Film Love and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center present:
Anna Grimshaw's Mr Coperthwaite: a life
in the Maine woods
Part Four: Winter Days
World premiere
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Friday, November 15, 2013
8:00 pm at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
$8 general | $5 student/senior | Free with
ACAC membership
Note: It is not necessary to have seen prior parts of Mr Coperthwaite before
seeing this part. One may watch the parts in any order.
Film Love presents the final part of Anna Grimshaw’s year-long documentary
project, about a singular figure in American culture.
For the last fifty years, Bill Coperthwaite has lived and worked on 300 acres of
wilderness in Machiasport, Maine – committed to what he calls "a handmade life."
Over the course of one year, anthropologist and filmmaker Anna Grimshaw visited
Coperthwaite each season, creating an intimate document of a remarkable person.
Like Coperthwaite’s life, Grimshaw’s film is personal, handmade, and truly
alternative. Instead of interviews, we simply observe the process of
Coperthwaite’s activities. Instead of a standard feature-length documentary,
Mr Coperthwaite is in four parts of different lengths – one for each of the
seasons.
Over the last year, Film Love has presented each part of Mr Coperthwaite
during the season which it depicts. Winter Days – the culmination of the
Mr Coperthwaite cycle – receives its world premiere November 15, 2013 in
the brand-new screening room at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.
As with previous installments, Winter Days presents the continuous
unfolding of Coperthwaite’s life, which is itself a continuous succession of
tasks intensified by the special requirements of winter in Maine: the making of
a steel wedge with which to split firewood, the repair of a stove, the constant
maintenance of the wood fire that brings light and heat to Coperthwaite's yurt.
A visit from a family hints at a larger community, and also at the fragility
that may underlie Coperthwaite's remarkable self-sufficiency. In the final scene
we are left with an enigmatic image that bravely refuses to neatly sew up
Coperthwaite's year. Rather, we are reminded of how his life, and Grimshaw's
video, make the everyday inseparable from the timeless, ever-expanding cycle of
the seasons and of nature.
Throughout our premiere of the Coperthwaite cycle, filmmaker Anna Grimshaw's
presence has led to lively discussions with the audience about the role of the
visual in anthropology, the role of anthropology in telling the stories of human
lives, and the challenges and rewards of documenting this unique subject.
Grimshaw will once again be present for this final installment of the cycle.
Mr Coperthwaite: a Life in the Maine Woods, Part Four: Winter Days (Anna
Grimshaw, 2012) 58 min, digital video World Premiere
The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
535 Means Street NW
Atlanta, GA, 30318
404.688.1970
http://www.thecontemporary.org/
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MR COPERTHWAITE is a Film Love event, programmed and hosted by
Andy Ditzler for Frequent Small Meals. Film Love promotes awareness of the rich
history of experimental and avant-garde film. Through public screenings and
events, Film Love preserves the communal viewing experience, provides space for
the discussion of film as art, and explores alternative forms of moving image
projection and viewing. Film Love was voted Best Film Series in Atlanta by the
critics of Creative Loafing in 2006, and was featured in Atlanta Magazine's Best
of Atlanta 2009.