Born in Brooklyn, Ken Kelsch enlisted to fight in Vietnam when he was still a teenager. He became a decorated officer in the Army Special Forces, and with over four decades as a cinematographer, has amassed more than 50 credits in film and television. His work alongside Abel Ferrara, with whom he has collaborated over 15 times, includes Bad Lieutenant, Dangerous Game, The Addiction, The Funeral, and recent Tribeca Film Festival entry, The Projectionist. Along with actor Annabella Sciorra and composer Joe Delia, Kelsch will be doing a Q&A at MoMA during the screening of The Funeral on Thursday, May […]
by Evan Louison on May 22, 2019Evan Louison last wrote about Abel Ferrara for Filmmaker‘s 25th anniversary issue in his report, “Letter from Rome.” Given the assignment to interview Ferrara in conjunction with his month-long MoMA retrospective, Louison responded with a five-part personal memoir that tracks the impact of the director and his work on his own life. Check back each day this week for the next in the series, and read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. A Glorious Exile, a Spirit Returning to Form The soul answered and said, What binds me has been slain, and what turns me about has […]
by Evan Louison on May 17, 2019Evan Louison last wrote about Abel Ferrara for Filmmaker‘s 25th anniversary issue in his report, “Letter from Rome.” Given the assignment to interview Ferrara in conjunction with his month-long MoMA retrospective, Louison responded with a five-part personal memoir that tracks the impact of the director and his work on his own life. Check back each day this week for the next in the series, and read Part One, Part Two and Part Three. On the Run and Playing a Dangerous Game “Hell is here and now, and so is the opportunity to know heaven. I you take the journey, you’ll […]
by Evan Louison on May 16, 2019Evan Louison last wrote about Abel Ferrara for Filmmaker‘s 25th anniversary issue in his report, “Letter from Rome.” Given the assignment to interview Ferrara in conjunction with his month-long MoMA retrospective, Louison responded with a five-part personal memoir that tracks the impact of the director and his work on his own life. Check back each day this week for the next in the series, and read Part One and Part Two. III. Alive and WELL “The nature of evil is that it’s seductive. If evil presented itself to us as it really is… no one would be lured. No one […]
by Evan Louison on May 15, 2019Evan Louison last wrote about Abel Ferrara for Filmmaker‘s 25th anniversary issue in his report, “Letter from Rome.” Given the assignment to interview Ferrara in conjunction with his month-long MoMA retrospective, Louison responded with a five-part personal memoir that tracks the impact of the director and his work on his own life. Check back each day this week for the next in the series, and read Part One here. What REDEMPTION? “I’m just here to raise the flag of compassion and forgiveness, in a society that’s being overrun by hatred and violence.” Weekends in Manhattan, looking over your shoulder, anonymous […]
by Evan Louison on May 14, 2019Evan Louison last wrote about Abel Ferrara for Filmmaker‘s 25th anniversary issue in his report, “Letter from Rome.” Given the assignment to interview Ferrara in conjunction with his month-long MoMA retrospective, Louison responded with a five-part personal memoir that tracks the impact of the director and his work on his own life. Check back each day this week for the next in the series. Nobody’s CLEAN New York became our only school and we made that trip by train or else in Nicky’s black house painted VW a 1000 times… Seeing Kazan arguing with Nicholas Ray on a street corner… […]
by Evan Louison on May 13, 2019With nearly 20 credits as a director and as many as an editor, Theodore Collatos has been quietly making documentaries and narratives to critical acclaim for the last decade, often collaborating with his wife, former professional dancer Carolina Monnerat, as producer and actor. For Collatos’ sixth feature, and first with Monnerat as co-director, they returned to Monnerat’s native city of Rio for an intimate and revealing look at an underground cultural icon. Queen of Lapa, named for a district renowned for its sex trade, devotes its focus to the late Luana Muniz, a trans-rights advocate, founder of Luana’s House (a […]
by Evan Louison on May 9, 2019A German fighter pilot shot down over Crimea, rescued by nomadic tribesmen. A chronically depressed veteran, in near total isolation in the wilderness. A difficult pupil turned iconoclast pedagogue. Whether apocrypha or self-imposed legend, all these identities defined the persona of artist Joseph Beuys, arguably one of the most relevant and revolutionary forces in modern and post-modern art in the 20th century. A former soldier of the Third Reich, rehabilitated through a lifelong commitment to innovation, Beuys redefined the artist’s role in society as the ultimate act of public penance. From renowned pieces such as “How to Explain Pictures to […]
by Evan Louison on Jan 17, 2018For Abel Ferrara, now living and working in Rome, there’s no love lost between the renegade director and the New York of yesteryear, the New York of Bad Lieutenant. “Being in Europe, it’s very different,” Ferrara explains. “We thought we were free then, but it’s nothing compared to where we’re at now. We’re outside the system, working within the European financial community, which includes the socialist brand of government financing and various cultural ministries.” Continues Ferrara, “On Bad Lieutenant” — the cover of Filmmaker’s second issue — “we were totally free. The director has to have absolute freedom. Now, you […]
by Evan Louison on Sep 14, 2017To revisit Martin Bell‘s landmark documentary Streetwise 32 years after its initial release is an experience that would at times seem to beggar an audience’s capacity for prejudice. Never was a community so commonly perceived as forlorn and despondent as Seattle’s homeless youth population ever depicted in such a sharp contrast to common notions of indigence. To endure the film alongside Bell’s feature-length update, TINY: The Life of Erin Blackwell — made possible as part of BAMCinemaFest’s NY Premiere Double-Feature this Saturday — is to stand the test of self-questioning that belies any deeper look into the reality of poverty and its lifelong repercussions. TINY, […]
by Evan Louison on Jun 23, 2016