Kenneth Anger

Saturday, October 9, 2010.

"I make up notes of a film and about how long it will be, but the creative process is within me. I can't tell you how I do it because it is within me, clicking...make the audience work -- feed your mind into what you're actually seeing" - Kenneth Anger

(image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Anger)

   After my night of catching the talk by photographer, Bruce Davidson, I woke up with the horrible cold that was filtering through all of my fellow film students. Finding it difficult to even stand up, I knew I wasn't going to allow myself to miss Kenneth Anger in person. Hoped up on cold medicine, I lulled in and out of the jerking red line train motions and felt disoriented by the tunnels minimal passing light. My fever grew extremely high at this point as I sifted through the expected crowds on the Harvard stop. I met up with my long time friend Maddie and her boyfriend, who both go to Mass Art.

   When we finally reached the Harvard Film Archive building, I sat down feeling as if I was going to die. As if I wasn't already feeling loopy and disoriented enough, one of the most peculiar fellows sat in front of us. His mannerisms and actions were quirky to a point where it became alarming and he made us nervous. Random laughter and bits of anger came out of him, as he snapped at people sarcastically, and then wanted to be their best friend and talk about his one dollar stationary find. He was interesting to converse with. Even after I dropped a few well known photographers to somewhat relate to his conversation attempts, he hadn't heard of them, but informed me he knew a lot about photography. Odd. 

   To introduce Anger, the president of the Harvard Film Archives came out and explained how Anger had first started filming when he was a young teenager. His family brought a camera to Yosemite Park every year. He one day stumbled upon it and realized the film they had was going to expire before their next trip. He insisted on using the film...

    When Kenneth Anger finally came out, I felt this relief about the fact that I had trucked through my (what seemed like then) Plague. He was outspoken and interested in establishing a good vibe to his audience. He didn't preface his films much, which I always appreciate in artists. We were showed Scorpio Rising (1964), Kustom Kar Kommoandos (1965), Invocation of Demon Brother (1969), and Lucifer Rising (1970). His films were shown all weekend, but my schedule only permitted one night to catch him, and I made certain it was a night that he was speaking.


      The first of Anger's work that showed was Scorpio Rising: one of the first Anger films that I had seen. The colors were more magnificent as ever when they were projected on a big screen. Hesitant to sound naive: it's one film that the more I watch, the more inter weaved pieces become apparent.

 

(image provided by: http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2010octdec/anger.html)

   Anger spoke about this film: he explained how in a film like Scorpio Rising, he wanted to use "real life people, not actors". He could thus film themselves, as they were. The people that are in this film "worked at a fish market, and then would put all of their money into their bikes...the Scorpio men [made it obvious that their priorities were] motorcycles first, girlfriends second". When Anger first approached them about the film, he said he wouldn't come right out and ask them to be photographed. This coincided nicely with the Bruce Davidson tips of never scaring a subject off: photography becoming a game. Anger instead asked if he could photograph their bikes to avoid getting shot down. The process then evolved into filming these men in their homes, around their material objects, and even using editing and shot scale to highlight a sense of homo eroticism. Later on, the main actor went around New York City telling everyone that he had made and was the director of the film, Scorpio Rising.

     Anger then explained his choice of using 1962 pop music for this film. He started off by admitting sound was not for him. He spoke of his love for pop music, which he claimed died when rap happened. Using well-known music doubled his budget as he had to pay about $8,000 for the music alone, but that price was a lot cheaper considering it was for a short film. Later on, he claimed how music is an art form that is most like how he works --"It's all instinctual!"

  The next Anger film to play was Kustom Kar Konmmanods. I had seen both of the first two films before, but it was interesting to see them juxtaposed to one another. There was a specific fascination between man and machinery. One may even label it as an obsession.

 

(image provided by: http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2010octdec/anger.html)   

    In Anger's talk, he jumped around from explaining his processes of specific technical aspects to his deeper analytical artistic intentions, and even to his personal past at times. He started explaining how Bobby Beausoliel did the music for Lucifer Rising. He revisited the fact that him and Bobby were together then and broke into parts of their relationship. Bobby was in a band called "Magic Power House of God". Bobby had asked Anger to lend him a bunch of money so that he could fund band necessities. One day, Bobby had come home with black plastic bags and laid them with his things. When he left, Anger found Bobby's White Alaskan dog, known by the name of Snow Fox, sniffing at the bags. Anger teared one open and found it to be filled with weed. This is before weed really broke out and started becoming more socially accepted, only criminals were the ones to be known with weed according to Anger. When Bobby returned, Anger was peeved and threw the keys at Bobby, " 'Take you fucking things and leave!'...and that's how we broke up". The crowd laughed as Anger, who had just gotten so floored telling this story cracked a smile. Anger then went on to state how Bobby is now serving a lifetime since he committed a murder on Charles Mansion's behalf: he had been tripping on acid for two straight weeks...Bobby sends him these fifteen page letters, seeing as there is not a lot to do in jail, and Anger answers on occasion with a postcard.         

 

 (image from Lucifer Rising)

   

    Anger was bombarded with many questions, some of which in my opinion were pretentious and vacuous. Finally after watching Anger grow somewhat annoyed by the questions and going on tangents and rambles to avoid satisfying an empty question, someone asked about his use of rituals in films. In one film, he had shots of Jesus-esque re-enactments and religious ceremonies. Anger laughed as he explained his strong belief in Serendipity. He had not intended to use any such footage, but one day a package ended up on his doorstep. He pried it open and it was footage that was supposed to go to a Lutheran Church a few streets over. "It was the wrong address, it was supposed to go to a Lutheran Church. So I took this as Sarendipity and put it in the film...[with] my finder's keeper's attitude, [I] guess it was supposed to be in the film". 

  

(image from Invocation of My Demon Brother)

   One member in the audience asked a question about how one of Anger's films made him feel. He verbally assumed and presented the idea that everyone felt the same reaction he did, Anger cut him off real fast with a "...if you're tuned in that way!" The man went silent, but then proceeded with his question. Anger then grew tired of answering questions, in my opinion because so many were almost insulting, and with a big smile said good bye to his audience. Anger filled with life, is a powerful character.  

  

 

Bruce Davidson Lecture

Thursday, October 7, 2010.

"Documentary photographer suggests you just stand back, that you're not in the picture, you're just recording. I am in the picture, believe me. I am in the picture but I am not the picture," 
–Bruce Davidson (The New York Times)

(Image by Bruce Davidson)

        “I live with my work…I photographed the widow [of  a painter]. I had a visual love affair with the widow and her past.” Bruce Davidson announced as imagery of an old woman surrounded by framed masterpieces and entranced by the solitude of open lit rooms projected upon a screen backdrop. Listening to Davidson’s lecture as his images changed from one to the next made me stop and question why it is that I did not go to school for photography. Obviously I am still constantly photographing, and elements of my past knowledge definitely get incorporated into film that is in motion, but it again helped to highlight how photography is my true love.

            I raced out of my experimental film course early today to hop onto route two and get home so that I could then give my brother his car back and find a way to get to Boston University fast, just in time to catch this lecture. I frantically ran in as I was fortunate in the program starting a few minutes late. I got to find and sit next to one of my friends, Dan, that I had taken pre-college photography courses with a few years earlier. He was actually there with many Art Institute of Boston (where I had taken my courses) students.

            Davidson’s stories of his life sucked me in.  The life he verbally shared with us involved photography, traveling, and interaction. He was articulate and witty, getting many laughs throughout the lecture. He explained how he mostly worked with large format because he loved the “beauty and tonality of image”. He usually carried his portfolio around with him for years. He stressed how as a photographer he wanted to see environments and people, “I was interested in the relationship between nature and people”. 

After showing us the powerful photographs of the widow, he then moved on to tell us of another part of his career. He had joined a circus to travel and photograph what he experienced. Most of the images he showed involved people. He made fast friends with a dwarf, “Little Man” Jimmy Armstrong. He captures the bizarreness of the circus in such an elegant way.

 

(Images by Bruce Davidson)

            In 1959, Davidson started photographing the street gang of Brooklyn known as “The Jokers”.

 

(Images by Davidson)

            “But what I sense about them was their loneliness and depression…many of their famalies were dysfunctional…alchoholics: before drugs came in” stated Davidson. One image in particular that we were shown was of a kid named Benji. Davidson described of how this kid was rough and as portrayed in the photograph, was quite an angry kid. Davidson admitted to being afraid of even approaching him with a camera. Benji was a known notorious drug dealer. He later lost everything and went into rehab. After rehab, he started helping people with their drug problems. Many years later he looked up and tracked down Bruce and his wife. It was beautiful to have this strong image associate with the story the man behind the camera had experienced.

            Davidson later went on to explain how different personalities were apparent in people he was photographing. One woman, Cathy was explained as the “Bridget Bartow” of the group. The gang later asked him to do fashion photography for them. He showed a beautiful image of a woman posing in a white dress against a large depth of a field and an industrial metal cone. The composition and photograph was nice, but the woman was quite small as the gang confronted Davidson. Telling the crowd what the gang said, he laughed, “Bruce, we love you, but you got to get closer to the model”.

(Image by Davidson)

            One thing Davidson is especially well-known for is his photographs during the Civil Rights Movement. Davidson heard of a group of young people challenging the way things were. He began to roam Harlem. He explained how “The National Guard couldn’t be trusted, they were “homeboys”…they were from the south”. One series of photographs he showed us included members of the KKK holding a ceremony around a burning cross. Before, he had taken a flyer advertising the event and decided to head over with his camera. However, part way through the event, someone announced that the car that had a New York license plate was parked too close to the fire and Davidson decided that it was not only time to move his car, but he knew it was time to go.

(Images by Davidson)

            Davidson has a way of getting into a visual intimate space. He showed us one photograph of a woman who had been a slave, but was now traveling at the age of 110. She lived to be 117 years old. He also had a way of capturing the intimacy in crowded moments that surrounded people such as Martian Luther King and Malcolm X.

 

(Images by Bruce Davidson)

            The Citizen’s Committee tracked down Davidson and asked him to document the vitality of people. They wanted to better the treacherous conditions people had no choice but to grow up in. A lot started changing after his images surfaced to the public.

(Image by Bruce Davidson)

            In 1963, Davidson described himself as being depressed. One day he found himself driving on the largest suspension bridge in the world. “I thought I got to get up there and borrowed a hard hat”. Hearing these sporadically inspired projects excited me because that is one way I love to work.

 

(Image by Bruce Davidson)

            There were many random projects that Davidson either chased after or got assigned to. He spoke of Esquire sending him to Los Angeles for the first time, the Burlesque capturing he did not like being around at all, the film sets that he photographed stills on, the prisons he shot in Manhattan, the mines that he photographed, etc. He stated, “I’ve had an affinity for mines and dark tunnels…I traveled with a Welsh poet who knew where to take me. His [last] name was Jones”.

(Image by Davidson)

           

            One series that he briefly showed was the subway series. He first spent six weeks photographing black and white in the city. So many of the photographs had individuals standing against a wall that had grown suffocated with graffiti. He shared that “graffiti somehow identified/made clear of what was in front of it”. Many of the students after the entire lecture said that they were surprised that he spent such little time discussing and showing his subway series. It was one part of his work that they had gone over in depth in school. One image that Davidson showed was of a man with a big scar across his face sitting on a subway. The man first saw his camera and threatened to break it if Davidson were to snap a photograph of him. Davidson reacted by explaining how he never photographed people without asking their permission first. He got up and crossed the subway as he sat next to the man. He pulled out his portfolio, which he tended to carry everywhere with him and started showing this man his work. The man in disbelief complemented Davidson on how good his work was and said “okay you can take my photograph”.

(Images by Bruce Davidson)

            We were then shown a series of characters in a cafeteria. Davidson described them as being “like characters out of a novel…many were survivors from concentration camps”. During this time he also started capturing the changes happening that were apparent in the Lower Eastside.

(Image by Bruce Davidson)

            Esquire later sent Davidson to France to photograph Ira who was famously known for murdering and cutting up his girlfriend in Philadelphia. He claimed how he was careful around him, quite obviously.

            Davidson pulled up images he had taken of Senator Cleveland. The senator in the images before me had no legs and only one arm, and was bare for most of the photographs. This made it more powerful to see the human body in this nude and altered form. A bomb had gone off on him in Vietnam. In talking about Cleveland he claimed, “I had great respect for Senator Cleveland. He was dedicated”, as he showed an image of the senator in a suit debating heavily over paperwork that was being handed to him.  

            When Davidson was doing assignments for National Geographic, he shot in color and talked of his sudden interest in animals. He especially liked photographing animal life in the park. When he photographed people in the park he told of how he enjoyed capturing “an arm or a leg as roots [juxtaposed to a tree trunk], we are all vegetation".

(Image by Bruce Davidson)

            He told of a story of one time he was photographing in the park: he was photographing a sculpture in the park. It was nighttime and he wanted to get the sculpture to look as if it was holding light. He had his friend Jane stand a far distance away with a strobe light. Whenever he held the shutter open, he would scream something like “Jane shutter open flash” repeatedly. However, after a few trial and errors, a man who was now standing behind Davidson started screaming “Flash us Jane!” Davidson yelled to his friend, “Jane, time to go home”.

               

            When Davidson was sent to France and he found himself photographing the Eiffel Tower, he questioned why people always composed the tower against the river. He took many images where the camera looks up through the trees while also capture the tower. He described it as “nature in paris…the 500 year old tree and the Eiffel Tower sort of merge/become one”.

(Image by Bruce Davidson)

            Davidson ended his program with a few interesting thoughts. One was how he stated that “it’s interesting ten years ago that I was still doing assignments, but there after have just lived off of my achieves”.  It was interesting to have him point out his evolution as an artist and compare what seems like a small timeframe form the accumulating of work over the span of a much larger timeframe. And secondly, he explained how there is an “approach in photography”. He gave an example of when he was walking by a woman with two white dogs and wanted to photograph her. He would never go up to her and straight out ask “Can I take your photo?” That would scare her. He would walk up to her and say “What kind of dogs are these? They’re beautiful. Mind if I take their photo?” After she replied “Sure”, he would say, “Well, can you be in it?” She then answered after a pause of contemplation with another “Sure”. He then asked for her address to send her a copy and when she received the photograph, she claimed it was the best photograph that had ever been taken of her.

            Davidson explained how it is like photographing a child. If you give directions to smile, you get a contrived expression, but if you say “don’t smile”, they can’t help but crack a natural emotion that coincides with humor. As Davidson summed up the approach to photography, he ended with the statement, “It becomes a game”.

            After the lecture I went to search for my father in the city who had driven me last minute when I had to give my brother his car back in the time crunch that I had faced in traveling. I searched for him at a restaurant that he said he may be at and when I walked in to find him, Neil Young was playing. We reminisced of the Neil Young concert I had taken him to two years earlier for his Christmas present and the Bob Dylan concert I had gone to with him three years earlier. Bruce Davidson had shot a photograph that became a cover to Bob Dylan’s “Together Through Life Album”.

(Image taken from http://puddlegum.net/bob-dylan-beyond-here-lies-nothing/)

On the ride home, as I fiddled with my point and shoot camera and light and my father made fun of me, I thanked him for helping me out and told him how grateful I am for being able to see the lecture by Bruce Davidson.                  

New York Film Festival: Views From the Avant-Garde

 

Thursday September 30^th – Sunday October 3^rd

            For months I had been planning with my friend and my professor that we were going to make it to the “Views From the Avant-Garde” section of the New York Festival.  We had tentative plans to travel together, but living in different areas and having packed schedules presented this as a challenge. As the date approached, we all decided to travel apart, but luckily made at least parts of the festival. Last minute my friend Michele and I had to find a way to get to Acton so that we could catch a ride to Boston in the morning and hop on a bus to the Big Apple. It was stressful, but the hours of travel scrambling and falling in and out of sleep on the affordable Fung-Wah paid off as New York City offered us a fulfilling experience. We stayed at Michele’s uncles’ apartment in Chelsea. It was a beautiful area where I was let into some of her family’s life. One of her uncles actually went to my high school, and we visited his mother (Michele’s grandmother) the night before in Acton. Turns out that I had grown up around the corner from her and Michele had celebrated every Christmas there since she could remember: small world. I heard of her uncles' stories of producing on shows such as Nurse Jackie, Sex and the City, 30 Rock, commercials for well-known phone carriers, and of acting stories as we all went out for late night sushi and seaweed salad in the city. I feel as if I took a lot from just a weekend of meeting them. They also had the best-behaved golden retriever that I had met, Jezebel. We became fast friends.  One of the most exciting parts of staying at these uncles’ apartment was the fact that they lived on the same street as the Chelsea Hotel. I was baffled when I first saw it as I had read about multiple artists and musicians who I looked up to and who had found inspiration living in that hotel years earlier.     

           

            Michele and I were only able to catch a section of the festival due to time, money, and travel plans. It would have been nice to have more time in the city, but we worked with what our limitations permitted us.  The section was called “Visibility Unknown”. Before the films, we expectantly ran into two of our professors, one who had work in this section, and one that is advising me on this independent study. We also saw a past film student, Blaine there. It was great to run into all these people associated with the familiarity of Keene in a whole new setting. When I got a lot out of seeing these ten films, Michele and I talked about them for hours after the screenings.   

           

            First we saw Andre Geurreiro Lopes (Brazil) 2010  8mfilm “The Flight of Tulugag”.

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-the-flight-of-tulugaq)

            The film captured the motion beautifully of black birds flying. In many shots, tree braches were incorporated, as the moving object appeared to weave between being visible and getting lost in the imagery of the tangled branches. The sound design was layered to a point that I felt as if I was inside of it. In a big theater, I felt wrapped up in the sounds surrounding me. The last frame paused and zoomed in on a pair of bird flying next to one another. The way in which their wings and bodies were frozen depicted a pair of perfectly shaped eyes. It was chilling.

             The next film was my professor’s Jonathan Swartz’s 2010 3m film “New Year Sun”.

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-new-year-sun)

            I had seen this film before when I went to her screenings at MassArt the previous year, but I appreciated this film even more. I speculated why that was and decided it was potentially because I have been cutting on film this year and realize the challenges he has mastered, or maybe because it was only one of his pieces seen at a time. Michele and I kept saying it was the strongest piece in our opinion. The visual elements along were overwhelmingly gorgeous.  

            Next was Ben Russell ‘s(USA) 9.30 m, 35mm film, “Trypps #7 (Badlands)”.

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-trypps-7-badlands)

            The film started out by concentrating on a girl’s shoulders and face as she stood staring into the camera. Her hair blew in the wind as the backdrop of the sky presented a deep blue and suttle clouds. The shot remains for a long time as the motion of her hair hardly distracts from the serious expression on her face. The shot made me feel as if I was in her space, trying to understand her emotion, or rather lack there of. After some time passes, the camera finally starts tilting a bit and we are shown that she is actually standing in front of a canyon. Finally after a few tripod shifts and tilts, her images then remains a single image but is shown as a reflection on a flipping mirror. Another element added is a crack in the mirror. As it spins faster and faster, the backdrop of the blue sky, the depth of the brown canyon, and the motion of the girl’s hair blowing over a steel look all become a blur. After walking away from this film, I liked it more and more as I thought about it.

           

            We were then shown Vincent Greiner’s (USA) 2010 9m film “Burning Bush”

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-burning-bush)

            This film started out completely abstract as the blurred colors seemed to be moving. There was a sound design that fused this out of focus imagery with a crackling sound, which made the imagery feel as if it was moving even more so. The camera then pulls out and shows an in focus perfectly clear image of a bush full of colorful leaves. Later on, microscopic shots of the celluloid are shown. I had wished that the film consisted only of the abstract images, as Michele debated that the clear portrayal of a bush (the producer of the abstract images) actually added to the film.

            Next we saw Jurgen Reble’s (Germany) 2010 11.29m, miniDV film “Materia Obscura part one”.

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-materia-obscura-part-one)

            I read a little bit more about him online and watched more of his videos online as his imagery somewhat reminded me of single frame abstractions that I have been seeing working and manipulating 16 mm film. Some of his imagery felt digital, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and his lighting and layers of sound was entrancing.  I felt connected to researching this artist because I have recently slowed down films that I have projected to focus on the detail of each frame.

“This work is based on some excerpts of the film Instabile Materie which I realized in 1995. Source materials were hand processed 16mm film strips which I covered with chemicals. In this so called “chemograms” the used substances mostly salts became molding shapes. Years later I digitized parts of the film frame by frame in high resolution and started with the computer to slow down the speed just to analyze the sequence of events. So arose a morphology of the film emulsion with the embedded substances and a bizarre, strange world full of magic revealed.” – J.R.

            Next we saw a film which we left not entirely impressed with. It was  Ken Jacob’s (USA) 2010 16m, DV film “a loft”.

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-a-loft)

            The filmmaker shot his loft as he added elements of experimentation in flipping his camera and moving with, yet against the motion of the ceiling fan. The shot then flips into a negative effect. Although the motion of the fan looked fast, yet slow while the camera turned, I got sick of seeing it eight times throughout the film. There was a lot of editing that reminded me of when kids were first leaning imovie in my high school broadcasting class. I felt as if there was too much repetition and experimentation without articulation. It felt dragged out We discussed after how we felt as if this film was unfitting for this section of this festival.

             Karl Lemieux’s (Canada/Brazil) 2010 7.44m, 35 mm "Mamori" film was one of my favorites. It most reminded me of what we have been working on in my Experimental Film class.

 

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-mamori)

            It reminded me of scratches on black leader film. It felt incredibly dreamy and fast pace, as I got lost in lines of swirling speed. Simply put, it was beautiful.

            The next film evoked such anxiety for me that I found it incredibly difficult to sit in the theatre after viewing it. It was a fifteen minute film. It was Paul Clipson’s (USA) 2010 “Union”.

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-union)

            The film had a girl running through the woods as she turned into silhouettes running through the trees. There were several instances where she was reflected by mirrors, and the heavy sound design felt daunting against her rushing. As a viewer, I actually felt trapped with this girl and disliked how tense my body felt. As she ran more, there was so much tension on screen and around me. Later on, there was multi-exposures of her in urban night and natural settings. I had never had a film evoke such a panicky feeling for me before. I considered leaving the room after, but didn’t want to miss the last two films.

            We then saw Emmanuel Lefrant’s (France) 2009 7m, 35 mm “Parties visible et invisible d’un ensemble sous tension”.

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-parties-visible-et-invisible-dun-ensemble-sous-tension)

            My initial reaction was to relate the film to my friend Corey’s film that he had created by painting on clear leader film. It could be that I was trying to relate it to something that somewhat associated. It was majestic as colors, loose shapes, layering, and textures overwhelmed the screen. The curtains in the theater had been moved to fit the screen and show the film in the format that was appropriate for the film. The colors created atmospheres of abstractness.

   The final film that we saw was Timoleon Wilkin’s (U.S.) 1996-2010 26m, 16mm, 18 fps “Drifter”.

 

(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-drifter)

            This film had some gorgeous shots, and the fact that they were shown on film fit to the screen enriched any imagery immensely. Afterwards, Michele and I discussed how there were some strong shots. I however thought that the random stringing of images would have been sturdier with more connections between images. Michele argued that it was beautiful how it was more of a collection of images gathered by the artist. In this sense I suppose the idea of a passive observer comes to mind: one who does trivial change to exactly how something is presented. The length also seemed to take away from imagery for me. When too many images were thrown my way, other ones became less important. It was interesting because as a filmmaker I have been told some of my weaknesses consist of putting too much imagery, or too many words into a film. The weaker parts start to feel like placeholders that take away from the strength of what initially stands out. Something less really is more.

New York City offered so much art everywhere. It goes without saying, but I will state that it was quite  stimulating.

My weekend in New York City was incredible. It became about the experience all the way through hopping cheap buses to staying up listening to friends of friends play the ukulele on a rooftop in Brooklyn at 5 AM. I am especially grateful for meeting Michele’s uncles, who I feel allowed me a look into their lives in the city together: both work related and personal. From what we got to catch of the film festival, I am inspired and also got the chance to see how much I have grown as an artist myself in viewing other people’s works. 

(Jezebel)