girls. Have found some open source examples of media messages featuring idealized women to contrast with real life issues.

Burma VJ related news

Aung San Suu Kyi appeal rejected by Burma court

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8538027.stm

Dong Kim Progress Report - Austin Advocate

I have made a few phone calls to the office of Austin Advocate, and I am going to the downtown office monthly meeting on the coming Monday.
I am going to interview the head committee members, specifically Valerie Romness, the chairwoman of the newspaper. This meeting is held every first Monday of a month, so I will be attending this next month too. I will be asking about the system, the purpose, the starting of the organization, the hardships, and the people around the organization that makes it possible to keep the organization running for 11 years. There is a goose, which is the mascott of Austin Advocate. It will be interesting to know the history of this famous formerly-homeless goose.
Hopefully, I will take a lot of b-roles as well. The meeting is open to everyone and thus I know that there will be a lot of homeless people gathering up to hear and see what is new. Also, this office is located in the ARCH building, which is a shelter for homeless people. I know that there will be a lot of interesting stuff to shoot, for example, the streets, the homeless people gathering up and chit-chatting, and inside the homeless shelter, the people who works in the shelter.
I will try to focus on the Austin Advocate meeting though, and I am using Z5U and lav mike primary. I have a friend of mine who is going to create music for this piece going with me, so I have a good partner.

Killian portrait

Portrait by I-hwa

Progress Report - Local Food

I've been working on tracking down solid subjects for my story, and I think I've finally found someone who will work. I spoke with a guy named Steven Hebbard who is running a program through Mobile Loaves and Fishes that is trying to create jobs for formerly homeless by growing and selling organic produce. Basically what they do is get families from the community to agree to let them plant a vegetable garden in their yard (the families pay for the costs, and the people in the program do the work). Then the produce is split 50/50 with the families and sold at the farmer's market. So the people in the program get a job and get access to fresh vegetables. I'm meeting with the group on Friday to make a plan for the project and to start shooting. There are lots of opportunities for video, since they work every weekend either planting or selling, and a few times during the week as well. Its a very new program and a pretty creative idea, so I think it will be interesting to see if its working, and what it actually accomplishes.

I also have a contact with Sustainable Food Center who has tracked down a family that is participating in their program called Sprouting Healthy Communities, where the kids and the adults are learning about growing and cooking healthy food. I should be meeting them next week, so that could be a back up or secondary character in the film.

Still trying to figure out who my "main" character is, and haven't started shooting yet. Will have more info after Friday.

Knitta Please

Well as far as a progress report goes, we are waiting on a response from the leader of Knitta Please. I'm also talking to a friend about getting a hold of a prominent spray artist who has painted around austin and is seemingly famous in the scene. There are a few different options available to include. Lacey found a fantastic store in austin that provides yarn and might make for a good location or alternate perspective. www.theknittingnestaustin.com

Also, this apparently is similar (if not the actual project) to the latest project of Magda Sayeg. I have a feeling that as soon as we get a reply, fantastic images will unfold.

still, there we haven't really found one story, we just need a response from the leader of Knitta Please for the ball to start rolling

Progress on the farmers project

When I went to Farmer Market downtown last Sat., it turned out that there weren't many vendors/farmers. And I was told that there might be some potential subjects in the farmer market on Wed. Alright, it stops right there. I'm going to the Wed one next week.
Then I ended up talking with the girl in the Wheatsville Co-op which is a community-focused full service grocer in Austin. They have a good relationship with many local farmers in Austin. Indeed, she said that the local farming business is really an important part of Austin economy, and some of the farmers are effected by the drought but she's not clear how many.

Although I didn't get the information as much as I expected, at least my imagination has sort of connection with the reality.

Goin' China

Plane tickets: Bought

Hotel reservations: Made

Visa application: In the mail

Vaccines: Injected

Typhoid Pills: Ingested

All the official paper work has been taken care of and I should be good to go March 6^th. I have been keeping in regular contact with my two partners in this project: James Whelan and Leihua Weng. We’ve put forward our respective questions and we have turned that into a basic script for our interview subjects. James, who has a good grasp of Chinese, and Leihua, a native speaker, are currently working on the necessary Chinese translations.

Our main contact in the Beijing MMA scene, Vaughn (a Canadian), is going to be moving to Taiwan around the 15^th. Because of this, we have had to readjust our schedule some to make sure we get what we want with him before he leaves the city. This might limit our access to the official training sessions of his organization – The Art of War. However, we will still be able to talk to Vaughn and his MMA contacts.

Here is some footage James got of Mr. Zhang back in 2007, which I edited into a small highlight reel about a year ago. The quality of the video took a major hit because I had to send the file by email, but you get the basic idea:

Check out some unedited footage here.

Brett's Progress Report

I'm still in the process of figuring out exactly what my documentary will be about. Nevertheless, I do have some progress to report.

Early this afternoon, I was able to contact the Operations Supervisor for the North American branch of E.on Climate and Renewables Patrick Woodson. After talking about access to the wind sites as I am traveling to Corpus Christi this weekend to shoot some footage, he informed me that they are about to start construction on a new site north of Corpus Christi in several weeks with Siemens turbines (whom my Brother-in-Law works for). I'm thinking it would be a great idea to sort of focus around this new site in north Corpus as a conduit for wind turbine development in Texas as a whole and how it affects this specific community. Patrick agreed to do an interview with me in the near future. And, hopefully I can get some interviews from those who own the land in north Corpus. Additionally, with access to the development of this new site as well as access to the factory in Round Rock and the owning company in Austin, I will be able to see the whole life cycle of Wind Energy development in Texas from planning to building to construction to finally producing energy.

I just haven't found my crazy-go-nutz Wind Energy advocate to center my story around. My only character as of now are the turbines themselves. This is why I'm leaning more and more towards a visual and audible think piece on wind turbines (more or less experimental). I feel there would still be very much of a narrative, just more abstract. Please comment.

Ben & Michelle, "Swingers" Progress Report

The current draft of our treatment, which has not yet been revised, can be seen here.

We have received responses to our Craigslist enquiry from a few interested parties. (Edit: Correspondence documents removed.)

We are currently planning to meet with these contacts in person next week, and to get to know them better before filming.

Along Came Kinky by Dong H Kim

The film Along Came Kinky is a charismatic piece of documentary. The film is full of human dramas, good characters, and the interesting realism to the world of politics. The world of political campaigns and competitions are often highly visible to the public, but also rarely understood or seen as they really are. The documentary follows the campaign of Kinky Friedman, the glorious times of the campaign, the downfall, and the end of the campaign of Kinky Friedman in 2006 election for governor of Texas.
The interesting thing about the documentary itself was, that the film was full of characters. There was no doubt that Kinky Friedman, the former bandleader running for governor of Texas in 2006, is the main character of the story. However, there were multiple characters who were involved in the 2006 election of governor of Texas. The relationship between the candidates and the faculty members working for them created human drama.
Also, the documentary was about how Kinky’s campaign and his relationship with the campaign staffs were different from that of other candidates. Kinky had strange, convention-breaking backgrounds and ideas about politics. He was rude but passionate, and was ‘not afraid to offend people’ for what he said. His campaign was more like a fiesta, rather than a cold-blooded competition to win the position of Governor of Texas. The staffs of Kinky’s campaign, who the documentary was primarily focused on, showed the love and passion for Kinky’s personality and ideals. It was very interesting for me to watch the contrast between the campaign of Chris Bell the Democrat and the campaign of Kinky Friedman, which the director purposefully emphasized. The highly professional relationship in Bell’s campaign and the unconventional and casual relationship in Kinky’s campaign eventually helped the audience establish the image of Kinky Friedman and his ideas as bizarre but fresh, unconventional but passionate, and such.
The director, in the discussion after the screening, admitted that it was his editorial decision to make a comic scene out of the conversation between Chris Bell and his staffs about the nervousness before the TV conference, when Bell is worried and the staffs try to encourage him. I personally loved that moment, and thought that it was the director’s good instinct to use the piece of reality and give the audience the feeling of humor that he intended. It was also a very good character-building technique that I think is really important. The characterizations of the people in the documentary made the world of political campaigns much more realistic to me, compared to the lifeless and stiff images of the candidates on the news shows
After all, it was a good time to watch Kinky’s challenge and his beautiful failure, in the beginning of the year 2010, when he actually challenges again for his political ideals, with the people that loves him. Although I barely know the politics of Texas, I felt the passion in Kinky and the people around him, and was deeply impressed.

Isaac Frank Rooks Berry

VISUAL ACOUSTICS is coming to Austin opening on March 5th at the Arbor Cinema for a one week engagement. I will do Q&As after the 7:50 p.m. screenings on Friday, March 5th and Saturday, March 6th as well as the 2:50 p.m. screening on Sunday, March 7th.

In addition, I will be doing a special in-store event at DWR with architect Leo Marmol from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 4th. If you haven't attended an event at DWR they are always fun and stocked with plenty o' beverages.

Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, VISUAL ACOUSTICS celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. Shulman, who passed away this year, captured the work of nearly every modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry. His images epitomized the singular beauty of Southern California’s modernist movement and brought its iconic structures to the attention of the general public. This unique film is both a testament to the evolution of modern architecture and a joyful portrait of the magnetic, whip-smart gentleman who chronicled it with his unforgettable images.

AFS treatment boilerplate

We'll discuss this more next class, but I thought I'd post it so that you all can take a look and think about how your doc might sound in this format...

Austin Film Society Proposal Boilerplate

A present-tense descriptive passage. Engage the reader and let them "see" a slice of your film.

"Lunchtime at the Blue Diner. Plates and silverware clatter over the sound of lunchtime conversation. 'Order up!' shouts the chef as he slides a heaping plate of home cookin' across the counter."

The What: length, format, genre- A 1-sentence "tagline" for the project.

"This 55-minute video documentary follows an afternoon at the 70-year-old diner, providing an introduction to a fascinating group of people along with a window into larger issues of social and economic change."

The How: What is the plot or the organizing structure of the work? What is the style?

"The video will follow Thelma, who has been a Blue Diner waitress for the past 24 years, through a 'typical' lunchtime rush and afternoon at the diner. Thelma's stories are woven together, incorporating a variety of styles including animation and montage. Observational footage will be augmented by period photos and film clips, as well as unfolding episodes involving current customers."

The Whys: Why this story? Why should you tell it? Why tell it now?

"This historic luncheonette will lose its lease at the end of the year. I am a member of a grassroots community coalition that is fighting to preserve the diner, but it is possible that it will be lost to the advance of 'progress.' It is imperative that the oral histories of the staff and clientele be preserved. Furthermore, the contrast between the unique personality of an owner-operated luncheonette and the ever-more pervasive homogenized culture of fast food outlets opens up important questions about the nature of our society and our future."

The Where: Where will this go? Who is your audience? What plans do you have for distribution?

"This story is ideal for PBS broadcast and affiliate stations in Austin and Dallas have expressed interest in my finished work.”

Finally, before submitting your proposal, have some people read it--at least one person not familiar with your project, and one who is. Listen to their feedback, and revise your proposal if necessary. And please check for grammar and spelling errors!

True/False Fest online

I stumbled upon a pretty cool website (in beta testing) this evening-

http://www.theauteurs.com/cinemas/14

Seems to show selections from festivals around the world. Currently showing a retrospective of docs from the true/false fest (a great doc fest), including THE ORDER OF MYTHS, online, for free. Check it out. You might also be interested in selections from other festivals.

History Matters = Chicago 10?

Short documentary I helped shoot in this class a year ago with Huda Abdul-Razzak.

The actor's lines are a verbatim transcription of an American news broadcast during the attacks in 2008-2009, but we cast an actor (who plays identical twins shot by Bruce Willis in the opening to Sin City) to play an anchor giving the report and having a... a crisis of conscience?... a supernatural visitation?... a great cinematographer?

;-)

Screening Reaction: 'Chicago 10'

Chicago 10 (2007), dir. Brett Morgan
I have to respect Brett Morgan for taking as many bold stylistic chances as he does. However, while I admire the audacity of some of his ideas, they do not always work for me. Unfortunately, one of my biggest complaints is the main stylistic flourish: the animated courtroom reenactments. The idea is fine, but the execution falters.
The main problem is the animation style, which simply does not appeal to me. It is crudely done and looks like the graphics in a bad video game. There are several brief vignettes with different animation styles, all of which I preferred to the style used in the courtroom. The stylistic excess in the animated sequences is also rather distracting. The camera frequently swoops and zips around the room. If two characters are having a back and forth conversation, sometimes, instead of a shot-reverse shot, there is a 180 degree whip pan. It is especially jarring to see these modern tricks when the rest of the film is archival footage from the event. Although I was not crazy about these elements, I suspect that, with time, I could have gotten used to them. However, the film keeps cutting to the real archival footage and the clash kept taking me out of the film.
It all comes down to a matter of consistency. The rules are so different between the halves of the film that I kept being distracted. Even within the animation, the rules occasionally change. At one point, Allen Ginsberg levitates in the middle of a scene; but this type of fantastic, absurd imagery is not a motif. It is just a one-off oddball moment. If you keep changing the paradigm, it takes me out of the story; if I understand the logic and it stays consistent, however bizarre it may be, I have no problem. For example, another bold choice Morgan makes, which works because it is a constant, is the use of modern music.
I did not agree with all the music choices, especially the anti-Bush song by Eminem, which was too on the mark, but I appreciate the unique idea. This is a film about anti-Vietnam protestors that does not use “War” by Edwin Starr. It focuses on hippy types in the 60s, but there is no Jefferson Airplane. How refreshing is that? Morgan is not of the event’s generation, so using that type of music would have been a clichéd bit of posturing. Instead, he uses the music of the younger generation to help contemporary audiences find correlations with this movement. The Chicago 10 spoke to the frustrations and anger of young people in the 60s in a way similar to how heavy metal and rap speak to those of modern day young people.
Although I complain about the animation, I have no issues with the construction of the film, which is great. It is a really wonderfully edited and structured film. It tells parallel stories: that of the buildup to the convention and that of the post-convention trial. The film cuts back and forth between these two story lines, building up the tension in perfect tandem until it reaches the breaking point. The fact that the story arc is so compelling is made all the more impressive by the fact that the narrative is totally constructed with news footage, transcripts, and audio clips. There are no modern day interviews and retrospectives by the participants filling in the gaps. It is all told with the material of the time, which gives the events a palpable immediacy.

What's in a Name?

My short doc for Adv. Documentary in Spring 2009 - needs a good re-edit.

Jim's Portrait

RTF 343 Advanced Doc - Portrait of Jim from Brett Bowlin on Vimeo.

Portrait of Jim as part of a class project for RTF 343 - Adv. Doc. production at UT. Compressor screwed up the aspect ratio; I apologize.

Portrait of Nick

@ Arcade UFO.

R.I.P

Nick's Presence in

Adv. Doc.

Jan. 2010-Jan. 2010

Outside event: O Amor Natural

O Amor Natural (1996) directed by Heddy Honigmann

I assumed a documentary revolving around a book of erotic poems was bound to have some redeeming qualities, but O Amor Natural was even better than I hoped.

The film is a series of interview with elderly Brazilians, who are asked to read poems from a posthumously published book by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and talk about the poet and the work. The poems seem to invariably lead to reminiscences of their own sexual pasts, and so the film becomes not only a profile of the poet, but an exploration of sexuality through the eyes of people well-passed their sexual prime.

There are so many really great characters in the documentary, and I laughed out loud more than once at some of the conversations – like the man with a variety of stories of former sexual exploits who kept emphasizing that his age was 85 “and a half,” or the woman who thought Drummond made up “oris” as a surname for the word “clit.” But between the funny and sometimes awkward conversations is a look at sexuality that you don’t often see – octogenarians talking candidly and nostalgically about their past sexual experiences –not typically something that I hear or even think about. As my friend who went to the screening with me said,”It really made me think about sex!”

The film is very engaging, partly because the interviews are so intimate and personal. In an online interview with Honigmann, she talks about how some filmmakers are terrible listeners, and just talk right over people in an effort to get to their next question. Clearly this is not her style, because most of the interviews are barely cut, just rolling straight through with an occasional prompt from the interviewer, but otherwise allowing the subject’s stories to unfold naturally. In one very endearing interview with two women on the beach, one of the subjects becomes the interviewer herself, asking her friend to tell her a risqué story. It feels like you are listening in on a completely private conversation, and the women barely seem to notice the camera at all. I’m always impressed with people that can draw interviews like that out of people in such a quiet and unobtrusive way.

For a film that is almost entirely made up of talking heads, I thought O Amor Natural was incredibly interesting to watch. Of course the subject matter helps (I mean, who doesn’t like a film about sex?) but the characters that are revealed through the interviews, and the portrait of the poet that emerges by the end of film are what really carries the viewer through.

(Here's a clip from the film if you're interested.)

Brett Portrait

Portrait of Ben

Composer looking to document performance at Cathedral of Junk

I'm passing this along in case anyone is interested-- obviously too late for a final project but perhaps someone in class would be otherwise compelled. Contact Ian, email below... --Diane

From: Ian Dicke [mailto:iandicke@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 2:09 PM
Subject: RTF Collaboration

I'm looking for a student who has an interest in documenting (either artistically or generically) a performance of a percussion piece of mine at the Cathedral of Junk. I don't have a date set yet, but possibly in early May. Ideally, the performance could be captured by a multi-camera crew. The taping would take place during the day (so lighting shouldn't be an issue).

Thanks,
Ian

I A N D I C K E
composer
www.iandicke.com

Portrait: Lacey

Thanks to Lacey for sharing her story; I hope the sensation comes back.

Zombie Girl screening

http://www.austinfilm.org/Page.aspx?pid=785&cid=4&ceid=633&cerid=0&cdt=3%2f2%2f2010

Tue, 2 Mar, 2010 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Athletic Event Information:
Team:
Location:	(Map)
Opponent:
Transportation Information:
Score:
Recap:
Stats:
Please join us on for a screening of the documentary feature film, Zombie Girl, followed by a Q&A with local filmmaker Aaron Marshall on Tuesday March 2 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30p.m. at the Windsor Park Branch, 5833 Westminster Dr. The screening is free and open to the public.

Zombie Girl chronicles the creative passion of Emily Hagins, an extraordinary pre-teen girl following her filmmaking dreams. Most twelve-year-olds are busy with friends, homework, and online chatting. So is Emily, but she found time to write and direct a feature-length zombie movie as well. Zombie Girl documents the exhilarating and heartbreaking two years it took her to make it. With the help of her mother as agent, crew, and biggest fan, Emily launches an epic adventure in genre filmmaking, battling everything from budget shortfalls to self-doubt, all while coming of age as a teenager.

Outside Event: 'Along Came Kinky'

Along Came Kinky (2009), dir. David Hartstein
It’s been a while, but I remember being phenomenally bored by The War Room, a documentary chronicling the 1992 presidential election. So the idea of a film by a first-time documentarian focusing on a campaign of a much smaller scale, the 2006 Texas gubernatorial campaign, did not fill me with confidence. I ended up being hugely and pleasantly surprised.
The film does take a while to get started. The beginning is mostly just Friedman spouting one-liners while his supporters sing his praises. There is no one with a negative word about Friedman and it seems impossible to imagine him losing. The whole thing feels like a political ad. However, the beginning is charming enough, because Friedman is such a fun character. And the rosy opening, although it goes on too long, effectively gets you into the mindset of a Friedman supporter. It also makes it that much more shocking when the edges begin to fray during the campaign. The real turning point comes during a press conference, when Friedman refers to Katrina evacuees in Houston as “crack heads.” It is a shockingly real moment in what has, up until that point, felt like a very calculated show. After that, the film is really in full swing and massively entertaining.
There are some intriguing elements in the second half of the film that feel like they are short changed by the length of the lighter opening. I wish the film could have delved a little deeper into Friedman’s persona. It only lightly touches on the fact that, in many ways, his folksy stand up routine is just a variation of the stiff politicians who refuse to get off their talking points. I also would have liked it if the film had spent some more time following Chris Bell, the Democratic candidate. He is a great character, very low key and funny. As it is, the moments with him are great, but feel like sidetracks from the main story. Still, it is a strong film. It is a testament to its strength that, although the outcome is already known, it is still engaging, suspenseful, and, at the end, heartbreaking. Whatever my skepticism about Friedman, I really felt for him and his supporters as they tore down his banners to the tune of “Sold American.”

Sold American - Kinky Friedman

Screening Reaction: 'Blue Vinyl'

Blue Vinyl (2002), dir. Judith Helfand and Daniel B Gold
Blue Vinyl is not a bad film. It’s actually got a lot of very strong stuff in it. It is an interesting expose of the vinyl industry and makes a very convincing case against it. Helfand manages to avoid bogging the film down in chemistry and legal wrangling by keeping a firm focus on the human element of the issue. It is Helfand’s extreme luck that a number of the key players in the story are engaging characters. She also makes the great decision to keep in small details that are not relevant to the issue at hand, but give a wonderful sense of who these people are. Two of these moments are actually my favorite parts of the film: one where the lawyer fighting the vinyl industry describes the beauty of the plant at night, and another where an Italian scientist very strictly lays down how Helfand should go about interviewing him. In a film filled with great characters, it is ironic that the film is hurt so much by its main character: Judith Helfand.
Helfand makes a big miscalculation by featuring herself so prominently in the film. Her gimmick in the film is that she goes everywhere with a little section of vinyl from her parent’s house. I found it to be an unbearably obnoxious decision. Whenever I was getting into the film, Helfand would appear with that piece of plastic and I would get mad. My main complaint is that it feels self-aggrandizing. She chronicles many amazing people who are trying to fight these corporate giants, but she cannot resist reminding us (in the most twee way possible) of her presence and actions. She certainly deserves credit for shining a light on this issue, but to credit herself so obviously and persistently becomes grating.
I understand why Helfand includes herself: her narrative is the only one in the film with any hopes of being resolved in a satisfying manner. The whole film is framed as a quest to find out the truth about her parent’s vinyl siding and to get them to replace it. The conclusion she builds the audience up for is that she will find a cost effective solution and a sensible way of discarding the vinyl. If she had managed to do that, I could have forgiven her heavy inclusion of herself. However, she manages to achieve neither goal. Her parents reject the solutions she comes up with, driving her to an option that is, by her own admission, prohibitively expensive. Her solution to disposing of the vinyl is a silly crafts project that essentially pawns the material onto other people. It is a sloppy, dull, overly long, and unsatisfying conclusion to an interesting documentary, and it unfortunately taints the whole film.

SXSW ‘10; Fest Competition Rosters Unveiled

http://www.indiewire.com/article/sxsw_film_festival_lineup/P0/

A ton of good documentaries in the line-up, and a lot of opportunities to see director Q&As. You might want to consider spending spring break at sxsw, especially if you're never attended before. See link above for indiewire article that includes the various category rosters.

-Diane

ALONG CAME KiNKY

FILMMAKER IN ATTENDANCE!

Where: UT CMB Building - Studio 4D at the corner of Dean Keeton and Guadalupe Street
When: Feb 3rd 2010 at 7pm


In sticking with the political theme, the film will be preceded by a short called, Great Grandma for Obama. Following the screening we'll have a panel discussion featuring me, Laura Stromberg from Kinky's 2006 campaign and Jason Stanford from Chris Bell's 2006 campaign. Jason recently announced that he's now working on Kinky's current campaign for Agriculture Commissioner so it should be interesting. The panel will be moderated by Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune and Texas Monthly Talks fame.

O AMOR NATURAL!

O AMOR NATURAL is a documentary film about the erotic poetry of one of the greatest Latin American poets of the 20th century, the Brazilian Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987).

The erotic poems of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, a household name in Brazil, remained unpublished during his lifetime, as he feared they would be deemed pornographic. In this celebration of his poetry and sensual vision, elderly residents of Rio read his poems and comment on their graphic, voluptuous imagery with tremendous candor and enthusiasm. "We're old. We're not dead!" interjects one reader, as memories of stolen pleasures and bittersweet melancholy unfold. Says filmmaker Heddy Honigmann: "The poems sometimes functioned as a kind of corkscrew, sometimes as a glass of water, sometimes as a glass of brandy."

SCREENING INFO

Wednesday, February 10 at 7 PM
The Alamo Downtown (320 E 6th St)
$4 AFS Members & Students / $6 General Public