Eye Wash News

Balkan Rhapsodies in Göttingen, Germany

Thu, 1 May 2008 00:47:33 -0400

Balkan Rhapsodies will be part of the Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival

Balkan Rhapsodies wins Best Documentary

Fri, 4 Apr 2008 00:50:01 -0400

Balkan Rhapsodies was awarded the Best Documentary at the Festival Cinemateca Uruguaya - Montevideo, Uruguay

Balkan Rhapsodies in Uruguay

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:43:04 -0400

Balkan Rhapsodies will screen at the March 30, 2008 Festival Cinemateca Uruguaya - Montevideo, Uruguay

Balkan Rhapsodies at MoMA!

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:00:57 -0500

I am delighted to report that Balkan Rhapsodies has been selected to have its New York premiere at the Museum of Modern Art’s prestigious Documentary Fortnights program.

Balkan Rhapsodies in Barcelona

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:03:53 -0500

Balkan Rhapsodies will be part of the 2008 OVNI (Observatorio de Video No Identificado) program at the CCCB in Barcelona. The program of works showing over the week is entitled “Exodus : The Margins of the Empire”.

This is taken from their statement about the show at http://www.desorg.org/

The videos screened at OVNI 2008 will question and consider this attraction towards exodus, the desire to abandon a reality and a set of values that we can no longer believe in, or wish for. Perspectives that refuse to remain trapped in an eternal “against” stance and use resistance tactically, but embark on a journey to other possible worlds. Exodus itself is another world, functionally unmappable, because exodus is always on the side of emptiness and movement, of listening to voices of the others (?) and recognising oneself in them. What gets left behind are societies swing between an abundance of poverty – made visible and turned into spectacle by the media – and the increasingly obvious misery of abundance, the misery of consumer societies. An initial reflection on the “marginal” and the desire to cross margins, on forms of personal or collective exodus – whether physical or as a state of mind. They include perspectives on different forms of marginalization and exploitation which lie directly under the oppressive vertical force of power, such as workers in Chinese export factories or clandestine Palestinian day workers in Israel. And perspectives on armed conflict zones that go beyond the “propaganda-counter propaganda” dialectic: in South America, Chechnya, Lebanon, Iraq, Darfur, Afghanistan... But they also include reflections and perspectives on other realities and forms of organization that grow on the margins: self-organization of the homeless, indigenous communities in Ecuador and Columbia, brotherhoods of transvestites in India, ancient heterodox traditions and their rituals, self-managed collectives in Barcelona, groups of deserters in the US... Together with accounts of dreams and the inner revolution, of seeking and of exodus...

Balkan Rhapsodies in Brussels

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:03:53 -0500

I’ll be giving an artist talk and screening Balkan Rhapsodies at DocHouse Brussels. This is an amazing organization and documentary film initiative that investigates documentary film as a creative art form.

Balkan Rhapsodies at Forumdoc.bh.2007

Mon, 3 Dec 2007 17:44:15 -0500

Balkan Rhapsodies has been selected for the International competition of the 11º Festival do Filme Documentário e Etnográfico Fórum de Antropologia in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Balkan Rhapsodies at Valdivia Int. Film Festival in Chile

Sat, 6 Oct 2007 23:21:02 -0400

Balkan Rhapsodies has been selected in competition for the Documentary section of the 14th Valdivia International Film Festival in Chile! The festival runs from October 5-10, 2007.

Balkan Rhapsodies European Premiere!

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:52:38 -0400

Balkan Rhapsodies has been invited to screen at the DokumentArt Festival in Neubrandenburg, Germany. It has been selected for a special screening as part of their program called EAST MEETS WEST MEETS EAST.

Lucha #3 selected for exhibition in Raw Tactics Of The Subversive Body

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:32:03 -0400

Lucha #3 has been selected for Raw Tactics Of The Subversive Body, a video show featuring the work of twenty national and international video makers working with the human body as a form of individual expression—political, artistic and extreme. The idea for this program came up while observing the recent proliferation of the use of the human body as a political tactic—among others—in the form of suicide bombers, martyrs of the environment, human shields, human-cyber transformers, organic searchers of the body & soul connection, self expressive markers of the flesh, sexual self-awareness, etc.

Curators Andres Tapia-Urzua (Plan Z Media) and Alberto Roblest (Torre Visual) collaborated in the production of this show as they were both interested in the political and artistic uses of the body; its representation through the mass-media; and its artistic explorations through video and film—perhaps as a symbol of one of the ultimate subjective realities against organized systems of power. Themes include: the body as a weapon, the body as a symbol of resistance, the body vs. the machine, the organic body vs. the technological body, the spiritual quest of the material body, the martyr body, the pleasure body, the sacrificial body, the illegal body, the artistic body, the modified body, the medical body, the perverted body, the marked body, the erotic body, the diseased body, the desperate body vs. bureaucracy, the informational body, the body kamikaze, the sacrificial body, etc.

Footnotes in Puebla, Mexico

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:46:46 -0400

Footnote will play in the Puebla, Mexico 6DOF Festival of Experimental Film and Video. It is part of the Jack Kerouac On the Road program.

Chilangolandia - Exhibition at Wood Art Gallery Montpelier, VT

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 21:04:53 -0400

A new installation piece entitled Chilangolandia: Capital in Movement will be exhibited in a group graduate show at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Movement (R)evolution Africa in Amsterdam

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:08:54 -0400

MRA will be screened at the CineDans Festival in Amsterdam.

Beyond Text Conference - Manchester, England

Mon, 2 Jul 2007 13:58:40 -0400

I’ll be presenting a paper on the use of ambiguity and the empowered spectator while also showing excerpts of Balkan Rhapsodies at the Beyond Text conference, organized by the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Granada Center.

Balkan Rhapsodies preview screening and talk

Thu, 24 May 2007 20:56:36 -0400

I’ll be giving a talk and a preview screening of Balkan Rhapsodies at Studio Soto in Boston at 8PM.

Ashes, Ashes... at Anthology Film Archives NYC

Fri, 11 May 2007 11:56:22 -0400

Ashes, Ashes... will be screening in New York this week May 11-13 at Anthology Film Archive (New York, NY). There is nice article in the Village Voice by Ed Halter about the program.

Footnotes in Tennessee

Sat, 5 May 2007 12:06:59 -0400

Footnotes will be screening at the 60 SECOND SOUTHERN VIDEO FESTIVAL in Pegram, TN - Harmony Landing.

Movement (R)evolution Africa at Boston MFA

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:14:16 -0400

The Boston premiere of Movement (R)evolution Africa will be hosted by the Museum of Fine Arts. Alla Kovgan, Joan Frosch, and myself will be in attendance.

Movement (R)evolution Africa - Winner Best Dance Film!

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:31:34 -0400

Who would have thought? Movement (R)evolution Africa was awarded The Golden Aphrodite for Best Dance Film in the Cyprus International Film Festival.

Special Preview Screening Balkan Rhapsodies!

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:56:36 -0400

Balkan Rhapsodies is finally completed and I am thrilled and honored to have my first public screening at the Mass Art Film Society in Boston. Saul Levine, Film Society programmer has been incredibly supportive of this project and really instrumental in its completion. Screening is at 8PM.

Footnotes in D.C.- On the Road Film Festival

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 20:17:50 -0400

Footnotes will be screening in the traveling Jack Kerouac On The Road Film Festival in Washington, DC at - Busboys and Poets, Langston Room.

Movement (R)evolution Africa at the African Film Festival - NYC

Sun, 8 Apr 2007 20:42:28 -0400

MVR will be at the Walter Reade Theatre again, this time for the African Film Festival.

The Village Voice writes: “Through interviews and performances from nine African choreographers, {MVR} reveals how a community of artists has chosen to communicate the myriad passions and troubles of their homeland through dance. Revering the body as a form of fluid sculpture, these fierce artists from across the continent adapt conventional dance to their unique sense of self, hoping to engage with everyone—whites and the African diaspora alike—in order to challenge the West's stereotypical ideas of Africa. Movement is their voice and it screams in the film, ‘Africa must speak!’” - Village Voice, April 2007

Ashes, Ashes... at Harvard Film Archive

Fri, 9 Mar 2007 14:15:31 -0500

Ashes, Ashes,... has been selected as part of the touring anti-war film program conceived by Lynne Sachs and distributed by the Filmmakers Cooperative in NYC. The program is called For Life Against the War: A Collective Outcry. DVD’s can be purchased and funding go to support the co-op.

Ashes, Ashes... at Pacific Film Archive

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:42:47 -0500

Ashes, Ashes... will be screening in Berkeley, CA at the Pacific Film Archives in the traveling program For Life Against the War: A Collective Outcry

Footnotes screening in Mexico City

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 10:12:10 -0500

My 1-minute wonder, Footnotes, will be screening in the Festival Internacional de Cine de la Ciudad de Mexico. Footnotes was shot using a cheap digital still camera. Over the course of 24 hours I periodically photographed my geographic location from my waist down. The stills 600 + still were assembled in order (unedited) at intervals of 3-7 frames/second, creating a frenetic, funny and engaging documentary experience that explores the textures and geography of life from a different perspective. It will be shown in a program curated by legendary Mexican video artist Alberto Roblest called Desde el otro lado de la barda.

Movement (R)evolution Africa - NYC Premiere!

Fri, 5 Jan 2007 10:03:24 -0500

The Dance on Camera Festival will host the world premiere of Movement (R)evolution Africa at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center in NYC. This is an amazing film featuring 9 incredible contemporary African choreographers that I had the great pleasure of filming. Produced by the wonderful duo of Alla Kovgan and Joan Frosch, I agree with Village Voice "the film is a knockout" - Village Voice, January 2007. It has been nominated for the Jury prize. You can find more info about the film at http://www.movementrevolutionafrica.com