Perhaps no other artistic medium of the 20th century displayed so much potential for expression yet was so overlooked or maligned A film history of the art of the comic book in America, 1930s-1980s, that deftly incorporates the social fabric of the times, which the comics mirror and satirize. The film interviews twenty-two artists and writers including Will Eisner, R. Crumb, Bill Gaines, Jack Kirby, the Hernandez Bros...Winner of the Genie Award, Best Feature Documentary 1989.
7 pm
Stalin Thought of You (dir: Kevin McNeer, 2008, 58 min.)
w/ On One Day of the Day of God (work-in-progress)
Stalin Thought of You is an in-depth look at Russia's greatest political cartoonist, Boris Elimov, who died in 2008 a the age of 108. A friend and ally of Leon Trotsky (the film contains home movie footage of the pair), Boris finds himself later working under Josef Stalin. Tensions build when Elimov is further compromised by the certainty that Stalin had his journalist brother killed. Director and Richmond native McNeer befriended the cartoonist in his last years and was given access to Elimov's home movies, which gives us a look inside the Red Curtain like never before--there's even a scene of Stalin supervising Elimov at work! Stalin Thought of You received its American premiere in 2009 at the 16th James River Film Festival.
On One Day of the Day of Gods (work-in-progress) The title comes from a traditional opening of folktales told on Soqotra, and the archipelago of islands off the coast of Yemen, whose millennia of isolation have produced a time-capsule: one-third of all plants and animals exist nowhere else. It's been called a "Second Galapagos'' and compared to Lovecraft’s' haunting fantasy landscapes. The inhabitants speak an ancient Semitic language that had no writing system a decade ago. But as with the rest of the planet, this microcosmos is under threat--developers eye the island's pristine beaches, and visitors enthusiastically introduce the Internet, plastics, English, and other double-edged gifts of globalization that have begun to unravel the ecology and identity of the islands. The film is a series of brief portraits: a woman makes incense burners, children harvest resin from the endangered "Dragon-Blood" tree, descendants of slaves battle a rough sea to bring in their day's catch.
**Kevin McNeer , a Richmond native, is a filmmaker and editor, based in Moscow, where he attended film school.
9 pm
From the Archives: "Music for Film" at the Byrd Theatre
In April 2000, the 7th James River Film Festival presented Tom Verlaine and Jimmy Rip live at the Byrd for a program of experimental silent films--and we recorded it on video for our vaults. Now 21 years later, you can enjoy! For Verlaine (ex-Television), working with the silent films was challenging: "There's no click track, nobody saying I want music for this scene, it's constant music".
SUNDAY APRIL 25
4 pm
Other Music (dir: Puloma Basu, Rob Hatch-Miller, 2019, 93 min.)
In 2016, in the heart of NYC's East Village, a long-time popular indie record store, Other Music, closed. More than just a record store, it was a scene, a hang out, a place to meet and bond, where bands were formed, record labels founded, careers launched.
Filmmakers Basu and Hatch-Miller met there too, and married. When the store closed, they'd been producing music videos, but decided to try to capture the essence of what had been--"we think it's important to celebrate what spaces like this have meant to people in the past". Featuring many famous customers and musicians--Animal Collective, Yeah Yeah Yeah, Interpol & more.
6 pm
Two Films by Patrick Gregory:
The Trouble I See ( co-dir: Sally O'Grady, excerpt, 2 min.)
In 2013, a father-daughter dance was held at the Richmond City Jail--and so began an intimate chronicling of the lives of three incarcerated men and their families. Shot over seven years, this is an excerpt from the project, currently in post-production.
China Series: pt. I 'One Morning' / pt. II 'At the Farm' (2021, 22 min. approx.)
