THE LATEST
VIDEOHEAVEN
Alex Ross Perry’s VIDEOHEAVEN
International premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam
NA Premiere June 10th at Tribeca Festival!
As VHS became the dominant home video format in the early 1980s and consumer demand for new and classic films grew, the need for a space where people could rent the still-expensive-to-purchase tapes created an opening for the proliferation of the video store. While the shift from the cinema to the home had ramifications that the film industry is still contending with, it also opened new, exciting horizons for cinephiles to interact with the medium. Barriers of time collapsed and suddenly the full scope of film history was available to fans — the ability to manipulate movies using simple tools like fast forward, rewind and pause functions on a VCR gave movie buff’s the power to engage with their favorite films in completely new ways, and the video store provided a forum to discuss these films with fellow cinephiles. Factors like these gave rise to the video store’s power not just as a consumer mecca, but also a sociocultural hub.
Drawing inspiration from the work of scholars like Daniel Herbert and filmmakers like Thom Anderson, whose seminal Los Angeles Plays Itself is a crucial progenitor, auteur filmmaker and pop culture public intellectual Alex Ross Perry’s 10-years-in-the-making essay-documentary Videoheaven is a fascinating, beautiful, absorbing exploration of the video store as a vitally important site of film culture. Mining footage from an eclectic range of sources and aided by a wryly evocative voiceover from Maya Hawke, Perry’s latest is a crucial contribution to the canon of films about film culture.—Jason Gutierrez
JAMES BALDWIN: FROM ANOTHER PLACE
Sedat Pakay’s JAMES BALDWIN: FROM ANOTHER PLACE and OUTTAKES
In JAMES BALDWIN: FROM ANOTHER PLACE, Turkish artist Sedat Pakay designs an intimate, luminous sketch of James Baldwin during a stay in Istanbul. From leisurely moving about his room to the activity of the city and its curious denizens, the author/activist comfortably expounds on his sense of privacy, sexuality and expat tendencies. New facets of this encounter are revealed in the recently compiled and restored OUTTAKES FROM SEDAT PAKAY’S “JAMES BALDWIN: FROM ANOTHER PLACE”. (Brittany Gravely)
Can be booked as part of the program, JAMES BALDWIN ABROAD.
Preserved by the Yale Film Archive with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.
“It’s a small miracle, a jewel of a documentary…”
—John Talbird, Film International
THIS WORLD IS NOT MY OWN
OpenDox’s THIS WORLD IS NOT MY OWN wins Best Documentary Award Special Mention at Palm Springs, is picked up by Juno Films for a 2024 theatrical release
Over four acts, This World is Not My Own traces the lifespan of an artist who struggles to dedicate her life to art while exploring the personal and political events that shaped her singular body of work. The film mixes traditional documentary techniques with animations and scripted scenes shot in intricately detailed sets to bring her dynamic story to life.
Opendox created film sets that reimagine Nellie’s “Playhouse,” and partnered with Kaktus Film to design and animate 3D characters in Nellie’s and her gallerist’s likenesses. Actresses, Uzo Aduba and Amy Warren, perform scripted scenes based on Nellie Mae Rowe quotes. Their recorded voices and movements make the animated Nellie and Judith come to life.
HAVE A NICE LIFE
Prashanth Kamalakanthan’s HAVE A NICE LIFE
Shot mostly in Kamalakanthan’s native North Carolina, “Have a Nice Life” is a surreal stoner comedy and road movie, tracing the unlikely friendship between Jyothi, a lonely Indian housewife (played by the director’s mother, Jagathi Kamalakanthan), and Sophie, an unemployed stoner musician (Lucy Kaminsky). After hitting dead ends in life, the pair meet by chance at a pawn shop and soon find themselves on the run from the law, together on a wild American road trip from Durham, North Carolina to Montreal, Canada.