Tony Buba / Film Kitchen last Tuesday

Kudos to Matt Day for assembling a fantastic Film Kitchen last Tuesday night at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Getting the blatantly obvious out of the way, he wangled the best food ever out of Chipotle grill - whole burritos. Bill O'Driscoll passed the Film Kitchen torch last year, after five years of curating and hosting the event he founded. I'm glad to see its still burning.



I snuck a photo of the 1968 film Jazz from a Very Special Hotel, produced by Laurence Taylor's 11th-grade lit class at Braddock High. Perhaps this offering is what brought out all the 'oldsters' Tony Buba gently teased throughout the night. In Hotel, Taylor's dry narrative voice-over tells the story of a new teen love forged in typing class and walks down quiet railroad tracks. Its a black & white, poetic glimpse into bustling Braddock of 1968.



Buba's Shut Down (1973) was itself shut down by a break in the film stock itself. I didn't care, I got a minute or two of his editing style and actually got to meet the man himself!

With a q&a at the end of the night featuring all the filmmakers, and a treat of an opening short film (Chia-Pi Choa's Where Do Fish Go In Winter, a treat of a slipstream fairy tale) Film Kitchen remains an intimate, regular, local film event well worth a visit.

The monthly film event is hosted by Pittsburgh Filmmakers and sponsored by City Paper. Film Kitchen online.

The author confesses to having screened work at this event in the past.