Episode of the Sea
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Tracking Changes: The 53rd Ann Arbor Film Festival
One of the unexpected pleasures of the 53rd Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF) was, at first, a cringe-inducing annoyance. It began with the first screening on Wednesday morning, a presentation of work by AAFF juror Jesse McLean. The lights dimmed in the Michigan Theater Screening Room, the smaller of two auditoriums used by AAFF in the spectacular Michigan Theater. Just as the audience nestled into their seats and darkness took hold of the room, something interrupted the transfixed environment: a wincing screech from the front of the room. The sound continued for several seconds before halting with a loud thud. Then, […]
by James Hansen on Apr 20, 2015 -
The Raisers’ Edge: MoMA’s Transcendent “Documentary Fortnight”
Low and high art come to fruitful blows in the 14th edition of one of New York’s most substantive — and absurdly unsung — cinema exhibitions, the International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media, aka Documentary Fortnight (February 13-27). Low? For 120 years, film has been on the short end of the cultural totem pole, and host venue Museum of Modern Art has never made any bones about the distinction. In this case, however, the medium is infused with accomplished elements from other art forms ranking among the cognoscenti. Long before complementary fora like DOC NYC and the Film Society’s […]
by Howard Feinstein on Feb 12, 2015
