Radio Specials
Hobo's Lullaby Broadcasts an Environmental Preview
On Tuesday, March 20, from 10:00 a.m. to noon, WICB’s Hobo's Lullaby will present a segment of the show with featured FLEFF guest radio journalist and writer Jonathan Miller. Ithaca legend and host Gene Endres will travel with Miller to explore the soundscapes, storyscapes, and memescapes in the two series he has produced and reported, Worlds of Difference and World@Work. Miller will share his experiences and insights into how he tells stories from below—from the point of view of the real people who live, work, and struggle daily across the globe. [Rebroadcast Sunday, March 25, from 2:00–4:00 p.m.]
Tribute to the Beatles:Hobo's Lullaby Broadcasts an Environmental Preview
On Tuesday, March 20, from 10:00 a.m. to noon, WICB’s Hobo's Lullaby will present a segment of the show with featured FLEFF guest radio journalist and writer Jonathan Miller. Ithaca legend and host Gene Endres will travel with Miller to explore the soundscapes, storyscapes, and memescapes in the two series he has produced and reported, Worlds of Difference and World@Work. Miller will share his experiences and insights into how he tells stories from below—from the point of view of the real people who live, work, and struggle daily across the globe. [Rebroadcast Sunday, March 25, from 2:00–4:00 p.m.]
Pre-Festival Rock Concert and
FLEFF Kick-off Party
A Benefit for the Cayuga Waterfront Trail
Friday, March 23, 2007
Doors open at 8:00 p.m., music starts at 9:00 p.m.
Castaways
413-415 Taughannock Boulevard
18 and over
Tickets are $10 in advance (available at Ithaca Guitar Works, Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, and Maxie's Supper Club) and $15 day of the show
What else needs to be said about the Beatles? Few would dispute they are and were the greatest rock band in the history of world. Eight different Ithaca-based bands spanning singer/songwriters, roots rock, alt country, contemporary folk, and space-alien-trailer-park music pay tribute to the Beatles. Hubcap, Plastic Nebraska, Joe Crookston, Five 2, Jamie Notarthomas, Mary Lorson and St. Low, Cypher: Dissident, and other local bands will each play up to four of their favorite Beatles songs in their own distinctive styles—with no repeats! Ambient media screenwashes from Microcinema International add cinematic seasoning to this FLEFF pre-festival kick-off event.
Originally the Blackjacks and then the Quarry Men, the Beatles, began as a “skiffle” band in Liverpool in the 1950s. Under John Lennon’s influence, they turned to rock n' roll, honing their sound in Hamburg, Germany. After returning to England, they held legendary performances in Liverpool’s Cavern Club and reached international prominence via a series of BBC radio broadcasts. The Beatles went on to “invade” America, Japan, India, Russia, and nearly everywhere else. By the time of their breakup in 1969, they had reached a level of international visibility and cultural importance that no musical group had previously achieved. The “Tribute to the Beatles” concert is inspired by and reflects the Beatles’ deep roots in diverse musical forms, from jazz and rock to blues, country, and folk.
The whole extravaganza benefits the development of the Cayuga Waterfront Trail, a new recreational and healthy lifestyle initiative to improve our county’s lake access. A unique partnership between the City of Ithaca and the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, the six-mile paved trail suitable for everything from walking to rollerblading to biking showcases Ithaca’s best nature resource—Cayuga Lake.
The Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce produces this Beatlemania meets ambient media meets Ithaca to kick off FLEFF 2007.
Poetry at Twilight Screens and Readings
Twilight. That transitory time just after sunset when colors intensify and shimmer, when outlines are accentuated. The time of day when waning pink and purple sunlight illuminates the surface of the earth, the imaginative zone between day and night, the time between leaving the outside to enter a movie theater and the lights going down for the show.
Under the able guidance of the Tompkins County poet laureate, Paul Hamill, this year’s festival inaugurates our new Poetry at Twilight Screens. Short poetry readings by local writers will shine light on this year’s festival streams and cinematic memes before selected downtown weekend film screenings at Cinemapolis and Fall Creek. We’ll also host a Sunday afternoon reading by local poets at Bookery II on April 1. Featured poets for the Twilight Screens readings in the theaters include Michelle Berry, Paul Hamill, Katharyn Machan, Cory Brown, Jerry Mirskin, and Giovanna Pollarolo.
Maps, Memes, and Metropoli Poetry Reading at the Bookery II
Sunday, April 1, 2:00 p.m.
FREE
Ithaca poets Paul Hamill, Katharyn Machan, Cory Brown, and Jerry Mirskin share their writing in a group reading opening up, winding through, and remixing this year’s programming streams.
Fleff Forums
Newly launched for the 2007 festival, the forums program features screenings and public discussions with a group of interdisciplinary panelists exploring repressed, unknown, underrecognized, hot-button topics of significance percolating on the edges of the media map. The forums mix scholars, producers, writers, activists, artists, and audiences together for robust dialogue and hearty debate.
Black Gold: Mapping Fair and Direct Trade Coffee
Featuring Ouinetta Robertson, Amira Omari, Shaianne Oesterreich and David Saiia
Cinemapolis, Friday, March 30, 7:15 p.m.
The Gaming Meme: Are Computer Games Violently Unconscious or Socially Conscious?
Featuring Dale Hudson, Ulises Mejias, Lisa Patti, Claudia Pederson, and Sharon Lin Tay
Park 140, Monday, March 26, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
How to Get Your Break in the Big (and Little) Media Metropoli
Featuring Steve Gordon, Steve Ginsberg, Giovanna Pollarolo, Craig Volk, Alberto Arvello, Jay Craven, and Elisabeth Nonas
Cinemapolis, Saturday, March 31, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Rock Bottom: The Crystal Meth Panic and the Gay Male Community
Featuring Tim McCaskell, Roger Hallas, Stewart Auyash, and others
Center for Health Sciences, Wednesday, March 28, 3:00-4:45 p.m.
Soundscaping: Memescapes, Music, and Memory
Featuring Judy Hyman, Jeff Claus, Cynthia Henderson, Phil Wilde, and Ann Michel
Park Auditorium, Tuesday, March 27, 4:00-5:50 p.m.
Galas and Gatherings
March 23, 7:00 p.m.: Pre-festival kick-off rock concert to salute the metropolis of Ithaca. “Tribute to the Beatles,” a benefit for the Cayuga Waterfront Trail, featuring Hubcap, Plastic Nebraska, Joe Crookston, Five 2, Jamie Notarthomas, Mary Lorson and St. Low, Cypher: Dissident, and other local bands at Castaways, 413-415 Taughannock Boulevard. Sponsored by the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce Foundation. (18 and over)
March 26, 9:30 p.m.: Opening night festival reception for Memescapes, live multimedia performance world premiere, in the Park School lobby. Open to everyone, including children. Refreshments. Sponsored by the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies.
March 29, 5:00–7:00 p.m.: Opening reception for Panic Hits Home, a special Women Direct 26th anniversary commission, Handwerker Gallery. Live music by the Maplewood Jazz Team. Refreshments. Open to everyone, including children. Sponsored by the Handwerker Gallery.
March 30, 9:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.: Festival fellows welcome party, featuring live jazz, funk, and hip-hop soundscaping by Fe Nunn and Friends, followed by the R&B/hip-hop iPod challenge, downtown at Lost Dog Lounge (go upstairs!), 106-112 Cayuga Street, just off the Ithaca Commons. Sponsored by the Office of Equal Opportunity Compliance at Ithaca College. (18 and over)
March 31, 9:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.: Hang out with visiting filmmakers, media producers, screenwriters, artists, scholars, writers, performers, industry insiders, and musicians at this FLEFF party. Talk about what you’ve seen and experienced at the festival. Dance, relax, mingle, listen, and have fun. Featuring live music and conviviality by the Swing Gypsys, downtown at Lost Dog Lounge, 106-112 Cayuga Street, just off the Ithaca Commons. (18 and over)
April 1, 9:00 p.m. till closing: Downtown cinema closing night chill-out party, featuring live music and reverie by the Common Railers, at Korova, 214 East State Street, Ithaca Commons. Sponsored by FLEFF. (21 and over)
April 2, 9:00 p.m.: Closing night reception for Man with a Movie Camera world premiere of new score at the Park School lobby. Sponsored by the Roy H. Park School of Communications.
Silent Films/Live Music
Memescapes
(Ann Michel and Phil Wilde, United States, 2007; 80 min.)
Original live music score composed and performed by Judy Hyman, Jeff Claus, Rick Hansen, Jay Olsa, and Robby Aceto
A collaborative partnership with the Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Opening Night
March 26, 2007
8:00 p.m.
Park Hall Auditorium
Ithaca College
World Premiere
Memescapes bursts open the 2007 Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival with archival film, digital imaging, lighting, spoken word, and live music. Memescapes expands and explodes our ideas and preconceptions about the environment. A special original multimedia performance commissioned for this year’s festival, Memescapes takes spectators on an immersive voyage through our programming streams: metropoli, soundscaping, panic attacks, and maps and memes.
In a collaborative partnership with the Human Studies Film Archives of the Smithsonian Institution, digital multimedia artists Ann Michel and Phil Wilde map the liminal zones between the old and the new, the digital and the analog, the machine and the natural, the screen and the embodied. Actress Cynthia Henderson performs spoken word, embodying concepts and creating environments with her voice.
Four members of the bands Boy with a Fish and the Horse Flies—Judy Hyman (electric violin and programming), Jeff Claus (electric guitars and sound design), Rick Hansen (keyboards, accordion, and sound design), and Jay Olsa (bass)—join guitarist Robby Aceto to create new original music in accompaniment of a sometimes wild, sometimes funny, and sometimes moving split-screen montage exploring the past, present, and future of society’s relationship with constructed and natural environments.
Expect to hear a convergence of Boy with a Fish’s haunting, edgy, and artful indie alt-rock; the Horse Flies’ driving, minimalist, neo-primitive roots music; and Aceto’s atmospheric and inventive alt-rock guitar, combined with soundscapes, spoken word, samples, and more. Reception to follow.
A special commission by the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival.
His People
(Edward Sloman, United States, 1925; 91 min.)
Original score composed by Peter Rothbart
Live music performed by Laptop Orchestra and IC Klezmorim
A collaborative partnership with the National Center for Jewish Film
Sunday, April 1, 2007
2:15 p.m. and 7:15 p.m.
Cinemapolis
$15 ($12 with a festival pass)
World Premiere
Benefit for the 7th Art Corporation, Operators of Cinemapolis and Fall Creek Theaters With evocative images of the Lower East Side in the 1920s (reproduced on a Hollywood soundstage in Los Angeles!), His People shows how metropoli are sites of combustion between immigrants, ethnicities, and religions. In this world premiere, composer Peter Rothbart has created a moving, engaging score that brings to life the triumphs and struggles of immigrant and Jewish life in this recently rediscovered and rarely screened landmark silent film. The score combines electronic music with klezmorim, as well as other instrumentation and sound design, to explore the themes of assimilation and the continuity of culture. With its contemporary approach and structure, the score provides a counterpoint to the film, suggesting an aural exploration of the larger story of ethnicity in the United States.
The two sons of a poor Russian-Jewish pushcart peddler on New York’s Lower East Side are both causing their father grief. Morris, a selfish, ambitious student, wants to become a lawyer—and hides his background from his friends. Sammy gets a job to help pay his brother’s college education, and to his father’s horror, becomes a prizefighter and plans to marry an Irish girl. As Morris and Sammy stray from traditions cherished by their parents, each generation learns to accept change in order to preserve the family as a source of love and respect.
Film historian Lester Friedman has observed that “Sloman’s compelling vision of the painful depths and joyous heights of immigrant life endow the film with an exuberant vitality that captivates modern filmgoers and enlightens film historians.”
A special commission by the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival.
Man with a Movie Camera
(Dziga Vertov, Soviet Union, 1929; 80 min.)
New original improvisational score composed by Chris White and Peter Dodge
Performed by Chris White, electric cello and sequencer and Peter Dodge, electronic keyboards, trumpet, soprano sax and percussion
Closing Night
Monday, April 2, 2007
8:00 p.m.
Park Hall Auditorium
Ithaca College
World Premiere
This year’s festival closes with the most exuberant and visceral city film of all time, the legendary silent film Man with a Movie Camera, pumped up with the world premiere of an avant-garde jazz improvisation by electric cellist Chris White and electronic keyboardist Peter Dodge. Inspired by Vertov’s ideas to “film life as it is,” with the camera responding to what it interacts with, White and Dodge create a soundscape of “sound as it is,” responding to and interacting with the visual and conceptual structures of Man with a Movie Camera.
As Man with a Movie Camera begins, the cameraman climbs out of the head of the camera. This path-breaking, self-reflexive documentary feature film is a kaleidoscopic, humorous excursion through Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa. It creates a futuristic city where electrification, industrialization, and workers triumph. These themes of electrification and new technology reverberate in tonight’s world premiere performance of a new score, an experimental, plugged-in, amped-up, improvisational duet between Chris White on electric cello and Peter Dodge on synthesizer and keyboards.
Man with a Movie Camera creates a meme where the moviemaker, the factory workers, and the filmmaking process are all represented as labor—but as labor that is celebratory, explosive, and dynamic. By aggressively deploying all available filming strategies—superimposition, split screens, moving camera, montage, and varied speed—Vertov revolutionized cinema with his defiant deconstruction of cinematic language, dramatic norms, and metropoli. Vertov embraced documentary, deploying technology for more astute vision—the kino eye. He issued punchy polemics promoting his radical ideas. Vertov said, for example, “The film drama is the opium of the people—down with Bourgeois fairytale scenarios—long live life as it is!”
Vertov, a pseudonym medical student Denis Kaufman adopted that means “spinning top,” was influenced by futurist and constructivist art that saw machines and assemblage as a way to map a new vision of the world. After the Bolshevik Revolution, along with his wife/editor and brother/cameraman, he made films and wrote manifestos that called for the death of filmmaking involving artifice and drama. Ever the socialist utopian, Vertov asserted the kinoki, an objective cinematic eye, would help to imagine and build a new proletarian society.
This new score by White and Dodge, inspired by Vertov’s ideas about the utopian possibilities of new technologies, responds as much to the elaborate, moving cinematography of the film as to the reactions of the audience to create an exhilarating new experience of Man with a Movie Camera.
White and Dodge’s riveting improvisations combine with virtuoso technique to re-read Man with a Movie Camera through the aural contemporary soundscape of electrified modes and interactive improvisation. Their mix of jazz, post-minimalism, sequencers, and tonal and textural experimentation create a montage within a montage of this documentary masterpiece. Reception to follow. A special commission by the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival.
