Dear all,
My name is Jeffrey Bowers and I'm Jon Gartenberg's assistant for this year's Tribeca Film Festival. I'm writing to you on his behalf, about
two experimental programs he curated at the festival that might interest you. The first is a feature documentary titled
Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton, which chronicles and explores the life of the visionary poet and filmmaker. We're excited to be having the New York premiere of this already award-winning film during National Poetry Month. We were hoping you might be interested in sharing this special film with your social and/or professional network. Both Jon and I were surprised and fascinated by new details and influences on his life revealed in the film and feel you and your audience will be similarly surprised.
The second program is the experimental shorts titled "Let There Be Light: The Cycle of Life" and contains 13 films. Many of the filmmakers will be attending from as close as New York and as far as Russia!
We also encourage you to attend the festival which started yesterday and will end on April 28. The experimental shorts premiere tonight at Chelsea Clearview Cinemas at 7 pm. Big Joy premieres on Sunday at 6:45 pm in Chelsea Clearview Cinema. Both programs will play four times throughout the festival. I've attached a trailer, summary by Jon, and a link to the films in our program below. Thank you for your time and keep up the wonderful work at NYU!
BIG JOY is a celebratory portrait of James Broughton, a visionary poet and filmmaker who emerged from the artistic renaissance that flowered in post-WWII San Francisco. A charismatic figure, Broughton led a completely unconventional, countercultural existence. The directors of BIG JOY vividly follow the course of Broughton's deeply intertwined creative and personal lives through his involvement with a wide array of artists, activists and spiritual guides. Among them figure movie critic Pauline Kael, choreographer and dancer Anna Halprin, filmmaker Sidney Peterson, theater actor and playwright Kermit Sheets, designer Suzanna Hart, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Eastern philosopher Alan Watts and film student protégé Joel Singer.
BIG JOY delves substantially into Broughton's own artistic endeavors, especially his creative writing and filmmaking. His experimental film The Pleasure Garden was accorded a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1954, awarded to Broughton in person by one of his great poetic heroes, Jean Cocteau. In weaving together home movies and historic photographs, contemporary interviews and performance, quotations from Broughton's writings and clips from his movies, the filmmakers construct a cinematic mosaic that is as richly textured as Broughton's own life experiences. They create an unusually intimate and unflinching portrait of the arc of Broughton's life from childhood to death and from the dark depths of his own depression to the ecstasy of his creative freedom and sexual liberation, all in the service of Broughton's lifelong quest to find his own "Big Joy."
Experimental Shorts: "Let There Be Light: The Cycle of Life"
In their artistic practice, experimental filmmakers are acutely aware of the quality of light that informs their work. This selection highlights the unique manner in which they seek inspiration from the power of the sun, the reflections of the moon and the luminosity emitted by artificial light sources. In linking their own vision directly to that of the eye of the camera, these artists create brilliant moving works that both illuminate the human condition and reflect the cycles of life.
Best,
Jeffrey Bowers
Tribeca Film Festival PA
http://tribecafilm.com/festival
