This week is full of great screenings and shows connected to this event. Check out the full schedule here.

Two highlights that are opening Thursday, March 20:

Almagul Menlibaeva. Jihad, 2004.

I Dream of the ‘Stans: New Central Asian Video
Co-curated by Leeza Ahmady, Murat Orozobekov and Edward Winkleman, works by artists from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. Incredible critical international acclaim has greeted Central Asian artists in recent years. Most of the newfound attention centers on the remarkably strong single- and multi-channel video works produced in the region, a fact often attributed to the centuries-old traditions of street theater, storytelling and weaving.

Winkleman Gallery - 637 W. 27th St. (Bet. 11th and 12th Ave.)
6–8 P.M. Opening Reception

Ashok Sukumaran. Glow Positioning System, Mumbai, 2005.

Ashok Sukumaran: Glow Positioning System and Other Forms of Address
A Golden Nica winner for Interactive Art, 2007 Prix Ars Electronica, Sukumaran presents video documentation of his multifariously panoramic, light-based work originally installed in Mumbai. The result of a vast collaboration with street decorators, residents, and private and state agencies that could be activated and animated by a single “viewer” using a hand-crank.

Thomas Erben Gallery - 526 W. 26th St. (4th floor)
6–8 P.M. Opening Reception

DocuClub was a fine institution that was temporarily on hiatus. Now ArtsEngine has brought it back to life and the first screening is one I’d definitely like to see…

DocuClub’s first session for 2008 is scheduled for Thursday April 3rd, at 7:30pm, at the screening room of our partner Goldcrest Post (799 Washington Street, between Horatio and Gansevoort. For map with directions, go to www.goldcrestpost.com), in New York City.

We will watch Kimberly Reed’s PRODIGAL SONS, the story of “a brotherly rivalry between a man and a woman… and Orson Welles.” Reed was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film for 2007. Our moderator will be DocuClub founder Susan Kaplan.

If you are planning to attend, please RSVP.

If you’d like to have your rough cut considered for future sessions of DocuClub, contact Felix Endara.

From our friends at Skylight Pictures….

Skylight Pictures and The Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary invite you to the New York City Premiere

LIVING BROKE IN BOOM TIMES

This hidden story of poor people organizing in America spans the 1990s and includes current commentary from activists involved in the organizing, who now draw lessons from that period.

“…heart-rending in its depiction of homelessness and desperation, yet inspiring in what it shows about the magnificence of people fighting back, organizing, refusing to accept their situation, trying to build a national movement…”- Howard Zinn

A Film Screening followed by a discussion with the Filmmakers
James Chapel, Union Theological Seminary
3041 Broadway at 121st Street, New York, NY 10027
March 27th
6:30 PM

We all got just a taste of these moving stories of immigrants and refugees when Judith presented a few weeks back. It was really great to see so many people staying after to talk with Judith. She and this project has been very inspiring to us all.

I HIGHLY recommend that you go see this performance!

Save the Date!

Sunday March 30, 3pm

Crossing the BLVD performance of monologues, sounds and images of new immigrants and refugees with Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan.
Post show discussion moderated by Brian Lehrer, talk show host WNYC radio and wnyc.org

Goldstein Theatre, Queens College
All seats $12. Order online at http://www.kupferbergcenterarts.org/ or call: 718.793.8080.

About the Performance: As immigration policy is being hotly debated around the country in terms of national, economic, and cultural security, Crossing the BLVD presents the very human stories of why new immigrants and refugees have migrated to the United States and what their experiences have been since they came here pre- and post-9/11. Writer and artist, Warren Lehrer is the tour guide providing commentary and perspective as actress and oral historian Judith Sloan “channels” many of the people they interviewed on their three-year journey around the world through the borough of Queens. Sloan’s vocalization work and movement bring these characters to life. Their performance is illuminated by projections of Lehrer’s stunning photographs of the subjects, urban landscapes, objects they have carried with them from home to home, and Queens’ landscapes, along with soundtrack of original music, sounds, and voices. [Soundtrack includes music by Scott Johnson and Gogol Bordello.]

“Immigrant life as told in the intimate, rich, comic, ironic and sad stories so often seen but not heard in America’s big cities…” The Washington Post

“A turbo-driven Eyewitness guide…BLVD is a demonstration of the way you can explore the world without leaving home.”
The Guardian, London

“An offbeat ethnic tour of one of the country’s most ethnically diverse counties. Riveting stories…”
The New York Times

“Crossing the BLVD boldly carries the tradition of oral history into the 21st Century… Electrifying!
Eve Ensler, author, oral historian, performer The Vagina Monologues

Winner Brendan Gill Prize, Municipal Art Society of New York 2004

The performance is held in conjunction with Lehrer and Sloan’s Multimedia Exhibition of the same name at Queens College’s Godwin-Ternbach Museum. The exhibition includes 90 portraits, story excerpts, 14 sound stations, and an interactive Mobile Storybooth. It runs through June 28 and will be on view before and after the performance on March 30th.

http://www.crossingtheblvd.org

http://www.earsay.org

This should be a really great screening that you might be interested in attending tomorrow night [March 14] at The City Reliquary:

Other People’s Pictures is a documentary about collectors who share an unlikely obsession – snapshots that have been abandoned or lost by their original owners and are now for sale. The film is set at New York City’s Chelsea Flea Market where, every weekend, dozens of collectors sift doggedly through piles, boxes and bins of cast-off photos, ready to pay anywhere from a few cents to hundreds of dollars for a single snapshot. Many of the film’s subjects find that collecting ‘other people’s pictures’ helps them confront the darker aspects of human existence – familial trauma, social injustice, historical atrocity. Others simply appreciate the beauty, humor and mystery of these scavenged images.

Following the screening the filmmakers Lorca Shepperd and Cabot Philbrick will be on hand to answer any and all inquisitive questions from the audience.

The film will continue to run during the second half of the “76 Kisses” exhibition, ending March 31st.

Other People’s Photos
By Lorca Sheppard and Cabot Philbrick
March 14th, 2008 7:30pm
$5 suggested donation.
http://www.other-peoples-pictures.com

The City Reliquary
370 Metropolitan Avenue (at Havemeyer St)
Williamsburg, NY
(L train to Metropolitan / G Train to Lorimer)

ADOLESCENTSESSIONS
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Aa (BIG A little a) + JULIANNA BARWICK  ::::::::::::::::::::
//////  despotic.brutality.over.the.siren.call ///////
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SATURDAY 08 MAR 2008  //  8:00 PM //  $5
$3 with RSVP to:  electricadolescent@gmail.com
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@ UNIONDOCS “The Bodega”  //  322 Union Ave
Corner of South 1st St t in Brooklyn
/// L, J, M to LORIMER.  G to METROPOLITAN.
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electricAdolescent  //  the adolescent sessions
LIVE.SHOW.VIDEO.INSTALLATION.HIGH.CONTRAST
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www.myspace.com/bigalittlea
www.myspace.com/juliannabarwick
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see :::: www.myspace.com/adolescentsessions
hear :::: www.viva-radio.com/adolescentsessions
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So two crews from UnionDocs will be heading down to Durham, North Cackalacka to attend and cover the Full Frame Festival. We hope to make side trips to Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies and possibly the Elsewhere Collective in Greensboro. We are eagerly looking forward to seeing and discussing a bunch of new work…. and we’ve have been working out our wrists for the anticipated helicoptering… see Petey Pablo’s classic below.

Anyhow, looks like some excellent films there again this year…
See the New Docs screening at Full Frame.
This list just went live this morning.

he’s responsible for, Malin Arnell…. text regarding Valerie Jean Solanas (1936-1988)…. In blue light, poet Heather McNaugher… paintings by Donnie and Travis…. aisha burnes, jibz cameron, sophie morner, elizabeth… we are always looking directly at. something like that.