Free Symposium On Protecting Pittsburgh's Film Hertitage @ Melwood Screening Room Tomorrow

I will try to attend this event, tomorrow @ Oakland's Melwood Screening Room.

From Pop City.

"Kicking off the 30th installment of the Three Rivers Film Festival, which starts on Nov. 4, the day-long event is co-presented by the University of Pittsburgh iSchool and Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Guest panelists will discuss themes of place, community and memory in the production of moving images, as well as film history and preservation."

The syposium will include a screening of classic Pittsburgh films and documentaries.

Free Evening Event: 8:00 - 9:30pm

Register here.

Will The Pittsburgh Biennial Get Much National Press?

Finally, a number of major cultural venues, The Warhol, The Carnegie Museum, The Warhol, Pittsburgh Filmmakers and CMU's Miller Gallery are collaborating on a large scale exhibit project similar to what I have long advocated on here.

"We are quickly becoming one of the most dynamic art communities in America, and the Pittsburgh Biennial is going to prove that Pittsburgh is a place that cherishes and supports the arts," says Warhol curator Eric Shiner.

Highlighting a broad spectrum of works and providing increased recognition for more than 60 of the region's top artistic talents, the survey-style show features everything from 2-D work, installation and sculpture, to time-, interactive- and process-based works.

Pittsburgh Filmmakers will dedicate its galleries to a presentation of media arts, while works on view at The Miller Gallery will examine the city's long labor history as well as CMU's legacy of presenting courses that explore the social role of art in public contexts. Featured at the Miller will be collectives and artists who work collaboratively in socially engaged ways, such as in publishing, installation, art education, new media, performance, and printmaking."

Finally, many of the best artists in the city brought together in the kind of large scale show that should allow each to really show off what they are doing.

Now comes the next question--will anyone beyond the immediate Pittsburgh region know about or care about this show? Well, on a positive note-since the show has a somewhat broader definition of a "Pittsburgh artist" and has included several people who no longer live here full time, at least one NY dealer I talked to knew about it.On the negative side, the absence of any artists from a wider region-means that those places have no particular need to pay attention.

I think the show will receive limited out of town coverage and that very little of the wider contact, dialog and recognition will develop. Pittsburgh is like the irritating date who only talks about themselves. My guess is Pittsburgh Foundations and other large funders are behind some of this extreme introversion. They are not doing any serious Pittsburgh artist any favors.

At Least One Thing Pittsburgh Can Learn from Portland, Oregon

I recently reconnected online with my old pal DJ Anjali. She’s a DJ in Portland, Oregon where she spins danceclub music heavy on South Asian beats and vocals, throws dance parties all over town, and hosts a Bollywood Bike In. She and her partner, The Incredible Kid, were the first ones to introduce the beats of “bhangra & Bollywood” to the dance floors of Portland.

The website for the India Cultural Association of Portland states, "Portland and neighboring suburbs currently boasts a thriving community of nearly 10,000 Indians, primarily in high-tech, engineering, medical, teaching, research and healthcare professions." It’s a very similar story in Pittsburgh. According to a Trib-Review article earlier this year, "about 14,000 [Indian-Americans] live in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area...predominantly white-collar professionals, doctors or workers in the high-tech sector." It was harder to find statistics on the per-capita DJ ratios, but I know that each city has a thriving underground dance scene.

So, why doesn’t Pittsburgh have a Bollywood party or bhangra-beat dance nights at clubs and dance halls? When is DJ Anjali going to fly in and show us how it’s done? I propose importing her to kick off a Bollywood movie and dance night, sponsored by Dollar Bank, co-hosted by Pittsburgh Filmmakers and CMU, held at Filmmakers’ Melwood theaters in (heavily Indian) North Oakland. The dancing could start at Filmmakers and maybe the late-night after-party could move on to Brillobox. Any counter proposals?

Russian Film Symposium & Silk Screen Film Festival

Pittsburgh gets some amazing film festivals, and they're not always that well publicized. Since I moved to Pittsburgh, I've seen fantastic films at festivals dedicated to Czech Republic directors, Jewish-Israeli directors, GLBT topics, Chinese directors, Global themes, and local filmmakers. This doesn't even count the many film series and festivals I've missed, such as the Amigos del Cine Latinoamericano, Romanian Cinema on the Edge, the Cine-stan Festival for Turkmen and Kazakh films, the Polish Film Series, the Indian Film Festival, the Italian Film Festival, the Syrian Film Series, the German Avant-Garde Film Series, and many more.

Last night was the kickoff of the public segment of the 12th annual Russian Film Symposium, with the screening (at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Melwood) of a powerful mother-daughter film, "Wolfy." The next three nights continues the Russian Film screenings (all films from 2009), also at Pittsburgh Filmmakers on Melwood (North Oakland). Tonight's film, "Oxygen" (a "rap parable") comes highly recommended.

As Merge Divide has mentioned, starting Friday is the Silk Screen Festival of Asian films (screening at all three theaters connected with Pittsburgh Filmmakers--Harris, Melwood, Regent's Square). This festival is aiming to put Pittsburgh on the map by being the best of its kind.

In one of my Pittsburgh fantasies, I put the Melwood screening facility more obviously on the map by getting a Sprout grant to paint a red carpet on the sidewalks all the way down Melwood Avenue, from two or three blocks away, leading right to the door of the theater. I love this theater and photgraphy/film facility, but I wish it was a little easier for newcomers or visitors to find, and that it wasn't so dangerous to cross Baum Boulevard as a pedestrian.

Another plug for Cluster on Friday, plus Doc Salon

Taking a moment to plug the Cluster opening at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Ton of excellent new work, some pieces are enormous stretches for the artists - Connie Cantor will be unveiling a 14-foot behemoth of a painting made with layered veils of tiny marks, for example. Additionally it will be interesting to consider the breadth of media in the show, and whether or not it comes together cohesively.

Also on Friday night, the quiet gathering of Pittsburgh documentary filmmakers and viewers happens again. Documentary Salon will be meeting at Pittsburgh Filmmakers in the mini-Melwood screening room on the second floor at 6:30. The group will be screening a 50-minute segment of Rebecca Einhorn's Mythopoeic Times. If past conversations are any indication of the future, considered discussion will follow, moderated by documentary filmmaker and teacher Will Zavala.

People's Park and Other Protest Films with Tom Palazzolo @ Melwood Screening Room Sept 22

Filmmaker, Tom Palazzolo will be @ The Melwood Screening room in Oakland to introduce a selection of films which capture the trials and turmoil of the late sixties and early seventies.

"Assembly Line — This intimate and starkly photographed narrative tells the tale of factory worker Eddie Ryan who throws himself into the neon glitz of downtown Philadelphia on his night off, thinking a wallet full of cash will buy him excitement, companionship and meaning in life. To his distress he finds all the invites and come-ons to a good time are a con and a fraud – he can spend his money but it buys him nothing, and he manages to connect with no one. (Morton Hellig, USA, 1961, 30 min)

America's in Real Trouble — This free-wheeling reportage from the street captures all the disconcerting contrasts of patriotic Vietnam-era parades as they move in lock-step through the poverty-ridden ghetto of Chicago’s Near Northside. The soundtrack is exclusively composed of music that was heard over the radio that very same moment in time, mostly country songs that celebrate the conservative virtues of God and Country. The result is an unmediated "snapshot of the moment" that resembles a home movie in its naive pacing and composition; but it is precisely this casual and spontaneous approach that manages to capture the mood and mentality of the day more effectively than all the staged Hollywood spectacles. (Tom Palazzolo, USA, 1968, 15 min)

People's Park — This fiercely partisan version of the People’s Park story captures not only the famous incident – the street battles between the people of Berkeley intent on defending a park they created and the police and national guard acting on behalf of the property owners – but also a radical style of filmmaking that sought to shed light on aspects of the story ignored by the major media outlets. This is protest cinema at its most compelling. (The San Francisco Newsreel Group, USA, 1969, 25 min)

Love It/Leave It — This film fluidly weaves sound and image together to create a hallucinatory montage of urban America at the height of anti-war demonstrations. Equal parts totalitarian nightmare and candy-coated consumer fun fair, like most of Palazzolo’s work, it’s devoid of overt editorial comment and full of ambiguity – a searching to capture the spirit and times and people without imposing the filmmaker’s own political agenda. (Tom Palazzolo, USA, 1970, 15 min)"

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

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.

Estonia's Singing Revolution @ The Harris Theatre

It's going to be a very busy weekend of Arts events in the Burgh but I want to see this Documentary downtown @ The Harris which opens on the 12th. I came across the trailer on You Tube. Estonia's quiet (well they might have sung loud) peaceful rebirth as an independent nation is a worthy story for a documentary.

Photomakers at Filmmakers, North Oakland

At Pittsburgh Filmmakers in North Oakland, two recent graduates and one established local artist are showing photographs in the lobby gallery surrounding the Melwood Avenue screening room. Mandy Kendall’s “Inverted Landscapes” use double exposure, long rectangles, and black and white film to show the “extraordinary beauty of the everyday world.” They’re beautiful, lyrical images shot in Eastern Ohio and Western PA. In an age of digital everything, these are images true to what the photographer captured on old fashioned film; only the printing is digital.

CMU’s Eno Thereska works to portray the human condition in “Species.” Eliminating backgrounds, placing his human subjects against a stark white page, these singles, pairs, and couples look lonelier and more detached than ever. Except the ones that are hopeful, or something else entirely. I really liked these. They were like Richard Avedon for regular people.

Deeper into the gallery, Artist Image Resource director, Robert Beckman, has rearranged the space, adding a wall, and then covering the squarish room with life-sized images of East Ohio Street. This installation, called “STREET” (detail above), uses huge inkjet prints, pushing their color to gaudy and gorgeous tones. Beckman gets the “visual abundance” he’s going for, and if you’ve ever been to East Ohio Street on Pittsburgh’s Northside—with its pawn shops, luncheonettes, sports bars and thrift stores--you know where the inspiration comes from.

Through June 10th
Filmmakers Galleries
Hours: Noon-5pm, M-F
and during film screenings in Melwood Screening Room
477 Melwood Avenue
412.681.5449
www.pghfilmmakers.org