Wednesday, February 04, 2009

thank god february is a short month ...

The cranky "I'm stuck indoors with a giant gas bill" overwhelms my Superbowl afterglow. Its still too fricking dark outside. Still there's good stuff to be had ...

Documentary Salon met last night in the mini-Melwood theater at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Loosely organized by documentary filmmaker Will Zavala, a little social time with food precedes locally produced documentary film presented for post-show discussion.

Justin Crimone and Mark Staley showed a rough cut of a piece shot in Guatemala. Mark shot the footage while teaching in an educational program for underserved kids in this wild-west country. Since the program, and the film, is funded by Whole Foods, there was a lively discussion of everything from managing the content to concerns about 'slant'.

tENTATIVELY a Convenience was there; he told me a bit about his experimental orchestra, a "communal thought experiment", he recently performed? conducted? at the New Hazlett. He'll be screening the documentation of this event at the next meeting, which is March 3.

While in Filmmakers I got all the movie poster reminders I needed for films I'm looking forward to. Azure & Asmar, an amazing picture-book of an animated fairy tale (kid-friendly non-Disney/Pixar!), an old favorite, Easy Rider, and two servings of Oscar-nominated short films.

Oh, yeah, and Film Kitchen is next Tuesday at Melwood Screening Room in Oakland. Features a locally-made doc about squatters, among other things.

the blog for Documentary Salon
Filmmaker's february screening schedule
Film Kitchen's page

Jessica Fenlon

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