Slice of life creations in video and photo format of a New York-based video and documentary producer.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
2009 Year in Review
2009, what a ride - in more ways than one. At the start of the year I paid a visit to Jer in Lima to celebrate his birthday and shoot a short documentary I hope to be posting soon. Production also continued full steam with my good friends at St. Vincent - when you see an exam room it's for them. And I was happy to do another segment for In the Life over the summer.
Once again the changing seasons were documented in Central Park, along the Hudson River bike path and upstate in the Catskills. There is the usual slew of brunches and gatherings with the usual lovely crowd and a few new additions. I was happy to welcome my mom to NYC, and visitors from California, Texas, Peru, and Italy. Besides a trip to the Jersey Shore, there was a very special week on Fire Island, and a nice holiday with my brother's family in Gig Harbor. When you see ruins they could be in Turkey, Portugal or England. If I saw you this year, you will probably see yourself, but don't blink, over 25,000 photos were edited to under 5,000 and crammed into 20 minutes of video.
Reading the video summary from last year I noted the impact of the economic downturn on friends and family and hoped for a better 2009. As we all know that didn't happen. In May I also became one of thousands of Americans laid off due to the recession. Though I was lucky to have freelance projects to fall back on and a good group of people to network and find support. Now I remain open to new opportunities and possibilities for freelance projects or a full time position.
In this spirit, simply wishing for a better 2010 is not enough. Rather, it's necessary to learn from experiences both good and bad to be able to navigate this new environment. Just looking at my own country I see it's not enough to elect someone who stands for change, you still have to fight for progress, for health care, for nutrition, for jobs, for the environment. So I hope that in 2010 you find the energy and will to stay engaged and make change any way you can in your world.
This video is dedicated to my dear Aunt Betty who passed the day after Christmas.
It was one of those random Sundays: a random phone call, a random encounter on St Marks, a random lunch at MoMa. The Tim Burton was worth it, but crowded - wait for the tourists to go home. And this was all that I saw of the Orozco exhibit, since I opted for Bauhaus on the 6th floor, which I highly recommend before it closes next month. There are some real gems, for the Klee alone, go.
A very New York tradition - a leisurely day of brunch capped with a movie, in this case, Tom Ford's "A Single Man." As seen on the big screen at the Paris, a bit of rain had washed the streets already as we left, moving at a slow holiday pace.
The 'blizzard' of 2009, actually just a lot of snow, but it didn't stop the holiday celebrations. And about an hour later, an impromptu snowball fight let loose in Times Square.
action. My client, St. Vincent Hospital, squeezes in one last video podcast this year, explaining how a health care provider can offer and take an HIV test during any routine medical visit in under 2 minutes. We taped at the Adolescent AIDS program of Montefiore and the podcast will be available through the New York State AIDS Institute by early next year if not sooner.
Much as it pains me to explain today's blog entry, here goes anyway. Basil and I had our usual Saturday morning brunch and ended up doing a little gallery hopping in West Chelsea. When we decided to go to Rebel Rebel Records we walked the High Line down to get there.
This is where we ran into Santacon 2009 full scale. There are little signs along the Highline stating 'Keep it Wild', so this quite sauced little santa took the indication to heart and bared herself - though from this angle you are missing the goods. Will she regret it tomorrow?
to tango, so of course I accepted when Michael was kind enough to invite me to the book party he hosted for the new edition of his Frommer's Buenos Aires guide. The party happens at the Argentine consulate which is a grand old mansion built by one of JP Morgan's partners over 110 years ago. It was a lovely evening of Argentine wine, empanadas and tango.
On mostly cloudy days like today I like to remember that above the clouds the sun is still shining. As it was on this day over the Pacific Northwest. Can you guess which mountain that is?
I saw this documentary at a Romanian film festival curated by Mihai Chirilov at the Tribeca screening room. However, it premiered in the U.S. in February this year at MOMA’s documentary fortnight.
Reading the synopsis beforehand I knew the film was about a family in Moldova where the mother has gone to Italy to work and has not returned for three years, leaving the father to cope with the family on his own. It’s something I observed many times in the interviews I conducted in Romania for the documentary project I taped in 2007.
While I assumed this documentary was set in the region of Moldova in Romania, it was actually set in another country, the Republic of Moldova, which has a large Romanian-speaking population. Mihai introduced the film explaining that the title, The Flower Bridge, referred to the cultural affinity of these two countries. Or at least that’s what I understood.
He also mentioned that the director’s method with this production was to observe the family for several months while taking notes and then go back with a camera and have them re-enact specific scenes that he had synthesized to tell the story. Wow! This leads to all kinds of questions – how much was directed and how much was real. The film starts with the father treating the boy for chicken pox, did that happen right as they were beginning to film or was it re-created? The boy doesn’t seem that sick actually, now that I think about it.
In any case the scene shows the tender side of the father caring for his son, and you learn about the poverty and isolation of the family that is unable to seek medical care. The father is the main character and you learn more about him from the scenes when there is no dialogue, the way he meticulously gathers the ash from the stove so that it doesn’t spill on the floor in the house, or the way he kneads and rolls out the dough and cuts it just so for his daughters to shape. There are a few scenes where he talks directly to camera in a very stilted fashion and explains something like why they are going to plant barley on a given day. In other scenes he barks out instructions for the children to undertake various chores, such as this one where they cut his hair. (I wouldn't have picked this one for the trailer, as I find the scene rather course and overt, when as a whole the film was a bit more subtle in tone.)
A more memorable scene followed a phone call from the mother. She spends a while on the line berating the children to be diligent with their schoolwork – we find out that most of what she has earned has gone to put them in better schools – and when it is his turn to speak he doesn’t have much to say, her situation remains the same, she can’t return until her ‘documents’ arrive and when that will happen seems uncertain. He hangs up and yells at the children for laughing at the situation. The children are laughing so as not to cry, at least they got to hear their mother’s voice and they can cover the embarrassed awkwardness of their father, who admittedly doesn’t know how to talk on the phone. The frustration he feels at the distance of his wife and the Kafkaesque bureaucratic obstacles they face to reunite is absolutely palpable as a lived family drama observed delicately from the other room at just the precise moment you need that distance.
The cinematography was absolutely beautiful. You observed the passing of the seasons as they worked the land and tended the house and animals. You could live in their mostly agricultural life without an explanation of why the geese and goats were gathered and driven here or there, or why the corn was being spread out in the loft, or the reasons for the rituals performed at the grave of the father’s parents. There was no music whatsoever and the audio was suberb.
The camera angles were very deliberate and isolated. Though you lived with the family in their little house, I couldn’t give you an exact layout from room to room. Except I’m sure it was small and there was always mostly one angle chosen probably for purposes of lighting and space. But even the exterior shots were sort of vague, at first I thought wider establishing shots were from the vantage of the house, but then it seemed that they overlooked the house and the village. My urge to build a complete and detailed picture of their life was over-ruled by the director’s intention to tell their story his way and allow me to experience what he considered the essence of their existence at that time.
The Flower Bridge (Podul de flori)
Directed by Thomas Ciulei Romania, 2008, 87 minutes Cast: Costică Arhir, Maria Arhir, Alexandra Arhir, Alexie Arhir U.S premiere — February 2009 at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight.
After Christopher's award as an emerging leader in social work by the National Association of Social Workers he took his small posse for a celebratory nightcap in nearby little Italy.
