Saturday, June 9, 2007
at Eyedrum
8:00 PM
still from Folk Songs by LeAnn Erickson
The Atlanta premieres of three poetic short films and videos - emotional documentaries about the filmmakers’ quests to connect with their families across the generations.
** Reading the Water is a brand new work by Atlanta artist Niklas Vollmer. Part nature film, part home movie, Reading the Water takes Vollmer and his three-year-old son to the coast of Maine, for a visit to Vollmer’s marine biologist father. Gorgeous high-definition video footage highlights the ecosystem of the waterways, with engaging explanations of the wildlife by Vollmer’s father. However, Vollmer turns the tables by including playful outtakes, false starts and wry cinematic disruptions that reveal the familial bonds (and occasional irritations) between the three generations of men.
** Ariana Gerstein’s film Images of Flying and Falling is an experimental documentary about the filmmaker’s mourning of her own grandmother. The only film imagery which she has of her grandmother is manipulated digitally, and juxtaposed against the witty, moving narration of an artist who compulsively collects postcards and family photographs which have been discarded by others.
** LeAnn Erickson’s poignant short video Folk Songs explores "the old world" through the memories and stories of the filmmaker’s grandparents, who left the Ukraine for the United States as teenagers in 1913. Song, passports, photographs, and other artifacts from the past hint at the richness of what was lost when they left for a new home in another country, and the intensity of the immigrant experience.
Program:
Folk Songs (LeAnn Erickson, 2007), 16mm and video, 12 minutes, screened on digital video
Images of Flying and Falling (Ariana Gerstein, 2000), 16mm anamorphic, 25 minutes, screened on digital video
Reading the Water: Lectures on Home Video Ecology from the Gulf of ME (Niklas Vollmer, 2007), digital video, 40 minutes
Thanks to Niklas Vollmer
All screenings take place at 8:00 pm at Eyedrum, 290 Martin Luther King
Jr Dr Suite 8, Atlanta, GA, 30312
404.522.0655
www.eyedrum.org
