Hasta La Ideas

Crowd-sourced film festival exhibits work from new cinematic talent

I recently stopped by the 2nd annual Kickstarter Film Festival to do some sleuthing on up-and-coming film makers. The festival screens a collection of curated Kickstarter projects, including documentaries, animation and products. It was a perfect evening to enjoy some video outdoors and Kickstarter’s partnership with Rooftop Films facilitated an impressive set up in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. All 16 of the films shown are definitely worth a look, but the four below are standouts.

“The Twelve O’ Clock Boyz,” a documentary by director Lofty Nathan, follows three different Baltimore City residents, all deeply involved in the illegal dirt-bike riding scene.

This practice of rallying, racing and showboating in city streets has become deeply ingrained in the urban culture of The City That Reads, but the illegal and dangerous nature has made it a contentious issue between the communities involved. Born from a rising tension between social and economic classes within the city, the dirt bike culture has come to epitomize rebellion, release and expression for marginalized communities. Nathan explores these relationships and the deeper issues that gave birth to this subculture in what promises to be a fascinating look inside the contemporary existence of urban communities.

Most of us are familiar with Richard Nixon, as well as Watergate and the infamous tape recordings which emerged from it. Our Nixon takes advantage of another set of recordings from this era —previously unreleased Super-8 footage recorded within and around the Nixon White House by some of his closest associates.

In all, 204 reels of “home movies” were confiscated by the FBI as part of the Watergate investigation. This never before seen material offers an interesting look at the everyday goings-on surrounding one of the more scandalous administrations in American history.

Shot by Chief of Staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, Chief Domestic Advisor John Ehrlichman and Special Assistant to the President Dwight Chapin, the three took to documenting all kinds of seemingly trivial occurrences. Truly believing they were part of a revolutionary turning point in American history, even Easter egg collection on the Front Lawn was deemed worthy of historical import. Delusions aside, the film—which makes use of the footage by way of a campy trajectory and hilarious montages, combined with selected clips from Nixon’s recorded phone calls—effectively offers insight into the unseen aspects of the Executive Office. You can support documentarians Penny Lane and Brian Frye by pre-ordering a DVD from their site as the film is still in production.

Extremely touching, The Elders (subtitled “Everyone is a story”) explores of life lessons told through the experience of a series of senior citizens. Director Nathaniel Hansen spoke with people all over the country and from a wide variety of backgrounds, from coal miners to engineers. In each portrait, the characters talk about their experiences, and as their stories unravel we get a distinct window on how certain things change with age but many, like love and loss, remain constant through generations. Check out the official trailer above and head to the webpage for upcoming screenings and news.

One of the most visually impressive pieces of the festival, The Beast Pageant, follows Abe on his adventurous escape from his mundane crushing existence. Abe lives in a city where he resides alone, only accompanied by a giant machine that spits out his essentials for survival. A mysterious series of events, culminating in a tiny singing cowboy bursting from his stomach, sets Abe off on an adventure of a lifetime. With an impressive cast of characters and the bizarre world Abe finds himself in, the film is enchanting, engulfing the viewer into a trance-like state of mystery and intrigue.

Shot on a 16mm Bolex that writers and directors Albert Birney and Jon Moses claim they found in a dumpster, the film combines great storytelling with fantastic costumes, animations and set design serving as an exceptional example of what a group of determined people can accomplish with little-to-no cash. The film is available on DVD or for download at Indiepix. Check out the site for more info on how this piece came together in a one-room studio in a Rochester, NY factory.

The Kickstarter Film Festival is an excellent reminder of the importance crowd-sourced funding can play in the creation and encouragement of new media and artistic expression. Be sure to keep up with these emerging filmmakers and explore other creative projects that need help getting off the ground—all these films prove that a little support can go a long way.

A classic anthology from the masterful mind of John Cage

Best known as an avant-garde composer, John Cage spent his entire life writing, a fact often overshadowed by his achievements in music. “A Year from Monday,” an anthology of lectures and poems originally published in ’67, proves that genius is never bound to medium; his written work gives a glimpse into his creative mind.

Much of “A Year” is in the form of a ‘literary mosaic,’ Cage’s method of essentially compiling diary entries into a somewhat cohesive, visually-striking composition. Every fragment serves as a single thought or anecdote, sometimes referring to others but more often not. What results is a clear train of thought, laid out on a beautifully constructed page, allowing the reader to follow his ideas not as something he is telling you, but as an ideology that he is guiding you to find for yourself.

Perhaps most valuable to fans of Cage’s music, his lecture to the Julliard class of ’52 serves as a manifesto of his understanding of sound. The piece, metrically arranged in columns to time to David Tudor’s piano playing, uses Buddhist anecdotes to attempt to explain his profound understanding of everything musical.

Pick it up on Amazon to curl up with some brain food.

The first step toward making your ideas happen

Tickets for the 2012 99% Conference (held in New York City 3-4 May 2012) go on sale today, 19 July 2011.

The conference, organized by our friends at Behance, is inspired by the famous Thomas Edison quotation “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Unique in the conference circuit, it features speakers and workshops dedicated to making your ideas happen.

Tickets for the 2011 conference sold out over five months in advance, and with such an intimate size—just 400 attendees— tickets for the 2012 conference are sure to go quickly as well.

We’ve worked with Behance since the first conference in 2009 and are looking forward to another great session full of speakers, events, workshops, Cool Hunting Video premieres, and more. If you’re not familiar with the conference check out our coverage of the 2011 conference, featuring speaker recaps from both day one and day two, or the 99% Conference site.

Nightmare and the Cat celebrate their EP release with a raucous NYC show

“Drink your shots, pick up your beer and come watch us perform,” Django Stewart commanded the crowd at Mercury Lounge last week. “We’re Nightmare and the Cat,” punctuated his brother and fellow frontman Sam Stewart, kicking off the show to launch their debut EP. Eight songs later, sweating and dazed, the packed house saw the band off the stage with rapturous applause. The music that came between varied from lofty, thoughtful rock to soulful, layered folk. Dramatic, story-driven, catchy and with swoon-inspiring potency that envelops the band itself (as well as their performance and the new album), Nightmare and the Cat exude nothing shy of magic.

The two frontmen, despite their youthful appearances, both were members of since dispersed, but seasoned musical acts before forming the band a little over a year ago in Los Angeles. Sam spent seven years with London band Blondelle, while Django helmed The Midnight Squires.

Together, with multi-instrumentalist and singer Claire Acey, drummer Spike Phillips and bassist Julie Mitchell, the five-piece has performed both coasts, a SXSW showcase with artist Gary Baseman and the United Kingdom. Circumnavigating the Edward Sharp and Local Natives aesthetic, the band’s harmonies, taut instrumentals and atmosphere build, first and foremost, an environment where their stories exist.

The self-titled EP, lush and melodic, feels more than anything like a thrilling teaser for things to come. A melodic through line weaves among the tracks “Sarah Beth,” “The Missing Year” and “Little Poet.” Orchestration and backing vocals play off Django’s dynamic voice—often in dialogue, sometimes in alignment.

Just when you feel the band settling in with a sound, the closing song, “Anybody’s Bride,” punctures it with punkish ferociousness. The whimsicality might feel extravagant, but never disposable, glazing the music with a limitless sense of wonder. There is sentimentality and delicacy to even the more raucous portions of the tracks, knitting everything together as sound storytelling should.

Famed photographer Mick Rock, a supporter of the band and attendee at the Mercury Lounge show, once snapped an iconic photograph of David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, arms draped across one another. There was startling breadth and depth to those three musicians’ work. As If schooled in the language of rock, Nightmare and the Cat draw on these influences, blend their lessons and strengths and craft something all their own.

Top image by Sterling Taylor, performance images by Eli Russell Linnetz.

Fresh French art helps launch Agnès B.’s latest NYC space

When Agnès B. opened her first NYC boutique on Prince Street nearly 30 years ago, well before Soho transformed into the retail destination it is today, the area was an emerging hotbed for young artists. The French fashion designer meshed seamlessly with the city’s downtown scene, establishing herself as one of the most trusted brand benefactors of the arts through sponsorships—from the Sarajevo Film Festival and a Godard exhibit to work by Harmony Korine and Dash Snow. Her commitment to the project and keen eye for new talent remains sharp continues when her third NYC outpost, Galerie Boutique, opens with the show “Certain Young French Photography and Drawings” tonight, 14 July 2010.

The new gallery kicked off with a show of well-known friends’ work and brings stateside the strong photography of Agnes B.’s Galerie du Jour in Paris (shows since opening in 1984 have spanned Martin Parr to Ryan McGinley), now moving on to what she does best—a display of exciting up-and-comers. The exhibit includes the work of ten photographers and artists selected with a focus on portraiture’s ability to present “people and issues of contemporary society in a critical or ironical way.”

Nicolas Dhervillers’ questions the line between fact and fiction by positioning subjects in cinematic scenes depicting everyday life (pictured below), where the high-contrast images by Matthias Olmeta (at top) “ascribe little importance to reality.” Claudia Imbert (above) similarly presents contemplative work with strong geometry in her compositions to “provoke moments of solitude and intimacy.” Drawings by Lionel Avignon (at bottom) adds levity to the mix with his narrative pictures that “resonate of a personal and universal currency.”

This contrast between lighthearted illustrations and contemplative photography highlights how the two major mediums compare, hinting at the legacy of “the most eminent figure of French photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson.” Never ceasing to stop drawing but nearly giving up photography all together, Cartier-Bresson explained that his interest in the latter was because “a small camera like the Leica is an instant drawing.”

“Certain Young French Photography and Drawings” runs through 30 August 2011 at Galerie Boutique.